Sen Dog Tour – Day 1

We’re back on tour!!! It’s really only been a little over two months since we stepped out of the tour van after the last gig with Twiztid in late December. But we love the road, the crowds, the different cities and the awesome people and music we come across on tour, and two months is plenty of time to make you hunger for another trip.

As luck would have it, we were given the opportunity to jump on a tour with the legendary Sen Dog from Cypress Hill. Just about everyone in our band has been influenced by Cypress Hill and Sen Over our lives, so on a personal level it is a huge honour to be invited on the tour.

But I digress. We started the tour in Milwaukee, or as Alice Cooper quotes it in Wayne’s World, “The Good Land”. This is our third trip to Milwaukee in less than a year, and it always treats us well, so were stoked to be going back.  After a short delay at the Canada/US border, we shoved off from Windsor and the Great White North towards Wisconsin. The Rave is the same Milwaukee venue we played last time we were in Milwaukee...for those of you that followed our tour last December, this was the venue that is supposedly haunted.

We arrived, loaded in, and proceeded to do our thing as we set-up and got our tour groove on. Shortly after that, we wandered into the band rooms backstage and boom...there’s Sen Dog, right there, just chilling. Easily the friendliest rap superstar we’ve ever met. Sen invited us in and kicked it with us like we were old friends. We shared tour stories and talked about music, the industry, and everything in between.  His crew was super friendly to us as well, a couple of hip-hop cats from Cali called Literates. They too will be on the tour with us, and we look forward to rocking the rest of tour with both Sen and his boys.

The show popped off without a hitch, and we rocked out for the good people of Milwaukee. We often cover Cypress Hill’s “How I could Just kill a man” in our set, but we hadn’t planned on it during this tour with Sen. However, before the show, he gave us his blessing to go ahead and rock the track, which is exactly what we did. The house went crazy and it was a highlight of the night, for sure.  Sen’s show was awesome too; he played a lot of his solo material and also a medley of his verses from popular Cypress Hill songs. Awesome! Afterwards, we got smacked with a raging snowstorm as we finished the night and began to load the trailer up, so a big, sarcastic thanks to the lying jerk of a weatherman who said it was going to be clear in Milwaukee this weekend.

 All in all, an incredible start to the tour and we look forward to kicking it more with Sen on the tour. Also a big shout out to The DRP and 1-fifty-1, the other two acts on this tour with us. So far, so good! Tomorrow we’re in Watertown, WI before heading to Chicago on Sunday! Please help us survive on the road and check out our new T-shirts or CD’s in our shop, support MLSF!  Peace out for now.
 

Day 2

We woke up at Donny’s, the tour manager. He’s also the lead MC in one of the groups on the tour, The DRP. Boots and Matte went for a morning walk while the rest decided to enjoy our floor slumber a little longer. After a short we woke up, got our shit together and prepared to leave for Watertown, WI. Sen Dog and The Literates showed up at Donny’s too, and we got news that 1-fifty-1 couldn’t provide any drives to the next show. So, we decided to help everyone else out and let a few guys pile in the van with us and carry some gear in our trailer. Rockers helping rockers. It sounds like a charity...speaking of charity, if anyone wants to donate their hard earned money to the hardest working band around,  please proceed to our shop and donate the cost of a shirt, after which we will promptly send you...a free shirt!

So we arrived in Watertown, and realized it was small. VERY small. And also full of taverns and automotive repair shops. Presumably, the towns citizens keep the many auto shops in business by getting hammered at the taverns and then crashing their cars. What seems like a dangerous lifestyle actually keeps their two industries running smoothly! But moving on – a small town is nothing to shake a stick at. Some of the best shows we’ve ever played have been in tiny towns where there is nothing else to do, and this is exactly what we got. The bar owners treated us really well and our sound was absolutely killer. Roge got on stage with the DRP at one point and rocked some improvised jams with their drummer while Donny killed it on the mic. And Sen Dog...well, let’s just say that Sen Dog straight up killed it. He had the crowd in his pocket the whole time and it was a real pleasure to watch him again, he’s so dope it’s not funny.  We had a good time after the show and then packed up and left Watertown, back to the hotel.  It had been kind of a long day so most of us opted to just crash immediately.

