.

Giving it Away, Until I Think Better of it

2011-12-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

I have been living under various rocks for most of my life but recently emerged from my latest rock to see the weird harsh light of our new digital world. I guess it first happened when my hard drive crashed and I lost all my information, including old demos, new things, and music for listening pleasure. My turntable is broken and getting it fixed is annoying, so, for the first time, I gave illegal downloading a go.

Seems crazy and hypocritical, right? Especially when I ask people to buy my music? Yeah maybe. But all this illegal downloading has exposed me to such great music, from unreleased Can to Les Paul and Mary Ford to Kraftwerk bootlegs to Gene Clark.

It's a weird time in music. If you just enter an album title and "rar" into google, you can download an album and be listening to it in 30 seconds.

In this digital age, it is just insanely easy to steal things, and I myself have recently seen the benefit of it.

So I am putting all my old music up as "pay what you want" on bandcamp.

It's kind of funny/bizarre. Some of the old releases I did not have anymore so I had to google them and 'illegally' download them from filesharing sites.

I am still charging money for special objects... any item I produce that you can hold in your hands will be a special and unique object. But, as far as I can tell, there is no enforceable way to make listeners pay for mp3s.

You can download most of my back catalog here:

http://blankfritz.bandcamp.com

Blank Fritz is the name of my new band, whenever it comes together. For the time being, I am playing alone. Perhaps a bit premature, or perhaps a bit optimistically, I named the site Blank Fritz. Now it is just a name sitting there, a reminder that I am playing solo and have not gotten another band together.

Sunset is taking a break, both as a concept and entity and whatever else. But I will keep using these various interfaces, cuz they took awhile to make.

"Yoga Drill Sergeant" at SXSW 2011

2011-03-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

My SXSW 2011 showcase.

Performed to a confused crowd at The Marq

"Yoga Drill Sergeant"

Hot Pink Haze, #1

2010-07-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

update:Started another blog, same content, but without all the spam comments and a cleaner interface. You can bookmark that one instead, if you like. If not, no matter.

http://sunsetband.tumblr.com

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Running like a madman finishing all the tasks I will never finish. I feel like rolling down a long grassy hill into a pool of beer and taking a nice long cold swim.

For this tour, I bought a pretty cool, very small digital video camera from Japan. I will be doing some video updates and such.

The first!

Touring

2010-04-08T12:28:00.000-07:00

we are in the planning process for our next massive tour.

Please get in touch about house shows, DIY spots, radio, etc. We would love to come by, play and say "hi." We will be touring the east coast with our friends and bandmates Sleep Good, and the west coast with Jesse Woods.

The film "Echotone," which follows my curious path through the music industry, will be premiering at the Marfa Film Fest, which takes place May 5th through 8th. We will be playing the closing night party and have lots of special surprises planned, so do consider making the drive if that's a possibility for you.

in the meantime, take a look at this score by John Cage:

hey

2010-03-09T11:33:00.000-08:00

Here is newsletter #3, in case you did not receive:

http://eepurl.com/i4qy

and check this out:

The World is Awaiting / Yr Eyes are Mirrors / Dreams of Sandy ( live )

2010-02-15T02:58:00.001-08:00

Surreal to see this now. First incarnation of the group. You could see us learning as we go. It makes me laugh to watch how close things are to falling apart. The looks on my fellow bandmates' faces are pretty priceless. Everybody is wondering what the hell is happening.

I wonder that myself as I watch "The World is Awaiting" performed on frantic, completely overdriven Rhodes. Hard to imagine/remember my motivation for performing it that way.

Taken from the "Pink Clouds" cassette release show at Beerland, December 15, 2007.
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You can watch me talking about the TV Organ here:

...

2009-12-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

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2010 coming up soon. wasn't "2010" the sequel to "2001" (speaking of films here)? Kubrick wasn't involved in the sequel. I heard it wasn't too great, but I always had a soft spot in my heart for Roy Scheider. How could it get any better than 2001 though? for the love of zoroaster, why don't people make sequels to terrible movies so that they can avoid the inevitable lame-ass sequel syndrome?

Anyhow, if next year is the sequel to 2001, let me recall what I was doing in 2001? Oh yeah. I was starting my old band Sound Team, living in Portland Oregon, recording on the 4track and scraping by. Didn't see the sun for about 5 months.
-----------------------------

A film crew followed me around for a few months and asked me about being on a major label and starting over as an independent artist. The film is called "Echotone." It's a play off the word "Ecotone," which Wikipedia describes as:

"from a combination of eco(logy) plus -tone, from the Greek tonos or tension – in other words, a place where ecologies are in tension."

The film deals with Austin's transitional phase right now (from mid-size to super-ultra city of the future) and the effect it's having on musicians.

The First Echotone Teaser Trailer 1280x720 HD from echotonefilm on Vimeo.

neon wake show / world cafe

2009-12-07T10:59:00.000-08:00

Here are a few photos of our video set, the same one we just performed on tour. Taken by Trey Baker at the Animal Trustees Benefit, at the old Ms Bea's.

Full set here. I will soon post the entire neon wake video.

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check us out on World Cafe on NPR, or listen to hear it on air.

november 23rd

2009-11-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

=====================================

My small world has been a bombardment of late. Everything came down at once. A beautiful thing... maybe. In the course of three weeks, I toured the east coast, composed and performed a live film score, flew back up to Philly with the band for the end-of-the-year Weathervane bash at Johnny Brenda's, then created the TV organ installation at Baby Blue. Also played host for E.A.S.T. studio tour. Oh yeah, did I mention I ran a marathon? Yeah, that too.

here are a few tour photos I took! :

sunrise over the days inn, in the vacant lot in Kentucky where we slept:

Breezy Point, NYC:

NYC language school:

4track recording at Quentin's house:

Birch Office, Smith Hill Farm:

Giant Colored Balls, Smith Hill Farm:

=========================================
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You can look at the whole set HERE.
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=========================================

We've all been busy of late..... John flew to the Czech Republic to re-unite with his Czech family members, Will has been recording his amazing new music as Sleep Good and filming a mini-documentary about analog tape, and Willis has been writing some incredible songs. He and Austin Jones recorded a sweet cover of John Cale's "Paris 1919," our officially "most played song" for the last tour.

So moving on to some big news.... our album, "Gold Dissolves to Gray," just got released on vinyl! Self-released mind you. You can hear the whole thing on bandcamp:

http://sunset.bandcamp.com/

It's a distributed item, so you can request it at your local awesome independent record store. If you have to go to Best Buy, you might have to special order it. But who wants to go to Best Buy. Parking lots that large make me feel like an insect.

I never mentioned it before, but the new album has lots of awesome collaborators, from Mazarin, Danielson, LAKE, Jesse Woods, Bitter Bitter Weeks, Coffee Jamie, Nick Hennies, Joey Koehl, and more. Lots of random names, I know, but look them up... very talented people.

Bandcamp is also streaming "Bright Blue Dream" and "The Glowing City." It's a really great website with a kind-of dumb name. What's in a name, though? Not much. Seems bandcamp has emerged as an alternative to myspace. Thank zoroaster. There is ordering info for most of our releases up on the site, plus high-quality downloads.

Did I mention it makes a fantastic holiday present? No? What? What was I talking about?

Originally I just wanted to release the record on vinyl, but thought better of it. Now all the records have c.d.s enclosed. Plus we did a run of 500 c.d.s with special screen-printed covers from Stumptown printers in Portland. They use all recycled paper and vegetable inks and all that super-cool next-level enviro stuff.

"Gold Dissolves to Gray" is a slight detour into a rough green field where monkeys are playing saxophones (not very successfully) and wearing astronaut suits and dreaming of the distant evolutionary future when they will be able to synthesize perfect french fries from glue paste and food flavoring.

The next album will be out next year and will be the sound of two different constellations, Andromeda and Orion, having a nervous breakdown and a break-up. Yes, that's the sound. The subject matter is the emergence of a soul from darkness into light and back again, like a little human yo-yo. Which brings me to this:

We are still raising money using Kickstarter... whatever extra money we can bring in will be put towards paying for the next release. Please consider making a donation here:

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No shows coming up yet, but stay tuned. We will no doubt be having some fun times again at the studio, and hopefully hitting the road in early 2010.

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here's a picture of the band in Philly:

stay tuned for more updates!

update o rama

2009-11-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

* Our fundraising effort to play in Philadelphia.
* Live film score w/ free admission and whiskey
* How to order our new album, "Gold Dissolves to Gray"
* EAST Studio tour

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Earlier this year, we were asked by Weathervane, a Philly-based non-profit, to record for a few days at the amazing Miner Street studio. Our session, produced by the esteemed Quentin Stolzfus (formerly of Mazarin), resulted in the semi-hummable tune "Fishtown."

We are going back to Philly on November 12th to play Weathervane's end of the year celebratory free-for-all at Johnny Brenda's. It gonna be pretty sweet. Also playing are Danielson, BC Camplight, and East Hundred.

Thing is, it's expensive to get up to Philly. We bought our plane tickets on a credit card, but we need some help to actually pay the bill when it arrives in a month or so.

To this end, we set up an account at Kickstarter, the fundraising website used by everyone from Polyvinyl records to our friends Weathervane. The lowdown: we are trying to raise $500 to help offset our flight costs. Please consider making a donation. Every single bit helps. Literally every dollar gets us closer to our goal.

You can donate
here.

If you donate certain amounts, you get certain things in return. A little tit for tat. $100 will earn you a private living room concert and pizza delivery. $15 earns you a c.d. Etc. And if we do not meet our $500 goal, you will not be charged a thing.

If this fundraising effort is successful, we might try it again to fund all sorts of crazy tours and projects.

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On Friday, November 13th, we will be playing a special original score along to some early experimental films.

It is a free event, with free whiskey! You only need to RSVP, and you do so
here.

And here is the Facebook page with much more relevant info:
facebook invite.

The score has me indulging my long dormant keyboard fantasies alongside bowed bass and a master percussionist, playing along with two films (one 6 mins, the other 23 mins). I am very much looking forward to it. Did I mention it's at a super sweet photography studio?

Also please keep in mind Sam Sanford's art opening the following night. For those unaware, Sam was a guitarist in Sunset for two years. He is a fantastic painter and this is his first solo show. Facebook invite here.

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Also, we have a new album coming out November 24th! "Gold Dissolves to Gray," which was just called a "beauty of an album" (Some Velvet Blog), is available on 180gram lp with c.d. inserted. Also available as a c.d. with special screen-printed cover. Both the c.d. and l.p. are available in a limited edition of 500. Did I mention the c.d. looks really cool under a black light? Yes, it does.

Pre-order information here.

Also available in your local independent record shop soon.

It's somewhat of a departure for me. Less psychedelic, maybe. Bringing forth certain folk and country elements that had previously remained under the surface. Safe to say, this record will be unique in the Sunset catalog. The next release, fairly near completion, takes things in a whole other direction.

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The EAST studio tour is a chance for folks to ride their bikes to all the artist's studios on the East Side and see where the magic happens. Last year, I rode my bike all across town and saw some amazing art and had lots of free beer and chips.

Josh Duke and I have decided to take part in this year's festivities. Josh will be running a portrait studio and selling prints of his photography. He takes very cool, old-timey photographs using large-format cameras and develops the pictures at Baby Blue, using his own darkroom. A really cool operation he's got going.

I will be presenting a special interactive version of the TV Matrix, entitled "TV Organ." Each of the thirty screens will show a loop of an instrument playing in a certain key. The screens will all be based in the same key, but screens will be playing the 5th, others the 3rd, and perhaps a 7th thrown in too. In front of the grid, I will have my large mixing board and participants can change the shape of the drone. Around the mixing board, there will be 8 monitor speakers providing surround sound. It will be trippy and bizarre, but also very graspable and concrete. I think it's going to be awesome. The installation will be fully open during EAST's second weekend, and during the previous week by appointment only.

neon wake 7

2009-10-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

We eventually left dunkin donuts and Denver, PA and did our damn best to make that night's show in Louisville, but to no avail. So I drove literally all night, until 4am. Listened to an amazing song called "This Country Boy's Truck," which described how a very attractive woman in a bar wanted to have sex with a certain country boy because the tires on his truck were "the highest she had ever seen."

At 4am, pulled off the road just north of Nashville. Willis and I slept in a vacant lot next to the freeway, sort of sandwiched between a Days Inn and Comfort Inn. It was fairly sketchy, as you might imagine. We just rolled out our bags and laid down for awhile, probably got at least a few hours sleep. I watched the sunrise over the back of the Days Inn. It was really really beautiful. Then this lady walking her dog stumbled upon us and made eye contact with me and it was awkward. So my sunrise viewing session was cut short as we jumped back in the car, so as to avoid the police and a potential vagrancy fine.

Willis and I look like we slept in a vacant lot. But we feel great.

Now at Fido's in Nashville, about to hit the final home stretch home. 13 hours or something similar. Playing tonight at BainStock 2009. Then finally back home.

The tour was incredible. Thanksss: LAURA!, bandmates John and Will who could not be there, Paul Sisler, Dash in Chapel Hill, Quentin and Dana and Brian in Philly, Elizabeth and Joel in NYC, Leon and Elaine Smith and Willis' Aunt Mimi in Akrondale NY, Fred and Ryan from City Center, all the nice toll booth workers, Dwight Eisenhauer (for starting the federal interstate system), Tommy back at home, Sam and Jack for helping me make screens, Josh holding it down at Baby Blue, and Thor god of thunder.

A few details overlooked in past posts: our 2nd day in NYC, Willis Joel and I went out to Breezy Point, ostensibly to surf. It was pouring rain, pouring pouring down. We got soaked but saw a side of NYC I had not seen before. Amazing. Later that day, Willis and I went back to the Russian Baths and had a long discussion with an old semi-mystic. He had a beard about a foot long and this weird type of skull cap, not a yarmulke. He said the future is now, that tai chi allows your body to move in every direction simultaneously, and that the baths were better than "16 grams of psylocybin." I am pretty sure, in his case, given his yelling and jumping and wild gesticulations, he was experiencing both the baths AND the 16 grams of pscylocibin (sp?).

Later that night, after Death by Audio, Willis and I made a mockery of some uber-hipster Williamsburg karaoke bar. It was legendary and the details are best left undocumented.

Also, while I was in Philly, Quentin, Dana and I hung out with Pete Bauer from the Walkmen and his pregnant wife. Congrats guys. Turns out Pete makes his living doing astrological readings, which I found bizarre and completely unexpected and quite interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I had to include it in this post.

Til next time, America. It was an amazing tour. Next time perhaps the West coast.
==============
and now some last thoughts from Willis:
I was sleeping in the car, then I was sleeping on the ground. West Virginia public radio had some interesting programming. Insights into the textbook wars during the early 70's. Russian baths at 10th and ave. A are unforgettable. Leon, Elaine, Elizabeth and Joel are very special folks.

neon wake 6

2009-10-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

Sitting right now in a Dunkin Donuts in Lancaster County, western Pennsylvania. We were driving our of Philly this morning, dreaming dreams of massive crowds and adulation in Louisville. But these dreams got splashed by a large bucket of sludgy lardy donut grease. MMmmm.

All the power in the vehicle turned off. Couldn't roll up or down the windows, no car stereo, and all the gauges froze in place. Engine started making funny sounds.

Pulled over in Denver, PA. Stopped at Al's Exxon. While we waited in the mechanic's waiting room, Willis flossed his teeth while reading ads for motor oil. Yep.

Turns out we have a bad alternator. So we wandered along the side of the highway. Seems we've landed in the antique warehouse capital of the freaking world. Never much been a fan of "bric-a-brac" myself. I swear, most of this stuff is old tins of baby powder.

Ate breakfast at a diner next door to the garage. Heard muzak versions of Neil Young, Beatles, and more. I ordered my omellete without sausage. They brought out my omellete and it was stuffed with ham. Turns out their omellete was stuffed with sausage AND ham. My mistake, perhaps, but I swear I've never heard of such an omellete. Didn't occur to me that 2 types of swine would spice up the "Down Home Omellette."

So now in Dunkin' Donuts, sipping an iced tea and eating some munchkins. These things are pretty great, I gotta admit. I only wish they sold them individually. You gotta buy in increments of 5. What a crock of shit.

Last night, we played in Philly at the Khyber and our gig was in direct conflict with the Phillies' first game of the world series. The Phillies had a great night, us maybe not so much. Although I really did have a great time. Played to 2 very enthusiastic people, both members of the Philly band BC Camplight. They were really great singers.

When we arrived at the Khyber, I asked the sound guy if we could push the gig back at all to perhaps not conflict directly with the game. He advised, "You should play soon to get the pain over with." Heartening words, truly.

So we sat in the bar and fended off crackheads and frat boyz outside. The bartender brought us a massive plate of fruit. I mean, this thing was ridiculously huge. Not sure if they treat all their bands this way. It was quite the spread. I offered some fruit to the other band, but the sound guy thought I was talking to him and grabbed all the watermelon. Not that I care, I hate watermelon. But it was funny. First he tells me to end the show quickly to "get the pain over with" then he grabs all the watermelon and starts chewing it with his mouth open. I was laughing, though. I thought the dude was pretty awesome in his own way.

Now I am passing the keyboard to Willis for some more commentary:

Ummm, Errr... Let's see? uhhh well, we're stopped in Denver, PA having the car repaired. It's quaint little town rich with antique malls housing all types of wonders and bric-a-brac. We purchased Ricky Martins smash effort simply titled "Ricky Martin" for one dollar which bill donated 30 cents toward. With hits including "She's all I ever had" and "Livi'n la vida loca", perhaps you've heard it. After tasting the local color we moseyed on over to the Dunkin' Donuts for use of their free Wi-Fi...And here we be. So ,in conclusion, If your ever headed west from Philly on the Penn turnpike be sure to stop off in Denver, PA but fasten your seat belts folks cause it's a wild ride.

here are some lyrics to:
"Shake your Bon-Bon"

By R. Martin featuring Hernan "Teddy" Mullet on brass
Make-up by Maital Sabban

I'm a desperado
underneath your window
I see your silhouette
Are you my Julliet?

I feel a mad connection with your body
Shake your Bon-Bon
shake your Bon-Bon
shake your Bon-Bon

I wanna be your lover
will go around the world in a day

Don't say no, NO
Shake it my way, OH

Shake your bon-bon
Shake your bon-bon
Shake your bon-bon
Shake your bon-bon
Shake your bon-bon
Shake your bon-bon
Shake your bon-bon
Shake your bon-bon

neon wake 5

2009-10-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

After spending a couple of days upstate, we headed down state road 22 into NYC proper. Headed straight over to Goodbye Blue Mondays, a cool thrift store/venue. There were a good number of people there and we played an enjoyable set.

Next day was an epic day of awesome pleasure. Ate 5 meals, all from different ethnic backgrounds: Cuban sandwich, tacos, Vietnamese sandwich, borscht, and bagels. Also went back to David and Boris' Russian and Turkish bath on East 10th street. This time, I got the oak platza treatment. A big Russian guy whips you with a swatch of oak branches. Rubs you down. It was intense and strange. And of course we sat in the oven room, probably the hottest room in the world. Willis enjoyed his first trip there.

