Fat's at Tipitina's

Last night we played Tipitina’s in New Orleans as our last stop opening shows for our friends JJ Grey and Mofro. It’s been great getting to hang with these guys and playing shows through the southeast for the last couple weeks. Playing for a bunch of new fans and then getting to hang out and enjoy Mofro’s set every night has been a great change up for a couple weeks. It was good catching up with Scott and Megan in Atlanta, our old friends Kevin and Kerry in Oxford, and hanging with our friends from the Magpies after the show in New Orleans. Thanks for the good times and generosity.

In Atlanta we had a few days off to rent a rehearsal space and workout some new songs for the next album. We’re excited about the new material and the direction it’s heading. Looking forward to having some more time off to dig into some more of the new tunes and get ready to go back in the studio some time this year.

Some highlights in fine southern cuisine along the way have been the fine people and many desserts at the Brick Street Diner in Greenville, South Carolina; the Ajax Diner in Oxford, Mississippi; and watching Marvin (aka “Word”) at the Camellia Grill in New Orleans spank the calories out of a piece of pecan pie with a spatula before dousing it with butter. We’re fatter and happier thanks to all of you.

Also, in true Stab Whitney fashion, Seth acquired a new butterfly knife at a Stuckey’s truck stop, so watch out. He wields it like a fluttering black belt assassin.

Tonight we’re in Scott/Lafayette, Louisiana, and tomorrow we’re back to La Porte, Texas before heading home for a week off to charge the batteries. Then it’s back to Europe for a couple weeks of shows.

Thanks to JJ and Mofro and all the Mofro fans for a great tour through the college towns of the deep south. And special thanks to all you BOH fans for coming out and representing too. We hope to be back in the fall.

I’ll be home by derby time, so please save me a seat.
Mint juleps on the outfield grass, the old south tastes so sweet.

Until next time,

G

This week we had the privilege of spending a day with David Becker. He is nearing the end of a 40 day period of “funemployment” before starting work at a law firm. Each of the 40 days he is challenging himself to do something new, interesting, unique, completely absurd, or something that he has always wanted to do but never had the time, motivation or cojones to do. You should read his blog. It’s really funny.

On day 35 he chose to spend a day with a rock ‘n’ roll band on the road. We were the lucky band he chose to spend time with. Read more here. Some pretty funny stuff. Good video footage near the end too.

www.thefortydays.com

Thanks David. You’re as cool as it gets.

Here is a little “music video” we made with some material we compiled over the last year or so. Hope you like.

And for those of you following us on sites such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and other such places, our accounts have all been hijacked by our own Colin Brooks. He recently acquired a new iPhone and Macbook and is responsible for the recent flurry of activity. Surf the web with caution!
Getting ready for a show in the Netherlands. Gotta run. Check out the video.

Thanks,

The Band of Heathens

We’re driving through New Mexico on our way to a couple more shows before heading home… The new album, One Foot in the Ether, comes out in a couple weeks and we’re thinking of giving another song from the album as a free download and through our website’s Email a Song to a Friend function. Hope you already downloaded L.A. County Blues and are digging it.

What song should we give away? Send an email to info@bandofheathens.com with your vote for the next free download. Our management will get the emails. They don’t know we’re doing this so bombard them with your votes. It’ll be funny. We’ll go back and count all the votes after we get a good laugh from their reaction to their inboxes getting flooded. And I promise you won’t be added to the mailing list or anything. It’s just a vote. We’ll leave the voting open through this Sunday night, Aug 30. We’d like to get you the track early next week. Here are your options:

Say

Shine a Light

Golden Calf

What’s this World

You’re Gonna Miss Me

Right Here with Me

Let Your Heart Not Be Troubled

Somebody Tell the Truth

Look at Miss Ohio

Talking Out Loud

Hey Rider

Pick which one you want next for a free download and send the request to info@bandofheathens.com. We’ll count the votes and give it to you.

Very Simple. Very Easy.

Thanks. Hope to see you soon.

Gordy

Pre-Order the new Album here

So the Band has been on tour for almost a month now. We’ve played over 20 gigs in 5 states and had a blast along the way. We have seen many familiar faces and places, as well as breaking new ground in places we’ve never been.

To those of you we were able to revisit…thanks so much for all the support, love and good times. Seems like anywhere we go in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado or Utah, we are greeted by familiar faces that are much more like old friends than mere acquaintances. This goes a long way in making life on the road a bearable existence. I cannot express this enough.

As for breaking new ground…the band finally made it out to the west coast. This is especially cool for me since I grew up out there. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve lived in Austin for almost a decade now, and I love every minute of it. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the California coast, and boy oh boy, there is nothing like it. Perfect weather, beautiful coastlines, delicious wines and beers and an evolved view of what medicine can be. Sounds like heaven on earth to me.

