The Rosebuds

redbull. I'm coming for you San Diego

2011-06-30T14:28:00.001-07:00

i miss marty already.

2011-06-17T09:46:00.001-07:00

agave peachtree margarita #stillstreet

2011-06-16T17:42:00.001-07:00

Untitled

2011-06-16T08:51:00.001-07:00

Tour. I'm doing this right.

2011-06-16T08:43:00.001-07:00

Marty!

2010-12-24T19:55:00.001-08:00

When Marty came home with me a week ago, he'd only seen the pound and his former home--a crazy lady hoarding chihuahuas (179 of them inside her house!). He didn't have much energy and he didn't seem interested in anything. Like, nothing. Not toys, food, or people. He seemed afraid and wanted to hide in my lap or behind me. He didn't want to walk, only carried, and he was completely freaked out by outside. Now he's eating really well, going in and out of his crate like a pro, and he's doing his business outside and running back up the steps by himself. He's finally playing! He's happiest in the living room where he can play on the rug, which he likes better than the hard wood floor. He'll chew rawhide bones and a few times he's even wrestled with his toy bee. His sense of humor is coming around now too. He's feeling playful mostly in the mornings. He likes to look at me and lunge and jump around, or run across the room to show off. He's getting really funny.

Learning about birds!

2010-11-21T12:21:00.001-08:00

Rosebuuuuuuud

2010-01-31T08:40:00.000-08:00

The Applicant--by Sylvia Plath

2009-07-02T18:13:00.001-07:00

First, are you our sort of person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit--

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

Change My Life

2009-06-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

Aww, Britt says it's the best Spoon cover he's ever heard.

http://dodge77.com/prequels/04%20Change%20My%20Life%20(Spoon%20Cover).mp3

Reading...

2009-05-30T09:48:00.001-07:00

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower.
Get this book.
Just go get it.
Take yourself to the bookstore and physically get this. Get a muffin and coffee at some point too, make it a date you take yourself on.

Spiritual Journey

2009-05-24T08:49:00.001-07:00

Spiritual journey. Epic fail.
"This is the first day of my new life," I said standing there on the early morning beach, hung the fuck over.
"I'll wade out and when the right wave comes, I'll dive under and let the water wash over me," I thought.
But knee deep I realized it was too cold for a cleansing. So I decided to walk instead. "Now" I declared to myself in real words, "Now I will find a special shell and will have a keepsake to commemorate the beginning of my new life."
But I walked a long way and couldn't find anything complete. I wanted a whole shell to represent, you know.
After walking a half mile I found a quarter-sized shard that was once the crown of a tiny whelk, only smoothed down. It looked a lot like a woman's breast. "This is something" and I picked that up.
A little further down I found a fragment from what I decided was a turtle egg. "Yeah, an egg shell is symbolic" and I picked that up.
But then I got depressed thinking how I would display these little things. I realized how pitiful they would seem to me laying on the dresser or in a wasabi dish or whatever.
Almost a mile in I threw them down and called it quits.

Lost Colony

2009-05-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

By the time John White returned to Roanoke Island in 1590, an outer bank of what is now North Carolina, the colony was completely empty. Everyone gone. He found the word "Croatoan" scratched into a tree trunk.
20 years later, John Smith would form Jamestown. But my people were the Lost Colony.

The Rosebuds Live @ The Hot Freaks! Day Party.

Bath, NC

2009-04-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

I've boarded the flight. It will be partly cloudy in New York, as usual. I am in the habit of taking note of when I'm about to physically or metaphorically fly into tumult. Give me only positive thoughts of little Jasmine when the layers of control and safety become friable, as they are surely about to.

In the airport, I saw an advertisement for a lifestyle in Bath, NC. Houses for sale. "Live in BATH!"
Indeed.
What a romantic idea--living in Bath.
Have me bathed in the Atlantic, in the Pamlico, in my childhood, in my real self, in my thinking and too-aware inner child, in my untouched inner self, the one that cannot be bathed. Scrub her, educate her, tame her hair but it's always the same. Huck Finn in Bath, new and modernized Bath, is still Huck Finn.