Back at my cousin Elizabeth's apartment she shares with her boyfriend Joel, we bobbed for apples (Elizabeth and Willis said they'd never done it.) the proof:

Later that evening, we played at Death by Audio, a super sweet space 2 blocks from Elizabeth's apartment. played with sam buck rosen and green grocer who were both awesome. Spent a long time talking with the bartender and she bought a tshirt. as at most of the shows thus far, the crowd was not huge but people who were there seemed really into it and I heard lots of kind words afterwards. awesome.

at death by audio (earlier in the day I bought some sweet purple pants and you can see em here. they actually blended in perfectly with the walls!):

neon wake 3

2009-10-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

i stayed another few days in philly with quentin and dana and drank myself silly a few nights and went on a long hike and marvelled at the rapidly transforming urban bleakness. casinos being built, lofts going up, still garbage all across the streets and remnants of industrial infrastructure.

willis took a plane flight up to d.c. and took the chinatown bus and we took off north. his aunt mimi had offered us to stay in her cabin in upstate new york, near kingston, and we gladly accepted. arrived late at night and immediately struck by the sculptures laid out all across the grounds. turns out the property is owned by leon and elaine smith, two immensely talented artists who bought a 250 acre farm and turned it into their own private artist retreat... the place seemed designed by Dr Zeuss - massive sculptures of a coat and tie, a floating piece of birthday cake, an outdoor office amidst a birch tree forest... all playful and amazing. we were fortunate enough to stay in a cabin amidst all these sculptural wonders. willis and i drank whiskey late into the night, playing loud music and marvelling at our luck at ending up at such an amazing locale. next morning woke and cooked some soup and wandered the grounds, an extensive trail through the forests of maple turning red and white birch and elm and all sorts of other trees of which i do not know the name. wandered and wondered and stood in awe.

later, leon told us about his indoor racquetball court, conjecturing it might be a nice acoustical space for us to rehearse. and it was. we played loud and without effects and it simply blew me away. here is a video:

later that evening, played at an awesome venue called "goodbye blue monday" in bushwick brooklyn. great space.

here are some photos from the rest of our time at leon and elaine smith's "smith hill farm":

neon wake 2

2009-10-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

After a nice rest in Lexington, headed southeast through Eastern Kentucky and Western Virginia, along the mountain parkway dubbed the "country music highway." Radio stations there just amazing. A few songs about tractors and what-have-you and then at least 20 minutes of stand-up comedy. It was a radio format unfamiliar to me. The comedian seemed to have 10 or so people in the studio with him, hooting and hollering.

Stopped at Natural Bridge state park in Kentucky and ran to the top, snapped some photos and ran back down. I knew I'd be cutting it close, and indeed I did. Drove all into the evening, through mountains and passes and well past dark, straight on to Chapel Hill and played immediately to a nice crowd. They cheered and seemed excited.

Next day hung with Dash and we talked all sorts of far-off philosophy and I bought a few tapes: the "Cats" soundtrack, the "Annie" soundtrack, Ace of Base, and "Mozart's Greatest Hits." The Mozart tape, in addition to that phenomenal title, had a supremely psychedelic cover. Somebody had taken a Mozart bust and painted it in various vibrant splashes of primary color. Whoa, psychedelic.

I woke that morning and saw my Cincinnati gig had not been listed with the club. Oh well, fuck that. So instead drove all the way East, dipping my toes in the frigid Atlantic at North Carolina's phenomenal Outer Banks. Went to the lost colony of Roanoke.

Kept driving, drove all night and hit Philly about midnight. The Phillies had just won their way into the world series and everybody seemed in the mood for screaming. I saw a Wendy's parking lot overflowing with excitement.

Reached Quentin's, drank some beers and passed out. Next morning headed across the river to Camden, New Jersey, the unofficial "shittiest place in America." Seems Walt Whitman had lived his final years there, writing the deathbed draft of "Leaves of Grass." Quentin and I drove there but the place was locked and shuttered. A very sketchy crackhead outside offered to be our tour guide. I refused and he started hugging me in a way that was not just super affectionate. Plus the dude stank. He asked for a dollar, I said no, then he asked for two dollars, I said no, then he asked for five. I always thought that begging negotiations went the opposite way. He started yelling obescenities as we drove away. So we instead went to Walt Whitman's tomb / mausaleum. Impressive. The plaque mentioned something along the lines of, "Don't miss me when I'm gone, you'll be treading your bootheels upon my body." Of course, his body was encased in a huge stone mausaleum, so we climbed on top and stomped our feet around. Just like Walt would've wanted.

Quentin kindly offered to let me stay in the third floor of his home, where he's got all varieties of amazing instruments and books and pictures on the walls and an old Tascam 4track. I wrote and recorded a song called "Til the Sun Burns No More," which might end up alright. Then some aimless bass solos, and a seriously damaged version of Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make it Through the Night." I don't think that one'll see the light of day.

Today woke early and wandered along the Deleware River, walked past Penn Treaty Park and some casinos under construction and on into old town with its plaques and heavy history. Philadelphia seems to me such a fine juxtaposition: all the historical sites, with their plaques and history held under glass and fine distinction and stately upkeep, running side by side with modern Philadelphia-- trash strewn streets, folks yelling at each other, urban decay, and the general chaos of 21st century life. Nothing deflates all the high-falutin' history like a little dose of real-life. Perhaps just a reminder that the history is still being written.

Stopped by the studio where Quentin's mixing a record for a Danish band. Marvelled at all the beautiful outboard gear. Kept walking. Just finished listening to Randy Newman's first record. Produced by Van Dyke Parks. Ahhhh.

neon wake 1

2009-10-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

I left Austin with many tasks half-finished, but I guess they didn't need finishing cuz I'm days into this mess and no problems have arisen thus far. At least, no problems relating to my unfinished tasks.

I'd decided to tour alone just because I really really enjoy alone time and long drives. Plus in order to make the music work alone, I knew I would have to innovate somehow, create something new. So the tour was a deadline for me, a call to action.

I created a 34 minute long super8 film with songs spread throughout. It's worked fairly well thus far.

Thanks thus far to Cley and Ryan Chavez and the Young Mammals in Houston. They let us on the bill at Mango's. Did I mention that's the best venue name ever? I actually ordered a salad from there. Imagine ordering a salad at Emo's. Probably served in an ash tray.

We were originally scheduled to play the aftershow for Widespread Panic, but it fell through in a bizarre twist of fate and bad vibes. So as not to continue the cycle, I will refrain from disclosing details, but let's just say nobody left Last Concert Cafe happy. In the end, it all worked out, so who cares.

Next day I continued on solo, drove all day to New Orleans. Ate a shrimp po-boy. Fried clumps covered in mayo in a massive white bread roll. Richard Simmons is rolling in his grave. Wait, is Richard Simmons dead? I guess he just stopped making info-mercials.

Played a show to a mostly confused crowd at Circle Bar. I was not sure how well it would go over, considering they were jamming Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak" when I walked in. Not to mention how drunk everyone is in New Orleans. There was this dude at the end of the bar at Buster's (where I ordered my po-boy) who was falling off his stool and yelling obscenities at the bartender. The bartender was coughing something nasty. All in all, a pleasant dining experience.

Back at the Circle Bar, I played with Bionica, a jazz fusion group with very good musicians but perhaps something of a mismatch with my tunes. Who knows. They were very nice and we talked for a bit afterwards. I had planned on driving on up into Mississippi to camp on Pontchatrain, but a few nice folks offered me their couch and I gladly accepted and when they made me an amazing fresh mozzarella and pesto sandwich later, I accepted that too.

Woke next morning at 7am and hit the road with no haste. 14 hour drive to Lexington, KY. I drank 2 coffees, 2 red bulls, and 3 all natural energy drinks. Arrived in Lexington feeling dead and mostly confused. But played a killer show with City Center at an art gallery. Many people bought merch, many people had awesome compliments. At this moment I knew that this tour, with its unorthodox multi-media approach, was working and would only get better.

Have taken a few photos but I do not have a digital. Will try to pick up a cheap one to upload some photos. Thanks for reading.

"neon wake" tour

2009-10-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

Exciting times.

Leaving today on a 2 week tour. Tonight playing an afterparty for The Allman Brothers/Widespread Panic show, which I am excited about. Whole new crowd.

Touring mostly by myself, but also playing with the band in Houston. Willis is flying up to meet me in Boston and we're driving down together.

The tour's named after a special edition DVD I just finished. Created a 34 minute long music video using super8 footage and ambient tracks. Then did a live performance on top, me and acoustic guitar. It's pretty special and will be available at shows for a negotiably low price.

I will be performing solo along with the video, projected onto me and through two t.v.s. It will be very special and I hope you can come out if I am passing through your area. I will also have new tshirts that I screenprinted myself. New designs on very nice American Apparel shirts. And also some hoodies to brace yourself against oncoming winter.

I hope to see you on the road. Travelling alone is always interesting. Makes you much more attuned to the kindness of strangers.

I will try to keep the blog updated along the way.

here are the dates:

Oct 17 2009 10:00P -- houston
@ Last Concert Cafe -- Afterparty for Allman Brothers / Widespread Panic ?!?!?!

Oct 18 2009 9:00P -- New Orleans
@ Circle Bar w/ Sun Hotel

Oct 19 2009 8:00P -- Lexington, Kentucky
@ Hop Hop Gallery w/ City Center, Idiot Glee -- ALL AGES

Oct 20 2009 9:00P -- chapel hill, North Carolina
@the nightlight w/ city center

Oct 21 2009 9:00P -- cincinnati
@the comet bar

Oct 24 2009 8:00P -- new haven
@Yale University

Oct 26 2009 9:00P -- Brooklyn
@ Goodbye Blue Mondays

Oct 27 2009 9:00P -- Brooklyn
Death by Audio w/ Green Grocer and Sewing Machines crooklyn

Oct 28 2009 10:00P -- Philadelphia
@the Khyber

Oct 29 2009 7:00P -- Louisville, Kentucky
@Skull Alley, w/ Joe Manning, Spirits of the Red City, Elephant Micah

"gold dissolves to gray"

2009-09-17T16:08:00.001-07:00

The new album is called "Gold Dissolves to Gray." It will be released on 180-gram vinyl, with c.d. also inserted, on November 24th.

updater

2009-08-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

I was just in South Padre Island mastering a new album. What a glorious scene... a long drive to the north end of the island takes you far far away from all the strip malls, tourist shops, screeching cars, boogie boards, gas stations. Just you and the beach and some trash and your thoughts. Tommy and I pulled out blankets from the car and hiked up into the dunes. Slept out under the stars and full moon, the waves crashing and the night glittering against the ocean's rippling mass. Whiskey until we could not stay awake longer, then off to the mastering session.

The album itself may or may not turn out properly. And if it does, not sure if it will be released, or how. I suppose if the demand is strong enough, the music will eventually see the light of day.

Lots of other music coming up, though. Finishing up a couple more albums. I suppose similar dilemmas will present themselves as this other music gets finished. Considering some sort of all-encompassing custom-built box for all this material. Again, demand will determine much of what gets produced.

In other news, considering a tour up the East coast this fall. Anybody interested in playing music with us or helping out should get in touch. We enjoy hoedowns, raves, camp-outs, big fancy clubs, large backstage sandwich spreads, and drink tickets.

Here is a copy of our rider, if you'd like to take a look:

interview

2009-07-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

insight into the process of attempting to answer interview questions ---
i want to do an interview that's all just grunt responses. and depending on the pitch and length of the grunt, and of course the context, meaning would be conveyed.

daily texan interview

baby blue photos

2009-07-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

===================================
much music being made at Baby Blue. Josh is taking lots of photos documenting it all.

Here is the photoset I made to hold Baby Blue photos. These particular photos are stills from a VHS tape.

I will upload more photos as I get them and update on the progress of our studio work.

news Update

2009-07-22T10:00:00.001-07:00

So we returned from a triumphant tour and have returned to the grind of our normal lives. I (Bill) have been prepping a couple of new albums for release. Bought a 1/4" 2track tape machine for mixing and I really like how it sounds. So putting the final touches on a number of songs. Look for a new release in the fall of 2009.

We have a few shows coming up, playing at The Parish on August 14th with Balmoreah and Ume, a studio party at Baby Blue on July 31st, September 4th at Emo's with Mothfight, and probably some more surprises. Working on a quiet show with Bosque Brown, Jesse Woods and Dana Falconberry.

Been sharing the Baby Blue studio with Josh Duke, who has been "producing" / recording the new album by Red Hunter, a.k.a. Peter and the Wolf. Their album is going to be fantastic. Josh is also a great photographer and has set up a darkroom in the studio. He made prints of some tour photos and he also did a blow-up for our next album cover.

The next release will be on cassette - "Decay," our long lost drone album, mastered by the esteemed James Plotkin.. Our friend Tommy scored us a free tape duplicator from the UT A/V library. It's beautiful. So look for that soon. There will only be around 20 copies made, perhaps with a digital release as well, who knows.

For more info, please check our myspace page. Yes, I know, myspace is soooo over, and everyone and their mom is now doing facebook. Now we look on Myspace as "the good old days." Yikes.

mental on mental

2009-06-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Been back in town a short while and the heat blows hard down here. Feels like I just stepped into a stalled hairdryer. Not even a breeze to blow off the sweat. Just this angry sunshine and pretty mellow town.

The tour felt so good, like a culmination of all the best aspects of previous tours. A good feeling held out through the whole affair. After playing the East Bay, we drove down to L.A. and played at the excellent all-vinyl shop Origami Records, located right next to the Echo. Great store, great people. We drank a few beers and tried to swallow our delirium. Swallowed some mega-burritos and headed to Noah's co-op over in Highland Park. Great dude doing something very cool. I recommend checking out his operation if you're so inclined.

Next day, we choked down some coffee and choked back our hangovers and drove east into Joshua Tree National Park, for our final mellow evening together. An epic landscape that felt completely foreign. Like we were some strange space travelers or Ray Bradbury characters from "The Martian Chronicles" or maybe just tiny little blips of life. You get out there and feel overwhelmed and insignificant, in the best way possible. The beauty consumes you. The bizarre rolls and undulations of the rock are each perfect in their sharp folds and drops and small pockets of life. We hiked straight into the park, no trail at all, just directly towards the setting sun. Found a perfect campsite, a sunken hole surrounded on all sides by massive granite walls. We built a fire and watched the red play on the walls of our refuge and all felt perfect. Drank an entire bottle of whiskey and relived the beauty of all we'd just done. Cooked another epic batch of hobo hash and drank beers and howled at the moon as it rose above the lips of our rock-rimmed amphitheater.

Woke the next morning to Sam stoking the flames of our previous night's fire. He made us some fine fine dark coffee that seemed to soak into my brain and blood, sponge-like. Hiked back towards the rising sun and, with minimal confusion, arrived back at the van, ready for our final ride home.

Drove all day, drove, drove, drove. Passed by the site where our veggie oil wagon had broken down on the previous tour. Relived old memories. Ah, the pain.

Stopped in Arizona at a cooler-than-normal gas station. The lady sweeping the floor told me they had no microwave. She smiled and seemed like the kindest gas station floor sweeper I'd ever met. I gave her a c.d. Actually, I wimped out and Sam gave it to her, but no matter. It was my intention to give it to her. She invited us to dinner and we accepted; drove to her house and she cooked us tater tots and veggie burgers and we played her a short acoustic concert in her dining room. She'd come to the area to attend a Buddhist meditation "college" called Diamond Mountain and I thought that was about the best name possible for a Buddhist meditation college, or any college at all, or anything really.

Then drove further east, back into Texas, slept the night at Balmoreah State Park. Willis and I downed a bottle of red wine right before bed and he chucked it back up. The road has its perils.

Swam the next morning, cool blue water, a last dip, then a hard drive back to Austin and we all went our separate ways after drinking Lone Star Star tallboys in the mid-day ragin Austin swelter.

--------------------

We have a few shows coming up and they will be good fun and we hope to see you there.

June 30th at Emo's with Wild Moccasins and The Sour Notes.
July 3rd party at Keith's house
July 4th, playing acoustic folk style out in Wimberley.
August 14th with Balmoreah and Ume at the Parish.

We will no doubt be having some parties at our studio to celebrate life in Austin. Details to come.... hope to see you there.

I started a photo set from our tour... a few images below. You can view the whole set here.

Hippies who hate hippies!

fishtown

2009-06-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

The track is available for free download from weathervane's music site here.

Here's a video about the production of the song. It's sort of surreal for me to watch. But you might like it:

WV Project Series 2009: Sunset from Weathervane Music on Vimeo.

quick update, lacking on details perhaps

2009-06-12T08:29:00.001-07:00

Northern California:

We drove all day yesterday, spun across California, through Humboldt and the most amazing beaches I'd ever seen, drove down to China Camp State Park. We snuck in around 2am and hiked into our campsite by moonlight and all laid down in the warm fragrant air of the grasses and the bay trees and the eucaplytus. I laid in my sleeping bag nursing a warm Hamm's and around 3am I heard two coyotes howling at the bright yellow moon. It scared me a bit and I stayed up for at least another hour.

Woke the next morning early enough to avoid paying the $25 camping fee and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, down south to Santa Cruz. never really realized Santa Cruz was on the other side of a mountain pass. Didn't realize either they still had a few coastal redwoods. I guess they were too hard to log way back when.

We took a wrong turn on our way into town and ended up in a valley of redwoods and I had to wipe the crust off mine eyes. Yep, redwoods. KZSC, the station we played, was a log cabin with huge ceilings. Like a ski cabin. And it was nestled in a grove of redwoods and I felt very very happy to be there. The people were warm and so was the air (apparently the building has some sort of ventilation problem).

Afterwards headed to beach for sun and laying on hot sand and wiping clean of the slate. Warm sun and cold water.

North again, up to the east bay, to a house party between Oakland and Berkeley. Mark Ashworth sang sweet serenades and Tristan bowed and plucked a bass and it was a commanding performance. Mark never fails to blow me away. Crystal Fulbright was there singing with Mark and she's so awesome too.

I talked with a man from France who had flown into the U.S. specifically to see our band. What? yes, you heard me. He asked for two songs we didn't know how to play. I felt really happy that my music had moved somebody so much that he'd travel so far just to watch a show.

Our set started quiet and moved louder til it got quiet again. Drank whiskey late into the night with some German language students. Will and I were forced to sit at the piano and play them a number after Will got caught making fun of the big guy. It was a terrible performance. I played very very bad countermelodies while Will tried his best to provide a compelling performance. We were both laughing. The big German guy was scary and looked like the Aryan superman or something. Really tall and blonde and spoke like he was coughing.

first thought, incomplete thought

2009-06-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

i sit soaked in sunshine in eugene, oregon. we have finally arrived on the west coast. what a land, what a scale, everything dwarfs, the rivers froth and trees sway hundreds of feet above your head. i slap myself continually to make sure i'm not dreaming. this starts to hurt after awhile.

today we venture further south into the redwoods. we will hopefully stand amidst some ancient trees and feel completely insignificant and strangely dressed. well, i suppose i will feel more that way that i normally do.

what can i say? this sense of humor might not make sense to everybody. at least i'm laughing. hahahahahhahaha.

i am passing the computer around the van now. other people are going to write their immediate thoughts.

hackeysack sam

Recording in portland turned out well- will

hot spring handicap
old growth sets the rules out here
what's in store for us?

the west is pure and fresh.

