LIVE FROM NOWHERE NEAR YOU!

Our rad label, Greyday Records, is releasing a very special charity compilation this summer- Live From Nowhere Near You Vol 2. The 3-CD comp is available now for pre-order in the Greyday Store & includes rare and/or exclusive tracks from Wilco, Bright Eyes, Ryan Adams, Elliott Smith, Daniel Johnston, The Helio Sequence, The Strokes, Modest Mouse, Third Eye Blind, Eddie Vedder, The Dandy Warhols, Mike Watt, and roughly 50 more!

...Oh, and us! That's right, with purchase of the 3-CD set (for only $15!), you also get downloads of even MORE exclusive material, including an unreleased demo from Elliott Smith(!), and an exclusive new IWTDI track, "Waiting On A Wire"! It's actually one of my favorite songs that we've ever written- I hope you can all check it out ---> all profits go to providing aid and counseling to homeless youth via Outside In.

As if Live From Nowhere Near You Vol 2 wasn't enough, Greyday is releasing yet another charity comp this winter- featuring yet another exclusive track from yours truly....more on that soon!!

JULY 31!

So we were asked to play a show for a friend/fan of the band for his wedding after-party. He wanted it to be at Deep South The Bar in Raleigh, and he told us it could be a public or private event, our call. We initially chose to make it private, so as not to interfere with any other local shows we might have had around the same time...

Turns out, we didn't end up booking any other local shows this summer, and also turns out our friends from Atlanta, Today The Moon Tomorrow The Sun, needed a show that night.

SO! Please join us for one of our very few Triangle area shows this year- Sunday, July 31st at Deep South The Bar in Raleigh! There will be a small party of post-wedding revelers(which of course means we're playing a very special set- IWTDI requests from the groom, plus a handful of covers!), but we invite you to join the fun for a mere $5 at the door. TTM,TTS will get things going promptly at 10:30, with IWTDI taking the stage right at 11:15.

We are in the process of booking a couple of tours for the fall, but in the meantime, our only other scheduled show is in Atlanta with TTM,TTS at Star Bar on Friday, July 15.

Hope to see you all soon!

LEAVING MINNEAPOLIS!

Aaaaaaand we're DONE. Album #4 is tracked and will be mixed in a couple of weeks. I'm a bit dazed and ineloquent right now, but the whole band seems to agree that this is the best record any of us have ever been a part of- and we couldn't have done it without our GENIUS producers, Joshua Cain & Ed Ackerson. Thank you, guys.

We also owe a huge thanks to our home-away-from-home, MPLS, and the wonderful people who populate this beautiful city: Tommy Rehbein, Justin Pierre, Brittany Nelson, Lindsay Hutton, Ashley Ackerson, Amber Corbet, Jared Gudnason, Kelly Conant, Farewell Continental, Dan Mariska & his band, The Triple Rock Social Club- to name just a few!

We'll post some more pictures and some video from the session, eventually. And expect more details on the album in the next few months.

Now: we drive 20 hours!

A FEW PHOTOS FROM WEEK 1 IN THE STUDIO!

Almost done with week #1 here at Flowers Studio in Minneapolis, MN. It's going great!

Video and other updates coming soon, but here's a few shots of the band, Josh, & Ed (and Wiggy!) at work!

(Photography by Joe Mazzitelli, Ed Ackerson, & Josh Cain)

MPLS!

Hello dear friends! I hope you are interested in an update on the making of our latest album in Minneapolis, because that is what you are about to get!!

A lot of people ask me how/why we decided to make this record all the way up here in the Twin Cities. The story really goes all the way back to early 2008. IWTDI had just turned 1, and had a pretty uncertain future. We were a band that just started off thinking we'd make one album, have a bit of fun, and go our separate ways. None of us had a ton of time to focus on the project, but we were getting some support from some strange places- some encouragement that sort of persuaded us to keep going. One such source of encouragement came completely out of the blue. An old friend of mine, Paul Cadena, had started a new band and, the networking-wonder that he is known to be, was constantly hitting up "influential" people and asking them to give his music a listen. One day, he randomly contacted Josh Cain from the band Motion City Soundtrack, a personal favorite of mine at the time(OK, I was obsessed). Paul basically said "Hey Josh, I was hoping you could check out my new band. Also, my good friend just put out a record that is pretty cool too- check out I Was Totally Destroying It sometime". Josh listened to Paul's band and thought it was "OK"(I think he was wrong about that- Small States was the SHIT!), but listened to us and said "Hey Paul, how can I get in touch with your friend?". Ten minutes later, I got an email from one of my idols, telling me he really liked my band and wanted to work together someday, and the rest is history. Josh and I talked frequently over the years, played some shows together, etc. We wanted to make "Horror Vacui" together, but busy schedules and IWTDI's impatience and prolific nature got in the way. So finally, here we are, and we are thrilled it's finally all happening! By the way, Paul has gone on to do crazy big things since those days- now people (like me) email HIM for help!

We're almost done with week 1, which has been spent entirely on pre-production. Allow me to explain "pre-pro" to those not in the know. When working with a producer, oftentimes the primary focus will be on arrangements and presentation of the songs. We recorded demos at home last fall and sent them to Josh, allowing him to start to get a feel of the material he would be working with. We discussed various changes with him over the internet and phone during the past few months, but the bulk of the work has been done this past week- all together in a small rehearsal room. We'd play our songs and then Josh would rip them apart- telling us what drum fill didn't sit right with him, what section went on a little too long, etc. There will be more production ideas coming from all of us in the studio over the next few weeks, but this was the preparatory week- the true "pre-pro". It's an interesting situation to be in. We've never worked with a real producer before- you kinda have to open yourself up to the idea, and embrace the fact that an outside set of ears can approach your music much more objectively than you ever could. A producer can suggest an idea that completely reinvents a song, and you immediately love it - and they can also suggest a minuscule change that throws the whole composition off, in your mind. But again, it's about allowing that new opinion into the process and seeing where it takes you. It's been a great experience, thus far.

