Clap, clap, spirit fingers.

Athens, like always, was rad. The hookah bar in Nashville was too, more specifically the jasmine shisha and the honey berry. So was the photo shoot with Ryan Russell in Louisville and the giant Louisville slugger. Dawnie from London is awesome, so is Ra Ra Riot's tour manager Elise and 3 of the 4 members of Princeton (you're just going to have to guess which three). The corn chowder that Christin and Ross in Atlanta made was delicious, as were the egg sandwhiches Norm made yesterday morning and the crucial 2:30 AM Papa John's. Now we're going to go eat a 3 PM breakfast with Dawnie and some of the Sharkemechanicas and then play in Asheville, North Carolina with RRR and Princeton at a venue that has a kitchen that serves alligator balls. All is right in the universe.

"Dude, we just recorded an album in space"

I had a dream last night that we recorded an album in space. There was this kind of community of orbiting space buildings like some space city, and some sort of ship that was floating around the atmosphere that had a studio built in. Norm and Aaron were in the studio ship while Griffin and I were in some vessel that seemed to be built for the purpose of just hanging out. The hangout vessel got struck by a meteor or something and Griffin and I got sent back to earth. When we were on earth, we listened to the CD (it was actually songs from The Loud Wars) and realized we wanted to redo some guitar parts. Then we had to figure out if we have to get sent back up into space to record or not.

In reality, I'm sitting on the floor at a house in Cincinatti. Norm and house resident Brian are sharing music on the couch, currently listening to an amazing song by The Bronzed Chorus that's called something about waking up under an overpass. It's harder to figure out song titles when the band is instrumental.

Hanging out at home for three days was nice, not because we were on tour for that long (it was only five days) but because our drives were so hellishly long. Now we're on what seems to be the feelgood part of the tour. All the drives are short and we'll be in the magical kingdom of Athens, GA in a few days. Our show in Newport, KY right across the river from Cincinatti was fantastic.

So far, every place we've stayed has been excellent. We realized a while ago that we really really like the people that like our band. Like, we seem to appeal to people we enjoy hanging out with. It's an awesome feeling. And on the Ra Ra Riot shows where we don't really know many people, we've been having good luck finding nice folks to stay with. I know I keep comparing this tour to the ones we've done with hardcore bands, but I've enjoyed the vibe of this tour so much more. Maybe it's because there's less intrinsic negativity floating around the venues. Or maybe it's just nice to be on tour with a band that's not completely racist.

Tonight is Louisville, KY, a town that we've never played in before. Wish us luck!

They don't call it the windy city for nothing

The morning after the last blog post, we received a call while in line to deposit money at Bank of America. Wesley from Ra Ra Riot had lost his voice and they had to cancel the show in Swarthmore, PA. We had 3 days off afterwards, so we decided to drive from Northampton, Massachusettes to our house Edwardsville, IL. After a quick stop at the 2nd largest mall in the country at King Of Prussia, PA to meet up with the State of Mind design folks and pick up our new shirts (13 animals riding a bicycle) and an 8 AM continental breakfast at a Holiday Inn Express outside of Indianapolis, we entered our freezing house.

Now it's 11:20 AM and I'm sitting on my lady's couch, watching a live breaking news report on how Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich got arrested this morning for attempting to sell Obama's empty Senate seat to the highest bidder. When Megan and I heard, we high fived each other. He's been on my shit list ever since he decided to shut down 11 state parks and 25 historical spots in the state, including the Dana Thomas house, a beautiful mansion in Springfield, IL that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and gives free tours. Hopefully now that Blagojevich got busted and lost his cred, these places can stay open.

Anyway, we leave tomorrow to continue our tour with Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Riot and Princeton for another week. Let's hang out.

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.

Keep on Keepin' On...

so, yes. it IS true. it's officially been over a month since either one of us has updated the blog. it's not that we didn't want to, it's just that we've been busy doing the not-so-exciting things that have to be done in preparation for the record to be released. this includes going over contracts, creating a bio and press release, doing interviews, having press photos taken, making final decisions on the masters and the artwork, etc. oh, and i think we managed to squeeze a show or two in between all of those activities.


i realize this is old news by now, but i do feel it's appropriate to mention the fact we elected an excellent new leader for our country. HOORAY! here's a photo i took of a painting in some art gallery in Manhattan during CMJ this past October:


and here's a photo i took at the final rally before the election, under the arch, in St. Louis, MO.


pretty epic, right?


oh, we hope you had a good Thanksgiving, too.


as far asThe Loud Wars is concerned, we're getting extremely close to where we can spill all the beans on the details. this includes the name of the label who will releasing it, the date in which that will happen, and the tour(s) that will coincide.


oh, yeah. speaking of which, we're going on a tour that starts tomorrow.

- All dates w/ Ra Ra Riot -
Dec 3 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
Dec 4 – Albany, NY @ Valentine’s
Dec 5 – Northampton, MA @ Iron Horse
Dec 6 – Swarthmore, PA @ Olde Club
Dec 10 – Newport, KY @ Southgate House
Dec 11 – Louisville, KY @ 930 Listening Room
Dec 12 – Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
Dec 13 – Athens, GA @ 40 Watt
Dec 14 – Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle
Dec 16 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar


and finally, a song from our show as In the Garage: A Tribute to Weezer, has been posted. thanks to Ben at WUTV at Washington University in St. Louis for the video.

Foxes Mate for Life

CMJ came and went before we could blink. Played one pretty good show at a dive bar on Tuesday night, a pretty dismal show at a dive bar Wednesday afternoon (after which i ripped my jeans on a fire hydrant while loading out and had to spend the next 3 days with an ever-growing slit down my right leg), did a pleasant video interview with Seattle radio station KEXP and played the fantastic Hello Sir Records showcase on Wednesday night. It was probably the most intense 26 hours of our band career.

AND we got our contract in the email for the record label we're signing to. Big announcement soon.

And there's an article on Crawdaddy.com about our first gig opening for Death Cab.

And the new "genuis" feature on iTunes is freaking me out. I know it's freaking out Norm too.

And, related to the above, is it just me or is No Age really really horrible?

Bee log.

It's kind of unfair to this blog that the more busy we are and the more exciting things are, the less we post on it. So where did we leave off?

We wrapped up our tour with HORSE the band and Heavy Heavy Low Low and then played our 2 shows in one night extravaganza in Visalia. We drove 34 hours home and got a phone call in Oklahoma asking us to tour in December with Ra Ra Riot, which we said yes to. Rested for two days and then drove up to Chicago to play a secret show with Death Cab For Cutie, which was in front of the most people we had ever played to at that point in our lives. Hung out for a day in Chicago (and ate incredible egg sandwiches made by our old friend Corey Smale, who insisted that I blog about his egg sandwiches), then drove down to Champaign, IL for an intense show at the University of Illinois Assembly Hall (which looks like a spaceship from Independence Day). The show was also with Death Cab For Cutie, and is now the most people we've ever played to because there were 4 more people at this show than the first one. Drove back home, hung out for 3 days and then played a local show with We Versus the Shark and Pegasuses XL. Home for two more days (I saw Broken Social Scene, woo!), then drove to Columbus, OH and played with Shark and Pegasuses again. Now I'm in the kitchen of Logan from i Against the tower, standing while typing because all the outlets in the couch room are two-pronged instead of three, surrounded by Peanut, an adorable cat that's in heat and is making us all very very aware of it. Driving to Pittsburgh to play with our good friends One For The Team and hopefully hanging out in a cargo net underneath a bridge (again).

So that's all. What's new with you?