Notes from the road...day sixteen

Conservatory show in OKC. Carol Bui
Esteban(Chavey or Chevey). maybe.


Easin on down the road with your boys Dan and Lee.
Yesterday started early as all get out for me. the first thing i remember is being angry at brian for snoring, then frightened at the torrent of profanity that came pouring out of a mouth that surely couldn't be mine. Homie SNORES. so i got up before the sun, took a shower and headed down to our continental breakfast, which wasn't happening yet, as it was LIKE FOUR OR SOMETHING. so i chatted with the desk person about the crappy coffee and then with my baby about everything else. she was still up from the night before and just thinking about it makes me mad at brian all over again. so eventually i wandered back to our snore chamber and laid down to wait for everyone else to wake up. it took forever. so wake they did and we proceeded down to deb's room, which was the de facto office for the epic summer blockbuster known as the sxsw project (working title). they fed us more and we got in the van to pretend to arrive at the party. again. me likey watch movies. me no likey movies watch me. so we did our best to be our lil lovable selves (not funny) and took pictures with our filmy friends. what approach do you think the filmmakers should take in regards to our performance lee? "use us as little as possible so the seconds of character shine bright enough for our true selves to..." this is going nowhere. so we left for real and headed to the conservatory in oklahoma city, or the OKC as alex and i would call it, if we were thug livin in the real OK town. what happenned on the drive there? we used the commute-ticator to great success, lee tortured brian with an hour or two of NRBQ and generally teased and taunted him for whatever came into his head that second. it was awful (funny). we arrived at the conservatory and immediately raided the record store next door and came up wif some pretty good stuff. we got$1 mojo mags,t rex!,roxymusic's first, a 2 disc curtis mayfeild retrospective, double album cds of tommy james and the beegees first, a trojan ska box set, saucerful of secrets and i got a sorrows record. jim hooked up the fat deals and we responded with some california love. so we played to a mostly empty bar full of enthusiasm. at least until we ruined it by playing for 3 hours. seriously, we dont know when to quit. two thirds of our fanbase was wiped out early in the night by a father-related emergency, but we soldiered on. oh yeah! the williez put their sticker over our name on the poster we sent out. i wanted to keep it but some lil girl swiped it and tore off the sticker before i could explain to her what irony is. it came right off. pussy ass sticker didnt even stick. so then the weirdness started. as we loaded out and sold some swag lorrie informed us that she was going into chemo the next day and prolly wouldn't make it...um....uh...umm... . And then we went to Britney's house! you may remember britney from the williez show a few years ago, no? well her parents were pleasantly out of town so we had full run of the place, giant toilets, dogbears named beauford and all. at least until Unkle Whitey (MARK to you!) stopped in for a chat. more like snuck-in for god knows what awful thing. he seemed drunk and edgy and strolled in bestowing golden nuggets of truth and wisdom like "you need a haircut" and "you really need a haircut". he told everyone that except me, and i wasnt even having a good hair day or anything. but i guess i just got it like that. thanks unkie whitey! so after our psychological beatdown, he hit us with a blaze of zen mastery commonly known as the riddle. "if animals south of the equator weren't grateful," said he "would christmas and thanksgiving be on the same day?" (dramatic pause). he was freaking us out. i had it in my head that this was an answerless nothing designed to pummel our minds into baby food. or worse, to distract us while the cops came. he then belittled sean's hair, which definately seemed to offend his delicate hair sensibilities the most. after that they stared at eachother with a painfully awkward intensity i will not attempt to convey. believe me, it was heavy. "don't get up" he said. but sean had made no pretense of up-getting and we were confused yet again. so he left, creepily as he came. i saw britney struggling to understand whatever hints he was dropping from behind me. it was not going well. what was THAT all about?! britney explained "he used to own a fancy restaurant that (oklahoma?!) celebrities would come to, but now he sells cars for my dad." it raised more questions than it answered. but yeah, i think i hate that guy. and britney's mom totally does! so we cleaned out the tiny amounts of hooch and spaghettios she had and watched lee bring shame on humankind with his sexual lee-ness (it involved beauford). i was too scared to sleep on a 17 year old OU football hopeful's bed so i opted for the floor. it was aight. this morning we woke up and got on the road and have been stuck in traffic ever since a useless stop for a record store in Denton. we got like nine hours to go and we're not moving. lee is enjoying our van's tinted window voyeuristic capabilities and i am not really enjoying colin blunstone's solo album. "he was working in an office when the zombies looked him up and wrote an album for him" sayeth sean. "that last one was kinda funky." sayeth alex. "this songs been the best so far"typeth i. "oh waaaooow!" sayeth huell howser. we just commute-icatored our way into some gum! for those of you who've spent your life trimming dinosaur toenails in the desert, the commute-ticator is a device used to tell fellow travellers of the road just what, exactly, is on your mind. with such endlessly repeatable phrases as; get a life, nice rust and lets do lunch, you know you'll never be at a loss for words. so we thingied the nice lady, and after turning down our offer of lunch by way of her ring finger, she gave us all a pack of gum! this is the best traffic jam ever (special thanks to esteban!)! so wish us luck, we totally are not making the show on time.
...PoP! culture currently listening to brendan benson, alternative to love!

