Okay, I know I was going off the grid, but since I bitch about so much stuff I feel I should call people out when they're awesome.

Waitress at Boston Beerworks at the airport, literally four days older than me, was super cool. Yay Leos.

Flight attendant gave me extra drink, free of charge, because it's my birthday. Someone gave her the wrong drink—not a big deal at all—so she got me another free one cos she felt bad.

Moments like these, I forget how much humanity tends to tick me off sometimes. Maybe I should be more patient (can't rule it out, yea?).

Okay, vacation time. Will be incognito for next few days. Be well, friends. Love ya.

Henry's phone
(on a motherfuckin' plane)

On Rob's recommendation I've been watching Californication and it's one of the best goddamn shows I've seen in a while. If you've got Netflix, check it out (it's under the Watch Instantly section). Hilarious and well-written. Also (finally) saw Wet Hot American Summer on Tim's suggestion and it's every bit as milk-out-your-nose funny as he said it would be.

Heading on vacation at the end of this week and I'm looking forward to it so hard. Can't remember the last time I've been on vacation, really. Heading down south to the beach (New England, you know I love you, but a beach where I can't wade in the water without fearing hypothermia is not a beach).

Speaking of beach, we were in Provincetown this past Friday to play at the Provincetown Rocks festival. It was... interesting. Definitely memorable. The foot and bike traffic on Commercial St. was obnoxious. The earlier part of the day was probably best. We got to the venue and apparently six bands were no longer performing (it turned out to be five, only). It looked like, once again, our set time was in question. The staff was terribly nice, but I'm not sure if they knew what was going on any more than we did. It was still early, though, and we had time to kill before the scheduled meet & greet, so we wandered around Provincetown for a bit. I'd never been before, and it's a nice place. Reminds me a lot of Key West, actually (I talked to Daanen from The Luxury, and he said it reminded him of Door County in Wisconsin). Had some grub at Twisted Sisters. The folks from Sidewalk Driver were playing in the streets, and we said hi. We also bumped into Matty King from The Lights Out; he informed us that the scheduled meet & greet was no longer happening, which explains why the people at The Surf had no idea what the hell we were talking about. We headed to The Surf anyway to grab a few beers.

Once we returned to the venue things got a little weird. Whole thing felt disorganized, and the backline that was supposed to minimize the changeover between sets did no such thing. One of the amps was constantly on the fritz (a problem that dogged us when we were trying to get through our set). The sound guy, nice as he was, was having issues with volume the entire night. I wasn't sure what the point of micing up anything other than the bass drum and vocals was... they had a huge board, but only two speakers that were very much on the small side, and the room isn't all that big anyway. Sound guy spent half the set trying to get a handle on sound. To add insult to injury, some drunk woman spilled beer all over my pants and twice nearly knocked over gear (thankfully, I was there to catch it both times). Oh, and my favorite pair of sunglasses were stepped on; and the tap tempo for my delay pedal was mysteriously busted (both cheap enough to replace, but still...). Worse yet, the first band's cymbals mysteriously took a walk. Not sure if they were able to find them, but people swiping shit that doesn't belong to them makes my blood boil. I hope they found them. On the bright side, we seem to thrive on chaos and played a particularly frenetic set, like something out of 2004. The guys from The Lights Out and The Luxury showed up and I felt that really turned things around for us and made it all really fun again. The New Alibis played a terrific set afterward. Definitely slayed the bad vibe that began to pervade the evening. Plus, Travis bought me a whiskey that soothed my frayed nerves.

All said and done, my take is that despite good intentions Provincetown Rocks was neither the colossal failure nor the epic success that had been forecast. It was a bunch of shows at a bunch of venues in Provincetown with varying degrees of success. Some of the venues weren't even collecting cover— which, coupled with the constant schedule changes, is pretty galling considering there were people who paid anywhere between $30 - $100 to go to these shows.

