[np - Medeski, Martin, & Wood - Shackman]

Whew. What a wild last few weeks it has been. So much stewing, so much yet to do.

It's been a bit of a drag lately with so many duties to perform that I haven't had the time to just sit down and putter around with some music. Of course, I'll be moving my studio again soon, so there will be some additional downtime from that... But I just spent about 1/2 an hour playing around with a version of "Ain't No Sunshine" (werd, K!) for our live set. Pretty cool track -- done in a mellow Motown style, which was pretty much what trip-hop was before there was trip-hop. Nice bluesy flair. I'll be munging it up a bit and getting some electronics in there -- I've already plagerized a great main beat... That's the beauty of live-only treacks -- you can sample to your heart's content... =)

Another little project I'm working on is Tower of Power v2.0... If anyone saw us play on our tour in the summer of '04, you may remember the hulking beast of a keyboard stand I used. Well, I retired it this spring -- the thing was just too bulky and heavy. Besides, I had changed our live setup so much that it wasn't really needed anymore... Well, I'm starting to feel like we need a little more spice in our live set, so I am currently building a new Tower of Power... And boy howdy, this thing is huge at about 7'6". But I'm taking my time in order to engineer it correctly in both weight and setup time. So what does this evil beast offer up? Drums. And circuit bent toys.

Tee-hee. Just wait till you see it at the MPLS CD release...

This is just another way that I am going to procrastinate today! I should be packing - we close on our condo this Wednesday and I have not even started to pack, but somehow I have found time to do everything but. Now that I did some crossword puzzles, read my entire "US WEEKLY" - yeah, you heard it right, and I'm not ashamed! :) I have decided to write a diary entry just so I don't have to go back upstairs.

Side-note: the definition of a door = something that Sydney always wants to be on the other side of. Just a sec..I have to let my little diva puppy back in, because by the way, she's not used to waiting. Just like her mommy! ;)

Ok - back to the subject. This week is going to be busy. Tomorrow, Have a bunch of meetings and then the Rotary Social at night. On Tuesday, I teach my fitness class and then we have a GrandCare potluck dinner presentation at the West Bend Senior Center. We close on Wednesday, then we have the annual Chamber Dinner and then start to move into the condo. Thursday and Friday, I have my overnight Chamber Leadership Retreat. It should be fun! There are tons of great people in my group, plus I ran into Kim from the Chamber at our show, and she says she bought extra beer for the retreat this year! uh-oh! :) The only bad thing is that we all are going to drink on Thursday night and socialize, then on Friday, we get up early in the morning to do a leadership and ropes course. Yeah...not so much, a ropes course being hung-over doesn't sound fun! I'll have to keep in check and more importantly, bring alka-seltzer along! :)

Friday's show was a huge success! Not only was there standing room only at the Binkery Patio (More people came to this one than last one), we had a great audience -- great response, the sets went well, we sold tons of CDs and got great tips as well! The West Bend Daily News came to cover the show. There were lots of photos snapped during the entire thing, I'll be excited to see the story!

Most of the people that came had never seen us live before, so that was a different experience. I work with a lot of them on the business side, so it was a little bizarre to show a different side of me. People were having a great time - at least the drinks were flowing and almost everyone stayed for both sets of our music, which was great and surprising! I didn't expect everyone to stay, but they did and what a captive audience we had. It was perfect!! The Binkery is the place for us to play - great atmosphere. Bink is one swell guy (he gives us free drinks all night, which can't be bad) :) and the heat lamps on the patio are very cool (in a rather hot kind of a way).

Anyhow, it was a great night. We'll let you know when we get the article. Graham Killeen and Gaytha Hillman were our guest vocalists for the evening. Both were amazing and added so much to the show! Hopefully Graham will be able to join us for our Oct. 28th CD Release party in Mpls. and help us out with our next album (which we have not even started to work on yet).

Steve and Rebecca from Some Girl came to the show, which was a very pleasant surprise. We love these guys. They are so much fun - and so talented. Their music is great - There has been talk about possible Some Girl/EB collaboration. That's really exciting for us. Some Girl is a bit more synthpop in nature, and I think we both have a lot to offer each other. Next weekend, we are getting together to hash out some of the details!

We are in the midst of working out some radio promotion and publicity for this album. We are talking with Krista from Tinderbox Music (she is the bomb - I met her when I interned there last fall/winter). She is really helping us out with this, and we are so grateful to have her!!! Mad props to Tinderbox!

Another side-note here - - if you have not seen the series "LOST" you must rent season one!! It is so completely addictive!! We fell in love with it after the second episode was finished. Give it a try. Season Two premieres this coming Wednesday - besides Matthew Fox being a total FOX, the show's characters are amazing, the plot spins with unexpected twists and realizations. Very well-written. JJ Abrahms (also did Alias) is awesome, along with Michael Giacchino who does the music (he also did Alias). Very much in the same style - why we love Alias too! So - I'm not looking forward to being addicted to another TV series - of course I rent them all, as I always seem to be gone somewhere when they're on TV. But I'll just add it to my list of netflix (24, Alias, Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire) - ack...

Man - - I should really get moving here. Enough procrastination for the day. So much to clean, move and pack - none of this sounds appealing whatsoever.

This is longer than some term papers I wrote in college.

as jennifer lopez once said "ENOUGH"!

