Ok so summer is coming and that means WE ARE GOING OUT TO KICK ASSES. Locally, globally, guys, girls, the elderly, the young, it doesn't matter. If there is an ass nearby we will kick it. Line up backwards at the following places on the following days:

North America(with The Number 12 Looks Like You, Knife The Glitter)

June 9th - Farmingdale, NY - Crazy Donkey
June 10th - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church(IT'S ABOUT THAT TIME AGAIN...TIME  TO GO OFF!!!)
June 11th - Washington, DC - Rock N Roll Hotel(Baltimore crew....make the drive)
June 12th - Raleigh, NC - The Brewery
June 13th - Manchester, TN - Hang out at Bonnaroo, do cool shit
June 14th - Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo
June 15th - Driving from Tennessee to Michigan, if you live along the way hook up a cookout we'll show up
June 16th - Pontiac, MI - The Pike Room
June 17th - Chicago, IL - Reggie's Rock Club
June 18th - Columbus, OH - The Basement
June 19th - St Catharines, Ontario - L3 Nightclub
June 20th - Perhaps a secret basement show?
June 21st - Toronto, ONT - The Mod Club

EUROPE(Random/Festivals/Sepultura/Other....click the show links on the main page to find out who is playing what shows)

July 1st - Kristiansand, Norway - Quart Festival
July 2nd - Malmo, Sweden - Debaser
July 3rd - Munster, Germany - Vainstream Rockfest
July 4th - Wiesbaden, Germany - Vainstream Beastfest(what a name)
July 5th - Cergy, France - Furia Sound Festival
July 6th - Day off, do cool shit somewhere in Europe
July 7th - Vienna, Austria - Arena
July 8th - Rimini, Italy - Velvet
July 9th - Basel, Switzerland - Sommar Casino
July 10th - Nijmegen, Holland - Doornroosje
July 11th - Nijmegen, Holland - Fortarock
July 12th - Krakow, Poland - Knock Out Festival
July 13th - Do more cool shit somewhere in Europe
July 14th - Esch Sur Alzette, Luxembourg - Rockhal
July 15th - Stuttgart, Germany - LKA Longhorn
July 16th - Nurnberg, Germany - Hirsch
July 17th - Dour, Belgium - Festival
July 18th - Joensuu, Finland - Ilosaarirock

July 19th.....Fly back to USA.
July 20th.....Start recording our new album....."O**i** P**a*****"


Don't forget to check out the official DEP twitter over at twitter.com/dillingerescpln to hear Ben's random musings and info about writing/practicing/lobster eating/ass kicking/etc.

Also, if you guys are on facebook, which I assume everyone is, link up or friend or become a member of or whatever the hell you do with The Dillinger Escape Plan page on there, it gets updated with random stuff that isn't on here sometimes, you can do cool shit on there that you can't do on here(and vice versa), and we're gonna start getting more on top of it.

More news coming soon....before we leave for tour we'll get a ton of stuff up, new shirt, practice footage as well as other behind the scenes footage, new top secret news about the album, other secret happenings in DEP-land, etc. I promise.

-GP

*EDIT* - I see a lot of you are bummed we aren't playing near you(UK, California, Florida, Texas, Kansas, etc) but this isn't a real tour, we just set up some shows to play on the way to Bonnaroo and back, and then some Euro shit, just to get us greased up for recording in July. When we're done we'll be out and we'll play everywhere, everywhere imaginable. We missed a lot of spots over the past couple of years, but after this album's done being recorded we are going EVERYWHERE. Hang tight for a few more months if you aren't on the show list right now. We appreciate all of you, we'll get there!!!!! I wish we could clone ourselves and play every city on the same day!

So a little while ago on our street team myspace page(you can find it in our top friends if you don't already know) we had a little contest of sorts. The prize was a signed guitar whose soul had been "liberated" onstage in a moment of passion at some point during a DEP show. The entrants had to basically show us the most creative ways that they had put up posters or stickers in their town. The one we felt was the best, gets the guitar. Simple. We do cool shit from time to time over there in street team land, so if you want in on the proceedings, go over there and check out the page and figure out how to get involved. Anyhow, we got some pretty obnoxious/amazing submissions, and one girl even got arrested, so it was hard to pick a winner. Nevertheless....*NAME REMOVED SO THAT HE WON'T GET ARRESTED* FROM GLENDALE CALIFORNIA...COME ON DOWN!!!!! His display of Dillinger vandalization was not only impressive, but hilarious. Especially so because the paper stickers we sent out are VERY hard to peel off once they're put on something. Next time we do this, I hope to god somebody spray paints an overpass or a city bus or an elephant at the zoo, something like that, cause this kid did some good work. Here are some of his examples of guerilla decorating:



I like that one in particular because lord knows if there's anything in the world that could possibly lube up the dried up clams of the desperate middle aged Cosmo readers that watch Sex in the City, it's The Dillinger Escape Plan. If there's a remedy for their ailment, its certainly us. Not only that but the triangle on the front of Ire Works is far nicer to look at than the Kentucky Derby Winner lookalike that stars in that movie, so the sticker served multiple purposes. This dude really took our stickers and elevated them to a higher purpose, gave them a deeper role in life. Here's another fine work of art by this California deviant:



That one's hilarity is pretty self explanatory. He was indeed a man on a mission. Here's another:



There's more, but thats enough. You win, for basically turning this contest into your own version of Project Mayhem.

In other news, there are four days and some change left that the Lurch and Sick On Sunday shirts will be available on the front page. They're up until midnight PST the night of March 15th(Sunday night). After that they are gone into the abyss forever, only to turn up years from now sweat stained and crappy looking on Ebay, so go check 'em out if you haven't already.

Video blog from our recent Australia trip is still forthcoming. Keep your beady little eyes peeled. I sorted through the tapes and realized that 80% of the footage that we took on multiple cameras is of a Kangaroo scratching his nether regions, and that is unbelievably more entertaining than any other footage we have, so its proving hard to make a very compelling video out of the rest of the boring stuff. Get back to you guys soon.

On an Australian related note....remember Alice in Chains? We kinda forgot how rad all their stuff was until we had to hear them every single day in Australia, and realized that every single song they played for an hour and a half was killlllllller. We walked around most days going "boop boop!(yeahhhh) boop boop!(yeahhhh)" from that song "Again" that they had, and remembering how awesome it was when they did that Unplugged thing on MTV and Mike Inez had "Friends Don't Let Friends Get Haircuts" written on his bass because Metallica had just cut their hair off. Seriously if you are young and missed it and don't know better, you're excused but now you have no excuses(AIC pun intended)! Go check out "Dirt" and "Jar Of Flies".....wooooooweeee that shit is good! The songs were so good that it didn't even matter that their singer is dead and they have some random guy singing for them now. Let me take that back, of course it sucks that he's dead but the fact is that when you hear those songs they're so undeniably good, especially after a full day of hair salon babyshit bands, that you wouldn't care if it was Bobcat Goldthwait singing them, you're just pumped to hear them!

Three shows in, some of the best US DEP shows in a long time. Baltmore and NYC....WHEW!!!! You guys go off!!!!!

The New Jersey show today is happening at:

WORD OF MOUTH, NEW JERSEY.

DOORS AT 5.

......................................

So we are about to play our first shows in the past 6 months. Boy are we getting fat and lazy. Time to start being kick ass and riggady again (made that word up I think). Do we even remember how to be kick ass and riggady? I guess you will have to come to these little shows and find out.

Feb 5th - Philly - The Barbary(SOLD OUT, MOTHERLICKERS)
Feb 6th - Baltimore - The Ottobar - GET TICKETS HERE
Feb 7th - NYC - The Studio at Webster Hall - GET TICKETS HERE

Feb 8th - NJ - Soon to be Announced Basement show (man i feel bad for this basement)

We would like to officially thank all of you who have taken the time to call our new drummer Billy the Nip and haze his ass. Especially the guy who thought it was a good idea to text him the word “faggot” 5001 times. Ok he gets the point! Most of you had really cool things to say to him though which was very precious. I can’t say I would have been as nice but cool of you none the less.   

Time to talk a little bit about the opening bands for these shows. We’re extra excited for you to check these guys out. Ben Weinman rarely gives guitar lessons (probably because most kids don’t want to be taught how to break a guitar into about 100 pieces before you even play 2 notes and then get kicked out of his house)  but has taken on like 3 students in his day. Oddly enough, all three of these students ended up having serious degrees of awesomeness in one way or another and will be performing as part of these shows.