Nerd Business

2009-04-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

In this pile: Motherless Brooklyn, The Bell Jar, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, The Theater and it's Double, Julius Caesar, Tolstoy: Confessions, Truck: A Love Story. Also: Assorted correspondence, four personal journals, rough drafts of some non-fiction and poetry, a rough draft for the new Rosebuds bio. This is what I did all day.

Niagara

2009-04-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Life Like

2009-04-05T12:45:00.001-07:00

Tour Cat

2009-04-03T19:24:00.000-07:00

Pre-show bonding with St. Louis dreamboat.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Pet Visit

2009-03-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

Ivan visits with little orphaned dogs at the adoption fair. Somebody abandoned this little guy?!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Letter to Frank Black

2009-03-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

Mr. Frank Black…

Trying that on now—like you’re my mysterious confidante receiving my notes in a top-floor government office, but even though the office is super nice, the cut of your beautiful suit is the main story. Or you’re an agent at the American Embassy and I’m in a foreign prison, sending this to you in hopes that you’ll interpret all my secret meaning, decode all my metaphors and use them to convert all the English majors into revolutionaries, commandeer jet planes and bring hell and fury to my prison in such a terrifying way that I walk right out on my own and all the girls get to go back to school without having acid in their eyes.
You’re Black. You created that name, that idea. I’m late, of course, having been stuck on a dirt road when you decided on it. But I’m so down with it. Simpatico. Spinning new yarns for it. Black Francis, Frank Black, Francis Black Black Furor.
That last one has Black twice on purpose and you say it all together—one name.

Edge of Texas

2009-03-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

Decamp. SxSW starts today and we need their sunshine.
We drove 14 hours yesterday through Mississippi--lush green grasses--so wet, waxy. Redbud trees in bloom.
Playlist:
Justin and Aaron "Big Red Machine"
MGMT "Electric Feel"
M. Ward "Let's Dance" live recording
Nina Simone "Just Like Tom Thumb Blues"
Pixies "Cactus"
Wes Phillips "Drop"
Clinic "Come Into Our Room"
Stanford U on itunes presents: "Her Husband" (the Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes creative partnership).

Youngest Nun

2009-02-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

Today, for the first time, I went to Strand Bookstore in New York City. "Over 18 miles of books!" It's a huge bookstore and they have everything, but still, I think they're counting end-to-end.
For the most part, the pilgrimage went about how I thought it would--I shuffled around, peeking at the back covers, flipping through, sometimes teary-eyed, handling everything. I have to touch all the books so it takes a while. An hour in, there was a crazy goon in the back of the store, hunched, lodged into the literary criticism aisle I needed, just looking crazy and coughing on everything, mouth hanging open, arms unnecessarily long. As I picked up the Gonzo he hobbled over and picked up a Gonzo, breathing down my neck and right in the middle of my pilgrimage! Jesus. Could you just... could you stop being a hobo for a minute!? I'm making a nerdy dream come true here and I'm pretty sure you're farting right now.
I was going to call it quits then, but decided to check out the rare books floor first. I cruised around pretty quickly, only handling a Cartier jewelry book and a $900 fashion design book before I headed for the exit. But next to the elevator, in a case, I saw it! This first edition, inscribed copy of Infinite Jest. And I really wanted it, even though it was $400. If he hadn't killed himself, you could have just gone to the college where he taught and talked to him. Now it's all celebrity suicide situation and his stock is way up because now there's a finite number of these artifacts out there.
People getting more famous after death...
I thought about how Kafka, who had only published a little in his lifetime, left his friend Max Brod strict instructions to burn all his papers upon his death. But when Kafka died, the dude published everything instead--including The Trial and The Castle and all the parables. Or... John Kennedy Toole who never published anything before he killed himself. And then, years later, his mom submitted his manuscript for Confederacy of Dunces, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Wallace was different. He understood his success, even if it couldn't make him happy or fulfilled. He knew he would be considered a great man.