I even got to celebrate my birthday in L.A., where we played at the Mint that night and proceeded to celebrate the night away. I have included a photo that shows how the evening ended up for me. What can I say…it was like a soft bed…really! I must be getting old.

I’ve also included a photo of myself and Gordy in Sacramento displaying what is now referred to as the “Monkey Paw”. I believe we were somewhere in New Mexico when I decided to start a new form of greeting, similar to the hand shake, the high five, the fist knock or any other ridiculous hand shake greeting people have come up with over the years. It came to me like a revelation, and I just knew that somehow the “Monkey Paw” was going to sweep the nation. Many variations will come along, but what you see in this picture started it all.

I guess maybe I’ve been on the road a little too long???

You be the judge.

Monkey Paw forever,

Seth

Next Thursday July 9th, The Band of Heathens will be taping an episode of the legendary PBS television show, Austin City Limits.

Tickets to the taping are available online today through Monday July 6. Click on the link to sign up. Tickets are free but you must enter the lottery online and they’ll email you within a few days of the show to let you know if you got tickets. 

Here’s the link:

http://www.pbs.org/klru/austin/blog/2009/06/band-of-heathens-space-avaialb.html

The interview with legendary BBC DJ Bob Harris is now streaming on the BBC website.  Listen to the whole show, including a live performance and interview from London

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00kvh6k

http://www.bobharris.org/pages/gallerypics.asp?artist=Band%20of%20Heathens

Video Blog

The band video blogs from Munich. “What was your favorite meat you had today?”

The night before last’s maiden voyage into Europe 2009 started out a bit rocky after eleven hours in a flying aluminum can at 437 mph (less than a week before the 50^th anniversary of the day the music died), going from the airport to our hotel, and then directly to the club for sound check and our first show of the tour. The club turned out to be not a club at all, but a small theater with great acoustics and lots of plush velvety seating and romantic lighting. Very hip. It felt like a slice of 1950’s rock ‘n’ roll heaven. Sound check turned out to be more like an exorcism, until the sound system let the demons loose into the streets, where we were excited to see a line of people waiting outside the theater for the show. Then we went backstage to hide and eat dinner with a few beautiful German beverages.

After a relatively short introduction (of which we understood not a word) we took the stage to find out that the rows of nice velvety seats had turned into a very polite and enthusiastic sold-out crowd. It was great. All the seats and standing room were full. We were asked to do a two-hour show but we had so much fun we ended up playing for 3 hours and did a few encores. Special thanks to everybody at the Savoy and to all the people in Bordesholm for coming out to see the show. Hope you had as much fun as we did.

Last night we were back in Hannover, at the Blues Garage. We played the club back in December for the Blue Rose Christmas party. It’s a great club, and it was good to be back and to see Henri and his family. The room was full for the show and the energy was great. We played a few songs we hadn’t done in a while… King of Colorado, Lady Juliana, Chipping Away at the Promise Land, and we closed the set with Wilco’s I Got You.

Right now we’re in a town called Venlo in Holland. We’ll see how a Sunday night show does here. Not sure if the people like to party on school nights. All in all, it’s good to be back in Europe again. It’s been a great start to the tour, and great to see Thomas, our tour manager who takes care of everything for us. Stay tuned. We’ll try to write when we can.

We just got back from a few weeks of shows in the mountains and we’re enjoying a few days off before heading to Europe. Some of the highlights of the last tour were getting to play some shows with the one and only Sam Bush and his amazing band, getting back to some of our favorite mountain towns like Carbondale, playing the KiMo Theater in Albuquerque, NM, and playing Musicfest and Ski Jam in Steamboat Springs, where we got some time on the mountain and some rib crushing rock and roll. If you dig around in youtube.com I think there’s some behind the scenes footage, some video interviews and some live show footage from the tour.

Also, I think one of the shows from Musicfest is posted in the “Extras” section of the website as a free download. This week has been good being back home in Austin and catching up on some sleep and some homecooking. Everybody seems to be fighting off some kind of cold or allergies, and/or broken ribs before heading out again. Despite being a little beat up and run down, it’s been a good start to the year.

If you made it out to any of the shows on this last tour, you may have noticed that we’ve trying out a handful of new songs that we just recorded. We’ll probably spend some more time in the studio after we get back from Europe and see what else comes out. Right now, we’re having a good time writing and experimenting with some new songs live and getting new material down on tape in the studio.

On Thursday we’re looking forward to heading to Europe for another run of shows in Germany and the Netherlands. Then we’ll come back and get ready for SXSW. Sometime between now and then we’ll be buying a new van as well. Good times. With all the news of layoffs, bailouts, harsh times and doubts, we’re thankful to be so busy and working, and hopeful things are on the rise.

Peace from the Heathens