The first being Kevin Backroom’s Knife the Glitter. Not only are these guys probably one of the only bands doing the instrumental techy prog thing that is actually tolerable, but they are really fucking good. Think King Crimson, Cynic, and Dillinger having a sword fight on top of  Mount Olympus. Ok that sounded really lame but they rule. Check em http://www.myspace.com/knifetheglitter

Next up is our boy Kevin H. Esq and his band Caverns. Yes you heard it right. Just like all your moms' buttholes, Caverns is raw and cavernous. And yes Kevin is a real lawyer yet somehow chooses to play in a noise rock instrumental band. We are really glad he does though cause these guys rip. Only instead of some dork shredding arpeggios and finger tapping on an “axe”, these guys have a lead piano player. And I’m not talking about one of those horrible keyboard players that get on stage with one of the 1000 horrible myspace bands and jump around like an idiot holding their figures down on one note either. I’m talking Ray Manzarek from the doors style rocking. Bass lines and all! I guess some where down the line Ben thought it was a good idea to trade guitar lessons for legal services and ever since they roll around town like Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in Fear and loathing in Las Vegas. Check em http://www.myspace.com/caverns

.. ..

The last student of Ben’s is Asian Steve who will be performing in an entirely different way. It’s more like life art. Some kind of Peter and the Wolf shit where music just follows him around in the form of a Gong or some Chinese flutes. Expect to see him running around stage like a mad man as everything breaks. What would we do without him? Oh and he can play every song on guitar ever known to man so feel free to challenge him to a guitar cover dual if you dare.

.. ..

Also we will have special guest Dub Trio in Philly and ..Baltimore.. and East of the Wall in ....Baltimore..... You can check out both these bands at:....

http://www.myspace.com/dubtrio
http://www.myspace.com/eastofthewall

Both bands are pretty righteous!!!

Check out Weinman’s Remix for Lil Wayne’s song Mr Carter feat J-Z here;

http://www.myspace.com/benjaminweinman

.. ..

Make sure to join our twitter thing so we can annoy your asses as much as possible.

http://twitter.com/dillingerescpln

Oh and here is the info on our side shows while in ....Australia.... with some links to pick up tickets.

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN + POISON THE WELL + EVERY TIME I DIE + EVERGREEN TERRACE....

SYDNEY
Tuesday February 24
The Forum - cnr Bent St & Errol Flynn Blvd, Moore Park NSW 1363
www.moshtix.com.au & www.ticketek.com.au 132849
 
....MELBOURNE.... - ²
Wednesday February 25
The Epsy - 11 The Esplanade, St. Kilda VIC 3182
www.oztix.com.au....

As always Love The Dillinger Escape Plan

.. ..

Ps. Liam is selling a bass lesson this weekend at the punk rock Flea market in Philly. If you want to learn how he makes the young girls cry I recommend paying him a visit over there!! I’ve seen him do things with that bass boy… Ew Weeee!

Ok so the upcoming schedule as of now with ticket links is as follows:

Feb 5th - Philly - The Barbary(SOLD OUT, MOTHERLICKERS)
Feb 6th - Baltimore - The Ottobar - GET TICKETS HERE
Feb 7th - NYC - The Studio at Webster Hall - GET TICKETS HERE

Remember, these shows are NOT the biggest rooms in the world, so don't sleep on getting tickets early. Oh and Baltimore, so help me God if the Ottobar show isn't the unholy destructive force that you guys always make it, I'm gonna be majorly disappointed. It's a Friday night. Don't hold back.

Now, for something that you deffffinitely haven't seen in a reaallllllly long time.... we are playing....on February 8th......in New Jersey.....IN A BASEMENT. That's right. We're playing a fucking BASEMENT SHOW. The location of which is going to be completely secret until a few days beforehand, when we'll announce the location. Maybe we'll announce it here, maybe we'll announce it on our messageboard, maybe it'll be spraypainted on an overpass on the NJ Turnpike, maybe Asian Steve will run naked across the field at Super Bowl halftime with a flag bearing the address, who knows. I CAN tell you that the maximum capacity of this actual house basement will probably be in the double digits. Obviously we'll cram in as many people as possible, and probably do a little barbecue too. We may start doing random intimate things like this in the middle of seemingly normal tours in the future,so be ready. If you're in Jersey and you wanna see some crazy shit go down and endanger your life, show up at your own risk.

ANOTHER group of shows coming up, in addition to the Soundwave Festival dates in Australia, are two Soundwave offdates. They are:

........February 24th Sydney, AUS - The Forum GET TICKETS HERE
........February 25th Melbourne, AUS - The Esplanade GET TICKETS HERE

Ok that about does it for today's goodies. Oh wait. It most certainly DOES NOT!!!

