The first thing you need to know is that we have been listening to the following song in the van, on repeat and virtually uninterrupted, for the last three days. I strongly recommend giving it a listen as you peruse this article, as it will greatly enhance the authenticity of your reading experience:

Sorry for the lack of communication. The internet has been an elusive commodity over the last few days. We finished our long and winding journey down the length of America’s most suggestively-shaped state at around 4:30 local time yesterday. Andrew and I have been hearing about Key West for about five months now, and yet we have been woefully underprepared. This town has an interesting vibe. In places, it has the distinctly old-world character of a city like New Orleans or Charleston, but it’s still a beach resort, so you’ll see the occasional knicknack store where you can buy oddly-shaped bottles filled with dyed sand. There is a sense of compactness, of intimacy, that comes from being on such a small island.

Plus, this place be straight crazy. During sound check yesterday, we had to move the van so that a parade of Civil War reenactors could pass by The Green Parrot. A few minutes later, they came into the bar, off duty but in costume and some still in character (at least, I hope that’s why an 84-year-old woman told Zack to “go fuck himself” when he said he didn’t like the confederacy), propped their replica swords against the bar, and rocked with us. If that’s not a good sign, then I don’t know one.

It’s been a good week so far. Golly, it’s been so long I’m having trouble with where I should start. I suppose I should, in good conscience, go back to last weekend and start with Boo Radley’s in Mobile last Friday, but, truth be told, I’m well into the tour time-vortex by now and I’m having trouble remembering details of things further behind me than breakfast. The stage was interesting. It was divided in two small tiers, the first of which was four feet above the dance floor, and the second of which was four feet above that. It was dangerous, and there a few close scrapes, but nobody died.

Saturday, we had all of 18 hours to enjoy the beginning of Mardi Gras New Orleans. Krewe de Vieux, the subversive kickoff of the parade season, was as entertaining as always. We had a good time playing afterwards at Blue Nile, right in the thick of everything, but we had to make it as early a night as possible so we could get up early and make it to our Pensacolan friends Pat and Tara’s house for their Super Bowl party. We had Monday night off in Pensacola, and we spent it celebrating our dear friend Kitt Lough‘s birthday. Tuesday, it was a short drive to Tallahassee, where we received a very warm welcome. It was a very promising first visit, and I’m sure we’ll be back.

Not enough motel sleep later, The Revivalists were Miami-bound. As we were nearing the end of the eight-hour drive, somebody (probably using some kind of newfangled tellyphone-internet) discovered an important piece of information: New Orleans’ own king and queen of the quirked-out dance party, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, were playing at a venue in Miami called The Stage. What makes this all the more fortuitous is that The Stage’s owner, Eric, had seen the band last time we (minus Andrew and me plus other dudes) were in Key West, and so we already had a standing invitation to come check out the space. The room itself is great, and there’s a decent chance I’ll have more to say about it the next time we come down this way…

As for Quintron & Miss Pussycat, well, what can I say? What can ever truly be said about a puppet show about “drops” and oracles that gives way to an organ-driven dance party and, speaking of “organ-driven,” the organ in question is a custom job styled so the side facing the audience looks like a vintage Cadillac, complete with working headlights?

Actually, that.

The next night’s show is Miami was challenging, but fun. We had to contend with pouring rain and the technical issues that are simply unavoidable when trying to put a large band with far too many instruments in a relatively small space, but the bartender, Mario, kept us in good spirits and Araka, the local band with whom we were sharing the bill, was absolutely fantastic. Our friends in New Orleans might be seeing them soon.

And speaking of soon, I need to eat some food and do some Key West stuff.  I haven’t done anything but type today, and, last I checked, I’m still in paradise. So I’ll be leaving you now. Even though I’ll be home next Wednesday, I can’t make any promises for the next few updates because we’ll be arriving at home in the thick of Mardi Gras, and somehow we’ll be shooting our first music video amid the insanity. But please know that it’s all for a good cause. I’ve got to get as much living done as I possibly can before the world ends in 213 days. Have a good one!

