OK! Here are the dates for our upcoming West Coast jaunt. As usual, if you know anybody in these fine places that you think would enjoy our music feel free to spread the word. We also enjoy staying in Mansions–so if your summer home happens to be unoccupied…
–West Coast Tour Dates–
April 11th (thurs) – Revolution Cafe (SF) 8:30, Free
Also, our “No Blame/Usonian version” was chosen by KZME 107.1 FM as their VIDEO OF THE MONTH. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a minute to watch it HERE.
Things have ramped up for us here in lovely Portland! We’re putting the final touches on our upcoming West Coast tour. We’ll post all the cities and dates very soon. We’re looking forward to seeing all of our far-away friends! We have some more touring planned for this summer and fall as well, so stay tuned…
Can’t quite unveil the full news yet but we’ve been working hard on music for two feature length films! One includes all original music from Rebecca and makes use of Kyleen’s serene string playing. The other is currently getting the “ji” touch–literally–lots of scraped cymbals and thrumming skins. As these move into completion we’ll keep you posted on where and when they can be seen…
We’ve also been working toward tracking our next record! We’ve demoed some songs, made some tweaks both big and small and think we’ve finally got them to a place where we think they’ll work together as a collective. For those who have made it out to our recent shows, you’ll recognize a few of them. It’s turning out to be a very “upbeat” group of songs…which is a bit of a departure from what we have been developing. Renowned guitarist Timothy Young (Laura Veirs, Reggie Watts) once called us, “The darkest band in the universe”…perhaps we’ll have to let that title go at some point…
Lastly, we have some exciting shows coming up! The first of which is a KZME 107.1 fm sponsored event at pdx’s Secret Society Ballroom with our friends A Simple Colony and Redray Frazier. To support the show we’ll be playing a short set that afternoon in KZME’s studios! Please check our shows page for the specifics on both of these shows and the others we have planned in the coming weeks. And don’t forget to check back for more movie updates!
We are pleased and thrilled to perform a supporting set at Portland’s vaunted Mississippi Studios. We’ll be opening for the talented Nathaniel Talbot. It is his much anticipated CD release show, and should prove to be an exciting night… especially given the near-Olympic training that we’ve been undergoing.
We would like to give a tremendous thank you hug to all of the sweet folks around the western USA who helped make all of our tour shows a success. It can be a strange feeling to be uprooted from everyday life and be constantly in a whirlwind of on-the-move…all of you amazing people helped make that process a CELEBRATION!
This last tour we gave out handmade copies of some rough-mixed demos of some new music we’ve been working on. We hope to record a couple more songs, mix them entirely (as well as master them) and release them as an EP in some form or another in early 2013. We’re excited about the new material and have received some great and positive feedback from those lucky enough to get advanced copies at the shows. Thanks for the feedback!
Oh, and as always–if you’re out and about and want to stream a few songs (including our version of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill):
Hallo! Ji here…We are at the halfway point of our tour–well perhaps a better way of putting it is that we are in San Antonio, the farthest point from our homes in Portland. We hit it pretty hard right out of the gate with 5 shows in 5 days with each day being a driving day as well. Outside of our quick trip the first night to Bend, OR our next 5 days looked like this: 300 mi, 360 mi, 538 mi, 395 mi, 752 mi.
But we’re not complaining! It certainly could be more rigorous–one band we played with in Denver had driven straight from Orange Co. California…ya know, just a little jaunt of 1016 mi.
Honestly, it’s been an incredible pleasure to visit and break bread with friends we only get to see while touring. Hearing people try to describe our “sound” post-show has been pretty hilarious/awesome as well–words like “cathartic” and “serious jams” somehow combine…although our favorite was PDX KZME radio gent and all around nice guy James Dineen’s “…you sound like all the good music from the 80′s that nobody ever heard.”– but I digress…
In Salt Lake City after our set I sat next to a “man-cationing” fellow at the bar from Kansas (Hutchinson to be exact). He looked me straight in the face and asked, “How do you guys do it? I don’t understand how the money works out. Aren’t you getting killed by gas prices?” I told him that we do what every other touring band does…draft semis, short-change truck stop attendants and live off of Benzedrine.
Kidding! We would never short change anybody–that’s bad karma dude. bad karma. I told the truth to Kansas dude that this is simply what we WANT to be doing. To his credit, he understood. He shook his head and said, “I get that. I’m a Pharmacist so I have no creative outlet…”
So then…our road winds somehow onward. We now begin our return trip to the soggy Northwest via Arizona and our many shows in California. BUT before we begin we actually have the next couple of days off–that’s right people–FREE TIME. We are considering a band field trip to the magical, art shangri-la of Marfa, TX. Sooo, if you never hear from us again…
We enjoyed our May tour of the Western U.S. so much that we are DOING IT AGAIN this October! Huzzah! Check our shows page for our evolving tour, which is quickly taking shape. Here is our accidental “Beastie Swansea” photo from the day we watched the solar eclipse from Venice Beach before our show at The Townhouse.
We were so inspired from the road that we started recording our new record 2 days after we got back. With the tender-lovin’ care of Dave Jones, engineer and producer extraordinaire (and also Rick Rubin doppelganger), we’ve reworked a few tunes for a limited-edition EP that we will travel with in October (for the lucky 100 die-hard fans). Among these tunes is an acoustic version of “No Blame” which will be the centerpiece of and upcoming music video directed by Brett Eichenberger (Light of Mine). It features Rebecca on The Schoenhut (Mark Well The Name), Ji on Blossom Bells and a beat-up cello bow, and Kyleen’s ninja skills with a viola and a not-so-beat-up bow.
If you live in Portland, we have a show on September 20th at The Atlantis Lounge, with the incomparable Patti King, and Kelly Anne Masigat. Door is $5, show starts at 9.
Travels, travels, travels…we’ve covered a little over 3,000 miles in the past 11 days (with 2 days of no travel!). At this point in the trip faces, places, meals all start to blur together. Surrendering to the pace of touring is always a bit of a challenge–the one point of clarity being the consistently distinct unction of each scene we briefly touch upon.
We’d like to thank our hosts: longtime friend and cellist Melissa Collins, our comrade and merch designer Eric Redpath (Papercut Press) the always glamorous and warm Unity y Christela and genuine Arizona sweetheart Patty Martin for the esteemable digs along the way.
It’s our first tour as an ensemble and accordingly, the performances have been a combination of hilarious/wonderful/educational/invigorating/experimental/comfortable. In a couple of hours we have the pleasure of warming up the stage for the powerful and delicate Rebecca Gates here in Tucson. Tomorrow to L.A. and that which may lay beyond.