Huh! How 'bout that? OH YEAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! '87 Hetfield might have to move over and make some room on the Pedastal Of Badassery for a little guy called '09 Ulrich. Hey Lars, remember that time when you wrote that gnarly fill in the break of Sad But True? You could have done some stupid jive assed roll or an out of place obnoxious and busy fill, hell you could have even used toms, but instead you just said fuck it and beat on the snare like a caveman? BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP.....BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP? Cause that's what sounded the most killer? Hot shit. Or the time in Fight Fire With Fire when the guitar solo ends and there is no other music whatsoever but you're like "oh hell no" and refuse to stop playing double bass, and you just ride that shit all the way through like a train full of motherfuck until James starts riffing again? Shit yeah! Or maybe how in the beginning of the Seattle '89 concert video, when you start hitting the snare for Blackened, it's oh, I don't know, like 700% louder than every other instrument in the band? That's what I'm talking about, baby. We love you too.

Anyone that wants to call this Billy Rymer kid and tell him to huff one, make sure you read the end of the youtube video tags.

-The Dillinger Escape Plan

Hey everyone, happy belated new years and holidays and what not. Lets get right down to it. We're playing a few shows IN A FEW WEEKS on the East Coast! BAAAM! That's right! Bet you didn't expect that when you woke up this morning. Little band, you may have heard of 'em, called The Dillinger Escape Plan, about to bulldoze your fucking town. You might wanna show up. We're probably gonna play five or so in all, but the first three are confirmed, and it's the three cities that I like to call the Triforce Of Godliness. The Holy Trinity of Dillinger cities. The three major hometowns. It goes a little something like this:

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 5TH - PHILADELPHIA - THE BARBARY

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 6TH - BALTIMORE - THE OTTOBAR

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 7TH - NEW YORK CITY - THE STUDIO @ WEBSTER HALL

We'll probably be getting New Jersey and/or Boston or some other stuff lined up too, but these initial three pretty much represent the hometown sweep for us. I'm gonna keep adding to this blog as more shows get confirmed, and more info comes into focus about openers, ticket info, etc, so keep hitting refressssshhhh.

We haven't played headlining DEP shows in these places in over a year, and haven't played at all....period.... in six months, so it'll be like a starving blood thirsty lion coming out of a cage.

Oh yeah....they'll also be our new drummer's first shows. Kiiiiiiindof a big deal. You may have heard rumors or whatever about our drummer situation. Come see for yourself.

These three shows, especially the Philly show, are in pretty small rooms so they're gonna be packed. So don't sleep on tickets. I'll get some direct ticket links in here soon. Sooooo excited to see all of you.

Whoa whoa whoa....five seconds ago while I was selecting "Music" from the little blog category selector box thingy, I noticed a previously unforeseen category, a little something called "Goals, Plans, Hopes". What kind of happy horseshit category is that? Goals.....Plans.........Hopes? How about "Fairy Dust, Moonbeams, Unicorns" while we're at it? Let me tell you something. If you're online posting a blog under the "Goals, Plans, Hopes" category, it better go something like: "My goal is to not be hungry in the near future, I plan on getting a burrito, I hope my check card doesn't get declined", because if it's anything much more serious than that you're walking at a pretty fast clip down loser lane. For real. I wanna throw my computer across the room right now that's how worked up I'm getting thinking of how preposterous that category is. The type of people I imagine picking that category write things like "My dream is to save the whales....to ride one one day......that's what I would really like...to pet a dolphin and then give happiness and love to everyone and hugs and..."  FUCK YOU. They also probably have little smiley faces and colored text and sound effects somehow in there too. There should be a blog category called "ASSHOLES" and those people should be limited to that category. If you are spending time writing about your hopes and plans and goals and dreams and candyland gobbly goop bullshit on myspace you should probably be re-evaluating the "plan" section of that equation.

Now that that's out of my system, check this....iiiiiiiif you are a girl or a particular tiny dude, you're in luck because we have girls/youth medium shirts leftover from the 82588 design we ran off a few months ago. There's only about 20 of 'em, so go to the front page and check one out if that's your size and you want to be adorned in the fabric of gods. By the way, the fabric of gods looks a little something like this:



Lets see....as far as other limited shirts are concerned, the Sick On Sunday design is coming up next(we only have Sick On Sunday, Mouth Of Ghosts, Lurch, Nong Eye Gong, and When Acting As A Wave left in the series), we'll get it out in a week or so, we're just tweaking some design specifics. For any questions about merch, like where's your order, how long it'll take, blah blah blah, go to our messageboard here and click on the thread that's called "The Official Dillinger Merch Thread". Every question is answered, every concern eased, etc. We're doing this whole operation as DIY as possible to eliminate the impersonality of having to get this super cool shit from some mall bullshit or online store that also sells super lame shit like "I'm not a freak I'm just different than you" shirts or glow in the dark spiked collars or whatever the flying fuck. So yeah, order with confidence, and if you have questions about your order go to the thread and fire away. A primer to save you the trip: 82588 shirts have all been mailed, so if you don't have them you'll get them soon(I'm talking about you overseas people), and Party Smasher and Dead As History shirts are being pressed as we speak and will be going out promptly.

So CHECK THIS SHIT OUT. Ben, figuring that humans shouldn't be the only species representing the rock and fucking roll, has come up with the ingenious idea to make metal/punk/rock shirts influenced by bands and records....for dogs. This is like something that people that are high come up with that rules but that never really happens. "Dude, imagine if your dog walked into the room right now with a Master Of Puppets shirt on, except instead of Master Of Puppets, it said Master Of Puppies...". Except Ben isn't high, and he actually made them. Ben Weinman is like the hardcore Einstein. He never comes out and just holes up inside, except instead of being surrounded by test tubes and rulers and algebra and what not he's surrounded by obnoxious riffs and time signatures and usually ice cream sundaes and now shirts for dogs. Trust me when I say that nothing makes you smile or laugh every fucking time no matter how shitty your day is than seeing your dog walk into the room with a shirt on that says Black Shag or Master Of Puppies or Black Labbath or Def Sheppard. It's called Garmutt, go over to the site he made for it and check it out if you have a dog and want that mother father to represent the power of the riff. For some reason now after seeing his dog shirts, whenever I hear Alice In Chains' "Them Bones" I think about how much I really wish Alice In Chains would have made dog biscuits called "Them Bones", I would have been so stoked to give them to my now dead beagle when I was in my grungey adolescence.


click picture to see profile



Add Garmutt or the terrorist win!

Barack? Yeah? Good job man. Moving acceptance speech. Did you see Oprah hanging on that poor dude's arm in the front row like it was a giant cheeseburger someone was trying to take away from her? I hope that guy writes a horror bestseller about how petrified he was by the fear that Oprah was gonna eat his arm right the fuck off during those few hours. But yeah.....Obama.....regardless of party or whatever....way to kick major ass. Everyone's proud. You are the walking personification of the American dream. Now don't fuck up or most of us are gonna feel like total idiots. Oh by the way, when we went all political on everyone for a minute with the whole Rock The Vote thing, we could go on their site and track how many people were registering from our link, and it was a fucking lot of you. So yeah! Be proud whether your guy won or lost. Now onto a more pressing matter....something that has been the topic of discussion over the last week or so among some of us.....the Axl Rose solo record I mean GNR record I mean whatever.

Can we talk about that record for a minute? No? Tough shit. I like it. There, I said it. I didn't like it at first but hear me out. It's not as good as Appetite, but as a whole I think it's better than Use Your Illusion...although the best songs on Chinese Democracy aren't as good as the best songs on Illusions. It's still, as far as mainstream rock releases go, about as good as you can ask for nowadays. It smokes Velvet Revolver and Godsmack and Hinder and whatever eles people have been into in the mainstream rock world lately, and unless Freddie Mercury rises from the grave or Chris Cornell shows up at Kim Thayil's house I'm not holding out hope for much better. That's not saying a whole lot I guess, but seriously some of the arrangements and songs and solos and vocals and whatever else are pretty good. Some of it sucks though. Figure that stuff out Axl. Maybe you can figure it out by calling 1-800-GETSLASHANDDUFFANDIZZYANDSTEVENFUCKINGADLERBACKANDWRITEAREALGUNSRECORDBEFOREONEOFYOUDIESANDITSTOOLATE.

I know with all my 80's Metallica pole smoking you wanna know what I think about their new thing too. Again, not as good as the old records, but better than the last 15 years from them and there's some pretty nostalgic riffs lurking about on there. Some of the riffs are total Justice era riffs. A friend of mine told me that they went back and pulled all the Justice session notes, called Flemming Rasmussen, and got every piece of gear and tone settings and everything from the Justice record and basically tried as hard as they could to recreate that sound/feel. Admirable. Our old tour manager is tour managing that band "The Sword", who happens to be on tour with Metallica, so if you're at The Forum on the 17th I'll be the guy on the side of the stage playing nonstop air guitar. Shit Yeah indeed.

