The Boxes Mommy and Daddy Paid in full by The Met Cafe... Amy (or Heather), a scary little person dressed as a gargoyle, and Heather (or Amy) Deluxe accommodations courtesy of Cousin Sue In this photo, Kate says she's as happy as a pig in shit (as are a lot of the guys [and women too, if that survey in Maxim was on the up and up] currently ogling this photo) Want to know more? Check out Splendid's review of The Boxes' self-titled EP or visit WeAretheBoxes.com.

July 10th -- Boston, MA: The Middle East w/ The Gossip and The Don't Tells
It's the ungodly hour of 10:15 a.m. and we're just about to embark on our first of five shows with The Sissy Bars (oops, I mean The Don't Tells -- they had a last minute name change, but I'll let them tell you the story) and already the shit has hit the fan. Some asshole broke into our van last night (welcome to Brooklyn) by drilling a hole into our lock. Lucky for us, we weren't loaded up yet and we find that if we're comfortable driving around in mad ghetto style we can rig it up so that it still locks. However, the slimeballs took whatever they could get, which in this case happened to be four brand new Honeywell fans. Motherfuckers, those were for our hair! Even though we were so psyched to have total Charlie's Angels-style blowin' in the breeze stage hair, we quickly get over it and head off to Boston.

It's a lovely day, and we're psyched to get out of town and play. I have set up the two-discman DJ station in shotgun so the tunes are pumpin' and we have a total hottie from Spain named Pau driving us. All systems are go, all moods are good, but traffic is heavy and we're feeling a little peckish so we hit the next Mickey D's and grab some grub.

Fast-forward one hour: I thought I saw Amy eating cheese. Damn her! After a very melodramatic pit-stop at The Rusty Scupper, we're back out on our way.

When we finally get to Boston, we meet up with The Don't Tells, then thank God we have some time before we play to get over the initial shock of Casey McBride's ridiculously small Levi's. Really, we're from New York, we've seen it all, but you have to believe me when I say tiny, tiny, pants. Tiny.

The shows are all great, The Middle East is sold out, with a really happy, supportive crowd. By the time The Gossip goes on the room is practically exploding with joy. We end the night dancing our asses off with raucous Bostonians to their kick-ass show. We love you, Beth.

July 11th -- New York City: Tribeca Rock Club w/ The Don't Tells and Mommy and Daddy
After waking up at the buttcrack of dawn (some of The Boxes are quite annoyingly early risers), we drive back home to NY for tonight's show. We are in our apartments for about two seconds before we have to head out to sound check, which of course we are late for because someone in our band has decided to have sex with her boyfriend. I can't say who, but I can tell you that we've all taken The Slut Test on The Spark.com and that a certain bass-playing twin named Heather is 70 percent slut.

Anyway, we get to the club -- which, by the way, is freakin' weird and is so deep in Tribeca that it's more like Siberia, really. Already I'm wondering how anyone I know will make it down here, as New Yorkers, for all their savvy, really hate to leave their neighborhoods. It's looking bleak -- okay, desolate, actually -- but as Mommy and Daddy take the stage, our peeps start rolling in.

Mommy and Daddy's set rules, and just in case you don't know this already, it always does. By the time we go on, tons of our friends have shown up, and we tear through one of our best shows ever. For all of its weirdness The Tribeca Rock Club has a really good soundman and a bartender named Norma who makes a very stiff drink in exchange for merch for her granddaughter. All is good -- that is, until load-out, when each band gets paid 20 bucks. What? Our friends paid a lot of money to come see this show, and this is the thanks we get? So, collective group decision: we will never play The Tribeca Rock Club again (16 Warren ST. between Church and Broadway) and neither should you.

July 12th -- Providence, RI: The Met Cafe
We're so excited to play Rhode Island, as it's where I'm originally from and I haven't been home for a while. This is going to be a great night! Should be mobbed with long lost friends and family, I mean, I'm famous here, right? Awesome. My Dad, Step Mom and lil' sis Leah show up mad early so we all head out for dinner together. The show is going to be much later than we thought, so we do a super long sound check for the 'rents, then take a stroll around lovely, scenic Providence. Much to our surprise, it's a big night in the world's smallest city. Tonight is Waterfire night. For those of you -- okay, all of you -- who don't know, Waterfire is this weird RI tradition where they light bonfires on the river and people gather around to stare at fire and meditate to ambient music. We meet up with my childhood best friends Becky (who's mad pregnant, yo') and Tracey (who's mad stoned) and commence the mockery of Waterfire...except that about ten minutes in we all start to get really relaxed and realize we can't stop staring at the fire -- we're horrified that this hippie shit is working on us. We quickly skedaddle over to where there looks like there's some action.

