Tucson, AZ - Shinobitown USA

Tucson is a medium-sized college town in Arizona populated mostly by ninjas. Said ninjas are attracted by the sounds of post-hardcore / post-metal music madness. Upon hearing the aforementioned music, these teenaged ninjas form a circle and begin to parade around, looking at one another, eyeing each other with vague aggression, swinging their puffed-up chests from side-to-side like Looney Tunes gorillas. Upon hearing a musical cue that only the adept ninjas are immediately sensitive to, these ninjas flip the fuck out. They spin-kick like the brothers in Final Fight. They seem to teleport from one place to another like MegaMan at the beginning of a level. They swing all inanimate objects around wildly towards each other, occasionally making contact. They stomp their legs one after the other, windmilling their opposite arms simultaneously.

This is the most amazing dancing I have ever seen.

Apparently it's the standard in such musical circles nowaday, but I'd never seen it. In one of many chance, inevitable, small-world encounters on this tour, I saw this phenomenon in action to the tunes of Bleak December. I learned that this was the band's name when I ambled on over to the merch table, where it rang a bell in my mind. Bleak December....aha! One of my ex-campers was, last I had heard, playing drums for a semi-pro neo-metal band, and this was it. How odd to meet in Tucson! Unfortunately, he and the band had parted ways a few months before, or we might have had quite a reunion.

Additionally, some dude noticed my Joggers shirt and a smile came across his face. Apparently, though now in Tucson, he'd helped them book a show back in Illinois and asked me to pass his CD on them at next meeting, which I will hopefully remember to do.

This all, as well as our gig, took place at Tucson's all-ages venue called Skrappy's. We were all really taken with the kids at this place. We played on what turned out to be, at least nominally, a "battle of the bands" night, although no battling took place aside from ninjas v. ninjas. There were 8 or so bands, none of whom bore any stylistic resemblance to the others. And the kids sat there and listened to them all. Including us, though they had surely never heard of At Dusk. They were jovial and responsive and helped us have a great time. In fact, we've had a hell of a lot of great times on tour so far. I write this now in my Aunt & Uncle's place in New Orleans, where we had an off day to explore the city. More on that later. I hope nobody minds the lack of temporal organization here. Think of these as snapshots.

Thanks to Mike Wolin and his friends Megan and Jen, who graciously housed us in their shockingly unstudent-like apartment in Tucson.

Onward to Nashville tomorrow!