DISCLAIMER: I am writing this under the influence of being on the road for a while, and from a very bizarre late night. 

The Cafe Mekka in Nevada City, CA is surrounded by various knick-knacks and Basquiat-esque paintings, all peering down as a captive audience to conversations ranging from road trips to psychic comparisons.  There's something very special about this little town in the trees of California, something lasting.  We've been traveling up the 101 for the most part and seeing the terrain change drastically from one hour to the next.  It's nice to know that we're on our way (in a very roundabout way) back home.

3/23 - San Luis Obispo, CA
This was my first time in San Luis Obispo and it definitely does not disappoint.  Locked in a valley and a stones throw from the ocean, there's an extremely relaxed feeling here.  The first thing that we noticed was the strong smell of flowers throughout the entire town, it was hard to not keep from bumping into people while being drawn to the trees.  You immediately become a hippie when you set foot into this place.  We played at Linnaea's that is right downtown and the staff was extremely friendly and we had the best carrot cake I've ever had!  Remember that, San Luis Obispo = good carrot cake.

3/24 - San Francisco, CA
We continued up and found ourselves in the Mission District by the early afternoon.  This is one of favorite neighborhoods in SF, let alone the entire US. With dense blocks with unique shops and signs in Spanish, you become immersed immediately with the bustle of the city.  We played an incredible show at Amnesia (one of our favorite venues) right in the heart of the Mission on Valencia Street.  The lineup was simply amazing -  our good friend Bridgit Jacobsen (who drove down from Portland) played a wonderful set.

This was followed by a set from an old and dear friend Joseph Childress who played what was to be on the best sets I've ever seen.  He unveiled his new backing band that absolutely blew me away! It was pretty incredible to see that even in the rain and the show being an early one from 5:00 to 9:00 that the place still found itself to be packed.  We got to play a set with our friend Amy Vallaincourt on French Horn for a few songs and it went swimmingly.  The show was capped with the extremely talented JL Stiles who sang ballads and sweeping melodies over graceful harmonies and intricate guitar work.  I got to see a ton of people that came out of the wood works from different parts of my life, it ended up being way more of an emotional show than I thought it would be.  After the show, we bounded to The Vortex Room to see our friends Peotskey play.  This would end up being one of the most bizarre shows I would ever see.  The venue turned out to be rarely known speakeasy near downtown inside of an unmarked warehouse.  You follow a long hallway to enter into a tall and small room that looks like a scene out of a French 60's mod film.  There was a person in a beret who spoke through a microphone to everyone telling people to not talk during the performances and film viewings. In between each band, they would show short film footage of late 80's new wave bands from Quebec. The announcer kept boasting that it was an honor to see such films and that we were lucky to see them.  The most interesting part is that the announcer kept imploring people applaud after each song on the film as if we were there watching it in person.  Petoskey played a great set under the glare of the announcer asking them to play quiet and kept saying "you could play a hair louder if you want" after each song.  The strange show ended at the old age of 1:00 in the morning.  We stumbled after our $3 Schlitz's to a taco place in the Mission again, where we ran into all of Y La Bamba!  I ended up having a great conversation about Australia with Ben Meyercord. We were hosted by our friends in Passenger & Pilot at their apartment nearby to a sluggish sleep.

Now back to Nevada City.  The clouds are providing a nice cover and it's nice to spend the day here before our show.  We're playing at Cafe Mekka with Ghost Pines at 8:00.  Should be a hoot!  As always, thanks for reading this and putting up with random meanderings. - Stirling.