We arrived in MPLS this past Monday evening, and after briefly settling in to our lovely little rental house, we headed straight to the rehearsal space with Josh. We've been there every day since, fine-tuning our latest….tunes. Tomorrow we load in to the recording studio, get set up, and begin tracking! Wish us luck. We can't wait to share "Vexations" with you!

MAY 7 & MAY 12!

Our Triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) shows are going to be few and far between this year, but we have two chances to hang before we head off to Minneapolis in a couple of weeks:

-We just added a show this Saturday, May 7th at Lincoln Theater in Raleigh: The BandTogether Benefit / Third Eye Blind afterparty! 3EB, Dillon Fence, Lonnie Walker, and US Royalty will be playing a street show outside the Lincoln from 6-11pm - as soon as the main show is over at 11, we'll begin playing a special 2-hour afterparty set in the main venue. Admission to our show will be free to those who attended the street show, but if you wanna swing by at 11 just to catch us, it'll be $5. Tons more info can be found here!

-We're still pumped about opening for Thursday and Pygmy Lush next Thursday, May 12th at Cat's Cradle! Get your tickets now!

-And of course we'd be foolish to not remind our Minnesota friends to get their tickets to our June 2nd Triple Rock show with Farewell Continental!

-Summer east coast tour dates coming soon!

ALBUM RELEASE SHOW - TOMORROW!!!

Tomorrow (FRIDAY APRIL 22) is the big day- our "Preludes" album release party!

We'll have the album for sale on CD and LP, admission is still dirt cheap if you buy your tickets online right now ($4 in advance vs $7 at the door!), and Prisms & Antibubbles will be starting the night off right @ 9:30! Please join us at Local 506 in Chapel Hill for this all ages happyfuntime!

We've been away for weeks and we're about to leave again, so we really want to see your lovely faces- let's do this!

IWTDI tour blog, Volume 9 (Day 20), 12 April

On the drive to Medford, we encountered our first snow. And hail. And more hail. And sub-freezing temperatures. We rocked a really fun set filled with songs we really needed to work on for the upcoming Vexations album as well as songs we want to bust out from Preludes, in front of maybe three people we didn’t know/were traveling with. Weeknight in a town where no one has heard of us or really goes out at night for that matter. We had a good time and a great opportunity to work on things. We spent the night in town and set our course for Portland Friday morning.

We tried hard to not have many days without shows. Booking is the least fun part of being in a band, and while our luck has been pretty good, we had a Friday with no show, and that’s always hard to swallow. We were lucky though that Greyday helped us out with a chance to play on the radio at KPSU, Portland State University’s radio station. We busted out a fun set of acoustic songs and had the evening free to pursue our respective fancies. We grabbed some incredible food at Slingshot, and then some of us went out partying and some of us stayed at the house to catch up on things or rest.

We were lucky enough to have a great place to stay the two nights we were in Portland. An old friend Christa had some room in her cute house in town, and she let us more or less have the run of it while she set about her task of righting wrongs and making the world a better place. We crashed out Friday night and got ready for a busy day Saturday.

Saturday afternoon, we did a set of five full rocking songs for an upcoming podcast . That took us a little longer than expected, so we ended up being a little late to our load in at Mississippi Studios. We pride ourselves on punctuality and professionalism, so we were eager to get there despite our outdated GPS trying to kill us. John’s GPS is better than mine. We should have brought his!

Mississippi Studios was a blast! It was our last night with The Trophy Fire, and our last night hanging with Todd from Greyday. We rocked an early show that had us getting out of there by 10, and then we partied down and annoyed those around us for a few hours before parting ways . The next day was another day off, so we slept in, hung out with Christa for a hot second, toured the Greyday offices, helped ourselves to a few free cd’s, drove to Voodoo Doughnuts (leaving due to the prohibitive line going partway around the building), and headed as far as we could towards Salt Lake City.

IWTDI tour blog, Volume 8 (Day 18), 10 April

We arrived at El Rio in San Francisco to see a building on fire a few blocks away. We took the chance to both relish the beauty of the conflagration and reflect on the obvious tragedy. We hope that no one was hurt, but at the risk of sounding insensitive, it was a fairly awesome sight. Fire crews were there from right when we arrived until right when we left. SFFD did a great job.

By the way, being in and around San Francisco inspired me to irritate the band with constant but varying renditions of the Monk theme song, one of many great Randy Newman jingles. I personally believe that to be annoyed is to feel very much alive, so I try to keep my bandmates as annoyed as possible as often as possible. Because as we all know, it’s a jungle out there…Disorder and confusion everywhere…

The show at El Rio was a lot of fun. We played with Shuteye Unison and Silian Rail, the latter of which features John’s old friend Eric Kuhn. El Rio is divided with a straight up bar on one side, a nice, open patio out back, and a stage in a separate room next door. It’s a really great setting for a show. We had played there the last time we came through, except on that occasion, a July 4th party/festival, we had set up facing the patio instead of the house of the club. It’s a fine place to play regardless of which way you face, and we finished the night ecstatic to have played in front of people again.