-Willis

Here is Will's remake of "Cash's Theme" from the movie Tango & Cash: Cash's Theme

here is the next page of bill's tour journal, followed by the first nine of our hand-drawn covers for our new "Hair Forest" cassette:

tour update 5

2009-06-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

We played at an amazing place last night in Portland, on a mountain in the back of Forest Park in Portland, in a pit dug in the ground in the woods. It was created by FEY.
Today we hiked through some very cold water in Oneonta Gorge.

Here is a new recording by Van Country, our new band we started in the van: mimi go pipi

tour update 4

2009-06-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody,

We are in Washington on our way to Portland. Yesterday we went to an amazing hotsprings in Idaho called Jerry Johnson. We are slowly perfecting our recipe for hobo hash.

Here is "Lost At Sea" and "Man's Heart Complaint" from our show at the Kitty Cat Club in Minneapolis: lost at sea, man's heart complaint.

We ran into some Old Men of the Forest at the springs and took these pictures of them in their natural habitat:

Here is the next page of Bill's van journal (click to enlarge):

Here are three more pages of haikus:

tour update 3

2009-06-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!

We're in Minneapolis. It's very beautiful here. We are really having the most fun tour ever and we're only nine or ten days into it. Tomorrow we have to start the thousand-mile journey to Missoula, Montana.

Here is a recording of us playing "Bones" at Lit Lounge in New York: bones
That was the show we played with The Shivers, one of my favorite bands. I was very happy to get to share a bill with them.

Here are the next two pages of Bill's typewriter journal (click to enlarge):

Here is a page of haikus by all of us:

Here is us with Chris & Kurt from the Meat Puppets, and Liz and Lance from Permanent Records in Chicago. The Meat Puppets gave a terrific performance and were really nice. Permanent Records is an awesome vinyl store and they are also really nice. That in-store was a blast.

Here is a photo collage Bill made back in Georgia that I forgot to post before:

tour update 2

2009-05-31T10:48:00.001-07:00

Well I only have a few minutes to do this post; I'll add more later...

The first two pages of BIll's typewriter tour journal (click to enlarge):

A drawing by Tommy, Willis, and me:

tour update

2009-05-25T19:16:00.001-07:00

Hi everybody,

We are in Athens Georgia.

This is a drawing by me, Willis, John, and Tommy.

John gave Will a great-looking haircut on the whitest sands in the world - near Pensacola.

Here's an mp3 of our performance of "Late Night/Early Morning" at Castlemania in Tallahassee last night: Late Night/Early Morning (mp3)

Today we swam in Wakulla Springs in Florida - an amazing place! It's the deepest and largest spring in the continent or something like that. It connects to a vast system of underground water-filled caverns.

Bill writes:

We extricated ourselves from our daily lives and concerns and drifted west, on into Houston, amidst their tangle of freeways. Super Haqppy Fun Land, formerly in a bizarre house, had moved to an even more bizarre location: a completed deserted post-industrial wasteland next to a petrochemical refinery. The venue owners told us the place used to be a cash machine factory. Didn't seem like too many cash registers were ringing anymore, though. The place was massive and quiet and mostly empty. We walked in as Dana Falconberry played her beautiful hushed folk, and we sat in old movie theatre chairs and sunken couches. I almost didn't want to play... loud music felt like a violation of some sort.

But play we did. It was an echo-y, cavernous show.

Next morning, Tommy and I walked through Houston's massive boulevards. They are not so pedestrian friendly. Some observations from our morning walk: a drive-thru steakhouse (I came up with the idea of a "steak glove" that could be worn so you could eat a steak with one hand and steer your car with the other), 5 people intensely scrubbing the front driveway of a newly built, massive high-rise; a boutique store called "Lil Patooties" (ugh); and massive massive parking lot acreage. I felt an intense need to get the hell out of that city. And so we did. Headed east, past Louisiana, past Mississippi, on into Alabama, where we camped on the beach -- Gulf Shores. Some of us stripped down and swam. I drank whiskey and watched the waves.

Next morning, we stopped along Florida's white sand paradise beaches. John gave Will a haircut.

We continued on into Tallahassee, where we received a suprisingly warm reaction. Turns out we were fairly well-known there. Afterwards, Tommy and I danced to "Don't Fear the Reaper" in a neighboring discoteque.

That night, I passed out, fully clothed on the floor. Woke with a stiff neck and the unshakable urge to get the hell out of town again. So we did. Drove South to Wakulla Springs, the largest and deepest spring in North America, 4th largest in the world. Saw a Manatee! Our boat drive was awesome. At the end of every sentence, he said, "Yep." And he had voices for the various animals we saw! Voices that seemingly had nothing to with the animals themselves. Last time I checked, a snowy egret doesn't say his own name in a high-pitched squeaky voice. I could be mistaken here.

Anyways, the driver told us to "Watch out for a big ole fishy, something big and gray and about the size of an air conditioning compressor." I was unclear on how big an a/c compressor would be, but I guess he was intimating that it was large. He continued, "Just lemme know if you see one of them so's I don't run over it. I been having a problem with that this morning. Yep." He was, of course, referring to the beautiful Manatee! We did see one -- he had a scratch on his back, possibly from getting run over by our silly tour driver. He told us all about the Tarzan movies that had been filmed there. They were really old, I guess, because I'd never heard of them. They had very funny titles like, "Tarzan visits New York."

"Obviously, they didn't film the New York scenes here," our driver informed us. "This is where they filmed the jungle scenes. Yep."

Then he made what I guess was a Tarzan war-cry. He did it right into his microphone, so it gave everyone a bit of a shock.

"Ahhahahhhahahahhah!"

The water was clear and cold and perfect. Not even this guy could take that away from us. Our dip in the waters washed away several days of road grime, and I was ready for another turn at the wheel.

We headed North through western Florida, on into Georgia. TO BE CONTINUED

"Turning the Wheel"

2009-05-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

We are hitting the road for just over 3 weeks. Here are the dates:

5.21.09 Austin, TX -- Tour send-off party at Baby Blue w/ Sleep Good, Ethan and Spiked Punch
5.22.09 Houston, TX -- Super Happy Fun Land with Dana Falconberry
5.24.09 Tallahassee, FL -- Castlemania
5.25.09 Athens, GA -- Go Bar w/ Green Gerry
5.26.09 Chapel Hill, NC -- The Nightlight w/ Crash, Soul Band
5.27.09 NYC, NY -- Lit Lounge with the Shivers
5.28.09 Boston, MA -- ning nong radio WZBC
5.28.09 Providence, RI -- Loft party w/ some awesome people
5.29.09 Philadelphia, PA -- see flyer below for details
5.30.09 Pittsburgh, PA -- steven’s living room at around lunch time -- email for details
5.30.09 Louisville, KY -- The wine studio@610 Magnolia w/ Furry Bits and Shedding
5.31.09 Chicago, IL -- Permanent Records w/ The Meat Puppets
5.31.09 Chicago, IL -- The Whistler w/ The Dreadful Yawns
6.01.09 Minneapolis, MN -- Kitty Cat Klub w/ Paragraphs
6.02.09 Minneapolis, MN -- Radio K Live on-air
6.03.09 Missoula, MT -- The Badlander
6.05.09 Portland, OR -- Special party in the woods -- email for details
6.06.09 Seattle, WA -- KEXP live on air
6.07.09 Portland, OR -- Valentines w/ Cajun Gems
6.11.09 Santa Cruz, CA -- KZSC live on-air
6.11.09 Party in Emeryville (between Berkeley and Oakland) w/ Cloudcraft/Mark Ashworth. email for details
6.12.09 Somewhere in L.A. Stay tuned.

For the latter half of the tour, we will have a limited edition cassette made specially for our show in the woods in Portland. The cassette is called "Hair Forest."

One of the songs from the tape is up now at www.myspace.com/lobosunset

I called the tour "turning the wheel" because we're going in a big circle, and the van's tires are wheels.

Fishtown; We still a few hand-made t-shirts.

2009-04-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

John Kolar and I just ventured to Philly to record a new song with Quentin Stolzfus (Mazarin) and Brian McTear (producer for Danielson, Matt Pond PA, etc). I like the song. It's called "Fishtown." It's gonna be up on the internet pretty soon. It was a grant from a new Philly based non-profit called Weathervane Music. They pick a few artists a year and bring them in to record with nice equipment and a sympathetic producer. There was a 5 person film crew documenting the proceedings.

Look at their website here --> http://weathervanemusic.org/ and give them a donation cuz they're doing good things.

Here's a photo they took:

----------------

On a side note, we're playing with the Meat Puppets in Chicago.

---------------
In other news, here's some hand-made shirts we still have available. If you're interested, please contact me: blondebill@gmail.com

news you can use

2009-04-10T14:01:00.001-07:00

Longtime Philly producer Brian McTear has started a non-profit organization called Weathervane music. Every year they award two grants to artists, and we are the recipients of their first grant. We will be heading up to Philly to record with Brian and Quentin Stolzfus, my old friend from Mazarin. You can read more about Weathervane here.
---------------------------
We are gearing up for an epic summer tour, with stops planned thus far in Dallas, Athens, NYC, Louisville, Minneapolis, Missoula, Seattle, Portland, the bay area, and Los Angeles. If you would like for us to come to your town and could help arrange a show, please contact us at: blondebill@gmail.com
---------------------------
We have some fantastic shows in Austin coming up. One I am particularly excited about: The River Revolution Party II. It is being held on Saturday, May 2nd on the banks of the Colorado River, just east of Austin. It's actually held on the property of Maryanne Price, onetime singer with The Kinks. There will be free drinks and camping on the river! Yes, free drinks. It's free to get in, but they charge $12 per vehicle to park. So just squeeze all your friends together. Or if you ride your bike it's free. This show is highly recommended. Visit http://www.riverrevolutionparty.com/ for more details, including a map and directions.
----------------------------
We are playing a quieter show at the Cactus Cafe on May 5th. And our tour kick-off party will be May 21st at Baby Blue (our studio). Another raging studio party. Line-up and details soon, but rest assured it will be awesome.
----------------------------
We have a new exclusive track for download over at RCRD LBL. It's a cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Columbine." They have very nice things to say about the group. In case you missed their previous post, here it is.
----------------------------
Here is a photo I took recently in the Himalayas:

a few sentences

2009-03-31T05:01:00.000-07:00

----------

Many more shows coming up, including a show at the famed Cactus Cafe, best sounding room in Austin. Another studio party in the works as well.

We will be hitting the road in late May. If you want to have us over, please drop a line! We love alternative venues of all kinds, including barns, poetry slams, parking lots, all ages free-for-alls, and carpeted living rooms.

studio journal, part 1

2009-03-10T06:52:00.001-07:00

A crazy crackhead walked into Baby Blue and told me for twenty minutes about a prostitute who stole 400 of his dollars by shoving it "up there." So he told me about his plans to cut her apart with a box cutter, put her in a garbage bag, and bleach the carpet of the hotel room so nobody would ever know. After telling me this, the man asked me for a beer or food. I said no beer, but you can have an apple. Man, fuck that, he said. I don't want no fucking apple. Buy me some chips. I need nutrition. At least chips got potato in it.

I still said no, so he told me about a murderer wandering the neighborhood who looks "exactly like me." The cops been lookin, man, but they can't find nothing. They think is me, but I said I ain't killed those people. But maybe, I don't know. It's hard to remember. I guess he meant that he might be the murderer? Then he pulled up his shirt and showed me his murder weapon, a large screwdriver. Just drive that shit in somebody's skull, he said. They gone, they dead.

He lamented the fact that the free clinic was closed. I was supposed to see my brain doctor, he said. I ain't right in the head. I feelin weird, man. Fuck. I a crazy man, I ain't right. Can I have a beer? Come on man, I give you fifty cents for a beer. I need me a goddamn beer. One fucking beer, man. I starting to get angry. We getting off on the wrong foot. When I get mad, I start hurting people. But I can get you some quarters for a beer, man.

He fished 2 damp quarters from his jeans pocket. I gave him the beer but didn't take the money. His scare tactics worked, I guess.

All along, he kept apologizing for his bad language, often while cursing. Fuck man, I know I'm being improper talking this way, saying all these bad words and shit, but it's just me, you know? I stay true to myself.

I later saw him walking through the yard holding half an apple pie. I'm trying to eat right and get healthy, he said. Well dude, I said, you're gonna wanna stop eating half an apple pie for lunch then, probably. Doesn't seem too healthy.

He told me he's an angel and sprinkles good luck on people. I an angel, man, he said. I used to go by that place, the Mohawk. You know that music place, The Mohawk? I sprinkled the good luck on that place like fucking fairy dust, man. Now they pretend like they don't even know me.

He paused.

God comes in all forms, man. He takes all forms. I could be God, you know? What if God be asking you for somethin? What if God needs a fucking beer, man?

I had always assumed that if I met God, he wouldn't be asking me for a beer, but who knows?

March 13th studio party / show --- March 14th free show

2009-03-05T13:51:00.001-08:00

We're hosting a party and show at our new studio on March 13th. Please email me for directions:
mortonbairdiii@yahoo.com

It will cost a few bucks and there will be beer. It's a really nice space.

-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
We're playing a free show at the Mohawk on March 14th with some other good bands.

You just need to rsvp here:

http://atxemerge.com/

Here's a poster:

Tshirts for sale

2009-02-19T18:09:00.001-08:00

Youtube 4th birthday party at SVT

2009-02-12T19:08:00.000-08:00

Some excellent bands, birthday cake, perhaps some beer, visual projections, television art, fun times, good people, low price, new 7" record from SUNSET, special new line of t-shirts by Bill Baird (me), great listening room. This is a classic Austin moment. See you there, Sunday the 15th at 8pm at Salvage Vanguard Theatre on Manor Road.

2008 recap

2008-12-29T08:49:00.000-08:00

This year was very productive and enjoyable. Did an insane amount. And the next steps will be even more exciting, we hope. Here's photos and videos from this year. See you next go round.

============
Redwoods, West Coast Tour:

Swimming, Humboldt County:

Chasing the muse:

Great Smokey Mountains, super8 still:

Brad manning the board at Wire all-night session:

Group singing at Wire:

Live Radio session, Ning Nong Radio in Boston:

Clapping session at Premium, very serious about the claps:

Bill Baird - "Songs the Sound of Myself, As Written By Others"

2008-12-15T12:03:00.000-08:00

I have just released a new album through NYC's Tired Trails. It's an album of cover songs, stitched together in a beautiful book printed on recycled paper with banana leaf covers. It contains extensive track notes, black and white photography, and 2 poems. You can order them by emailing Jess, here : tiredtrails@gmail.com. They cost $12.50, postage-paid, within the U.S. Overseas folks will have to pay a few extra bucks.

Here is an mp3 from the record:

Expecting to Fly (Neil Young cover)

Full Tracklisting:

The Dirt (Mark David Ashworth)
Sea Song (Robert Wyatt)
Last Fall (Jared Van Fleet)
Shady Grove (Traditional)
The Ballad of Sammy Mudd (Sam Sanford)
I'll Be Here In the Morning (Townes Van Zandt)
Rake and Rambling Boy (Traditional)
Hot Burrito 2 Digit (Flying Burrito Brothers)
Expecting to Fly (Neil Young)
Walking After Midnight (Searching for Me) [Alan Block and Don Hecht c/o Patsy Cline]
Be Not So Fearful (Bill Fay)
Diamond Deserts (Bill Baird)
This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie)

Here are some photos of the beautiful new books.

"Loveshines II" // "Not a Perfect Person (Looks Like I Fucked Up Again)" 7" Pre-Order

2008-12-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

===============

We have a 7" record coming out shortly. 2 songs, "Loveshines II" and "I'm Not a Perfect Person (Looks Like I Fucked Up Again)." A double A-side record ! Only 500 copies.

"Loveshines II" was recorded live as a band, then we did a full band live overdub. So it's essentially 2 stacked live performances. This was part of a really great all-night session at Wire Recorders.

"Looks Like I Fucked Up Again" was written and recorded at 5am, later that night.

The record is set to be released February 9th ! And it only costs $4 !

Pre - order here:

North American orders:

International orders:

WEST COAST TOUR, PHOTOS

2008-12-09T05:27:00.001-08:00

Uploaded 110 photos from West Coast tour and a number from East Coast tour as well.

I posted a few photos below... click here for the whole West Coast set.

===================================

sweet

2008-12-08T11:47:00.001-08:00

polaroid by Elizabeth from our last show, 12/4 at Creekside

Hummer cologne , Thursday's show

2008-12-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

I went with some students from the School for the Blind to Target today; we did some holiday shopping. Turns out Hummer has its own line of cologne. Yeah, Hummer, like the massive gas-guzzling tank for suburban, surgically-enhanced soccer-moms from Hell. Here's a few words about Hummer's new scent, straight from their press release:

"The Hummer cologne adventure begins with a fresh and exhilarating burst of freshness comprised of green foliage, cardamom, thyme, and peppercorns that capture the essence of the outdoors. These lively notes are then melded with a warm, rugged, masculine, adrenaline rush of leather, patchouli, amber, and sandalwood. The smooth richness of tonka bean act as the “axle” that links and balances the fresh and warm notes, creating an olfactory sensation that can only be Hummer."

There was also a brand of cologne called "Really Ripped Abs" and it had a grip built into the side of the bottle, to prevent slippage probably.

========================

In other news, we're playing a good show on Thursday:

Bill Baird - "A Perfect Light Awaits Me"

2008-11-13T20:01:00.000-08:00

Praveen and I made this at the Hyde Park Gym on Guadalupe. It was the day after I wrote the song. The final version ended up on The Glowing City with about 65 guitar overdubs.

"DEAR FRIEND" Versions - Free Download Package // LAKE // Your Eyes are Mirrors Video

2008-11-11T15:43:00.000-08:00

As a lover of dub “versions” and remixes, I often find alternate mixes and performances insightful into a song’s intentions.

The song “Dear Friend (Collapsing Domino)” has seen many versions, some of which I grew attached to but ultimately left behind. I’ve selected a few of these to show other roads the song could’ve taken, to illustrate the song’s evolution, and to hopefully provide insight into the creative process. I’ve enjoyed digging through these older versions, and I hope you will too.

Here is a zip file containing 5 song versions, some notes, and album art.

