the rumors are flying so let me clear it up; yes we are still a band, no we arent playing right now. 

currently andy and i are learning how to be "jayhawks", merritt is still sucking blood and driving a big rig and working on his dance moves and planning on a big tile floor job, and brent (last i heard) was working with Nitrus on building a rocket that will fly to the moon under the bank of america tower in Topeka.  i think they got freaked after they saw District 9.

next up for us:  Iggy Pop is going to teach us how to lasso alligators (A-dub still claims he can take one on).  these are important life skills, follow me

10-4

ACM

look, i'm late for work and i still have big bowl of mini-wheats left to eat so i'll make this quick.

we have a brand new website!  www.kingsoftheplains.com


all kinds of new stuff there,  along with a new merch store at www.bluecollardistro.com

ok.  so if you're just tuning in here's the deal--

we spent a good deal of last year on the road.  about 100 shows all in all... ozzy osbourne taught us all the secrets of dark magic (along with some fine pointers on bat decapitation), we befriended a sasquatch, repelled down honest abe licoln's nose on mt. rushmore, and met marty mcfly... the actual marty mcfly.  pretty sweet.  everything was going great and the world was our oyster... and then on thanksgiving day in san fransisco we were robbed of every piece of gear we owned.  fuck.  bummer.

but alas friends, all is not lost!  we were saved by the skin of our teeth thanks to an insurance policy we started literally 2 months before the theft. talk about good timing.  we were biting our nails for weeks wondering if the check would come through, because lets face it... insurance can be a craps shoot. word of advice to ALL bands, no matter how serious or active... insure your stuff, dudes. i'm serious.  its not that expensive. even if you only play in your garage and do afew shows around town here and there... if you're place burns down/floods/robbed, you're screwed.  we are still out of several thousand dollars but we got enough to buy some new stuff.  so guess what?  its on.  bigtime.

we're in the process of booking some shows for the upcomming months.  a few things are confirmed, afew things are still pending...but there are gonna be some sweet shows in there.  we're pretty pumped. we'll have more shows up on the calendar very shortly. not sure if we're gonna be touring anytime this year, at least not to the extent we have the last few years.  BUT we will be making some records. or albums... whatever you kids call them these days.  i'm not sure exactly what we'll be putting out... maybe a full lenght, maybe some 7"s, maybe some splits, afew contributions to some comps, a symphony, russian opera/and or ballet, broadway adaptations of our lives titled "KTP: the saga continues, the return of the king, the sequel", probaly some sort of combination of those.  we have a pretty good amount of new material, with more comming all the time.

we'll also have a brand new website launching within the next few weeks.  we'll do our best to keep it updated with cool stuff.  (by cool stuff i mean stuff we think is funny that everyone else will think is boring as fuck)  so thats exciting.

thanks for sticking with us guys... we are lucky to have met some pretty awesome people in the last years and you guys are all awesome friends.  when things looked the bleakest our friends had our backs and we're more than thankful.

last but not least, here's some new t-shirt designs:

how can you not want a LIMITED EDITION HAN SOLO T-SHIRT?!
thats like saying "no thanks" to pizza.  unheard of.



this design will only be available at the next 3 shows...  we have a very limited run of these and when they're gone, THEY'RE GONE!  i will only hold one for you if your name is gary busey.

they'll be available for 10 bucks a pop.  if there are any left after these shows they'll be available online for 12 (to cover shipping.)

Blue Collar Press here in lawrence printed them up for us.  Best merch company around, no question.  check'em out!  www.bluecollarpress.com

seriously everybody, you rule. 

its been a pretty rough few days but its really hard to stay down with so many people giving you their support.  major thanks to everyone that has gotten ahold of us and ultra-major thanks to all the people/bands that have put together benefit shows  for us... we couldn't be any more grateful.  its so much more than we could have ever expected, we really are lucky.

we're very bummed that we had to cancel the rest of the winter tour, BUT we have decided to play the last 3 shows we had scheduled on borrowed gear.  those dates are listed on our main page... should be good times.  we hope you can make it out to one of those shows.

we'll still be updating our blog  (www.kingsoftheplains.blogspot.com)  very regularly-- so if you like profane, poorly written, usually boring accounts of daily life, this is for you!  you should probably save it to your favorites, i hear thats what all the cool kids are doing.



don't count us out.  2009 will be the best year yet.  hopefully.  maybe?  ...probably.

black friday, indeed.

 

okay, so as many of you have heard all of our gear has been stolen in Pinole, California.  Aside from losing loved ones and friends this is  one of the most devestating things we could imagine.  this is gear we have been collecting since we were kids, we're talking thousands upon thousands of dollars worth... we worked our asses for all of it and now its hard to imagine that it could all be stripped away as easily as it was.  our trailer was detached and stolen including all the gear, merch and odds and ends that it contained.  our van was also broken into and they took all the guitars and amps that we kept in the back.  al also had all of his clothes and his GPS stolen from the van. 

its not all that uncommon for bands to be robbed, happens all the time... you just never think its gonna happen to you.  on most nights at least one of us (but ussually all of us) sleep in the van.  but last night we had decided to buy a motel room to celebrate thanksgiving so none of us were in the van.  you have to kind of ask yourself anyway, "would having someone in the van really stopped this or would it have just put them in an incredibly dangerous situation?"  none the less, we feel pretty awful about it. 

in light of all this, we will not be able to complete the rest of this tour.  we are incredibly upset about that.  it was our goal to tour the entire U.S. in one year and we came very close, it breaks our hearts to have to go home now but given all the factors the situation its what we have to do. we absolutely hate cancelling shows.  we are very sorry to everyone that was planning on comming to the upcomming shows, the bands we were scheduled to play with and the promoters and venues that have helped us out.  we are very sorry.

we have already recieved so many calls and emails  from concerned friends all over the country... thank you guys from the bottom of heart.  we appreciate you thinking of us and thank you for your support. also thank you to the huge list of people who have helped us out this year while we've been on the road... so many people have opened their homes to us and gone above and beyond the call to make us feel welcome-- all of you truely rule.  this is easily the hardest thing we've been through as a band but it will take more than that to break our bond. 

 

much thanks,

KTP

just wait till the end:

 

http://www. palestra. net/music/gig-guide/18920

today is the first day of tour. pretty sweet, i know.  hopefully we'll get to see alot of you on this tour, its been a long time since we've been to the west coast. 

you can expect alot more updates along the way too.. pictures, blogs, hopefully some videos. 

we started a new blogspot site to keep all the random blogs on.  save it to your favorites and check back frequently, we'll update it alot with stuff that wont be on our myspace.

www.kingsoftheplains.blogspot.com

I'm not sure if you know this or not but KTP is a band that enjoys fine cinema. yes friends, the moving pictures tickle our fancy.

so, since the halloween season is upon i thought i'd share this little horror gem we made afew years back with ya. directed by our very own brent porter and starring andy, al and merritt. i present to you...

CALL OF THE DEMON!





happy halloween!

hey everybody,

 

this summer has been incredible.  two shows left, so far we've done 60. 62 shows in one summer, not too shabby eh?  we have two shows left here in ohio and then we'll be on our way home in time to down a few brews (or mountain dew for brent) and eat some bbq for labor day! 

sadly, i lost my video camera in new york city.  total bummer.  we do plan on doing one more "tales from the dusty trail" webisode when we get back though-- just hold your horses, we'll figure something out.  be on the lookout for that very shortly.

 

we have some great shows comming up back around lawrence and kc so check our calendar and see if you can't make it out to one. 

stay tuned as we put up all of our west coast tour dates for this fall and winter!

 

see you soon!

KTP