We spent our last night in California and headed out of town early enough in the morning to ship out a mail order (yep, even when we’re on the road you can buy our stuff!) and take Joe across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then we stopped at the Marin Headlands, and John showed us some of his old stomping grounds. Being a fan of both ruins/urban decay and old military installations, seeing some of these places was almost spiritual for me, just like the old ruins I saw at Point Lobos on the west side of town. We spent some time there and then head out of California. We had spent a week there, and while we enjoyed it tremendously, actually leaving the state felt like we were making real tour progress. At least for me, it felt like we had been stagnant for a while. Plus, I love Oregon. On to Medford. More soon!

STREAM THE NEW ALBUM!

The new album, Preludes, is out TODAY on CD, LP, and digital. Pick it up from your favorite record store or online retailer. Also, you can listen to the whole f-ing album for free here: http://www.undertheradarmag.com/media/premiere_preludes_album_stream

Enjoy! Much love from the road.

IWTDI tour blog, Volume 7 (Day 18), 10 April – NEW TRAILER AND BALANCE IN THE UNIVERSE

Man, it’s really hard to keep this blog up to date! We’re in the van driving from Portland to Boise, and as far as you know, we’re still in California! Oh well, better that we blog chronologically and just try to catch up. There hasn’t been a lot of time for photos or video compiling, but as we take them, we’ll try to post them! The one thing about this tour, even with several days without shows, we’re moving constantly. I think between John and myself, we’d kill for six hours with nowhere to go and nothing to do. That won’t happen anytime soon though, so we’ll just keep doing our best to keep you caught up.

We left the L.A. area to play one more show in San Francisco before finally heading out of California. We had seen a half dozen trailers and called two dozen trailer stores. We knew the exact trailer we wanted but the price was prohibitive. So we decided to head straight for the trailer dealership that had the 2600 dollar trailer, and over the course of the five hour trip, we researched and called every trailer and RV store along our route in Oregon where there’s no sales tax. We even tried to call Wells Cargo’s headquarters to see if they could tell us which dealerships had our trailer model in stock, but they close at 5 eastern and we never really got the hang of the time difference. So in the end we spent all day trying to locate a trailer that doesn’t exist outside of 101 Trailer Sales in Aromas, CA.

We got to our place and got the wheels rolling, so to speak. Our hitch was too low and our ball was too small (wah), but the wiring was righteous, and with a few small modifications we had ourselves a brand new trailer. Brad at 101 Trailer Sales was so nice that he actually arranged with a friend at U-Haul for us to leave our rental trailer at his place to be picked up sometime in the near future.

We want to thank several people for helping us through this ordeal. U-Haul was accommodating and let us hold the trailer for as long as we needed and leave it wherever we had to. Brad the trailer guy was super nice and helpful and never pushed us too hard to buy the trailer. The trailer itself is a hunk of magical awesomeness, each wheel with its own shocks, 15 inch tires, and a load capacity far greater than we will ever need. Most of all though, we have to thank Greyday Records and Todd Berry because HE BOUGHT THE TRAILER FOR US. We’re already way in the hole to Todd for everything he’s done for us, but he didn’t hesitate to get us on the road quickly, and even though we know he didn’t want to throw 2700 dollars (with tax and accessories) at a trailer for us, he did it, and it just goes to show you how great we have it right now. Todd’s the king of the world and we will remain in his debt forever!

So trailer woes solved, we rocked it to San Francisco and onward. And onward. And onward…

IWTDI tour blog, Volume 6 (Day 18), 10 April

The Ventura show was pretty decent. We had a good time and played in front of some friends. Long Beach was the next day and it was fairly meh. We played with good bands, and we had a lot of fun, but the turnout was paltry and it was the first night of the whole tour that we didn’t get paid anything or sell any merch. At the time, it was a little frustrating, but looking back on it, for that to be the ONLY show of the tour so far that we didn’t recoup anything speaks well for the overall good fortune and supernatural booking abilities this band has! Silver linings are the bomb!

Between the Ventura show and the Long Beach shows, we managed to get ourselves into Los Angeles proper. We really wanted to show Joe the L.A. Guitar Center, we had a few hours to kill, and we needed to get the van’s oil changed and such. I waited near the van while we got the work done, and the rest of the band went over and tried to experience the vintage guitar room. Unfortunately the vintage guitar room was closed for some kind of film shoot (whaaaaaaaaaat? In Hollywooooooood?) and thus began poor Joey’s 24 hours of misery.

We met up with Todd Berry, owner of Greyday Records, in Ventura and Long Beach, and he joined us for part of our travels. He got his own hotel room in Camarillo, CA where we were staying and Joe opted to take the second bed. Little did he know, the bed had already been claimed by a very large family of bedbugs. But that’s his story to tell, and hopefully he will publish a blog post about it. Someday he will look back and laugh about the whole thing. For now, we can all revel in his personal tragedy!

On Wednesday, we hit the road for San Francisco again, and set about one more time to procure a trailer. Stay tuned!

ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT!

Only two days left to get our album subscription package for a mere $25!

IWTDI tour blog, Volume 5 (Day 14), 6 April TRAILER SHOPPING BLUES

Monday morning, we left San Francisco earlier than we might have wanted to, but we had trailers to buy. We had been calling all over, and Rachel had been getting some very quick lessons on trailer makes and models. We had been working with a big trailer chain called Trailers Plus or something like that, and we thought we had a plan. We drove to a town called Gilroy on the 101, expecting to buy a trailer for about 1600 bucks. Sadly (for them) the trailer store we went to had just decided to be closed on Mondays, so we were stuck with a U-Haul and nothing else. We didn’t have time to sit around though, so we hit the road towards Ventura and decided to google and call trailer stores along the way.