Download: Sunset - Dear Friend (Versions) [62MB zip package]

(album version can be found on The Glowing City)

==================================

we just played an awesome show with LAKE, who are from Olympia, WA. Here are some cool videos of them:

********
This is exactly how I mixed "The Glowing City!" :

also, check out this video by Praveen, with illustrations by Rell:

The music is an older mix of the song. I like it as is, so I left it. Also, I'm pretty sure Praveen did not consider the video done, but I like it, so I'm posting it.

SUPER 8 STILLS FROM SUMMER TOUR

2008-09-28T20:20:00.002-07:00

Look at the whole set here.

SIGNAL TO NOISE // PECAN STREET FESTIVAL w/ Tommy Tutone

2008-09-19T13:36:00.002-07:00

We got a nice review in Signal to Noise, the self-described "Quarterly Journal of Improvised, Experimental and Unusual Music."

They call The Glowing City "glorious orchestral pop at its finest yet with a raw edge and world-weary insistence rather than faux-naif glee." They describe Bright Blue Dream thusly: "...merges West Coast jangle and Klaus Schulze's speaker-phasing into something that would make any early 90's shoe-gazer implode.

I scanned the review, you can look at it here:

In other news, we will be playing the main stage tomorrow at the Pecan Street Festival at 5pm, with two of our guys missing. Should be interesting. It's a free show, maybe we'll see you there? Last time we did the fest, we played to an empty street corner and 4 garbage cans and actually really enjoyed it.

After us, this guy named Tommy Tutone is going to play the main stage. He sang that famous song "867-5309" aka "Jenny, I Got Your Number." I saw him perform the song this morning on Fox News, which just happened to be on as I arrived to work.

He described the song's origin on the show. Jenny was a girl who gave her number to his guitar player. He wrote it on a bathroom wall. The band had a laugh.

And here we are, 27 years later, and he's still playing the song.

Tommy Tutone was seated and wearing sunglasses and performing the song solo acoustic. His performance didn't get me terribly excited for their set, but maybe they have some other tunes.

APOLOGY TO CHICAGO AND THE NERVOUS FINGERS // RCRD LBL

2008-09-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I was scheduled to visit Chicago tomorrow and play some music, but the visit has been complicated by a few factors:

1) nobody else in the band can come
2) my car doesn't work
3) a bus ticket is $250 and the 24hour ride back would mean I miss a 2week work assignment at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
4) my family is celebrating 3 birthdays all together this weekend.

Still, I'd been holding out until the last minute, as is my wont, hoping to make it up there somehow. It won't happen.

I sincerely apologize to The Beat Kitchen, the city of Chicago, and most of all to the Nervous Fingers. We'd been chatting and I asked them to set up the show.

Please visit their website and send them a shout. They are fantastic musicians and great guys.

Nervous Fingers Myspace page

==============================================

Also, today we joined forces with a very cool website that is positioning itself to adapt well with this changing music industry.

The website is called RCRD LBL. A link here.

This is their explanation of what they do:

" Launched in November of 2007, RCRD LBL is an online record label releasing exclusive and completely free music from emerging and established artists to an audience of over 125K unique visitors each month. In addition to our in-house label, our network includes a roster of independent record labels such as Warp, Modular, Kompakt, and Dim Mak offering free MP3 downloads and multimedia content. The site is a joint venture between Downtown Records (Gnarls Barkley, Cold War Kids) and online media pioneer Peter Rojas (Engadget, Gizmodo, Weblogs, Inc.), and combines the allure of downloading services with the resources of a great independent record label and the editorial credibility of a trusted music blog. "

Exciting times.

tour... flying east is flying west...

2008-08-25T15:22:00.000-07:00

We'd somehow managed to drive 3,000 miles on our rental car, 2,900 more than we were allowed. So we felt perhaps things were turning in our favor. We cooked a large breakfast the following morning at the home belonging to the band Blanket. Sort of a fantasy L.A. bachelor pad... every room in the house had a deck overlooking a gorgeous swimming pool. So we swam and frolicked, sure of our good fortune from here on out.

Before leaving town, we met up with Jon, who works at Aperture Music. Earlier this year, they'd signed {{{ SUNSET }}} to a music placement deal. Essentially, they place independent music in big-budget films and split the money with the artist. I'm not sure what I was expecting when we headed down to Culver City. I suppose my visits to the Capitol building had created a strange lens through which I view the music business, especially out in L.A.

Culver City wasn't all that impressive, though. Very bland suburbia with highly trafficked streets and people looking bored siting in their cars at stop lights. Willis, Will and Jon ate at In N' Out Burger and I watched. Then we swam at Venice Beach and it smelled kind of funny. My mind wandered to lunch, when Jon said swimming in Venice Beach was like "swimming in your own urine." We didn't stay in the water long.

From Venice, we headed just a little North to Santa Monica and hopped on I-10. The road home!

Things went fairly smooth for a few hours. Out east of Indio, the trouble started. Uncle Buck started sputtering, the engine shaking and convulsing in fits and spasms, and I watched with great alarm as our speed dropped and kept dropping, eventually topping out at around 20 mph.

Now, keep in mind we're on I-10, with trucks whizzing by at about 90 mph, hours from anywhere, the middle of the desert, the middle of nowhere. I pulled onto the shoulder to let the trucks fly by, and fly by they did. If I'd put my arm out my window, it would've been knocked clean off. So we drove down the highway in what I would without a doubt call the most intense driving experience of my life.

The highway's shoulder was littered with remnants from 18wheeler blowouts, tire treads shredded and spread across the whole shoulder; we had no choice but to drive over these pieces. They shook the car and Will was shuddering in the backseat every time we ran over a shredded tire, car bumper or other pile of debris. The car chugged along in this way for around 3 hours; I started laughing every now and then at the incredible absurdity of our situation; Willis and Will looked at me like I had completely lost it. Maybe I had?

A cop pulled us over about 7 miles outside of Blythe.

"What the heck is going on here guys?" The police officer was laughing at us. Seriously.

"Well, we can't get above 20 miles an hour."

"Well, uh, guys, I pity you." He laughed. "You know, there's a motel about 7 miles up called the monarch or the butterfly or something. It costs 30 bucks." He stepped away. "Stay safe, and stay away from the trucks."

A big-rig whizzed by, right on cue. We all shuddered. I started the wagon back up and we limped further up the road. That evening, we stopped at a California fast-food chain called "Del Taco." On the menu, I noticed a curious item called "Bean and Cheese Cup."

"What is the bean and cheese cup?" I asked into speaker.

"It's, like, a cup of beans and cheese."

My drive-thru "waitress" didn't mention the congealed red gelatinous goo on top, nor the bit of styrofoam that seemed to have melted into the beans. Oh well. I ate around it. My bean burrito came with the green sauce, which looked alarmingly like the ectoplasmic slime in "Ghostbusters." I ate it anyway.

At the motel, the front-desk lady chastised us for squeezing extra people into the room.

Without provocation, she yelled, "You're cheaters! That's what you are!"

She was old and fat and angry for no good reason.

"Is this how you do things in Texas? This is California!"

Despite all her bluster, she charged us the normal rate and we proceeded to the room, where we watched infomercials, drank a 12 pack of Milwaukee's Best, then bit our nails through that gripping thriller, "Basic Instinct." I'm kidding, of course. What a bad movie. I guess Sharon Stone is pretty, o.k., but is there anybody who doesn't immediately know she's the killer? Of course she is! The only real suspenseful part of that movie is wondering how long before she and Michael Douglas hit the sack again.

We all drifted off while two info-salespeople hawked a "revolution in lawn care."

I woke the next morning wondering what the hell I could do. I called rental car agencies in town, but nobody would do a one-way trip to Austin. U-Haul would do it, but it would cost $1300. So I drove our ailing Uncle Buck into downtown Blythe and stopped at a small repair shop called "EZ Lube." The extremely energetic owner shook my hand and smiled and admired my vehicle, shooting off praise in a thick Italian accent.

"Beautiful vehicle! What a beauty! But she a-drive-a-slow." He kissed the hood and rubbed it and told me he'd change the fuel filters and that would solve my problems, and it did. The man was an Italian prince in mechanic's clothing and true champ and his name was actually Luigi.

So we pulled out of Blythe early that morning and flew through Phoenix, flew through New Mexico, and pulled into El Paso just as we ran out of waste veggie oil (the stuff we'd picked up in New Mexico on our drive out). So we agreed to find some WVO (waste veggie oil) somewhere in El Paso, but first we stopped at Taco Cabana and had our fill of decent quality fast-food Mexican. Queso, beans, rice, and more until my stomach felt full and happy.

Then we set off, searching grease traps behind restaurants all all the I-10 frontage road. We would pull up to a restaurant and find its dumpster area. Some places collected their grease, some didn't. Most of the places I saw had metal 55-gallon barrels whose tops had been removed and, by the looks of it, somebody else had recently drained all their oil. Some other oil stalker had hit up the area already. At the bottoms of the barrels was a thick, white congealed clump of grease. We ventured off the highway a bit and, score! Behind the Panda Inn Chinese restaurant, we found 10 gallons of used soybean oil.

Searching further, I stepped in numerous sticky piles of disgusting goop that had spilled from various grease traps. My shoelaces are still greasy and I have to wash my hands when I tie my shoes. That stuff really does not come off.

Another grease trap I looked into behind "SUPER CHINESE BUFFET" appeared to be filled with blood. I started dry-heaving and spit up a few chunks. That was the worst smell, like if a megaton bomb filled with dog shit had been allowed to "age" for a year before exploding inside of a meat rendering plant. Then the whole place caught on fire and the ashes were put into an enchilada.... it smelled kind of like that.

We kept driving and stopped for the night at Balmoreah State Park once again. Slept under the stars, then woke early the next morning, filtered the previous evening's oil, pumped it into the car, then hopped back into Balmoreah's cool blue waters.

We drove further, stopping for a breakfast in Fort Stockton that probably took a week off of my life... the greasiest beans ever, of all time, ever. I think the restaurant was called "Bueno Suerte" (good luck in Spanish).

We were now driving full speed, running on the previous evening's veggie oil, and feeling quite proud of ourselves. At some point, diesel vapors had invaded the car. I pulled over and Uncle Buck appeared to be bursting diesel fuel from about five different places. Will again mentioned death, and how he wasn't ready to die. Well, I wasn't either. I changed the inline filter, which looked contaminated and like it wasn't really doing its job. I then took off for a test drive, leaving Willis and Will at the gas station. If the vehicle was gonna explode, I figured I could take the heat.

But it didn't explode. So I picked up Will and Willis and we sped the brutal last hours into Austin, five hours more of Uncle Buck... no a/c, diesel fumes, thoughts of death. All in a day's work.

We arrive back home and, well, what can I say? I'm ready to go again.

In the end, the tour went through several names.... from "Fry into the Sun" to "Deep-Fry into the Sun" to "Will Billis and Will" to, ultimately, the most apt name, "Struck Down by the Gods Tour." Struck down, but not out. Look out America! We'll be back.

tour... what goes up must come down...

2008-08-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

In Crescent City, we took Uncle Buck into a mechanic shop. On the wall, hanging at a slight angle, dangled a photo calender depicting some partially-nude mechanics holding wrenches, covered in motor oil, each wiping the sweat from their brow. These "mechanics" were of ample bosom, frizzy hair, and big smiles. Our mechanic did not look like this. Main difference here being that our mechanic was not an attractive female wearing a bikini. In fact, he was missing a few front teeth, had two hoop earrrings, and smelled like a dumpster. Not that I could tell what those pin-ups smelled like, but I'm pretty sure they didn't smell like that.

"My name is Bob. How can I help you boys?"

"Our check engine light came on. And there's a horrible rattling sound coming from underneath the car."

We walked outside and he connected a small computer to a hole underneath our steering wheel.

"Hmmm." He shuffled his lips over his gums in a strange sucking maneuver. "Hmmm."

"What's wrong?"

"Looks like your cat's gone."

"My cat?"

"Yeah, your cat."

"I don't own a cat."

"No, your catalytic converter." He paused and huffed. "Are you trying to mess with me?"

"No." At that moment, I noticed a tattoo of a black cat on his left bicep.

Bob moved away from the car. His dumpster stench remained like a sticky yellow cloud.

"That'll cost you.... well..." Again the sucking noise of lips rubbing over toothless gums. "400 dollars, I'll bet."

Well, this was clearly not possible.

"What could we do for twenty dollars?"

He laughed a kind-of disturbing laugh that rattled somewhere deep inside, as if the tar on his lungs were rattling their jail cells and wanted to get coughed up. Right on cue, he lit up a smoke.

"Boys, I'll tell you, when the cat goes, the whole damn thing could just die." He took a drag. "Just sputter off and die."

This presented something of a dilemma. The contract I'd signed with Rent-A-Wreck said we could drive the car no more than 100 miles, and here we were, 1000 miles away, with engine troubles. If anything went wrong, Rent-A-Wreck wouldn't fix it... we'd be on our own.

Bob shrugged and took a drag of his smoke. "If you hear the engine start rattling and screaming, pull over, I guess." And with that sage advice, we headed down the road, speeding onwards, taking the cut-off towards Medford, where we would re-connect with I-5. As the road followed a deep river valley, we had plenty of chances to pull off and dive off cliffs into deep blue river water. The Klamath River I believe? Could be.

Our troubles seemed all behind us. Refreshed and new, we shot northwards, directly into stand-still traffic about an hour South of Portland. After sitting in traffic for an hour or more, pulling our hair and grinding our teeth all the while, we pulled onto some farm roads, taking tips from a gas attendant on the best route to Portland. Using his advice and our own questionable map-reading skills, we crossed into Portland. Several hours to drive 100 miles. Hell, I know people who can run faster than that, while texting and eating a ham sandwich. Ah well, Interstate 5 would prove to be our nemesis later in the trip. But that comes later.

So we pulled into Portland at 11pm, with nowhere to eat but Denny's. We bit the bullet and went there. Maybe a better metaphor would work here? We bit the turd, we bit the stink heap, we bit the bullet while shooting the gun?

One thing I will say about Denny's... they're consistent. I mean, every single piece of food was the same color. Even the vegetables. I have to admire that kind of consistency. It'd be like saying "blah" to every single question during a job interview.

Our waiter was a real hop-to kind of guy, working the graveyard shift at Denny's must've energized him somehow. Either that or he'd taken a handful of speed. He literally hopped around the restaurant, his horn-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose as he zipped about with our glasses of water and metal cups of mayonnaise. Yes, metal cups of mayo. He brought me two of them; nevermind that I hadn't even asked for one. Perhaps he was attempting to underscore the pale pallor-ed grandeur of the place. After all, what better way to garnish a bleached, flavorless meal than with a fistful of mayonnaise?

Aferwards, I felt like somebody had been slapping me for 10 minutes: numb, slightly pained, grimacing. I sat in the backseat while Willis drove.

Next morning, we woke underneath some fantastic Southern Washington forest. Willis had driven us two hours further North while I slept. I must say, waking outdoors to the sunrise... nothing like it. The fresh air soaked my lungs and spilled down my arms and legs. Waking up in the forest, you feel fully energized somehow. Perhaps this only seems remarkable to me because, back at home, simply rising from bed is a half-hour long death struggle involving groans, the snooze button, and a pillow covered in drool.

So from our beds on the forest floor, we rose and drove the 100 miles into Seattle. Hard to say much about that city except all the trees seem to be gone. We arrived with the finest weather imaginable... 70 degrees, sunshine, light breeze. I've seen Seattle when the clouds squat low and sweat all over you. That's no fun. This was better.

We drove to KEXP, a well-known and respected radio station, to play live on-air. Set up our projected drummer, our equipment, and played a respectable set. The DJ, Cheryl Walters, said many nice things about the music, and I didn't disagree, not too much.

Afterwards, we drove to Lake Washington and laid on a dock covered in bird shit. It was really much more enjoyable than it sounds.

=====================

That evening, our experiment in touring continued. Seeking an alternative to the bland, smelly, often soulless club scene, we'd sought out alternative venues of all sorts. This evening's show was no exception. As part of Seattle's burgeoning DIY scene, New Crompton seemed the perfect venue for our slightly off-kiter stage show.

For weeks, folks had been asking us the address of the venue. Since New Crompton is a house venue, they don't want to give out their address, which poses something of a dilemma for a touring band. Should we ignore their wishes and advertise the show as we would normally? Or keep the address secret and risk not having anybody come to our show? In the end, we didn't advertise the address, and that didn't really work out too well.

Also, we played after 3 different local acts. A curly-haired smiling fellow named Benjamin Blake had biked up from Olympia, just for the show. Kind of impressive.

So we watched the show, and the poor girl who actually lived in New Crompton was yawning the whole time. I don't think she knew there would be a show that night, and she looked like she'd had a very long day.

So the groups played, everyone was really nice and cool. Then our turn... and -- poof -- everybody gone. I guess that's what happens when an unknown touring band plays after 3 local acts. Quick note to bookers, DIY or otherwise... this is not the best way to ensure a warm welcome for a touring band.

We played anyhow, for 3 people. Rough. Benjamin Blake was laying on the floor during our set. He had nice things to say. Almost immediately after we finished, the girl who lived in New Crompton stood and announced she was going to bed.

So we left and stayed with our friend Neil, who runs Unseen Worlds with Tommy. We drank and drank and listened to that David Crosby album, "If I Could Only Remember My Name." The album title felt apt as I drank myself into a stupor, slouching into Neil's couch until my head had fallen between the cushions.

Next morning, woke on Neil's small patch of lawn. I'd somehow made it out back and slept outdoors yet again, drinking in the pacific northwest morning air. Soul food, that air is.

Back into the van and zipped down interstate 5, with smooth driving and only 2 different "check engine" lights flashing. Then Portland again. Traffic came to a complete standstill about an hour north of Portland. We pursued a few alternative routes, Willis and I arguing over the correct course of action. In the end, he was right. We pulled into Portland after a mere 4 hour delay. Stopped for some amazing coffee at Stumptown and a burrito at 11th and Hawthorne. Then further down the road.

That evening, we limped our way across Oregon and slept alongside the (former) Shasta Lake. I say former because, well, it just wasn't there. We pulled to our campsite, eager for a midnight swim under the moon, but the damn lake was completely dry, at least where we were. So I imagined the moonlight glittering off dark waters and fell asleep to the night's gentle hum.

Woke the next morning and found a spot further up the road where we could bathe. A marina set about 200 feet too high on the shore. I suppose water difficulties have hit Shasta in a bad way. We swam and lathered up with our Dr. Bronner's and continued down I-5. After several burritos from Taco Bell and around a gallon of coffee, we pulled into Los Angeles. Success! Our rattling rent-a-wreck, the blue turd, had pulled through. That evening, we feasted on burritos and drank ourselves silly in a swarm of L.A. yuppies at some swank bar where Chris' friend was celebrating her birthday. We drank them down.

