AS AN ODE TO CHRISTMAS, THE LICKITY-SPLITS RECORDED A SONG FOR A FRIENDS CHRISTMAS COMPILATION CALLED "YOU SET MY CHRISTMAS TREE ON FIRE." WE HOPE TO HAVE THIS SINGLE ON VINYL 45 BY NEXT X-MAS.

WE LICKITY-SPLITS HAVE RECENTLY CHANGED OUR NAME FROM THE LONG-ASS COL. KNOWLEDGE & THE LICKITY-SPLITS TO LICKITY-SPLITS MOSTLY TO AVOID BEING CALLED "THE COLONEL" BY PEOPLE.

ALSO, WE ARE NEARLY FINISHED WITH OUR 2ND LP ENTITLED "ANOTHER TASTE OF THE LICKITY-SPLITS" WHICH SHOULD BE COMPLETED AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF 2007. WE DON'T KNOW WHO WILL RELEASE THE RECORD, BUT IT WILL GET SOME SORT OF RELEASE NO MATTER WHAT. A GOOD 20% OR 30% OF THE RECORD IS DONE ON THE SAME 8-TRACK THAT WE RECORDED "FALL IN LOVE ALL OVER AGAIN" ON, BUT WE'VE MOSTLY SWITCHED TO USING GOOD OLD HISSY 4-TRACKS AGAIN WHICH COMPLEMENTS THE CRAMMED TOGETHER SOUND THAT WE LIKE MAKING OH SO VERY MUCH!

SO PAY ATTENTION AND LISTEN UP FOR THE FUTURE OF THE LICKITY-SPLITS WHICH WILL BRING YOU UNBRIDLED HAPPINESS!

We made our way back across the country after our west coast spell and we ended up turning right at St. Louis instead of left for mostly reasons of brokeness unfortunately. We plan to come up and play the midwest this summer to combat the absence of the last leg of our tour.

Otherwise we had a great 3 1/2 week long tour making our way over mountains, hills, and deserts. We played with great bands in Salt Lake, Denver, Lincoln [Nebraska], and St. Louis. Seattle and Olympia were both fun-filled nights of lickity-oblivity-de-rockitude. We crabwalked down the hills of Oregon afterwards with our heads spiralling back down to the fully broken matters at hand. Van-brokenness... instrument-brokenness... and straight up no other way to say it.... broken-ass-ness. But of course not broken-upness. We are immediately beginning to spew out recordings of all of our newest and most exciting material. We should be touring again soon... and we'll be updating with news of just when and where... but presently we're back in Athens smelling flowers, licking wounds, chiseling the plaster out of walls and painting them, making coffee, rolling burrittos, making dinners in kitchens, blasting our stereo so loud that we can hear it in the shower, chewin' gum, singing along to old soul records at the top of our lungs, listening to lite FM, launchin' bottle rockets, reminiscing about the good times, drinking vitamin C, repairing our belongings, making mix tapes, playing stick stick, sleeping, and of course making sweet sweet love.

Until next time, keep checking for updates and we'll give you a kiss when the time comes along.

Today we're hangin' out in Portland and gettin' ready to head to Seattle. Played a lovely large Ballroom called the Fez last night. Sound bounced around that place like light at a laser tag party.

We rocked up the noisepop festival in San Francisco the night before with the crazy powerpop maniacs, the Cuts. A Fir-Ju Well from Atlanta blew our minds earlier that night. My aunt was kind enough to buy us dinner at a nice Chinese place and we lived as kings might if only for a few hours.

It's amazing to note the number of former-Athenians strewn about the west coast. In Berkeley we stayed with some old friends who had introduced Aaron and myself years ago. Thank you for existing Jeff and Leslie. We never could have found our feet and put them in our shoes if it hadn't been for them. A big thank you to Patrick and the rest of the ex-Athenians in Portland. It felt like we hadn't even left almost. And thanks to Kasey for lettin' us crash her pad in LA.

Speakin' of LA... we ended up playing a strange artsy-fartsy film showing with hors d'oeurves to the max... as Ariel's Pink's back up band (the third time doing so). He doused himself in Chocolate and invited all of his friends to come and dress in costumes and dance in the wild freaky happenning. Of course... as the fates would have it, the PA started actin' up and squawkin' for no good reason... and then we played a wild and intense version of Gettin' High in the Morning / the Drummer until they cut the power off because of police complaints. Good times. The Art bums must have loved us.

We played Mr. T's bowl the next night. Thanks to all that came out. And thank you to Dan from Sugar Frosted Light Bulbs for having the most authentic fake British accent ever known to man. Arlo the soundguy is the shit for playing Love's forever changes on repeat and havin' taste and love in his heart and veins.

Tonight we head to Seattle to play at the Funhouse.

North we travel.

Feelin' spastic and athletic. Anything could happen.

Goodbye applepie.

Things have been great since we last blogged.

We played a show in (cold-ass) Lubbock, TX with a great bluesy-soul band called Cellus and the Loose Grip and they treated us like Kings.

We got stuck in a snow storm [!] in New Mexico and got stranded in the middle of nowhere for a while, but we still made it to our show in Albequerque and rocked it up.

In Tucson the weather was a lot nicer, and we played a wild show. Afterwards we got to venture across the street and see the Dirtbombs who totally killed.

We drove through the night to San Diego, and got our van repaired the next day. We barely were able to cram the few instruments we got from the van into a small car that took us to the club. Nonetheless the Tower Bar was a wild one and the Creepiness of everything was blowin' up our minds.

