Here's our summer schedule, for now, Gusterrhoids... yes, that's a Mississippi date on top!



6/19/09 - Jackson, MS @ Jubilee Jam Festival...Tix TBA / Facebook

6/20/09 - Atlanta, GA @ MidSummer Music Fest at Candler Park...Free / Facebook

6/21/09 - Birmingham, AL @ City Stages...Free / Facebook

7/02/09 - Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest...Tix / Facebook

7/04/09 - Chicago, IL @ Taste of Chicago...Free / Facebook

7/05/09 - Rothbury, MI @ Rothbury Music Festival (exact show date TBA)...Facebook

7/19/09 - Denver, CO @ Mile High Fest...Tix / Facebook

7/25/09 - Bridgeport, CT @ Gathering of the Vibes...Tix / Facebook

8/07/09 - Newport, RI @ Newport Yachting Center...Tix / Facebook

8/08/09 - Portland, ME @ Baystock Festival...Tix on sale 4/22 / Facebook



They're all weekend festivals, as far as I can tell. Levon Helm of The Band goes on after us in Bridgeport, and we'll be the ones obnoxiously pushing our way through the crowd to get to the front row for his set, stepping on heels and spilling beers if necessary to get there.



Right now we're on the road, however, writing in the road journal, tweeting, and playing in the pocket. If you're planning to come see us over the next few weeks, be sure to participate in the clothing drives and check out Reverb's daytime schedules for campus activities.



Much love,



g

Gusterrhoids!



Hi from the road. It's good to be back, but we're easing into it slowly over here. One song, played extra fast, last week for the REM tribute gig in New York. Two songs (one new, one old) this Thursday night for a fundraiser on a docked boat. By April when the Gusbus is visiting colleges and universities around the country we'll be up to full speed, and even playing "just one more song" if people keep clapping after the last one that's written on the set list. This summer we'll be playing our instruments in July here and there.



HERE: Rothbury Festival, Rothbury MI July 2-5. With Dylan, The Dead, The Cold War Kids, and more...



THERE: Mile High Festival, The Fields at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Denver CO July 18-19. With The Fray, Tool, Widespread Panic, and more...



More to come as far as July goes...





In the meantime, we'd love to see you in April, and if you want to get involved with the environmental side of the Campus Consciousness Tour, that'd be fantastic. Here's how:



1. CLOTHING DRIVES... Most shows on this tour we will be hosting clothing drives along with Reverb and Planet Aid. What better way to recycle? Bring out any clothes, shoes, bedding, and even soft toys that you don't use and we'll make sure they find homes where they're needed. Click HERE to find out when and where this is happening on your campus.



2. DAYTIME ACTIVITIES WITH MEMBERS OF GUSTER... Most accessible band ever! We're working with local student groups to put together daytime activities on campus that may or may not include bocce. Biodiesel Workshops and Eco-Classroom Takeovers are in the plans, and we're open to your ideas as well. Send us suggestions.



3. SIGN UP TO VOLUNTEER... We're looking for a few solid eco-volunteers to help out at each show in exchange for showers of gratitude. Click HERE to sign up.



4. WIN STUFF... In our eco-village there will be many opportunities for you to get free stuff and win glorious prizes, all while taking action for the environment.



Your central headquarters for all of the goings-on from the Reverb side of the tour is through the new CCT website. Why not visit and stay awhile.



Once again, here are your open-to-the-public college shows:





4/16/09 - Durham, NH @ University of New Hampshire...Tix / Facebook

4/17/09 - Philadelphia, PA @ University of Pennsylvania...Tix / Facebook

4/19/09 - Dayton, OH @ University of Dayton...Tix / Facebook

4/21/09 - Fayetteville, AR @ University of Arkansas...Free Show / Facebook

4/22/09 - Austin, TX @ Stubb's...Tix / Facebook

4/24/09 - Richmond, VA @ University of Richmond...Tix / Facebook

4/26/09 - Syracuse, NY @ Syracuse University...Tix / Facebook

4/29/09 - Madison, WI @ University of Wisconsin...Tix / Facebook

4/30/09 - Milwaukee, WI @ Marquette University...Facebook

5/02/09 - Reading, PA @ Albright College...Tix / Facebook





That last one there's new. Reading!



g

We're coming out from under our rock.



