2006 Year in Review.

2006 ALLEN FAMILY CHRISTMAS CARD
By Jeff and Alison Allen, St. Paul Minnesota

2006. Wow. Holy shit. What a year.

The above map was made by Alison. It charts all our movements in 2006 and, as you can see, it was the year we brought the Allen party nationwide. Special shoutouts go to our recently-engaged friends from Chicago, Bob and Urs, who had the map idea first. We shamelessly copied it (and maybe improved it? Oh snap!) cause we thought it was such a great idea.

With so many media sources giving you their lame "Year in Review" of the "important" events of the year, we thought we'd throw our hat in the ring and give you a rundown of the best stuff that happened to drunk, poorly-dressed people from the Midwest in 2006.

Consider this equal parts a) news-anchor-year-in-review b) Christmas-card-to-our-friends and c) sweet-ass-blog post. The Trifecta of Awesome. The Trifecta of Allens.

TPC RECORD RELEASE PARTY

What a way to start the year. We billed it as the "Hugest Most Biggest Awesome Huge Party in the History of Ever" and quickly realized that we had a lot of work to do to live up to the hype.

At one point, our entire apartment was filled with still-wet paper mache volcanoes, thirty industrial garbage bags filled with balloons, a giant TPC flag, two smoke machines and 4 confetti cannons. All the hard work paid off and both shows sold out. One of the best nights ever. You can see the end of it all in the video above, thanks to our friend Isaac.

 

JANUARY HOLD STEADY TOUR

 

The day after the release show, TPC hit the road for three weeks opening for the Hold Steady. Jeff was stoked that Alison was coming along for the ride. TPC had toured before, but never on a tour of this magnitude where the shows were usually full and the band usually got many, many drink tickets.

Suffice to say, we had some really amazing times on this trip. We accomplished a lot, including building up a inhumanly high tolerance for alcohol. See video for evidence.

 

TWO ARMS TWO TATTOOS

 

To commemorate this crazy year and its crazy adventures, we both got inked this year. This was a first for both of us and we're glad we did it. Both of us had it done in New York, at the same parlor, by the same guy -- but six months apart.

The artist ended up being someone that Jeff had played a show with a year ago. It was a friendly face. Shout out to Myles!

 

TWO OCEANS, ONE GULF

The Atlantic - Florida

 

Gulf of Mexico - Florida

 

Pacific - California, and Oregon

The ocean is as old as time, bros. Wrap your noodle around THAT jewel.

 

ST CLOUD AND DULUTH

 

 

In May, we did a weekend tour of Minnesota's hidden jewels: St. Cloud (aka tha 320 aka the Granite City aka Shots Cloud aka The Home of Anti-Semitism) and Duluth (aka Vision Quest Portal aka the Air-Conditioned City aka that 218).

We took our dawg Coles with. Along the way, some ravenous sea gulls stole our pizza and Coles and Alison kept a drinking ledger. Rapper nugs are "xtra credit," apparently.

 

NYC FRIEND TRIP WITH TUBS AND JAWS

 

 

 

Later in May, we took a friend trip to New York to pick up the new van that TPC was buying and drive it home through the coalmountainrustbelt of middle america. Our good friends Tubs and Jaws came along.

After raging in NYC for a few days, we headed home, stopping in Pittsburgh (inexplicably Jeff's favorite city) and Chicago to see friends on the way back. We slept on Bob's roof deck in Chicago and considered this an important achievement.

 

THE HOTTEST WEEKEND OF THE YEAR

 

I mean, seriously, it was wicked hot, as they say in New England. Nasty humidity. To beat the heat, our guy 50's took us up to his parent's lake place in Cross Lake, MN. There was boating, tubing, adventure, homemade pasta-making and a lot of sitting in the warm water in a plastic deck chair while drinking High Life from cans.

 

TPC AT FIRST AVENUE

 

In July, TPC headlined a show at the infamous First Avenue Mainroom (ever see Purple Rain? We haven't either, but you get the point). They were crazy nervous that no one would come, but it ended up selling out. This was hard to comprehend.

There was more confetti cannons and handmade stage prop mischevity. That is not really a word, but tevs.

 

MANY MANY LOST PARTIES

 

Somehow, everyone we knew (including us) discovered the television show "Lost" in 2006. It was crazy addicting. Lost Parties gathered where we would all sit around Cam and Beak's plasma-screen and dissect each episode with the precision of a ninja and the passion of a hobo.

 

END OF SUMMER TOUR AND ALL NIGHT DESERT DRIVE

 

There are times in life where you feel like you're winning. It's hard to put it another way. You're just winning. You've won and you are continuing to win. Somehow, these moments often come when your sleeping schedule is on the opposite spectrum as the rest of the civilized world.

In August, we drove all through the night from Austin, Texas to Tucson, Arizona. It took 18 hours. We felt the cool desert air at night through open windows. We saw the sunrise and head truck stop breakfast at 5AM. We won. We were winners.

 

SAN FRANCISCO BAY TOUR

 

 

If you've never been to San Francisco, then you are most likely an incredibly depressed person. Seriously, its like no other place on earth. While on a TPC west coast tour in September, we took advantage of a day off and had a tourist day on the bay.

50's made a camouflage friend.

 

GUITAR HERO

 

A continuing story line throughout the year was Guitar Hero. In case you haven't heard, Guitar Hero is a video game that lets you play lead guitar on some of the world's hottest and most famous jams including "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas, "Free Bird" by Skynyrd, and "Killing in the Name of" by Rage Against the Machine.

There were countless Guitar Hero parties, including some formal competitions. Here, McTubbins is a pirate rocker. Alison's band, Jazz Nugs, has won many accolades from The Daily Dose on their awesome shows.

 

WE BOTH TURN 25

 

 

Quarter of a century. In September, Jeff celebrated his ascent into manhood by throwing a kegger at our house and partying with the visiting Thunderbirds Are Now and our good friend Will Whitmore.

In December, Alison celebrated her ascent into womanhood by hanging at Mancini's, driving to Iowa City to see The Hold Steady play a show at the Picador, and throwing a friend feast party at our place (photos of that to follow).

 

CMJ NYC w/ Colez

 

 

 

In November, TPC was on an East Coast tour to hit up CMJ. Alison flew out with Coles to take part in the craziness of the weekend festival. We went to 100 billion shows, 300 trillion bars, 225 million restaurants and walked 800 trillion city blocks to do it.'

 

FRIEND FEAST '06

 

 

The last of Alison's birthday celebrations and the first celebration of holiday spirit. A ton of people came over, all dressed in Holiday or Cosby sweaters, to rage in the name of J to tha C (aka tha madd sin absolva aka Jesus).

50's made everyone a delicious feast, Coles and Chips brought Greenie Mix, everyone else brought beer, the iPod brought the dance party pain.

 

So, that was our year. Obviously a lot of other things happened that aren't discussed here, much of which was experienced without being drunk, rest assured. But these were the highlights. The highlights of what was easily one of the best years of either of our lives.

We hope 2006 treated you kindly as well. 2007 should be pretty alright too. Maybe. Probably. Most likely. We hope. See you there.