thanks for the hospitality!

the more we tour, the more we appreciate good hospitality.

a special thank you goes to following people and establishments who have made us feel so welcome in their town:

matt & megan in wichita, for putting us up and letting us sleep all day.

rock island live, also in wichita, for giving us a bar tab and having an awesome sound man.

tessa & nate in KC, for passing the hat at our show, setting us up with a place to stay, and being great friends in general.

reggie's in chicago, for feeding our hungry asses whatever we wanted on the menu, letting us nap in the booth, having booths to nap in, killer sound, all-around awesomeness.

sarah, todd & family, for putting us up, taking us to awesome breakfast (again!), and being our favorite relatives in chicago ;)

paradigm in sheboygan, for having a legit stage and sound system (in a coffee shop!), for feeding us yummy and fresh food, for collecting tips for us at the counter, and for creating a great space to hang out in, complete with cozy furniture.


tonight we play at Art Bar in Milwaukee, then we begin our trek back westward, with a show in minneapolis on sunday and aberdeen on monday.   we have a couple days to get to montana (we're hoping to have time to drive through yellowstone), then we play in bozeman and finish things off with our friends in boise.  we can't wait for that show!

until the next,
s

Getting frisked in Mississippi

Red is a very cautious driver.

he's not quite on the level of that insane car puttering along in the right-hand lane that even slow trucks eventually have to pass, but he's close.   

his caution did not help us in mississippi.

what happened:

we were driving down some state highway when we passed two cop cars hanging out in the median. Red checked the speedometer-- yep, 5mph under the speed limit. all good.

a few seconds later the red and blue lights were flashing in our rear view.

the cop didn't say why he pulled us over, but he asked Red to step out of the car.

Red politely obliged.  

He was gone from the car for a long time.  Finally the cop approached my window and asked to see my ID.   Is this your current address in California?   Is that man your husband?  How long have you known each other?  Where are you coming from?  Where are you going?  What venue did you play at again?   Huh, never heard of it.  Where did you stay last night?  Have you ever been arrested before? Has he ever been arrested before?  What instruments do you play?  What instruments does he play? What kind of music is it?  Where are you going?  Where did you stay last night?

just over and over and over.

Finally he stopped interrogating me and returned to the other cop (who had continued questioning Red).

Several more minutes of waiting before Red returned to the car.  He had been frisked and was asked the same questions as me.  The one cop spit on the ground a few times while they talked, which Red still finds hilarious.

They couldn't find one single reason to give us a ticket.  They had no reason to pull us over in the first place.  California plates in Mississippi.  Apparently that was reason enough.



We have more tales to tell from our first tour to the South.  I'll get to it one of these days, hopefully.  For now I'll just say this-- Cajun Country (Lafayette, LA) is awesome.  It's definitely on the list of places we'd like to spend a month writing music.  Other places from this tour are Las Cruces, NM and Bisbee, AZ.

until the next,
s

pre-tour madness (a list)

1.  build (or re-build) the box that houses our PA (we have a new PA!  we're much happier with the way things are sounding now.)

2.  screen-print more t-shirts (have i mentioned we're doing it ourselves?  with thanks to this awesome company that burns screens.)

3.  somehow mess with / fix the blue spells insert in a way that makes me like it and not think it is just a silly waste of paper and ink.  i see paint and paper-ripping in my future.

4.  stamp CD covers (yes, we are returning to our DIY roots and hand-stamping our CDs once again.  we'll still have some "official" copies on hand (full-color eco-wallets with bar code, yada yada))

5.  scramble together more last-minute shows (hey we'll be in austin for five days!  we have two shows on the same day.  will you be there?  do you live there?  let's play!)

6.  tell people we're coming.  this is the part that gives me the most stress.   try as i might to be a promoter, i am just.not.

7.  update websites.  there are so many.  so very many.

8.  don't panic.  remember that once we get on the road it'll alllll be fiiiiine.

9.  pick up my new keyboard stand!  it came!  finally.  good lord i hope i can figure out how to use it before our first show so as to avoid looking like a total spazz.

10.  remember that looking like a spazz on the first show of tour is rather inevitable.

