The tour ended with all of us super bummed to leave such amazing friends. It was an awesome time touring with such great musicians and people. We were all ready to head home but, sad to leave our new homies.

On an even sadder note, The Dig just had some of their gear stolen out of their van in Chicago… Irreplaceable instruments, in that they carry a sentimental value as well as the fact that no instrument will sound or feel the same, particularly vintage instruments. It makes me sick to my stomach.

You can help though… Go to:   http://bit.ly/9fkZW1

Search Craigslist Chicago… eBay… whatever. It’s not uncommon that these people are caught. (I know of a craigslist selling bike thief that was caught by the bikes owner)

Thank you so much for coming out to the shows! It was an amazing time… We’re on our way to Europe in a few weeks

Ed

I hate Wordpress. It won’t let me do photos without uploading to flickr. Follow this link

http://dustinkensrue.tumblr.com/

When we were in Boston a couple weeks ago, we had the opportunity to get a personal “behind the scenes” tour of the USS Constitution.  We were allowed to see parts of the ship that aren’t normally open to civilians, which needless to say, was a really cool experience.  Great to see a piece of history like that.  The USS Constitution, for those who don’t know, is the oldest fully commissioned naval ship in the world — launched in 1797, and being named by George Washington himself, it was one of the 6 ships authorized to be built by the Naval Act of 1794.  The ship has a perfect battle record, never being boarded or defeated and earning itself the nickname “Old Ironsides”.  Badass.  Special thanks to PR2 Jason Keith for setting us up and giving us the tour.

Second set of pictures are from Louis’ Lunch as well as some random Yale architecture in New Haven, CT.  Proclaimed to be the birthplace of the hamburger, Louis’ still serve their original burger on toasted white bread and no condiments whatsoever (and don’t ask, there’s even signs).  Coolest thing about the place was the fact that they still cook their burgers on the original cast iron, vertical loading grills that supposedly birthed the hamburger.  Neat.

Teppei

We are in Philly. Bus generator has bit the bullet. Evacuated to club. Finished downloading new digital piano. Must find a cheesesteak.
In other news, I stumbled onto a really cool record. The Speakers put out an album called “Yeats is Greats.” The whole album takes poems by William Butler Yeats and puts it to some subtle and beautiful tunes. I dig it.
Thanks to everyone who is coming out to the shows; they have been a blast thus far. See some of you out in Philly tonight.
DK

Greetings from Montreal. It’s taken us a while to get here, but we’re a couple shows into having the entire package out here (Kevin Devine, Bad Veins, and The Dig) and it’s going great. Quality people, great bands, and a really eclectic bill. The next five weeks are going to be great. I’m really enjoying getting to know these guys and having the opportunity to watch them play every night. I’d advise getting to these shows early, because The Dig are an awesome band, and Bad Veins are as good, if not better, live as they are on record. I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with Kevin and his band already, but I’d only seen them live once before, and I’ve been really impressed with how great their sets are every night.

Last night in Toronto was easily the best show of the tour thus far…a packed house, and an enthusiastic crowd for all four bands. You really can’t ask for much more. The bar has been set. Thank you Toronto.

My first column for OC Weekly was posted yesterday, for those of you that might be interested. I’ll be contributing Three Things every week until they tell me not to.

Tomorrow in Boston is bound to be pretty crazy. Game 7 of the Finals in enemy territory. It’ll be insane, no matter what the outcome ends up being. I’ll either be the happiest guy in a Lakers t-shirt Boston (and terrified for my life), or the most bummed guy in a sea of ecstatic and drunk Celtics and Red Sox fans on Landsdowne Street. Oh. Boy.

Go Lakers,

-riley

-READING-

“Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace” by David Lipsky

Kicked off the tour with some fun shows up the west coast.  It was awesome having our buddies in We Barbarians out with us for those days.  I wish they were doing more.  Great band.  Check them out if you haven’t yet.  I’ve somehow been staying pretty busy.  I brought a moped out on tour and it’s been so key.  I’m no longer stuck to the near vicinity of the bus.  The most notable day so far has actually been the day off we just had.  Our tech Sangsouvanh aka “Ping”, our merch slinger Joey and I took a pretty sweet hike in the beautiful woods of British Columbia.  Best way to spend a day off.

Teppei

Listening:

Delta Spirit – History From Below (This just came out today, pick it up!)