Bashfully, like the youngest nun on the team, I snapped this pic and slipped out.

SPIN Magazine featured our video!

2009-02-21T09:01:00.000-08:00

Check our our new man trophy. When you get in SPIN, pretty much everybody gets one.

http://www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-rosebuds-go-huntin-humans

Reading Update

2009-02-19T13:06:00.000-08:00

I've been taking several mini-breaks from Infinite Jest. Some because of travel and some because of exhaustion. Reading other material, even scholarly stuff, is a breeze compared to it. Let's see... Here's a recent list of books:
The Good Earth (my favorite this time of year)
Great Gatsby
Fathers and Sons
Lolita
Kafka on the Shore
a collection of Nabokov's papers/lectures
and this Georges Bataille work called Erotism: Death and Sensuality.

Erotism--about the history of eroticism. It's a translation of the 1957 edition and it's out on City Lights. I picked it up in San Francisco when we were there for Noise Pop last year because I've been toying with the idea of a scholarly paper on erotic literature. And maybe teaching it as a class, at some point.
I have lots of weird ideas.
Anyway, on the back cover, Foucault calls Bataille "one of the most important writers of the century." So, you know.
If you're gonna get into it, be warned. It's an all-star cast including old Sade.

Some brainstorming on Erotic Literature--the basic syllabus:
Anais Nin (diary + some fiction)
Henry Miller (slight eye roll)
Nabokov
Lawrence

What else? hmmmm. Any suggestions? These are for sure. I'm flexible after these I guess. But no romance novels or anything like that. Bleck.
No schmaltz.
I've cruised the collections on Amazon and what-not, which are mostly garbage.
We need real literature.

And out of this darkness we'll rush...

2009-01-22T12:32:00.001-08:00

To the following songs: Cemetery Lawns, Get Up Get Out, Silence by the Lakeside, When the Lights Went Dim, Bow to the Middle...
You can be dance songs now. Just dance songs with a dark past instead of scary songs in an awful nightmare.

Love,
Kelly and Ivan

This happened.

2008-12-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

Bon Iver

2008-12-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

Here you see my special guys on the Dave Letterman:

North Carolina

2008-12-16T18:34:00.000-08:00

Here's something I was trying to explain in Laundromatinee about NC:

There's such an excitement in NC right now. We've been so proud of our music family there--everybody's so supportive--not competitive--ultimate bohemian dream come true type shit. It's really magical there. Friends who've moved away say they can't figure out why other towns aren't like ours. Why nothing is as easy as it is in NC. I can tell you stories. Super romantic fall-in-love stories just fecundated with nostalgia for something we still have--you know what I mean? It's so special and we all know it that we're already nostalgic for it.

Full article here

January Shows

2008-12-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

These go on sale just in time for Christmas...

1.14 Baltimore Ottobar
1.15 Philadelphia Johnny Brenda's
1.16 NYC Bowery Ballroom
1.17 Boston Middle East
1.24 Chapel Hill Cat's Cradle

GET TICKETS

Thanksgiving

2008-11-29T19:49:00.000-08:00

Logan was on the phone to his family when he said, "Well, I gotta go, we're getting ready to stop here for Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrel" and Ivan just dropped his head into his hands.
We may have all gotten wrapped up in some impulse shopping, as you can see, but it was Ivan who dropped around $100 on CDs from their gift shop.
Yeah, I know.
I was worried too.

Jonah + Randy

2008-11-29T18:46:00.001-08:00

they filmed this gem on the way back from our San Francisco show.

Merge's 20 Greatest Albums

2008-11-23T11:17:00.000-08:00

Paste Magazine picked Birds Make Good Neighbors to be one of the top 20 Merge Records albums of all time.
Go HERE to read about that.
It's a big deal over here in our camp. Really special.

