Watch him as he goes.

Hello. How are you today? I'm fine, thank you. Life is fresh and new and exciting and fun. I'm not traveling all over the country following Warped Tour and making appearances on FUSE like a couple of my friends (lucky jerks), but summer is going well. I wasted a good 4 weeks on summer school, but I'm doing the best with what I have left. Here's what's going on as of late.

I read a book the other day, Killing Yourself To Live by Chuck Klosterman.

Klosterman, who is a writer for Spin Magazine, spends 18 days driving across the country, visiting the death sites of countless rock stars, from Buddy Holly to Ronnie Van Zant. He does drugs with strangers, compares the women in his life to the members of KISS, and discovers his own (unhealthy) fascination with death. Honestly, nothing is accomplished or learned during his trip, but Klosterman's wit and impressive knowledge of rock 'n roll make this a great read.

I saw a free Steel Train show downtown on Friday night. I love that band. Unfortunately, the area in front of the stage was sectioned off and full of seats for those lucky few with "credentials." I really need to get one of those. Also unfortunate was the lack of classy people in attendance. Mostly it was drunken idiots, dancing horribly, and shouting at the band. I think the worst thing I heard was "Go back to the subways!" (Steel Train started playing acoustic in the subways of New York. The emcee told the crowd this before they went on stage.) Regardless, the band was great, and I got to see my good friend Victoria Keller for the first time in awhile, so the night was pretty good. It ended with me watching "Garden State" for the first time. Not a great plot, but the film is shot well, has plenty of cute and funny moments, and the soundtrack is sick, as I'm sure you well know. The movie's still growing on me.

Yesterday was quite the hectic day. It was fun, though. First was church, which we left early to make the Cardinals game. Which was hot. Like, surface of the sun hot. And of course, I had good seats for once, right in the sun. And of course, the game went long. It ended up being worth it though, Aaron Miles walk off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth. It was ridiculous. I was delusional and just happy for the game to be over. So it was back to Bridgeton to clean up and get ready to fight some Foo.

Dave Grohl is a rock god if I've ever seen one. He is such a dude. I know no other way to put it. He commands attention like no one else I've ever seen. In case you haven't figured it out, The Foo Fighters show was great. A little long, but well worth it. Hope and I didn't have great seats, but we moved down to the lower teer of seats next to a few friends of Hope's mom. These seats were still far away, but not for long. About midway through the show, a giant platform was lowered from the ceiling, right in front of where we were sitting. Grohl and company proceeded to strut over to us, and play a nice long acoustic set up close.

This portion of the show might have been my favorite. They played "My Hero" acoustic. Hearing the thousands belting it out right along with DG gave me chills. All in all, it was a sweet show.

Life rules right now. Hope you can say the same. See ya.

Christopher Michael Tucker.


This is actually a clip from an Australia show, but this is basically what it was like last night. Amazing.

The one you're waiting for.

I've been putting off updating this blog for quite awhile now. No real reason, I'm just lazy, and even the smallest of tasks have seemed daunting to me as of late.

Let's begin with Warped. I know a lot of you have been asking for this, sorry it took so long. Hope and I got there 45 minutes or so before gates, and of course, the line stretched a good thousand people or so. Luckily, as my friend Mark put it, the two of us "network hellaz." Therefore, we were easily able to walk to the front of the line where we found a group of ten or so we knew well enough to jump the line with.

So we got in, checked the big board for set times, and determined that the first band to see...was...Cobra Starship. We got a little sidetracked, saw a song from the Color Fred, and I got to high five "Awesome" Andy Williams from Every Time I Die.

He rules, in case you didn't know.

After Cobra's set, we got our VIP passes and headed backstage. I got to talk to Matt Hoopes and Jon Schneck of Relient K before they went on to crush the crowd with their brute force and raw rock power. That was an overstatement. They did sound great though. I chatted with Jon for awhile after the set and he got me a Warped Tour water, which was probably the most delicious water I've ever tasted, given the circumstances.

