Weekend In Review + DOWNLOAD: "The Book of Matches"

Thanks again to everyone who made it out to our shows over the weekend. It was simply fantastic to get back to Columbia and Champaign again. Oh how we've missed you.

On the bill Friday night at Mojo's in Columbia, MO was our longtime friend, Lucas Oswald (Minus Story, Never Perfect Intentions). He is playing guitar in Will Reeves', of Bockman, new project Penny Marvel. They were awesome!

Also that night, we got a chance to play with Evangelicals from Norman, OK. They were really cool and it will be a treat to join them and Headlights again on March 11th at The Cavern in Dallas, TX.

Hanging out with Nina and Jaret from Emergency Umbrella was also super-great. With how much we talk on the phone and email, it was very nice to share a beer and escape the stress of finishing this record, even if just for one night. They started making plans for a crazy label barbecue in Austin during SXSW. So excited!

Saturday night, after a long drive crammed into Steve's car and Ryan's truck (we need a VAN!), we arrived at The Highdive in Champaign, IL. We were a tad bit worried about how the night would go, since Cowboy Monkey stopped doing music, and weekend shows at The Highdive are now early shows (7pm-10pm), but our worries quickly melted away as we loaded our gear up onto the big stage and got out of the rainy cold outside.

Sharing the bill with us that night was Tunnels, who we had not played with before but featured Stephen Ucherek of The Living Blue, and Cameron McGill & What Army, who we have played with twice in Champaign and just released his third full-length album, Hold on Beauty. Both bands played great sets and as usual, the Champaign crowd was wonderful to play for. There was a myspace message for us today from someone who was there on Saturday who shot part of our set on video. Hopefully he uploads it soon.

It was a fantastic show in our home away from home that was topped off by a WONDERFUL sit-down late dinner with some of our favorite friends CU friends, Ryan and Dave of Elsinore, Jodi, Mike, and Rachel at Seven Saints. The benefit of playing a show that's over by 10pm is that you can EAT at a good restaurant and relax when you are done. So nice to be eating asian wasabi sliders instead of loading the truck at 2am in the rain!


Oh and by the way, we are hoping to have the new EP for sale at shows starting March 6th @ The Bluebird. Cross your fingers that we get them back from the pressing plant in time.

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DOWNLOAD ALERT!

The kind folks over at Largehearted Boy have been kind enough to post a FREE download of "The Book of Matches"! Please support their site and let them know how much you love them.

Update!!!!!!!

as Chad and Devin are holed up in the new Silver Sonya location, surely tearing out their hair [sic] at the seemingly endless number of layers and tracks, the mixes are coming together and a light is beginning to show at the end of the tunnel

we were finally able to snatch a listen to "Angry Town" yesterday and it is so exciting to hear the record begin to finally take shape - we are SOOOOO close, you can almost taste it

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since returning DC, we have been fortunate enough to share time and the stage with some great old friends, as well as some very awesome new ones - here's a little recap...

*November 7th @ The Bluebird (St. Louis, MO): we played with one of our most favorite St. Louis bands, Say Panther, and one of our most favorite Champaign bands, Headlights, who are now playing out as a quintet with Kenny and Nick of Decibully joining the ranks on guitar and bass/accordion respectively - simply awesome!!!

-as an aside, both Say Panther and Headlights have new records in the works, please save your lunch money, take your piggy bank up to Coinstar, snatch some bills from your momma's purse, or whatever you have to do to make sure that you own these records the day that they come out!

*November 16th @ Cowboy Monkey (Champaign, IL): the Cowboy Monkey is absolutely one of our favorite places to play in the country, hands down, and this looks to have been the last time we will ever get to play there - they are rumored to be changing things around and tearing out the stage come New Year's - we did get to play with some great new friends though, Des Moines', Jacob Tyler Wolfgang, Chicago's, Rachel Ries [amazing!] and Champaign favorites, Casados

after the show, Tristan took us back to Headlights' chalet, which is nestled in between two corn fields in the northern part of Champaign-Urbana, where Erin, Brett and him live and record - this was our first time staying with Headlights and we all were up uber-late drinking PBR, eating Pokey-Sticks and smoking our corn-cob pipes

good times had by all

*November 17th @ The Bluebird (St. Louis, MO): it is a rare treat to play in STL and get to share the stage with not just 1, but 2 bands that we have never played with before. this was just such an occasion! we had such a blast with St. Louis', Bo & The Locomotive, and Michigan stalwarts, Saturday Looks Good To Me

there were so many things working for us on this night, playing with SLGTM: 1) it was a Saturday, 2) it was their first time playing in St. Louis, and 3) Ryan Howard, of our other favorite MI band, Canada, plays drums!!!

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it is nice to be home to not only get a chance to relearn the songs after we dissected the crap out of them in the studio, but to also spend time with family and friends and just chill out a little

there is so much on the horizon:

*two cool shows left this year
December 8th
@ The Mad Art Gallery for the 4th installment of The Rock n Roll Craft Show
December 22nd
@ Off Broadway for A Very Merry Christmas Spectacular w/ So Many Dynamos, Light Pollution and Laite

*new record/tour this Spring

*Kiley and Steve's wedding next August!

*Stephen and former Team Up!!! counterpart Mario Martinez have been playing together again - they're performing tomorrow, Nov. 25th, as Thankful Tree @ The Lemp Arts Neighborhood Arts Center

*Ryan is gearing up for a Dock Ellis Band tour this January

*Eric H. is finishing a full-length Slow Parade album as we speak

*Mike is recording albums for both Geoff Koch and The Makeshift Gentlemen this winter

*Eric E. has most likely written about 30 new songs since we have been home and being that the Christmas season is his most prolific time of the year, expect many more songs to be in the works

etc. etc. etc.

stay tuned for more updates as the mixes begin to pour in - there is talk of us possibly getting to hear 3 more tomorrow!!!!!!!