"You ready to get FUCKIN' NUTS"?!
Kinda? Then slip into your Canadian Tuxedo and lets get into it. The Intelligence this episode is your captain/singer Lars "Room Service" Finberg, bass keyboardist Susanna "Voice of Reason" Welbourne, guitarist Dave "Technical Mexican" Hernandez, and drummer Pete "Totes Puss" Capponi.

• Marianne Spellman / backbeatseattle.com.
• "Which one's the snare?"

SEATTLE
We have been invited to play the Sled Island festival in Calgary and, after accepting, a few months later I ask our new (AMAZING, see the ending of our last journal) booking agent "Hey, when does our flight leave?" and the response is "What flight?" Oops, I've made and ass out of you and me. "Uh oh, can you book us some shows to get us out there?!" I've been working in L.A. so I fly into Seattle and we practice that afternoon. It's [drummer] Pete's first time ever playing the songs, "Don't worry, I practice on the steering wheel cruising around" he says, and I take his advice.

We head to the Crocodile to play with Tacocat and our buddies Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds. I walk into the club with our giant tupperware container of merch and Kid jokes "Oh you brought me a cake," and I say "Well, it's your birthday isn't it!?" and Susanna, who doesn't get we're joking, hugs him and says "Happy birthday!" and everyone starts wishing him a happy birthday. Some weird creepy super-fan lurking around looks visibly annoyed and eventually moans, "His birthday is in March! I don't know what's with all this happy birthday stuff?!!" Then he stuffs his hands deep in his pockets and kicks a tin can. I asked Tacocat to play this show and only see the last couple songs cause I was piggin' out on pizza next door and didn't realize they'd play at 6:30 pm. FAIL. Kid Congo is fantastic as usual and blows the room's socks off when they play "Sex Beat" by the Gun Club. The sound guy is a little rough to deal with, and when we use our own microphones (so we don't get sick on tour or have to smell 10 years of liquified Dorito/beer/coke nose drips on some groady mic) he almost has a panic attack. When I ask for some reverb on the vocals he takes off and jumps down an open manhole in the street and I never see him again.

• Lars Finberg
• "No bathroom breaks! Go in your pants WIMP"

VANCOUVER
After planning to leave at noon we hit the road at 4:00 pm just to make sure the 3 1/2 hour drive will take 6. We've been talking about covering the Personal and the Pizza's song "Brass Knuckles" (a band whose speech mannerisms we are obsessed with imitating), which fits perfectly with this amazing Paul Stanley stage banter 7" that we listen to repeatedly. We figure the three chords of "Brass Knuckles" are too hard to figure out but we can cover Stanley's banter no problem. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with these gents if you want a look inside the universal lowbrow/genuius(?) humor we've decided to embrace on this tour...

After covering the Pizzas, we figure we can only be follow up with "Wooly Bully" (Pete's theme song), and I figure if we've gone that far we might as well play "Grease Lighting" next. On the road we laugh at a dorky rear license plate that says "PENGWEN" on it and have to pass the car to see what they look like. It actually looks like a female version of the Penguin from the Batman TV show, and Pete imagines her looking over and taking a huge bite out of a live flapping salmon. We spend an eternity at the border as usual and I remember how I've always figured I'd make a good border guard, as my thumb fits perfectly up my butt. Driving into downtown Vancouver, we entertain ourselves with the old game of "Which Weirdo to Look At?" It's a sea of creepy crawly crusty crumb bums itchin' and scratchin' their way toward the next itchy and scratchy thing (drugs). In front of the club I tell Susanna "Hey look at him!" trying to point out a guy at a bus stop wearing a full white sparkling Elvis outfit and smoking two cigarettes at once, and she looks in the wrong direction and I fuss at her until she says "Yeah but look at that one!" and it's a guy in teeny shorts with baby arms shadowboxing with a lamp post.