The album's not exactly finished, but we're coming out from under our rock (to rock) anyway. Here's what's on tap, patient Gusterrhoids:



March 11th -- Tribute to REM at Carnegie Hall, NYC. 20 bands playing one REM song each. We chose a lovely and rather obscure number off of our favorite REM record, Murmur. Other acts on the bill include Bob Mould, Patti Smith, Calexico, Kimya Dawson, and The Feelies. The Feelies! Who's with me!? This will be our first performance on stage together in almost a year and a half... it's three and a half minutes, but if you're an REM fan you might not want to miss it. TICKETS. INFO.



March 26th -- Safely docked in San Pedro CA, we're playing a VH-1 Save The Music benefit with John Mayer, Gavin Rossdale, DJ Logic, and others aboard a Carnival cruise ship. It's a short acoustic set for a great cause (music education). Glycerine! TICKETS. INFO.



March 27th -- We set sail on the Mayercraft Carrier with John Mayer & Friends. This will be our second performance on stage together in almost a year and a half, and our first one performing Guster songs (new and old). Add dangerous undulating tides into the mix and it's sure to be an event you don't want to miss. We're going to Jamaica or Barbados or something. TICKETS. INFO.



APRIL -- College tour with Adam's Campus Consciousness tents in tow. We'll be getting our land legs back, literally and figuratively, at various institutions of academia around the country over the month of April. The following is a list of shows where the public is welcome to come and watch us play our instruments:



4/03/09 - Columbus, OH @ Ohio State University ...Private Show / Facebook

4/16/09 - Durham, NH @ University of New Hampshire...Tix TBA / Facebook

4/17/09 - Philadelphia, PA @ TBA...Facebook

4/19/09 - Dayton, OH @ University of Dayton...Tix / Facebook

4/21/09 - Fayetteville, AR @ University of Arkansas...Free Show / Facebook

4/22/09 - Austin, TX @ Stubb's...Tix / Facebook

4/24/09 - Richmond, VA @ University of Richmond...Tix TBA / Facebook

4/26/09 - Syracuse, NY @ TBA...Facebook

4/29/09 - Madison, WI @ TBA...Facebook

4/30/09 - Milwaukee, WI @ Marquette University...Facebook



The Stubbs gig is a benefit for a local Texas environmental group. And speaking of environmental groups, the Reverb kids are back this time with more eco-goodness for another Campus Consciousness Tour. They're stepping it up with Daytime Activities, Clothing Drives, and contests for autographed guitars, a year's supply of Ben & Jerry's, and a chance to watch Joe eat an entire bag of Doritos backstage. The Joe/Dorito thing isn't so much a contest as much as it is a spectacle. Tickets and information are all available on the Tour Dates section of our website. In the meantime, we're looking for a few good eco-volunteers to help out at each show that we will shower with gratitude. Click here if you'd like to sign up.




As for the album we spent 2008 writing and 2009 recording, we are still working on it, and it will definitely be the best group of songs we've released yet. I make no promises as for release dates, as I once promised to keep an active studio journal and that didn't work out so good. It was the splash page! Too much pressure! Perhaps the road journal, or my new favorite activity, Twistering, will rekindle my devotion to the blogosphere.



Godspeed Gusterrhoids.



g



Guster Official Website

Guster on Facebook

Guster on MySpace

Guster Store

I’ve been delinquent again, but I have good reason.  I can’t find my digital camera anywhere, and without my camera these entries are just bland walls of words.  Obituaries.  Thankfully Adam has a FLIP video camera, and did his best D.F. Yonkman impression yesterday while our friend Larry played fluglehorn on our record.
Working title for the song is “Lost at Sea” — yes, we are in a room full of old televisions.



Larry the fluglehorn guy from guster guster on Vimeo.
 
Last week I wanted to snap a photo of Ryan playing the Omnichord on a song (working title: Cars/Love) (Shut it! Working title are always lame).  But I couldn’t find my camera.  It’s an old keyboard that plays chords and beats and generally has an awesome harpsichord-like tone, and we’ve tried to use it on records before without much success.  This time I think it’s going to stick.

In lieu of Ryan performing the Omnichord, I found a photo of some woman playing it online.  And she’s hot, to boot.
 