POSTSCRIPT: The Green Parrot streams all of its performances live over the internet. If you’re interested, you can watch us at 10:00 PM and 12:30 AM tonight and 5:30 PM tomorrow (ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN TIME ZONE TIMES) at http://greenparrot.com/index.php/bar-cam/

We are proud to offer 3 streaming tracks off City of Sound fo’ free.  Listen here.

You can pre-order the CD ( poster insert included) from our store . Digital orders will be available on or around March 10. Our CD release parties will be

Fayetteville, AR – March 9, George’s Majestic Lounge

New Orleans, LA – March 10, The Blue Nile

Lafayette, LA – March 15, Jefferson St Pub

Austin, TX – March 16, SXSW showcase TBD

Atlanta, GA- March 22, Five Spot

Pensacola, FL – March 23, Vinyl Music Hall

Tuscaloosa, AL March 24, Druid City Arts Fest

For a full listing of tour dates always check out our shows page

I’m going to go ahead and say that this weekend was an unmitigated success.  Friday proved to be our best show in Baton Rouge to date.  There must have been at least 200,000 people crammed into Bogie’s, and we all had a nice little surprise during “Hurricane Winslow” when we realized the audience was singing along so loud that we could hear them onstage.  It was definitely one of those “this is why I want to do this” shows, where it’s all about everybody getting together and feeling as one and just having a good time.

So after all that hippie crap, we still had enough leftover energy to cross the street and have an apartment dance party.  The apartment was set at the back of a complex which I can only assume is occupied exclusively by LSU students who don’t mind when their neighbors blast Michael Jackson at four in the morning.

PROTIP: “Well, it’s too late to buy beer, but we’ve got this bottle of rum that we can pass around” is a horrible idea.

Awesome diner breakfast the next morning was entirely necessary.  We were in a few different places when we woke up on Sunday, so, despite our plans to get up (relatively) early and experience Lafayette, we didn’t start to make our way out of Baton Rouge until after five.  Fortunately it was a short drive and our set-up at Blue Moon Café was relatively minimal, so we arrived in Lafayette in time to sound check, eat dinner, and even sneak in a few van-naps before the show.

We were surprised to find that we were not opening for Lost Bayou Ramblers, as we initially thought, but that they would be playing first.  It kind of made sense though, because we were so much louder than them and that tends to be the natural progression of music shows.  Which is not to say that the Lost Bayou Ramblers could be considered less energetic or awesome than we are.  They were perfectly suited for the semi-outdoor hoedown vibe at Blue Moon, and good heavens are they a great band.  At one point I actually ran away from a conversation so I could return to the stage area to watch them cover “My Generation.”  In French.

Then it was our turn!  According to a banner hanging over the stage, our friends Toby and Paige were both celebrating their 21st birthdays (call it a “soft 21″ for Toby, and oddly enough, we’ve seen Paige at a lot of 21+ shows in the past…), so it was a very friendly crowd by the time we took the stage.  We had heard whispers of some noise ordinance that would cause us trouble if we played at our usual volume or stayed onstage past midnight, but we were either lucky or misinformed, because we were able to play at a comfortable level until about 12:30 with no complaints.  As with Baton Rouge, the crowd was tightly packed and fiercely enthusiastic.  And since we had to stop relatively early, we were even able to get home before 4:00 AM, which, in our line of work, is pretty good for a Saturday.

All in all, this was one of the best weekends The Revivalists have ever had in “the rest of Louisiana.”  And now, 2012 begins in earnest.  This upcoming weekend will see us band-ponging from Mobile (Boo Radley’s on Friday) to New Orleans (post Krewe de Vieux at Blue Nile!) to Pensacola for a repeat of last year’s utterly ridiculous (in a good way) Super Bowl Bacchanal at the Baril household.  After that, we’ll be at AJ’s in Tallahassee on Tuesday as we start to work our way back down to Key West.  “Back,” of course, being a relative term, as Andrew and I missed the band’s previous trip to the Southernmost tip of the continental US.

