Actually, it is. I lied. His name is Dan Soghomonian and he's Armenian and is also our brand new bassist. He's coming to us in the wake of the unfortunate dissolving of a band called Set on Fire, whom we both competed against and shared the stage with at two separate venues on the same day last April. We're thrilled to have him on board and all the screaming and boyish giggling from Sog (a moniker I've decided to apply to him just now) gives us the idea that maybe he's excited as well. Just a tad.

Possibly even more excited than this.

After a busy month or two, everything has slowed to a sluggish pace for Slingstone Apostle. Now, it'll slow even more. Or,rather, it'll continue on at this pace of snails covered in molasses in January. Sog has a lot of learning to do before we'll be ready to play another live show. We've already written a brand new tune with him, and the momentum from the creative juices innate there kind of precluded any sincere work on old school songs. So after we're good and tight with our new man, shows will abound, I'm sure. Until then, hang in there and wait like patient little boys and girls. We got some work to do, so we're going to go do it.

- TATER

Which do you want first? Let's go with the less good news first because it's disheartening and a matter that shouldn't be joshed at or with. It's always better to end on a good note anyway.

Jim Laurain, our bass player, is no longer our bass player. He left Slingstone Apostle because he's decided to take the time consumed by the band and give it to his wife and to the continuing growth of their marriage. We're certainly going to miss the dimension Jim added to our sound and we wish him well in everything he does. Take care, Jimbo.

Now, this whole thing puts us in quite a little predicament. We don't have a bassist. Other than one fella we'll be trying out this Sunday, we have no prospects. This makes Brian, Jared and I a little anxious. We don't have a clue who God has picked out to play bass for us, but we hope he has a mohawk and is made of epic win. Sweet. Epic mohawk win. If there's one thing our band needs it a new and exciting hairstyle.

Maybe not quite that new and possibly a skoesh less exciting...

In the interim, we do have a few stand-in guys willing to learn our tunes and play some one-off shows with us. These temporaries are unable to devote the full time commitment involved in something like this. And that's fine. We thank these musicians sincerely from the bottom-end of our hearts. Really. We mean that.

For now we're just keeping our spirits high and trusting God and His timing. We know He's got a plan. Our part is to continue to run after HIs face and cast fear and worry to the wayside. So that's what we're going to try and do. Times of uncertainty are always tough, but more often than not, they're times of testing and purifying. We're excited to see how we're going to come out the other side of this situation. Any prayers you could offer up for us in this time would be appreciated. We'll keep you updated on the search.

The good news? We wrote a cover song! Now, by definition, one does not "write" a cover song. So I guess we technically "arranged" a cover song. We added our own flavor to a certain tune certain scallywags out there will immediately recognize. We're not going to tell you what it is, though. Not until we have a right proper recording of it. Or at least a roughly acceptable recording. Once we've got that, we'll post it on our Myspace and Purevolume so you can be as excited about this turn of events as we are. We're pretty stoked. It's as fun as all get out to play and beta-testers report it's just as fun to listen to.

This is an undertaking we've been talking about for a few months now and that undertaking has turned out pretty grand if I do say so myself. Suffice it to say, this cover shall rock the flippin' boat!

Until next time, buccaneers.

- TATER

For those of you unaware, the band played our first out of state show this past weekend. I decided it would be a good idea to log the events of that journey so you could be as there with us as you possibly could be, seeing as how you were not there with us. So here it is. Enjoy.

Friday, 12:38 pm
The van holding Jared, Brian and I (Jim and his wife travel separately, having voluntarily volunteered to take up the mantel of "guy who follows the van holding the majority of Slingstone Apostle just in case maybe the van explodes or the trailer derails and goes careening into an unsuspecting fruit stand or woman with baby carriage) pulls out of the apartment complex. The excitement is palpable. It's like peanut butter in the air, only without the taste, smell, or texture. It's just...like, it's just palpable as though...the peanut butter...is like excitement...no, it's not...um....

PEANUT BUTTER EXCITEMENT!

The group is pumped and ready to roll.

Behind Jared is Brian's squeeze, Marissa. Behind Brian is Jared's biddy, Beth.

It's Brian, Jared, me, and our respective women, Marissa, Beth, and Virginia, along with an impressive collection of Five Iron Frenzy tunes. The journey will be long. It will probably be arduous. There may be roving bands of fuel and/or food-depraved road warriors to contend with, but no one is worried. We have Jared's arms.

