We just arrived home from a long weekend away in good ol' Upstate New York. First, we'd like to send out a big 'thanks' to all the fans (and family) who came out to our shows. Also, thanks to everyone who started off our residency at the Bitter End last week. We always love your support...

...we rolled out of New York City in the Idler Thursday afternoon into the great wilderness between here and the far away town of Ithaca, NY. As we traversed through the Catskill Mountains we discussed our plans for the future as we do almost every time we travel - plans for songs, arrangements, random business, etc. Amidst all of this there's always time for developing our personal banter, a sampling of local cuisines and the obsessive listening to our quarky music collections. Thursday night's show was at an always hospitable (but unairconditioned) club called the Nines near Cornell University. We ate and drank with our good friends from the band Revision and played a sweltering show that proved to contain amazingly damp performances of our favorite material. Later .. crashing ourselves in our sleeping quarters we formed an impromptu jam session with our friends featuring two organs (one with a 'magic chord' button that Dan couldn't stop touching), piano, guitar, drums, assorted percussion and the tribal voice of Mofongo Dupree.

Friday's temperatures proved to be debilitating. After Josh and Pat went for their morning (or was it afternoon?) runs in the scorching heat, the band gorged itself at the local diner followed by a trip to the giant cookie store next door. After realizing that massive amounts of cookie dough was not the solution to the late spring heat, the band decided to trek to its next destination, Syracuse, NY to seek shelter at the wonderfully air conditioned mall. Although it did provide Sarah with a pretty summer dress, it provided little else in the way of entertainment. Solution: eat more food at Dinosaur BBQ! Sans appetites, the band went on to the Ohm Lounge where we were scheduled to unleash our music upon the unsuspecting masses. Three hours, two sets, twenty pounds lighter - the end result being that we were asked to play the next Woodstock (didn't that already happen twice?).

Finally, Rochester, NY - home to Genesee beer, Steve Gadd, the Kodak company and most importantly the Versprille residence. Our show that night was at the Boulder Coffee Company and it was (guess what?) HOT. Three clubs in three nights without air conditioning on the hottest weekend in recent memory. We sweat like donkeys in heat and sounded pretty much the same (you can infer what that means on your own time). Other than the club, not much can be remembered about the area except two lovely hosts and mounds of steak (there is a blurry vision in there somewhere of Dion lying on the floor doing a body wave in the middle of a massive after-show dance party, too). It was an awesome finish to the first of four crazy 4-day weekends in the month of June. Now that we're back in New York City we have three days to recoup and we start it all over again. See you real soon!

-Pat and the rest of the JDB