There are lots of trailer stores out there. And there are lots of trailers. And they are all kind of expensive, but they are also very hit or miss in terms of quality. Of course we had just lost a trailer so we knew some of that, but we must have hit six different places over the next few hours. The second or third one we hit was tucked away just off the road, but it was the kind of place you would just drive past without noticing. Somehow I saw out of the corner of my eye some really nice trailers, and so we did a couple of U-turns and came back around.

This place had the trailer of our dreams! But it was around 2600 dollars, just way too expensive for us to think about buying. But looking at it, the trailer gave us a very clear idea of what we needed to look for in terms of size, suspension, tongue, hitch, etc. We hit the road again, hearing tale of an elusive, comparable trailer for almost half the price a few hours south in Paso Robles.

We drove the two hours to Paso Robles to find a nice little 4X6 trailer, made by the same company (Wells Cargo), but the thing was crazy flimsy. It seemed like an errant stone could pierce the shell of this thing like a thin pane of glass.



Thwarted, we continued down towards Ventura, calling places ahead of us and finding nothing. It began to dawn on us that if we really want a trailer that would make the trip, protect our gear, etc, we would have to be willing to spend the money. If we had the benefit of time, we might be able to find something cheaper but we have business to conduct.

This is where our incredible label comes in. We called Todd, owner of Greyday Records, telling him that we were in trailer trouble and that we might need help affording a new one. He did not hesitate to say he would help us out. This guy is amazing, putting the same skin in the game that we’re putting. We do this together, succeed or fail. Anyway, our plan was to meet up with him in Ventura and bring him home to Portland, so he came in just at the right time to help us resolve this.

The U-Haul has been great. It has been easy to use even though it’s way too long. We can fit all of our gear into it, and it doesn’t bounce like the last trailer did. But we are eager to have a trailer of our own again. By the time we got to Ventura, we were still empty handed though, so it looked like we would still be waiting. Stay tuned for the rest of the story!

IWTDI tour blog, Volume 4 (Day 14), 6 April

Saturday we got to San Francisco intact, and we played a superfun show at Hemlock Tavern with The Trophy Fire and Glass Trains. Then we split up, Joe and Curtis staying with our good friend Ben, and John and Rachel sleeping with our friend Jamie. I slept in the van, of course! Those chilly NoCal nights are right for me, and I found a spot near Diane Feinstein’s residence, which had its very own security guard. Prime real estate for van sleeping in a big city.




Sunday was a day off from playing shows, but not a day off. I woke up early and when to this amazing little spot by the water where some cliff dwellers had set up dwellings and a giant set of pools. It was spectacular and I felt all renewed and ready for the day. Then I realized that I had locked my keys in the van. I spent the next hunk of time waiting to be rescued by John and Rachel, driving a car that Jamie has graciously let us use for the day. I did make it back to Jamie’s in time for crepes and some songwriting.

Jamie McGoldrick is an amazing fellow and a very talented songwriter. He played in Io with John back in the day, and John has never lost his admiration for Jamie’s skills. Jamie has been toying around with a song called Save Your Life for some time, and John likes the song so much that he asked Jamie if we could have a crack at it. Jamie said sure, and since then we have been working out a version of the song. That Sunday morning, John, Rachel, and Jamie sat down with some acoustic guitars and started ironing out all the bugs and putting the song together. Then we did some laundry, walked around Haight Street, and picked up some pizza before heading out to Jamie’s practice space in South San Fran to work Save Your Life out as a full band.

We had originally worked off a little demo that Jamie had given us, but we got a couple of things wrong, and we got the song sounding great in a few different ways. We rocked out some, we tried quieter versions, we just played with it, something we don’t do a ton of at home. It was great working with Jamie, and we look forward to recording the song in May up in Minneapolis. We got some drinks at a nice bar near Jamie’s place, and I ate some kickass late night Thai food. We went to bed somewhat well rested and ready for our trip back down to SoCal. We still had a trailer snafu to work out…

UPDATE FROM JOHN!

Hello from California! Tour has been fun, interesting, hectic, disastrous, tragic, beautiful, and rocking so far. It's all been nuts and there's so much going on in IWTDI-world that it's been really hard for us to keep up. James will continue filling our fine readers in on the day-to-day, but let's do a run-down of what's up with other thangs:

1. Our music video for our new song, "Fight/Flight", premiered on Under The Radar last week. If you still haven't seen it, check it out below and tell your friends!



2. We've had a couple of changes to our upcoming shows. The Salt Lake City show on 4/11 has been moved from Burt's Tiki Lounge to Bar Deluxe, which is a better spot with a better bill, so yay! We've also just added a live radio performance on kpsu.org in Portland from 4-6pm on this Friday, 4/8. In sad news, the awesome Party House have had to jump off our Minneapolis show, but will be replaced by another local in the next couple of days. MPLS peeps- if you have any ideas, let us know- I know a bunch of you have hit us up about this before- so if you want to play with us- let's do it! Just stay tuned to our schedule, wherever you follow it- we'll keep it all up to date with the forthcoming changes...

3. Our big homecoming performance on 4/22 at Local 506 in Chapel Hill is also our album release party. We'll be joined by Prisms & Antibubbles, and couldn't be more excited about it! We highly recommend getting your tickets in advance, and we're offering an extra incentive to do so: advance tickets will be available through local506.com very soon for $4, whereas they'll be $7 at the door. Unlike a lot of advanced sales, you actually DO save money if you pay the $4 plus service charge, so get that shit! Let's make this a party to remember, y'all! Tell your friends. (I'll post an update as soon as the tickets go live!)
EDIT: TICKETS ARE LIVE! GET 'EM!

