Greensboro NC. the Gate city. We just got back from playing a brand new venue called the Flying Anvil with Patty Hurst Shifter (who have a fantastic review-photo in this month's UNCUT magazine - look out). We were the 2nd band ever to play there, and the first band to knock over both drums and fancy overhead mics onstage during a song (sorry, Skillet). To anybody who lives near the g-boro area, we at roman candle suggest you get out and support this club. It's a good place and it's run by good people. By the way we will be playing there again on May 25 and we'll be playing with Patty Hurst Shifter again on June 24 at the pour house in raleigh. The crowd this evening (as well as roman candle) was fortunate enough to have Mr. Thad Cockrell grace the stage to help sing "i can't even recall". Though we are not playing merlefest this year properly, some of us will be up there - watching Gillian Welch, and others -- but especially to see Thad and Caitlin (Cary) take over the main stage on saturday.
Special thanks this special evening go out to Kent Bennett for running a knockout light show (we thought we were opening for Whitesnake!) and to Skillet for grabbing our box of cd's - after we left them at the venue, like the absolute business professionals that we are.

Athens to Charlotte, etc. I dig a poodle by Charles Haltry on the devee. Phase 1 in which roman candle covers I dig a pony Saturday night in the McGlohon Theater in Charlotte. But before we get there let's enjoy a quick recall of the 40 watt. Our first time to play in Athens and man did it rain. Not only weatherwise, but also in a figurative sense - Figurative in the same sense that Phil Hoffman's character (in Along Came Polly) is making it rain while playing basketball. - the rest of the movie is forgettable, but this scene of trash talk is primo). Our number one fan for the evening went unanimously to our new friend Sarah who drove six hours from jacksonville FL to see us play -- and had to drive back for work in the morning. wow. we were very grateful for this public display of affection (and as if that wasn't enough to win the green jacket, she made that whole trip only because she is a dedicated my-spacer who happened to discover our band while looking for new music on myspace). Pictured right is us with Sarah backstage at the 40 watt. What an amazing room by the way. Needless to say, we had a great time playing a couple shows with Mr. Will Hoge & friends. We woke up saturday morning, found out that "The Grill" in Athens only serves breakfast until noon, and tried to learn "i dig a pony" in the van ride from GA to Charlotte.
As for the Beatles Tribute on that night, it was an amazing thing to witness. The "green room" for the 30+ musicians who were performing in the 4 hour spectacle, was one of the happiest little dressing areas we've ever seen. People standing in corners quietly practicing "she's leaving home" on the ukelele, or strawberry fields on one acoustic guitar. It was an unbelievable testament to how amazing that body of music is. For all you Thad Cockrell - Caitlin Cary fans out there (and boo to you all who are not), they are back in the country as of today from their european tour. Among other things, they played a sold out London show at the borderline and taped a BBC2 special with bob harris that will air this thurdsay on radio 2. and finally The Old Ceremony played a premium acoustic set - interview on wxyc tonight. we will be supporting them at the tyler's outdoor show on Sunday. food, prizes, kids under 10 get in free...

Last night Nick was sleeping soundly, a smile spread calm across his face, dreaming about the flames that flew from the Chatanooga stage last night. The rain had stopped, all five band members were tucked in to rest (Logs and Nick had lost the coin toss and were respectably sharing a pad), not a creature was stirring. Until Logan got friendly. First a single Logan arm was thrown across the shoulders of an unsuspecting Nick. Nick’s eyes dart open. He laughed to himself and wiggled Logan’s arm back to his side of the bed. A moment passed. And then, a second snuggle attempt. The arm again, this time more gently, with intent to spoon. Nick laughs harder and wiggles free for the second time. Several moments pass and Nick is almost back to sleep. And then the King Tut. The tip top of them all,..The Leg. Saaaa-Wiiing and tuck. Ahhhh. Covers fly, exclamations of warning and surprise, we laugh, we cry, we share memories, we all pass out back to sleep.