Friday, 1:06 pm
Lunch is a healthy, well balanced affair comprised of Red Vine licorice, Spicy Nacho Doritos, Snickers, peach-flavored gummi rings, and honey wheat pretzel sticks. We, ladies and gentlemen, have arrived.

Friday, 2:07 pm
One state falls dead in our wake, defeated and forlorn. Goodbye, Michigan. We enter Indiana with triumphant shouts of war and battle cries abound. Actually, Beth just yelled out, "Welcome to Indiana," waking Virginia up and breaking me from a sugar-induced scenery-staring stupor. Welcome to Indiana indeed.

Friday, 3:00 pm
In efforts to save about $4.35 in toll road fees, we've exited into an urban Latino neighborhood. Construction abounds and the smell of chimichangas is heavy in the air. From the looks of whatever the crap city this is, there is no square inch of it that isn't under thorough, thorough, thorough construction. The roads are as smooth as a sandpaper-covered cobblestone pathway after a hailstorm of auger drill bits. We assume the not-Americans all around us will soon raid our vehicle. Or try and sell us fresh produce. Either way, this doesn't bode well.

Friday, 2:40 pm
In Illinois now. TIME HAS BEGUN TO MOVE BACKWARDS AND I AM WORRIED.

Friday, 2:53 pm

Our speed is reduced to roughly 10 feet per fifteen minute increment. It is warmer than I'd like. I see a truck that says "water" on the side and I wonder if they would mind if I stole their water. I think probably they would, so I won't walk out of the van and take their water jugs away from them. Virginia and I listen to "This American Life" while Relient K plays over the speakers and semis growl at us like special ed gorillas. I hate them, because they're loud and stupid, which is what I think a special ed gorilla probably sounds like. I feel mildly car sick, which could be horrid, horrid news for the other passengers.

Friday, 3:24 pm
A trailer jackknifes in the road. We don't see it, of course. Happened before we came upon the seen. And it wasn't our road, so we're not deterred for long. But the van that used to be pulling the capsized trailer is upside down in the ditch and people are still being pulled out of it. Scary. Hope everyone's okay...

Also, we stop at a gas station for the emptying of bladders. And it's my turn to drive the van. Never driven a van with a trailer behind it toting thousands of dollars of equipment. This might end unfavorably.

Friday, 8:52 pm
I complete my driving shift. I have driven for four and a half hours. I do not smell "good." I am not overly "awake." I feel like Blue Eye, Missouri does not exist and this trip is a cruel hoax to get us to travel to a destination we'll never reach. But I am full. With food. We stop at a gas station and eat sandwiches made out of bagels and delicious. I now have this:

and am delighted. It too is delicious and also orange-flavored. We pass through St. Louis on the way to Blue Eye, and I see the Arch and the Mississippi River for the first time. It's special for me. Unfortunately, I am also screaming and swerving a trailer out behind the van as I try to decipher the labyrinth of twists and exits that is St. Louis freeways.

Regarding driving...it goes well on the whole. Except for immediately after I get in the van at the gas station, I promptly miss our entrance ramp and have to turn around and nearly get lost trying to re-find the entrance ramp. It is one of the most incompetent things I've ever done with a motor vehicle. It makes it in the running with the the time I nearly destroyed a brand new truck that was parked because I thought I could make a turn real sharp. All things considered, I stay calm when faced with motorist adversity.

Also in my driving shift, we get caught up in another traffic jam because of an intense auto crash. That makes the second on the day and that is three car crash-caused traffic jams too many. It is emotionally draining.

Our assumed ETA as of RIGHT NOW is 12:50 am. We're all already sick of driving and looking forward to being at where we're supposed to be. It's going to be nice to not be driving.

Saturday, 12:16 am
It is officially tomorrow. Virginia and I watch The Patriot on a travel DVD player situation provided by Marissa's parents. Awesome movie. But we're dead inside. We're dead. On account of the tired and the stretch of road refusing to become our Plymouth Rock. It's Brian's shift with the van. It will be the last shift on the day. We're about 50 minutes outside of Blue Eye, putting our brand new ETA at 1:05 in the a.m. according to Rita the GPS. Looking forward to sleep. And a shower. No one here smells pleasant. It's bad.