11.  find my old tape recorder.  if i can't find it in the buried rubble that is our practice space, hope/pray that one finds me.  because i've recently remembered that recording noises to tape pretty much rules, and the idea of doing it again makes my skin tingle.

hope to see you out there!
s


currently listening to:  Mogwai (Rave Tapes!)

SXSW + tour dates + patches!

We invite you to please welcome the newest addition to our merch case-- Patches!  Yes.  Our practice space became a screen-printing factory for a day, and we're very happy with the result:

They'll be accompanying us on our first tour to Austin... woohoo!  We're finally getting to SXSW!  We've talked about going for years.  I don't know if we're more excited to play, or just be there surrounded by music happening everywhere.  Okay, both.  Definitely, both.  We'll be sure to send an email from the madness next month.

Here's where we're playing next:

Mar 5 - San Luis Obispo, CA Mar 6 - Fullerton, CA Mar 7 - San Diego, CA Mar 8 - Phoenix, AZ Mar 9 - Taos, NM Mar 10 - Amarillo, TX Mar 11-16 - Austin, TX March 19 - Houston, TX Mar 20-22 - tba Mar 23 - Lafayette, LA Mar 24 - Hattiesburg, MS Mar 25 - Tulsa, OK Mar 26 - Amarillo, TX Mar 27 - Las Cruces, NM Mar 28 - Sierra Vista, AZ Mar 29 - Phoenix, AZ Mar 30 - Los Angeles, CA April 10 - Sacramento, CA April 11 - Nevada City, CA April 12 - Berkeley, CA April 18 - Reno, NV April 19 - Salt Lake City, UT April 22 - Denver, CO and many more tba!!

Visit our tour page for show details

until the next!
s

articles from the internet / we're on the radio tonight!

just read an article by one of my favorites, about our system's absurd need for relentless growth.  this is the shit i find comforting on those days when i feel particularly struck by the ridiculousness of this civilization we've created.  "Life is a looping and spiraling thing.  It is pulsation and vibration, expansion and contraction, inhale and exhale in constant and eternal flux. Force it to stick to just one hard polarity – in our case, bigger and faster and more – and watch your species die." (Mark Morford)

my favorite comment:  "Economsits (sic) say the economy must continue to grow because the population keeps growing. However, they also say that the population needs to keep expanding in order to grow the economy. One can only conclude that most economists are bloody idiots!!"

hahaha
but it's not all bad.  i'm super pumped about the driver-less car (would make touring SO DOPE!!), and also the airpod.  holy awesome.

we're going to be on the radio tonight - Rock the Nation with Dr. Stahl.  tune in at 8pm PST to listen, and call in if you'd like to ask us something.  that would be groovy :)

until the next,
s   

cool things, one by one

One new vox pedal, for experimentation purposes.

"One stripped down acoustic song performed under a lemon tree in Berkeley."  what's this?  The Lemon Tree Sessions

One On-Stage keyboard stand, to replace the funky lunky one that Red made four years ago.  oh!  but it was such a conversation piece!  and, bye bye.

One free scoop of ice cream when you buy our albums (or any item over $10) at Rasputin Music in Berkeley!  (it feels like spring in the bay, so you might as well eat ice cream =D)

One reverb tank, to hopefully fix the problem Red's amp has been having as of late.

One new clip of live footage, from our recent show in San Diego.

wishing you all one hell of a monday.

until the next,
s

shout-outs and thank yous, and the word jaunt a few times

we're back from our fun little winter jaunt.

(the word 'jaunt' implies little, i know, but it was so short i can't help but emphasize.*) 

special shout out to SAC!  Shine Cafe (so nice, and Kombucha on tap!), Lob Instagon, Slow Motion Dive, All About Rockets, and all the beautiful people in attendance!  Thank you!  Yes!  We can't wait to come back!

it was also great to see so many friends in Santa Monica.  there was a lot of history in that TRiPpy room (wah wah).  thank you all for making our first show in LA (as a duo) so cozy :)  yes cozy.

san diego, we like you more and more every time.  it was a pleasure to play with The Gift Machine again, and with Karl Blau for the first time.  we got footage of everyone!  with any luck we'll get some stuff up on youtube soon.  

we have lots more exciting news to announce, so stay tuned!

until the next,
s / callow

*being on tour at all is way WAY better than not, to be sure.  but four days is just simply not enough.  that is all.