From there, I took off solo and saw Norma Jean and Broadway Calls, before reuniting at the Kevin Says Stage for 1997. I checked out a song from Maylene and the Sons of Disaster before catching most of Anberlin's set. I say most because I missed their last song heading to main stage right for my favorite act of the day: Every Time I Die. They bring it. End of story. Keith threw two stuffed animals into the pit demanding that we dismantle them, and bring him the head. Absolutely ridiculous. We hung backstage for awhile after that. I ran into Relient K's Matt Thiessen in the sea of buses. He introduced me to his girl; I introduced him to mine. It was a great moment. Haha.

After that, we took a breather on the big hill by main stage left, catching a couple songs from As I Lay Dying. It was time for The Devil Wears Prada's set, so we took off for the Hurley stage, where we saw them play "Dogs Can Grow Beards All Over" and "Modeify The Pronunciation" before heading backstage again, then heading to main left for The Academy Is..., who had won the contest to play 10 extra minutes that day. Despite what I took away from the youtube videos of them at Warped this year, I thought they sounded fantastic, although Bill Beckett's stage presence is weakened a bit without the hair. Samson? No.

We killed more time backstage, where we ended up meeting Ms. Hayley Williams, which would have been a huge deal for me a year back, but my fascination with her has dwindled. I think that's the case with a lot of the people I met that day, really. I've just calmed down the whole fan thing a lot. The only person I really was stoked to meet was Tom Gabel of Against Me! He was just chilling by their merch tent when I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye. I put my hand on his shoulder, and said something along the lines of "Tom Gabel, no way!" Haha. Good stuff.

AM! was brilliant. It was a total bro-down, if you know what I mean. I love that band a whole lot. If you haven't listened to their latest record, "New Wave," I strongly encourage you to do so. A lot of people think they've sold out with the album, but quite frankly, it's my favorite record they've done, and one of my top 5 from 2007.

After their set, I caught some Family Force 5, then some Angels and Airwaves because Tom Delonge is in that band. They're not that good, but Tom Delonge is important, so I watched a few songs. Then it was Pierce The Veil time. Check these guys out if you haven't already. Really, really good post-hardcore (whatever that is, I'm pretty sure they belong to that genre) and the nicest guys. If nothing else, you ladies will probably think Vic is totally HAWT. The way I see it, whatever it takes to get people into good music. July 1 was Paramore's first day on the tour, and definitely drew the biggest crowd of the day. Hope and I tried to find a spot in the pit, but it was so full of psycho hose beasts, that we basically said "forget it" and took off.

Say Anything was the last act of the day I considered to be a must-see. That distinction was definitely deserved. They were terrific, but I expected that. Thiessen sang vocals ob "Belt" like he told me earlier he would be doing. It was quite the sight, that lanky mass of legs and arms throwing himself into every line: "What say you?!" *wild gesturing* "And all your friends!" I think you get the picture.

Gym Class Heroes played the last set of the day, so I watched. Thank goodness I did, or else I would have missed the mayhem. A non-fan called Travis McCoy an "ignorant n*****." Travis demanded the kid be brought up on stage. As the guy was being lifted over the barricade, McCoy bent down and hit the kid over the head with microphone breaking the casing. My photographer friend Todd was shooting the set and stooped down to pick it up. You can see the evidence at the following link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toddowyoung/2631082189/

All in all, it was a successful day. I saw 18 out of the 21 bands I wanted to. I got a Broadway Calls CD for 5 bucks. Hope and I rewarded ourselves with some Fazoli's and a dip in her uncle's pool. What a day. Warped tour was definitely better the second time around. If things go my way, I'll be going again August 2 with my friends Heather and Rachel.

Speaking of Heather, I went to her graduation party in my native Alton. I took away some good times. My girlfriend took away a kitten. Strays are prevalent in the town, and one followed us on a walk to Heather's grandparents' house. Hope scooped it up with a look that basically said, "Mine." Walter now lives at her house, a happy, healthy kitty.

I just got back from my annual trip to Kansas City. I saw three baseball games, Royals vs. Mariners. It was awesome seeing Ichiro up close, but most of you reading probably won't appreciate that so much. Regardless, the trip went well. The downside about these things is I always come into contact with people that make me ashamed to be from Missouri. Oh well. Thanks for reading.

Christopher Michael Tucker



For all of you looking for something a little more mellow, download Jason from the Exotic Aquatic's solo record. So good, so young. He's offering this thing for free, so what do you have to lose?

http://www. mediafire. com/?db0bymx0cvy