Back to DEP related news and notes to keep you as close to the inner circle as possible. We're writing, we've loosely set aside June and July 2009 for recording with Steve Evetts, and we're looking forward to/getting ready to absolutely rip in the new year. We've got Australia booked for late Feb/early March, and we'll more than likely be doing some stateside stuff as well around that time, maybe some US shows before we go down under, we'll see.

The self titled Spylacopa EP with myself, John LaMacchia from Candiria, as well as Julie Christmas from Made Out Of Babies/Battle Of Mice and Jeff Caxide from Isis, is out now. Go over to the Spylacopa myspace page(www.myspace.com/spylacopa) to check it out and find out how to pick it up without STEALING IT ONLINE SOMEWHERE. Which brings me to the next issue.

You do realize that when you do that, steal music from bands like us, you basically take a big fat unlubed extra ribbed strap on and fuck us all in the ass with it don't you? I used to be way into the whole free downloading thing, because at first it was like yeah awesome free shit we've been paying too much for too long fuck the man blah blah! But now cd prices are reasonable and if it boils down to you not wanting a physical thing because you're only gonna listen on your computer or ipod anyway, at least go over to Itunes and pick the stuff up if you want to own it, it's a dollar per song over there for christ's sake. Intellectual property is still property you know? Think of it like this, if you had a restaurant(you can tell I'm hungry...all this talk of burritos, food, etc), and you sold food that was awesome and that you made yourself and spent shit tons of time on, and people were just pouring in and looting your place and taking everything out of it for free, just stealing everything, would you keep making it? Would it somehow be your fault? What's the solution...to make better food? To somehow give people an incentive to pay for it? Fuck that. You would kill them, or at least beat them, or at the very least criminally charge them. Imagine if you came to our show and came up to our merch table and tried to run off with a cd or shirt. I or our merch guy would run you down and brain you. But nobody would ever do that. People only steal music because it's not a physical thing. It's becoming a tragedy thats making it very hard to be an adult making real music in this day and age, and honestly I'd like to think that if I met each and every one of you in person and shook your hand and talked to you, you would know that I wouldn't steal something from you, and I would like to think that you wouldn't steal from me. I don't give a shit about Britney Spears' new single or Miley Cyrus' new album, because I'm sure they view their fans like a target audience, they are products of their record companies just like the products they are trying to sell, nothing more than a marketing face for a single that's as memorable as it is long. They would never hang with the commoners so to speak, and kick it with their fans, at least not without secretly having to swallow their own vomit from having to waste their time talking with them. We keep it as real as it fucking gets in everything that we do, and try to break down every possible wall in between us and you without all living on Awesome Island together. I see the counts from torrent sites and shit, and it's depressing, and I hope hope hope to god that it's the people on the fringe stealing the music we make, whether its Dillinger or other projects, and that its not the people that write to us on here, and talk to us after shows, people who I've looked in the eye from the stage and shared a moment of mutual respect with, or given a hug after the show, or sang along with in a sweaty hell hole somewhere. I know for a fact that if you saw me stealing from you you would be pretty fucking disappointed. Do your part and don't be that guy, unless you can honestly say that you would walk into my place with no remorse and steal shit from me and wouldn't care if I did the same. If you can say that then fuck it go ahead and download it. Just know that when you take that shit online, especially from bands that are our size who are trying to do something genuine, you aren't sticking it to "the man" anymore. It went beyond that a long time ago. The whole industry is collapsing from the inside out, this shit is like a cancer that is rotting it out from the core, and it is gonna start having huge repercussions on the quality and lifespan of bands. It only contributes to the empty attention deficit culture that we work so hard to fight, to the music culture of here today/gone tomorrow bullshit music. The record companies see that there is no value in investing in bands like us when compared to bands or singers they can manipulate as products/images to get their singles and advertising placements out of, and the people downloading for free generally give way less time to the music they download before they move on to something else, because they didn't make any investment in it. So what does that lead to? People are conditioning themselves to only have the mental capacity to enjoy simple sugary bullshit that wears off after a couple of listens, and they're conditioning the industry to give that to them. Do you think that it's a coincidence that the quality of mainstream music has fell off of a cliff compared to any other time in history? Remember when there were bands that were big that were actually genuinely awesome? A lot of them? Bands and artists that in the retrospect of music history are both massively popular and massively "good"? There's a direct corrolation between downloading and the lack of quality in the larger musical landscape. People in our scene are afraid to say this shit because they think that some kid is gonna say that they aren't "punk rock" anymore. That whole "stealing is punk rock" thing is a huge crock of shit that people hide behind to try to wash their hands and absolve themselves of their responsibility for aiding in the eventual destruction of the artists they claim to love. I'm just letting you know the reality of the situation, from someone who still gives a shit about music as an artform not just a commodity, sitting in the middle of this industry watching it happen. I'm giving it to you as real as it gets without being worried about looking punk rock at all, because I've taken guitars to the fucking face and have fake teeth in my mouth to show for it and i've held broken bones together with duct tape until they healed because of not having medical insurance and I've lived in places that made the fight club house look like a Beverly Hills mansion, in total poverty for a large part of my adult life, all to do my part to keep The Dillinger Escape Plan and music that we believe in rolling because we have true belief in what we are doing, so I don't give two shits about whether someone thinks I'm not punk rock because I don't want my shit stolen. Ben, who has more time and releases under his belt than me and whose body in an MRI looks like it was mashed in a trash compactor all because of this lifestyle too, just said something to me that's very true, that when people download our shit for free its like if they walked into a mom and pop store that had one of a kind shit, and there were no employees there and no security, and it was all self checkout lines, and instead of paying they just walked out with everything they wanted. Would those people then complain when the store closed and say it was the man's fault? Probably.


