News

ok.

 yes this is a very dusty place.

we have absolutely ignored this section of our site. it's funny, when you read through these things, like i do every single day to stroke that scrappy little ego, you can always sense that we have a weird internal struggle trying to keep these up. we lost.

well, one of the reasons is now online. we made a 17 minute video snippet thingy of our experiences in 2007. it started as something youtube wanted us to do, however we weren't to keen on the guidelines. so we kept building on the original idea and the next thing you know... well, you'll see.

 it takes us from here to there. from there back to here. and then back over there, until we wrap it up right here (sounds like a rejected HOBBIT title). snow back to snow. show back to show. look closely. you'll see all the faces we travelled with, lotsa bands, lotsa friends, lotsa fiends, lotsa kangaroos. so that's that. we hope you like it.

we are searching for a new practice space (of our very own) and once settled, we'll begin writing the new record which we are very excited about starting.

i can't tell you enough how much your kindness has meant to us over these last couple of bizarre years.

it helps.

more to come now. i promise.

lovebrian 

i think christopher summed it up quite nice below. ditto that.

we're in salt lake city, sitting in "too soon" (scroll way down if you don't know what i mean), awaiting the club people and our friends sea wolf. we're playing a few american dates, including lollapalooza, before heading to europe again. our new sound man fritz has been entertaining us with tons of previous tour stories and lovely little tidbits that make the milk come out of the nostrils. he went people fishing and i was the bait. totally.

we just played the seattle block party. it was great, but the city made the festival turn our sound way way way down. so, sorry. we tried, but they wouldn't let us turn it up. i think that was kind of stupid. the final bands of the night are not allowed to be loud. silly planning. i hope it sounds better for spoon. but the crowd was lovely all the same. late night real bowling followed (i trained hard with the wii in glasgow). i wasn't prepared for my shoe confusion. dumb me. dumb me. oh well, i have my own bowling shoes now and some lovely little alley in seattle has a nice pair of black and brown pumas.

watched quadrophenia and head last night. head... the monkees... jack nicholson... eh... hmmm....

never has dolenz been so emotive, nesmith so cool, tork so stoic, and jones so little and punchable.

i don't want to ruin it for you, but in the beginning, they are being chased by the ending. that's why they jump off the bridge into the river of mermaids. nice. i bet, when the one person who saw the film in the theaters, he or she probably screamed, "PLAY CLARKSVILLE DAMN IT!!! CLARKSVILLE!!". he or she then went home and cried him/herself to sleep, while a flickering light danced though the window emitting from a monkees luchbox on fire in the driveway.

lie back and think of england.

love brian

don't call it a comeback...

hello.

how are you?

nice to see you again.

i am now 35650 feet above sea level, shooting through the sky at a wee 589 mph. we just left a quick accidental pit stop in salt lake city, from LA to NYC. i have a jack and ginger in one hand while my other rapidly flips through all the tv channels ol' jet blue has to offer. since i don't watch much tv, i'm now full of useless knowledge, por ejemplo: the hoola hoop was invented by egyptians, the original mr. potato head toy was just the pieces to make the face while you supplied your own potato, and 94% of americans think paris hilton was treated justly. awww people... we just love tearing down the ones we deliver fame. so much has happened since we last spoke. i'll just kinda brain bubble it, wing it if you will...

the snow patrol tour was a great experience for us. we had an amazing time. snow patrol and ok go were the nicest bunch of bands you could imagine. "they make all the other bands we've toured with look like dicks". yep, i quoted myself. some highlights? sure. salt lake city and edmonton were two of the most amazing shows we have ever played, only to be eclipsed by montreal. i am not even sure what happened that night. it was unreal. merci. making a jungle gym out of wardrobe racks, in our dressing room in minneapolis, listening to prince songs and swinging the night away. that was nice. our week long stint by ourselves in the south, meeting new bands and blowing up PAs, and playing some of the rowdiest shows we have ever done. again, merci to you. the haunted baton rouge dressing room was a nice touch. nikki still has nightmares. the sspu SP dance party in houston.

