with any luck, the rest of the solo tour will be booked in a few weeks. we still need help for ma, ct or nh on the 12th & 13th. the revenge & regret cds should be here towards the end of next week. matt is reevaluating his drums on the new recordings. i thought they were fine but i only listened to the playback so i’ll defer to his judgment, seeing as he’s the engineer and all.

i picked up slicker than your average by craig david, the superchunk dvd, rainbow six 3 for xbox and new batteries for my cordless phone this week. as much as it pains me to say it, the craig david cd ranks at the bottom of the list. it should have been titled averager than your average.

monica, carryn & i went to nxnw to see the high llamas last saturday night. i had a really good country turkey loaf. their recordings sound very late 60s/70s beach boys but live they were almost stereolabesque with the stripped down instrumentation they used. stripped down for them, anyway - two keyboards, laptop, xylophone, drums, bass, guitar players switched between electric, classical, 12-string & banjo. john terlesky opened and used the line ‘ejaculate in your hand’ in a song. it was a good time for sure.

started booking a short ten day solo tour this spring in support of the upcoming record. alan from i dreamed of pompeii is coming along as well. while this is only a tentative schedule with only a handful of confirmed dates, anything with a red asterisk (*) is what we REALLY need help with. if you can help out with a show (or contact information for a show), lodging, local record store, bookstore and restaurant recommendations, that would be great. even if you have a show that’s not in a town listed here, let me know and i’ll add it if it’s even remotely near where we are at the time.

apr 08 newark de

apr 09 new brunswick nj

apr 10 brooklyn nyc

apr 11 off

apr 12 ct*

apr 13 ma/ri *

apr 14 buffalo ny

apr 15 columbus oh*

apr 16 pittsburgh pa

apr 17 state college pa

apr 18 williamstown nj

speaking of the new cd, matt tracked drums last sunday and it’s sounding good so far. by the time we’re done we should have five or six full band songs, and then one or two stripped down numbers. then it’s ‘live at the world cafe’ with david dye for us.

monica and i watched bjork live at the royal opera house on dvd this past weekend and it’s nothing short of breathtaking. also watched a little bit of the grammys, which i haven’t done in forever. god, beyonce bores me to tears. even prince and all the rump-shaking in the world couldn’t save her boring ass. michael greene talking about people being ‘marginalized out of our business’ just makes me laugh out loud.

tomorrow (thursday) our friends at plain parade are showing a free screening of the new superchunk tour dvd, quest for sleep at doc watson’s. show times are at 8 & 10. pp’s maria sciarrino will be spinning between screenings and i’ll be handling projector duties. see you there.

new cd art is here. we nixed the 4 page booklet. it’s understated and low-key, so i think it works.

this is a dated joke but ‘q: who’s got the best chance of overthrowing sadaam hussein? a: donovan mcnabb’ - it’s the most super of bowls today but i’m still bummed out about philadelphia blowing it a few weeks ago and more inclined to watch lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring for the umpteenth time. i don’t really need to see freaking aerosmith at halftime again. steven tyler was quoted as saying, ‘the super bowl is rock and roll! it’s slammin’, it’s precision, it’s passion and pure energy. that’s sweet emotion to me.” good lord.

our friend kris margiotta recently recorded a live show he did in south philadelphia and it’s great. my favorites are the new song, ‘radar’ and ‘winning the battle to lose the war’. download them here. and our friends in kitty kat dirt nap have a show opening for OK GO at the north star on the 4th. the bass player from OK GO looks like george from full circle records. if you know what i’m talking about, this is funny as hell.