Under the sun in Costa Mesa, CA I’m finally getting some time to write this, as this is our first day off since setting off west earlier this month.  It’s always an interesting process of catching up with the rest of your life when you’re on tour – when you’re on the road, there’s a different sense of time, what seems like three weeks ago, really happened yesterday.  Time moves extremely slow and fast at the same time, blurring any sense of routine.  This can be an amazing thing, but when the backlogged emails surface when you have a time to breathe, there’s a couple of stutter steps on the way to resurfacing to your waking life.  It’s been the best tour yet!  So many wonderful people, old and new – we’ve been humbled by the new places we’ve played as well, also the diverse array of experiences have been pretty incredible, I’ll break it down for you…

3/12 – Spokane, WA

We’ve never been to Spokane before, not really anywhere in eastern Washington for that matter.  So the first show was going to be a first in many different respects.  We played at Brews on Washington, a small coffee shop nestled in the downtown area.  We got a chance to explore around the area, and really got a sense of how large the city was.  There’s a sense of calmness there, and at some points it reminded me of a Norman Rockwell painting – a reflective and celebratory tinge.  We were hosted by our friends in The Terrible Buttons who always bring a massive performance and never disappoint with the energy that they bring.  We played to a packed and warm place, with the whirring traffic outside that laid out a comforting hum.  It was the perfect first show while on the vulnerable road.

3/13 – Boise, ID

I’ll be honest, we have never really had that great of luck with Boise, ID.  For the last three tours, we’ve been cursed with last minute cancellations (one time due to “fear of rain”). Everything panned out this time, and we played at Grainey’s Basement, a punk rock venue underneath an Irish pub. At times I feel at home in venues like this, they always remind me of the places I would go before I was 21, they always have a distinct casual attitude and  you always know what you’re going to get right when you walk.  Loud music on the speakers, some dude with face tattoos, bathrooms you don’t want to set foot in, and shitty PA systems – it’s great.

3/14 – Driving day

All I can really say is that we drove an insane amount of time.  We started in Boise and ended up in Denver that night.  Everything between the bookends of our starting and ending cities was great vegan food in SLC and very bizarre conversations.  The terrain was absolutely breath-taking, but always had an urgent feel to it, maybe because we were listening to The Hunger Games.

3/15 – Boulder, CO

We picked up the rest of our band at DIA in the early afternoon, and then immediately set off for Boulder, CO.  Jessie and I went to school at Naropa University in Boulder, so this was familiar territory.  Boulder is beautiful place where time does not exist.  Each direction that you look, you will find gorgeous mountain ranges and naturopathic remedies and bead shops.  You will know the entire discography of Bob Dylan and Grateful Dead when you walk down the main drag of Pearl Street sung by many a dredded-songwriter.  We played at The Fox Theater on University Hill, which is wonderful venue with a ton of rich history of people that have set foot into the place.  We played with Ukulele Loki and it was our first show of a few with You, Me and Apollo.  The staff was wonderful and we have a great time returning to one of my favorite venues.

3/16 – Fort Collins, CO

This was one of the busiest days on the road that I have ever experience.  Although it started out picturesque, with Tim, my good friend Lawrence and I hiking up Chataqua Park eating croissant sandwiches in the morning, everything after was a delightful rush.  We started at Radio 1190 at the University of Colorado, a place that dwarfs the hippie Buddhist school that I went to down the hill from there.  The performance was fun, and we answered interview questions in Haiku.  We burned down to southern Denver and played another in-studio at Colorado Public Radio.  We came into a magical studio where they usually host the Colorado Symphony and I would be lying if I wasn’t sweating in excitement and fear.  I was having nightmares of a string breaking during the airing, but alas, nothing happened. We answered questions in a roundtable discussion and made our way back up north to Fort Collins.  We played another show with You, Me & Apollo at a venue called Every Day Joe’s – a really spacious venue and volunteer run coffee shop.  The audience was amazing, and we had an amazing time playing.  We returned tired and happy to Boulder afterward.