Regardless, what this means is that we’ll be off in the wind somewhere and I may not be able to provide you with a Blog Wednesday next week.  Please don’t kill yourself over it.  Especially since the end of the world is going to do that for you in 223 days anyway.  Either way, don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find time to reconnect with all of you wonderful people over the next week or so.

In the meantime, so you don’t get lonely without me, I’ll be ending this blog with a bit of freedia (not bounce superstar Big Freedia, but rather the combination of the words “free” and “media” for which he/she was undoubtedly named).  As you may recall, a few weeks ago we were visited by our dear Nashvillian friend Jonathan Pears, who joined Dave, Zack and myself in recording an acoustic version of “When I’m Able.”  Well, it is now currently available for your listening pleasure right down at the bottom of this here internet page, along with indisputable photographic evidence that at one point the four of us were all sitting down in front of microphones in the same room.  Enjoy!  See you in sunny Florida!

The Revivalists – When I’m Able (Acoustic)

First, a bit of entirely pleasant business to attend to.  We’ve been ironing out our next trip to Pensacola (late March!  Woooo!) and I realized that two weeks ago, in my hurry to brag about selling out Vinyl in Pensacola, I neglected to mention that we didn’t do it alone.  We were supported by a wonderful Pensacolan group called Timberhawk.  They’re a working band, and they’re capable of performing long cover sets at the local beach haunts, but their original music is also downright fantastic and boy, wouldn’t it be great if they’d play with us again sometime…

Anyway, hi!  How are you?  Good to hear it.  I’m doing great, thanks.  It’s been a crazy little blur of days for The Revivalists.  Green Bar in Tuscaloosa is always entertaining, and that probably goes double for Waffle House after a show.  Late night Waffle House is the kind of place where weirdos tend to come crawling out of the woodwork, and usually I have to spend a few minutes looking around for them before I  remember that I’m sitting at the head of their table.

Woke up in Brimingham on Friday (thanks to Leslie and Jodi for the floor space and clean towels!) and hopped over to Montgomery.  Montgomery, Montgomery.  What a magical place.  We played at a club called Alley Bar, which was an interesting mix of elements.  The venue space was a sort of repurposed parking garage/loading dock type of area with a good sound system, a limited bar and a nice big stage.  It was a pretty big room, and we had a good time filling it with people, sound and friendship.  But then, attached to this venue space, is the main bar area (barea?).

Alley Bar itself is a large, stylish bar with just enough of an upscale feel to not quite seem intimidating.  BUT!  There is even more!  For within this bar is yet another bar.  A sub-bar, if you will.  The sub-bar is a small room completely enclosed by mostly glass where the temperature is kept at a near-freezing temperature (don’t worry, the bar keeps a few gaudy fur coats outside in case you don’t have one) so they can serve shots of various liquors and liqueurs in shot glasses made out of ice.  MADE out of ICE.  And then, when you’re done, you get to throw your ice shot glass on the floor like a peanut shell at a Texas Roadhouse, where it will hopefully shatter in a sufficiently awesome manner.

Three sets and one bottle of cinnamon whiskey later, we were all packed up.  Before heading to our hotel, we decided to actually check out the nightlife for once.  Unfortunately, it was about four in the morning at this point.  Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem.  A mere block away from Alley Bar there was an underground jazz club called Sous la Terre that had all the grit and character of any number of seedy New Orleans dives, with one distinct advantage: When I said “underground,” I didn’t mean “obscure,” or “subversive,” or “illicit” (although at least two of those words certainly apply).  I mean it was literally under the ground, which, as any good geologist will tell you, doesn’t happen very often in New Orleans.

