Awesome dudes, great stuff. Good responses. Go Team! (Love the Go! Team, btw.)

So, I'm stoked about all these shows, especially the one where Drew finally shows me his dink once and for all. I don't know if you know Drew, but he can often be heard saying "touch my dink" especially on people's answering machines, especially on their birthdays. I might not want to actually touch it though. I know where it's been, mostly.

Mostly.

I've been pondering getting a looping pedal. The only real thing stopping me is cash money. Maybe Drew will pay me to touch his dink, though, not likely because I know where it's been. But I'm doing a little exercise where I record myself as though I was playing solo to you, so that I can enter the German town with some good shit. I've heard myself play semi-drunk recently, and, frankly, it's not awesome. I need to record myself in my room, therefore, to prove to myself that the booze is the problem, and not me.

But, if you're buying...

Love and Rockets,

Jo

Hey sweet little babies. How are you? Dave? You good? Good. Okay, so there are a few little solo shows coming up around the country.

First, keep November 17th free if you live in Toronto. There will be a show that day. Details to come.

Second, 1234V (check it out our new web page at www.1234v.ca) is having a Winnipeg launch party on November 28th, and Drew and myself will be playing some sweetness on our guitars and your heart strings. Hopefully Dusty will be around to smack some drums. And then maybe some ass.

Third, my dear friends from Yesterday's Ring have invited me to play their Christmas show on December 11th in Montreal. That'll be a mega-blast of fluidy-good times. Plus, I think my sweet girl Maria will come with and swoon on back up vocals and keyboards and maybe I'll even let her smack down on a little dollar-rama-tam-tam.

Also, for my sweet, sweet German friends, there are some plans. Some fun ones. Involving me. And you. And Ingo. And you. And me. And you. We're thinking March.

I hope this blog finds you well. I suppose I should make a facebook fan page, but I wouldn't know what to call.

Yours always,

Jo

I've never met this person, at least not that I remember, but I do remember the Halloween show in Brandon. It was the first show of the last Sixty Stories tour. It was so fun and so, so sad for me. A friend sent me a link to this review and it's the sweetest most honest review I've ever seen in my life. I wish I could thank this person somehow. I don't know, buy them a pony? Or a Popsicle? 
Here is the review, and make sure to check out the blog at:
http://www.soundsalvationarmy.com/

From Punknews.org: [http://www.punknews.org/review/8040]

"I love it when an album that’s completely unfamiliar to you feels like coming home.



The first time I saw Winnipeg band Sixty Stories play live, it was in
an abandoned church in Brandon, Manitoba on Halloween. A couple years
go, I'd reviewed their debut EP and at the time of the church show the
group was somewhere in between having released their only full-length
album, Anthem Red,
and breaking up, which was a considerable shame given how incredibly
good that album is. The power-pop threesome crafted an incredibly
engaging, loosely-themed album focusing on the trials and tribulations
of growing up as a teenage girl. While the subject matter has the
potential to come off maudlin, depressing or trivial, frontwoman Jo
Snyder has a knack for painting a realistic picture of how significant
the experiences of that era of life are to those living it as opposed
to how their reactions are viewed by others.


After disbanding in 2004, Snyder and her bassist/co-writer
Sarah Sangster reformed under the moniker Anthem Red, adding the
extremely adroit drummer and guitarist that currently grace their new
lineup. They managed to write, record and release the album Dancing on the Dishwasher a few years later and absolutely nobody noticed.



Frankly, it’s pretty fucking sad that nobody is listening to this CD.
The new players have opened up Snyder’s songwriting, providing a lusher
and more deft pop-punk backdrop for her observational, slice-of-life
tunes. Blurring the lines between Jawbreaker, Elvis Costello and Vivian
Girls / Discount / Fifth Hour Hero / your favourite girl-punk band,
there are literally no bad songs on this album. Snyder’s singing voice
is just as unique as her writing voice; where her vocals have been
described by reviewers as “androgynous” (and that’s one of the
friendlier descriptions), she’s managed to reach a slightly higher
register without losing that unique tone. Her lyrical focus is more on
adult minutia than adolescent this time around: anxiety over flying;
reconciling the fact that your parents are getting older with your own
aging process; smoking on a fire escape.