We are currently on the road from Chatanooga to Athens. So far, we have only taken two U-turns, seen one man driving a convertible with fingerless driving gloves, stopped off to purchase five pairs of leather, fingerless driving gloves (brandishing them immediately), and we have even had time to eat breakfast at The Cracker Barrell. Mmmm, mommma. Things are looking good. So, if you are in Athens tonight or have a friend or grandparent who likes easy listening music, send them out to the 40Watt …cause we’ll be there. And it is bound to be awesome.

thanks to all of you who wrote in so quickly (in a matter of hours!) with thoughtful and articulate suggestions on which song(s) we ought to cover on saturday. A few of the suggestions were creepily accurate to what we were already chatting about in the privacy of our own burgundy van. To you people we say "mind your own business". For everybody else though we do say thanks and a few of the suggestions (you know who you are) will probably work their way into a live show here and there soon, even if we can't do them all saturday.
(Talking emails) Often we get folks writing and asking “how/where did you write this or that song, what were you listening to (or not listening to), while writing it, etc.” As our record release is coming up, and we’re playing the entire album (a couple of smoking tracks at a time) on our myspace page, we’re going to try and tell the circumstances under which some of our songs were written via this blog.
For starters: as a general rule, all songs were written with all of us wearing berets, non-stop, just like all French people do. Apart from that, the stories get more individual. Keep a look out, and we'll post these things as we can remember them. Happy Easter, by the way, to all the people. And last things last - that song "Back 4 Good" by Take That. Delicious.

Upcoming this week for Roman Candle..shows, shows, and Beatles covers. what? Beatles covers? YES. This week we are very excited to play a couple of shows with Will Hoge. One in Chattanooga and one in Athens. Know anybody in either of these towns? Better give them some fair warning before we blaze a hot trail of heartbreak through their backyards. sizzzzle.

Also, our friend Joe from The Evening Muse in Charlotte has asked us to come through on our way home and join in on the Beatles non-profit Tosca extravaganza at Spirit Square in downtown Charlotte on Saturday eve. We are very excited to be a part of this concert, to play with some great bands, and to play in such a great room(pictured above)..however..WE NEED YOUR HELP. Have any blaring opinions about Beatles covers? Dying to hear us croon and crash over one of your old favorites? Let's have it. Please send us an email at romancandlemusic@gmail.com Do your good deed to day and direct RC towards those golden musical numbers..... Pah-leeez.

If you look out your left window you will see a picture of us from our recent show at the casbah in Charlotte. This picture comes at you courtesy of our dear friend (and fine photographer) Daniel Coston. If you look out your other window, you will see the album cover for keegan DeWitt's record entitled " & the Sparrows," which we here at roman candle recently produced (and Chris Stamey mixed).
Keegan and Chris will be playing in NY at Tonic on May 7, for all you New Yorkers. Not to mention he will be coming to NC for two shows in May, joining us and Thad Cockrell for our Wilmington and Chapel Hill shows (at the soapbox and local 506 respectively). This photo on keegan's record was taken in wilkesboro during our hot recording sesh. We recorded 13 songs in 5 days (one of which --"anyone but you", keegan wrote in 10 minutes in the studio, and we recorded in 10 minutes, so the whole song from conception to "the can" was under 30 minutes - yikes that was hot). and to think we could have been upstairs watching Emeril. Has anyone seen Fiona Apple's new-ish video which features (wilkes county native) Zach Galifianakis up in every body's face? Not to show hometown bias, but if the world had a brain the late show with Zach would be playing everynight 2 or 3 times in a row. That was one of the best and shortest lived shows ever to grace the tv screen. Boo Vh-1. Boo. By the way, we play at the Brewery in Raleigh tonight. The Choosy Beggars are sharing the bill with us, which should be a treat for all. click here to see Z.G. in Fiona Apple's video. Also Zach's website

Thanks so much to all of you who came out to the Local 506 last night, it was great to see everybody! We had a great time and it was an amazing treat to hear you all singing along and finally be back up playing at home again. Thanks also to Thad and company. Always good to have the modern Elvis of country music to share the mic with (how about him touring with Willie Nelson this summer?! ShaBAMB!) We are looking forward to blasting off into the ATMOSPHERE of knock out rock and roll in the next few weeks. We hope to see everybody again soon at the next coming shows.

Charlotte to Hot-lanna
There is officially a new Starbuck’s off the Highway in Salisbury, NC, which to all people traveling through to Charlotte to rock and roll shows or onto grandparents in western North Carolina, is a bodey. We stopped in twice on each pass through Charlotte for bathroom breaks, Tazo tea (complete with “the mumbled chantings of a tea shaman”..have you ever read the back of those tea bags? Inspiring.), and exclusive access to Alanis Morisette’s new acoustic CD.
We had a great time in Atlanta and thanks to everyone who came out to dance, dance, dance. We all give major props to the band who played before us called “The Booze.” Unfortunate name, fantastic music, very cool hair, and two (count em TWO) members in vests.
Thank you also to Rock Kills Kid and all of their generous fans who were kind enough to let us share the stage for both Charlotte and Atlanta shows. Very nice people and music. We dug it.
Did you know that in Atlanta you can find…
the first ever Chick-fil-a known to locals as The Dwarf House. Open 24 hours and complete with mini-door for small people entrance. Jeff entered first (6’2”).

