All of our fans’ suspicions were confirmed today. We’ve been hearing for months that Usher (author of yeah, etc.) has been keeping up with your pals at roman candle to find where we shop, what we roll, etc. well today in Atlanta, Usher himself came out of hiding at a clothing store in little 5 points. He followed us into several clothing stores (must have admired our ridiculously modern and trend-setting band fashion sense) and eventually forced us to loudly reject a photo-op. He tearfully returned to his Ferrari.

We have blown through Columbus, GA and Atlanta so far this weekend and thanks to everybody who came out because the shows have been fantastic. Another shout out for Java Jive. We waited the 50 minute drive from LaGrange on Sunday Morning just to get in there for those tasty omelettes. Apparently the Veggie is the best way to go (Nick) although anything with a bisquit on the side will do.
A very different kind of shout out for the Candleberry Suites which provided us with Sean of the Dead-like delinquents welcoming us up the drive and keeping a good eye on our van throughout the night. In their favor though, they also provided was a double showing of Return of the King. Usher wishes.
The picture above is us outside Krispy Kreme just before we got the customer of the month award.

The writing to the left means thanks in a language none of us can identify for certain. However thank you is the main message we have for you tonight. First off Happy Mothers Day - and obviously thanks to all the mothers out there (and in roman candle). Also - thanks to all who traveled near and far (people from CA, OR, OK, NY, Scotland and London were in attendance last night) to get your hand stamped at the 506 last night. We haven't had that much fun making music with friends in a long time, and we would like to thank all who came out to join us. What an honor. we had so much fun. We're such fans of Thad and Keegan that it was even more fun to watch their shows from the stage as it was to play. If you have been living in a hole and have never heard these individuals, do your self a favor and check them out. It was amazing last night to hear people singing along to unreleased songs by Thad, Keegan, and us. The internet is a weird an fantastic place.
For all you New Yorkers, we have added a new show at the Sin-e Club in the East Village (150 Attorney St.) on May 29, with Keegan DeWitt opening. As far as performing as "the sparrows" we will undoubtably be up to the same mischief we were last night. If you know anyone in Georgia, let them know that we're coming to blaze a hot trail of something through their town this week. we are at the Loft in Columbus on Saturday and Smith's olde Bar in Atlanta on Sunday night. We also added a new show in Asheville NC on June 4. we will be accompanying Seth Kauffman and the Real Mothers (connection to Mother's Day? maybe.) on their cd release party.

Mahalo Nashville. We want to send a big thank you out to everybody who came out to the Exit Inn last night for the show. It was a great room and we were very exited to see so many old and faces. Shout out to The Hip Zipper in East Nashville.. they got major bling at that placce. You should all check it out. We played a great show last night, had margaritas on the Pat-yo, and then headed to Thad’s house to meet the most amazing little Martin guitar to hit songwriting history. It is a beaute, given on permanent loan to Thad from a friend and, as Thad would say, has songs pouring out of the sound hole so quick you have to grab them all and stuff some back in there. This was definitely a highlight of the night and we are VERY eager to get that thing out of the case back in Chapel Hill and put it to use.
We drove the first leg of our trip back last night reaching the Biltmore Estate somewhere near 5:00a.m. just early enough to brush our teeth, pull up the covers, roll over, and then get dressed again. Thanks to Nick, we missed our wake up call but made it t the phone for his staggered announcement that it was NOT 7:30 but was instead 8:30 and would we like to meet down by the van and get going. We DID miss the breakfast buffet but we DIDN’T miss the weirdo guy floating like a merman in the hotel lobby pool with a train of M. Boltron locks and a speedo. Good morning.

And we are on the road again, trying to get back to center and cause some electric mayhem. Tonight we are in Nashville playing the Exit Inn with a bunch of bands with names like "rain dancer" and "magic flute parade" but we are VERY excited to be here and we expect to destroy. Above and beyond we are most excited to head back to chapel hill for the craziness that will happen on Saturday at the 506 with Thad and Keegan. I f you don;t know about this than you should wake up and sniff it because this show is bound to Blast off. Keegan DeWitt is flying in from NY for two nights (Wilmington and 506) of head spinning, mouth dropping , but shaking music. We have been pumping up for weeks for these shows. Skip is on the Metrex and Nick and Timshel have been drinking nothing but Muscle Punch.
By the way, Jeff Crawford is revisiting his alma mater this weekend. He has his "mouseters" you know.
Great talk. See you out there.

Why modern radio is a-ok.
The following “story behind the song” portion of our broadcast was recently written by Skip in response to the emails we get asking when and where we were when we wrote this or that song. The one we’ve been getting the most emails about recently is “why modern radio is a-ok”

Skip: This song was accidentally inspired by Thad Cockrell (as many things are). Thad was over at our house one night checking his email and Timshel and I were making supper for the three of us. We had been listening to a bunch of records, and I put on the Neil Young’s “Comes a Time.” We’d never listened to this record with Thad before, and as soon as track one, side one came on, Thad froze up. He looked pretty confused, and a little misty if you know what I mean.
He said “Oh what are you doing? You can’t put this thing on without giving me at least a week’s warning – I fell in love to this record (!)
It turns out that this was Thad and his special lady’s main album -- The same special someone who was the eventual broken-heart-inspiration behind the lion’s share of songs on Stack of Dreams and Warmth and Beauty. Jackpot. As far as insensitive moves go, I had rolled snake eyes and not known it. Needless to say I put on something else. We felt pretty bad about the whole event, and probably made some lame jokes about how many couples we’d known that had fallen in love to Cinderella and Scorpions tapes (Ourselves included in this list naturally).
A couple of weeks later I was brushing my teeth and I got this song in my head. I don’t remember exactly what I had been thinking, but probably something along the lines of how emotionally stable Thad would be if he only listened to the Z100 radio stations. Anyway I wrote this song that night and played it for Thad that weekend at one of our shows. Lyrically, it is a recollection of a conversation between two friends. If you have been coming to our live shows, you might have notices the lyrics have changed a little since we recorded the demo that is on our myspace page.
Thanks to all who write in and ask about these songs. we'll post more of these as the record release approcahes.

All the way to merlefest I don't think i'll miss you much. Three knockout moments we need to share with the people from this weekend are (we only got to go for sat. and half of sunday) - 1) sitting at the foot of the cabin stage drinking a hot coffee hearing Gillian Welch and David rawlings sing a new song of theirs (in unison!) for an amazing 5 minutes. Then hearing them cover "White Rabbit". youch. 2) watching all the Cailtin Cary Thad Cockrell sets we could manage. Having just returned from their european tour, they were in fantastic form, each show topping the last - fantastic-o! As usual we highly recommmend that Begonias record to everyone and EVERY one. If you' haven't heard it yet you can either go get it now, or wait until David Lynch puts "please break my heart" in his next movie, and then it will be very chic to go listen to "that begonias record that was underappreciated back in 2005". 3)Watching Doc Watson and the Nashville Bluegrass Band play their gospel set on sunday morning. Doc is 83 and still, without question, plays a set that never fails to silence and inspire the crowd and every other musician who has played the stage during the weekend. Incredible and beautiful and always the biggest treat of Merlefest. All in all we had a great weekend and even manage to squeeze in a minute or two for some pics with a couple unruly fans (see pic). Thanks to all who came out to Tyler's to see us play with THe Old Ceremony. We were very excited to finally get to play with TOC. Django (Haskins) is a primo singer and songwriter (a rarer combination than one might think), and the band he has gathered is such an amazing group of musicians. It goes without saying that they were fantastic and won many friends.