Better still, the writing contributions from Sarah Sangster
(”Power Lines,” “Broken English,” “Wonder”) rival anything the band has
produced in either its present or past incarnations. “Broken English”
has caused me to once again go all rubbery over a song; like “Second
Hand Tables & Chairs” from Sixty Stories’ Anthem Red
it’s a perfectly structured song that exudes genuine emotion and boasts
a jaw-dropping performance. Perhaps most impressive is the
sublimely-layered three-part harmonies, a trick that never really
presented itself in the old band. Equally as jarring (in a good way) is
“Diet Cokes & Stethoscopes,” an introspective number about seeing
your future in your aging parents' eyes.


This album is a more-than-welcome reminder of days gone by. A
release cheaply recorded in another group’s practice space and released
on another continent has retroactively become one of my favourite from
its year of release. After just a week I know this album back to front;
several of the songs on it are honestly some of the best I’ve heard in
years.


Snyder is now a bit closer to actually penning the sixty
stories she may or may not have intended to write when she started her
last band. Here’s hoping she makes it there and beyond.



[Review originally appeared at Sound Salvation Army]
"

Hey beauties,

So I just put up "King Cans", which is a song written by Ryan Mills. Rusty Matyas played organ, and Cam Leoppky recorded it. Thanks boys, you're the best. Really, name three better boys. I can't. I actually can't. I won't and I can't.

More to come slowly over the next few months. I just started grad school so it's going to get a little hairy around here. But don't fear small and lovely fan base. I will come through for you. I will. It's all I think about. That, and school.

-Jo

Hey Bros and Bras,

I finished some songs, just to see. I'll slowly put them up. There are four. Two old, one new, and one cover. Except the new one (King Cans) isn't mine, it's my friend Ryan Mills, he wrote it all and you can check out his other songs on his page. He's in my top friends. Check him out. A really big thank-you to Cam Leoppky at Pairie Recording Co. for the studio and engineering and mixing. Also, Rusty Matyas from the Waking Eyes played organ and piano on two of the songs. He's pretty much the greatest. Let me know if you want a copy and we'll figure out something. That's how pro I am right now.

Yours, all yours,

Jo

Hey sweet babes, this past week I participated in the Record of the Week club, organized by Mike Petkau. It's a collaborative project taking three musicians from three different genres and putting them into the studio for a night and seeing what comes out. It's a really cool idea and our group made a kick-ass song. You can check it out here:

It's called All Answers Pending

-Jo

It's seems these days like Anthem Red is as dead as MySpace, but I assure you, small fan base, it's not. The studio is booked for August and sad-bastard songs are being worked on. A pedal has been bought, and after a long and suffocatingly sad winter, things are slowly coming together. I may not be as prolific as the Paperbacks, or as famous as...all the insanely famous bands we're all listening to all the time, but fuck, I will make art. You can expect a recording similar to last December's solo tour, with some band members new and old weaving through, and maybe a guest or two, heartbreaking vocals, borderline insulting lyrics, and thrilling uncertainty.

-Jo

Hey babies, we made a new song, sort of. More like a massive improvement on what once was a really crappy song by some crazy punk band from God knows where, and who knows when. And, what? Dustin, Maria and I made it in a basement with a shoe and a litter box, ten bottles of Old English (that Dusty drank by himself), some lube and a couple of banana cream pies. it took us nine months. We’re calling her Thousands A Year. We’re actually pretty happy about the way it sounds (for a demo that I told Dusty was just a demo and fuckin’ relax already and he told me to eat a $%@). I think some drum machines and lazers, and maybe a wolf or two would make this song totally perfect. So this is maybe the new-ish sound. We hope you like it. Because we like you. A lot.

-Jo

Hey. Shit! Awesome. The Leatherface Tribute is finally out. Yay for John at Rubber Facotry Records. It's awesome, and beautiful, and our cover of Plebs is the first song on the second record. (Aw.) Go here: LEATHERFACE TRIBUTE to order a copy. I haven't heard all the songs yet, but I can say for certain that Kover's cover (ha ha) of Wax Lyrical is super sexy, and so is Hot Water Music's cover of Springtime. And, The Saint Catherines are practically leatherface married to Motorhead, so you really can't go wrong with those sexy french fuckers.

Buy Bi Bye!!

-Jo

Hey beautiful babies, Maria and I are home now, (well not quite for me), and the tour was so great. We had a sick amount of fun in every single city. Thanks so much for coming out to the shows, and for all your support. Sorry about some of the sticky demos, there was some weirdness from transporting them I think. As far as I know they still work, but if people are having problems then email anthemred@gmail.com, and I'll email you the MP3s.

I"ll post some tour blog stuff at a later time, too busy right now.

 

We love you all.

 

Thanks.

 

-Jo