Oh, Canada.
As I write this we are heading for the U.S. border after our "Hoops and Hurdles Across Canada Tour 2003". Hoops and hurdles, you ask? Well, things started off nicely with three great shows in western B.C. and then Canada started trying to buck us off its back. We were heading for Edmonton to play a show with a drummer we had never met (Murderburger couldn't finish the Canadian dates, Jason Finn wasn't available until the next show and Dave Grohl hasn't returned my calls. Whaddya gonna do?) when we had a tire blow on our trailer. Then a cop pulled us over as we were about to pull into the service station.

Four hours later we were back on our way. Fortunately, we were able to get the club to keep the doors closed while we met and played with the drummer. Turns out he was a real quick study and we wound up having a great show. Thank you Scott Lightning! (Real name, Scott Lingley of Old Reliable). After that little victory we figured it would be smooth sailing from there on out. Wrong!
The next day saw us getting pulled over again, this time for speeding but then we discovered we had expired registration. The kind officer called a tow truck and took us to a hotel for the night ("Can't be letting you drive this here unregistered van, eh."). Luckily, we had the night off and the hotel had water slides! Wilbur, our new road-dog/photo journalist got his first ride in the back of a cop car for his birthday that night.
After many phone calls, credit card transactions and faxes, we were on our way again to Regina.
We got there, loaded in, and were waiting for show time when Jason called and said that they weren't letting him into Canada. Ugh.

We pulled off what was one of the best and most rewarding shows of the tour by doing an acoustic show with the opening bands drummer His name is Mama and he's from The VaGiants who were a cool Bell Rays-esque kind of band. He was really great. Then we did five loud rock songs with a fellow named Gord who said he was pretty familiar with the Evil Powers record. Turns out he was and wow, it actually worked!

Next day, after being pulled over one more time (no reason given this time), we rolled into Winnipeg where Jason was waiting for us after being so graciously allowed to enter exotic Canada and the rest of the tour has rocked with him behind the drums.

Calgary was especially great - sold out show at the university there, television crew there to interview us and we got to hang out with K.J. from the awesome Calgary band, Chixdiggit which is always a blast. Thanks K.J.!

So, nice try Canada, but we still persevered and rocked your asses steady! I can't believe we made every show considering all that went down. There is no stopping the Supersucker train!

Now, we're pushing towards Spokane, Bend and Portland. Portland will be especially great as we are playing with The Dwarves! I can't wait to see Blag and co. rock the house. Then we'll be doing our last country show of the year at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle on the 21st to celebrate Quattro's third birthday and the final show of the tour. Opening the show will be I Can Lick Any Son Of A Bitch In The House from Portland and they're great too. Speaking of country, my solo record, "The Sauce", is going to be out on January 13th through Mid-Fi and, if you want to, you can pre-order it through our web-site or through Amazon.com. It sure would be cool if you did. It's super cheap too, should be around 10 - 13 bucks, tops. I think anyone who likes our country stuff will like this record a lot, it's a fun one full of songs I like to play after I've had a few. Yeah!

While you're at the site, you might want to pick up a brand new Supersuckers belt buckle. We finally got 'em up for sale there so you can stop paying those ridiculous eBay prices for 'em. These things are super cool (I'm wearing one right now) and they don't seem to stick around long, so I'd jump on it. There is some cool stuff on eBay, however. Signed posters and a speeding ticket we got, all signed by the band and very suitable for framing, it's a real cool artifact from a real cool band, along with some other assorted goodies.

I guess that's about all the "news that's fit to print", to use an old cliche. We'll be doing another New Years Eve show at Slim's in San Francisco on the 31st with the awesome Hangmen, so get you tickets early here at http://www.slims-sf.com , it's gonna be a blow out and we'd love to see you there.
Border crossed, Spokane in sight, it's time to put my "back to the riser" and fight the good, good fight. Man, I sound like Lemmy. I'm probably glad I don't feel like him, not today anyway.
Eddie Spaghetti, Dec. 18, 2003.