3/17 – Denver, CO

Homecoming shows can be nerve-wracking, it’s the time where you try to prove to your mom that you’re not just smoking pot and strumming chords in your bedroom and call it a “career”.  We started the day with working with one of my absolute favorite artists named Gary Isaacs.  We spent the day taking over Mama’s Diner and St. Marks for our photo shoot.  This experience was transformative.  The show did not disappoint.  We played at one of my favorite venues called The Hi-Dive, a really cool place on my old stomping grounds of south Broadway.  The show landed on St. Patrick’s Day which we knew would not disappoint, but in other ways that we didn’t anticipate.  The show was great, we played to a wonderful audience and with great bands, including Story  & Clark.  It’s always great and overwhelming to see old faces from a past life in places that you play, and it’s always interesting to see how they play into subconscious imagery in the art that you create.  Home always tends to me the best fodder for creativity.  The rest of the night expanded in a blur.  The streets were packed solid and you couldn’t help but be taken in by the wave of people, they would definitely find you anyways.  To give a few examples, between 12am and 3am, most of the band danced around the most macho guys we could find in the streets and Tim reenacted a scene from Dirty Dancing with a stranger.  We watched someone hanging out of a limo get punched in the face, and someone got thrown through a store window. Denver knows how to party.

3/18 – Colorado Springs, CO

It was a bittersweet day.  We drove the band back to the airport and continued as a two piece down south.  We met up with videographer Kevin Ihles and had a video shoot on top of an extremely windy hill backed by a view of the beautiful Garden of the Gods.  We also got to perform another song in a church on the campus of Colorado College.  This experience was a ton of fun!  We played our final show with You, Me & Apollo at The Zodiac along with our friends in The Changing Colors.  We were met by a handful of wonderful friends that we’ve gotten to know after touring through the area a few times, and I was once again reminded of the beauty of travel and the sense of family and what different forms it evolves into.

3/19 – Las Cruces, NM

This was the first time we’ve ever traveled this far south, and in New Mexico nonetheless.  I finally got a good sense of the arid landscape the intricate beauty that it possesses.  After a long drive, we were met by Thomas Thorp from The Pioneers of Prime Time TV, which is one of my favorite bands.  We played an intimate house show, that I was told was inspired by the series of house shows that I host at the Christmas Horse, which I found to be immensely humbling.  Thomas played a gorgeous set, and I joined him on kazoo for a song which was the first time I’ve ever played a kazoo at that!  After a ton of great conversations, we set off for La Luz.

3/20 – Tempe, AZ

We woke up on a horse farm!  I felt that we woke up in a Cormac McCarthy novel (in the most optimistic way possible).  We were hosted by Thomas’s wonderful family and we got a time to survey the land for a bit.  Not to boast, but we sat on the back porch of the house and drank coffee and just stared at the wonderful canvas of southern New Mexico, I got visions of the old man that I wanted to become.  We left for Tempe, AZ after one of the most relaxing mornings yet on tour.  We got a chance to have lunch on the way in Tucson, AZ with my girlfriend’s parents at my uncle’s tamale shop, it was a crazy integration of family and it was the first tinge of genuine home sickness.  When we continued up to Tempe and played a great acoustic set in front of small, yet attentive audience.  There are some wonderful people in Tempe.

3/21 – San Diego, CA

We set off for San Diego and after a long series of check points, we arrived.  We played at my new favorite venue in San Diego called the Tin Can Ale House.  All I can say is that this place has one of the nicest staff I have ever interacted with, we felt at home here immediately.  We played with two great bands called Tops and Pree, both on really long tours.  I would definitely recommend Tops, they play extremely catchy 80’s throwback songs.

So there it is.  We’re rested again with clean clothes and we’re heading to San Luis Obispo in a couple of hours, and I will try my best to be more consistent with this blogging thing.  Thanks so much for reading this!  Please send us any thoughts and hate mail to [email protected].

We're already in the new year and I'm still reeling from the intense 2011 that we just had.  I'm pleased to say that last year was filled with more running stretches than hurdles.  I've had a list of "first" experiences with many things that I am constantly humbled by.  We were able to release a record with the help with so many dear friends and were able to tour on it five times on the west coast.  Our song Silver Hands was aired on an episode of NBC's Chuck as well as a few spots on NPR.  Our biggest achievement to me is the fact that people seem to like our album and are letting us know about it!  It's always so amazing to be a part of the process in writing a song from an idea and having it have it's own life and seeing where it lands.