4. Our new album, "Preludes", comes out next Tuesday, 4/12. There are only a couple more days to get our pre-order subscription package (with an instant download of the whole damn thing, right now!) on vinyl or CD for the super low price of $25ppd. That gets you our two upcoming full length albums, plus tons of free bonus goodies! After 4/12, the package will still be available, but the price will jump to $30. Get it now!

5. Thanks for reading! We love you!

IWTDI tour blog, Volume 3 (Day 13), 5 April FAULTY TRAILER BLUES

Where to begin? The show in San Diego was great! We had a good crowd, saw some friends, and had a place to sleep that was comfy. We played with dogs, ate some burritos, and got up way early to make the trip all the way up to San Francisco. And then…

We went out to the van to hit the road, and we noticed that our trailer was starting to look funny. The front of the trailer was bending the tongue of the trailers hitch and while we had noticed a few days earlier, the damage seemed to have increased slightly. We hit the road anyway.

About an hour up I-5, we stopped for some in and out burger and a quick pee break. Upon going back out to the van, the trailer seemed worse than it had been. I was already looking kind of bad but we couldn’t tell if it had gotten worse. So we busted out a piece of paper and marked it so that we could check again down the road. We hit the road again.

About two hours later, we stopped for gas. The trailer looked terrible. We were about 30 minutes south of Bakersfield at this point. We got the piece of paper out again, and the front end of the trailer was a good inch and a half lower, the bottom of the trailer about 4 inches off the ground. When it was new, it was more like a foot. We decided that we couldn’t make it to San Francisco and started looking for U-Haul places. We found a place in Bakersfield, so we hit the highway with our stupid, poorly built trailer one last time, 40mph and hazards flashing.
By the time we got to the U-Haul place, the trailer was done. We scraped the bejabbers out of it pulling into the parking lot and Totally Destroyed the wiring harness. We managed to get it off the van, went to a nearby auto parts store, bought a new wiring harness and rewired the van. We paid for the trailer, a giant, 4x8 with a 6 foot tongue, loaded it up and hit the road again, now roughly the length of a city bus, about to drive into one of the most hilly and turny cities in the country. And then, we started looking up trailers to buy.

We’ll upload a few pictures of our wounded soldier (traitor?) as soon as we can get them up! But for now that’s episode one of the trailer saga.

IWTDI tour blog, Volume 2 (Day9), 1 April

We’ve been crazy busy the last several days so we’re way behind on the blog posting. You’re about to get an avalanche of them, so check back!




We made it to Las Cruces and I made it to the house in which I spent two of my childhood years. It was nice, but what really drove it all home was seeing the tiny convenience store where I used to buy candy. I remember picking up discarded aluminum cans and giving them to my parents to recycle, then taking the money to Scotty’s II for candy and video games. I also remember riding my motorcycle for hours on end in the vast New Mexico desert, but not surprisingly, the area had been taken over by developers in the 27 years since I had left.








The drive from Las Cruces to Tucson was uneventful, which is awesome! We drove through a border patrol checkpoint, but were let right through. I find that odd. I’m glad we didn’t get searched, but I am surprised that our tinted van, loaded to the hilt with gear, and our little trailer with the iron cross tail lights didn’t raise a red flag.

We got to Tucson early enough to Priceline a hotel and catch some rest. I rarely nap, but I turned the AC on in my room and immediately crashed out, for nearly two hours! We played a place in Tucson called The Red Room at Grill. We got some amazing free food and some cold, tasty free beer. There weren’t a ton of people there, but we had been given a really nice write-up in the local weekly and online, and so the people that were there were super friendly and eager to spend some time with us! The room was on the small side, and they prefer a slightly quieter sound, so we set upon the task of trying to figure out what to play. I think we did a good job: Come Out, Come Out; Favorite Haunt; All Get Lucky*; Cup of Tea; Fight_Flight*; Actors**; Outside Blinds**; Save Your Life**; Blood on Film**; The Ocean

In many ways, we might have actually preferred the quieter set! I didn’t overpower anyone, everyone could hear, John and Rachel could sing without screaming. It was a nice change. For my part though, I look forward to hitting hard and building a sweat again. We’re on our way to San Diego now. More to come!

*: From Preludes, out April 12!
**: From Vexations, out later this year!

IWTDI Tour Blog

Here are a couple of quick peeks inside the IWTDI touring life! Enjoy!

MARCH 30 (Day 7), IWTDI Tour Blog, Vol. 1 -

Sorry we haven’t written! It has been very difficult to get into a tour groove this time around.

We’ve toured to the west coast and back before, but this time around, we have so much to do every day (our video for Fight_Flight came out yesterday, Preludes comes out in less than two weeks), and so little reliable internet access that we feel a little out of touch and therefore a little out of sorts. Starting now we are going to try to turn that around and give our friends, family, and fans some updates on how things are going! This first blog post is going to be superlong! Bear with me.

We’ve had some good shows and some minor setbacks so far. We kicked this whole thing off with an exceptional show in Raleigh at Tir Na Nog. Many thanks to everyone who came out! It meant so much to us that so many people wanted to see us off and wish us safe travels! We set out for tour “proper” on Friday afternoon and enjoyed a fun show at North River Tavern in Sandy Springs, GA, a little suburb of Atlanta. Neat venue, good food (NACHO MOUNTAIN!), and a decent built-in crowd, and the tour was on its way.

Saturday took us to Auburn, AL, and The Independent. We played here a little less than a year ago, and both times now have been a blast! Auburn folk are very welcoming, and, The Independent treats bands exceptionally well. Things were going very well up to this point, but it wouldn’t be a tour without glitches and those aforementioned minor setbacks.