notes from the road...day fifteen

Dustys Party
Good, good times
Tryin' to not notice
Apache rock'n
Party at sxsw





"Yo!" As Alf would say. Hi fellas and lil q-t-pies. Hmm..missing two days from the blog it seems. I'll be taking care of this right quick. I is Alex. Our day fifteen started with late night/early morning Guiness and jelly-filled pastries at Dan's brother's house. Mike! He is totally rad and has a picture hangin on his wall of him on an old tractor. I fell asleep before everyone for I am a baby when it comes to sleep. Eight 'o clock comes round and me wantie a pillow. From what i heard the next day, Dan caught up with his brother whilst others slept. Also, I quit the band. Did I forget that? These guys are like a bunch of mayors from different comically titled towns - Jerktown. El Jerkso. Jerkington, etc. Just kidding. But really, these blogs need some spicing up. Or at least some goofy pictures. Someone wake up Brian and tell him to get with the phototakings. This guy sleeps more than anyone in the band. I had to flip for the middle seat the other day. I lost. But! Luck-i-Lee had just stopped driving and stole it from both of us.
I'm quite off track now. Thanks. So, we departed from Mike's house heading for SxSw in Austin. I spent the three hour trip on the computer getting numbers to music stores for Lee so he could purchase a speaker for the bass amp. We rolled into town after finding out the show had been switched from a club to a house party. The day started to get more interesting as we met up with the Time-Flys/Apache/Cuts and company. We found 'em at a large party-tent show sitting on the grass not really paying attention to the bands. Rightfully so. Meh is a word used much so round this time in Austin. We greeted and then continued to hang out on a hill with the cutest damn puppy I've ever seen. Guy was as big as my fist and had a patch of dark hair round one eyeball. We then headed to the house party. I can't be the only one who forgot, but as we arrived there was a flurry of film crew surronding the van. "Oh yeah! We're shooting a fake documentary today." We met a few peoples again - Jerry( Kelly on camera) the man who would become our new tambo player for the show, Estabon (Chavey) our interviewer, Joe/Deb and the rest. Then we answered some fake-ish questions, unloaded, then rested for a few minutes before being hustled into the van for another shooting of our "arrival" to the show. Competely dorky and it made me giggle. Films are oh so funny sometimes. Afterwards we set up and played. Mr. J. Beam should receive our thanks from everyone but Sean. I'm quite sure I sped everything up about double the speed of normal. Fun stuffs. After us, Apache played. Really entertaining rock & rollers from the SF/oakland area. Go see em when you can. A few of us went to a burger joint following Apaches completition. I should have found out the name of the place for the burgers were amazing. Eight then rolled round, so I headed back and waited for the band to finish so we could get our mic back and go to another house party Dusty Rhodes had set up for us. We ended up taking two mics and should apologize. It was Brians fault everyone, blame him if you must. Next was Dustys lil friends place. We unloaded to a few guys playing four-square in a backyard. Texas is crazy like that fool. We played alright. Lee was captive in a beer soaked spiral of hilarity which is always fun for me. Dusty Rhodes and the River Band went on a bit after us. "They are a GREAT live band." - says Sean. The remainder of the night had looking for the right hotel, which the video crew had set us up in. Thank you much guys! Eventually we found it and everyone went to their rooms. That be the end of the night and the end of this post. rarh.
Whats Playing Today: The Salvation Army(Befour Three 'o Clock), the Bee Gees 1st, A Trojan Ska box set, and The Kinks Face to Face
ps should have some of the party pictures in a few days.

