Greetings From Cedar Brook, NJ

Hello all! Sorry for the Grand Canyonesque gap between this post and the last one (although I count the video as a blogpost, no matter what my parents think). We've been bouncing around the country like a beach ball at a Nickelback concert and somehow that makes it difficult for me to open up a new blank blog post.
So what have we been doing? We spent a few days in Florida soaking up some sun at the Dolphin Hotel in Orlando, moved camp over to the Sheraton in Orlando, drove to Jacksonville and partook of that most sacred of Jacksonville tradition, Yappy Hour. For those who are woefully uneducated about Jacksonville culture, this is when 40-something couples bring their kids and their dogs to a pier that is surrounded by restaurants and bars and drink and listen to three 50-year-olds wearing Oakleys do covers of Beatles songs. Needless to say, it is AWESOME. I bought an overpriced margarita, set my relaxation mode to Super Chill and rode the chill waves.
Jacksonville was actually a very cool city. There was a lot of cool architecture but, like most of the cities we've been visiting, so much of the downtown was completely closed and had For Rent signs in the windows. It's a little bit of a bummer to see all that cool potential going to waste because the proper life support for a healthy downtown isn't really in place. But whenever I start to get down about that, I just remember the 50-year-olds cover of "Boys" and the 50-year-old woman covered from head to toe in camo dancing/falling over drunkenly to the song.
Wilmington was next and the show promoter let us stay at his place. When we got there we found out that we were in the middle of a house show. He asked us if we wanted to play and, never wanting to waste an opportunity to have the police called on us, we accepted. It was only after our two opening acts played that we began to have reservations. The first act was a duo who played completely improvisational, atonal jazz (?). It was one guy with a saxophone and one guy with snare drum and a cymbal and they did their thing for about 30 minutes. That was our first hint that this might not be our typical "My Favorite Movie Is Hot Rod" kind of crowd. The next act came up and it was just one girl playing an accordion. We were shushed multiple times, which I can tell you has happened exactly NEVER at any of our other shows. We're not used to playing to people with their arms crossed and brows furrowed. Both of these acts were cool and each actually held my attention for their entire set time but we were a little nervous about playing a show to the art house crowd. We seriously tossed around the idea of playing lounge versions of our songs but decided to just go 100 percent, consequences be damned. And it went great! There were like 50 people there all dancing and going crazy. I guess there's a little dance punk in us all.
The club show in Wilmington was the next night at the Whiskey and it was amazing. We played with our pals Summer People and Hot Cha Cha and our new pals Coup de Grace. Jaffers the bass player for Coup was the one who let us stay at his house and not only is he a generous host, he can cook a MEAN grilled cheese sandwich and he shreds on the bass. Coup de Grace was like some sort of mathy metal force to be reckoned with. They were awesome.
This has been my favorite thing about tour so far. We meet the nicest people. In Chapel Hill we met Fiona, who tends the bar at the Nightlight, which is the club we played there. She let us (over)stay at her house for THREE DAYS. Sheesh. We tried to buy her pizza but she insisted on throwing in some of her own cash for it. Seriously one of the nicest people ever. And there was Jaffers in Wilmington who let us crash at his place for two days. Then in Baltimore Brittany and Justin let us fill their entire living room with sleeping bags and blow-up mattresses. And now I'm writing this from the basement of the Cedar Brook Bible Church in Cedar Brook, NJ, where Jonathan Schoonover and his family are letting us crash for two days. We played Asbury Park last night (and had a blast) and got to the church at about 1 a.m. Jonathan was standing there ready to let us in. Not that we are exactly orphans but the Schoonover's hospitality (for the last two years, every time we stop through Philly) does remind me of James 1:27. Love that family.
Tonight we play in Philly at the North Star Bar with Vintage Kicks. Should be a lot of fun. Hopefully more updates to come! Some photos, for your enjoyment…

Durham, NC looks cool sometimes.

This has been our home away from home everytime we've been in Philly for the last two years. Thank you Schoonover family!

We dropped in on the Belvedere Hotel to see how the other half lives. It was swanky.

This is an alley in Baltimore. It's the only place in the city where it's legal to do graffiti and a lot of cool artists (and some dorky ones) come here and do work.