Jonah Ray (Part II)

2008-11-21T17:36:00.000-08:00

Jonah Ray is performing with us in San Fran and LA. You have to see his stand up. Here's something really beautiful:

Guess Who (HD Final Cut) from Peter Atencio on Vimeo.

St. Paul

2008-11-19T00:16:00.000-08:00

In this photo you see Rosebuds' Logan Matheney and Megafaun's Phil Cook.

Here: Megafaun's Brad Cook, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, and Mr. Ivan Howard.

Troika Music Festival -- Durham

2008-10-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

Mashey Mash

2008-10-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

Dudes. This is BLOWING my mind. It's really good.
T Pain + Rosebuds + Lil Wayne.

LISTEN HERE
DOWNLOAD HERE
Courtesy The Hood Internet

New Parents

2008-10-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

This is Zeno Gill assembling the crib:

Zeno recorded the Unwind EP for us and being in the studio with him is, well, it's kind of a therapeutic experience. He's so nurturing and excited about experimentation--he generates creativity. He lets us come in and bang on his piano, sing and yell, lay in the yard, try drum parts that seem like they're going nowhere (and years later they end up being "Hello Darlin") and just basically whatever doesn't make sense, he's okay with trying. And that's what we need. A lot. So, I knew when he and Christine decided to adopt a child they would be amazing parents and I started day dreaming right away about being a little kid in this musical and creative household. Christine is a bad-ass designer and the smartest woman you know who has already done everything so anything you want to talk about happens to be her area of special expertise. She lived a hundred fast and exciting lives in New York as a designer, she saw every band, she walked around the park in sharp black boots with hot chocolate, she found a house in Durham and decided to get all involved in the town's renaissance, she sat in two inches of dirty water--hand-chipping the nasty 50s flooring off her home's future-beautiful hard woods, she took old Rosebuds by the hand and showed us how design is a part of everything the band is, she has parties where she puts creative types in the same room with other creative types and watches them strike it up, she has had 7 backbones, she usually goes in all black, she has great jewelry, secret rooms of clothing racks from when "oh, yeah, I used to have a store" --no big deal just a kick-ass boutique which was one of many lives, she's started magazines and movements, always teaching us about good design and good living and now, NOW!, she's a mommy too.

They're parents y'all. Wow. We've been waiting so long for this and now it's finally happening!

Here is their adoption story:
www.gilladoption.blogspot.com

Words

2008-10-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Much is said of what is spiritual, and of spirituality, in this, that, or the other--in objects, expressions.--For me, I see no object, no expression, no animal, no tree, no art, no book, but I see, from morning to night, and from night to morning, the spiritual.--Bodies are all spiritual.--All words are spiritual--nothing is more spiritual than words.--Whence are they? along how many thousands and tens of thousands of years have they come? those eluding, fluid, beautiful, fleshless, realities, Mother, Father, Water, Earth, Me, This, Soul, Tongue, House, Fire.

--Walt Whitman
from The Neglected Walt Whitman: Vital Texts
Ed. Sam Abrams

I'll walk out there with you.

2008-10-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

Filmmaker Tim Kiernan made this great one-shot video of a family/friend pig pickin' we played in Raleigh.

The Rosebuds - Get Up Get Out (live) from tk on Vimeo.

Hold Hands and Fight

2008-10-07T21:49:00.000-07:00

This chick is brave. And she has stolen my heart. Not because of how I'm self-involved and how these are my lyrics and they're like, pretty much all over her body and wow it's crazy to have a fan like that. That's not it at all. Not even it.

She wrote that she and her partner got these together. And THAT... I totally understood. If anybody knows the feeling of what it's like to live the lyrics of this song, it's me. So, I understand everything. These lyrics do mean a lot to me--more than other songs--and I relate to this choice. The tattoo is the badge, which is only a signifier, but the need... THIS is what it's like to be a human in an absurd world.
One which makes outrageous claims on us. And yet we still have our ability to create partnerships. NEED them.

Jasmine

2008-10-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

Push It from Kelly Rosebud on Vimeo.