Sunday was a hard day. We were just starting to get into the swing of things when we found out our venue in Houston was canceling our show because, as they told us, we hadn’t done enough to promote it. We made a facebook event, we sent posters to the venue, we booked our own local bands, and we saw numerous listings for the show online, and somehow this wasn’t enough for Mango’s. One would think that a music venue would have SOME vested interest in promoting their own events, but apparently, Mango’s has a different perception of how the business works. I suppose they think the band that lives 1000 miles away can do a better job of getting word out in their town than they can.

As if that wasn’t frustrating enough, John’s amp blew during our set in at Siberia in New Orleans. One of the staff at Siberia hooked us up with an amp repair guy and we spent Monday, our newfound day off in NOLA trying to get the amp fixed and seeking free wireless. It took all day but never quite got 100% put back together, and kept blowing fuses. We did end up making it out to Lafayette, LA on Monday to spend the night before heading to Austin, even though the hotel we reserved through Hotels.com somehow didn’t take and we had to haggle with the lady at Red Roof to give us a cheap room.

We arrived in Austin to an eagerly anticipated show at Emo’s. It did not disappoint! We had a great, enthusiastic crowd, free 22oz Kirin Lights, a sound man who loved us almost as much as he loves reverb, and another hotel that didn’t recognize our hotel reservation, this time through priceline. We’ve wasted many hours trying to hold various hotels and hotel brokers to live up to their words, and while it has eventually worked out every time, it’s a horrible way to spend 2AM in any town.

This brings us to today! First thing, we took the amp to a music store in Austin called Austin Vintage Guitars, and they addressed a laundry list of issues brought about by years of jury rigging by local technicians. I managed to score myself a pound of incredible brisket from a place in Junction, TX, and we drove through a town called Fredericksburg, which was basically a little slice of Germany cut out from the fatherland and plopped down in remotest Texas. Tonight we will try to make it to Las Cruces, NM (where I lived for nearly two years in the early 80’s), before hitting up Tucson tomorrow for our next show. Hopefully the hotel will be ready for us! I might try to find my old house!

Pictures and movies soon, but here's a little taste!

FIGHT/FLIGHT MUSIC VIDEO

Our new music video for "Fight/Flight" off of Preludes (Out 4/12 on Greyday Records!) is being hosted exclusively via Under The Radar. Please go check it out here and tell all your friends to do the same!

Thanks so much! Enjoy!

POST-SXSW

I'm writing from a hotel room in Birmingham, AL. Not just any hotel room- the nicest hotel room I have been able to rent in many, many years. Priceline dot com is a real thing.

We're on our way home from SXSW- whan an experience! I don't know what to say yet, but we can definitely call it a success, and a blast because we got to hang with the awesome people who believe in us- our support system, if you will: Todd Berry from Greyday Records, Dave, Amy, and Andy from Deep South Artist Management, everyone at Team Clermont PR, and Mike Locke from Rhino/Warner Licensing. Thanks to all of you for helping make this trip possible and so incredibly enjoyable. And thanks to all the new friends we made at the festival- and everyone who watched our set! Oh, and go listen to our new friends/favorite band- Street Chant from New Zealand.

Here are a couple of pieces about our SXSW journey that were shown on News 14 Carolina in NC and YNN in Austin, if you missed them:
Pre-SXSW
Post-SXSW

We are nervous and excited about playing South By Southwest for the first time! We're not big festival people, erring on the side of claustrophobia and wanting to avoid hubbub in most of it's forms, but this is a great opportunity for us to get our name out there and hopefully come away with some people of potential influence humming one of our songs.

It's difficult to talk about writing and performing music as a business. Just bringing up the idea that making music can be more than just a fun thing can make one into an anathema among his peers, but the fact that this is an INDUSTRY festival can not be ignored. If we just wanted to make music about town, play for beer and beer money, and simply have fun, we wouldn't have all quit our jobs and bought a trailer! We DO have fun when we rock out, even when we travel together, but we're here in Austin because for us, the 44 hours of total drive time for one 40 minute set and the $1500 expense are worth it if one person of influence takes a liking to the music.

We are very fortunate to have a label and a manager who have put as much work into promoting this festival with us as they have. Dave Rose at Deep South Entertainment and Todd Berry at Greyday Records have put tremendous effort into letting the right people know where and when we play. Well, the right people, business-wise, not THE right people. The right people are our friends and fans, so let us update you on our situation:

We play at the Easy Tiger, 709 E. Sixth St. at 10:00 PM. We originally said Habana Calle 6, but apparently they moved across the street from where we're actually playing. So it's Easy Tiger, out on the patio. You go in, find the stairs to the right, take them down, head out the back door, and there you are! There are lots of great shows going on, and we hope that folks consider us one of them!

To all of our peeps at home, we love and miss you, and we'll see you soon! BOOSH!

SPRING TOUR!

It's almost here. That map is looking pretty outta control. A few more dates to come....