Tomorrow is our show in Berwyn, WI. It’s a suburb of Chicago, which means this will be the first Chicago show we’ve played in almost two years!! It’s gonna be sick! Catch up with us tomorrow for some exciting news! 


Day 3
We woke up at the hotel and reunited with an old friend...Mr. Continental Breakfast. How we’ve missed you, CB! Straight to the Fruit Loops and Coffee. After the nutritious breakfast, we spent the morning getting gnarly in the exercise rooms and pool. Shortly afterwards we hit the lobby for some internet promotion time, trying to get some peeps to cross the border from Windsor to come rock out with us in Detroit on Monday. The night before, we had been speaking with Sen Dog about the possibility of us coming up onstage with him and rocking a track during his set. Sen was totally cool with it, so we were arranging a rehearsal and also promoting this event to our peeps back home. STOKED! It’s pretty cool how easy going Sen Dog is, he doesn’t act anything like you might think a world famous popular music icon would act. He could probably be a complete ass to us and we’d still think he was rad, but luckily that’s not the case.
The word on the street was that the Chicago show had sold really well, and what do you know, the streets were telling the truth. People showed up early and rocked all night. Our homeboys in 1fifty1 brought a whole damn party bus full of people from their hometown to this show (anybody out there remember any of the MicLordz party buses? Post your hazy Detroit party memories in our guestbook). The promoter didn’t really have the greatest (any) organization skills, so Matte stepped in with his tech knowledge and essentially had to stage manage the entire evening so that when it came our turn to rock the stage we would have decent sound. All sound and organization issues aside, it was a great performance. We pulled out some covers we’ve never played live before (can you say Kriss Kross?) and did what we do best – got a crowd of people to start jumping and screaming with us. Mission Accomplished. Sen Dog watched us for almost our whole show this night, and I think we may have surprised him with our performance a little bit, because he took the time to approach us afterwards to let us know that he was genuinely impressed and looked forward to rehearsing with us the next day in Detroit. Praise from a hip hop legend? Check. And speaking of Sen, his show on this night was off the hook. It was without a doubt the largest turn out we’ve had yet on this tour and we got to see a glimpse of what Sen has been doing for over 20 years – entertaining large groups of screaming fans. It’s crazy to see him rock a crowd of 200 people and then imagine him doing it with Cypress Hill in front of hundreds of thousands...the guy definitely knows how to work a crowd. Awesome show, can’t wait for Detroit on Monday night!
Also we’d like to remind everyone that our shop is open for business, and if we don’t sell enough albums, then we’ll have to dump Liam off on the highway to lighten the load and save gas. Please help Liam get back to Canada, support MLSF! 