These last two shows were definitely an adventure, though. Big thanks to Travis from The Motion Sick for stepping in on drums (we had an everlovin' ball playing with you, dude); and Ryan, a pleasure as always, broheeeeem. Having a fluid lineup sucks in many, many, many ways— enough to swear by Lothar's Hammer that this is strictly a temporary situation— but both Jen and I are eternally grateful that we have such utterly amazing friends helping us out through it all (to say nothing of the immense support we've been receiving from everyone else, including, of course, our manager Annie the Wonder Woman). The experience has been simultaneously humbling and heartening, and in one of the universe's strange paradoxes we've actually been able to accomplish more than we have in a long time. It's been years since I've had this much fun.

Jen and I met up with Jon and Ryan for dinner yesterday. It was sort of a sweet "get the band back together" moment. Hadn't played together since Arlene's in May (and before that was the February tour, of course), and it might be a while before we seem them again. Jon's moving to NYC soon for his full time gig drumming for Morningwood, and Ryan's band Keeping Riley just got signed (as I mentioned in the last blog).

They grow up so fast.

Henry

PS.. Here's some vid from the earlier part of our day in Provincetown.

Sweet show yesterday, definitely one of the stranger locales we've played. We were originally supposed to play at the Riverfront Park, but it got moved to their rain site under the 787 overpass (it didn't rain). Sounds weird, but it was kind of awesome. Big stage, and there were at least a thousand people there (probably more). Even had catering backstage! The only downer was the acoustics of the overpass... there was lots of slapback echo that made it a little difficult at times, but we managed to get through it. The whole thing was pretty wild. The whole staff was supremely nice. Even found out the dude doing the monitor mixes, Adam, lived near our hood in Mass for a whole year and even went to school in Orlando. It's a small world after all.

Also bumped into our friend Pat, who'd recognized the tunes and popped by. Really good chatting to him. Hadn't seen him since we played Saratoga Springs back in 2007 and he let us crash at this house.

It was fun playing with Ryan again (hadn't played with him since Arlene's back in May). His band, Keeping Riley, just got signed recently and they've been writing a new record, and Travis (on loan from The Motion Sick) was terrific. We were opening for an Eagles cover band who, despite my slight distaste for the Eagles, were actually really good. I think they actually do this for a living, so they have to be that tight.

Have to run out the door in a bit, so gotta cut it short. Playing Provincetown Rocks Festival today. We'll see how that goes. Haven't seen any terrible rumors swirling around since it started on Wednesday, so perhaps it's a good sign that all's going well on the Cape.

Henry

PS: Here are some phone pics from Albany. Annie took a bunch of the show itself, so we'll probably have those up soon.

Finished the Geoff Emerick book last week and I'm well into my yearly Beatles kick. I found the mono mixes of Sgt. Pepper on YouTube (including Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane) and they sound incredible. Having been deprived of the mono versions of these Beatles records most of my life leads me to the conclusion that I've been cheated. At a bit of a loss over what to read next because I could easily devour 15 more books on the Beatles, but I don't want to do that. Instead, I've moved onto Christopher Hitchens' short-ish bio on Thomas Jefferson before I plan my next move. I still have a stack of books on my desk that I really need to get through by the end of the year. Or else I'll have to finish them next year.

Finally got a haircut on Friday. It's been a wild year and a half. It's just too goddamn hot for long hair.

Jen and I finished up an interview yesterday with the folks at Serve The Song. I enjoyed it, because from the questions they were asking you could tell they did their homework on us. I like answering interesting questions. They'll probably post it on their site sometime in the next week or two.

In the meantime, we're gearing up for the two festival shows this week (Albany and Provincetown). Albany's going to be an outdoor thing— we haven't done many of those and it's exciting because it'll give me an excuse to wear sunglasses without feeling like a douchebag. Let's hope it doesn't rain, eh?

Anyone else getting into the 40th anniversary of the moon landing? As a kid, I used to watch a lot of shit about space and I love it. I've been looking up videos and things all weekend on the moon. Most notably, the Mythbusters episode debunking the conspiracy theories is money (it's all up on YouTube if you search for it). Just makes me wonder why the hell we stopped going after six successful attempts.