IWTDI SPRING TOUR 2011
MAR 17 - HABANA CALLE 6 PATIO (EASY TIGER) (SXSW- TEAM CLERMONT SHOWCASE), AUSTIN, TX
MAR 24 - TIR NA NOG, RALEIGH, NC
MAR 25 - NORTH RIVER TAVERN, SANDY SPRINGS, GA
MAR 26 - THE INDEPENDENT, AUBURN, AL
MAR 27 - SIBERIA, NEW ORLEANS, LA
MAR 28 - MANGO'S CAFE, HOUSTON, TX
MAR 29 - EMO'S, AUSTIN, TX
MAR 30 - TBA, NEW MEXICO
MAR 31 - THE RED ROOM, TUCSON, AZ
APR 01 - SODA BAR, SAN DIEGO, CA
APR 02 - HEMLOCK TAVERN, SAN FRANCISCO, CA
APR 03 - (DAY OFF)
APR 04 - BILLY O'S, VENTURA, CA
APR 05 - THE BLUE CAFE UNDERGROUND, LONG BEACH, CA
APR 06 - EL RIO, SAN FRANCISCO, CA
APR 07 - JOHNNY B'S, MEDFORD, OR
APR 08 - TBA, ASTORIA, OR
APR 09 - MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS, PORTLAND, OR
APR 10 - TBA, IDAHO
APR 11 - BURT'S TIKI LOUNGE, SALT LAKE CITY, UT
APR 12 - ROCK N SOUL CAFE, BOULDER, COLORADO
APR 13 - SLOWDOWN, OMAHA, NE
APR 14 - VAUDEVILLE MEWS, DES MOINES, IA
APR 15 - THE BEAT, MINNEAPOLIS, MN
APR 16 - RECORD STORE DAY ACOUSTIC SHOW, DAVE'S RECORDS, CHICAGO, IL
APR 16 - ELBO ROOM, CHICAGO, IL
APR 17 - LEMMON'S, ST LOUIS, MO
APR 18 - SOUTHGATE HOUSE, NEWPORT, KY
APR 21 - SESSIONS AT STUDIO B BROADCAST, RALEIGH, NC
APR 22 - LOCAL 506, CHAPEL HILL, NC ---> ALBUM RELEASE SHOW!!!

SXSW!

If you're going to be at SXSW, we'd love to see you at the Easy Tiger Patio on March 17th (celebrate St Patrick's Day with us!) at 10pm SHARP! You should reeeeally follow this link to learn more, and oh, hear a brand new IWTDI song that you might not have heard yet!

If you're NOT going to be at SXSW, but instead you're hear in NC- we're playing a fantastic show at King's this Saturday night (March 5) w/Wesley Wolfe & Bright Young Things. Hope to see you!!

REGULATORS!

We're proud to present the first single from our upcoming album, Preludes! The track is called "Regulators" and you can stream it right here:

Regulators by Destroying It

Preludes is due out on 4.12.11 and as you may know, it will be the first of two full-length albums we'll be issuing this year. Because of this, and because we like to make things cost-effective and give you as much bang-for-your-buck as possible: starting today you can join the I Was Totally Destroying It 2011 Subscription Club via our label, Greyday Records. If you're a fan of the band and had planned to purchase our upcoming releases in ANY format- then this is the way to go!

Not only does the $25ppd price get you both Preludes and the follow-up album Vexations on your choice of CD or vinyl (be sure to choose the correct option in the Greyday Store!), but you also get TONS of free extras including:
-Instant download of "Control", from the upcoming album Preludes
-Pre-release download of the digital single Regulators (due out 3.15), featuring non-album track "Halloween"
-Early download of the full-length Preludes before its release on 4.12
-A download of the video for "Fight/Flight" with the download of Preludes
-Preludes, mailed to your address, along with some special free goodies, by 3.21
-Get Big 7" vinyl single (ships with Preludes)
-Download of Vexations, the second full length album due in late 2011, before street date
-Vexations mailed to your address two+ weeks before official release, along with MORE free goodies direct from the band- such as a hand-screened/dyed tote bag
-Throughout the year, various rare and exclusive IWTDI mp3's, etc sent via download code

Standard Preludes pre-orders are also available for CD or vinyl as well, but again, you can't beat the $25.00 postage paid price for both albums (plus MUCH MORE)! Act fast on this stuff- the price will go up on the subscription packages after April 12th. Visit the Greyday Store for all the info and to place your orders!

We hope you enjoy the new music and can't wait to see you all on tour this spring/summer!

RACHEL IS 21!

Motorco, Durham. Tonight. $5. IWTDI, Free Electric State, The Sammies, Wesley Wolfe. It's Rachel's birthday! Let's do this!!!

COMING SOON...

A little tease of our upcoming music video....

(Awesome photography by Beth Ely)











...coming in just a few weeks...

PRELUDES!

2011...

Hello dear friends! We kicked off 2010 with a post telling you all of our nutty plans for the year, so I figured one year later was a good time to play catch up - sound good? Good!

I'd like to thank all of you who followed our YouTube video series throughout 2010. It's not finished yet, as the plan was to start at the beginning of writing a new album(which turned into two albums!), and follow through until its completion. We're actually very lucky to have a couple different entities -both far more talented in the field of videography than us- taking over for our upcoming vignettes. Our last YouTube post brought us up to the end of 2010, and these will cover a lot of what's to come this spring. And of course we'll be heavily documenting our time in Minneapolis this May & June- the final stages of the project! Am I making sense? No? Then everything is as it should be, child!

Before we move on, I do just want to add that I believe we've already accomplished what we set out to do with these goofy little videos. I recently re-watched the first couple of entries from the beginning of 2010. Simply seeing the evolution of what we thought we were doing and creating back then, compared to summer 2010, or now- that's exactly what I hoped to capture- the changes in the process and our intentions. I knew the story would snake out and lose focus and there would be distractions but yet it would all twirl back around into something much more concrete and viable- and here we are. We have a finished album that we had no idea we'd be making- it's called "Preludes" and it's out 4/12/11 on Greyday Records. There will be a lot more on that emerging in the next couple of weeks- a LOT more. A month after that album hits the streets, we'll be heading to Minneapolis, MN for a month to record the album we were initially working towards- "Vexations" - due out at the end of the year, also on Greyday. We'll be recording with Josh Cain producing and Ed Ackerson engineering at his gorgeous Flowers Studio. I hate to get ahead of myself and be further self-indulgent, but "Preludes" is the best album we've recorded to date and we already can tell that "Vexations" is the best collection of songs we've ever assembled. So, fuck. This is going to be a good year!