notes from the road...day fourteen

Back by poopular demand... it's dan!
Making yesterday sound funny will be quite a chore. My personal experience was much like this; sleep, wake up grumpy, sleep, wake up tired, sleep, eat garbage in strange place, sleep, get to my brother mikes and sleep. See? Not funny. The engineer Dave gave us a copy of a Mitch hedburg cd he had. that was funny, but not so funny to tell. alex stole a pillow from our overly generous hosts. it was an accident and we took it back. the young man working the counter at the truck-stop denny's in Iowa had THUG tatooed on his pasty white knuckles. he was telling the old man in front of me how "it's hard, cuz, ever cop'n'judge in town no hoo ma stepdaddy is". but it was more sad than funny. i wasn't ready for it. Fever B gave us all presents, mine being cds of crowds booing bob dylan fer going electric and generally playing the most beautiful music ever. pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa Pa Pa PA PA PA PA PA PA PA PA PPPPSSSSSHHHHH!!!!! that wasn't funny until alex booed at the end of one a song, putting it all in perspective (people are dumb). the mcdonald's in kansas had a dollar menu that sucked, and enough creepy little summer camp kids to perfectly compliment my flavor laced soda enhanced fear and loathing. it was raining they tell me, but im not sure either way. anyhoo, my brother mike was just lovely as always, even though it was in the wee hours and he had work at 6. we talked about nothing fer a while and wished we had more time before we went to bed. today we woke up and left. we are expected to act when we get to south by southwest. seriously. theres gonna be a fake band member named jerry and everything. and, as you have surely sorted out by now, im just not my usual lovable charming self today. im pretty sure this blog started out stupid and then fell down the stairs so i'm gonna go ahead and keep spacing out to syd barrett.