Next day, returned the car to rent-a-wreck, careful to get the hell out of there quickly. We had put 3,000 miles on the car and didn't want our asshole-ish desk clerk there to notice. So we drove Uncle Buck (which Chris had been nice enough to pick up for us) and dropped the blue turd and that was that. We played that evening in Chris' backyard after a fabulous day at Manhattan Beach. The show felt good and complete and we played with our new friends in the band called Blanket.

tour entry 3: san francisco, northern california

2008-08-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

So after our arrival into L.A., we spent the evening drinking whiskey from flasks and bottles going clockwise around our little pool party which we were supposed to have played. The residents of the home were the band Blanket, a band made up of two dudes named Scott. Yes, very similar names. Our members are Bill, Will, and Willis, so we bonded.

I jumped in the pool and caught a chill, then slept under the stars and the fragrant breeze out in Chris Colthart's garden. Woke with the sun, forced Chris out of bed, drank coffee, called a car rental company called "Rent A Wreck." They came and picked us up, only an hour late, and took us to a non-descript, somewhat bleak neighborhood right off the freeway called "North Hollywood." The streets were mostly empty and there wasn't a tree in sight. Lots of parking lots. Our driver was somewhat of a maniac, pulling through lanes, yelling into his cell phone, asking me questions all the while. I looked back and saw Will gritting his teeth as we screeched around a curve.

The "rent a wreck" office felt bleak and depressing. The air was thick and stale and slightly sweet, like a carpet slightly damp with cleanser that hadn't properly dried. The "rent a wreck" sign was chipped and faded, appropriately so, and perhaps even intentionally. We picked a blue mini-van, hurried through the paperwork, and were shown out to the vehicle. The doors wouldn't open, the windows wouldn't roll up, the seats were ripped, and the engine made a loud repetitive "thwack" sound when in reverse. Perfect. We christened the vehicle "The Blue Turd."

After being assured and re-assured the vehicle was in tip-top shape, we headed north on I-5 towards San Francisco, stopping to check the engine's vitals and filling the air with tires. We pulled across the Bay Bridge around 9pm, and as I called ahead for directions to Adobe Books, I could hear Mark already playing in the background. And one of the my favorite songs too! I wove through traffic, pushing our beloved Blue Turd as hard as she would go. We made it to Adobe Books in time for a song and half of Mark's... and such sweetness we did hear. He now has an upright bass player, quite sympathetic. We played our set... very innaresting. We had recorded John Kolar playing drums before we left, and we burned this onto a DVD. Using my toy projector and an audio feed, we projected John playing onto the wall and it came off pretty well... looked like John had been astrally projected into the room with us. We played amongst Adobe's stacks of books and felt warm and happy and people were actually dancing while we played! Never in Austin, never in clubs... we had to hit a bookstore in San Fran to finally get people moving. We played an unrehearsed encore consisting of "It Glows (memory" and "Zombies." I do believe I was screaming louder than I'd ever screamed. To honor the scholarly feel of the venue, I screamed "Zombum," a sort of Latin take on the song. To honor the place, I suppose. It felt right.

I roamed the shelves and bought Willis a copy of "Terminator: the Novel." It was pparently based on James Cameron's screenplay. For myself, bought Djuna Barnes, Balzac, Gide, and The Psalms, all in beautiful Penguin classics editions.

Afterwards, we feasted on pastries pulled from a dumpster down the street and drank another bottle of whiskey. We ended up at a dive bar nearby, where we commandeered the piano and sung like the drunk folk we were. The bartender didn't like us much, and kept yelling at us to "shut up." Metallica was playing on the jukebox and honestly, I didn't think Metallica deserved any special treatment, so we kept singing until we basically got kicked out of the bar. The back to Mark's house where we smoked spliff up on his roof, feeling the fog in our lungs, and taking in the hills bulging up all round the city. Everything felt back on track, finally.

Willis slept up there and passed out on the floor in Mark's room. He dragged me by the leg and I slept on his couch. We woke to another amazing day and walked a short ways for a fine Salvadorian breakfast, thick tortillas, queso fresco, rice and beans, the works. Cheap price.

Then walked back with Mark to his place, talking all the while of music and growth and change and travel, honoring the creative instincts, moving on, life and death, the passing of youth, and also digging all the crazy murals all over his neighborhood, the Mission. We stopped at a cheap tourist shop and Will bought a belt decorated with drawings of marijuana leaves. It looks pretty good.

Stopped back into Mark's, listened to his new album (a work-in-progress) and I got the chills 3 different times. Good job, Mark. Man oh man.

Then dropped Mark at work and we headed North on the 101, stopping briefly on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Took some photos, got our hair blown around, and headed further north, on into Humboldt County. At some point, our "check engine" light came, definitely an ominous sign.

Arrived into Arcata, and drove still further north to Trinidad, where Willis' friend Mike had retreated to the forest. We set up and played music on his porch, sat by the fire, drank more whiskey, and smoked spliff til morning. Mike is quite the gardener, if you understand my meaning.

Next day, we hiked several miles up Redwood Creek and found a pristine spot, untouched, nobody around. We swam and soaked the sun, surrounded by ancient redwoods and pine and spruce and we stopped all along the path, picked fresh blueberries and blackberries and other berries I don't even know.

Campfire, warm dinner, guitar playing, more spliff.... perfect.

Now we are headed futher North, to play KEXP in Seattle tomorrow morning. Hope our engine makes it.

============================

Willis McClung's thoughts:
It has been about 5 years since I last saw my friend Mike Black in his town of Arcata California. To see him again, this time further north just outside of trinidad, CA, Brought my great joy. We hand picked our dinner from his garden with broccli, Kale, and carrots fresh from the dirt to bring on a trek thru the Redwood National Forest. With Sunshine the dog by our side we arrived creekside at a campsite where we swam and reflected on all things beautiful. We said our goodbyes and Peace was restored to my soul.

===========================

Will Patterson's thoughts:

Humboldt County is the most rediculous place I have ever been. Guarenteed fun. Were leaving the town we stayed at and are journeying north to Seattle. Our rented wrecked minivan is on the verge of breaking. Hopefully if we break down, there will atleast be fields of blackberries. This is the most interesting and exciting tour I could imagine. There is a lot of improvising.

tour entry 2: lost at sea

2008-08-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

Tucson....

So we went down to Bentley's, but the coffee shop had already shut down. Undeterred, played an impromptu show in the parking lot of this bar called "Dirtbag's." The bouncer stepped outside, wearing very baggy shorts and two large diamond stud earrings. He listened to us for awhile and asked us to come inside and play a show... we of course agreed. This would be the best show ever, of all time, anywhere.

But then word came down from up on high... the manager said not only could we not play a show at "Dirtbag's," but we weren't even allowed on the property. Which included the parking lot. "We can't have guys like you associating with Dirtbags." I'm not sure the bouncer knew how that came out. He didn't seem too incredibly self-aware or to have much sense of humor.

Oh well. We videotaped our performance and it will be a youtube sensation, I can just feel it.

We drove to a hostel nearby that was kind enough to let us sleep on their back porch for ten dollars a head... we drank beers and sang songs and saw the whole west coast spread out before us... our minds spread to the pacific and then northward. Perhaps the world would be our oyster.

But perhaps this oyster would be from Long John Silver's. In other words, a rancid oyster, a smelly stale, over-fried clump of batter, with maybe a few curly hairs from the "chef" thrown in for good measure. In other words, maybe the world would be our oyster, but our oyster's expiration date had long since passed. Maybe the world would be a pretzel shaped oyster.

None of us could sleep too well that night. Seems flies had overtaken the back porch of the Roadrunner hostel, and had taken a liking to our faces. We all woke with the sun and limped our vehicle (now nicknamed "Uncle Buck," in reference to the fine John Candy film and the slumping station wagon featured in the film) to Pep Boys. For four hours, we writhed in the waiting room. Willis played a great Blind Willie McTell song surrounded by shiny hub cups (are they called rims?).

The mechanic replaced the hoses that had sprayed like madness the previous evening. Our rear axle had lost its protective rubber "boot," and could no longer remain lubricated or protected from the elements. In his broken English, our mechanic Saul told us to fix it very soon. He then squirted the thick thick oily goop all over it and wished us well.

On our way out of Tucson, we stopped at a donut shop. God, I hate donuts. Took one bite and off into the trash. They had these things called "photo cakes" wherein they took some pre-selected photo and somehow engraved into a cake's icing, to make for some extra special birthday treat. Some of the cakes were just strange to me, though... like the screaming shirtless pro wrestler, veins popping from his neck and popping off his biceps. He was either trying to be intimidating or maybe he was just screaming in agony. He was wearing these very very small shiny red shorts that were in no way intimidating. And I just sat and marveled at these cakes and wondered what child would want an aggro-steroidy-glistening wrestler screaming back at them from their birthday cake.

We took to the highway and things seemed fine, for a bit. Willis bought a translucent plastic hat with retractable sunglasses built-in.

But a horrifying noise came crackling from beneath our rear axle... we had run out of luck, if we ever had any to begin with. I called AAA and we were picked up from Quartzsite, Arizona, an hour or so later... our driver Stan told us all about his tours of Iraq and killing people and war in general, his wife who divorced him and screwed him out of all his funds while he was away fighting the war. We kind of bonded with the guy. Will called him "the biggest hard-ass I ever met."

He dropped us in California, our vehicle still not working but we could only get towed 100 miles as per my AAA account, so we called Maverick and he saved our asses, as usual. He let us piggy-back on his roadside assistance account and that got us all the way to L.A. That was the bumpiest ride I have ever taken. Ever. It was like those exercise belt machines you find in gyms that you kind of strap yourself into and then the thing shakes violently. I was never quite sure about those things... were they supposed to shake the fat off your body? Is it possibly to exercise without actually using any muscles? Well, this teeth-chattering tow truck ride didn't much feel like exercise either, maybe just an exercise in withholding screams of terror. The driver played screeching glam metal the whole way, through a crackling speaker right behind our heads. Still, we all three managed to pass out on the drive. I awoke and felt the tremble of our tow truck descending into L.A.'s glowing valley. Willis and Will remained asleep; their heads shook violently back and forth, sometimes bumping into one another.

Pulled into town and headed straight to Echo Park... missed our pool party, but arrived in time for some killer karaoke by the pool... Willis sang some steely dan and I sang a song by Travis Tritt. Will watched and laughed.

==========================================================
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here are some thoughts by Will Patterson:
The idea of powering a tour on vegetable oil seemed to me to be very funny. Although we have not broken into grease traps (yet), we have still managed to run in to some extremely strange and funny situations. In New Mexican city Truth or Consequences, aka "T or C" on highway signs, we hooked up with a dude who truly blew my mind. I have seen many of his type before: dressed in Camo shorts, a large brimmed hat, sunglasses, and impressive dreads, but he was much different and productive than any other new-age hippie I have ever met. In a renovated RV lot, he and his wife had a plethora of wondrous inventions and projects, all which sustained his life's needs. He showed us this crazy LED plant growing system which emitted red and blue light but only used a fraction of the power of normal grow systems. It seemed very simple to me yet, I would never be able to invent such a thing. In addition, he showcased all of his gardens, solar power systems, and innovative housing technique which used recycled trash. He actually had a 30 foot tall volcano he made using the same material. It required twenty gallons of vinegar, ten pounds of baking soda, and one gallon of red ink # 5.

When we left T or C, me and Willis embarked on a new series of exquisite corpse drawings. We drew imaginary bands...it turned out quite nice. By the way Willis really sucks.

QUICK TOUR POST, PART 1

2008-08-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Mikey Sklar

Well, tour so far has been very very innaresting. Incidents thus far: running over a dead deer, surviving a fly infestation, police search and lengthy interrogation by state trooper (" you guys are crazy! this vehicle is going to explode! "), back axle making very disconcerting noises (likely as a result of the dead deer we hit), hot springs, bathing in crystal pure waters (using our trusted Dr. Bronner's), trespassing and swimming in fast-flowing creeks on a farm, long mountain drives, a death threat from a drunk man, our engine exploding into a hissing cloud, buying butter at a Circle K and being literally bombarded by drunk people in the parking lot, 15 gallons of bio-diesel, 80 gallons of waste vegetable oil, the confused looks of fellow drivers who see us filtering oil in a parking lot using a filtering sock into a plastic barrel, tour of a former RV park now a completely off-the-grid compound inhabited by an inventor (Mikey Sklar and his cool lady) who recently sold his latest invention to NASA, a tour of a biodiesel facility... to filter their oil, they had constructed a copper pyramid and were piping in Tibetan monk chants through speakers to create spiritual intention for their filtering process. And we are about to play, uninvited, unannounced, at a coffee shop called "Bentleys."

Mikey Sklar's blog entry about our visit can be found here. He also included a nice photo!

Mikey is the aforementioned inventor who just sold a patent to NASA.

"Deep-Fry Into the Sun" Tour

2008-08-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, we will be leaving for a West coast tour we have dubbed the "Deep-Fry into the Sun" tour.

Our vehicle is a 1984 Mercedes station wagon that has been converted to run on waste vegetable oil. We have a pump that filters oil from grease traps, and plan on filling up the whole way using waste oil from restaurants. This will be a first for us, and for any other band I've ever known.

This is very exciting. Free fuel (!!!!!), provided the restaurants allow us to pump. If they don't, we could always go "ninja-style" and liberate the oil. This neatly circumvents the insane problem of "touring cost" that most bands are facing right now.

Environmentally speaking, this is a revolution waiting to happen. We're removing ourselves from the grid of ridiculously overpriced gas stations that pollute our world and have distorted/dictated American foreign policy for quite some time.

We're also not burning million-year-old carbon (petroleum) to fuel our car. This closes the "carbon loop," so to speak, since the carbon we're releasing would have been consumed from the air (by the plants that created the oil) within the past few years.

It's really kind of like Dr. Brown in "Back to the Future." Remember how he fueled his car on Marty McFly's trash... he poured beer and a banana peel into the tank, remember that? Well, looks like the future's here, folks.

I will be blogging extensively along our travels. This tour is an experiment, a bit of research into a new and hopefully better way of doing things. So stay tuned for updates from the road.

S.W.A.K. #2, print edition

2008-07-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

At long last, SWAK #2 has arrived. "The Exquisite Corpse" issue. Filled with lots of fantastic illustrations and exquisite corpse stories by Michael Baird, Michael Bain, John Kolar, Sam Miller, Willis McClung, Will Patterson and yours truly. We did most of the work during the "Slightly Annoyed Max" tour. Also in there are some photos from Sound Team's last tour, which was indeed exquisite and the band was shortly to be a corpse, so I guess it fits with the theme.

If you would like a copy, please paypal $4 ($2 plus $2 shipping) to: mortonbairdiii@yahoo.com

Make sure you include your address!

If you catch one of {{{SUNSET}}}'s shows, they will be on sale for only $2. Limited edition of 100 copies, cut, copied and stapled at that bastion of local diversity, FedEx Kinko's.

CHRIS SCHLARB SHOW

2008-07-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Chris Schlarb, in conjunction with his awesome new album "Twilight and Ghost Stories," has put together an ensemble in San Francisco and Austin to perform his album. I (bill) am fortunate to be part of that ensemble and I think it'll be innaresting...

here's the flyer:

more info at chris schlarb's website

"ETERNALLY DEAD" IS NOW ALIVE

2008-07-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

The cassette is mostly live performances... in some cases, i prefer these to the final versions... there is a real spirit to the tape... much of it seems like stand-up comedy...

In addition, there is a phone call track called "sausage" and a monologue called "self-help heckling" and a few other songs available nowhere else, like the elusive "Civil War."

There are only 100 and there will definitely never again be another printing.

North American orders:
International orders:

sk8r boi party, july 11 // "eternally dead" tape

2008-07-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

======================

the "eternally dead" tape is being born right now, as we speak...

hopefully..... at the sk8r boi show, they will be available.

Other Music, part 2: Too Much Wes Anderson

2008-07-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

Other Music wrote a full review of the album:

"
Sunset's Bill Baird is depressed, or maybe he's just been listening to depressing music, or maybe he's watched one too many of Wes Anderson's movies (they're both from Austin, TX); anyhow, this singer/songwriter is channeling something that has led to the creation of the must-hear prog-folk record of the summer. The Glowing City is a smorgasbord of sound that seems to have been crafted in a toy factory with a tape machine and an ethereal piano. By his lonesome, Baird is able to do what the Polyphonic Spree uses upwards of 20 musicians to achieve, which is crafting triumphant harmonies of disharmony in the style of '70s pop by the likes of ELO and Bowie. There are most likely some collaborating musicians, but Sunset is Baird's opus. As Baird alternatively croons and chants deep within a densely layered mix, you can hear his passion seep through instruments as diverse as French horns, tribal drums, Kraftwerk-esque keys, and accordions. This album is apparently the conflation of two separate complete records, yet a narrative arc is undeniable and the overall tone is cohesive to a fault. Bill Baird took some chances recording this music, and you should take a chance listening to it...the effects could be emotional.
"
-Max Gray

other music digital exclusive release

2008-06-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

You can now download "the glowing city" from nyc awesome shop Other Music. The download format is 320kbps mp3s... definitely the best sounding mp3.

Here's what other music says about the disc:

"
EXCLUSIVE ADVANCE RELEASE! Sunset is the folk/psych/pop brainchild of Austin's Bill Baird and his new album is meditative, dramatic, electronic, and evocative of a pre-"Guero" Beck. As the nom de plume suggests, the general mood of the record finds its footing somewhere near Baroque melancholia, but the dramatically epic nature of the project and its variable prowess of instrumentation will leave you feeling undoubtedly triumphant. NPR calls him "beautifully lo-fi," and I call him the best thing I've heard in months.
"

Download it here for $9.99 (whole thing) or $1.11 per track. If you want the hard copy with full artwork and poster, you can buy that here

Gold Melts to Gray

2008-06-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

the name of a song I wrote today.

We have a show this Thursday, at Emo's with the Kadane Brothers who played in this pretty cool band called Bedhead. They put out a record on Trance Syndicate that I bought... "Beheaded..." a slow burning beauty to them.

In case you haven't heard, we are putting out another album in a few weeks. That's three albums since December. That's gotta be some kind of record. And we're a good way towards another. "The great unclogging," is how I will one day refer to this phase of my life.

The album was originally created as two separate albums, but economics and timeliness made me decide to release all of the stuff at once. Plus I liked the idea of releasing an album just 3 seconds shy of the absolute limit for a compact disc. Something pleasingly contrary about it, especially in the age of the mp3.

We will be selling this album at Thursday's show. Come on out so you can grab a copy before the release date.

So I hope to see you this Thursday at Emo's, around 10pm. We will be selling our 3 latest albums, "Pink Clouds," "Bright Blue Dream," and "The Glowing City." And playing songs from the next one.

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"The Glowing City"

2008-06-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

Our newest album, "The Glowing City," is now streaming in its entirety at last.fm

here

"when perfect flames expire"

2008-06-12T20:10:00.001-07:00

you can download it here

if you like it, you can buy the album here

note on "Moebius" and "TVs that were his eyes"

2008-06-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

"Moebius," the 7th track on "Bright Blue Dream" ("BBD" from here on), was originally composed as a musical collaboration between myself and Peter Simonite. We were trying to create a musical and video loop that begins and ends in the same place, and can thus be repeated infinitely in an "art gallery" type setting.