Day 4
We had to drive from the Chicagoland area this morning back to Mt.Clemens, MI, which is only about 30 minutes from our homes in Windsor. It was about a 5 hour drive, plus with the time change we’d be losing an hour so we had to get crackin’ pretty early if we wanted to get to the Hayloft on time. In addition, we hoped to have a proper sound check and hopefully get in a rehearsal with Sen Dog. We knew this wouldn’t be a problem, because we’ve played the Hayloft many times before. It’s a very professional venue owned by Critical Bill guitarist Mike Scott, and we know they run a tight ship. So we got up, hit the continental breakfast (special breakfast item – sausage rounds) and headed down the road for Detroit.
Essentially it was kind of an uneventful trip to Mt. Clemens. We had been basically sharing hotel rooms with The DRP and his crew on the tour, so we’d all been slumbering on the floor for a few days straight. Van sleep is not the most fulfilling type of rest, yet most of us chose to catch up on some z’s on the moderately lengthy drive to Detroit.
We arrived at the Hayloft, said what’s up to Mike, and started setting up. We had an awesome sound check and got everything in line for the show that night. The usual gaggle of local hip hoppers warmed up the stage – some were ok, most of them were not. One group had a face-painted break dancer, that was pretty cool, and another group had live saxophone, bass, drums and a DJ.
Sen, however, had not shown up yet. We were a little worried because at this point, a rehearsal with him was out of the question. The doors were open, bands were playing, crowds were forming and it would not be possible to run the song before the show. If we’re going to play with Sen during his set, we’d have to get his permission to just come up there on stage with him and kill on the first try.
Luckily, when Sen Dog arrived he was fully cool with this option. We asked him if he’d like to do it despite not having rehearsed, and he simply replied “Let’s rock it”. Stoked. We went onstage where we rocked our own set and played some of our new songs from our upcoming release (more news on that in the future). The crowd was typical for a Monday night, but we had serious fan support thanks to our friends in The Classix, long time fan Mitch and some of our girlfriends and their entourage who crossed international borders to come check us out with Sen. Special thanks to all of you for coming out.
Sen got onstage after we had finished, and proceeded to rock the crowd in true Cypress Hill fashion. The guy simply kills it when he gets on the mic, veterans like this are not to be trifled with! We waited until the very last song of his set, at which point he invited us onstage with him. It should be mentioned that MLSF has played some gigantic shows with thousands of people in attendance and we have played for some of the angriest, hard to reach crowds in the world. Having said that, anxiety is not usually an issue for us. But when Sen Dog of Cypress Hill invites you onstage to play one of the biggest songs in their catalogue, you know you had better damn well play it right, and play it hard. This, of course, is exactly what we did. We tore down the house with Sen, and we caught it all on tape. Without a doubt, this was a huge career highlight for us. Sen said backstage after the show that he loved the performance, calling the experience “spiritual”. We will likely be performing this song every night for the rest of the tour. Special thanks to everyone who came out and shared this special moment with us. We have a day off tomorrow – Sandusky, Ohio is the next stop on the tour! See you then!


Day 5 & 6
After the show in Detroit, we had a day off. Seeing as how we were only about 30 minutes from Windsor at this point, we just went home and slept in our own beds. There really wasn’t anything to extraordinary to report about on this day.
The next day, however, we met up and hit the road again for Sandusky, OH. The plan was to meet up with Sen Dog at the venue early, because after the performance in Detroit, he had suggested we write a song together. This was very exciting for us. A hip hop legend of Sen’s calibre can basically write a song with whoever he damn well pleases, so we were honoured to work with him.
The song came together pretty fast. We had considered using an instrumental song that’s been sitting on our back burner for over two years. It seemed to us that maybe this would be a good opportunity to use it. We rehearsed the song a few times at The Underground, and when Sen showed up, we played it for him. As it would happen, he wasn’t really feeling that song, and then asked us what else we had. Time for plan B. An old bass line was then brought into the picture, and the ball started rolling. Sen got an idea for a guitar riff, and the next thing we knew, that was our chorus. A breakdown and more structure followed and then our song was born in 30 minutes or less (lyrics have yet to be written). We [plan to rehearse it more at home and record it when we can, naturally we will let everybody know when this collaboration goes into the next stage!
This show was off the hook. It happened to be March 9th, which marked 14 years since rapper Notorious B.I.G. was killed. In Biggies honour, we dedicated and then covered his famous track “Hypnotize”, which got the crowd going crazy. There were a ton of people for a Wednesday night, and we took full advantage of the rowdy audience by giving them all we had. Afterwards, we waited until the end of Sen Dog’s performance to climb onstage with him and perform “How I could just kill a man”. After this, he kept us on stage for one more track and we banged out another Notorious B.I.G. song, his classic “Juicy”. It truly was a near spiritual experience, you could almost see Biggie’s ghost in the crowd bobbing his giant head. It was an incredible night and I’m sure anyone in the crowd would tell you the same thing.
This, as we learned, was to be the last night of the tour. Sen Dog’s management had to fly him back to L.A. because of a new tour that he was doing with Cypress Hill in Chile, which meant that the last couple shows on the tour had to be cancelled. We still had three of our own gigs to play in Panama City Beach, FL, but the first of those wasn’t for 4 more days. We decided to leave that night for Florida and just drive all night and all day until we got to the coast. But not before hanging with Sen all night. He gave us some really great advice and words of wisdom during the time that we spent with him, and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank him for believing in us. We can’t reveal any details at the moment, but let’s just say we’ve got some really great things coming up in the near future, and we’re really excited about them. We’d also like to thank our new friends in The Literates, we looking forward to rocking out with them during our next trip to LA.
We’re driving to Florida! Check out the shop and make sure we have enough gas money to get there, click here . Check back for new blogs soon!!