“Kenny R.” in California writes…

Brian-

It has now been one day short of a month since you last updated the road journal’s new “Tumblr” page, and that can mean just one thing. You have quit the band after a heated debate with Ryan over what you thought was Bruce Willis’ worst performance on screen. I don’t want to get into the argument or studio in-fighting, but if I had to guess, I would say that you went with “Last Man Standing,” and Ryan took “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” Both valid opinions, but unfortunately, you are both wrong. The film is of course, “Hudson Hawk.” (Though the case can be made for both “The Sixth Sense,” AND “Hart’s War.”)

It’s so cool that someone was checking our website because they wanted an update.  My bad.  I think it’s been all downhill for Bruce since “Moonlighting” but that’s not what we’ve been arguing about.  We’ve been arguing because while recording the second batch of songs at a studio in NY last week, someone slobbered all over my snare drum right before a really important take…
 

 
I know what you’re thinking.  I know what Kenny R is going to write about next.  Oh no, the new direction of the studio journal and the band in general is to make corny jokes about their kids and post adorable photos of them holding instruments.

All I can say is this… wait until you see the lyrics, Kenny R.  You wouldn’t think a band could rip off “Cat’s in the Cradle” in so many unique ways.  In the end, I forgave Ryan for drooling on my snare drum because his daughter Leo is so damn cute.

At this point, the drums on the record are all recorded, and it’s my job to sit on the couch, listen while the flaws slowly sink in, and then figure out the perfect moment to go fix them on the computer.  One of the things I’m most proud of so far on this record is that I used these old crappy old 12 inch hi hats I once bought on the road on like, more than half the songs.  They sound like someone throwing a toaster oven in a metal trash can when you play them next to your ear, or next to Leo’s ear, but somehow they sounded like sweet creamy butter in the mics.
 

 
I didn’t pay ten dollars for them, I think I paid $200.  But someone, once, paid ten dollars for them, or at least wrote $10 in permanent magic marker on the underside of them.  They sound best on Jesus & Mary, which is a kind-of-reggae song we wrote with the hi hat chugging through all the verses.  I know, reggae.  I know.  We try to write one reggae song every album and then it never even makes it to the studio because it sounds like reggae.  This one’s actually getting recorded and might end up on the album.  Probably because it’s not really that reggae.  It’s reggae in a clashy way.

Also, after many experiments with “rocking,” and many failed experiments with “rocking” (see: The New Underground, circa 2006), we are making an album with little-to-no rocking on it.  It’s energetic and up tempo like never before, this record, but there are no songs you’d want to put up devil horns with three fingers while listening to.  There is one song, working title: Ry Plays Guitar where you might put up a half skull or something, but he’s rocking on an acoustic and it rocks in a more slackery indie way.  That one is tentatively titled as such a) because we need to write the lyrics for it and b) because it’s the one song that Ryan plays guitar on.

We’re breaking for the holidays now, but before we split up, we tried out a vocal on Hebrew Joe, which is one of my favorite numbers.  It’s this soft graceful Nick Drake-y song we wrote where Joe was singing gibberish in a Russian accent during its conception.  Lots of “chuh’s” and “shne’s” and stuff.  It’s kind of silly but kind of awesome, and we’ve had conversations about whether to put English words on it, but always thought that it would sound weird with real lyrics because it was conceived in a real moment, an inspired moment, and it just strangely works with foreign gibberish lyrics.

Well, we recorded the gibberish vocal, listened to it, and everyone unanimously decided it sounded ridiculous.  Producer DK said “I think you’re ruining a great song.”  He was right.  Ryan had a set of lyrics he was working on about that girl who fell in a well and those sounded much better.  Stay tuned.
 

We’ve recorded 8 basic tracks now.  It took us 3 days to do it.  That’s 2 and 2/3rds songs per day.  Most bands that David Kahne works with knock out 4 in a day, but we’d never done more than one a day before (we started in a dorm room! we’re just cavemen!), so for us this represents a real accomplishment.  Should there be pride in recording songs quickly?  If you’re Guster, and you can spin your heels like nobody’s business in the studio, absolutely.

We actually practiced the songs this time.  Usually we’ll get into the studio and say things like “it feels like the click track is speeding up in the chorus” because we’re used to slowing down in the chorus (my bad).  This time we got that out of our system in rehearsal, where the rent is cheap.  I don’t think we did more than 4 takes on any song, and we usually got what we needed from the first couple of takes.  There will be fiddling and tweaking, as we are wont to do in the studio, but there will be no “take the bridge from take 18 and the second verse from take 31, but use the fill into the chorus from take 4” this time around.
 