Tonight we are playing at the Waldorf Hotel, and I expect our standard Vancouver dump where the street urchins start ripping off our gear before we unclick our seat belts, but the venue is a really nice multi-level Tiki bar with a hotel and great Lebanese restaurant attached. While eating dinner there I am choking my food down fast so I don't have a repeat of last night, as our friends Manic Attracts are playing. ("Hey man, how was our set"? "DELICIOUS!!!." Sex Church is next and are great but I'm wondering why the crowd is smaller than usual, and when I ask, the sound guy tells me "Oh, there are 100 bands playing for free outside all day three blocks away." Derp. Our set is fun and the staff is great and don't mind when I accidentally tear down a rack of lights thrashing off stage with my walker (keyboard stand) over my head. We spring for a room upstairs, and after asking the cool clerk where a bar is we try to get in a nightcap but it's almost 1:00 and we fail. Walking back to the hotel, we see the clerk walking toward us, and he gives pete a huge jazz cigarette and says "I knew you wouldn't make it in time, but I figure it's your birthday (it is at midnight) so you should have SOMETHING." Now, it turns out that all of us HATE jazz clover, but Pete goes ahead because he doesn't want to be RUDE. Unfortunately it's laced with PCP and he spirals in to a wormhole panic attack. We pop the $26 dollar bottle of wine (ah, we'll just refill it with BLOOD) and talk about more songs to add to our ironic covers set, and land on "Wrap it up" by the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the score (NOT the theme) to Ghostbusters. Then we listen to "Uptown" by Little Eva until Pete's fragile eggshell mind is blown to sleep and then geek out on "San Tropez" by Pink Floyd on repeat. Seriously, check these masterpieces out.

REVELSTOKED
Today is Pete's birthday and a day off, so we look at the map trying to decide where to spend the night. After passing on Punkydoodles Corners, Old Woman Bay, Funnybone Lake, and Moose Kunckle Falls (only ONE of these is a made up name!) we settle on Revelstoked. We stop for a snack in the middle of nowhere and Pete treats himself to some birthday Poutine at a gas station restaurant that simply the sight of give me dissentary. We roll into town looking for a hotel and find a bar called The Village Idiot, a ski-themed bar made out of old Rossignol skis. They are very nice to us, and after finding out we are a band from Seattle, switch the Pandora radio station to Grunge. We take Pete out for beers and after ordering three the bartender asks if we just want a "jug." We are confused so, he holds up an empty pitcher and says "A JUG—YOU LIKE BIG JUGS DON'TCHA?!" Mmmmm, depends? Is she Canadian? ZING! We are at the fancy world-famous Revelstoked Inn, so I am surprised to see giant orange barf sprayed all over the urinal.

• Lars Finberg
• I hate the Pogues.

At breakfast the next day Dave, regales us a tale of seeing short guy backstage at a concert who looked just like Lenny Kravitz, so they'd dubbed him Mini Kravitz until they eventually found it it was the real full-size Kravitz himself. This somehow goes into a story of how Susanna is friends with Counting Crow's Adam Duritz's hairdresser (spoiler alert!) who is paid to glue his fake dreadlocks onto his head. We walk out to the van and stare at the huge green mountain range with fog and all I can say is Misty Mountain Hop! Since we were bagging on the music at breakfast (this horrible Train song that says "Hey soul sister ain't that mister mister on the radio"), we invent a new band called Mister Mountain Hop and later when people ask what we sound like, I say "Oh, we cover Led Zeppelin (then I slide my sunglasses down my nose to make eye contact with a dramatic pause) BUT 80'S."

• Lars Finberg
• Susanna's English Literature degree comes in handy when checking the improper possessive apostrophes on laminated breakfast menus.

ALBERTA, NIGHT ONE
We roll into town around 5 pm and head to a hotel I am assuming will be a Motel 5 but turns out to be the fucking Farimont Hotel. We get in the check-in line behind the Buzzcocks. We head to the venue, and on the way a super wasted chick asks if we like wine. I optimistically figure she is coming from a work party and stole a nice bottle of Peanut Noir. Nope, she offers the dregs of a giant reaking bottle. Susanna chugs the whole thing and gets a throat infection. (Just kidding.) At the club we dig the sounds of Moon Duo (dude from Wooden Shjips with a cool deep Suicide keys-with-psychedelic-guitar vibe) and the room is packed. In the festival guide there is a flattering write-up on us that ends saying the author has a serious man crush on me and is going to stalk me. While clearing a table for merch, a super creepy fucker with no chin is hazily booze-glaring at us. Pete clears some empty glasses, and it turns out he owned one of them with a half sip of melted ice inside and gets upset. I hope to god this isn't the stalker.

Quoting Paul Stanley to start the set, I jokingly scream "YA'LL READY TO GET FUCKIN' NUTS?!" and instead of pelteding us with beer cans the room goes apeshit and we grill their heads and have a blast. We go to some weird basement after-party that smells like little kids' feet (or the Kirkland Olive Gardent) and a DJ in a headband who looks like he ate Dee Snider plays "Woolly Bully" for Pete. Goodnight.

NIGHT TWO
The hotel is so nice we want to take advantage of everything we can but are confused as to how to get new clean sheets multiple times a day since the hotel is pushing being "Green." Wadding the sheets up in the shower curtain and tossing them on the front desk seems to do the trick. We meet Dave and Pete downstairs where they are having bloody marys they don't realize cost $16 apiece.