We're starting off the new year with a brand new batch of songs and are recording with our good friend and producer Skyler Norwood next week.  We're collaborating with a lot of talented friends and everything is already sounding great!  We have a tour planned in March (see our SHOWS section) through the mid-west and west coast and our new album Fever Procession will be released in September!  

As we continue into the new year, my resolution is to keep doing what we're doing and continue to be grateful for all of the new wonderful developments that come our way.  I'm excited to say that our guitarist Tim Grimes now has a beautiful child (Kiernen was born on December 26th), and we are all excited to see what this year brings.

On a different note, we're playing our first show on Friday, January 6th at Mississippi Studios!  We're playing with Adam Sweeney & The Jamboree and Terrible Buttons (a great band that we've played with before in Pullman, WA).  We're excited to open the year with such a a great show!  Come out and say hello! 

Thanks so much for everything, we all really appreciate it!
Cheers,
Stirling.

This isn't really a tour entry, but I thought I would write a note for the sake of reaching out, and it's been a while anyways.  I'm at my second home at Palio's coffee house, I work here from time to time.  We've been back home and away from the road for a good spell and we're excited to announce that we have a great schedule coming up.  As the rain is becoming more permanent in our days and the days are becoming shorter, we've been writing a great deal on our next album that we'll be releasing next year.  I'm so happy with how everything has been coming along.  We've now been working with the talented Tim Grimes on electric guitar - if you want, please say hello to the bearded gentleman hiding in the back of the stage.  We've also been working more consistently with Paul Seely, who is adding drums into the mix.  The songs are coming into form and we're pleased with the form they have taken.  The new album will probably be released next March, but you'll probably be hearing some new songs at some of our upcoming shows.

We're excited to announce that we'll be playing with Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter in Washington for a couple of dates at the end of this month and into the next.  If you live in Kennewick, WA - come out to the Red Room on July 30th!  If you live in Pullman, WA - come out to The Belltower on October 1st!  It'll be our first time playing in these places and it would be great to meet some new people!  On the horizon is also bringing some shows with our friends in Big Sir, who will be coming up from Los Angeles.  Look at our SHOWS section for more details.

On on the immediate horizon, we're playing a benefit show    (The Kevin Nimick Ball) at The Woods on 9/22.  We'll be playing with amazing local bands including: Y La Bamba, Ezza Rose, and Vikesh Kapoor.

Thanks so much to everyone who has come out to our shows on the road, and we're happy to be playing some local shows coming up - it's been a while!
Love, 
Stirling.

There’s a starchy smell to the blankets in the hotel we’re in, and there’s a car alarm that sounds off every half hour outside; aside from that, we are glad to be out of the arid Reno, NV sun.  We’ve landed here after another free day of driving, and we’re excited to play our next show in San Francisco tomorrow.  I’m once again reminded of how depressing Nevada can be.  In every gas station, there’s a solitary person staring at the slots and winning only half of the money that they put in.  Then you step out into the dry and beating sun and wonder how anything grows out here.   Only the grizzled plants grow through the brittle ground here.  We ate at a diner in Battle Mountain.  The diner was connected to a casino where I would eat my club sandwich to the symphony of glitches and beeps in the room next door.  When I walked through, frayed hair and spilled beer erupted into vision and I was caught off guard when someone slammed their fist on a slot machine screen.  A high point of the walk through was seeing a slot called “Wolf Attack”.  We drove on.  We’re now three hours away from the San Francisco: The east coast city on the west coast.

