We are counting the days until our Japanese adventure. We are so excited, thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to play in Japan. All of us have been there before in our own separate bands and have developed friendships with people over there and fallen in love with Japan’s unique culture. But this time is extra special because we get to experience it together. Having grown up and played in various bands together all our lives, it feels more like a vacation among friends than anything else.

Speaking of our hometown scene, we just added our old friend Chris Shiflett to the Tokyo show; he is known to most as the Foo Fighters’ guitarist, but he also has his own band called Jackson United who are about to release their second album, so he’s going to sneak away from the Foo Fighters camp fire with his guitar to play some new songs before our Tokyo set, so make sure you get there early; and if you haven’t bought a ticket yet... now is the time! Joey Cape will also be playing a solo acoustic set at both of our shows. Don’t miss out on this rare chance to see all of us playing together under the same roof!

As you may know by now, the whole idea for The Playing Favorites was born on a drunken night in Japan when Luke’s band The Penfifteen Club were supporting Joey’s cover band Me First & the Gimme Gimmes (ironically, the Gimmes are actually in Japan right now doing some shows).

Anyway, thanks again to any of you who made it out to our Austin, Texas shows during SXSW; we had a blast; we also recorded a new song at Mick’s studio called "The Ramones Are Dead" that we’ll be playing live for the first time ever at the Japan dates. Thanks to our Japanese mom-ager Junko and her pal Mika for providing last minute female back up singing. You ain’t heard nothing ’til you’ve heard a Japanese girl scream, "the Ramones are dead!" at the top of her lungs. That’s all for now, I have to go brush up on my obscene Japanese phrases and more importantly, practice all of these songs!!!
Kampai,
Marko and the Fave

The Playing Favorites are playing 3 shows at the SXSW festival in Austin Texas  next week. See below for details, hope to see some of you there!

Special thanks to Ronen Kauffman and the folks at Alternative Press

Good coffee is just what I needed to get my feet wet on this here blog. That and the fact that when I got home from running some errands this morning, there was a package from Suburban Home with The Playing Favorites CDs inside. Now I don't care how old/young of a musician you are... waiting for a jpeg of your album cover to show up on iTunes aint never gonna compare to slicing open a package and pulling out a tangible piece of commerce. Goddamn. It never gets old.

About The Playing Favorites.

I know that Marko and I both suffer (or benefit, depending on how you look at it) from the compulsion to do everything all the time. Which often leads to bad time management and irritated wives & girlfriends and so on. But here's the deal. Based on how geographically challenged, and busy with very different lives we all are, this project should never have happened. But luckily the five of us must share some degree of romance about music and life to make the time for this thing. Especially Joey. As many of you know, since James Brown left us last year, Joey Cape has taken the title of Hardest Workin Man In Show Business. I honestly don't know how the fuck he does it. Some how he does 10 times as much as I do and still takes 10 times more naps. What's up with that? And then there's Tim. For those of you who don't know, he has an extremely unfair advantage when it comes to the gift of music. It's kind of discouraging and encouraging at the same time. And as for Mick. Although he and I have known each other for decades, we hadn't worked together until this project. And all I know is that when we did our first week of recording in L.A. he was the only one not afforded the luxury of making mistakes. And he seemed to have no problem what so ever with that. To be honest... he blazed that shit to the ground!

I wish I could think of a mantra for this band like 'Bros Before Hoes' or 'Live Fast, Die Young'. But those don't really work in this case.

It's more like...

Bros Before Practicality

or

Live Busy, Die Old

or

Fuck it... lets jam!!!

-Luke

Virgil from Suburban Home has posted a 15 minute conversation with Joey over at the Suburban Home site, click here to listen to it or save it to your desktop.

We also just posted 2 more songs from the album, "Drug Hugger" which was written & sung by Luke Tierney, and "Futuring", written & sung by Marko.

Enjoy!

Hi Everyone, well here is the first installment of The Playing Favorites Blog, this time written by me, Joey. I guess we will all participate in writing these in the future so you can get to know us.

It's been a great pleasure making this record. It all started in December, 2005. It took us 2 years to complete because we are all busy with our day jobs. I have to say, I am so proud of this record. It was a lot fun to make, especially because the members are some of my oldest and closest friends. We all grew up together in Santa Barbara, California, playing in various other bands, sometimes together. There are 4 singers and 4 songwriters in this band so the sound is somewhat eclectic.
The record was recorded at The Sandbox in Los Angeles, California. by Rick Parker ( Guy in orange T-shirt, photo below). Later, we finished the recording in various studios, a list too long to bother with. Eventually it was mixed by Jason Livermore at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado.



The album is appropriately titled "I Remember When I Was Pretty". It will be released on December 4th, 2007. We begin by posting two songs from the record, "Indigenous", sung by yours truly and "Leavingtown", sung by Tim Cullen. Both songs will be posted for download at Suburbanhomerecords.com. Hope you like.

JC