The Black Keys – Brothers

De La Soul – Stakes Is High

Shoots! I getting all crazy-brains getting ready for this tour but, it’s not necessarily a bad thing…

We are starting off the first part of this tour with our friends We Barbarians. If you haven’t had a chance to check them you definitely should… they are playing the up the West Coast with us, starting in San Fran.
Last time we played at SF we played at the Regency Ballroom, which is also the location of the first date of this tour AND a former Free Mason lodge/hall… This venue is seriously spooky (haunted?)
Our old friend Doug, who was managing the venue showed us around the place, all that it had to offer, and what it used to be. It was Craziness!!
I’m not by any means a Mason buff or anything, but this place just left a bunch of questions in my brain. Everything made me curious… the mosaic seal on the floor in the front that members had to stomp on as they entered the building, to the theater upstairs with 32 scenes that were a part (from what I’ve been told) to act out some sort of ritual :/ , to the ridiculous, elaborately decorated but incredibly spooky(maybe because it was night time) design.
This place was weird, awesome, somewhat spooky and also amazingly beautiful…
I’m going to have to do some research before we go there again to start off the tour.

Speaking of research…
I’ve been experimenting in my room the mysterious ins and outs of my Dave Smith Prophet ‘08 synth (it probably sounds like I’m fighting some digial beasts), which will be coming out on tour with us replacing my old Nord Lead. I also need to build some sort of a road case for the beast.

I can’t wait, and I’m just happy to be back on the road in full force again,
the four of us… our amazing crew… and you guys

Love,
Edward

Current read: With the Old Breed – E.B. Sledge

Our summer tour with Kevin Devine, Bad Veins, and The Dig is rapidly approaching, and as Dustin said in the previous post, we’re really excited to get back on the road. The pool of songs we’ve put together is starting to feel pretty good, and we’ll be getting together a couple more times before we hit the road to fine-tune things. It never gets any easier to figure out what and when to play songs on a tour/in a set, but I think you guys will like what we have in the queue this time around. Tickets are still available, so grab them while you still can. It should be a good time, and an eclectic bill. I’m really looking forward to getting to hang with, and watch Kevin & his band, Bad Veins (my favorite record of 2009 that I didn’t hear until 2010), and The Dig.

I went down to San Diego last night to see/pay my respects to Isis, and have the pleasure (and rare opportunity) to see Jakob. The show was fantastic (a more detailed recap/reflection can be found here), and I ran into a few former tourmates, Ray (ex-Taken, Mikoto), Chris (Saosin) and Nick (As I Lay Dying.) Great to reconnect with those guys, and get to see two of my favorite bands in an intimate setting.

In other news, in mid-June, I’m going to start contributing to OCWeekly on occasion, so if you enjoy what I’ve been doing on my blog, there will be more of that available online soon. Details forthcoming.

Book recommendations for tour. I need them. What are you reading? What have you read lately? Let me know in the comments. Thanks.

That’s about it from here. I’m spending the extended holiday weekend trying to prep for tour, pack for tour, pack up an apartment, move, and unpack/get settled before hitting the road for seven weeks. If you see a guy that looks like he hasn’t slept or showered in a week, air-drumming and humming Thrice tunes, mumbling to himself, and pacing the aisles of a Home Depot, that’s probably me.

Be good,

-riley

Hey everyone. First, thanks for all the support and kindness and grace that everyone has shown to us and my family in light of the last tour being cancelled.

Secondly, we are really excited to get back out on the road next week and we are hoping to see you all there. We are pulling out some songs we haven’t played in a while (even a couple shredders) and are practicing this week. Also, the set should be changing a fair amount, possibly half the set changing from one night to the next. We’ll see how that goes, but that’s how we are practicing.

Lastly, don’t read ahead if you haven’t watched the last episode of Lost.

Dude. Really? Worst ending of a show ever. It was like watching a 2 year try to dazzle you with a sleight-of-hand trick.

Love you all – see you very soon.
Dustin

Sorry for the lack of updates with all that’s been going on, but under the circumstances I’m sure you all understand. We are in the process getting back up to our feet and pressing on. The way things have happened the past few months it’s really been an eye opening, life changing, reality check. Let’s move forward and live the way we always wished we could.

Oooo! We have a winner for the Merch design contest we did… Congrats to Josh “Jolby” Kenyon! It was awesome to see all the creativity and ideas that came in. I definitely think this is an idea we should pursue more often. Thanks to all those who submitted.

We also have a new contest that we are doing with Crave Online, Macbeth Shoes, and Nash Guitars. Lots of cool things to win: MP3s, guitars, shoes, photo passes, vinyl, etc… More details can be found HERE.

Next thing coming up for us is the show down in San Diego this Friday, which is soon followed by our headlining tour in the summer with Kevin Devine, Bad Vein, and The Dig.

We’ll try to keep more updates coming as we get rolling. Again, thank you so much for all your support through this, we love you.

Edward