This weekend, so far

Apparently, it snowed in San Francisco. Not a blizzard or anything, just some whispy little things that turned to puddles when they reached the ground. I mention this only because here, in Texas, it's a humid eighty degrees and I'm walking around in flip-flops. There are some things I don't miss about home.

I do miss breakfast though. We've been in the habit of waking up around noon-ish, and at that point, your typical Texas restuarant serves obscene amounts of meat and obscene amounts of meat only. There's nothing like a pound of beef brisket to the face in the morning.

But so far, I'm liking this state. We're going to be here for about a week or so and have played two out of our planed five shows thus far. Dallas found us playing at the Cavern, a cozy, loud little dive, with Tapes n' Tapes & Seventeen Evergreen. Neither dissapointed. We've been dweebed out internet penpals with Tapes n' Tapes for a good third of a year now, and, I have to say, they're great guys. We met them late for dinner, they dining on pizza, while we chose to order BLTs slathered in rancid mayo and filled with lettuce I'm sure was from a salt water aquarium. They just seemed to be really enjoying themselves all night, which is not always the case with bands we play with. God knows why. We certainly do. Anyway, we play with those boys again tomorrow night in San Antonio. Seventeen Evergreen, weirdly enough, was the second SF band we hadn't played with at home but met out on the road this trip. I dug 'em. Where they've been in our Bay Area lives is a mystery, but we're remedying that next month at the Mezzanine.

You know another thing about Texas? Compliments sound waaaay better in a thick, southern drawl. Last night, this guy told us our show "changed his life," and, you know, if he wasn't southern, it might've sounded scary. We spent last evening at the Wreckroom---and don't you have to love a club whose name is a pun?---with a band called Black Tie Dynasty, who we realized as the night wore on, we played with exactly one year ago: March 11th. It was almost enough to make me go new-age on everyone, but I refrained, drowned my chakra with a two dollar beer, and enjoyed the show. It was BTD's hometown crowd & they worked it. Thanks again boys.

Below this post, you can see another thing that happened in Texas, namely the arrival of some long overdue merch. See, we were planning on having the album already, but as you folks who have pre-purchased know (and thanks again for that), we didn't quite get that together. Instead, we got some shirts and posters, one of which I'm holding proudly below. Make sure to notice, the drunken, 4 a.m., shit-eating grin.

Today, we're thinking of doing something non-band-y...which isn't even close to being a real word. Sorry bout that. We'll post some pictures soon too, now that we have a base of operations that isn't a borrowed Toyota. And I should of course remind you that our myspace page has three unmastered songs that'll be on the LP, out in about 4 weeks.

So, if you're in Texas, hope to see you this week. If you're in San Francisco, see you in a few weeks. And if you're anywhere in between, seeing you would mean that our car broke down or that we'd become honest to God vagrants. So, sorry---hope I don't see you.

The reason I should only post once daily

You know what's the weirdest part about going to a hearing center to get earplugs made? It's that everyone there is at least eighty years old and that half of them sort of smelled like Necco Wafers.

The good part is that now, I won't go deaf. So that's a plus.

Alright. So, today, besides responding to Underrated's kindly request for a cross-country jaunt (see below), and weighing the pros and cons of visiting the hearing center, I'm listening to our second reference mix of Alabama...and it sounds really good. Brad would call it "hype." I would agree.

By the way: that puts us about three fourths of the way there. Allow me to have a seizure of glee.

Thanks. That felt nice.

I'm ashamed to admit I probably wrote this whole post to make a Necco Wafer joke. You have my deepest apologies. Tomorrow?

Watch your back, Zagnut Bar!

Pass the Zach & potatoes

Last night, we had a phone interview after a fairly exhausting practice. I always feel silly doing interviews. I just don't like talking about myself, which seems weird, I'm sure, since this blog is such shameless and unveiled self promotion, but typing little blurbs at home or at work is well within my comfort zone. It's the phone yammering that clams me up.

Anyway, I bring this up only because we were asked my favorite question we've yet been asked in a situation like that: "If you four were on a desert island, who gets eaten first?"

Now, this requires serious thought. I based my answer on who'd be the tastiest, which would be Zach, because, hey, he's got the most meat on his bones and I think, in a nice coconut milk marinade, he's taste kind of like Tom Kha Gai. Later, the point was made that Zach would be far more valuable on a desert island than most of us, since he worked construction & seems to be adept at jerry-rigging. So Dave was suggested. But I think he'd be all sinew and, if the island didn't have dental floss, it'd be pretty aggravating to walk around with leg of Dave wedged under my bicuspid. In retrospect, my answer is this: have Zach rig up a barbeque, try and fix the boat, and then kill & eat him. Hey. It's rough out here. Don't judge me.

And that just reminds me of that band Fine Young Cannibals, who I will now get in your head: "She drives me crazy, and I cain't he-eelp myse-ee-eelf (oo! oo!)"

I guess since this is a journal about an album and not late '80s pop acts or the Donner party I should mention some news. Thing is, we didn't get a new mix last night. Which means its probably coming this morning, but I'm impatient and wanted to get some typing done before that happened. Plus, listening to music at work with my hated RadioShack earphones (which live here because, well, it seems appropriate) is never a real test of quality. I could listen to Vivaldi on those things and get sad. So, I'll keep today light and wish everyone a happy President's Day weekend. Take some time Monday to remember that, once, the executive branch wasn't filled with guys who shotgunned their friend's face.

A brief recap

So, we're here. Los Angeles. You can almost smell the Roscoe's on my breath. Which is probably bad, being as I ate it for breakfast yesterday. But, man, that was a good waffle. I may never brush my teeth again.

We arrived Thursday night, after a gloriously uneventful caravan down the 5, to our Producer/Engineer/Crock-Pot-Chef's house over by Colorado street. I'd give you a better idea of where we're at, but I can barely make it to the bus in morning, so be happy with "over by Colorado street." Not only was Brad willing to record our LP, but he was willing to slow-cook pork, potatoes, and zuchinis for our arrival. And let me tell you one thing: Falling. Off. The bone. Goddamn.

To bring everyone up to speed, we're going to be recording both here & at a famously funky studio near Aomeba called Grand Master. In fact, we go there tomorrow, (which is Sunday, right? I've lost track), spend a full three days recording amongst teak wood & red velvet, then finish the overdubs, vocals, melodicas, and dijeridoo solos back here at Brad's house. That's the plan, at least. So far, so good. But we haven't really started yet, so, hey, that was easy.

Basically, in the day and a half we've been here, we've recorded a few reels of weird, acoustic/banjo/cello versions of our softer songs, and some blown out, vocal-less electric takes of the tunes that don't lend themselves to the pluck-treatment. Janky-ness and blown out mics abound, but they sound really...I don't know...cozy. There are also some fabulous tones to be had from these overblown little amps, so they'll be making an appearance in a week or so. More later.

For now, it's early Saturday...well, it's almost one, but bear with me.,,and we're going to spend the day visiting Grand Master, cooking, and playing some more bizarre versions of the songs we know and love. So I'll wrap it up. I'm going to try & update this once daily, but right now I'm using dial-up, which is the digital equivalent of the Flintsone's foot-car, but it's getting the job done. When we sort out pictures, we'll post a few, which will hopefully be in the next day or so. I promise later versions of the blog to be filled with multimedia, witty repartee, and properly spelled words. Now, I'm going to go enjoy the rain we dragged with us from the City.