There were two musicians playing while we were there: a keyboardist who was probably in his fifties, and a trumpet player who could have been the other man’s grandfather.  Now, in my opinion, “really old jazz musicians” rank just below “avalanche survivors” in terms of the measure of respect they deserve, so I’m not going to sit here typing words and words about how old this guy was, but he probably didn’t ride his bicycle to the gig.  There was a mysterious blue concoction behind the bar that they served in shot form.  It tasted blue.  The band brought the house down with a rendition of “Lean on Me” and then we were tired and it was time to sleep.

Saturday probably couldn’t have gone much better.  After an uneventful drive back from Montgomery (which is really all we can ask from a drive these days), we arrived at the Howlin’ Wolf, set up, sound checked, and dispersed to clean up for a big night at home.  I admit I was a bit worried about having so many bands on the bill, but the entire thing went off, as far as I could tell, without a hitch.  Unfortunately, I was too busy selfishly attending to my own hygienic and dietary needs to catch some of the earlier bands, but Gold and the Rush, Sun Hotel and Habitat all killed, and then it was our turn.  All I am going to say about our show is thanks to everyone for showing up and thanks again for staying and keeping up the energy and one final thank you for catching Dave when he jumped off of that speaker.

Sunday and Monday were all about Liveset.  We were a bit wary about doing a full-band acoustic performance through two microphones because of how loud and complicated our shows usually are, so Team Liveset was kind enough to indulge us with a little tech rehearsal/run through on Sunday.

With everything in place, we arrived at the French Quarter house on a beautiful Monday afternoon and just had fun.  It feels weird saying this about a show where the audience was watching us from computers in different states, but it was a great way to interact with all of the friends who tuned in to watch.  Despite the lack of a physical audience (apart from eight Liveset people and a few passers-by who watched through the open front door), there was a great sense of togetherness and the show took on an almost conversational tone.  Thanks to Rachel, Ross, Ben the engineer (“Bengineer” for short), Ben the cameraman, Tyler, Sky (possibly Skye), Johanna and Hunter for making the event possible, and thanks to Liveset as a whole for providing such a wonderful platform for artists to connect with audiences.  Hopefully they won’t mind a repeat performance sometime down the line.

Speaking of “down the line,” shows this weekend!  Baton Rouge Friday!  Lafayette Saturday!  Done.  Alright, I’m outta here.  Keep it real.  But also remember that it’s only 329 days til the end of the world, so you’ll need to keep it real with an appropriate sense of urgency.

Welp, first week back!  I forgot how sore my jumping-up-and-down-onstage muscles can get when they don’t receive regular conditioning.  Still, The Revivalists couldn’t have asked for a better first week back from not really playing a whole lot of shows (there is probably a one- or two-word phrase for “not really playing a whole lot of shows” but I don’t know what it is).  Sometimes, terms like “shaking the rust off” get thrown around when one comes back from a break.  However (and I can’t imagine that this would have anything to do with the fact that we spent at least 20 hours at practice over the last two weeks), this weekend was not the case.

Lower calf muscles notwithstanding, we hit the ground running in Orange Beach on Thursday.  The venue, Happy Harbor, had a cool vibe that somehow managed to blend the sensations of an open-air beachfront establishment with an underground basement, and the good folks there couldn’t have been more hospitable.

But Friday, of course, was the main event.  After the longest Pensacola-free stretch in the last two years, we returned.  It was our first show at Vinyl music hall, a high-class room and one of the biggest venues Pensacola has to offer this side of the Civic Center.

We sold it out.

There is a distinct pleasure from having your cornerman (in our case, hustler extraordinaire Dave Glassman, who I am convinced is secretly the mayor of Pensacola) come onstage with a tray of shots and announce that his town deems you worthy of a capacity crowd.  2012 is going to be a wonderful year.