I thought an interesting approach for its inclusion in "BBD" would be to make sure that it could be repeated infinitely, a nod to the track's origin and original intention.

Thus, if you played "Moebius" in "repeat" mode on a c.d. player, it could play infinitely without any interruption or skipping. A sound installation I placed in the middle of a pretty straightforward pop album.

Unfortunately, this intention has been completely missed by every single reviewer, and some folks seem to be even angered by the repetitiveness of the track. Well, folks, that's why the good lord invented the "skip" button.

The original intention was to launch a music video site which would help contextualize "Moebius," and also extend the artwork of the album. We have experienced some delays on this, but the site should be up soon.

"T.V.s that were his eyes," the track following "Moebius," is incidental and accidental. In order for "Moebius" to repeat seamlessly, the beginning and end of the track needed to be at full volume. For the beginning of the track, that was simple... just a cross-fade at the end of "Bright Blue Dream" (the song) which has several minutes of drone at the end anyhow. But how to manage the transition at the end? Either "Moebius" would end and the song would just dramatically turn off, or there could be a fade. Since the fade couldn't be at the end of "Moebius" and I didn't want the fade as the beginning of "Old Sandy Bull Lee," Nick (the mastering engineer) and I decided to make the fade its own track. A strange 8-second (I think that's the time) transition track. I suppose I could've left it unnamed and maybe that would've helped figure out what the track was for... but I couldn't resist naming it. The title "T.V.s that were his eyes" is an obscure reference (maybe not so obscure for some) that also makes reference to the album cover.

I'm glad we had the chance to clear all this up.

Here's the original Moebius video:

fritz ridgemont's photos

2008-06-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

more tour photos from fritz ridgemont... more on his flickr

"slightly annoyed max" tour photos

2008-05-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

posted some to our flickr page:

van exquisite corpses

2008-05-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

here they are

for those unfamiliar, wikipedia calls it...

"
a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled, the result being known as the exquisite corpse or cadavre exquis in French. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun") or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed
"

tour 12

2008-05-28T11:37:00.001-07:00

so the first bands from vancouver played their intense hardcore and only 2 people had paid admission to see the show... so there were 5 bands all sitting around and actually it felt like quite a crowd with all the band folk in attendance. when we played, we decided to spread out through the space of the room, like what the band used to do with acoustic guitars... but this time with amplifiers. it sounded really amazing; ribs was on the far side of the room and the echo through the space was a dream come true for me and i vowed to repeat this experiment in the very near future.

we had to play a short set, 20 minutes, so 4 songs and we were out. other bands were quite a bit louder, too loud for the space maybe but really good bands. michael and flips were at a next-door bar right after the show, catching the san antonio spurs bombing game 2 of the western conference finals.

we loaded up and hit the road, many winding roads out of pittsburgh, drove out to raccoon creek state park, beautiful isolated natural area near border with west virginia. next day we drove and drove and stopped a few times to capture some photos of fine appalachia... my favorite spot maybe on the whole tour was that day, this place called the "creekside golf dome and sports bar." it was this huge inflatable dirty-white plastic dome, 2 or 3 stories high, and you could pay to hit golf balls inside the dome... there were a few targets and hitting the ball against the dome's side made a very satisfying "thwack." maybe i just liked the blend of "golf" and "dome" in the title... middle america's mediocre pastime (which i love, by the way) combined with somebody's idea of futuristic development, circa 1978.

we drove all the way across indiana, illinois, and stopped in chicago at pizzeria due for the genuine chicago deep dish pizza experience. well, the crust was amazing but the sauce, cheese and toppings were perfectly bland, forgettable and mediocre. like somebody had spent all their time working on the crust and had just given up after they'd finished... just went with food-service garbage. so we left chicago, drove out to rock island, crossed the mississippi and watched the full moon gleam on its shimmering waters, and drove off to wildcat den state park in iowa. willis and i drained an entire bottle of wine and went to bed and i awoke the next day to woodpeckers and birds of all sorts and knew this was the only way to tour, forever and ever amen. waking with natural noises and the sunrise... cannot be beat.

drove into rock island, coffee of course, then over to futureappletree studios, run by super cool pat and home of daytrotter, a super cool website that you should check out... they host bands in the studio for a live recording, then post the session along with an article, an interview, and a cartoon illustration of the group. we played 4 songs: "loveshines II," "dear friend I," "when perfect flames expire," and "telephones." they should be up on the site soon hopefully... the session felt great but i couldn't hear my vocals so they might be squawky... we shall see!

after, smoked spliff with pat and crew in the new daytrotter lounge and posed with an american flag... pretending to be asleep, using flag as a blanket, a la the who's "the kids are alright" album cover.

after, drove drove drove into kansas, where we stayed in a trailer park directly across from a state penitentiary... the wind blew so nice that night, and i felt sad knowing i'd be spending nights indoors for the next few months. the trailers in the park had all been decorated with christmas lights and such... it was called el dorado state park i believe.

woke early the next morn, drove hard and fretted over gas prices and continued our exquisite corpse typewriter creations; i will post those soon.

stopped at taco cabana in oklahoma city that has table service and uses real plates and everybody felt full and satisfied for under $4 and maybe even a little impressed and/or blow-away by the place... taco cabana taken to the next level.

drove into austin and just as we pulled into town, the tick head stuck in my armpit fell out... a good sign i think.

so the adventure ends and new ones begin. the next day, i started work again at the texas school for the blind and that's where i'm typing right now.

hope all is well and we shall see each other soon...

btw, i did an interview this morning on 101X and it was strange.

tour 11

2008-05-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

after pat and gino's steaks, matt took me to a joint that makes "veggie" cheesesteaks. a pile of wheat gluten on a white bun... not my favorite. think i'll stick with vegetables, not some weird vegetable protein that looks and feels like meat. ugh.

went to philly art museum... rocky statue out front. people in line 10-deep to have photo taken with "the rock"... i wondered if people think the statue is art or the film itself is art... what is the reason for placing outside the art museum? and if the film itself is considered art, what about part II, where he faces down mister t (his name in the film is "clubber lang")?

i would argue that part IV is so awful it exists as art... at least half the film is music video montage sequences. dolph lundgren steals the show. and the robot inside rocky's house that serves them martinis.

so we went in the museum and felt overwhelmed of course... van gogh, pisarro, braque/ my favorite was the shaker furniture. amazing. they recreated a full homestead.

after, headed back to matt's for short break and then back downtown... walked by washington's house replica and replica of his slave quarters and the real liberty bell and the real first national bank and some other buildings that have some significance but i'm not sure what, and a deli called "benny franklin's" that showed ben franklin chowing a sandwich and somehow that felt just as significant as any of these other old buildings, if not more. more relevant to me anyway than somebody's slave quarters, even if that somebody was named "washington" and he's six feet twenty and weighs a fucking ton.

went back to matt's and chilled for a bit, headed over to nearby brewery on baltimore for overpriced homebrew and watched some cool girl punk music and met the old haunts, with whom we were playing the next night in pittsburgh... bought their zine called "starfucker" which has a super cool interview with raymond pettibon... for the uninitiated, you can start here.

left shortly cuz beer just too pricey, headed back to house, watched "rushmore." bill murray = amazing amazing. i suppose i'm a sucker for that old shakespearian trick, a play within a play... in this case, several plays within a film. wes anderson structures things so cool too, at least here, with use of acts and chapters and drawing curtains providing aesthetic unity... sometimes anderson is too precious for me, but it's a feeling i'll gladly live with. i'm just happy there is a director out there crafting a body of work that people can discuss (p.t. anderson's doing it too. can you think of anybody else?)

then all everyone else went to sleep and i watched "lost in translation" and i think bill murray is even funnier in that film... he is just so amazing in that movie. my lord. and the soundtrack is perfection; also scarlett johansson's sadness.

woke early the next day, coffees to the ready, bought and drunk within minutes of consciousness, then onto the highway, west six hours to pittsburgh.

with several hours to kill, we found a bleak public park along some of the rivers and spied the neighboring del monte and heinz headquarters. i think i prefer heinz, although del monte had a hell of a sign-- a gold tomato about twenty feet tall. this was all on the riverfront and we followed the river over to the pirates' stadium, stopping to admire statue of roberto clemente. moment of silence then over to garfield artworks for the evening's show.

we arrived and said hi to manny, the inscrutable dude running garfield. one minute, you think he's gonna punch you, next minute you're best pals; i like feeling off-guard that way and we walked to the corner store together. show got a nice write-up in pittsburgh city paper, first write-up of the tour...they called us "trippy." here's the full write up:

"
The trippy Texas outfit known as Sunset started out as a four-tracked solo project of "Blonde" Bill Baird, then holding down the low notes in the band Sound Team. Now Sunset has developed into a full-fledged exploration of lo-fi walls of sound, vintage-sounding pop melodies, and wry, half-whispered narratives on the debut full-length, Bright Blue Dream. It's lovely, loopy stuff. Sunset's at Garfield Artworks tonight, opening for Olympia, Wa.'s The Old Haunts (on the Kill Rock Stars label, and featuring Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail on drums) with Call Me Lightning, The Mutators and The Modern Creatures.
"

so that was nice, but we had a couple of hours to kill and i asked manny where we could walk and he said "nowhere" because apparently this was a rough rough part of pittsburgh and drugs and their dealers abounded. i did happen to notice several very nicely dressed gents driving a shiny shiny mercedes, yelling at each other in front of the convenience store. so we stuck around, only two people paid admission that evening but we didn't care... things sometimes turn that way when you're launching something, and i consider this project still in its fledgling stage (although it's had a myspace page for two and a half years now, only now getting heavier with shows and releasing music).

99 bottles of beer

2008-05-25T01:43:00.001-07:00

we sang the whole thing !

tour 10

2008-05-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

walden pond... what can i say? thoreau had a great influence on me in younger days... and i re-read his "civil disobedience" earlier this year, so it felt perfect to end up there...

arrived at the pond, took long walk around and hopped in.. so cold but so amazing... nobody else in the whole pond... the water all to myself... ants crawling all over my clothing when i swam back. took some photos, some video, kept walking. took long walk in the trees, headed off into mass commonwealth nature preserve behind the pond... found a leafy field and laid in the sun for two hours, soaking warmth and refilling my tank... kept walking and circled two other ponds, non-degraded... their flora growing to the pond's edge and even beyond that... walked back across railroad tracks and back over to walden pond. kept moving around lake, hopped in water again, visited excavated site of thoreau's cabin, dropped a stone on the memorial pile, headed back to van, feeling entirely refreshed and new and ready for another nightclub.

back into town, saw the "minutemen" trail and the tall trees and dreamed of the american revolution and got caught in traffic and thought of that new truck ad that says "the new american revolution" or somethign and shows a truck slamming through some mud and, well, i bet paul revere would've preferred driving a hybrid-SUV with plastic molded truckbed... beats the shit out of a horse... much less rash, fo sho. besides, what would the british be driving? a bentley or some other such fussy nonsense? i'd like to see that sucker off-roading. bet the mud would swallow those silly british things. i mean, is a bentlet even 4 X 4 ?

so headed back into town, chowed large falafel and amazing fries from middle east (meal ticket said "sound team"... hmmm... ) and loaded in and sound-checked and all felt great and proper, so we walked down mass ave aways and stopped by a few shops on the way... urban outfitters a disturbing experience, especially... as if somebody had taken my wardrobe from a few years back, clothes and other items discovered at a thrift shop and treasured because they were difficult to obtain... and they took those items and mass-produced them and took everything special and cool about a tshirt with a clever saying on it. i mean, how many people have tshirts with clever slogans now? i know i know, old news, that shit died years ago, but this is the last nail in the coffin and the dirt on the casket and funeral altogether... hip books in stacks and "retro" shoes and all this mess. i walked out and back up the street... talked with some 15-year old from the suburbs, snuck them into the club... watched bands before us and felt strange...

1st band had total shredding maniac on lead guitar, just ripping into that damn thing... bluesy style, definitely not to my taste, but very technically accomplished... with all the requisite orgasm faces and scrunched-up gross lead-guitar poses... turns out the dude is guitar player on saTURDay night live, so i'll cut him a break. television probably forces you to exaggerate everything, just to get yourself across to millions of people.

as for next band, not my cup of tea either... just a different style of music... smooth and crooning. singer was almost a little too handsome and i swear he flexed his arms while playing. not to say i wouldn't do the same if i was really ripped. but if you're gonna do that, fuck, why not get right to the point and just take off your shirt and lift weights on stage... i'd actually be pretty impressed with somebody doing that...

but anyhow, we played and it sounded pretty sweet... we bought a nice live recording of the gig from the club... i will post that to this blog soon, along with all tour journals, photos, video, and live recordings... it will be a .zip file you can download.... maybe release it as a dvd-r, too......

anyhow, back to boston....

so we packed up quick after the gig... i said farewell in iman, dude i met in NYC who drove up to boston just to see us play. nice dude... we talked about the difference between arabs and persians. he was apparently persian and told me that persians are descended from aryans, same folks as who settled india... cool stuff, i didn't know.

so, we packed up and headed out to willis' family cabin at cape cod. i drank several energy drinks and had to smoke a cigarette to stay awake... arrived late, started a fire and drank whiskey and dug the awesome silence and towering trees. i woke up in the middle of the night, face to the fire, warm and happy, and the glowing red lit up the room.

the whole cape is this fantastic sprouting of pine forest from sand dunes that somehow have stayed in place and not eroded away. the next morning, ribs, michael b, pasta and i drove into provincetown and bought some groceries, drove back out to truro (village where we were based) and cooked massive breakfast of eggs and potatoes and tortillas, the old stand-bys of south texas. laid back, groaning stomachs full of happy and satisfaction... will and co loaded in our equipment and we jammed for two days straight... some very spacey jams, their spaciness perhaps enhanced by the massive amount of marijuana hanging about the ceilings... it went on for hours and hours and hard to say if any actual melodies were ever played... the ultimate stoner jam sesh... freedom from structure and melody felt fantastic. i don't think leonard bernstein would've approved, nor my parents, but hell, it felt right so we pressed forward on our aimless droning nonsensical journey.

we hit the beach for a break, the ice cold water shivering me back from stoned aimlessness... a jolt wide awake. which is when i noticed a tick half-burrowed into my armpit... a tick that had apprently eaten itself to death... swollen, half-hanging out my skin, the area around the bite bright red and stinging to the touch. nobody could quite recall the proper method for tick removal... ribs held a lighter to its bloated corpse and it seemed to squirm in a little further... headed back to the van and grabbed some tweezers. dug in there, grabbed it all but the head remained under the skin. well, i didn't want to cut myself, so i just left the head in there, pretty sure that after a few days my body would expel it someway or another...

headed back to the house, cooked some taco and jammed until the wee hours. started watching this movie, a mind-blower of a film... "cop and a half," starring burt reynolds and a very very cute afro-american youth.

that's the cover. pretty much says it all. burt reynolds turns in a riveting performance as detective nick. mm hmmm. we watched that until we'd had enough, and hit "pause" to pick up the action after the next day's breakfast.

that day, we headed over to rent some boats, but weather had turned foul, so we decided to drive out to the point and we hung on the beach. headed back to willis' cabin, jammed some more, michael willis and i made a short horror film centered aroudn the graveyard just up the hill from the cabin. did i mention the graveyard? oh yes, graveyard with many a stone.... truro, mass was the home of many a tragedy back in the whaling and heavy fishing days... many serious storm made widows of the town's ladies... in fact, the older building on willis' property, called the "grey house," is haunted and willis related some of his supernatural experiences. we pulled out a oija board and lit some candle but nothing strange happened.

that evening, more whiskey and a fire and we watched an old VHS tape of "jurassic park." god, what a collosal piece of shit. jeff goldblum is pretty sweet, though... always kind of mumbling and grinding his teeth... a serious serious over-actor, probably on par with nicholas cage.

next day, hit the road again for our show that eve in philly. hit serious traffic all along the route and hit philly less than an hour before our show that evening. show had been set up by mark of yvynyl at this amazing music shop called The Marvelous. They had some fantastic records, including this interesting looking japanese pressing of "Meddle."

i was parking the van while hunter gatherer played but i hear tell form several other bandmates that it was way sweet and i saw a big harp in hte store when i finally made it in there... looks like i missed out.

next up was enumclaw and it sounded like terry riley, which is a good thing. live projections ink movements added to the flavor.

then we played and played much louder than anybody else and closed the set with another rousing rendition of "this land is your land." mark and audrey gathered some money from the crowd which was awesome, and we talked about the pitchfork review... makr was bummed i got panned and i guess i was too... he knows the difficulty of playing the road and making a go of it when nobody comes to shows and nobody buys records and all that modern baloney. we drank some beers and parted ways... i gave him the new record.

outside, twas graduation day at drexel university... complete insanity. a supposed law student was sitting outside the marvelous, drink in hand, sitting on a picnic blanket, and hitting on lots of guys and the crowds were enormous and strange... many of the people were high school age or younger... and some old old folks. no figuring it out for me.

met up with matt, who runs the marvelous with a friend... he gave me the new c.d. by his band called the soft people and from what i've heard, sounds pretty good. he took us back to his place here we'd stay... huge west philly house he shares with 6 people and he also records bands in the basement, an enormous basement, whoa yes very large. the rest of the band went to a west philly bar, where ribs got some shit for being a "fucking college student" and for wearing "those fucking white shoes." the person yelling at him was a mohawked punk girl with a bag of chips on her shoulder and maybe she needed some chill time. i mean... ribs is super cool and why the hell would anybody want to fuck with ribs? i wasn't there, so i can't say. i wandered baltimore avenue for a bit, talking with some random people... i myself met some very nice folks that evening. mostly homeless fellows.

next morning, hit some suepr rad coffee shop at baltimore and 50th, can't recall the name... then drove to pat's steaks. line wrapped around the building for some mediocre looking sandwiches. ok ok, i'm biased... i'm a vegetarian and don't eat that stuff. the fries were amazing, though... and the atmosphere was pretty o.k. too: dozens of framed photos on the wall of an older fellow, who i can only assume to be "pat," posing with all manner of nicely dressed people. i'm sure they were famous in their day but i recognized none of them. oh wait, i take that back... jay leno appeared a couple of times in the framed photos. the frames, screwed into the wall, gave the place an appealing old-time feel, much more appealing than the large pyramid of industrial-sized "cheez whiz" cans stacked in the window. anyplace that brags about using "cheez whiz..." welll.... i don't wanna sound *unamerican* here, but that shit is fucking GROSS.

across the street, a vacant lot looked up to framed murals of philly's pop stars of the 50's and early 60's... frankie valli, etc. and when i say framed, i do mean framed... there were huge huge picture frames built around the murals, 20 by 30 feet maybe. it felt like an amusement park, in the best possible way.

