Not too many full-time touring bands have health insurance, but that couldn't stop Hillstomp's singer and guitar player, Henry Kammerer, from a hospital visit after he tumbled down his stairs and broke his ankle, last week.

”I had just gotten back from a 20-mile bike ride with (thankfully) no problems,” said Kammerer, via e-mail. “And stretching in gratification on my back steps, just missed one by an inch. My ankle rolled off, and SNAP!!”

Straight off a supporting tour with Scott H. Biram, the bucket-and-slide duo from Portland won't let a little broken ankle get in the way of the band's non-stop touring schedule over the next couple of months.

Kammerer and John Johnson, who plays “buckets and cans and drums-type stuff” in Hillstomp, are touring in support of their newest record, “After Two But Before Five,” released last year. The album was recorded live over two nights in Portland and Eugene, Ore. and encapsulates what Hillstomp's live show is all about.

”We are a live band,” said Kammerer in an interview last October. “We go back and forth with the audience and feed off audience energy. We let the way the show is going and the way the mood is in the room kind of dictate our tempos and the intensity with which we play.”

While Kammerer is supposed to be taking it easy and giving his ankle a rest, don't expect the band's live intensity to wane. Barely over a week after the incident, Hillstomp will be at the Jambalaya this Saturday with Rooster McClintock. They love playing in Arcata too much to let anything get in their way.

”The show will go on,” said Kammerer. “I might have canceled anywhere else. But I ain't missing Arcata.”