Last night we stayed with our friend Melissa who recently moved to Salt Lake City from Portland to attend violin making school.  We talked about metal and our love for it.  She presented her record collected of so much amazing metal that it would make many a doe cry.  We ate where she worked, at what ended up being the best vegan diner I’ve ever been to (The Vertical Diner).  We ate vegan comfort food and I’m now a believer in the prowess of the unmeat.  We woke to a bright blue day and confusing directions on how to get out of town.  Now we’re here…In Reno, NV…Listening to the car alarm going off…again.

I'm writing this in yet another coffee shop in Salt Lake City, UT.  These beacons of coffee establishments seem to be landmarks and milemarkers on our travels.  When we're at a coffee shop, it usually means we have some time to breathe for a second and catch up with the rest of our lives and let people back home know that we still exist.  This coffee shop is unique to the others that we've been to since it is one of the few coffee shops that you can go to in this city, let alone Utah in general.  I'm here to get my fix for my cursed addiction to the black and brewed bean.  I've been here a couple of times in passing, and once went to the Gilgal Gardens enamored with how strange it was.  Now we're here again on a whim during our free day.  Now I will catch you up the past couple of shows...

Pueblo, CO served to be an exciting treat for us.  I had never been there before.  Growing up in Colorado, I realized that I never really went south of Denver (except for that time I lived in Durango, CO for five awkward middle and high school years, ahem).  We played with our friends in the Ghost of Mike Clark again, which has members of the wonderful group The Haunted Windchimes.  We spent most of the day hanging out with the extremely gracious and hospitable people in the band at their house and swimming in the nearby river.  We finally got used to the heat that hung in the air during the time we were in Colorado.  We ate homemade tostadas with guacamole and salsa - can't beat that!  (Sorry Portland, but your Mexican food sucks).  We were expecting a quiet night on a Monday night in Pueblo, but we were met with much more than that.  We were greeted by a room full of excited and engaged audience.  Each band played even better than the night before and the crowd was foot stomping and spinning along.  It was definitely not your typical Monday night crowd, but was an amazing surprise for us.  We made some new friends this trip, but some of the most accommodating people were in Pueblo, I highly recommend for others to play there sometime. 

We drove to Provo, UT the next day and played at Muse Music in downtown Provo.  It's a really cool all-ages venue that has a coffee shop in front and spacious venue in the back.  This was our third time in six month playing there and it's always a treat to play there.  The town rests in the mountain range and on each side of University Street (a main drag), there's luminous and over-arching mountain views that are awe-inspiring.  We have a tradition (much like stopping at Little America in Wyoming) where we eat at Gandolfo's Subs - it's incredible there!  We watched A Few Good Men and were entranced by Tom Cruise's performance and realizing he was creepy even in the beginning of his career.  The show went well with eager attendants and friendly banter.  We stayed with our friends in The Moth & The Flame who have become my new favorite band.  There's a ton of talent in Provo and it's equaled by it's creativity and charm.  We just drove up to Salt Lake City and it's nice to be surrounded by mountains for a bit.  I love being on the road, but it's also comforting to know that we're on our return trip back home.

Our next show is in one of my favorite cities in the world: SAN FRANCISCO!  We're playing at The Amnesia, a place that I've heard is a real hoot!  We'll be playing on Friday, the 29th.  We'll be playing with some great bands and it should call for a lively evening.  See you there and keep sending those emails!
Love,
Stirling.

It's always hard to begin and fill this blank canvas, especially with the flurry that occurred between the last entry and this one.  I'll start with the fact that I'm writing this in Colorado Springs, CO at Pike's Perk Coffee.  Bob Dylan is playing overhead and his lyrics don't make ANY sense.  We're hiding from the 90 - 100 degree weather that has made it's presence known since we've arrived in this state.  I can't complain too much since it's nice to feel some warmth on my vampiric skin.  We played a good show last night with Mike Clark, who is becoming a friend of ours on the road.  I thought I would never say this, but Colorado Springs isn't half bad -  just look past the hundreds of evangelical signs and the megachurches and you'll see some beautiful terrain.  We might head to the Garden of the Gods pretty soon, but the AC is feeling pretty good.