Saturday, 1:45 am
We arrive. Jared Ballenger, the trooper that he is, plans to stay up all night until all members of all bands arriving tonight come in. Our 1:15 am arrival is late, but nothing compared to the 4:30 am arrival time of some of the other artists. The grounds are wooded and backwater, but gorgeous, so far as we can tell in the dark. The buildings are, for lack of a better word, amazing. The room we'll be playing in is small, but cool.

Our bedrooms remind me of summer camp. Only they're nice. It's like what summer camp cabins would have been had they been nice.

Everyone is disgusted with their state of hygiene. We all may take pre-sleep showers. Either way, we all want sleep. So we're going to take it. In the morning, free breakfast. Epic.

Saturday, 11:56 am
Sleep is fantastic. It's amazing how good a night of sleep feels after doing nothing but driving all day. Everyone has a good night's sleep. I get a top bunk right up against an air vent for the A/C, and it makes for one of the best nights sleep in a long time. Yay sleep.

The grounds of this place are far more spectacular by daylight. There's rigged outcroppings of rock formations, impossibly green foliage, and it all feels downhill. It's as if someone carved out this place from out of the middle of a mountain. It's neat.

After waking, we have breakfast at the main building and it's quite lovely. Omelets, breakfast sandwiches, open-faced gravy-covered concoctions. Altogether, really nice.

We set up our merchandise table and move our gear into a holding area. We're a semi-main attraction, kind of, sort of. We're opening for Ballenger who is, in fact, the main attraction, and so that makes us a sub-main-attraction.

Saturday, 5:21 pm
I have greatly underestimate the cold emanating from the A/C vents directly behind our merch table. It's like someone made the Antarctic 20% colder, cranked up the wind chill to the "dear Lord why?" setting, and plopped that temperature atrocity behind anyone sitting at our table. It's cold.

The day is long, but not unbearable. The speakers have been good and the bands have been entertaining for the most part. We sold a button. So we're 50 cents richer than we were when we left Michigan.

Speaking of leaving states, Brian, Jared, Jim and I decide we need some Red Bull. So we leave the grounds to find some. What we find instead is Arkansas. Apparently, we're so far south that driving for literally half a minute takes us out of Missouri and into Arkansas. It's...everything I imagined it to be.

We do find the Red Bull. Don't worry.

We go on stage in 2 hours, and are more than ready. Everyone is itching to play. Jim and I have decided to do a "rock kick" and I'm told it will be neat. All I know is that the kick we rehearsed makes me feel slightly concussed after I do it, and I hope I don't pass out on stage. It wouldn't be the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to me, but it would be in the top 18.

At one point in the last few hours, Bekah, Jim's wife, shuts the door to the wing of the building that houses our rooms (and clothes and money and valuables and everything we hold near and dear) and it locks. We think we're going to have to send Brian barreling through the door.  He is psyched at the idea.

Turns out, the guy who has the keys to the door lives somewhere and some people leave and get the keys from him and stuff. I don't know the specifics. I'm not a part of the fun. But we can get back in our rooms now.

Sunday, 12:04 am
We play our set. Aside from the most audible buzz anyone has ever heard roaring inside of our in-ear monitors, we manage to get through it. After the first song, I step on my in-ear monitor extension cord and unplug it. If I want to be able to hear anything other than the boos of the crowd at how much Slingblade Anonymous's (everyone seems to get our name wrong to some degree or another) guitarist sucks, then I have to plug it back in. When I bend down to plug the cord back in, I bash my guitar's headstock on the floor, knocking the whole thing flat by about 5 cents.

I play the entirety of "My Escape From Me" with the guitar just off enough for it to grate against my nerves like a cheese grater on a chalkboard.

Thankfully, the crowd doesn't seem to notice. The audience isn't huge, but it's appreciative. It isn't like playing to a room of angered jackelopes (I assumed that would be terrifying), but it's also not like playing to a room full of our most favorite fans. It's somewhere in the middle. Like playing to a bunch of people who are mildly intrigued and are enjoying themselves to some extent or another.

Toward the end of our set, they seem to take to us like stink on farts. It turns from mild interest to mosh pitting and jump hopping and fist pumping. We are encored after our last song, so we play one more last song. This happened once before at Barry County Christian School in April. This is our second encore to date. There's something about playing an unexpected encore that is really rather rewarding. It's not like when the headlining band walks off stage and in rehearsed unison timing reemerges to perform one of their popular singles. This isn't rehearsed, this isn't expected, and the song we play ("Everything," for those who care) we haven't played in practices for over 3 months. But hey. They demand, so we supply.

