the bittersweets

Getting Back on the Horse

Well, it has been quite a while since we posted anything, mostly because nothing was going on. We needed a break, and we weren’t 100% sure we were going to get this off the ground again. I’m glad we didn’t sell our domain name.

About three years ago, we just about stopped playing music altogether (in case you didn’t notice). For us, this was caused by a few things. First, it was impossibly difficult to create art that we no longer felt. It was difficult to listen to music, nevertheless compose or perform it. Second, we were basically broke and could no longer afford to live off our music income. 

The last show that we played was a great one. We were back in our hometown of Oakland, CA surrounded by some of the same friends who saw our first performances in a rat infested garage in Alameda. And there we were playing on the main stage in front of thousands of people, with the banner of the radio station (KFOG) that gave us our start flying behind us as we played. It seemed like a perfect way to go out.

So, we got regular jobs like regular people. And then a funny thing happened. First, we started listening to music again, and then we started playing music again. A year and a half ago we had grand plans of recording another record and were about to start writing it…

…And I had an accident and broke my hip. Maybe we were too old to start playing music again, after all. We got married (though I was walking on a cane). Finally, a few months ago we started writing again and set up a studio  in the basement of an old church. We’ve started slowly knitting together some songs that are starting to look and feel like they might turn into a record one of these days. 

We will try to document this whole process however we can, be it through words, pictures, or sounds and will share what we have when we think we have something worth sharing.

Until then…

George Harrison was an inspiration to us and musicians across the world. In 1971, his friend Ravi Shankar asked him to help the children of Bangladesh.  George took action by hosting the  Concert for Bangladesh in support of UNICEF. We are proud to join the anniversary celebration and honor George’s legacy by supporting the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF. Please watch the video above and join us in supporting this great cause.

Trumpeting this as good news is like saying we’re winning in Afghanistan if the body count is less than it was the previous week.
Bob Lefsetz on the news that music sales are up according to the Nielsen SoundScan midyear report.

The never-released official video for Wreck, off of Goodnight, San Francisco. Directed by the wonderful Brian Zalewski.

Spent last night singing bgvox for Neil Bjorklund’s new record. That man has some wonderful songs.

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David Foster Wallace on Life and Work

Oddly, numerous people have posted and/or mentioned this speech to me in the last couple of weeks even though it was given in 2005. Unfortunately, I was not still at Kenyon at the time, but wish I had been.

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New Site

The new site us up.

You ask, “where did the site go? There is nothing there.”

We think that less is more, and that connections are far more important than static content. Twitter, facebook, and tumblr are better tools for connection than anything we could come up with on our own.

So there you go.

Well, we are now on tumblr. We are going to kick things off by posting the full audio of our version of Loving Cup, which appears on “Paint It Black: An Alt. Country Tribute to the Rolling Stones” alongside many of our favorite bands, including Cowboy Junkies, Hem, Over the Rhine, and Greak Lake Swimmers.