To catch up with everyone, I'll begin by saying that the Fort Collins show went extremely well.  It was the first show of tour and the first show playing with Paul who had just flown in.  We hit the ground running once he got into town.  We rehearsed, then went to soundcheck.  There's something humbling with traveling a great deal and presenting your art to a room full of strangers.  By the end of the first song, I felt welcomed.  The room was spacious and felt intimate at the same time.  Victor and Penny were great in their vein of 30's era crooning, even down to the fancy guitar that gave me the imagery of "happy 30's metal", I told the guitarist this, and I couldn't tell if I offended him or not.  Danielle Anderson was great in her confident songwriting.  She played a good set with odes and vignettes.  She even included a Avril Levigne cover which might have been serious with no irony to be seen.  We left with a celebratory drink on the cobblestone streets of downtown.

We hit Denver, CO the next day (Friday) after spending some time in Boulder seeing family and friends.  I need to add that Paul and I saw one of the worst buskers I've ever seen.  He tried the "I'm a really bad magician, but funny" schtick, but take out the funny aspect and he was left with silence and wincing toddlers.  In Denver, we played our first of two showcase shows in the UMS Festival at the Hi-Dive (one of my favorite places to play!).  The set went really well, the audience that was there at 6:00 in the afternoon was a great one - really engaged.  The picture to the left was taken after the show and after I just witnessed a man combing through the sidewalk dirt looking for gold.    He told me that he was the second coming of Ezekiel and that he was looking for the gold that he once paved the streets with, I imagine that he'll find it some day.  The streets were packed and alive when the evening rolled around.  We walked and paced ourselves with conversation and music echoing from doorways, stages, and storefronts.  It's been a while since I've felt connected to the Denver as a whole in a while, and it felt like a 100-degree blanket.  

The next day, we had a great photo session with our good friend and very talented Gary Isaacs.  We played at the Illiterate Gallery around 7:30 with the streets humming with life outside and spilling into view.  We played in a packed and sweating room with an audience of family, friends and great deal of people I've never seen before.  This was one of the best sets I have ever played, there was something about the energy of the viewers and players all being presenters feeding off each other (sorry, it's my Naropa language coming out, but there's no other way I can explain it).  The picture is a link to a review of the show.  The rest of the evening was spent imbibing drink and conversation.  The evening ended with a late night set from a local Denver Stoner-Rock set from the band Houses who were awesome and complimented the hazy vision and late night shouting.  There were so many talented artists and performers alike and I was flattered and humbled with the response from people that we met and the inspiring art that they create.

We were joined by this unwilling travel companion on our way down to Colorado Springs, CO.  Jessie took pictures of it while I was shying far away from it.  We were welcomed with enthusiasm and collaboration.  We played with The Ghost of Mike Clark, who plays music to travel with through the desert with no water.  We played an impromptu collaboration with his band and I shouted gibberish along to their lyrics hoping not mess anything up.  We playing another show with them tonight in Pueblo, CO and I will definitely have the lyrics ready to go this time around!  We stayed at our friend Cole's house and we spent the late evening drinking bad wine around a barrel fire and walking through ditches and looking at graffiti.  This morning, we ate green chili with great Mexican food and stories from our host.  There are cracks and crevasses to our experience that are skipping my mind at this point, but we are feeling great in our travels.

If you live in the Pueblo area, come to this show that we're playing with The Ghost of Mike Clark at The Downtown Bar tonight!  We've never been to Pueblo before, and we're looking forward to seeing all who come!  Please keep emailing us with thoughts and confusion!
Love, Stirling.
P.S. We love our moms!