On that note, I want to tell you that we're pretty much picking up and leaving. Road warriors, we shall be. While not recording in MPLS, we plan to be mobile as much as humanly possible throughout 2011. Jobs are being quit, houses are being sold, risks are being risked. All for rock and or roll!

And none of this craziness is possible without you awesome people who are bothering to read this nonsense. This thing we call IWTDI has become so entrenched in our lives that we have no choice but to pursue it even harder, knowing full well that the music business is a rotting, fickle bitch. If you can find it in your heart to help us pay for gas on our upcoming tour, we're selling tons of t-shirts, cd's, records, etc. for mega-cheap in our merch store (Isn't it telling that spell check just changed "merch" to "mercy"?) - and all the money we make there goes straight to the gas tank! That means the money we make at the shows can sooner buy us that $5 footlong that's just mocking us from behind the Subway counter….

Anywho! "Tour?", you say? Yes! Tour!

Firstly, we just got added, last minute, to the infamous SXSW festival in Austin, TX! Sadly, this prevents us from playing our planned U2 tribute set at Casbah here in Durham, NC on St Patrick's Day (we apologize for any inconvenience- and if there are any bands in NC who want to play some fun Irish covers in our place, please let me or Casbah know!). Instead, we'll be playing that night on the Team Clermont showcase at the Habana Calle 6 Patio. 10pm! We hope to see you there, Austin! I believe we'll be adding a couple more SXSW appearances in the coming days as well- stay tuned.

But the main enchilada is our spring tour. See below! The remainder of the west coast dates will be announced soon, as well as the few other random TBA's. If we're not hitting your province on this run, fear not- as I said, road warriorz! We look forward to seeing you all this year. Thank you so much for your support, and wish us luck!

IWTDI SPRING TOUR 2011
MAR 17 - HABANA CALLE 6 PATIO (EASY TIGER) (SXSW- TEAM CLERMONT SHOWCASE), AUSTIN, TX
MAR 24 - TIR NA NOG, RALEIGH, NC
MAR 25 - NORTH RIVER TAVERN, SANDY SPRINGS, GA
MAR 26 - THE INDEPENDENT, AUBURN, AL
MAR 27 - SIBERIA, NEW ORLEANS, LA
MAR 28 - MANGO'S CAFE, HOUSTON, TX
MAR 29 - EMO'S, AUSTIN, TX
MAR 30 - TBA, NEW MEXICO
MAR 31 - TBA, ARIZONA
APR 01 - SODA BAR, SAN DIEGO, CA
APR 02 - HEMLOCK TAVERN, SAN FRANCISCO, CA
APR 03 - (DAY OFF)
APR 04 - BILLY O'S, VENTURA, CA
APR 05 - THE BLUE CAFE UNDERGROUND, LONG BEACH, CA
APR 06 - EL RIO, SAN FRANCISCO, CA
APR 07 - JOHNNY B'S, MEDFORD, OR
APR 08 - TBA, ASTORIA, OR
APR 09 - MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS, PORTLAND, OR
APR 10 - TBA, IDAHO
APR 11 - BURT'S TIKI LOUNGE, SALT LAKE CITY, UT
APR 12 - ROCK N SOUL CAFE, BOULDER, COLORADO
APR 13 - SLOWDOWN, OMAHA, NE
APR 14 - VAUDEVILLE MEWS, DES MOINES, IA
APR 15 - THE BEAT, MINNEAPOLIS, MN
APR 16 - RECORD STORE DAY ACOUSTIC SHOW, DAVE'S RECORDS, CHICAGO, IL
APR 16 - ELBO ROOM, CHICAGO, IL
APR 17 - LEMMON'S, ST LOUIS, MO
APR 18 - SOUTHGATE HOUSE, NEWPORT, KY
APR 21 - SESSIONS AT STUDIO B BROADCAST, RALEIGH, NC
APR 22 - LOCAL 506, CHAPEL HILL, NC ---> ALBUM RELEASE SHOW!!!

CELEBRATE RACHEL TURNING 21 WITH US!

On Saturday, February 12th, 2011 our very own Rachel Hirsh will finally be old enough to get in to all of the shows she plays!

To celebrate this momentous occasion, we've put together our main Triangle-area show for the winter/spring on her big day at the new/awesome Motorco Music Hall in Durham! Since it's the birthday that means she can finally legally hang out with us at the bars, there will of course be some drink specials... and other goodies for all you fine people(who are of age)!

We've put together an amazing bill featuring some of our favorite bands from NC: first up is WESLEY WOLFE, playing with his full backing band, followed by a rare Triangle appearance by THE SAMMIES from Charlotte, then a special secret guest band who we'll announce a little later, and finally a big headlining set by the birthday girl and the rest of I WAS TOTALLY DESTROYING IT!

DOORS: 8pm
WESLEY WOLFE: 9:00-9:30
THE SAMMIES: 9:50-10:25
(SPECIAL SECRET GUEST BAND) 10:45-11:20
I WAS TOTALLY DESTROYING IT: 11:40

ADMISSION: $5
(ALL AGES!)

Check out the Facebook event and let us know if you'll be able to attend:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=183320745020194

Thanks for reading - we hope to see you there!
Love,
I Was Totally Destroying It