notes from the road...day thirteen

Travis and Georgia's band - Blue Bird


Wherefore art thou Sean? I’m right here!
We woke up bright and early and prepared for a day of chores. Crystal would be our tour guide for the day. She took us to breakfast first and paid for it, what a gal! Thanks Crystal! She then directed us to a Jiffy Lube where we got an oil change for our precious van. My shoe dripped oil all over their floor. It was leaking out of my shoe. Not sure how, so don’t ask. We then went looking for a drive through car wash. We found one a couple of miles down the road (no thanks to the Jiffy Lube guy) and got to sit in the van as all sorts of colorful soaps were sprayed over us. It was fun! Lee was very proud of how nice our van looked afterwards. He kept circling her saying, “She looks great!”
Record shopping was next on our agenda, Brian had been buying all the good records while we were recording, so fuck that sleepy little cat. But we managed to find a couple keepers. I got Blue Angel (Cyndi Lauper’s first band, been looking for it for awhile) and I also found records by Bobbie Bubbles, who covers The Archies and other hits of the day (like some Puf’n’stuff songs) and an album by The California Poppy Pickers who also cover hits of the day (including a rendition of 1910 Fruitgum Company’s Special Delivery from their Indian Giver album, sweet!). Lee bough Dan the Turtles’ Battle of the Bands LP (Great!) and he bought Crystal Tommy James’ Cellophane Symphany album (I haven’t heard it yet, but someday I’ll find it for a dollar).
After records we attempted to go practice at the It’s a Secret studio where we recorded. It did not go to well. No, not well at all. Dan was very sleepy. I was pissed off. Lee was annoyed. Alex was the same happy-go-lucky guy he always is. So we ditched practice after awhile and headed back home. Alex, Lee and I watched the rest of “The Dead Talk Back” episode of MST3K, then a little Kinks DVD and finally finished the night with an episode of Fawlty Towers. Around 8:30 we headed to our show at The Hexagon Bar. We said “Hi” to The Pop Machine and then Georgia and Travis pointed us in the direction of a bowling alley that served burgers, so we walked down a block and ate some food. Lee was charged $12 for his meal, to which he said “Twelve dollars?!” Shouldn’t have gotten that bacon, soda and onion rings friend! While we were eating, they were having a Guitar Hero 2 competition. We kept yelling “Play Surrender!” But all they wanted to play along with was Kansas and Wolf Mother, blech.
So we walked back to the show and saw The Pop Machine play, we’ll be playing with them for four or so more times. Thanks to them for helping us out with some shows!
Then Dan woke up, we played and it went much better than our shitty practice. People danced, fun was had, couldn’t ask for more. So we sold a bunch of stuff, which was nice, and made a chunk of change. Cha-ching! We also met some of the dudes from Boys Club, they’re playing the Power Pop Fest in New York too. We like them. Bluebird played too, which featured Travis and Georgia, as well as the bass player from the Hypsteryz. Lee loved him. “What’d you think about that guy?” Asked Sean from his seat in shotgun.
“He was amazing. Fuckin’, living legend. True American original. Die hard rock 'n' roller with a white bandana, handlebar mustache and steady as a rock. He never blinked once!” Replied Lee from the driver’s seat.
So once the night was over we said our goodbyes to everyone (whom we’ll be seeing again once we get to New York), climbed in the van and headed back for our last night in the apartment. Did we mention that the White Stripes, Nikki Corvette, Tina, The Fevers and many more people we love stayed in that apartment too? We shared the same shower.
So we listened to records for a little bit before we went to bed. I fell asleep while everyone was still hanging out so I’m not sure how long everyone stayed up. Everyone is sleeping in the back of the van right now so I’m assuming it was another late night. See you tomorrow.

notes from the road...day twelve

Dave and the gang
recordings all done! thanks everyone!!


Sean here.
Lessee, we missed a day so gimmie a minute to let my mind reach back a couple days and pull out a few memories.
...hmmm...
Ok, we woke up and ate at the Neighborhood Cafe. The food's still good. Then we started on our last day of recording! Everyone was nervous because we had so much to do and so little time. Dan did all of his piano stuff during the day and it sounded great! While he did that Alex and I watched the new episode of Battlestar Galactica. T'was another great episode and it featured Mark Sheppard who played Badger on Firefly, nerd connection!
When Dave showed up around 6pm we ate some pizza. It was OK, not my thing; too "adult" for me, as Lee put it. So what if I don't like spinach on my pizza?
We finished up the vocals that night. Skipper came in and they recorded some vocals for the "ooh la las" on 2EZ2LVU, sounded great! It was the last thing we recorded. So we're done! Our record is left in the hands of Travis and Dave who we're hoping will do a bang up job mixing it and make us sound great! They better...or else! We'll get a rough copy in New York. We're planning for a July release. So our fingers are crossed. After we were done recording we went out to the Hexagon bar and hung out with Brian and Crystal from Skipper, fun times! I played pinball, but I suck.
So we went home, hung out a bit more and watched a little MST3K before we hit the hay.
So I suppose that's it for recording. We really hope it sounds good in the end. Please make it sound good Travis!
P.S. No harmonica thing on Birthday Suit!