• Lars Finberg
• A couple of frugalista's starting the day with a bowl of complimentary nuts.

The festival has given us food vouchers for a bar/venue called Broken City so we eat every meal there (the food is good). While eating Pete cracks me up when I find out his first band was called The Libido Project. Feeling fit after our breakfast nachos, we watch Times New Viking rip and then Hunx and His Punx. They have some of the best stage banter: "This next one's for all the sexy boys. And girls. But if you're a boy don't hit on girls cause that's just GROSS." Somebody yells "What about cute dogs?' and Hunx says "Oh yeah, this ones for all the sexy dogs we wanna fuck after the show. Ew, just kidding I don't even really have a dick, it's just for pretend-sies." We meet Jon from Telephone Explosion records who put out our Puberty 7-inch, and he tells us a hilarious story about getting the worst birthday 'singing' telegram for his girlfriend who showed up high out of his mind and had no clue what to do, it did not occur to him to sing "Happy Birthday" and just creepily grinds on the girl with a chicken suit on.

We go out to walk the streets and head to the Artist Lounge where there is reportedly free cocktails and Schwag bags. It's inside a giant fancy clothing store with a DJ BLASTING happy house music. I see my dapper buddy Ian Sevonious and make fun of James Blake (who I actually kinda like) with Kurt Vile. He has a particularly overwrought vocal passage going 'ba, ba, ba, ba, BA, BAH, BAHH" that we are disappointed doesn't climax with a giant chicken 'BA-GHOCK"!

• Susanna Welbourne
• Me exerting all of my mental strength to not turn and kiss him.

Tonight we play this awesome gay/drag bar with Wild Flag. The owner/awesome drag queen takes to me and gives me her card and tells me to stop by to relax anytime during the festival. Nice! After our set she says 'You're music was actually GOOD! Ick, not like those screechin' dykes before you." Ouch! Then she goes through a medley of Barbara Streisand/Cher/Liza Minelli impressions. Sound guy is kinda a tool at first, yelling at us to hurry and set up "Cause we're and hour behind and can only play for ten minutes," and is freakin' me out, so I'm yelling on the mic for Susanna, who is missing. I set up her stuff and get all pissy when she shows up, and she points out that we have 20 minutes until we are even supposed to start according to the schedule. I point this out to the sound guy who apologizes and says it's his first time doing sound for a band. Ohhh. COOOL. We play and it's fun. After the show all these big bouncers are massaging Pete's buns and huge guy asks him "Are you sure you're not just a lil' gay, cause don't worry I'm bottom and gentle." Dave is bummed no one's hitting on him. So I start. Wild Flag is good and Janet Weise is such a good drummer we take pictures of me sitting on the stage and pouting next to her. We head to another club to watch Sonny and the Sunsets who totally kill especially with Kelly Stoltz playing drums. We head back to the room to order room service Tombstone pizza and listen to the Paul Stanley stage banter while I flip on the bed.

NIGHT THREE
Tonight we play at Broken City with Thee Oh Sees, whom I've just joined as second drummer, and it's my first show with them. When I was telling a friend of mine or first show was in Calgary he said "Oh cool, that's good you get to have a practice show in front of a bunch of clueless rubes who probably like ANYTHING." Ouch! (Though maybe this explains why Man Man playing). Some bands open, we kill, and after practicing all last night I do a flip over the keyboard stand. Thee Oh sees have to set up immediately afterwards, and it's so packed I don't even get to go outside or get water before we start. But it's fun and singer/guitarist John Dwyer blows an amp two songs in and I am a little nervous about the thick giant throng of people cresting over the drum kits. While tuning a guitar for the last song—about three strings in—Dwyer yells "You are FUCKING KILLING ME RIGHT NOW," and I die laughing and tell him I'm ready (fuck it, I will only play on the three tuned strings). They have an after party for the bands with a great DJ and we're hanging with Shannon and the Clams and lots of band friends, and while dancing on a table Dave tries to swing from the hanging lamp fixture, ripping it off the ceiling when the DJ plays "Wooly Bully" for Pete and everyone passes the thing around and I realize we're literally dancing with lampshades on our heads and it's time to turn in. The next morning we meet for a schvitz and a swim in the indoor pool with giant pillars in the water. Pete tells me he got home late and when he came in Dave was hunched over a fancy room service cart with a pizza saying "Look what I made for you!" I'm also informed when they apologized to the bar manager about the lamp he just said 'I don't care, do whatever you want, I LOVE the Intelligence!" Pretty cool, huh mom!?

