Hello everyone! So, our November 6th Watkins Family Hour at Largo will be a special benefit show for our good friend Glen Phillips, who seriously injured his left arm recently. His prognosis is optimistic and in time he should recover but he did have to cancel a bunch of shows. All the money made from the show will be given to him. Come on out and support him. It also will be the start of a slightly modified format for the Watkins Family Hour, which will include a new feature we're calling "Tuning Bingo" among other exciting new trilling moments. Special guests will include Australian singer/songwriter Ben Lee, Tom Brosseau, Comedian Dave Gruber, and many more to be announced soon. sean

Hello everyone! There will be no Watkins Family Hours in October. We will return to our weekly fun on Nov 6th in the theater with very special guests and a revamped show. Hope to see you then! More details soon. Happy Fall! -sean

Hello, Largo friends. Sean here. We'll be taking a month off or our beloved thursday night Watkins Family Hour while sara makes her record. We'll be back at the end of march and ready to start making more noise in our favorite dark corner of hollywood. The last couple months have been amazing for us. Seems like each show is more fun then the last. Thanks to all the musicians who've been coming out and you guys for being such a great, and open to anything, audience. Here's to much more Largo fun starting up again in a month!!! -sean

The LAist was recently at the Largo for a Watkins Family Hour - check out what they had to say about it in the LAist Blog.

last night was one of the best watkins family hours ever. Benmot Tench, and Greg Leisz were there of course, as they are most thursdays now. But also, John Paul Jones, and Fiona Apple came up and played for a good amount of the time. So strange to have that many musicians i've love and respect all on stage with us. Some highlights for me were Fiona's song Waltz (Better Then Fine) and the old murder ballad that we do every time we play, Knoxville Girl with everyone playing. Also she sang a Sy Coleman song called "I Walk a little Faster" that will slay you. I dare you to listen to her sing it and not fall in love. I was in heaven the whole night, a state i spend many watkins family hours in thanks to the musicians who show up and lend their talent and love, as well as the great audience that shows up so concistantly. Here's to much more. There are great things to come. -sean

Hello, Hope it finds all of you well. First off the NC touring is going really well and we're having a lot of fun. The main news is a tour in june that everyone should know about. Its called the Various and Sundry Tour and will involve Sara and myself along with Grant Lee Phillips, Glen Phillips, Luke Bulla and possibly other cool people at some shows. It all sprang from an amazingly fun show we all did together at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara a few months ago. It was one of the most memorable nights of playing i've had in a while and we all decided that it was definitely worth making a little tour of it. So we're doing 10 or 12 shows up and down the west coast starting on the 5th and ending sometime around the 20th. The official dates and venues will be posted soon on all our websites and myspace pages. Please come and bring your friends. its going to be really fun. OK i need to go. We're at Cochella today. Going to try and fight my way through the crowds for a bit of rock fun.

hello. welcome to 07. It feels good doesn't it. 07 just sounds good. Flows off the tongue nicely. I saw a whale the day before yesterday. I found a cool new coffee place yesterday. E-Street. Quite nice. I've been recording a whole lot. Mostly the SeanJon record lately. Its starting to look like its going to be a real record now as opposed to an EP. I'm excited it about. Also, i'm releasing a strange album this year to sell at nickel creek shows that will be on 10" vinyl, one side being my string quartet and the other being something to effect of "15 minutes of meaningless noise". Its turning into quite a bigger project then i thought it'd be. Last thursday was fun at largo. Glen Phillips and Luke Bulla joined us and the usual crew. We actually practiced. Its amazing how far a little of that'll go. It was so great to get to spend a few days with him them. i'm hoping our musical relationship will go much further. GLen has some really great new songs. IT was great playing those and another one i enjoyed was "exit music for a film", the radiohead song. A few weeks before that, Fiona Apple sat in our Christmas show. She sang the hell out of Frosty the Snow Man. I love her. Its freezing here in southern california, frozen pipes in carlsbad....insane. OK, i'm off to bed. my comforter never sounded so nice. night.
-sean

