Me and Nick Wildcard Harley left Bloomington on July 10 so had a bit of time to hang out in Montana before our first show in Spokane Washington July 14. i love Montana! too bad it's so fucking cold in winter... we got to swim and camp right on the Yellowstone River, just outside of Yellowstone National Park and a short drive from Livingston. Nick had spent a bunch of summers in Livingston as a kid where his dad guided fly fishing tours.
We also got to spend some time in Missoula, one of my favorite towns and home to Greg Boyd’s awesome House of Stringed Instruments and the University of Montana, among other things. Like Bloomington, Missoula is a drinking town. The bars all seemed to have been built in the 1880’s and you totally can imagine them being hotbeds of IWW wobbly agitation when Montana was the center of labor struggles in the west.
We went on a bender in Missoula- hit the Missoula Club, Silver Dollar Bar, and then busked outside the Rhnioceros aka Rhino’s. We made $30 in like 20 minutes, with which we immediately went inside and invested in more beers and tequila shots. Rhino's bar counter had a panel that was refrigerated to keep your beer cold- now that's a drinking town.
We met lots of interesting characters, like the guy at the Missoula Club who struck up a slurred conversation with us before the small bodied female bartender came out from behind the bar and threw his ass out after he ignored her repeated demands to leave. And then there were the two dudes at Rhino’s, who bought us shots and who were excitedly revising their travel plans to follow us around on tour. We never saw them again…
My intention to post pics of our adventures met a snag when i dropped my smartphone in the toilet the day before we left. Shit...