across the street, gino's steaks (the main competition) glittered like red meat vomit, signs flashing all outside the building, a line around the block... those things kill my appetite, fo sho. gino's had a sign atop the building, a giant billboard of a cheesesteak sandwich, but not a rectangle like your average billboard, oh no. this billboard was cut around the image of the sandwich, so it looked like a massive cheesesteak steaming on top of the building. neon lights ringed the sandwich several times around; the total image looked like a massive cosmic cheesesteak sandwich beamed from another dimension to guide us towards greater gluttony and diminished consciousness. i think it was probably my favorite image of the whole tour and i left without taking a photo. ahhhh! but here's one from the internet:

tour 9

2008-05-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

So we played Piano's that evening, the 11th, and it flew off fantastic, us ripping and playing our best yet of the tour. not as many folks as i'd like, but i always say "quality, not quantity," especially when i'm facing a shortage of some kind. my innate optimist.

michael played piano down on the floor and we switched for "perfect flames," and the whole thing sounded tight, together, of a piece. a unit... we had finally gelled. after we played, a band called "the dagger" took the stage, and they played music trying to scare the crowd i think. the lead singer's brother was wandering around the sidestage, cackling and pretending to be a scary person... he had glow stick necklaces wrapped around his neck... he bragged of "the dagger's" fearsome aesthetic. "they're gonna frighten everybody into submission." he let out a vincent price-ish laugh... i think he was joking around, but it wasn't very funny. i stole one of his glowsticks from a full water bottle (what was it doing in there?) and went upstairs for the "zombie" dance party. lameness ruled the place, though, and i went back downstairs... the dagger had just hung a white banner behind them that said "the dagger" really large in that cheap fake-typewriter font that's supposed to look gritty. the band all wore matching suits and had started this strange chanting song called "say your prayers" which i'm sure was intended to be ominous but didn't scare me much. i laughed for a minute at the work put into the production of this show: the banner, matching suits, monigrammed kick drum head, the glowsticks... it seemed kind of sad and maybe delusional and i thought they should stop trying to act like they were already famous and maybe write songs that people enjoy listening to, but maybe i'm just too critical and jaded. either way, i wasn't drawn in by "the dagger" and retired to the bar for some gin and tonics.

next band handed out tambourines to the whole crowd and when the singer started crawling across the stage, i started spanking him with might force, using the tambourine, and hitting him in rhythm of course. then i dumped a huge box of tambourines all over him... 50 or so, brought just in case a huge crowd was there. i wondered where they'd gotten hold of so many tambourines... ebay perhaps? there were 100 or more.

next night we played the trash bar in brooklyn... stopped by bar down the street for free beers. had spent the day wandering all about manhattan... looked up la monte young's "dream house" but it's only open three days a week now... i'd been once before and found it amazing. zev, the dude who came along with me, said it felt like he was a prisoner at guantanemo -- huge buzzing drone, purple dim lights, and no furniture. i took some field recordings while there, but that was two years earlier.

this particular day, no dream house, so we wandered about and bain, will and i hit the russian and turkish baths... total relaxation, but without picking teeth or spitting, a the sign outside the russian bath so kindly reminded us.

that evening, the trash bar felt great, sounded great, but cut-throat NYC clubs force door people to tally audience members according to whom they came primarily to see.... which left us SOL, having failed to draw the requisite number of audience to get paid. aw well, these experiences put hair on your chest.... my chest is getting nice and matted by now.... if only i had sold as many records as i have hairs on my chest, i would be playing holiday inn lounges all over the midwest...

had some drinks with cousin liz and joel and their friend mark, an ace bartender and film buff who's something of a brooklyn community beacon and is doing his best to fight off the forces of mediocrity and lameness. keep fighting the fight, mark... i will do the same.

next morning, several coffees and headed up the FDR through connecticut, up to newton, a suburb of boston, where we were to play on boston college radio. jim, aka ning nong, works at forced exposure distro and has really dug "bright blue dream) (out latest c.d.), so we made a point of stopping by and giving the full live force. we set up in their small studio and threw frisbee in the front lawn and hung out in the nearly vacant campus. the boston college campus didn't impress me much; lots of tidy red brick and overly clean and corporate looking buildings. not much boston personality here. so we hung by the station.

i opened a can of chili with a pair of scissors and much determination. chili juice sprayed all over the wzbc station desk and my shirt. i still have the stains to prove it.

i ate my veggie chili and then we set up and got going... did a full 7 minute ambient song called "diamond deserts"... with my rented 16second delay and an ebow and the rest of the band tapping out some delicate improvisations... after seven or so minutes i'd loaded my 16 second dealy with samples set to infinite mode... then we kicked in with woody guthrie's "this land is your land." both of these are available here for download:

Diamond Deserts
This Land is Your Land

these tracks are meant to run continuous....

we loved the show and laughed and played as hard as we could to no physical audience... ended the set with some slap-bass samples which had inexplicably ended up on my sampler...

here's a photo jim took on his cell phone...

and jim was super cool and enthusiastic. afterwards, he played "dolphins," the first track off will's new tape. he put out a tape under the "sleep good" moniker that's really really cool... tape's called "jungle box."

after the show, we drove with jim back to his place in south boston... neighborhood where they filmed "the departed..." met jim's super cool wife and dug his awesome apartment and his insane record collection...

next morning headed to insane cheap diner for eggs, potatoes, toast, and several coffee refills for under three bucks... headed downtown to boston common, smoked spliff in the van and wandered shoeless through the park... other guys played frisbee but i quickly grew bored and restless...

so we split up, them heading to find their fortunes in central boston, me heading out of town a bit.. i made the 20 or so mile drive out to walden pond. and what a place...

clearing up confusion in austin chronicle review

2008-05-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

To clear up any confusion caused by the review in the Austin Chronicle:

The only members of Sunset who used to be in Sound Team are Bill Baird and Will Patterson.

Jordan Johns, Matt Oliver, and Gabe Pearlman appear on a couple of the songs on "Bright Blue Dream," but they are not members of the band or "collective" or whatever else this thing might be called. They made some awesome contributions to BBD but they do not perform with Bill anymore. Not to say they won't again someday, who knows.

Sam Sanford sings and plays on "Bright Blue Dream," and he performed with the group for all of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, but left the band to pursue visual art. The forthcoming disc, "The Glowing City," features significant contributions from Sam on acoustic guitar and harmony vocals.

Michael Baird came along on our last tour, "tickling the ivories." He will play a couple more shows before moving to Houston.

home

2008-05-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

we got home safe. been away from computer for several days. will finish tour journals as time permits... for now, videos for really awesome songs:

kraftwerk:

neil young (really sweet video):

spacemen 3:

faust:

tour 8

2008-05-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

headed over to piano's for the evening's gig, parking gods smiled upon us, we found perfect spot right out front. stepped inside for the evening's festivities... face painters had set up by the door to paint people like zombies... appropriate, i thought, since i wrote that song called zombies, so asked the face painter guy in the nicest possible way if he could make me look like the scariest zombie in the whole place... he painted me up for 15 minutes or so, me sipping a bourbon and imagining how frightful i would be. but he just made me look like i'd been beaten up. for the rest of the night, people would approach me, there'd be an awkward few seconds of silence, and they'd ask, "did something happen?" when i told them how i'd been painted to look like a zombie, they would respond, "oh good, i thought somebody might've beaten you up." so i was looking great and feeling great.

dude playing before us was strummy strummy in the worst kind of way, one of those plug-in acoustics with the EQ built into the top of the board... they are usually ovation brand... i guess i really dislike the sound of strummy strummy acoustic guitars with terrible pickups. i think i would literally rather listen to someone burping into my ear.

so it was mister strummy, singing songs about "sunny southern california," (i think that was an actual song title), and of course he had a fretless bass player. i think those things sound like shit moving through intestines.

so the band was an ovation with built-in EQ acoustic strummy guy and a fretless bass player and they both turned into mister funny-face when they really started to "jam." the bass player did a few unaccompanied solos, and it kind of sounded like the theme from "seinfeld." the bass player also switched over to saxophone, and he played in an unforgivable way. i had to leave the room.

drank some more whiskey, watched some stand-up comedy in the next room... the stand-up guy i saw told me i looked like andy warhol. must be the glasses.

tour 7

2008-05-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

mcsorley's buzzed with excitement, and the place had an old-world charm and wooden creaky floors covered with sawdust and crazy bustling excitement, lots of laughs and drinks and it really could've been any period in all of human beer-drinking history... places must've felt like this in egypt way back when. but the egyptian beer drinkers probably weren't wearing abercrombie shirts, which reminded you of time and place and seemed incongruous with the old-dark-wood room. we ordered cheese and crackers and light beer, drank several beers (they come in 2's) and a whole package of saltines with white cheese and the strongest mustard ever yet to cross these lips.

headed further on, hit up an amazing chinese grocery and bought laura some chopsticks for 99 cents and back towards fulton fish market and tyler's apartment. that evening, me, will, both michaels, and willis headed over to times square to take in the massive insane cultural nexus, the epicenter of "branding" and freakishly bright and loud place. i took some super8 film there, took some photos, and dug the scale of the place. that's what's always amazed me about times square... jumbotron signs so large that zooming in even slightly creates a fantastic pixellation effect and the closer one zooms, the more divorced the image becomes from the larger whole, and the crazier and more pixellated it becomes. to take something really gaudy and loud and completely remove its context.

--------------
quick aside here: i am typing at a computer terminal in the middle of rhode island somewhere, at a public library and it's really kind of strange because literally every person in the library is sitting in front of an internet terminal and i not see a single person reading a book.
--------------------

our train had stopped running so we walked all the way back down, took a couple of horus, stopped by some raging apartment party, dug the scene for a moment or two, but ditched quickly as the hour ahd grown late (4am) and people were falling asleep standing up.

next day... will's birthday. a walk through battery park and then will, michael bain and i split off to hit up the russian and turkish baths again. another fantastic few hours and we walked through the east village, eating falafel and trying on cheap plastic shades.

next day headed to nyu for radio taping... a fantastic building, the tisch school for the arts, our home for the next few hours... we set up and raged through out set, starting things off with some ebow and a sampler and ambient-ness for a few minutes leading into our cover of woddy guthrie's "this land is your land." we'd been rehearsing in the van and whole group really belted through it... that song is my national anthem... runs much deeper for me than the "star spangled banner." the best of what america is... hope for something better, but not blind optimism. we sang a version of the tune with lyrics hitting deep... some of these verses have been cut because they seemed too "socialist." we left them in and you can hear another version we recorded on our myspace.com page.

afterwards kayla (radio dj) bought us some falafels from mamoun's, so cheap and so good. then off to piano's for the night's gig.

more tour notes, trying to catch up

2008-05-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

back to tour... i awoke next day on elizabeth's fold-out couch. after some ultra-strong coffee, headed out the door in a nyc black car that took us across the williamsburg bridge, back into manhattan, where we ended up at russ and daughters, home of the finest smoked salmon in nyc, according to a sign in their window. the line out the door spoke as much too.

they wrapped our breakfast in the thickest wax paper i have ever felt and they sliced the lox like diamond-cutters working a prized stone. in a way, they were...

we ate some bagels in the shadow of a senior citizens housing development and planned our day. well, planned... not so much. we set off across the lower east sidce and alphabet city. spotted a car recently exploded, pulled to the side of the road, armrests still steaming and melting and coming off on my shoe as i pressed my toe to the gooey plastic. within ten seconds of examining the exploded car, overheard conversation of "last night's shoot-up" a block away, in which several folks were killed. oh, new york, how i love thee.

liz and i made our way to the new museum... building is incredible, especially the exterior, but most the exhibits i found boring. trading too heavily on pop culture seems like a cop-out to me... we all already know that the world is moving more and more towards disposability... mcluhan killed it for me, although i try to stay open to new ideas and i'm as guilty as anybody of riffing on disposable garbage american culture. i think the main point now might be trying to fashion something worthwhile and beautiful out of the cultural detritus we find littered all about us.

anyhow, the exhibits, the main ones at least, showed lots of carefully arranged pictures of hair-metal bands... ozzy, skid row, poison, etc. good for a laugh but it left me cold after a few seconds.

continued on down the road, stopped by habana cafe for a lime-ade and headed cross-town to banjo jim's open mike... 2pm sign-up. along the walk, stopped in some amazing community gardens, the likes of which surprise me in manhattan's gritty urban landscape. i should know by now that manhattan is nothing if not surprising, at its best... tis the beauty of the city. liz and i sat in a park and read a pamphlet of manifestos i bought... some favorites by nam june paik, dick higgins, and al hansen. another pamphlet: john cage's diary. really great free-form poetry / political commentary / explorations of humanity.

i signed up to play first at the open-mike and played a couple of tunes. the m.c. was way out-of-shape, his belly peeking out from the bottom of a really tight pac-man tshirt with armpit holes at least 8 inches across... a full hairy eye-full of "Man." his moustache was pencil thin and immaculately manicured... so thin and perfect it looked drawn on with a sharpie... but no, it was real and the effort involved in that hideous facial growth seemed almost tragic. perhaps on another man, a suave smooth operator, the 'stache would work, but this man oozed desperation from his every pore. noticing this didn't make me laugh or make me happy... i felt bad for the man. he rushed about, setting up microphones, providing introductions for other performers, nervously laughing... he'd fallen into the open mike night fishbowl... the classic case of the fish shrinking the size of his bowl until he can grasp his surroundings, control his environment. perhaps he'd hit the clubs of NYC and found them unreceptive, ventured outside of town, no response there either... now he'd collapsed back to his old neighborhood, into a small open mike where he could be "star"... this desiring of stardom by each open mike participant made the whole thing absurd and tragic and almost funny... humor so funny you can't even laugh.

with static running through speakers and technical glitches galore, the show rolled on... a middle-aged obese man wearing tevas playing a guitar solo on an ovation tortoise-back guitar... no accompaniment. ah humanity! an unaccomplished, unaccompanied guitar solo by a physically repulsive man wearing jean shorts and tevas who makes the requisite "orgasm" guitar faces while stumbling through some "licks."

another girl stepped onstage, her too-tight pants gripping a big fat butt... her butt also had big sequined stars on them... probably a home-made job. she stepped to the mike and sang songs about new york and it felt trite and wrong. "oh new york, new york... HEY...new york..." the whole thing blurted in a kind-of scat-jazz barfing style.

an extremely well-tanned new jersey guy walked in pawing a big wad of cash. he had a shit-eating grin, hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest, some gold chains, designer jeans with zippers running up the sides (a la a.c. slater) and some weird purple woven leather shoes. he sat at the bar with his girlfriend (mistress?) a fake-titted woman, much younger but equally as tan. he ordered two drinks with his back to the bar, just yelled the order over his shoulder, and paid by flipping a couple of bills off his wad and handing them behind his head, without turning around. it was a move so over-the-top it almost had a certain grace to it. perhaps it was just perfectly in keeping with the aura he seemed to send off... that was the grace.

so we stuck around for a bit, socialized and split. headed over to mcsorley's, oldest bar in manhattan... lincoln apparently drank there...

tour, part 5

2008-05-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

heelo heelo, we uploaded a live version of "this land is your land" (recorded on ning nong radio in boston) to the myspace page. more tour writings soon.

tour part 4

2008-05-13T17:52:00.000-07:00

so i ended up at david and boris' russian and turkish baths, so named because david and boris switch off ownership / management every other week and they have plenty of signs around to remind you. the place is old old NYC, the last of the old-tiem bathhouses, founded 1892, with signs reminding you "no spitting or cleaning teeth in the steam room." the front door has a signed photo of somebody named "the beastmaster" and this beastmaster is holding a spear and dressed in just a loin cloth. i guess he likes coming to the baths?

so you put on slippers, slip into their bright red bathing suits they provide, and head down the stairs to a large room with a huge brick oven... you sit in the room and pour water over yourself with one of the buckets sitting under the constantly running faucets. turban clad dudes giving massages with swatches of oak branches grunt and hustle for your business... to expensive for me but i like watching other people get thwacked with soapy tree branches... the thwacker really winding up and going for the big shot on these folks.

outside the door, there's some crooked home-made lettering ordering (in all caps): "SAVE WATER." the roaring of 20 or so faucets going full blast in the room make the admonishing a little ironic and amusing.

there's plenty of languages being spoken in there... many not english... large bald hairy eastern european men probably discussing some important business deals... i saw a signed photo of the former president of Finland hanging upstairs.

i roasted for 3 hours and put on my slippers and robe and walked upstairs for a hot bowl of borscht, this bright red cabbage soup dobbed with sour cream... so good so good.

walked out refreshed and not giving a shit about bad reviews or anything really. a deep serene feeling. drifted back to tyler's apartment, met up later with cousin liz and her boyfriend joel... passed out standing up after one sip an old fashioned made by their friend mark. they folded out the bed and i passed out.

tour part 3

2008-05-10T17:59:00.000-07:00

picking up from chapel hill.... we headed over to the nightlight, a bookstore by day, called the skylight i believe... the ceilings hung low, stained ceiling tiles all messed about, stained brown from a/c leaks, leading down to bookself walls, overstuffed with all varieties of amazing used books, mostly sold back from UNC students heading home for the semester. i spent a good ten minutes or so poking around the cookbook section and salivating over photos of glazed lasagna.

when we arrived there was a UNC graduation party in full effect, nicely dressed recent college grads bumping and grinding to prince and michael jackson and eating celery sticks and assorted party munches. as i loaded in the bass amp, some blonde girl in a short skirt started dirty dancing with the cabinet. i responded likewise.

so we set up amidst piles of old books and magazines and leif garrett vinyl records, and played a "scorching" set. we borrowed a projector and showed the super8 shorts I'd stitched together. saw old friends daniel and john and grabbed numerous beers from the bartender... he enjoyed the set and told me numerous times. always nice to hear.

band after us was originally called "ted dancin" but changed their name and can't recall rightly the newer "nom." they played a completely improvised set and there were some amazing moments.

after we gladly took another 6pack of pbr from the bartender and headed off to daniel's house in the big north carolina trees, the bu hanan house, where we slept outdoors. well, most of us slept outdoors... i passed out on the floor, fully clothed and woke in a sweat with a tick crawling across my face. next day, several other folks found ticks crawling about their neither regions and this caused some concern and a 10 minute discussion about lyme's disease. we could only conclude that we knew nothing about lyme's disease except it comes from ticks and paralyzes people.

so we hit the road and did it fast, me hitting the 80mph mark whenever possible... we'd heard the drive from chapel hill into manhattan would take a good 10 hours and we left by 7:30 that morning, shortly after hopping into daniel's shower, borrowing some bath water and dandruff control shampoo. spent the morning looking for a roadside starbucks ( lame, but a necessary evil on interstate highways) but instead stopped in at a gas station with several speakers outside cranking 80's dance classics. we danced our asses off to the shock and amusement of some fellow interstate 95 travellers (we had pushed into virginia by then) and some other folks ate some fresh sausage biscuits from the adjacent restaurant. i've always been fundamentally opposed to gas station restaurants, well not always, just ever since a particularly bad episode from a west virginian branch of subway where two dread-locked females made me a 6-inch sandwich that tasted OK but felt like doom a few minutes later. so we danced and hopped back in the van and pushed forward, through virginia, through DC, on through maryland, stopped for an ethiopian coffee in some strange maryland mini-mall community, pushed further and onto the high-priced new jersey turnpike. pressed on and hit the lincoln tunnel traffic jam at 5:00 on the dot.