I found this today and it made me so happy to see. Jasmine the Amazing Dog records a cover of "Push It."
There are mp3s of this cover floating around if you want it on yer tape thing radio, but I'm too lazy to find it right now. Soon though.

SPIN

2008-10-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

Listen up y'all. Just because we are Spin.com's Artist of the Day doesn't mean we have changed. We still put our Raleigh Denim Jeans on one leg at a time, only now I bedazzle them with real gems. No, not mostly diamonds--I'm not an asshole. Some rubies but yeah, okay, mostly diamonds. But everything else is the same. Except we get written about in Spin (most people don't, just saying). That, and I'm half way to Rio as I write this. But, everything else...

SPIN ARTICLE HERE

p.s. Rio still the place fancy people go?

Dodge, My Old Kentucky

2008-10-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

My Old Kentucky Blog... You rule the hardest. You love the band, and for that I'm thankful, but you are a good man too and smart and fun to hang out with. I loved the sirius radio session we did and the Hot Freaks party and the Indy show, and hanging out with you and the little lady downstairs, and just can't wait to go again! But really, with all the new Life Like news happening, you might be surprised that it was THIS article that made me smile. You're funny.

Life Like

2008-10-04T11:32:00.001-07:00

Go HERE to listen to or buy Life Like from Merge Records in any format you like including mp3, FLAC, 180-gram vinyl, and CD.

Independent

2008-10-04T11:24:00.001-07:00

We are on the cover of the Independent! That really feels like such a big honor. I mean, it IS a big honor but it feels, I don't know... validating? It's our home paper! That's a big deal to us.
Check out the article HERE

Rocky Baby

2008-09-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

So, I'm almost all the way into living in New York--manicuring myself to astonish the comedy world, in a good way this time--and I like Greenpoint. As a neighborhood to live in. There's a little records and coffe shop (2 in 1) and there's a couple friends from Raleigh just down the way, and now there's this guy. He is Rocky. His owner is a leathery old man who has three gold chains, all three with different kinds of chunky little eagle pendants. He said, "That's Rocky. But call him Rocky Baby. He's the neighborhood mascot."
So I have composed the following poem for him:
Rocky Baby you live in Greenpoint and have for two years but I didn't know you then until I needed to get coffee and a cup of tomato soup and found you and said I know why I bought this one kind of phone with the camera now because I love you to pieces you are the cutest baby and I've SEEN boxers I have an old boxer Jasmine in NC and she's got long-suffering eyes and a white face because she's 14 and i did have two others and one time that skinny little one we stole/liberated from a dog fight guy in Charleston who went to live with zealots who called him Ezekial but its none of my business and then still another boxer at my grandma's neighbor's who belonged to Nelson's granddaughter and he lives in a tiny fence cage situation which is, I assure you, no good and but you, YOU, are the prettiest, handsomest guy of all and you remind me of Jasmine whom I didn't name since she was a rescue kinda too but who really is a Jasmine now that I know how delicate she is and I miss her believe me but you... You have a square face and didn't you know you are a bull dog and its in your nature to fight bulls I guess but I can't imagine you would though you never know a person all the way since everybody has their compulsions like what if you saw a bull right now on this street you might want to fight him or like get to know him and pretend to be best friends with him the way young girls do their boyfriend's other female friends maybe but you're not a tricky guy that way I can tell you are just a cute guy who likes girls or anybody probably but you seem to really like me which is working out since I am all crush now, like deep deep crush.

David Foster Wallace

2008-09-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

David Foster Wallace dead at 46.

If the smartest man alive hangs himself, what chance do the rest of us have?

I am heartbroken.

Letter to Frank Black #4

2008-09-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Frank Black,

How are things with you? Don't tell me. I am interested mainly in what I imagine is up with you. Someone told me where you live and I was all, "I don't want to know! Don't tell me anything else!" He said Portland, not, like, your actual address or anything. But now I have to know you live in Portland. Just don't tell me anything else. It's messing everything up for my letters to you I think. What would be the word for when you've made someone a figment of your own imagined self. Figmentized?