After our set, we listen to Ballenger's (excellent), we get extra amounts of fatigue piled on top of our usual fatigue. Everyone is huge amounts of tired. Everyone also agrees that this is the kind of tired we wouldn't mind accumulating for the remainder of our lives.

After the show and after tear down, we head up to the cafe and eat pizza with Ballenger. I'm starting to feel pretty miasmatic. Shapes make sounds and colors taste like textures. I should probably sleep. So I'm going to. The morning brings St. Louis for the 4th of July. Slingstone Apostle in St. Louis will be like a blind turtle crossing an express way. It won't know what hit it.

Sunday, 11:27 am
We get a flat tire on our way up to the main building for breakfast.

It's not surprising. Anyone who thinks they can travel a distance this long without a flat tire is a foolish fool with fool thoughts. It isn't the van with the flat, though. It's the trailer. But we have a spare. And we change it with vigor.

I work up quite a sweat watching Jim and Brian do all the work. I do, however, screw the jack back down to a compressed position with my bare hands. LOOK HOW HARD I WORKED.

I take first driving shift today as we head into St. Louis, so the next update will be in roughly 4 hours. I really want to find a BBQ joint, but I don't think anyone else is as emphatic as I am about it. Fireworks tonight. Also, continual, night-long driving. I'm unsure as to how we're splitting the responsibility. Either way, it's going to be a miserable trek for sure.

Sunday, 1:08 pm
As we enter St. Louis, we realize we have no idea where the crap we're going. We see the Arch, but we don't have a clue how to reach a place where we can park our van and trailer. Tensions rise. Everyone gets testy with everyone else and talk of pre-meditated acts of violence start to happen. Eventually, though, we find a parking spot and even found where the St. Louis Rams go to lose!

We go to Festival St. Louis. It's a gigantic fair that brings the entire city under the Arch for fair-like amenities. We eat St. Louis BBQ ribs from a vendor there and they are amazingly delicious. Just...just so good. Everyone is rather pleased with the delightful taste.

The Arch is real tall. And real cool. It's the first major landmark I've ever seen and it makes me feel semi indifferent, but mostly interested. It really is pretty neat. The crowd attending this hoedown is massive and they all congregate in the space under and just behind the massive steel loop.

Also, here's the Arch.

As we walk the fair grounds, an announcement comes over the PA: "We might be experiencing 8-10 minutes of a downpour--hang in there!" Turns out they weren't lying. As the entirety of the band goes under the Arch to look at the various museums down there, Virginia and I abstain on account of the fact they don't allow outside drinks. Later on, we find out what looked like a cup with the universally understood "no" ring around it is actually a can of mace. Which means they get enough people misusing cans of mace in museums to merit a sign on the door. It also means Virginia and I could have seen the museums. But we didn't. Instead, we get downpoured on.

My beautiful bride to be doused in St. Louis rain, holding our fair lemonade.

Another fun surprise of Festival St. Louis, aside from the rain, we get the chance to listen in on a live show from which we can draw quality musical inspiration.

It is the B-52s. Apparently, St. Louis plucked these relics from the nearest nursing home and plopped them on the festival main stage for our "enjoyment." I'll tell you something I've learned about watching the B-52s. The longer you watch the B-52s perform live, the more dramatically your will to live dwindles. Every one of their songs other than Love Shack is like a less good version of Love Shack. It's debilitating to listen to the two shriveled old shrews wail and the old not very straight man sing-talk. There's a line between a gimmicky band and a band who doesn't know what everything that isn't a gimmick is. The B-52s are the latter.

Still, the girls seem to enjoy "Love Shack." It's cute watching them shake their groove thangs.

What is the exact opposite of watching the B-52s perform and is in fact incredibly enjoyable is St. Louis's amazing fireworks display. It is, honest to God, the best fireworks show I've witnessed to date. It's stupendous and makes the unbearable heat, unbearable humidity, and unbearable inner-city traffic jams bearable.

Speaking of, leaving the fair grounds under the Arch is absurd. The crowds are hoarding en masse, and everywhere is congested. When we finally get in the car, it takes forever for us to get anywhere. The traffic is thicker than Grizzly Adam's beard. At this rate, we'll be home approximately 8 days after the return of Jesus. See you then.