Oh, yeah, just out of curiosity...what's everyone's favorite Dillinger song? Is there a song you wish we would play live that we don't ever seem to? I'm curious...we've got a lot of different shit out now and it's interesting to hear what you have to say about it all. You guys hear a lot of our opinions about everything under the sun but we don't get to hear yours too much....we're trying to make this whole blogging process a bit more interactive, because we actually DO give a shit and feel a kinship with our fans and don't just think of you guys/gals as soundscans or ticket sales like I was saying before, so with that in mind I am envisioning these blogs kinda turning into little mini message boards in the comments, a roundtable so to speak, so if you say something relevant pertaining to our blog posts, check back on here later, we may comment on your comment.

Talk to you all soon....we love you guys, etc....and it takes a lot for us to say that because it makes us feel all sensitiiiiiiive and shit inside.

PS.....I had every intention of putting this blog in "Goals, Plans, Hopes" but just couldn't bring myself to do it.

OH YEAH!!  Jeff Tuttle just texted me and alerted me to the fact that today a year ago was the first show he ever played with us....so today is his Dillinger anniversary so to speak! Happy Anniversary Jeff!!! Remember when we posted his phone number on here as an initiation? God that was rich. HAHAHA WHAT A KNEE SLAPPER. His rookie season is over. Good job Jeff. You're a certifiable ass kicker.

Alright....so we've shipped out all the domestic 82588 shirts and the overseas will be shipped within the week. Here's a new limited design for you all to feast upon like lions to a carcass. It's for the song "Dead As History", and only 200 are being made. Around 800 "82588" shirts went in a 24 hour period, so don't sleep on this Dead As History shirt or IT will be history and you'll just be sad and depressed...and miserable....and probably eventually kill yourself honestly. Check it out here then go to the main page to pick it up.



The evil genius who works with us to design all these limited shirts, Shadowmonster, recently won an award or something from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC for his design for the Milk Lizard shirt. Check him out here, rocking the 82588 design, next to his Milk Lizard design, in an art gallery!



The best part about that picture...is THE FACE. Ben and I have a theory about THE FACE that I'll share with you real quick(sometimes it's just called FACE, when used as a verb or adjective). Basically, FACE is when you hear a riff, or a part of a song, that is just so nasty and righteous that it makes you make THE FACE. THE FACE is always kinda like you just ate something disgusting but are somehow satisfied with it at the same, like it's somehow gross and tasty all at once. Kinda like the face Bill Cosby always makes when he's dancing or when he eats a kingly piece of pie or one of those big sandwiches he always only gets to take a bite of before Claire yells at him(why did she yell at him for eating sandwiches?! is that what happens when you get married? sandwich eating becomes a crime?!). It's the face I imagine one would make if they got told they won the lottery while constipated. Something like that. So that's a secret of The Dillinger Escape Plan. We don't do anything, ANYTHING...unless it causes us to make THE FACE. If we're sitting around listening to demos or if Ben is playing guitar and we start nodding our head and making THE FACE when a certain part hits....its a keeper for sure. Obviously all of this dude's designs are FACE as a motherfuck, so it's only natural that he's in front of them and obviously can't keep himself from facing the fuck out. Face on, brother.