Anyhow, it's simultaneously made me realize how kickass the Earth is and that most of our leaders these days are jellyfish. Honestly, it's kinda hard to believe that taking care of our own and keeping the planet clean is so hard to pull off when 40 years ago we sent three guys in a tin can to the fucking moon using computers that had 0.1% of the processing power and 0.00005% of the memory of what I'm using to write this.

Maybe that's why we need to dive into the space game again... perspective.

Henry

Currently listening to:
Déjà Vu
by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Just wanted to drop a quick thank you note to everyone that came out to see us at the Paradise this weekend. We had such a great time.. it was great to be among all of our friends, and we made many new ones as well. This show meant a lot to us personally, and from the bottom of our hearts: thanks for sharing it with us.

Our friend Sooz took some video for her site of us playing "When The Ants Attack The Queen". You can see that over here. There will probably be a flood of pics and video as well in the coming days, I'm sure.

I'd also like to extend congrats and a big hug to The Luxury for their CD release. They put a lot of work into getting this thing together. Salud! I saw the folks from Boston Band Crush taking some video of their set, so go check it out in a bit.

Alright, kids, gonna make some lunch. My stomach's making noises.

See you soon.

Henry

I was re-organizing my CD collection (which has become pitiful after years of moving and losing things), and found a ton of old cassettes buried in the mess. I spent the last two days giving some of them a cursory listen, and I was trapped in a time warp. I also forgot just how much Jen and I wrote for Fan The Fury. Don't particularly dig going backwards for songs on future recordings, but some of them might be worth bringing back from the grave. Totally forgot about this one unfinished tune with the working title "Take It Back" that survived as far as a handful of rehearsals and was that close to making on the album, but... I have no clue what happened, actually. There was another demo of an extra middle section in Hard Up In The 2000s that we thankfully scrapped. I think one of my favorite sequences on the tape is my first demo of You Got Me Wrong being immediately followed by Jen's demo of You Got Me Wrong with some verses.

This also begs the question "What the hell were you guys doing using a tape recorder after 2001?"

That's just Fan The Fury, though. There were loads of songs from as far back as 1998 recording in her parents' converted garage in Coral Gables. Nutso. I can't believe we're still doing this. But then again, I can. Because we're either monumentally awesome or monumentally stupid. Or fucking mental. (Probably a little from columns A, B, & C.) There was one from 2001 called Dance Real Slow which we did rehearse for a few months, possibly played life a few times, but stopped playing when we realized it was basically Late Last Nite. (In all fairness, Dance Real Slow was there first.)

Had rehearsal yesterday for the Paradise show on Saturday (HINT) and it's sounding great. Highlight of my day was getting two bags of chips from a vending machine after paying for one.

Good things happen to those who bang their fist on vending machines while yelling "You've got to be fucking kidding me!"

Henry

PS... Jen just emailed me an article that says coffee helps fight Alzheimer's. I'ma go fight my already fast-progressing mental deterioration.

Currently listening to:
The Sandbox
on WFNX

Woke up late today, and I'm bummed about it. Didn't hear my alarm go off, and now I'm too close to lunch to in all good conscience have breakfast, but not close enough where I should have it now. Woe is me. Weather's been a total shitstorm, too. June was more like April/May. I mean, I enjoy thunderstorms, but this is ridiculous.

Took stock yesterday of where we're at with the writing and we've got nine tunes written so far. Still have a ways to go, but good to know we're making progress on that front. Finished up a track with Dan last week, too. This is the most exciting thing going on in my life right now. That, and having people over tomorrow for a big fuckoff Mario Kart/Goldeneye disastrothon. And the Paradise show, of course. That's huge.

On that note, The Luxury's got some new tracks up on their site. You should go check it out. I'm also not going to tell you to buy tickets to the Paradise show, because I know you already did this the first time I asked you. I trust you, Internet.

Gotta say, I'm still not feeling Kings of Leon. Need Somebody and Sex On Fire get stuck in my head regularly, but I don't like the songs very much. Doesn't really go anywhere, it's just the same thing repeated several times (granted, it's nothing but a goddamn hook that sinks in deep). Eh, I guess I've yet to be that compelled to buy their stuff. I liked The Bucket, even though it suffers from the same problem. Someone should teach those guys to write a middle eight.

Henry