We have a bit of a last minute show to announce. our new label set up an in store performance for us at the rugby store on franklin street, this friday Dec. 2nd (5-7pm). it will be an acoustic-y presentation, very similar to the show we just peddled across the u.s.
also it's free, so bring a friend.

there's also fine chance we'll be in the UK in jan./feb. 2006 playing shows. we'll let you know via this secret blog...
by the way, anybody want to drop their top ten albums of the year - go and do it here .

the Day after Thanksgiving and all through the house not a person is stirring not even LOGan.. a mild one thirty and Logs is still sleeping. We are all three (and a half) up in Wilkesboro recovering from a delicious Thanksgiving and working on Keegan's music. The songs are getting better and better and we are hoping to get everything sittin' pretty by the time we head back home tonight. Only a few vocals, horn tracks, and farm noises and if we could just convince Skip's mom to do some scat singing. Apparently she needs to warm up first. Or just be wearing warm-ups.

by the way. this d-lux picture is only a hot sampling of some of the some of the fine coffee we enjoyed the morning of our springfield IL show. we woke up in iowa city, and happened on the 2nd best barista in the u.s. at the "java house" in the upstairs of the prairie lights bookstore. holy stuff. the man you want to talk to, if you're ever passing through is Brian. it will blow your hair back.

The Wee Hours Revue is officially mastered and ready to print up. We got our copy two nights ago from the mastering labs on Mars. Should be out in or around April '06. We are very excited about how everything sounds and we hope all you whiz kids like it too. snap.

mmm. home from the stone cold road. slip the toes to jacuzzi...
we will write a bit more about the shows, etc. (soon) - until then,
this photo is a generous portrait of the pool at the hollywood downtowner motel, where we lounged after the show at the knitting factory: "our retro neon sign is a landmark in the city of hollywood."

By the way, we have a new discussion group/message board.
Visit it here -
sign up, leave messages, you get the idea.

Iowa. who knew? these people are working hard, making it happen. we are spending the night in Iowa City tonight on our way to Springfield Illinois tomorrow. one very nerdy reason we were excited to see this area, is Iowa University is where Flannery O'connor came up to do the iowa writer's workshop in the 40's. Another reason is that the Des Moines Register, God bless them, called "says pop," when it came out, the best album released in 2002.
One event that should be mentioned went down saturday night without us knowing it. Riding in the van to our Des Moines show, we couldn't help but notice how hard the wind was blowing and how debris and paper cups kept flying across the highway (at the height of our windshield). we had been driving across kansas and missouri for two days, and had grown accustomed to an occasional "rough winds" road sign. not to mention that fact that we were a good hour late for our show, and we had other things on our mind. with some white knuckled driving and a few scattered "wow - that wind is pretty strong.."s we got to the venue, played music, etc. and went home for the night. when we woke up in the morning the headline on every newspaper, and on cnn at the best western was "NINE TORNADOES RIP THROUGH IOWA." hmm. we were surprised to ay the least. Not to sound insensitive, but we were expecting the headlines to be closer to "ROMAN CANDLE TEARS THROUGH NINE IOWA TORNADOES IN FORD 350 VAN,"
just kidding (naturally the headline would have probably included that we not only arrived safely but melted faces all over town with our sheer acoustic prowess).
truthfully we felt very lucky not only to have arrived safely, and (in a vague artistic sense) on time to the venue, but we were especially glad to have found out about the tornadoes the morning after. now alls we gots is two words for springfield IL. look out -

Tonight in Omaha
There is only on thing more stupid than a rock and roll show that starts at 5 o clock... a rock and roll band scheduled to play that particular show sitting in their hotel room channel surfing with their shoes off, taking naps, deciding which book to read next at 4:45(!). So we rolled into town here after a very leisurely ride of under 2 hours (ridiculously pleasant after the long hauls we have been doing the past couple of days) and we were even relaxed enough to stop in for a late brunch at a cracker barrel just outside of Omaha. The world seemed ours. The show sat far ahead on the distant horizon. We felt full and happy and were seriously considering the in room movies. Until we got a call from Aaron (Thad's rip-roarin, tear the house down bass player) and realized we had to be at the venue around 3 and it was ten minutes to 5. Needless to say we made it the 2.5 miles from our hotel to the club and strolled in like we owned the place. We couldn't even find the sound guy for a good twenty so look who's waiting on who. ahhh, I think I'll have something cold to drink while I tune my guitar thank you. The venue is actually VERY cool. Very deluxe for our first visit to Omaha. It was a new place in town here called The roadhouse at Jobber's Canyon. It is a three story restaurant/brewery/music venue and they have this great Sunday night dinner concert series that held a packed house tonight. I don't think we have ever played a show where people were actually rocking out to our tunes AND eating salad. At one point during Another Summer Skip actually got a funny look on his face and slightly backed away from the mic because he thought the waitress was bringing us a tray full of soup on stage. Which would have been kind of cool and a little like practicing in your mom's basement in middle school with a designated snack time. we were up for it. The place itself, and the crowd were amazing and attentive and really great music fans. We had a great time and a fantastic meal afterwards and all by the wee hour of eight o-clock pm. Still plenty of time left for slippers and coffee.

well here we are at big ben:
We played in st. louis tonight in the duck room - in the basement of a place called blueberry hill. it turns out it happens to be the place that Chuck Berry plays once a month (at age 78). wow. he's actually playing there this wednesday. HEY! who was it that sang louie louie? good tunez. not quite as good though as the post-sound check / pre stage (get ready for it) music that our sound man Poncho carefully selected. "Hurts so Good" anyone? Jack and Dianne? i'll handclap to that anyday. over and over and over again.