In other news...we're playing the Soundwave festival in Australia in early 2009. It's gonna be us, Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains, Bloodhound Gang, Lamb Of God, Underoath, PTW, ETID, and a bunch of other goodness. If you don't live in Australia THAT FUCKING SUCKS cause this is gonna be ridiculous. Check out the main page for dates or head over here to check it out.

We're wrapping up a DVD, a documentary on early years Dillinger, from the beginning, all the way through the end of the Calculating Infinity cycle, which is gonna be really cool for the ten of you out there who weren't in elementary school when this band started. For everyone else, it'll be a history lesson well worth watching, to see how this beast got started.

We're writing new songs. They will be here soon. When I say soon, I mean DEP time, but soon nevertheless even factoring in DEP time....and I promise you, these songs are gonna make each and every one of you make THE FACE.

PS: If anyone hasn't gotten a shirt they ordered or is just wondering when the fuck to expect it, and they wanna talk to someone the way people who are depressed and wanna die have to call a hotline or whatever(someone out there reading this just got real sensitiiiiive and sad...."HEY! suicide's not funnny!!! don't joke like that!!!! last year one of my best friends blah blah blah". RELAX. Don't have a HEART ATTACK MC Serious) just email dillingermerch@yahoo.com and the guy who checks it will get you sorted out or make you feel better inside. Chances are it just didn't mail yet or your paypal address was wrong.

Here's a little hodgepodge of goodness for ya. A cornucopia of ass kicking if you will. Check it out:

-As promised before, a video of Ben Weinman's performance at John Zorn's The Stone in NYC can be seen here. You can always check out his myspace page at www.myspace.com/benjaminweinman to keep up to date on everything he's got going on.

-So in case you haven't noticed, we have a Street Team myspace page up now, for all you people that have a deep burning desire to plaster our posters everywhere or spray paint 18 wheelers with our name or cover some dork you don't like's car with our stickers or whatever else you wanna do. Head over there, the girl who runs our street team's name is Carrie and she is doing a great job. Say hey and offer to lend a hand. It isn't without it's benefits. Right now they are doing a Ben Weinman guitar giveaway, for a guitar whose spirit Ben liberated at a Dillinger show. In case you don't know what that means it means he sacrificed the guitar to the greater musical entity in a moment of bliss/insanity/frustration...whatever it is that makes B-Weezy tick. Head over to the street team page and read the blog at http://blog.myspace.com/dillingerstreetteam to find out how to win it.

-A thread about the limited T shirts is up on our message board, addressing any concerns you may have about where your shirt is, how long it will take, etc... right over here. Just to keep everyone informed if you're lazy and don't feel like clicking the link, every shirt has been fully mailed out except for Party Smasher and 82588. We're getting 82588 out first because there are so many of them, and we expect to have them all shipped by Halloween, so hang tight. They look fucking awesome.

-Speaking of the shirts, the mad genius that designs them all, Stephen Mercado, also known as Shadowmonster, was invited to show one of his works at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, which is in Washington D.C., roughly 3 blocks from the White House, and it's a pretty established museum and an art school which he attended. He made the Milk Lizard shirt into a poster, and it will be shown in the Gallery for a month along with other alumni/ graphic designers. Check it out if you're in the area! Congratulations man! I gotta tell you guys, the shit this dude comes up with is pretty out there. I told him the other day that if I didn't know him, and I saw the stuff he sends me, I would think that he was on monstrous amounts of acid twenty-four hours a day. He's one of the most visually creative people I have ever met. Wait 'til we are done the T shirts and you see some of the posters and other things we're gonna do together, stuff that's too out there to work as shirt designs. You guys are gonna be blown away. I'm beyond stoked that we have somebody working with us on the visual front that's as creative and operates with the same total disregard for rules in his field as we do in ours.

That's it. Go vote on Nov 4th if you live in the US.

....Oh yeah, the tour dates we were talking about! I almost forgot. ;-) We have a lot of stuff in the works, but we'll throw out a little treat right now for our fans in Australia. We're playing Soundwave in 2009!!! We haven't been added to the official contest webpage yet because the webmasters there are slacking, but we're definitely playing. Stay tuned for details.

We love you all.....and we'll have more to say to you soon. Have a happy halloween. Next year wherever on tour we are admission will be free if you wear an Asian Steve costume. I promise.

-The Dillinger Escape Plan