We had a helluva weekend! Three shows (Faribault, MN; Lake Crystal, MN; and Estherville, IA). We left on Thursday a little later than we would have liked. But, we were trying to wait for our CD to show up at the house. We had overnighted one box of them from New Jersey and we almost had to leave without them. But 3 calls to UPS later, the CDs arrived (Nick and I were actually waiting in the truck as the UPS truck pulled up). At least, we had a copy of "Smoke Through It" in our hands and we were off. First stop, Faribault (MN). Zak from Distortion Music Magazine had set up this show for us. We arrived just in time - while Nick was setting up, I did a short radio interview at the local radio station that goes to that bar every thursday! Very cool. The Depot has a sports bar feel to it, so we were a bit nervous about how well our sound would go over there. Zak was awesome, though, and his wife, Andrea, was keeping our beers full. She bartends for fun at the bar a few nights a week. We played our first set and it went alright. A few golf claps here and there, but people started to warm up.

Second set was where it really got fun! After spontaneously bringing up some drunk frat boys and coming up with our own version of margaritaville and playing along with the drunken banter of the bar, we won them over. The show turned out to be a great success and we sold a bunch of t-shirts and CDs to the patrons. Afterwards, we headed over to Zak and Andrea's beautiful home for chili/beer and good conversation. The night finally ended around 5am when we all turned in for the evening. The next day was interesting. We spent the day being positively spoiled by Zak and Andrea and washing our cars together in their driveway. Bizarre! We left (a little late) to head to Lake Crystal. This bar was difficult to find, so Nick and I arrived in perhaps not the most jovial moods. Trace and Stephanie greeted us when we got there. It was cool, they brought a whole bunch of people. This show did not go as well. Honestly, I felt like our sound was one of the best that it's been, but the bar was just not a good place for our type of music. Another sort of sportsy type of places. We played a few sets. It just seemed to be an off night as far as moods go. The bartender girl was really snotty (i'm thinking she was having a really bad night) and the crowd was like playing to a pile of bricks. Needless to say, we did not sell a whole bunch of merch at this one. Oh well - c'est la vie. We headed back to Trace's house and went right to bed at 330am. Saturday was fun! We got to hang out for the day with Trace and Stephanie which is always fun! We sipped coffee into the late afternoon and just chatted with them. It's too bad they live so far away (6 hours), we'd love to do it more often!

Saturday night, we performed at the Little Swan Lake Winery. The best gig that we've played in a long time. Not so much attendance-wise, but attitude-wise. They were into it - we sold sooo many CDs, Ts (even State4 cds). I think there was at least one or two people from every group there that bought something. It was truly a success. Our new songs have really taken off with people - more so than ever before, which is just an awesome feeling.

We left the winery and spent the rest of the night at the local watering hole with Trace. It was karaoke night. The karaoke guy is cool - - at the end of the night, he got out his electric guitar and just started jamming, letting everyone know if they wanted to do a song, he would stop. Cool cat! Trace wanted to order something besides beer, so we decided to get a pitcher of margaritas. Well - - there seemed to have been some sort of a communication breakdown with the bartender and we ended up with this huge VAT of strawberry margarita (over a gallon) that was THIRTY DOLLARS!!! This is just for the three of us. It was hilarious. All sorts of interesting things happen when we travel. We were unable to finish the whole thing, and I think I was in sugar shock while trying to fall asleep.

We left early this morning (1030am) - ok so not that early, but we wanted to get back to the bend before too late. We showed up around 6pm..Sorry, we couldn't stay for breakfast S&T, we felt bad about that.

All in all, a great weekend!!!

Had to post this - - good stuff!

Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore: Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

[np - The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Been a little quiet here lately? That's cause we're patiently waiting for the CDs to come back from the plant... Yes, "smoke through it" is done! If you missed that last line, allow me to repeat:

"smoke through it" is done!

It kinda came down to the wire there last week... Here it is, 4pm. We need to get to the FedEx drop by 6pm to get the master and artwork next day'ed to the plant. And Laura is re-recording vocals... By FSM, that was stressful... But we did it. And we promptly went straight to the Binkery and got trashed.

Laura and I have spent this last week decompressing and thinking a lot about our music. The consensus? We are very, very proud of "smoke through it". The production is our best work, and without a doubt these are our best songs to date. Now, I know what you're saying, "Duh, what are you going to say, your album sucks?" True. But every album has its own set of circumstances that have decided results in the final product. I can say some albums left us feeling comfortable with the results, some left us feeling like we could have done better. And, as always, in retrospect albums don't sound quite as good as they did when we recorded them...

At any rate, we will be letting everyone know as soon as the CD hits the shelves.

So. In other news. Seems like Laura and I have this ability to stir up a hornet's nest of trouble every time we write about something... This time people are questioning whether we should be "ranting" about people's personal lives. Now, on one hand, I understand this criticism, especially from someone that doesn't know the full story. But the reality is that this "ranting" is about people that were very close to us at one time. And the whole incident really got us down, and being the emotional artsy commie pinko musicians that we are, we had to vent a little. And, as an update, we are of the opinion that this has actually turned out to be a very, very good thing -- I think the people "done wrong" are actually so much better off now. It's still a sad story, though.

Besides, this is our blog -- and what good are blogs if you can't rant? Well, another rant-worthy sad story is the situation in New Orleans... I mean, wow. American refugees on American soil -- that is a chilling thought. This while we pay $177 million a day in Iraq... What a mess.

Anyway, that's enough ranting for me. Back to work!

Ciao