 Florida Blog

OK, so we were actually so busy the last couple of days we really didn’t have time to write blogs. It’s been a wild ride so we’re just gonna bring y’all up to speed!
After the last few days on the tour got cancelled, we decided to drive all the way to Florida in one straight shot. The way we figured, it was better to just get the drive out of the way and kick it in the nice weather for a few days. It was Wednesday night, and we didn’t have to play again until Sunday night in Panama City. So we said F#*k it, and drove non-stop until we arrived. We checked into a hotel in Niceville, FL, which was only about an hour from Panama City. But after a 20 hour drive, we decided that we should wander across the street and get ourselves a well deserved beer. The joint was called Woody’s Hog Heaven, a BBQ pub and grill that seemed pretty inviting. We walked in, and the awesome staff made us feel right at home. The beer they served came in Viking sized mugs, which was awesome, we kind of looked/smelled like savage explorers anyway (driving 20 hours after a concert will do that to you). One thing lead to another, one beer turned into a few more and before we knew it we were making friends with the manager and had booked ourselves a gig. What? He wanted us to come back the next night and play 3 sets of covers and original music. This is essentially what we would be doing in Panama City on Sunday, so we figured it was a good idea. It’d be good practice for Panama plus we’d be making a few bucks. And what the hell, the place was across the street from our hotel anyway so it seemed perfect. And it was – the next day we chilled out in front of the pool all day, and played the gig that night. A big thanks to our Irish friends in Rhythm of The Dance. ROTD are a world-touring dance troop that also happened to be staying in the same hotel as us, they were super nice and partied like maniacs. We’ll miss them.
After the show we hit the hotel and slept, got up the next morning and headed into Panama City. Now, we have been to Panama City several times before to play during the CANADIAN spring break, which is usually during February and with small numbers. March, however, is the American spring break month. And it is absolutely insane. Something like 500,000 college kids from all over the USA were in Panama City Beach when we arrived. We had never seen anything like it! The whole town was a giant party, every club, every store, every street was crammed with beer drinking, sun bathing, dancing party machines. The beaches had literally tens of thousands of kids on them. It was an epic party atmosphere. We had to keep our cool though, because we had gigs to play, and we wanted to be in top shape for them. We enjoyed the sun but stayed away from the party for the most part, which was easy, because of the beach house.
Spinakker night club owns a beach house near the club where they let the featured bands of the week stay. Essentially they gave us the keys to this house and said “Enjoy your stay”. The place was sweet – tons of bedrooms, huge deck and yard, lots of parking, cable, washer/dryer, fully furnished living room, kitchen and two bathrooms. It was probably the nicest accommodations we’ve ever had. We took full advantage of the place and actually got to unwind a little bit.
The gigs at Spinakker were awesome. The club is more like ten clubs put together – the capacity at this place is something like3,000. We were playing in a room right off the beautiful beach, and the audience was always changing (mostly always growing). We aren’t really used to playing that many cover songs, but we were up to the task and we drove home 3 hours of live music. We’re not really your traditional band, so we don’t play traditional covers either. Instead of playing the Eagles and Bon Jovi all night we played everything from Snoop Dogg, Notorious B.I.G and Montell Jordan to The Chill Peppers, Kid Rock, and Sublime. And yes, we played MLSF songs too. We tested out a bunch of our new material, and it was really well received – we’re recording these new jams ASAP! We played for 3 hours each night, which is way longer than we’re used to playing. One dude came and watched us the first night, got completely hammered, and then we recognized him the next night outside of the club. He didn’t even remember seeing us, hearing us, or meeting us, so he came back and watched us again and we watched him go crazy over our band again, and he got completely destroyed AGAIN. We didn’t see him the next day before we left so for all we knew, he forgot us again, too.
We’re back in Windsor again, we played a bunch of acoustic St. Patty’s day gigs, and now we’re back in the studio to record our new songs. These are gonna be big jams for us, so stay tuned and we’ll let everybody know when we have a bangin’ CD release party!