Tonight in LA we get to be Ariel Pink's backing group for the third time. We're totally stoked!

We're in Denton, TX today. So far things have been pretty wild on our tour. Like stallion.

Last night we had a terriffic time playing in Dallas at a Lollipop Shoppe event with two terriffic bands, the Dirty Novels and the Prix. There were dancing go-go girls and colorful decorations abounding... and the dancing carried on into the early morning.

The day before we had the occasion to back Ariel Pink once more at SXSW in Austin, and had quite the adventuresome time doing so! Wild crowd. Wild show. Wild time.

If you ever get the chance to visit Super Happy Fun Land in Houston, please do so. It is a land that must be seen to be believed. The people who run the place are as super happy and fun as can be.

In Lafayette, LA we had the extreme pleasure to be playing with the incredible psych band the Amazing Nuns and we ended up playing a lengthy set with super sound from the 307 Jazz club. The Nuns put us up at their beautiful abode in the country and much rejoycing was had.

Keep your eyes peeled for more updates and we hope you'll raise your glass with us in a toast to the kindness of strangers!

Tim Split

Last night was a seriously enjoyable evening, as Col. Knowledge & the Lickity-Splits had the pleasure of backing up Ariel Pink at the Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta. Having had only a week and a half to practice the tunes, this made us do the moment-focus kind of thing where every member becomes drawn into the monster that is the music and reciprocates and breathes life into the beast little by little till it is a whirling hurricane. And what a musical trip it is to back up a wild card such as Ariel Pink. We will be travelling through Texas in March and there's a possibility we may back him up for some songs with him at SXSW on March 17th, but of course that is quite speculative presently given it is a Paw-Tracks showcase and we wouldn't wanna tramp anybody's party we ain't invited to.

Otherwise, we have a lengthy one month tour ahead of us, and we're extremely excited to be hitting the road so hard given that we had spent the prior autumn in transition. We're excited if you are so come out to our shows and dance the shing-a-ling and beat your hands against your pant-leg until the strands burst apart from intense friction!!!

This fall has been full of surprises. After a busy September playing many in and out of Athens shows, our drummer Jeremy parted ways with us (on friendly terms of course). He's definitely a trooper, as I don't think he's ever been in a band as long as 2 years. We have been playing with a new drummer by the name of Mercer and will be playing our first back-in-action show in the month of December at our new practice space/party venue/etc the Secret Squirrel. We are currently setting up a tour across the country and up the west coast, so keep your eyes peeled for when we come to your town. We've used a lot of October to record a ton onto our tape decks, so another record is definitely in the works for next year!

Also you should check out the ridiculous things (both good and occasionally baffling) people have said about us in our press section!

http://www.alive-totalenergy.com/Col.Knowledge.html

Thank you for your support!

Tim

Athfest is over, and it was pretty cool this year. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us at the Caledonia. We had a pretty packed house. Sorry to make you folks wait, but the fact that some musicians have to run from gig to gig is inherent in the nature of such a festival. I was much luckier than my man Peter, who finished up drumming for Casper and the Cookies then ran to play with Lona, who had already started without him. I was pleased with the crowd that made it to Tasty World at 8:30 for Vicariously Through Cats, my other band. Right after we finished I had to pack up my bass and hop on my bike to make it to the Lickity-Splits show. Later that night Tim did some guitar and backup vocals with Casper and the Cookies, and I believe Andy did his wank lead guitar with Donkey Punch. We now know the joys of spreading ourselves too thin.

My Athfest highlights were Geoff Reacher, Elf Power and Pylon at the outdoor stage, the Cookies and 63 Crayons, Ginger Envelope, and Murder Beach. I went into one of my dancing fits during Pylon with some friends of mine, and a lady told me afterwards that we reminded her of 1983 Athenians. Now that's a compliment if I've ever heard one.

Staci threw a swell party Saturday night. Her dogs are great. Her punch is strong. Her backyard walkway is slippery when wet. I drank, bled, and somehow got home. Cheers to you Staci.

I hope PopFest is this much fun.

Aaron

Well, mid-point of the tour so, I figured that it's time for an update (hopefuly some of you out there care.) I'll start with places of note. 1. Philly: we had the greatest time in Philly. The 16th Philly Freakout, while somewhat miss-named, was a blast to play. Some of the more notable bands that played are Mondo Topless, The Main Liners, The Safes, and, of course, us. 2. Baltimore: even though my friend Rachel didn't make it out to the show, we had a great time. The Talking Head club remains to be one of my favorite places we've played. Water School put on a great show as did Palomar... as did the opening act (whose name escapes me at the moment.) 3. State College (PN): we played the Darkhorse Tavern. Though the stage was slightly smallish, the sound system was awesome as well as the sound guy. The Changes played a great set and we got to see the new Star Wars movie for free after the show... State College was fucking rad. That is all I have time for at the moment. Check back later for more. -J

Chances are that as you are reading this, we are heading to your town (if you live in one of the towns we're playing in on this tour) and I know you are excited. I felt the same way the first time a really great band came through my town. And since I've been in your shoes before, I'll give you some advice on how to deal with us. Throw articles of clothing at us on stage. We love that. Any time you have to go see the Dirtbombs I suggest you do so. We played with them in Atlanta and they rocked our socks off. On the subject of moving: I did it this week and i hated every minute of it. And I don't have internet access at my new place so who knows when I'll be writing again. I'll try to give a mid-tour update when we get to Michigan but no promises. I know you'll miss me between now and then... I'll miss you too. Tell your girlfriend that I love her, -J