Have you seen these?! They are milkshake machines at gas stations. This was at WaWa in NJ. I got a cappucino milkshake, Ross got Cookies N' Cream and Erin got Orange Cream. They were all winners.

LOL BRB

"Update from the Road" or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Thelma"

The question "Are we in Alabama?" was answered about 500 feet over the state line. Waving at us from the side of the highway was a big confederate flag that was as much of a blight on the landscape as the billboards of Louisiana, big pieces of schlock that beckon you to come spend some time with Candy or Sugar or any of the other confectionately named girls with daddy issues. But we had business to attend to in Mobile so we drove on and got into town at about 5. 

Downtown was almost completely empty so that when we arrived we could have parked the van on the steps of the courthouse and no one would have said anything. We went to mingle with some locals at Hopjacks, a pizza joint/bar that offers that most sought after of tour luxuries: duck fat fries. If we got paid with duck fat fries after every show for the rest of this tour, I would consider it a success. We enjoyed the food, had some drinks, walked through an antique store that, like most stores of its breed, had a pretty nice collection of objects and trinkets that I guess someone thought the world was incomplete without (a petrified bat encased in stained glass, a shrunken head made out of paper mache, .

We went back to the venue and by the time we arrived, our tour mates, Hot Cha Cha and Summer People were back at the venue and throwing down a mad chill-sesh. If these bands were from a South American country they would be from Chile. If they were hot dogs, they would be chili dogs. If they were all going to legally change their names, they would change them to Chris Hill but they would abbreviate it C. Hill. The point is, they are very cool and we are happy to be on tour with them. Things that are also making us happy at this moment: being in Florida, remembering the free Abita beer the venue gave us last night, thinking about the next month on the road. 

Also, Charlie has kept the Lil' B to a minimum and all the shows so far have gone well. We're clicking on all cylinders right now so hopefully nobody gets eaten by a shark while were in Florida. If they did, "Not Stoked (Prime Time Killings)" (possibly the most jovial song ever written that includes the line "Kill em all with a water gun" and "SHARK ATTTAAAACK!") would seem strangely poignant.

Also, I realize I've left a few things off this update so here is the abbreviated version: Baton Rouge: Jermaine from Twin Killers is the nicest guy ever (thanks again for the hummus brah!), New Orleans: stay away from the hand grenade. Mobile: You just read about Mobile ya goof!

Now I'm in a bar in Pensacola, listening to the Beatles "Octopuses Garden." It's awesome. Hope you're all well. 

Here are some pics:

a sweet pool that we found at a sweet apartment complex. lots of 50 year olds sunbathing. 

daniel sleeping at the venue in mobile. apparently bars don't close in mobile. when we asked the door guy what the curfew was, he said "there isn't a curfew. well stop when the music is over." apparently that is alabama-speak for "you're going to be awake til 6 a.m. listening to horrible club music and feeling like your stuck in a bad episode of breaking bad."

the alabama music box. the live music capital of the street that it's on. 

the weirdest item at the gift shop in new orleans. 

Manateam Group Presents: April 28 @ Emo's!

Finally we are playing another show at Emo's with a bunch of friends from San Marcos. Come party.

w/ EQUALS / Paper Mache / Markov / Say Say Say

Presented by our good friends at Vagabond Collective, AustinMusicWeekly.com & KVRX!

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THIS WEEKEND!

SX78666

Let's Party

They are all within my reach

Yo, we're about to head out on tour tomorrow. Does it count if the first show of the tour is a hometown(ish) show? I don't know and frankly, I don't want to listen to you jibber jabber about semantics. The facts are such:

1. we are playing the first of about 10 shows over the next 2 weeks, starting tomorrow (today).