in fact, the many sspu SP dance parties. when dave dupuis (our soundie), nikki, marie (one of our managementies), mcrae (our tour manager), and i went down to the beach in miami after the show. it was so nice with our feet in the atlantic, drinking beers and seriously, and i mean seriously, contemplating pikul tatoos. that was good. i was this close. pablo (SP bass player and sspu guru) and dan (okgo drumhead) joining us on lazy eye for the last half of the tour. in particular, the final night when johnny (SP drumhead) played as well and tim (okgo all around chap) did a silver pants elvis dance on the video screen behind us during little lover's so polite (seriously... you can youtube it). and on and on and on.

we really made some great friends. pablo flew to LA to play guitar on lazy eye for our secret silverlake lounge show. yep, we're tight. whoah... we just got slammed with some serious turbulence. i'll take that as fate telling me to move on.

but before i do, i think i'm in a very emotional mood. i just watched the last bit of spiderman 2 on the plane and i felt really really bad for peter parker. give the guy a break, right?

yes yes, you little detectives, you are correct. we shot a video for little lover's so polite in downtown los angeles with jaoquin phoenix in the director's chair.

mark this one down as one of those bizarre things you experience when you are in our business... the business of smiles. why was it so nuts? because each and every one of us stood up in the back of a speeding truck where we played our song at double speed zipping through the streets of LA at 4 in the morn with nothing strapping us down. the whole while, jaoquin screaming "beautiful" which i'm pretty sure he was right. the cherry on the video sunday was the donut truck. this is a stunt truck that is specifically designed to do donuts at 45mph. christopher had a whole drum set strapped down in the back of this thing. i was tied to the chair. it was fucking insane and worth the price of admission and will probably only be seen for a second or two. ok, wait... we are now flying over iowa city. i promised myself i would change the subject by then.

but before i do, i watched pretty in pink for the first time in my life a couple of weeks ago. now, i agree with all of you. duckie should've got the girl. everyone knows this and it's the common thing one talks about when referencing this film. i just learned that originally in the film, he did get the girl, but because of audience testing, they changed the ending. how poetic is that? everyone believes duckie should've won, but the only reason he didn't was because people didn't want him to. wow. no, this isn't a theme i'm trying to set up. i feel way worse for duckie than paris...

coachella was a dream. better than i could ever have imagined. i'm not talking about our set (which i loved dearly), but the whole dealie. they set you up in this area that looks like a retirement home for bands. we all have our own little trailer with a garden and what not. it's really amazing. we had friends and visitors and previous touring partners stop by and say hi. i borrowed some sugar from jarvis cocker and wrote blonde redhead a love note (seriously the best band the universe). i accidentally ran into amy winehouse. she then hugged me and whispered "totally" in my ear. she is so little that it felt like a nibble from the breeze. dancing in a secret spot with my girlfriend 10 feet away from bjork during her whole show was a little bit of alright. jesus and mary chain was so amazing. thank god. i was worried. even despite that weird scarlett joe (so over her) duet, they were stunning. arcade fire pretty much was a game over situation. what are you gonna do? they were unreal. siting on the stage watching willie nelson kind of completed the whole weekend. it was also nice to be home... sort of... oh, our friend cece took blonde redhead's souvenir painting (we all got one specifically made for each band) that they left behind. it is now proudly hanging up in my bathroom....... and our lovely sound man dave dupuis took acid watching regina spektor. that is one hell of a commitment.

we've got a ton of stuff coming up. we're really excited about it all. playing some shows with our friend's amazing band sea wolf is a great way for us to start the next phase of our lives. europe and radio festivals and all that jazz is in the immediate works. thanks sincerely for paying atention. we owe you one.

alright. no more yelling at me. i'm doing my best. i will talk to you sooner than later. sooner. totally.

love brian

i miss amber.  i shipped her away to the UK so i won't see her again til mid may.  she's going to live there for good, and even though i'm the one that told her to go, i'm not quite sure if i made the right decision.  amber and i were inseperable these last couple months.  she rocked my world as i did hers.  and now i'm left with a loneliness that is hard to bare, and yet i'm the one who pushed her a world away.  i hope she is safe on her journey, for i can't wait to see her again.

amber is the best drumset i ever owned.  she will always be my fave...

~xoxopher