We kicked off our summer tour in New York City at The Continental Club.  We were warned this would be a "dive" but it actually turned out to be okay.  We played first in a bill of about 6 bands.  There were about half a dozen people in the place when we went on and, surprisingly, they all stayed until the end of our set.  The entire audience (almost) is pictured below with us in a shot taken after our set.  Dan Mapp (former Dead Milkmen tour manager, pictured at bottom right) was there too!  He was in the big apple working another gig.

The next day we played in Springfield, Mass. at Eli's house with Atom and his Package.  When we arrived Eli, a teenager still in high school, was mowing the lawn.  "My mom won't

let me have a show unless I finish mowing the lawn," he explained.  So we went to a nearby Friendly's and had lunch, and then went to a mall to play video games. When we got back Atom was there with his package (that's Atom, upper left wearing the cap, and his package -- his sequencer backup-band, is pictured above; I've forgotten the name of his package's operator) and some other bands were setting up in the garage.

A good many kids showed up.  Atom performed well, very charismatic.  His package perfomed flawlessly. (He didn't do his cover of "Nutrition" though.)  We sucked and drove half

the audience away and even got the police called!  Eli's dad came out and closed the garage door in the middle of our set (I suppose we were kinda loud) turning the garage into a big sweaty sauna.
  Eli had promised us  place to stay after the show but his mom said she didn't want any "beer drinking pot-smoking punk rockers" staying in her house, so we stayed in the garage... until the mosquitos started to bite at which point Frick, Rick and Vern retreated to the van in the driveway.  I stuck it out in the garage and woke up completely red.  Eli was very nice to us in the morning, though. He gave Rick a poster of the Pixies. And his dad gave us a map of New England, showed us a short-cut to New London, CT and gave us a case of really bad tasting warm soda.