sat in line for an hour, laughing and pointing at all the strangely dressed drivers trapped along with us in the traffic jam, people putting on makeup in their rearviews, yelling into cellphones, generally angry / obsessive behavior that seemed strange for somebody sitting completely still. the lanes into the lincoln tunnel gradually just disappear, giving a very raw and bitter taste of NYC driving... people pushing each other about and using bumpers just like how they were named... we must've touched chrome to chrome several times and nearly got crushed between two very large buses. but we made our way into the tunnel and discussed for awhile that stallone movie where we saves thousands (hundreds?) of people from a broken tunnel. i think my favorite tunnel scenes are from George Lucas' THX1138, which is all the more remarkable if you rent the DVD and watch the amazing THX1138 student film George Lucas made... the tunnel scenes were filmed in San Francisco and the music and everything is perfect. especially amazing if you consider the star wars "prequels" and all the messing about with the original films. once upon a time, george lucas had his "finger on the button," was directly on-point and a potential master of his art.

on the other side of the lincoln tunnel, we heard a scraping behind the van and noticed the rusted iron trailer hitch dragging behind us... we stopped and tied it back onto the bumper with some string found on the street.

then headed over to tribeca, to jackie gendel's opening called "does she know?" and found some parking right out front. michael got a ticket for drinking beer in the street, but who could resist: the block of the motti hasson gallery was filled with amazingly dressed art folks, all the more amazing considering our previous 5 or so days camping in the appalaichains. so many beautiful people, nice hair, sunglasses completely not needed, swaggering, smiling, enjoying this huge art street party. across the street, john k stood a few feet from chuck close and i think poked his arm.

inside the opening, jackie's paintings stunned and stood above the socializing. strange distortions of facial form and vivid colors and a strange primitivism that cut through the noise of the crowd. i took some photos with my 35mm and imagined her painting this incredible body of work. keith, jackie's cousin from l.a., arrived with his wife liz and we had a nice surpise reunion and greg's brother jason arrived too and we had a regular bro-down, drank some grolsch beer and talked about old times and all the good things to come.

took photos on the street of us camping boy scouts lost in an art-world paradise street party with cops on the prowl... michael's got the $25 dollar citation to prove it.

headed to the after-party, me driving 20 minutes to find manhattan parking, all my parking luck used up at the gallery apparently. dropped the van in front of some bustling housing projects and just enjoyed all the music and people socializing in the street. ate some nyc pizza... there's nothing like cornmeal pizza crust.

stopped by after party, congratulations to jackie and then on to the lower east side. i consigned some albums at the cake shop and headed to arlene's grocery. the place was packed and jumping, but everybody seemed to have a soul-patch, women included, and it didn't feel like the right vibe. so hung on the street, digging the insane street energy of the lower-east side on a friday night: low hum of the city, cabs honking far-away, traffic sounds dim and drowned out by the street energy, the people walking all about stanton, cars an unwelcome nuisance here, beautiful women in fashionable clothes strutting and us sneaking sips of whiskey whenever possible.

by this point, i'd drunk 5 or so cups of coffee and had 2 red bulls, and then bought the new super-extra-large-size red bull to keep pushing through til the finish line. my hands had begun to tremble and it felt like my innards were tied to a ringing buzzer.

with this feeling stringing through my drained body, we loaded in the equipment into a room quickly emptying, the soul-patch crowd making their exodus while we set up vintage keyboards and reverbs. i suspected the sound man might actually be peaking on acid right at that moment... he asked me to describe the sound of our group... when i hesitated, he asked me if we sounded like pink floyd. to which i said, yeah sure. pink floyd, hmm. hopefully "meddle" - era pink floyd.

played the show, tore right through the set, house mostly empty, but those in attendance seeming to really dig it. finished the set, talked with people with foreign accents, obviously in lower east side for the day, had some photos taken by Gabi and she wrote a nice review:

photos and review.

afterwards, loaded up and avoided the trembling sound guy... he apparently recorded the show but wouldn't hand off the c.d. to me because he started loudly cursing c.d. technology and i walked away, pretty quickly. i think somebody else ended up with the disc and said it wasn't half-bad.

headed over to tyler's place, right under the brooklyn bridge, directly across from the former fulton street market... the streets an empty joy... well lit and completely empty... with only a block away some horribly misguided city government attempt at "revitalization" which in this case means replacing old fish warehouses with The Gap and planet hollywood.

but we didn't venture over there, we stayed in our isolated spot, walked along the east river, smoked spliff and talked with tyler about gentirying forces at work in modern new york. i suppose as long as the city remains alive and vibrant, it will withstand the forces of lameness, but seems to me lameness chips away at the beautiful heart of nyc. the poetry of the place still smacks you in the face, but now there's disturbing interludes of asking yourself and your companions, "what the hell is happening to this city?" economic forces, pushing out artists and poets and musicians, pushing them further and further back... when we they be pushed outside city limits? never, i hope... the city still holds its charms for me, no doubt no doubt.

woke the next morning to coffee brought by my bro michael and bad news that pitchforkmedia had again panned a musical project of my involvement. the review even managed to state how much it liked the pitchfork video i made, which felt to me like disarming the criticism that they are "out to get me." no no, i don't think they're out to get me, by any means, but i do think some people there don't think my work should be seriously considered. it makes no difference, ultimately, and i will keep doing whatever it is i do. if i'm willing to take the good reviews to heart, then i must do the same for the bad. or just ignore them altogether. that said, didn't seem like the reviewer really likes spacey droning music, which is sort of the whole point of the disc... musical thoughts lingering and moving slowly in and out of the foreground, messing with time, stretching small notes into minutes. so perhaps a mismatch there between reviewer and subject.

the review encouraged me to move on, and the next disc, called "the glowing city," has been sent to press. it's 79 minutes 57 seconds long. so maybe the bad review will end up a good thing? moving on always seems like a good idea to me. something i'd momentarily forgotten.

but the heaping of bad vibes from the review sent me off to david and boris' russian and turkish baths, the last of the old time bathhouse, in a brownstone on 10th between 1st and A.

BLOATED?

2008-05-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

BUT I DON'T FEEL BLOATED... MAYBE BLOWN UP LIKE A BALLOON AND FLOATING WAY UP HIGH.... AND SOMEBODY REACHES FOR THE NEEDLE... BUT OH WHAT A VIEW.... NO, NO BLOAT HERE, JUST PATIENT GAZING AND WONDER... SOMETIMES FLAVORS NEED TO BE SAVORED AND SOMETIMES THE TASTE JUST AINT FOR EVERYONE... NO MATTER THE LENGTH OF SAVORING... I WILL KEEP FLOATING ALONG AND SOMEDAY MAYBE I'LL CRASH INTO THE GROUND...

tour part 2

2008-05-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

so we headed up into the great smokies, passing through a tourist-trap hell-hole called gatlinburg, tennessee. weird place with the largest tony roma's sign i have ever seen in my life, and we snapped a few photos out in front. weird theme park atmosphere... i guess folks have been drawn in by dolly parton's dollywood. a country-music based theme park... possibly one of the lower levels of dante's hell?

we drove on into the park, got pulled over by an overzealous park ranger who clocked us doubling the speed limit, talked our way out of it, and stopped at a nearby campsite. we grilled and drank whiskey and stared at the immense poplar and birch trees swaying above us and felt the breeze and the starlight. i passed out easily and quickly; michael and willis stayed up a bit later than the rest of us and saw a wolf trot through our campsite.

next day, woke and hopped off some cliffs at "the sinks," with water cold enoughb to clinch yr jaws tight and grit out a yelp. cold cold cold. bathed with our dr. bronner's, lathered up and hopped off the cliff once again against the roar of some nearby waterfalls. drove over the smokies, through the park, and on into celo, north carolina, an 1100 acre community abiding by the old ways of the quakers: every decision must be concensus-based and there are no leaders. we played the school house there after dining with the kids and the teachers. they have goats, pastures where they grow their own food, a bike shop, welding shop, and all sorts and sundry of beautiful ways for kids in awkward years to get through.

before the concert, we headed to the local co-op... the only co-op on the east coast still run completely by volunteers. they had a shed filled with old clothes and i replaced much of what i'd lost in the highway luggage tragedy. i walked away with a fantastic sweater covered with knitted suns and sunflowers and leaves and other nature ephemera.

we then headed to the community pond and took a plunge off the dock and swam with the beautiful country scum lining the top of the pond. cold and clear once the scum gets cleared.

the concert was fantastic, with a full house in rapt attention and a good vibe,generally. i was handed a note before the show to announce that ben, a student, had been invited to prom, and would find his invitation in his locker. after the show, we played a "blues jam" on the solitary chord of E for close to an hour. there were awesome dancers wearing tie-dyed shirts worn completely through, and the room felt magic and alive. it was an awesome change of pace.

that evening, we took a night hike through darkened woods up to mister wetzell's place... a meadow atop a nearby mountain peak. nobody had any flashlights, so we stumbled through leaves and through branches and made our zig-zagging way up the mountain. i ran into trees, face-first, on several occasions and have the scrapes to prove it. we reached the top, took some whiskey slugs, and headed back down, the downhill a much easier track to follow.

we then drove back to the beautiful home of bob and geeta mcgahey, our gracious hosts. they'd built the log cabin themselves back in 1979 and had a hand in the running of the nearby arthur morgan school (where we played). woke the next morning to geeta bustling about dined on fresh baked bread and strong coffee.

headed over to dave zitlo's treehouse manor.... he literally lives in a tree house and it's so freaking fantastic i can hardly explain. walked back into the woods, bathed in a fast-flowing creek framed by old-growth birch and poplar, and smoked spliff while listening to the wind and gentle roar of the creek. then back to the van, on the road, stopping for a fantastic ice-cold swim in another river. by now, we were clean, safe to say.

now i sit in chapel hill and feel whole and in a very good state of mind. tomorrow, manhattan, hopefully in time for jackie gendel's art opening.

PHILLY SHOW LOOKS RAD /// tour thus far

2008-05-05T17:53:00.001-07:00

YVYNYLPUT TOGETHER A SHOW FOR US AND ALSO DESIGNED THAT RADICAL FLIER YOU SEE.
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So in other news what can I say? Tour has been wild and dirty. Late night show in Dallas led to a goose-egg payday and soem late-night photos in front of a stretchy Hummer H2. Greenville street in Dallas: stretch Hummers circling and big bass thumping from the passing cars. Show was poorly attended, but we pressed on, slept at Cooper Lake State Park, under the stars, felt the clod sting through my socks, woke with the birds and the hum of neighboring RVs revving their motors. The lake was brown and didn't move much and we all passed on jumping in and instead pressed forward, through Texarkana and on into Arkansas. Stopped at Lake Catherine State Park for some cold-water laps and shivering teeth. We began filming our band movie, to be completed in the "exquisite corpse" process, except each director must film the same scene, just in his own style. The scene shows Sam Miller (muscles) leaping through shallow water and challenging Michael Baird ( chips ) to a martial-arts duel. Michael is defeated and flung into the lake. I'm supposed to direct the next chapter. An alternate storyline we've considered: Sam find out as an adult he is actually the son of Pauly Shore, and goes on a murderous killing spree to cope with the pain. That was my idea. That evening, I drank several large coffees and several red bulls (they now have HUGE red bull cans), and continued on to Fall Creek Falls State Park, which is probably the coolest place in all of Tennessee... nobody around, place all to ourselves, sound of running water, late night fires and whiskey. We woke the next day and hiked to the base of the largest U.S. waterfall east of the rockies and swam in the small creek, stood in one of the only stands of virgin forest left in the southeast, and headed further down the road. Forgot to close the back door, then had to turn back and retrace steps and found that most of our gear had fallen from the van's rear. Now I have no clothes.... so it goes. Further down the road, bathed in an ice-cold creek, the pleasant aromatic sting of Dr. Bronner's soap all over my body and warm sunshine to dry me off. Kept moving, here I am. Tonight: camping in Great Smokey Mountains. Tomorrow: Celo, North Carolina.

tour plans

2008-05-03T07:08:00.001-07:00

we are playing pecan street festival at 2pm today. maybe it won't be totally the best thing ever, but they have those roast turkey legs and you can bet yer bottom dollar i'm gonna get me one a dem, cept made from that tofurkey concoction.

pecan street fest, on 6th street: austin 2pm

tonight, dallas TX :: the cavern, we are playing at around 9 - 10pm ? we will start the show when it seems like nobody is showing up anymore.

it's directly across from taco c, in case you were wondering.

then we're driving out to atlanta lake state park, just north of lake caddo. camping on the water, waking with the sun, some whiskey. then off east across arkansas and up high into the appalaichans. more camping and whiskey to follow.

then into the super quaker community called celo, in north carolina. we are playing the junior high there. i hear they are fixing us dinner at the junior high.

then chapel hill, where our friend daniel from physics of meaning set us up a show at the night light with ted dancin'. we will be nenamed rhea pearlman for the show.

then straight up to nyc, where we're playing three gigs and recording at WNYU, who has been spinning the new record. we have a few days off and maybe we'll hit rockaway beach and jump around the waves.

then off to boston, to record at WZBC, with ning nong radio, aka jim. i think he's putting us up for the night/ we might be playing the middle east that next night, but no confirmation as of yet.

then i think we're heading up to cape cod, where there's a cabin that willis' great grandfather built or something, and it's on the water and there's a small sailboat and we're gonna hit the waves again.

then on down to philly, where the cool dudes at the blog thing
"yvynyl" have set up a show for us at The Marvelous, a rad record shop. this is the 17th now.
so we have a day off the next day, gonna hit up the country, maybe chill in philly, who knows?

19th we play in pittsburgh with some super cool bands. apparently tobi vail is playing and that's sweet, cuz my friend joey would always jam this bikini kill tape in high school and it was super heavy and made an impression, fo sho.

then we drive to rock island and record at daytrotter, getting the live feeling. after that, maybe stop in bloomington for some cocktails and hit the world's biggest mcdonald's straddling I-35 in oklahoma. if you haven't been there, it's truly insane, depressing, and fascinating, like a much less dramatic and slower version of an atomic bomb exploding in your backyard.

then back to austin for some local fun. we've been recording lots and there's lots more stuff on the way. several albums worth, with styles varying from drone folk to plain folk to american pop and just plain drone.

each record is going to be whatever it is, the energy of that time period we recorded it. hope to have some of you along for the ride.

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

2008-05-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

insound digital mixtape

2008-05-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

looks like we're on it

"SLIGHTLY ANNOYED MAX"

2008-04-29T04:36:00.000-07:00

NAME OF NEW TOUR = "SLIGHTLY ANNOYED MAX" TOUR

HITTING A ROAD NEAR YOU SOON:

CHECK MYSPACE FOR DATES

terrapass carbon offset

2008-04-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Our upcoming tour has been "carbon-offset" through Terrapass. We actually offset 17,000 miles, so hopefully this off-set will take us through the end of the year.

Our van is projected to put 16,769 cubic pounds of CO^2 over these next 17,000 miles. Terrapass offsets this through wind-power and selective tree planting.

I still fear the world is coming to an end, despite these gestures. Well, perhaps not the world, but human existence/involvement in it. Our modern way of life is rapidly reaching an end. Time to evolve, I guess.

In the words of a tattered bumper sticker I once saw dangling off the dented bumper of a hippie van long since abandoned to a weedy sidelot in San Antonio, "Anything is better than nothing."

We will do our small part and hope for the best.
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Speaking of tour, check the myspace... we may be hitting your town soon. May brings this show to the road, with a new line-up and nice surprises. Cassettes for sale, albums, etc.

WEST COAST TOUR PHOTOS

2008-04-16T09:03:00.001-07:00

PHOTOS BY BEN SKLAR NOW UP AT OUR FLICKR.

PRESS KIT

2008-04-15T16:25:00.002-07:00

bye sam

2008-04-14T12:16:00.001-07:00

Sam Sanford has split the band til year's end in order to paint 15 paintings and complete illustrations for a children's book. It will be amazing work, I guarantee you that, so his leaving is no big problem. He will beautify the world in other ways.

You will be missed, though, Slam Slamford.

We're hoping he will re-join us in early 2009... we shall see.

You can read more about his work at his blog or his website.

old foto

2008-04-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Recording "sunset's bathtime"

lock-in photos

2008-03-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

We were recording at Wire from 11:00 last night until 9:30 this morning. What a fun night! Thanks to everyone in the band and to the guys at Wire - Brad, Nate, and Will. -more pictures-

Also, check out Davis's great photos here.

LOS ANGELES, CIRCA THE END OF THE WORLD

2008-03-13T23:47:00.001-07:00

PHOTO BY BEN SKLAR. COLOR ADJUSTMENT BY BILL.

ANOTHER BAND CALLED SUNSET

2008-03-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

CHECK IT OUT HERE
OR HERE

Bright Blue Dream dot Com

2008-03-04T07:33:00.000-08:00

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IMAGE TAKEN FROM THE VIDEO FOR OUR NEW SONG "MAN'S HEART COMPLAINT."

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I am right now working on a website, brightbluedream.com, that will have videos for every song, and lots of other cool interactive features. We are trying to think of the album as a website, in a way, since that's how most people will interact with the music.... in front of their computers or driving in their cars. (For those car drivers, there will be a c.d. for purchase.)

New technologies, new forms required to address the experience.

The videos themselves are not really narrative, but really just exporing one emotion or maybe moving from one emotion to another... I am trying to create transitions and links between them so that one might watch the whole series as a story... albeit a very stream-of-consciousness story.

All this will become much clearer once the site is up.... March 25th.
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In completely unrelated news, check out this genius short by Jim Henson:

Bright Blue Dream

2008-02-29T10:29:00.000-08:00

We have a new CD "Bright Blue Dream," to be released March 25.

Here is the cover:

If you like, you can pre-order. The album costs $8.99 with $3 for domestic shipping.

Preorders within the U.S.:

international preorders:

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HAPPY THURSDAY

2008-02-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Here are a few things to read about the band {{{ SUNSET }}} :

- We put out our first cassette release called "Pink Clouds." It received one review, in a fitness magazine called "Austin Fit."

- We are putting out another cassette, a live album called "Eternally Dead." This should be ready by early March. Here is what the tape looks like:

- We are also putting out a c.d. called "Bright Blue Dream" on Autobus Recs. There will be a website, brightbluedream.com, which will have embedded videos for every song and probably some free outtakes for download.

- We went on tour in December. Some songs we recorded live on KXLU (at Loyola Marymount University) in a scary freeway suburb of L.A.: When Perfect Flames Expire, Goodbye Dear Friend of Mine, Sandy My Love, and New York Love.

- We have lots of shows coming up. Check the myspace page for details.

- Here is a picture I took while camping in Big Bend Ranch State Park: