Cabin Fever

The last song is being mixed right now. We're in exile out here, and we spend our quote-unquote downtime playing gin rummy (what else) in this unpleasantly-lit waiting room. There was another band here from the area last week, but I'm not sure they actually recorded anything, onaccounta all the beer-shotgunning and and dry-humping in the parking lot and all. They did bring in a sax player one day though to lay down some cool SNL party sax. So that happened. There are white horses in the pasture beyond the the window, and a maroon McMansion on the gleaming green hill beyond that. A lot of this part of California can look like another planet, or at least like Scotland, and I keep half-expecting to see Teletubbies bouncing over the hill.




Today we get the brakes checked on the van and put air in the tires, and tomorrow we drive home. Friday, we start looking for jobs. Peace be with you, and also with you.

live music

we're playing at our friend's house next sunday. it's a benefit for our friend's mom. new songs. this will be good.

New Morning

So last night I stayed up in the cabin at Prairie Sun Recording Studios. I went to sleep to the sounds of the boggy creek and awoke with the rooster's morning call to arms. The sun is shining and the air is crisp. It's almost as if the city doesn't exist.


....deep thoughts with Robert Wallace Barbato

while you were sleeping

You probably deserve an update, so here. We're 98.7% done cutting mic to tape and have started mixing what's done. Bid our home sweet Tenderloin home adieu yesterday and relocated up the 101 in Sonoma County to Prairie Sun to finish this up. Which is a handsome reward after 2 weeks of not being able to, y'know, go outside for fresh air, out of concern for zombie attack, not to mention a lack of fresh air. This place has chickens running around and tractors in the driveway and and all the vibe that makes Tom Waits records as vibey as they are. Down on the drag is Red's Recovery Room, immortalized in song.

Still, all the $3 Vietnamese sandwiches $3 can buy will be missed. It's been bed-to-studio-to-bed-to-studio-to-studio-to-bed ad nauseum, with a jacuzzi here and a repeated bootlegged-Fleetwood-Mac-Tusk-documentary viewing there, betwixt, like this:



Got 13 songs recorded and can't fathom any of em not making the cut. Convinced our friend Maria Taylor to come up on Friday to sing with us and wound up teaching us how to open a bottle of wine with nothing more than your shoe and a wall (lesson: it doesn't work). Saturday, got a pro's pro to come play all those pedal steel licks you hear in your dreams. Sunday, up to Sonoma. Maybe you noticed this is gonna sound different. Point is, shit's good.

Progress

Greetings from the Tenderloin

Wildlife abounds in the Tenderloin National Forest. Literally, wild, wild life. Go outside - although rule no. 1 is don't go outside - and you're guaranteed an encounter. The native fauna is so approachable, it'll approach you:

"Which way ya headed?"
"Hey, I remember you. C'mere!"
"That your shoe?"
"Excuse me sir, can I use your phone?"

The answer is always no.

Maple Day Getaway

It’s time to make a record again. Tomorrow we’re driving* to our once-and-future home of San Francisco and recording at Hyde Street Studios thru the end of the month. We're throwing longtime Friend of the Band Nick Huntington in the van to produce, who has a colorful enough track record** to con the proverbial suits into trusting him with their investment, and engineer of yore Drew Fischer will turn the knobs. Drew did “Hair Decisions,” which might be the most special thing this band’s ever done (a re-listening to which, in the van, on a dreary day in Germany, cosmically revealed that he was The One), and 4 tracks on the first record, all at Hyde Street. “One Toke Over the Line” was recorded here (the least among many, at the former Wally Heider Recording). There’s a burrito place around the corner. We spent the better part of 2009 writing and rinsing and spin-cycling and line-drying 20+ songs, and we’ve democratically whittled it down to 13. Strangest thing is, we feel this creative empowerment this time around that previous recording experiences rendered foreign to us, so much so that we still feel like we’re scammin' the record label, who somehow someway are actually letting us do it our way. It's like they like us or something. Anyway, we're all abuzz about making something we love so much that you'll love it too. Oh, and happy 2010.


look, ma! it's just like when you wuz a kid!

* Tim, who refuses to ride in our van after years of comically negative experiences, will, in the style of Seal, follow the van in a sports car, accompanied by his manager (or, in this case, Rob).
** cough cough Britney Spears
† We were Blog o' th' Day, or something like that, the other day. Thanks Blogger! And greetings, people of the world.

Europe: Days 1-15

Won a sweepstakes for a free monthlong trip to Europe for you and your 4 closest friends, so to make some extra spending money we put a band together and made up some songs and played a buncha shows with a band called White Lies in many old European theatres for many European teenagers and/or their European parents and the rest of the time did this:


Day 1: Amsterdam. Killing time until it gets dark so we can go to sleep.


Day 2: Driving to Eindhoven. First show. Late.


Day 3: Paradiso, Amsterdam. Still trying to learn songs.


Day 4: Jail, Rotterdam. This was where we figured out that we don't like putting sheets on our own beds.


Day 5: Dan makes a friend in Alkmaar (celebrating 750 years!)


Our picnic in Alkmaar. Thanks to the fine folks at Subway.


Day 6: Teylers Museum, Haarlem. Working hard.


(see above)


St. Bavo's Cathedral, Haarlem. 10-year old Mozart played that organ. So did Handel, except he wasn't 10.


Day 7: Brugge (Bruges). Frites'ed up before we even left the train station.


Brugge Cruise


Day 8: de Noordzee in Oostende, where Marvin Gaye wrote "Sexual Healing." You can see why.


French hackin', outside McDonald's, somewhere in Picardie (look closely).


Day 9: us in like 5 years.


Day 10: Paris. Tim thought the housekeeper stole his iPod. Turns out she didn't.


Day 11: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris, home of Jim.




Parisian bum eating McDonald's

Day 12: previously documented here


Day 13: Luxembourg


Day 14


Halloween in Luxembourg


Band photo, featuring unknown creepy guy, possibly Gene Simmons (at left)



photos by Will

Europe: Days 16-31

And now, the exciting conclusion. I love you.


Day 16: In a parking lot.


Day 17: Backstage spread in Hamburg. Somebody cracked the seal.


Day 18: Polizei


Ferry no. 1, Baltic Sea


Day 19: Ghengis Will. Stockholm.


Day 20: Welcome to Norway


Day 21: Vega, Copenhagen


Day 22: Ferry no. 4. Gin Rummy 500 addiction commences.


Day 23: Official premature end-of-tour photo


Day 24: Low point. Munich hostel.


Brief respite


Day 25: Still in Munich


Getting a, y'know, closer look at Munich.


Day 26: Austrian Alps


(see above)

Day 27: Shit. Forgot to take any pictures.


Day 28: Berlin 2009



Brandenburg Gate


Reichstag


Day 29: Ready to leave.


Day 30: Windy. Calais, France.


Ferry no. 5. More rummy.


White Cliffs of Dover


Aboard the ferry: three busloads of British high school freshmen, captain, crew, us.


Day 31: Sleeping really hard. Then we went home.



photos by Will!

us in the u.s., again

Found a few more from our recent visit to the United States. Look!




waiting for Hog's Platter


called, no answer


that guy was a roadie for U2 and the Stones. it's true.


X marks the spot


our Texas tour guide


El Paso