I am leaving North Carolina for a month to live in New York and be a different kind of person you know like actaully start something else again. Like all the comedy I've been doing but I don't want to tell you about all that. Not that I think you'll show up at one of my shows (but just so you know, that can't happen okay?) but because I have so many plans and some of them are quite naive. But I can't think about how I'll remember the plans if I fast forward to writing you in 15 years because who knows how they'll shake out. But I think I know how I want them to. So they are plans.

What are you a Pisces? I bet you are. I'm Gemini. Ruler of the Earth. Not of dirt, but, of the planet Earth. Can you believe that? You are ruler of the ocean. So, technically, you're of my world but we're different. See? You rule something that is a part of me, right, the primordial part, but not the rest of it. So, there's probably a lot you couldn't know about me. And I can't understand how you swim all the time, or float, your feet not ever on anything. You can surely touch the ground, and live within the earth, but only as a part of your own insulation. And you are all muse, according to the books. I don't even know what that means.

Love,
Kelly

Good Guy

2008-07-24T10:00:00.001-07:00

At a rest stop, Matt held the door for a man coming out and the man said, "Thanks man, you're a... good guy."

Ideas for other good Yo La Tengo T-shirts:

"Laid Back Fucking Dude"
"Gemini, I Knew It"
"Movement Artist, More Than a Dancer"

Little Kitten

2008-06-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we heard a little kitten crying and just yelling--like he was hurt or scared. So we found him in a shed all alone. He saw Ivan and jumped and ran to the woods. Then he came back and started hanging out in a flower pot under the back steps. And he cried and cried all night. He's so wild though. He looks like Rusty from Squidbillies.
We called friends to try to figure out what the right thing to do would be and but nobody wanted to get involved because as soon as you have a plan, you're the one in charge and next thing you know, you own a kitten.
And we definitely do not want a cat. We tour and there's just...
Then early this morning he started crying and crying under my window and so we went out and he jumped and ran under the house. Then he started crying from under there. So I meowed back to him and he stuck his head out like, "What was that!?" and then...

Low five. We have a cat.

Reading Update: Infinite Jest

2008-06-19T16:55:00.000-07:00

I just started reading this 10-year anniversary copy of Infinite Jest (with a foreword by Dave Eggers) and instead of doing a post-read entry, let's try an experiment... If you have read this or if you want to read this with me this summer then go HERE and let's make bets on who will finish this insane monster. Have you seen this thing?!
I recommend it if you liked Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or Confederacy of Dunces... Shit like that.

Tim Lytvinenko

2008-06-02T13:18:00.001-07:00

This is Tim Lytvinenko.

Tim is an amazing photographer but I'll get into that in a bit. To describe him is an exercise in deep thinking. To know him is so easy because he's a fun and lovable guy, but to understand him is wonderfully just out of reach. He's complex as shit! And smarter than everyone else too, which is why I like having him around. Not to figure things out for us (which he does a lot) but mostly because it's fun for me trying to keep up with him. He's way ahead. But in the direction you weren't even looking. And there are a ton of weird little surprises like, for example, he can solve a Rubic's cube in less than 3 minutes. Every time.
But his photography...
I don't know. It teaches you things about yourself. Usually when I look at photos of myself, I think, "Oh, that's good, I look pretty in that one. Oh, that's no good, I don't look pretty in that one." Last year he travelled with us and shot the tour and then, later, he presented me with a book he'd handmade of photos he thought I should have. And I was casually flipping through and came upon one in particular that totally arrested me. I stopped moving and breathing for a second. I needed all my energy to understand it.
I won't say what the content was because it's so personal, but when I saw it, I understood so many many things. So many things about myself but also about how things work. And it wasn't conceptual. It was just real. And then I was a different person.
And so Tim's photos mean so much to me. And there's more to understand than I can see so I go back to them all the time and get new stories. And I think, it's so easy to know Tim but the understanding... Here it is on paper--proof of complex thought and a reality normal people like me can't see. He has to show you.

