Message to Venus – 3rd ROAD BLOG from the “Pushing ‘The Envelope’ Tour”

The rock band, Message to Venus, is currently on the “Pushing ‘The Envelope’ Tour”. While they’re on this tour, they will be blogging for us. You can check out their third entry (with pictures) written by the band’s lead singer, Jandre Nadal, after the break.

It’s been 20 glorious nights of real Rock & Roll on the road lifestyle. Will we miss those wonderful cold gallon showers? Sneaking into private parking lots to refill on water? $0.74 tuna cans and cheap beer? We have been blessed to have met some great people on the road whom have randomly let us in their homes. Not something anyone would do. You know who you are and you will never be forgotten.

Enough ass kissing. We left the spoiled days with our friends of Cupid’s Victim and set our GPS north to the streets of Austin. The capital of music indeed. So many great bars with all kinds of music and characters of all types. After a good hour of finding a parking spot for Jodie, we finally get our gear into the next club. This place was so fucking crazy I don’t even want to mention the name. I just so happened to meet up with my long lost cousin James after 28 years. Last time he saw me I was shitting my pants and crawling around naked. Now we encounter our first conversation witnessing half naked girls wiggling their asses on the bar to the live music and seeing people getting a fix. I have to admit I was a bit embarrassed hopping he wouldn’t judge us. But he knew about Austin. This place makes New Orleans look like Disneyland. We get on stage after a girl playing guitar singing some crazy country songs playing a kick drum at the same time. Was original but very rough. Not too many people in the club. Finally after we set up, the club all of a sudden was packed to the max. All the half naked waitresses and bartenders in the counter all ready posing for the tunes. Our set begins and we already had the crowed in our pocket. Everyone was digging it. I constantly saw people throwing money in our gas tip jar. Seeing so many chicks dancing to our music was a thrill. Although some of them had deep belly buttons. We finish our set and sold merch like crazy. We set our gear in the back party section of the club. We had no choice but to take turns protecting the gear avoiding some fuck head on molly take one of our guitars. So many chicks offering me shots. I denied most of them because I couldn’t help but to see bubbles form from whatever pill they put in them. We did manage to make friends regardless of them trying to poison us or not. This place was a mess, a hot fucking mess. What a great first impression I left on my long lost cuz. We had a blast!

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After spending the night at James house. We head west with new cowboy hats to the rich oil fields of Midland, TX. Have to admit not much view. Just cactus and dust at first. We get to The Blue Max. The only rock bar for miles. We are greeted with a breath taking buffet of BBQ pork chops and fresh salad and back beans not to mention a $100 beer tab all courtesy of the owner, a lovely lady named Erika. Not only does she greet us with more than a picnic of food and booze but she has decorated the ceiling of her bar with autographed toy guitars from bands like Filter and Voodoo Glow Skulls and many more. She kindly ask us to decorate and sign our guitar to be hung along with the other legends. What a trip! We set up our gear and merch booth along with a stoner rock band called Mothership. A real power trio of brothers with double stacked amps making me bleed from the ears and nose because of the volume. They were the shit! The guitarist Kelley was fucking the shit out of his guitar. If Ted Nugent and Slash had a threesome with Joan Jett, the lost son would be Kelley. They were a very good band and cool cats.

We blindly drive to Dallas. Thanks to the hospitality of a good friend from Rincon, Cassidy and her family feed us well and introduced us to their neighbor named Greg. He also works in the music industry and as random as it seems he got us an internet channel interview with In Da Mix Live. With a good team also letting us perform an acoustic version of “Stripped”. We then went in search of a last min gig in the town of Denton, TX. John and I walked the old town approaching every bar till it had to be the last one Hailey’s who gave us the opportunity to play for an already set gig. This is the purpose of our tour, to find any opportunity to play at any venue, at any dynamic range. Or new friends showed up and supported us with their presence and buying merch! We love you new friends!

We continue north to Cape Girardeau playing another fine bar called That One Bar, owner Jeff and his wife Alicia were very cool to us making sure we felt at home. The gig was a success as we ended the night selling a shit load of merch and signing autographs. More new fans won over and new friends were made. We again blindly set course to north of St. Louis in search of another gig. While we were on the road Edgar finds an Internet blog on open mic nights. We called every bar in Edwardsville, IL, no luck. We go anyways and talk to a nice gentleman tuning an acoustic guitar on a small stage, he was very polite and thrilled that we wanted to play on his open mic set. We set up on stage after hearing a good bunch of finger pickers. We bring down the dynamics to a short softer set. It was fun and our new friends bought our merch and let us park in their driveway for a safe night of sleep. Now we set north again to the next rest stop, we get luxurious shower system set up using the public faucet hosing down our sorry asses to the blistering 60° water. We are from the fucking Caribbean man! JuanMa and Edgar get the food department ready for a finely done tuna casserole/salad. Little did we know that this rest stop closes at 5 pm. Fuck my life! Only John and I were able to shower. We just finished cooking so we pretended to leave and we managed to hide little Jodie till the rest stop staff left. We returned, jumped the fence and set up our little camp site so the boys could shower and we could finish our fancy dinner. Mission accomplished! We continue our goal not letting cold gallon showers and more tuna stop us for we will go north!

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Did you enjoy this blog? Do you plan on going out to any of their tour dates? Let us know in the comments below!