Maryland,

Sincerest apologies for our inability to play tonight. Unfortunately, that is the risk run playing house shows. Laws exist, for better or for worse, and often they contradict this endeavor.

For those of you who weren’t at the house in College Park tonight, the boys in blue and their friend the City Manager came out, not to mosh or head walk, but to tell everyone that what we were doing wasn’t an alright thing to be doing. Bummer. More on all that at a later date. I feel like I could write a book on that topic and its many tributaries. And writing a book on this computer would take decades. Which brings me to apology number 2.

Sorry for being so brief. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m typing presently on our dear, dear friend Colin’s impossibly small computer, and it is giving me all sorts of hell.

Point of all this is that although tonight got shut down before we had the chance to play, we are playing Baltimore, which is a mere stones throw way, twice in the near future. The first being on the 4th of this coming month at a place called Charm City Arts Space with a fantastic band called Pianos Become the Teeth, and the 2nd of which being the 24th of this coming month with Alexisonfire and Trash Talk at Ottobar. It would be fantastic if you’d come out and give us the opportunity to make right the small injustice that occurred earlier.

Also, all is well here. Hope you’re all doing well also.

yrs, Jordan.

House shows and cops

I wrote this tonight after the show at Britty’s house was busted by the cops. It is also in response to the dozen or so shows we’ve played or that I’ve been to that have been shut down for one reason or another, and how frustrating that can be.

There is nowhere left for us to go. We will always be running.
They don’t see it the same way we do. They will never understand.

There is something so pure about a group of people gathered in someone’s basement, with common ideals and uncommon backgrounds; passionate people, who pursue what they love and do away with the rest.

We are always being stifled. We are always being put down.

Why is this environment not able to survive? To experience longevity? The law is not on our side. Once they find us, they will do everything in their power to stop us; to make sure that it never happens again.

They cannot bind us. They will never hold us down.

But as soon as one beloved space dies, another is born. And we fight to keep it alive, to make it our home, hoping that maybe this time it will last. But something this fragile and this precious never lasts long.

We have hope. We are a flame that cannot be put out.

So we will run from house to house, because what we have can never be taken away from us. And no force in this world will keep our mouths from screaming against the pain and the injustice that we live in.

Do not stop. Do not give in.
Open your hands. Open your doors.
We will win.

-Chad