Back to the west coast, back to LA, back to HQ. What an amazing adventure.
I already miss the lifestyle. I'll even miss tearing down after shows.

I'll probably post a few journals reflecting on the tour... let's start with...

It had its ups and downs. Moments of pure exhaustion followed by moments of absolute hyperactivity. It took a lot of Starbuck's Double Shots to keep afloat some days and on others, adrenaline and excitement alone were enough to keep charging.

Can I be anymore generic? Let's get specific.

One night a group of us decided to go into a and throw down a few g's doing , sipping and getting . Later we got pulled over when BT stuck his out the window and yelled “” at the passing cops. Thomas came along and bailed us out claiming that we were actually on and were in fact “somewhat” harmless.
Meanwhile, back on the bus, released a box of live to liven things up. We returned to see streaking down the street with close behind. The back part of the bus was on fire next to a crushed Maserati, and seemed to have been thrown everywhere...



Haha – its like mad libs....and entirely fictional. Almost.

In all seriousness... it was relatively low key. Exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time.

I'll have to be brief because I could write for days about everything that I experienced.
We woke up in a new city every day, ready to face a new audience and put on an even better show than the night before. Everyone managed to stay in a positive mindset for the majority of the tour. It was incredible.

I guess we did our fair share of partying...
I met a few deviants out there that know how throw down, not to mention the bus parties.

Thomas, Ben and I were particularly fond of fine wine, had one or two encounters with Jagermeister, has quite a penchant for good scotch , our sound guy Goodie, who's used to touring with bands like Hatebreed and Shadows Fall, can drink anyone under the table . Good times, good times.

We actually spent most evenings watching season after season of South Park and Little Britain, occaisionally throwing in the yule log DVD or Donnie Darko until 6am. Sleep? Who needs sleep? It's all about “livin' the dream!”

On nights off, we'd wander through strange towns.
Austin – we found the bar with Atari. Pong chaos ensued.
Ft. Lauderdale – blues bar. BT, Thomas, Trifon and I threatened to take the stage and do a jam but ultimately chickened out.

The road brings out the best, and sometimes the worst in everyone...but I think we had a solid enough crew that we were able to avoid most of the drama. That and it was hardly a Guns and Roses tour ....

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but most of our “aftershow” fun involved a round of 's, 6-8 Powerbooks, wi-fi and iChat. WooooOOOO nerd bus!

And we were all pretty much content with that.

I found, and I think most would agree, that it was very awesome to get off of a computer screen and into a live realm.
I was able to meet so many people that contribute to this community and understand who they are, why they've made dA their home, and what they think of the service we're providing. All of this is priceless information that I will be taking into every meeting, every project and every conversation I have back at HQ.
I now know, personally, a good little chunk of our constituency. How cool is THAT?
And that was probably the most important thing I was able to take from the tour.

Overall, we found that the tour was very successful. We were able to bring a lot of exposure to some very talented artists across the United States. And we were able to introduce deviantART to a lot of people that may not have otherwise found our artistic haven. Let's hope we get to do it again soon.

I'd like to do a featured chat at some point, so stay tuned. I would love to see some people that I met around the country stop by and say hi, ask me questions about the tour, tell me what you liked, tell me what you hated, ask me what its like living with 11 other people on a tourbus for a month.
Try to get some dirty secrets out of me, I dare ya



Thanks to my awesome bus mates...
BT, who made it his mission to pick on me relentlessly like a little sister. This of course led to incessant bickering. Nothin' but love for ya bro. my 's.


Carly, who did a wicked job with merch and Thomas Dolby forum mastery. This year is going to be awesome for you I'll try to keep up with your blog and drop you a line every now and then.


Justin, aka Icarus Jones– My best buddy from the tour. As much as I hate to link to myspace from dA, please do yourself a favor and go check out his music [link]
Thanks for letting me keep the .


Scott Pagano, [link] Thanks for the helping me get the art up on the screen every night. An insanely talented artist. Go check out his dA page and his website, http://www.neither-field.com!

Trifon – I'm very impressed with your intense musicianship...and thanks for the continuous Borat impressions. Between BT and Trifon, I think I heard every one of my favorite bands trashed. But no where does it say that a bus full of people have to like the same kind of music in order to get shit done.


Ben Grossman- I feel fortunate to have met such an amazing musician that is so passionate about his craft. You are a true inspiration and I hope to cross paths with you again someday. Thanks for your friendship.


Ben Marts – Our faithful tour manager. I'm jealous of your tenacity and your amazing ability to stay calm when tracking FedEx packages (i think my hearing is damaged). In all seriousness, you tour manage like a banshee. Thank you for being so helpful to a tour newbie.


Darin- Good to get to know you a little bit. I'm hoping to get up to Nor-Cal and check out the studio you have going up there. Congrats on the bebe.


Craig/Johnny, who shared the job of doing Thomas's visuals night after night. I apologize for knocking around in my bunk all the time...its such a small space, I was hittin' my head constantly. Too much stuff in my bunk. Sorry if I ever woke you up.


Goodie – Hopefully I'll get to see ya when Shadows Fall comes through town. I had a great time trying to keep up with ya night after night. I'll miss hearing “yeaaaaaaaaaaaah ya f*#kers!!!!”

And of course, Thomas Dolby [link]
I heard “She Blinded Me with Science” at Trader Joe's the other night and it made me miss the crew. You definitely rock, and this is coming whole-heartedly from someone that was born in the year that “Science” was released. I'll miss getting down to Hot Sauce. Thanks for everything.

Thanks to my fellow staff back at HQ...

Johan, for compiling every single piece of art for every single show. For being in contact with all of the artists to make sure they had tickets and all of their questions answered. Thank you.

Jason, for making sure I got everything that I needed out on the road....give or a take a few things. And for being a soundboard for my many rants and raves throughout the trip.

Robert for the moral support and helping with canvas emergencies.

Heidi for covering deviantWEAR while I was away.

Jeanne for missing me

and of course...

Angelo, for sending me out on the project of a lifetime. I'm so glad that you got to join us for a few days of "life on the road". I hope you were able to see a glimpse of the amazing adventure that I was able to partake in. Thanks for everything.


A quick shout out again to for taking some of my favorite pictures from the tour.

I mean, how frickin' cute is this????



Check out all of these shots here [link] and here: =crystada







And one final THANK YOU to everyone that I met, chatted with and shared laughs with over the last month. I had the time of my life.



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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!