updater

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

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

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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

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

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.

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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

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

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.