Monday, 3:03 pm
I just wake up after pulling into home at 7:30 am this morning. But before that...

Temperature in the van is sweltering the whole ride home despite Brian and Jared's honest attempts to keep us cool in the back seat. We wallow in our own filth sweating holes into our clothing. It's gross.

Brian and Jared take one-hour shifts on the way home in attempts to stave off an unfortunate nod-off, which would have ended in screams and shattered music gear. Other than a few unstable little quick car adjustments, we remain alive and well.

We watch Finding Nemo with everyone awake. Then Beth, Marissa, and Virginia fall asleep and I watch the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie by myself. Then I fall asleep through the majority of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I wake up for the battle scene at the end because it's fun to watch cheetahs attack minotaurs.

We arrive home safely, albeit psychologically off. Everyone is exhausted and our bodies aren't sure where we are or why we're there or if we should eat food or if we should not or if we should do a jig of despair at the trip being concluded or do a jaunty shuffle of joy at returning home to familiar humidity as opposed to the strange, stifling, extra humid humidity boasted in Missouri.

All things considered, the trip was a success. Thank you to everyone who kept us in your prayers, and an extra special hardy thank you to those who watched us in Missouri. Thank you for having us, Bill Ballenger, and thank you for the opportunity!

We're more than glad we did it, but happy to be home. Either way, we'd love to do this for a living. So. Y'know. Someone give us a record contract.

First thing's first. I've decided to go from the first person plural perspective to the first person singular. I hope this doesn't jar any of the zero and a half readers who frequent this blog. I feel like I can write up summaries of events better if I say "me" instead of "we," or at least write them more accurately if I stop trying to write like some kind of collective hive mind.

Don't worry, though, we'll sign the blogs so you know who's writing it. Typically, everything on the site is written by me (Tater), but Jared writes up our devos when they happen, and sometimes Brian writes things, and Jim would write things if he wasn't so busy with not writing them.

This past weekend, we were set to play the Big Ticket music festival in Gaylord, Michigan. And that's just what we did. Brian and Jared left for Big Ticket earlier in the day on Thursday morning (we were set to hit the stage Friday afternoon), and Jim and I had to finish our not music jobs and leave afterwards later that night. After a short four hour drive,  we (being Jim and me) finally got there. We decided to head over to the Indie Stage to get a look at where we'd be playing the next day.

Okay, it didn't quite look like that, but It was, by all working definitions of the word, a barn. Rafters, animal stalls (without the animals), cement flooring. The only thing that would have made it any more of a barn would have been a nice coat of red paint on the outside. Which was a smidgeon of a surprise. I thought we were going to get a stage out in the open, like most stages at music festivals. We did not get that. We got a barn.

Never played in a barn before. Weren't quite sure what to think of that.

So we pitched our tent in a nearby field, preparing to do our thang the next day. When we woke, Jared and I thought to try our hand at a shower on the fair grounds, as we enjoy being clean and not smelling like the frayed end of a dismembered foot. It was a dumb idea.

We set up shop at around 9:30 AM, raising our Slingstone Apostle banner high, and violently accosting those who wouldn't buy our merchandise.

Thirteen dangerous wounds and eight fatalities later, we finally took the stage. We had one of the biggest Indie Stage crowds of the day. On the whole, the Indie Stage never drew that many bodies, but our crowd was reasonable, and we were thankful for everyone that came to see us.

We owe an extra special thanks to Tracy, Briana, Marissa, and the rest of the Northern Michigan awesome peeps for everything they did for us at Big Ticket. Our showing would have been a pathetic display of lame if it wasn't for you guys helping to get fliers out there and posting them in bathrooms like the shameless public relations mongrels you are. Thank you.

It was a growing experience for us as a band and a great opportunity. There were some frustrations over the day and it was massively tiring, but we're fine sparring with frustration, and we're no stranger to fatigue. It was worth the trip and the preparation.

Also, we were told by the judges of the battle of the bands that they'd like to see us on the Rock Stage of Big Ticket in the near future. So pray for that possibility next year.

Next stop, Missouri! (Stay tuned, because as we travel the 12 and a half hours to Blue Eye, MO, I'll be keeping a trip log and posting that upon our return.)

- TATER