This is his blog:
TimLyt.blogspot.com

You'll see that he's got other eyes.

Montreal

2008-05-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

We are drunk on romance language and good coffee.
I saw a four-year-old girl in a soft blue dress and button-down sweater carrying a tiny baby doll wrapped in a blanket and tucked inside her sweater and she was chatting away to the baby in French and I almost died.
photo by TimLytvinenko

Cat's Cradle 2008

2008-05-22T11:42:00.001-07:00

This here video is something I found while innocently YouTubeing myself.
It's of a bunch of crazy people, obviously. It gets really good around 2:30 (2 min. 30 sec.) and I remember this--there were so many people on stage I couldn't hear Matt anymore. Hell yes!

on the road: HOT FUDGE CAKE!

2008-05-09T23:05:00.001-07:00

Ivan loves hot fudge cake from Shoney's. He really loves it so much. At the end of our first US tour, he was talking to his parents and telling them all about the cities we went to and how the shows were. His dad said, "Did you get to go to a Shoney's?" Sure did. "Did you get the hot fudge cake?" You know we did.
I realized the hot fudge cake was a whole thing. For the whole family.
On our second tour, Ivan asked our drummer, "Do you like hot fudge cakes?" He said, "Naw man. I don't like fudge." It got really quiet in the van for a while. A solid three minutes went by and Ivan sheepishly said, "You don't like any kind of fudge?"

The sun never sets on the BSP!!!

2008-05-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

This tour is going so well so far and you know how it is just getting to know people--think if this were a new office job... it could take months! But with touring musicians, it takes a few days to KNOW know each others' whole fucking deal.
Tonight, during our first song, I saw a worried Phil next to the stage on my side. His face. Next he was gone. I knew something was up. Later I learned that my keys were not in the house speakers and that the British Sea Power totally sprang into action--Phil came to me, which I knew meant something, then he and Scott went to the sound man as Mike, their own soundman, made split-second plans for a new amp. Emergency band reinforcements!
The sun never sets on the British Sea Power.
All of the east coast is about to blossom as we head into DC, moving north, toward the first days of spring in every town.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

One day home

2008-05-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

Day 5: Tornado Warning

2008-05-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

We are on our way through Arkansas, heading to Oxford, MS, through multiple tornado warnings in all counties we are about to cross. We are racing tornadoes at this point. Ivan said, "well, the warning will be over in a few minutes." Just then the announcer said, "with another cell just behind it."

Another warning coming through now.

I don't mean to make light of this because I know this storm has killed people today, but we are having alternating bouts of fear cracked up by laughter since there is one announcer who keeps referring to a nearby county called "Cooter County." He said, "And it IS getting hotter down in Cooter. We are seeing some moisture down there now." I mean, !!!

Another warning. Funnel cloud just west of us, moving to the east.

We are trying to pick our shelter now. Here comes the rain...
I thought a Target would be a good place to stop but I also thought about the possible fatal irony of picking an enormous building with an actual, prominently displayed target.

I don't want my life to have been reduced to that easy of a joke.
Oh damn, we are approaching Cooter now.
I also don't want to die in Cooter. The weather spotter is saying he is looking at two separate funnel clouds. I can't see one.

Here's a rest stop.
---
Matt just said, "Hey Kelly, go stand over next to that funnel cloud and let me get a picture." See here, we are funny ALL the time.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

day 3: indianapolis

2008-05-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

These people! They were so fun! We'd never been to Indy before and didn't know if anybody would like us but they totally did and it was a blast.

photo by tim lytvinenko
http://www.timlytvinenko.com

day 2

2008-04-29T23:28:00.000-07:00

Lexington to Chicago.
we stopped at five rest stops, not including gas stations.

five...

posted by dusty s.

Found my Boat

2008-04-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

Boom. Done.