Writing while driving across that flat half of Colorado and Kansas. (these postings, by the way are not exactly chronological: they are written often in the van and "published" whenever we get to a place with internet)
Hmm. If we didn’t have Pocahantes 1 through 3 on dvd this would be a bit of a grim drive. Yikes. Truthfully it would not be that bad, if we didn’t have to do it all in one day. We have stopped at a number of “travel plazas”in the last few days and feel like we’re a part of a new subculture. If you thought that being in a band was cool, try hanging out in Eden Idaho at their Flying J travel plaza. There is an indoor fountain, a video arcade a variety of stuffed animals and electronics and more dvd’s than a new york sidewalk. These people have progressed way past falsa blankets, and David Alan Coe tapes at the cash register. Careful however because if you’re not carrying your CDL you can’t rent a shower-room or hang in the driver’s TV lounge. We learned the heard way. There was a great moment at our first stop off in the state of Kansas however.We had stopped off for a fine quizno’s and the first song on their radio was sister goldenhair. Ridiculous and amazing all together.

From Seattle to Kansas...
Seattle, city of hard rains and now, hard rock. We topped off our trip up the West Coast with shows in Tacoma, Seattle, and finally P-town. Despite the constant misting drizzle of rain we managed to keep our spirits high and our shows full of ball blasting pyrotechnics. We have discovered one solution for the potential melancholy of NW weather..Powerballads.
We even squeezed in a little bit of fooseball during the opening act of our Tacoma show. Skip and Timshel against those pansies Thad and Logan. They will tell you they were at a disadvantage (something about several missing player pieces). We will tell you that they were crying from the start of the game. Foos!
We played our last show at The Doug Fir in Portland which is a swank new club that looks kind of like a cross between Twin Peaks and Sleepers inside. (including the midgets and spacesuits). Needless to say, very cool show.
Now we have made it to Salt Lake City, Denver, and through the top of Kansas. The drive through OR, UT, CO,and WY, has been absolutely spectacular. It is all so gorgeous that we have barely noticed the 700 plus miles we have covered in a few short days. Kansas, the Wheat State, and apparently the home of very strict speeding laws and very long , so very long, stretches of highway has awarded Skip our very first tour speeding violation. shazaam.

This smoking photo of our acoustic set at the knitting factory (los angeles) comes to you courtesy of our fine myspace friend "tom fool". Notice the open door offstage to the right of the photo - where aaron oliva (thad's bass player) came onto the stage half way through our set - asking, "which on of you has the van keys..your van is getting towed (!). when it comes to professionalism at shows, it is hard to beat getting your van towed half way through our set...

This is Logan and Timshel in N.California (Weed, CA to be exact). If you ever are driving up I-5 above Mt. Shasta, and you see a little hut called "cowboy espresso", stop whatever you are doing and get a breakfast burrito and some coffee. breathtaking.

all the way to Portland Oregon and we have got two words....Mirror Pond. This is hands down the best beer in the U.S. and we love it so much that we have subscribed to the brewery website. Amen. We have spent the last few days resting up in P-town and then we headed over the mountains to Bend,OR to light up another night of ridiculous rock-tast-tics. It was so cold and wonderful there that we actually played in our snow clothes. Skip was in bibs. We had a great turn out and Thad and Caitlin played such a fantastic show. We had Keegan come up with us to play one of his songs that we recorded this past month with us (it was stunning) and then Logs even got up for some jammy jams with the Begonias. The show was in an old converted roller rink that Timshel (who was born in Bend) had spent many a seven year old night skating backwards in acid wash jeans to The Jovi.

Hey-hose. From LA to Portland. Bam! pretty drive. we rolled into LA qround 8:30 pm about 2 hours late (unfortunately a gas truck wrecked/exploded on an off ramp on the way from phoenix to LA. needless to say trafiic was held up). and despite our list of confirmation numbers, there was no room at the Hollywood Super 8 for this party. so we tried the hollywood Downtowner Inn where a nice man with the turtleneck gave us a room. Only catch was, when we unlocked the door there was already somebody in the room. Yikes - Hollywoof. Our second room was empty - off to a good start - and with a good view of the room across the way where we could wave to our motel mates who were eating popsicles and smoking on their bed. We dropped our stuff off and headed to the club. We already told you that this show rocked everybody's socks off.
We spent the next morning driving up and down sunset boulevard looking for drum parts, drinking to-go coffees, and blasting our bass. Just kidding, we headed up 101 towards Oregon. We stopped first in Santa Barbara and ate some Super-Rica Taco which was dope. Then we decided to take the scenic San Marco Pass around to Lake Ch_______ and it was Beautiful. Logan lost the keys, we happened on some sparring kick boxers.. one of whom was topless (male) and then we stopped in on a dutch village where Skip took a picture of a yard full of pumpkins..and one windmill. We found the keys in a trash can, like you do, meditated with the kickboxers, and headed up the highway towards San Francisco (thinking we would make it to Ashland OR that night.) At about 3:30 am (after a sweet foggy trip across the Golden Gate Bridge) the van filled with light and we realized we were NEVER going to make it out of Cali that night. so we pitched our teepee out in the redding CA mesa and slept like babies.