The hit machine has been turned back on.
Brian has turned in a fine bunch of songs to his remote band of recording enthusiasts who are currently attempting to organize & then re-organize our thoughts until they resemble the next crawling with kings album.
& there were some who said it could not be done.
Someone tell that to Zachary, who just laid down bass for the new record. He did it. Who's next?

Stay tuned for more previews, I'll be taking pictures.
Clay

Hello casual friends,
In the event that you may be here checking the pulse of Crawling With Kings, I wanted to post a little something here to say: thump....thump....thump....thump....

We’re actually just about to head back into the (home) studio to finish up tracks for a new record that we’re pretty pumped about. Brian’s writing has taken a slight turn which has been fun. Jon is backin the saddle on drums & Doug is carving out the sounds in a big way.

So stay tuned. No shows to report. Brian should be thawing out just about now, so maybe he’ll hit the road solo to get the new songs in front of people.

More to come... In the meantime, if you haven’t already picked up our latest EP, To The Park, why dont you do so. You can download right from this myspace via snocap.

The Austinist just gave it the ol’ stamp of approval:
http://austinist.com/2008/04/09/le_diamant_brut_30.php

Hasta,
Clay

It's been a weird summer for Crawling With Kings. Quiet, yet full of
activity & change.  We recorded a lot of songs, but released none.
We're breaking the deadlock between art & commerce by releasing a
collection of songs that we recorded in May at Ramble Creek Studio in
Austin with Britton Beisenherz.

A little background might enrich the listening experience...
We were coming home from one of our short tours (this time to & from
KC, Missouri if I'm not mistaken) & conversation in the van naturally
leaned towards the fact that we're the greatest band in the world &
how we'd be fools not to document what the live band sounded like at
that particular point in time. You see, camaraderie plus travel plus
the natural high that you get from playing live music every night for
many nights in a row tend to inflate one's self-confidence a tad.  &
you know how group behavior works.  So, we're riding home in the van
mapping out our next recording session, hoping that it would be a
spontaneous affair of one-takers & dumb, magical luck.  The main
idea, as I mentioned, was to do our best to capture a moment in time
when pure excitement met a natural balance with the road-weariness
that one develops even after a brief (& I do mean brief) stint as a
touring band.
Things, as they tend to do, did not work out exactly as we planned.

Recording the weekend we got home turned into recording the next month.
Recording all of the songs live with absolutely no overdubs turned
into a few things added & subtracted to the mixes.
Releasing the session as an EP as soon as the session was "in the
can" turned into releasing it at the last possible minute before we
head to New York City for our first appearance at the CMJ Music
Marathon.

Speaking for the last couple of years, that's about par for the
course here at camp Crawling With Kings.  The best laid plans end up
surfacing in a hurried burst of energy, not at all what we intended
but very much our own because of the side roads taken.
I'm aware that it's dangerous to write in such a lofty manner on
something as trivial as a myspace blog, but you'll have to forgive
me.  I believe that certain types of music are to be taken seriously
& I've always hoped that ours would be listened to that way.  At
least most of the time.  There's always going to be that "chocolate
milk on sunday with a porno" song to play.

Allow us to present the first (and hopefully not last) series of
Crawling With Kings recordings issued without an accompanying live
band.  With Brian holed up for the winter, no shows aside from CMJ
appear on the horizon.
But we do have about ten more songs recorded that we'll hopefully be
able to spit-shine a bit & send your way soon.
Ladies & gentlemen,
To The Park.

Hi there,
I finally got around to uploading a video of our latest Parish show to YouTube.
enjoy!



(Thank you Nadia!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7LMtwsg6kk

so, we played at the Hole In The Wall on wednesday for a friend's birthday & of course... because Crawling With Kings was playing at the Hole in The Wall, (or maybe because of some offensive lyrics from Brian) God decided to unleash a storm on austin, diminishing a typical audience of 15 to about 10. I swear, there have been torrential rains the past few times we've played that place.

In any event, we decided to cut our losses & get drunk.
That led to an (unrequested) encore & about 30 minutes of improvisation.

We refuse to be held responsible for the jam session that ensued. It was an "act of god".

my personal favorite moment?
Brian improvising an entire song.
or maybe it was when he sang to the audience, "you guys should probably get the fuck out of our face".

In hindsight, I personally think it was a great show.
you decide... you can download the whole show here:
(as one continuous mp3 or individual songs)

Crawling With Kings - Live @ Hole In The Wall 5/2/07

Just put up our set from last Thursday night - the recording quality varies throughout, but there's an energy to the performance I really like. Total wall of sound. Some astonishing noises.

get it now, song by song - or download the zip file to grab the whole show at once:
http://www.idealsoulmart.com/shows/cwk/2007-04-19/

Lawrence : We played at the Jackpot Saloon last night in Lawrence, Kansas. The Jackpot is a narrow, shotgun building that feels like the Longbranch Inn. We've been here once before for the North vs. South music festival and the town continues to impress me with it's hospitality and quality local bands. Before our set we hopped over to Love Garden record store and caught the Kinetiks (local) playing for a mixed media art show (myspace.com/thekinetiks). Check 'em out if you can.
Back at the Jackpot we shared the bill with the Afterparty from Kansas City (myspace.com/afterpartykc). Not only did they loan me an amp but Amy in the band made us pancakes in the morning. Thank you Amy.

I have to mention a local visual artist named Molly Murphy that we met before our show. I only saw two samples but I'm in love. Look her up and see for yourselves. myspace.com/mollymurphyartwork

-Brian

check these out for daily updates. just posted last night's show in its entirety, about to post last night's pictures.

CWK Tour pics @ Flickr
CWK Live Show Bootlegs

Played a loud and loose show last night at The Deli here in Norman OK. Earlier that day, we'd picked Johnny up near Denton, where he broke the news that I-35 was about to turn into Tornado Alley. Supposedly a storm system three states wide was rolling in and sparking tornado warnings up & down the I-35 corridor from Omaha to Dallas. We sped northward expecting an interesting and possibly life-threatening journey. Lots of discussion regarding proper tornado survival protocol. Brian has a recurring nightmare of being killed in a tornado – they are perhaps the only things he truly fears – so he took the opportunity to face this fear head-on and drove the next shift.

Luckily, by nightfall it hadn't even started raining, and we made it in to Norman without incident.

Our opening act was a one-man sort of band, which made it easy for us to set up our trailerful of gear behind him while he waited for the sound guy to arrive and unlock the mic closet. Our stage setup these days has an impressive sprawl to it, and with Johnny joining us we leave no instrument offstage. This works out so that at any time, one can reach in almost any direction and grab something which can certainly make some sort of satisfying sound.

While Brian and Zac chatted with Brian's kinfolk who'd arrived to lend their support, and while the one-man band did his thing, I walked down the block to check out a tiny little music shop. Earlier in the evening, Doug had suddenly produced a brand-new drum stool from seemingly out of nowhere, and I was fascinated to found out that there was possibly a very tiny all-night musical supply shop operating nearby.

It's pretty common to arrive at a gig without some tiny yet crucial piece of gear - a 9v battery, a high E string, a quarter-inch cable, a tambourine. It's almost always something small, and it's almost always difficult to improvise without it. This was the first town I've played that actually had a shop that sold those odds & ends right in the club district, and was actually open during show-playing hours.

I didn't really need anything but walked out of there with the loudest set of sleigh bells in the world. Way to go, Norman.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crawlingwithkings/