Saturday, Hattiesburg helped cheer us up after the Saints’ glorious tactical retreat from San Francisco (what the hell kind of name is “Candlestick Park,” anyway?), and now we’re just plain chillin’.  We’re all geared up for this weekend, which will, in all likelihood, be fun.  We’ll be hitting Green Bar in Tuscaloosa on Thursday, then hopping over to Montgomery on Friday.  Saturday, we’re back in New Orleans for the second annual Revivalists’ Back from Break Multi-Band Concert Situation (as far as I’m concerned, even that is a better name than “Revivapalooza”) at the Howlin’ Wolf.  There will be approximately 400 bands playing, and all it costs you is $10 with a student ID!  It’s $15 if you’re not a student, but hey, you’ve probably got a college ID lying around somewhere…  Anyway, there are numerous supplementary details contained within the following Facebook event page:

http://www.facebook.com/events/124902664294026/

Lastly, on Monday we’ll be doing something a little different: We’ve been invited to perform stripped-down (the music, not the musicians) on Liveset at 3:30 on Monday afternoon.  Be sure to tune in, because we’re working out some special arrangement of our songs to better fit the mood of the performance.  It’s going to be fun, different, and on the internet!

Well, those are all of my band guy words for this week.  However, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to end today’s entry on a bit of a serious note: 337 days until the Mayan calendar ends, which will absolutely be the end of the world and is not just that calendar’s equivalent of a long cycle of dates ending with large, round number (like back in the year 2000 when the world also ended).  Okay, enough nonsense.  For real this time:

Hello, friends.  Serious Rob here.

Congress (there’s a word that I’ve never used in this blog before) will soon be voting on the a pair of bills called the Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA” for short) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).  The intent of these pieces of legislation is to protect intellectual property by taking a hard stance against online distribution of copyrighted material.  In addition to outlawing websites that intentionally distribute copyrighted material (fair enough), SOPA/PIPA seek to hold accountable sites that contain links to other websites or even relatively minuscule amounts of copyrighted material.

For example, the entirety of Youtube could potentially face shutdown if a single user were to upload copyrighted material.  If you type your favorite band’s name into Google, and their software brings up a link to an illegal torrent site that you don’t even notice because it’s on page 276 of your search results, Google gets in trouble.  And while Youtube and Google can probably afford to maintain the strenuous vetting processes these laws require in order to keep their noses clean (which hasn’t stopped Google from protesting them anyway), could the same be said of any untold number of small businesses and start-ups operating online?

Please believe me when I say that I understand the importance of fighting online piracy in order to protect the rights and livelihoods of countless people.  I do.  I am a person whose intellectual property is currently available for illegal download in Russia (also worthy of note in that link: pre-George era press photo).  However, that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the thought that these bills could mark the end of the previous decade’s renaissance of free information and user-generated content.  I know it can sometimes be hard to take sites like Youtube seriously, but there’s no denying that Youtube, Facebook and Wikipedia (to name a few) have all changed the way we live.  SOPA and PIPA put all of this in danger.

Of course, this is all conjecture.  The obvious intent of these bills is noble, and they won’t necessarily bring about all of these doomsday scenarios in which America becomes a police state and the internet is just another place where people go to be arrested for having opinions.

Except that they might.

Not because of the internet stuff.  Sure, the internet is an incredible bastion of equality and free speech, of connections and communities, of ideals and innovation, and to restrict it would be to compromise the last level playing field on Earth.  But to me, what is far more disturbing about these bills is the precedent they would set.  SOPA and PIPA are dangerously vague in their wording.  If enacted, they will give a lot of power to a small number of people without setting very specific guidelines as to how and when they can exercise their authority.  Forget weighing the merits of free speech for creepy internet weirdos against the plight of the downtrodden film studio executive, because, with or without them, SOPA and PIPA are fucking scary.

