I hope the smoking man's in this one.

I am sitting on a couch in Northampton, MA right now and I just overheard RJ, the dude we're staying with, say "did you guys hear about the 8 year old kid that shot himself in the face with an uzi?"

Well, anyway, you may have heard that we have signed with Vagrant Records. All of these lame super cryptic blog posts we've had to put up lately are over. High fives all around. Album comes out April 7.

We're currently on tour with Ra Ra Riot. We have made no qualms about being huge fanboys about them, so this has been pretty fantastic thus far. It's nice to play in front of people that like good music. No offense to thehardcore bands we've toured with, but I doubt I'm going to have any girls come to the merch table with a bloody nose and ask about first aid at an indie pop show. These are our people.

We have also buddied up pretty hard with Princeton, the opening band on the tour. They make me want to be on a canoe.

Aaron has recently discovered that he has the ability to sing the words "it's been" in the EXACT same tone of voice/melody combo that begins "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies, and he hasn't been shy about sharing this discovery with us. Jeff Tobias from We Versus the Shark once told us that he was going to make a Wikipedia page for "One Week" that has links to all of the pop culture references in the song, but then he found out that it already exists.

This tour is the first one in a long time where we've brought another person with us. Our pal Marshall Cox is doing tour managing/merch for us, which has been pretty fun and helpful. Our van has 4 seats, so usually everybody in the band has a sleeping surface. 5 people means that 2 dudes have to share a seat and (in Billy Bob Thornton "Slingblade" voice:) that just ain't right. LUCKILY we've figured out a way to turn the stack of sleeping bags and luggage into a makeshift bed that's about as comfortable as a bench seat, which is code for "not very".

Aaron's mom made some intensely delicious Amish friendship bread. The idea is that you make a lot of it and then give it to your buddies. We left with 8 loaves, gave one to Princeton and 2 to Ra Ra Riot*. We ate our final 2 loaves last night on our way back from a late night snack run to our van. I want more, but it takes 10 days to make.

Tomorrow we hang out with a fat guy and a lumberjack in Philadelphia, and then we play a show and drive home for a few days while RRR plays a show with Vampire Weekend.


*Here's the reason that Ra Ra Riot got 2 loaves of bread and Princeton only got one. It has nothing to do with favoritism. Last night, Alexandra from RRR told us how much she liked the bread, and Aaron asked if she wanted more. Of course, she said "no, it's okay". Meanwhile, Marshall had gone out to the van to grab another loaf to give as a gift, which, of course, Alexandra accepted once it was placed in her hand. The thing is, Aaron had no intentions of actually giving her a loaf of delicious friendship bread. He knew she would say no, because it's the polite thing to do. The important part was that he offered. Marshall screwed the whole operation up, and I have less friendship bread in my belly as a result. Thanks, Mr. Nice Guy.