• Lars Finberg
• "Hernandez cooks"

NIGHT FOUR
The Intelligence doesn't have a show tonight, so the festival is only paying for one room since I'm playing in Thee Oh Sees tonight, so we are all going to move into one room. I have to soundcheck, so I ask Susanna to handle it, but downstairs I realize I have some time, and when I ask the desk clerk what room to switch to, he says "Oh no, you don't have to move anyone, both rooms have already been paid for by the festival tonight." "Are you sure? They said they would only pay for one," I ask. "Yes, the information in the computer is that both rooms have already been paid for by the festival." Wow cool! I call Susanna, and she says she was was told the same thing by a different clerk. Something goes our way FOR ONCE. (This is boring but will come into play later.)

• Lars Finberg
• The lovely Brigid at the lovely Fairmont.

After soundcheck, Brigid from Oh Sees and I take a shvitz and a swim. Later Dave will mishear Pete and say "Did he really just ask if you guys took your shits yet'? "Yeah he asks that every morning and won't let anyone have breakfast until he sees it—it's humiliating." We head over to the club, just missing the free BBQ by five minutes. THAT'S MY LIFE. Bare Wires are really good and the Bell Rays sound like if a Guitar Center were a band. Our set is good and sounds better than last night borrowed Reece's Pieces gear. After we play, Dwyer is dying of thirst and tells the bartender "Excuse me we just played [this sold out room] but I don't have any money and the promoter hasn't given me my drink tickets yet. Can I please get a drink for free?" "Yes," he says. "IF IT'S WATER."

• Lars Finberg
• "On the Streets: Our plan B if this music thing don't pan out..."

• Lars Finberg
• "On the Streets: Pete wanted the 'Vanilla Ice' (lines shaved into the sides)."

The Intelligence gang tells me I missed some quality freak watching today. They heard a rustling in the bushes followed by a "WHAAAA-BOOGADA-BOOGADA-BOOGADA," and some guy comes creepin out of the bushes with a toilet seat around his neck that has 'NO ROOLZ' written on it. Another sight is bum asking them for $7. $7! I know Calgary is expensive but jeeze!' Susanna says. "Hey, if the guy wants one beer he needs $7.00!" (True).

Susanna and I turn in early as we gotta get up at 6 am to start driving straight back to Seattle. We plan to meet Dave and Pete for a final schvitz, and when I wake up I see a note stuffed under the door: "DID YOU TAKE YOUR SHITS YET!!!!????" After the schvitz, in the hot tub, a guy is telling us how he told himself all the day before he wasn't going to stay out late and party because he had to get up so early, but that later at a bar someone had a big bag of booger sugar and says first thought was (in a low demonic voice) "I SHOULD DO SOOOOOOOME."

As we are checking out and returning the room keys, the desk clerk informs us that we owe $365. Excuse me? 'Yes that is $350 for the room and $15 for a telephone call. Now the hotel says the festival did not offer to pay for the extra room and they are now going to rake us over the coals. We explain repeatedly that we were trying to move into one room and two different clerks told us it was paid for. The clerk won't budge but WE WON'T BUDGE EVEN MORE and after an hour of haggling we finally describe one of the previous days clerk's DNA strands well enough that he can decipher who it was and finds a note in the computer that I spoke with him and comps the fucking room. As we are leaving, Dave says he's impressed with our arguing stamina and I explain it helps that even if I could afford the room, the bank has shut off both my debit and credit cards since they think these Canadian charges for gas and Pringles are fraudulent.

The drive home is pretty uneventful except for a pig-faced border guard who looks like one of those warthogs who guard Jabba the Hut's palace (we suspect the real guard is bound and gagged in a shed since the officer waves (and winks) us through in seconds. While urinating in a gas station/A&W near the Canadian/Montana border the man at the urinal next to me looks over directly into where my eyes would be if I hadn't trained myself to look straight ahead while using a urinal like a normal human being and says, "They sure have suped it up in here, eh?"

"I've never been here before."

"Oh well, it used to be kinda dumpy, eh?"

"Cool, then I will only have good memories."

He laughs and the exchange is somehow not weird but charming, I shake his penis goodbye and split.

Back in Seattle exchanging the money the bank they tell me they don't exchange coins as they are too heavy to ship. (In a Jersey Paul Stanley voice) "Hey-Yo Caaaaanadaaaaaa! Guess who already gots four LOONIES saved up for next time?!"

(All joking aside The Intelligence cannot endorse the Sled Island Festival enough, we were treated like Kings and Queens, FOR ONCE. Thank you.)