Hello!
I am writing with really exciting news. It's been a while since news like this has graced the portcullis of the Oneside apartment we all inhabit (where we speak with medieval inflection, roast boar over a roaring fire and joust in the backyard). If this were 100 years ago, newsies would be hollering "Hear Ye!, Hear Ye!" on every street corner. This even came up in one of the presidential debates but they decided it was too decent of a topic; no one could make false promises about it, so they changed subjects.
Before imparting this fantastic announcement, I must first tell you that we're all fine. We are working on our album right now and it's swiftly moving towards the completed pile. Right now we're thinking May release, but we'll let you know if it's going to be earlier. We've been busy playing various northeast clubs, bars, ski resorts and trying to keep dry from the snow and rain storms we've been experiencing over the winter months. It's not easy with all of these climate changes going on. But big things are happening.
We're heading back to South by Southwest for our 3rd year down there and are really psyched to play for all of the great folks in Austin. Judging from the turnout last year, this one should be a good one.
We've signed on with Hello Booking and already we can feel our banjo neck stretching towards the west coast. Summer festival season is coming and Cleo…….remember Cleo? Oh that's right, in a previous blog entry I asked you astute readers to send in name suggestions for our brand new (used) van. Well, you delivered. The postman had to carry a bigger sack with all the mail you guys sent and buried deep in that sack (next to Ed McMahon's envelope) was a letter from a young boy in Nashville named Tyler who had heard us on American Airlines while he was flying to see his Grandmother for Thanksgiving. He wrote very simply on a piece of paper, "You should name your van CLEO". We figured, "we can't argue with that", and the name stuck. So thank you to everyone who wrote and emailed. You rock, Tyler.
Anyhoo……..right……..summer festival season. We're following William Randolph Hearst's suggestion and heading west to northern California for the High Sierra Music Festival. It's going to be 4 days of awesome. So many of the bands we love to listen to are going to be there. WOOHOO! We also have a festival lined up for the latter half of July called Floydfest (not Pink Floyd, Tyler) in Floyd, VA where there will also be a lot of our favorite bands playing. We're going to be playing each of the four days down there so if you come for the whole weekend or just for a day we'll be there to play and hang out. In between, before, and after these festivals we're going to be playing a lot more as well. We want to see you as soon as possible and no time later.
So, keep spreading the word to everyone you know that we're going to be making the rounds and hitting up a town near you, unless you live in Reykjavik, then you might have to wait a little bit longer. But we will get there.
Have a good one, or many good ones.
Oh yeah, and about that big news, you just read it.
Bye until next time. Or, as they'd say in Reykjavik, "bless bless" (it's true - look it up).
-Grafton