If I’ve convinced you, or if you already didn’t need convincing, here are a few ways you can make your voice heard:

http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/ – Has an excellent video providing a more technical explanation of what is at stake
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ – Google’s petition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CongressLookup – And finally, a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales that doesn’t make me ache with guilt

If you want to read more about SOPA and PIPA before making up your mind, feel free to Google them yourself and then click on the links to their respective Wikipedia pages.  And then take a moment to think about how pissed you’d be if you couldn’t do that anymore.

It has finally arrived. After what was essentially a month-long break from playing shows, the day of reckoning is nigh upon us. Tomorrow, The Revivalists begin our 2012 semi-constant-tour-ish-thing in earnest.

This is going to be a good starting run. We get to kick the year off in a brand-new city (for us, I mean. Orange Beach, AL is probably at least a few years old) on Thursday and then return to two of our best homes-away-from-home on Friday and Saturday. Friday will mark our first-ever show at Vinyl, which is one of Pensacola’s nicest musical venue-type establishments, and then Saturday we’ll be at Bennie’s in Hattiesburg to finish the run up-close and personal with some good friends. Definitely looking forward to our first weekend run of the year.

One reason I’m looking forward to it is that we’ve been practicing like a real band this week, and so we’re going to have some new material to debut tomorrow. We even recorded a neat little bluegrass(-ish) version of “When I’m Able” (with help from Nashville’s own Jonathan Pears) that will be available for listening somewhere on the internet once Zack’s done tweaking the knobs and pressing the levers that make it sound good. It’s really encouraging to have had such a productive week. Financial restrictions notwithstanding, we could be releasing two albums this year at the rate we’ve been going.

Unfortunately, financial restrictions tend to be pretty damned withstanding.

But that’s none of your concern! All you need to be worried about right now is fitting your next Revivalists show into your busy schedule of being really cool people! There are going to be a lot coming up soon, and we’re in a constant state of planning, routing and booking, so keep an eye on our shows page to make sure you know when we’re going to be all up in your area, or whatever!

That’s it for today! Just a friendly reminder: 344 days until the end of the world. Please try to get us famous before then so that when space archaeologists come mining for people stuff they will listen to our music and be like “hey those guys were pretty good.” Alright thanks bye.

Greetings, everyone!  Hi!  Hello, there!  Welcome to 2012!  The future of tomorrow is now!  I wouldn’t be surprised to find that I said something almost exactly the same as that at the beginning of 2011!

Hopefully everyone survived the long weekend over New Year’s Eve.  For my part, it was definitely close.  The Revivalists started the weekend off with a record-short trip up to Shreveport and back.  Straight to (where else but) Fatty Arbuckle’s, set up the PA, watch The Lackadaises play great music, play (great?) music ourselves, pack everything up, and drive back.  Door to door, the trip was about eighteen hours, from 4:30 PM on Friday to 10:30 AM on Saturday.  Plus, we had two flat tires (one of which required a very nice gentleman and his wife to drive to the venue at midnight on a Friday and put a tire onto our wheel for us) while we were in Shreveport*.  What’s that?  When did we sleep?

Well, it was okay. When we got home, we had all of four hours before we had to be at Maison for sound check.

Saturday, as you likely already know, was awesome.  Hell, you were probably there.  Maison was packed with friends both old and new.  After a great set from Brass-A-Holics (no, Google, I most certainly did not mean “bassaholics”), we took the stage just in time to count down, ring in the new year, and then play really loud rock music.

Another year done.  Another year begins.  It keeps getting better.  Speaking of which, here’s a little taste of the cover art for our upcoming album, City of Sound:

No, I’m not going to tell you what it is.  Mostly because I’m not sure myself.  Our artist, Eugene Serebrennikov, who did the art for Vital Signs as well, is sending it to us in small pieces as part of a shameless scheme to drum up anticipation within the band for the finished product.  I must admit, it’s working.  This is all we’ve seen so far, so your guess is as good as mine!  Assuming, of course, that your guess is unicorns.