notes from the road...day eleven

..hey! it's me,lee! soo..we're puttin' finishing touches on our debut lp ,helmed by the fevers! as if ya didnt already know!
umm,we've been fuelin' the fire with lot's of CANDY! and any and all kinds of food!!..bagels/creamecheese,soup,bbq,sandwiches,pizza,hashbrowns,even chicago style hotdogs that the kind owner of joey d's hooked us up with FREE! cheese balls..mmmm..deef fried goodness. yes,uh huh...
..we all laid down sum vocals and sum wacky stuffs to huff!puff!...it's insane! seriously..be prepared to have yer mind blown!
after a long day at the studio which we were late to,due to umm..whatschama call it?..tyme change...spring forward!! ayyee..
my personal fav. ultimate godhead moment of tour has to been when we received an intimate concert from our good pals, SKIPPER (fever B,Crystal,& Brianna!!!) after recording...simply beautiful. their the reason we got on the powder poop fest in nyc cus of a typo.."skipper&themakeoutparty"..well we were flattered beyond belief...umm,hello?! fevers,pointed sticks,20/20 ,nikki corvette ,josie cotton,MILKnCOOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!etc..
ps...sean was tired and actin like an ol' crank..so,i kicked him in the shin's and sent him to bed..it didnt help matters much..but i sure found it funny..heheheehehheheheheeehehehehehehheheheheheeehheheeeeeeehhehehhehehehhhahhahahhahaaaawwww!

notes from the road...day ten

Alex Again. Agree. Angst. Arm. Artichoke. Spelling!
So it has been a few hours since I have seen this screen. There is some Make-Out Party musics going on in the background and Travis is recording some tambourine (or Tambo as I have come to call it). "Yesterday?" You ask...Well we recorded of course!
My day started off with Lee in the shower and me needing to urinate. Though it would have been neat to spell my name in the snow, I felt it was much too cold. Anyways! We headed to the studio and I was a bit saddened to hear that there was not going to be a diner-breakfast. Travis bought some bagels and two types of cream cheese. If this blog seems like it's taking forever, which it shouldn't, it's because I keep having to record percussion stuffs. One Egg-Shaker and some fancy glass work by Dan recorded! Where was I? Oh yes, the two types were regular and salmon. The latter, I didn't care for too much, but it tickled everyone else’s fancy. Afterwards Dan received some tea I believe and got down to some vocals. As he was doing that, we were to be extremely quiet. Which, of course, we weren't. Five 'o clock came round and it was time for an amazing dinner at Travis' girlfriend Georgia's mom's house. Got that? It was incredible. Soup with like twenty-nine things in it, some pizza-ish pizza, salad, and a Beach Boys dvd. Perfection one might say. After dinner we talked fer a bit. A lot of weird stories and jokes. Somethin 'bout Georgia's mother going to a dance at an insane asylum. Then Lee started having, what I thought, was an extremely odd, yet spiffy, conversation with Georgia about ghosts. Seems that there had been two in the basement where we are staying. No worries everyone, they left awhile back. We then headed back to the studio so Dan could finish up some vocal left over from earlier.
Again with the “must be quiet” routine. I think Dave, our engineer, was calling us jackasses, for we were being extra silly after our dinner. Maybe he was joking, but I really couldn't hear him over our gigglefest. “Fingle doesn’t dopple?” had made another hilarious return. Thank you MST. Dan recorded the greatest 1st take of his life when he sang on our cover of mickey dolenz's song – Huff Puff. Lee has just pointed out that Georgia’s mother is named Anne. Sorry me forgety. We stopped at eleven and headed home. Also an interesting little factoid - We found out that Minnesota does not really sell beer on Sunday. With a lil help from Brain Fever, we tracked some down. Home/conversations/drinky/mst3k episode/sleep. And let us not forget Lee’s great phone call to Ron of Henderson aka Lord Dragon. Everyone cross their fingers now and hope that he will be able to paint our record cover. Okie dokie, me done. I’ll be back another day. Love and kisses!
ps. hiya mom