2. we are playing with Fang Island

3. go change your diapers

4. refer back to #3

5. so excited to play three shows with those guys and possibly even more excited about

6. PLAYING NEW SONGS

we're going to be playing two brand new songs on this tour. one of them, the epic 80's dance jam that is equal parts anthony michael hall and rob lowe, has been in the works for about 6 months now. literally. it kept getting worked on and then we would come up with something new and then we would work on it and then shelve it and now I am really proud to play it for everyone tomorrow. I just hope we nail it. The second song, Midnight Runners, is about blade runner or jogging or partying really late or ALL THREE. either way, it's one of the danciest songs we've ever written and i'm excited about that one.

so anyway, i told myself i would go to bed early tonight as a way of getting one last good night of sleep before two weeks of sleepless nights in wal-mart parking lots and on friend's floors but i can't stop going through those two songs in my head. i can't stop thinking about playing with fang island. i can't stop thinking of how blessed we are to get to play with great bands like that and how i get to go on a two week vacation with my best friends and see parts of the country i've never been to (except that one time my family went to florida and my sister threw up at disney world and then, a few days later when we were leaving, the 7-year-old me said "well that was fun. so i guess that means we're never doing that again, huh?" to which my whole family laughed and thought things along the lines of "kids say the darndest things!" WELL THE JOKES ON YOU FAMILY, BECAUSE I WAS RIGHT! WE NEVER WENT BACK THERE!).

i had a perfectly normal upbringing though. good times.

anyway, i'm going to try to read something or write something or workout or do something that will make me sleepy. although i must say, i'm super pumped about the next couple weeks and don't really hold out any hope for going to bed anytime soon. for now, i'll leave you with this video fang island made:

hands where your feet should be

can you imagine how cray cray it would be if you had hands where your feet would be? tightrope walking. harder? easier? kickball. would it be called punchball?

we are in the studio with computer boy. this is where we are: http://bubblerecording.com/inside-the-bubble/

is it as awesome as it looks? yeah. and then some. but it's not as well lit as it is in the pictures and there are 3 passed out dudes in the control room.

we got home from austin and the parish last night at around 2:30 and woke up this morning at 8:30 to make it to the studio by 10 a.m. This came out to about 5 hours of sleep for me and I think the other guys are measuring how much sleep they got in minutes. Just sayin.

Computer Boy and the bubble are super legit. the sounds that he is getting out of daniel's drums are as daniel just described them "Jungle-y" and "when people hear them they'll say 'wow that sounds good. i want to be playing drums right now.'"

we have 2 more days here and then we will hopefully have some new tunes for everyone to hear by the time SXSW rolls around. (we are going to play 6 shows in 5 days including saturday when we play 3 shows in one day. man oh man.)

anyway. stay sweet.

I'm going to call my folks now. because i love them.

-brett and zlam

flip cam found! lots of vidz

great news! i found my flip cam. the wire netting in one of the chairs in the van tried to eat it but i stuck my hand down the throat of the great beast and retrieved all of our memories. so first up is chuck d showing why he is better than me at guitar and wearing red shirts. that was in virginia right outside D.C. taylor's aunt and uncle were kind enough to let us stay at their place and buy us krispy kreme donuts and give us bags and bags of chips. if those chips were stock options they would be blue chips. on a related note, what do you call a sad chip? a blue chip! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAC AHAHAHF.

the next one "daniel pissed" actually has nothing to do with our drummer peeing. for some reason he hates being on camera. i don't get it. he's a great looking guy. the camera loves him. that was at the place we stayed in brooklyn. we were in the middle of a big game of uno when that was shot and charlie was in the middle of cheating for like the 5th time in 3 games. i've always said you can't trust people from weatherford and that proves it. also, after i adopt my woody allen voice, taylor made the comment "are we in Jew town?" which is funny becaue we had literally seen like 50 Hasidic Jews that day. we're a bunch of Texas boys so it was crazy seeing them with their hats and curls and piety. actually when we were driving out of an area of Brooklyn heavily populated by Jews there was a sign that said "Oy Vey, you are now leaving Brooklyn." Honest to gosh it was one of the funniest things we saw the whole trip. daniel peed his pants after we saw it.

the next video is us with our friend chris lee at times square in new york. we had just eaten about 10 lbs. of food each at the new york staple carnegie deli and were doing what every new yorker does: souvenir shopping! oh the deals they had.

the last video is one from philly. we played in "old town" where the streets are cobbled the buildings are historic and ben franklin is...dead. ross and I peeled off from the venue after eating a philly cheese steak and we explored everything the meaning of life.

we're going to keep updating this with more videos and visual images that will make you be like "whoa." i gotta heat up a party pizza before we leave for corpus christi in an hour.

PEACE!