We're at the Bean Cycle Coffee Shop at one of our homes away from homes on tour in Fort Collins, CO.  We're reeling after another long stretch through the wispy landscape of Utah and Wyoming, and it's nice to be grounded.  One of the best parts of tour is sitting in stillness while in motion (at least that's how it goes for the passenger).  There's something about the big skies of the midwest that lend time for reflection that there's rarely a space for in our daily routines.  Wyoming always holds that space for stillness.  There's not much to hold as landmarks in such open states, so in some ways, you create your own along the way.

We got into Fort Collins around 8:00 in the evening and are now staying at a large house by open space with horses grazing evoking postcard imagery.  Paul Seely is heading here as we speak from Denver after flying in. We're really excited to share this stretch of the road with Paul.  There's something great about meeting up with people in different contexts and physical spaces, it helps make people more dynamic and rounded.  Today, we are going to explore more of Fort Collins and try some of the local beers that this fair town has to offer.  Then back to practicing.  We're playing our first show of tour here tonight at Everyday Joe's (if you live in the area, click HERE for tickets) with the talented Danielle Anderson of Danielle Ate the Sandwich and Victor & Penny.  It should be a good time.  We always like playing in Fort Collins, it has this mountain town pleasantry and relaxed quality.  It's a small college town, where everyone will tell you about the most recent TV on the Radio album and in the same breath, tell you about the newest climbing harness.  These Colorado towns make me miss elements of growing up in this state, but it's really nice to just pass through sometimes. Not much more to take note of - Cat Power is playing overhead and I think I'll continue the rest of the day.  I hope to see some of you at the show tonight!
Love, 
Stirling.

So this is our third time out and I have been absolutely terrible at keeping a blog of our travels.   I'm writing this from (the fabulous) Trementon, UT in the apparently the only hotel room vacant for miles.  I asked the woman at the counter why there were so many people in this area and she had no idea, she said  "People come and go with the breeze, I dunno".  We had to sleep in a smoking room, and maybe it's the yellow-tinted curtains that have peaked and interested to start writing.  We're on our way to Fort Collins, CO to play our first show of our quick jaunt through the west (and technically the midwest, although most Denverites hate to admit that they're in the midwest).  It's just Jessie and I heading out for this tour.  This is a familiar route and road, but there's always something different to see out the window each time.  The tree farm on I-84 is a landmark, where you can see hallways through the perfect rows.  The trees jab into view in the high desert of eastern Oregon and we see that the ones that were planted months ago have grown into teenagers.  The diners are usually the same, but the local families eating at them are different.  We observed a birthday at the Trucker's Diner in Wembley, ID.  Everyone toasted over cake and a stale salad bar.  One thing about heading east, is that the sky is immediately bigger and the clouds have gotten bored of hovering and blue  skies take their place.  [The cleaning lady just barged into the room, apologized]. 

We've been listening to Blood Meridian by Cormac Mccarthy.  If any  of you know of his other works, this one is no exception.  It's beautifully desolate, and the writing punches you in the stomach and delicately explains why.  It's an amazing soundtrack to the plains and the high desert, blaring and indelible.  We have another full driving day and then we're in Colorado.  We're extremely excited about this tour since we'll be playing a couple of festival shows and retracing some of our favorite places that we've played, and seeing friends we don't get to see very often.

Our first one on the list: Everyday Joe's (click on the poster for their website) this Thursday.   We'll be playing with the talented Danielle Anderson of Danielle Ate The Sandwich.  It's in a really cool spacious and nonprofit space.  We are also delighted to have our good friend Paul Seely playing drums with us for our Colorado shows, he's flying in and out like a soaring eagle gracing us with his skills.  [The cleaning lady just barged into the room again, apologized].  Even though it's before 10:00, I'm taking subtle hints that we need to head out.   

We would love to see you at these shows and please send us friendly/spiteful/ennui-ridden/loving words to [email protected] or say them in person at any of the shows. 

Love,
Stirling

Have patience!  We will definitely post soon!  We're getting ready to leave for another stint on the west coast next week!  Hope to see you on the road!