Hello friends. I'm sitting on my couch right now drinking coffee. well i was. I just had a triple latte and i'm thinking about getting another here in a few. I'm on my way out the door to run some errends but thought i'd take a sec and post some pointless dribble. ha. had a busy last couple days. Spent last weekend in nashville. We so good to be there this time of year. Got to break out my new scarf and hang out with friends i dont get to see that often. The main reason for the trip was to play a show with Sara at the Violin Shop. It went ok. Kinda nerve racking playing in front of so many people you respect. Byron House and LUke Bulla played with us. We did a lot of songs we dont usually do cause it was a tapeing for a fiddle DVD series they do there. Had to meet the fiddeling quota. ha. So it was different then when we do our WFH at largo, but anyway, the next morning we flew strait to LA and took a cab to the Roxy where we played as part of a benifit that kcrw put on for Gimme SHelter. It was really fun. Sara and i did a few songs and then we did 4 songs with jon foreman. It felt good to play some of the songs we've been recording, live. I have a video of one, i may post it if it doesn't suck too bad. it was our debue SeanJon perfomance... there will be more. Tomorrow is yet another WFH at largo. Tractor beam will be opening. So excited about that. THen the next thursday will be our christmas show and it has the potential to be off the charts. Well, i'm off to trader joes. more soon.-sean

At first, when we booked this residency at Largo for November, we were a little nervous about how we would keep each show interesting week after week. We knew we'd be learning lots of new material, but didn't know if we were going to have enough friends available and willing to come down and play, but it has really worked out!

A couple weeks back, our friends The Ditty Bops sang some with us. Last week, we thought it was just going to be Mike, Sean and me, but then, while we were running though some songs upstairs before the show, Jackson Browne popped in! We did a couple of songs we'd sung with played with him before and learned a new one: this old, traditional one he brought...i can't remember the name right now.
Last night, Tift Merritt (who's been staying with for a little while) came and opened the show and sang some with us, and in addition to Sean and myself and the reliable Mike Witcher, Benmont Tentch and Greg Leisz came down; and the great Ethan Johns beat on the drums a bit.
After the show, after they shut the club down, everyone who was on stage hung out for good while. Greg said of Ethan, "Well, we found our drummer." ... If only he lived in LA and happened to find himself bored every Thursday, and looking for a place to play. He's a great player and has a terrific feel, even in all the unpredictability that happens at the Family Hour shows. (You know Ethan from the records he's produced: Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams, both of Ray LaMontagne's, The Jayhawks. I first met him when he was producing Glen Phillips and oversaw the Mutual Admiration project we did.)

Next week we'll take off for Thanksgiving, but then we'll be back for the first three Thursdays in December. With any luck, Gabe will be back in town and there will be at least a couple very special guests for the Christmas show on the 21st. Tickets will be 30 bucks but every cent will all go to charity. We will announce the guests soon, but get tickets now cause they are likely to go quickly! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Sara

so, the last couple largo shows were awesome. friday the 13th was just epic. To me at least. Its strange to be on stage playing for 3 hours with so many musical heros. It was sara, me, gillian welch, dave rawlings, jon brion, benmont tench, and greg leitz. we'd planned to just do a few together and then break up into smaller groups but no one wanted to leave the stage. So we all rocked it the whole time. THe great thing about largo is how comfortable you feel staying on stage even if you dont know or dont want to play on the song. THere was a recording of it made. I'll try to find some songs to put up. ALso a couple videos i think. Anyway, we all had so much fun.... i feel so grateful to have been a part of that. THen last thursday, we did our first of a long string of thursday night watkins family hours. Gill and dave came again but had to leave half way through the set to drive up north. But right after they left Sam Bush and John Randall (who were in town recording with Lyle Lovette) walked in and were imediately recruited to fill the gill and dave void. It was great. I dont think Ben and Sam had ever played together.....worlds colliding for me.