Also,….

Roman Candle gratuitously recommends: Java Jive off “Ponce”(Atlanta natives abbreviation for Ponce de Leon Ave.) for good coffee, amazing scrambled eggs, and an impressive vintage stove collection.

As well as,…

“The Warren”, a members only bar where (no joke, you have to swipe a card to enter…) we all varnished our members only jackets and tagged after Russell for the night, complete with a great view of the city and chairs made out of twigs with velvet cushions.

Let us offer this up to the good people if the world - our record has an official release date: June 20, 06. WOW. we have been anxious to deliver that tidbit for a long time. Mark your calendars, break your piggy banks, celebrate however you see fit.

Casbah: (VARIANT FORMS also Kas·bah; Arabic dialectal qaba, from Arabic qaaba, to cut up) 1. A castle or palace in northern Africa. - also "fortress" 2. often casbah The older section of a city in northern Africa or the Middle East. 3. A dark club in Charlotte of south tryon where 5 members of roman candle, (with etymology filling their heads) "cut up" the stage, warm hearts, break hearts, make friends, influence people.
Good evening Charlotta. This picture to the left is exactly what the queen city skyline looked like tonight from the stage. I had to ask a couple of our roadies to hold off on warming on baths in liquid gold (the view was too fine to turn away). Truthfuly we had a great time tonight at the Casbah. I wonder how many "Casbah's" there are in this country. my guess is several (we may have played at 4 or 5 of them). the venue name must be tempting for a club owner who wants his club to be "edgy" or inevitably "rocking". At this point in the program we have to send a warm thanks and congratulations to Jim Pearson (cousin of roman candle) who is back from flying air force planes in Iraq and just had a baby boy. Thanks are in order no only for his presence at the show night (with a party in tow), but for letting us know that the President of the of U.S. is going to be in Charlotte tomorrow morning and that they are shutting down over 170 exits and the interstates for security. which means we have to be out of dodge earl-y in the morning, if we want to be in atlanta by our sweet load-in.Thanks again to the many who came out for our show tonight. We had a primo time. -- and with less technical problems than our last show at the casbah in 2002. During the sourse of the show, Skip broke all the guitar strings on all his guitars and had to run out of the club (while the band kept rocking those smooth jams), unlock the trailer to our van (in the parking lot) and get another guitar to come back to the stage and finish a song. Thank goodness we were in the middle of our traditional cover of "fire on the mountain".

Good old portland airport. We are flying on a sweet red-eye back to NC this evening. we had a fine trip to portland, and even managed to record a couple of keegan's new bossa nova songs with him. As i am writing the final seconds are ticking down on the ncaa championship game (who cares?) We are looking forward to our shows this week (charlotte - wed., atlanta - thurs. and in chapel hill on sunday), and hope to see any and all of you there (at any and all of the shows). by the way has anyone ever heard Luther Vandross's NCAA theme? "one shining moment." apparently it's a tradition. a sampling of lyrics "the ball is tipped... the time is short, the world is long..." this is our first time listening for sure.

what is going on this week with the Candelinos:
Some of us have been hanging out in Portland this week and while we are here we have decided to do a couple of things: Watch as many movies on the lazyboy couch as possible, record a couple of songs with Keegan in the living room with that lovely old piano, drink Mirror Pond Pale Ale, and take some hottubs. Like frat kids. So after a couple of days ticking off videos and crawling in a congo line around the house after Jude, everybody decided to actually get some work done.

So....Skip got on those Court Classics and spanked his relatives in his first game of b-ball in a year and a half. swishhhhhh.

Logan scoured the triangle looking for the perfect ride for RC's death defying touring tricks this summer. It is true, we have officially replaced (sniff sniff) Olivia (in honor of Ms. Newton John), our old, beloved conversion betty.

Jude learned how to make the dog freak out, how to play all of those pre-programmed Menudo songs on his keyboard, and got an ear infection :(

Timshel started using emoto-cons.

Nick got food posioning :( :(

Timshel stopped using emoto-cons.

;)

Stee-op the press. we officially have our first *unofficial* roman candle message board. it is located here. It is very exciting to have an "unofficial" anything, and we are very grateful to the folks that set it up. Now, supposedly, you can all talk about us behind our backs. (we also finally figured out to to use pictures on these myspace blogs, so lookout below.) the picture to the right is skip in yorkshire this past february. (what was he doing? preparing for this blog, obviously.)