That’s all for this week!  We’re off for the weekend, so we’ll be working up new material until we return to life as show-playing band guys next week.  Maybe we’ll have some new tunes to debut in Alabama next Thursday.  In the meantime, remember: It’s a mere 351 days until the end of the world, so please do try to do something productive today.  Thanks and goodnight.

*: Somebody buy us a new van please.

Happy non-specific end-of-year winter gift-giving time period! I hope you all have people to spend it with. I especially hope that, like me, you’re still either young or shameless enough to come to your parents’ house for Christmas with a huge suitcase full of dirty laundry.

The Revivalists have all dispersed for the break, but work still finds a way in. We’re still shopping for album art (at this point I’m rooting for a white background with black letters that say “REVIVALIST BAND CD”), shipping merchandise orders, taking high-profile meetings with entertainment lawyers in New York (actually true, but not nearly as exciting as it sounds), and, of course, writing blog words.

What? A day late? You try writing words while driving the 700 miles from New Orleans to Tulsa. Jerk.

The rest of the tour went well. We ended up staying in the same hotel outside of Cleveland for the following night, so we didn’t have to rush on our way out the morning of the show. We did leave a few hours earlier than we needed, though, so we could detour through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before our show at Beachland Ballroom. One cool thing about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is that they let bands, even obscure ones, in for free. The other cool thing about the RaRHoF is that it is a large building filled with guitars and facts and Bootsy Collins pants.

The next day we got an early start to check out Nelson Ledges park in Warren, Ohio. Our host, Joe, kept apologizing for the dreary weather, but it was still beautiful. There were some incredible rock formations and the flooded quarry itself was obviously an excellent summer destination. In fact, we heard about a few good festivals around those parts…

The show at the Beach House (what’s with all these beaches?) was a great deal of fun. It became Ed’s birthday at midnight, and there was much jubilation as a result. It was also 50 cent taco night, and there was even more jubilation as a result.

The jubilation continued the next night in Cincinnati, when we filled out a cool little neighborhood spot called Beachtown, USA Stanley’s Pub. I must mention the opening act, a spectacular group called Qtet who performs (mostly) original modern jazz. They’re really excellent and if you live in Cincinnati you’d be doing yourself a disservice not to catch them performing live every Thursday at Stanley’s.

We spent Friday and Saturday in Hamilton to close out the run. Other than a shout out to Rob D for hosting us at his awesome house for two nights, and the story about the guy who tried to heckle Dave while we were playing on Friday only to get booed by the entire room until he slunk out in shame, and Ed and George’s successful (gastrointestinal repercussions notwithstanding) campaign to destroy an entire White Castle Crave Case (30 sliders, no mercy) between the two of them, there isn’t much to report. Just the usual stuff about Dave’s aunt Linda being a fantastic person and Hamilton being a fun place. But you’ve heard it all before.

That’s everything. This may be the last Blog Wednesday(call it a “soft Wednesday”) of the year. I can’t make any promises regarding the blog next week, as I might be driving back to New Orleans on Wednesday again, and, at any rate, what would there be to write about? Presents? Relatives? Mittens? Honey-baked ham? Actually, that could be interesting. Okay whatever everyone have a great couple of weeks and I’ll see you in 2012, assuming John Cusack was wrong about that whole end-of-the-world thing.

and The Revivalists are in the running for Best Rock Band and David Shaw (lead singer extraordinaire) us up  for Best Male Vocal in Offbeat Magazine’s 2012 Best of the Beat awards. Do us a solid and vote here!

In other bitchen news,

The 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (aka JazzFest) initial line-up is in and it includes yours truly!  We are slated to play Friday April 27 on a stage and time-slot TBA.

What’s up with that new album?

It’s done! We swear! We just need art still. It’s called City of Sound. We are still on track for an early 2012 release date. Early can mean the first third of the year, right? Keep your ears peeled for a sneak preview track in the next few weeks. Check back later. Have a happy holiday seasoning.

-Zack