 
I’m on a plane to San Diego where our tour manager Seth is getting married this weekend.  It’s been an exciting month for the Gusters, with Dave Yonkman’s wedding, Dave Zamboni’s wedding, and the much-anticipated beginning of this recording. As I sit down to reflect on our first few days in the studio, I’m not even sure what direction the studio journal will take this time around.  I could get into each song, as I’ve done in the past, describe the sound, admit the influence (did I ever confess that “Satellite” was just us trying to write “Under the Milky Way Tonight” by the Church?), or maybe I’ll let people be surprised when the record comes out, and write about other things.

Like the fact that I got a full on “bye-bye-da-da” on my way out the door this morning (my wife speaks in crude remedial phrases, not unlike a baby).

Or crashing the set of a local cable access show when we discovered it was just down the street from where we were recording.  Oh wait.  That happened two albums ago.

Or maybe I’ll offer up little tidbits, here and there.  Like the fact that we have a song we call “Yacht Rock” (working title) that will be so polarizing, it’s destined to be the “Highly Suspicious” of this album.  But better.

We’ll just see how things go.  Working until midnight and then waking up at six (I’m a morning person now!) doesn’t leave a lot of energy for journal writing, but thankfully the kind of journal writing I do doesn’t take a lot of energy either.  I just hammered this shit out in twenty minutes and now it’s back to 36 channels of DirectTV and my cushy leather seat and wondering if I should have paid the extra thirty bucks for an exit row because I have to pee, I’m in the window seat, and there’s an old man on the aisle sawing away with his mouth open.  Maybe I can hold it for another three and a half hours.

Journalists note: I did actually wait three and a half hours (successfully)

Gusterrhoids!

We've got a major election coming up, so if you're not registered to vote, for the love of God let our band direct you to a place where you can do that. The deadline for voter registration is October 4th in many states.

And though we hadn't expected to play live again this year, we're going to be performing Tuesday October 7th at a fundraiser for Barack Obama at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn NY. The concert was put together by Brian's wife Megan and features an awesome line-up of bands and comedians. The order of performers is random and we're likely to play a 5 song acoustic set (with a few new songs in the mix too if we can write the lyrics by then).

Bands on the bill:
Andrew Bird
Fiery Furnaces
Guster (duh)
Les Savy Fav
Alina Simone
Martin Bisi

Comedians on the bill:
Lizz Winstead
Eugene Mirman
John Roberts
Heather Lawless
Kumail Nanjiani
Adira Amram

There's also a super special totally secret band that we can't list, and an "Obama Room" where you can watch the VP debate and sign up to volunteer. Tickets are $40 and all proceeds go to the Obama campaign. Music starts at 7:30 and goes until 12:30am.

Here's the myspace page for the event. Here's the Music Hall of Williamsburg page for the event. Here's where you can buy an "I Voted for Kodos" t-shirt.

If you live in in NYC, you can get tickets without paying the Ticketmaster surcharge here:

Mercury Lounge Box Office
217 E. Houston (corner of Ave A & Houston)
NY, NY
212-260-4700
Hours: Mon.--Sat. Noon--7PM

Music Hall of Williamsburg Box Office
66 N. 6th St. (Btw Wythe and Kent)
Brooklyn, NY
718-486-5400
Hours: Sat. 11 AM--6 PM

Look for the Gusters to hit the studio in the next month to begin recording 18 new songs!

Ciao
g

Ryan and Angela's daughter, Lionelle Rosalie Miller, arrived June 16th. The third (and final) Guster-girl of the year, Leo weighed 7 pounds and 14 ounces at birth. Her photo is up on the road journal, along with pictures of her friends Jolene Rosenworcel and Sloan Gardner.

Despite all the procreation, we've been putting the finishing touches on about 17 new songs this summer and we ought to begin recording them in a month. For those of you keeping score at home, we've moved from Reprise/Warner Brothers Records to Aware/Columbia Records. Expect a new album in early oh nine.

And those of you hoping to stalk Scooter this summer can find him traveling the world greening tours by Jack Johnson and DMB for Adam's environmental non-profit, REVERB. Our merch-girl, Amy, is doing the same thing on tours by John Mayer, Maroon 5 & Counting Crows. Visit this link, where Adam becomes an official "EarthKeeper," to check out what Scooter and Amy have been up to, sign up to volunteer, and see free music.

Until the next newsworthy Guster event, whenever and whatever that may be....

g