Frighteningly, it's a large crowd gathered around some very small humans dressed as gargoyles. If you pay the gargoyles 50 cents they will gladly molest you with their creepy hands and take a photo with you. Becky, Tracey and I cannot stop making fun of them, wondering who in their right mind would let these freaks touch them... Pan right: Heather and Amy sandwiching the creep for a photo op. We gotta get out of here. Rhode Island is weird, dude.

So we head back to club, figuring the masses would have arrived by now. Nope. Just my brother and his girlfriend, Joy. Oh yeah, and my former bandmate Craig and two of his friends. Then, shortly before we go on, my drunken Aunts Susan, Mary and Kathleen, and three of my cousins. I think this rounds the headcount out to 10. But with The Don't Tells, I believe we have an audience of 14. Great.

We play the show, which is almost impossible because we can't stop laughing. My Aunts have brought with them a shockingly realistic penis shaped rock and won't stop waving it around. Aunt Susan is watching through a monocular (she actually thought she'd need it to see through the crowd) and Aunt Kath is screaming and whistling as though she's at an AC/DC concert. It can't get any lower than this.

But it does. We thought getting paid $20 was bad, but tonight we are paid with beer and water. (Note to Met Cafe: we like Vodka, but thanks for trying)

At least merch sales were high -- nothing like selling a bunch of panties to your drunken relatives, who will wake up and wonder where on earth these came from. Jeesh.

We do, however, end our night in style at cousin Sue's magnificent fifties Newport estate, complete with giant loft, macked out trailer and an outdoor tiki bar. The beds are some of the comfiest we've ever slept in. Thanks Sue.

July 13th -- New Jersey: Maxwell's w/ Mommy and Daddy and The Don't Tells
It is, once again, the buttcrack of dawn, and apparently time to wake up and get back on the road. We leave the Ocean State and head off to the Garden State for tonight's show.

It's a lovely day in Hoboken, NJ and Maxwell's is a really great club. We no longer have any expectations of any people showing up, so we enjoy a nice dinner with Mommy and Daddy followed by a most leisurely sound check, with a (gasp) friendly soundman named Kenny.

Everyone's show was great tonight. People actually did show up, including Vivien's (Mommy) Dad who drove all the way from Virginia just to support. He said we were "really neat", which is just about the cutest thing I've ever heard. Thanks, Mommy's Daddy.

It was a fun night. By now we all know all the lyrics to each other's songs, so there was a lot of dancing and singing along happening. The Don't Tells will do that to a girl. The show ended with Mommy and Daddy on stage busting some serious dance moves to The Don't Tells' big final number. It was a great show. Too bad you missed it.

Lucky for us, tonight we get to sleep at the twins' parents' house in NJ. Comfy cozy. We wake up super early so Pau (our hot Spanish driver) and Amy can go surfing. I kind of want to sleep in, for once, but don't want to miss the opportunity of seeing Pau wet and half naked, so off we go. Julie and I sit on the beach reading excerpts from a book we found in Heather's room called Cheerleading -- which, incidentally, is exceptional -- while Amy pretends to surf and Pau actually does. After a few nice runs, we head back to the Sperbers' and chill by their pool with The Don't Tells for the rest of the afternoon. We're all feeling really lucky that even though no one comes to our shows, we're living like rock stars (this week, anyway). Nothing like a diving board and a giant floatation device complete with cup holders to make you feel like Nikki Sixx. We collectively wish we could stay here forever, but the show must go on, so we head off to Philly.

July 14th -- Philadelphia: North Star Bar w/ The Collapse and The Don't Tells
Tonight's audience consisted of Pau, The Don't Tells, and three Philly locals named Veronica, Trish and Amanda. What can I say... we played, yes, but it's kind of like that "if a tree falls in the woods..." thing. It's kind of hard to care at this point, but we muster the strength for the three strangers in the audience. Oh wait... suddenly it's just two. I guess Veronica wasn't too into it. But Trish and Amanda, they're diehards, they're stickin' it out. To reward them I invite them on stage for a rousing rendition of "T'N'T". Trish and Amanda are not shy, and they know all the words. Trish and Amanda made our night, and they claim we made theirs, so at the end of the day, we're happy. If you must have the excruciatingly humiliating experience of playing for only two people, you better fucking hope those two people are as cool as Trish and Amanda. We love them and we love The North Star Bar, even if its stage is dumb high off the ground and sort of makes you feel like you're in a Black Crowes video. It's nonetheless a fab place to play, complete with delicious hot wings and a Micro-Touch music trivia game, which under normal circumstances I would have excelled at, but I just could not beat that damn Ultimate Fakebook's high score, so "KateBox" is stuck on the board at number two. A bitter pill to swallow, yes, but it really just capped off the tour perfectly. Even though this week may not have been the highlight of our musical career, the beds sure were comfy and we made some great friends. More importantly, it reiterated a very valuable lesson: That you're gonna stick a hell of a lot of dollars into that damn machine before you get to be number one.