2008-04-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

This here remix record is free at the MergeRecords.com online store so go on down and get it. Go on. Old Justin Vernon of Bon Iver has done a whale of a job reconstructing "Get up Get out" and laid open the sadness and beauty in the lyrics all the experts hadn't noticed. Roger O'Donnell put all these pitsicata/pizzacado/pizzicato/how do you say it? strings on "I Better Run" and when I first heard it I said, "Holy F! It was ROGER who made "Disintegration" what it is to me! It was ROGER who is responsible for my dark side after all! And now it is ROGER who has deconstructed it and shown it to me AGAIN!"
The Portastatic remix is the summer beach jam of jams! Mac surprised us with this remix when we were on tour and I remember listening to it on my laptop speakers in a moldy smelling 2-star and I thought, "I can't do this here. Not here!" But somehow it ended up only enhancing the beach feel.
For optimum results you'll need to lay in some supplies first--some sunburn creme and pina coladas.
The Fire Hazard remix is terrifying.
The JYU remix is electrifying.
The Luke Warm remix is strobifying.
The Radical 9 remix is Euro-dance-blast-erizing.
The El Venado remix is tent-revival-testifying.
And the Wes Phillips remix is possibly genius.

Sweet Beats, Troubled Sleep (Furies Remixed!)

Sunday Morning--Let it be Known

2008-04-06T12:22:00.001-07:00

I heard on NPR that scientists are trying to build a black hole and that there is a group of people who are trying to sue them to stop them. The scientists admitted that there is a chance their black hole could swallow everything, destroying Earth and everything else, but that it's unlikely.
I was writing in my diary about this and how I feel about it and had one particularly cantankerous thought which I will copy here:

"And I wonder about my little diary. You! Floating through space or another dimension, the only surviving artifact of our shitty little planet, carrying with you the seeds of corruption and beauty--an ugly little fruit just traveling through unknown and unintended fabrics of other time, sometimes scraping the fragments of other traveling minutiae, becoming striated, telling the story of your journey with these little injuries. Or maybe you never find a being to tell; maybe you just travel through and through, having infinite near-misses with meaning."

See, in this scenario, I have imagined that my diary is the only thing that survives annihilation. Naturally. Also, I've imagined that my diary is brimming with "seeds of corruption and beauty." When, in fact, it is merely a series of smallish scandals--at best. But it is positively festooned with self-aggrandizements. Just in case it does become the only surviving artifact of our existence. I do NOT want to be the evidence of a boring society. God sakes!
Do you know what it takes to be this narcissistic and self-obsessed? Man, a lot.

Jasmine

2008-04-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

This dog is spoiled. Now, since her starring role in "Push It" and other, unreleased films, she cannot be told anything.

Sunday Morning--Let it be Known

2008-03-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

Milk doesn't go with herbal tea.
Also...
Robin is telling me all about her anatomy class and everything that goes into human physiology. She said we have heart strings and that they operate much the same way the spokes on an umbrella work--they open and close a valve. I said, "The more you tell me, the more the body sounds like a machine."
"Oh man, just think about all it takes to get out of bed in the morning!"
She's right. We're way overdoing it.

Open Letter to Frank Black #3

2008-03-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

Frank!

How are you? Where are you? I don't even know where you live. This is maybe a metaphor for something I guess--writing a letter and not knowing where to send it.

I'm in North Carolina now working on the new record. The time I spent in NYC was, well, really strange. I had alternating bouts of big-time creative productivity and then days of strange and terrible ailments. One week I was out all the time meeting stimulating and interesting people, working on so many new projects, and the next week I would have a fever and a pain in my side which I assumed was my kidney though who knows! Like the underground man: "Then again, I don't know a thing about my illness; I'm not even sure what hurts."
I hope you aren't too impressed--I don't usually compare myself to literary characters and I wish there was a way to erase saying it here but my delete button is broken. Can you believe that!?

Everybody around here has gone basketball crazy and it's giving me a good reason to try different kinds of beer.
I've been trying all the fancy imported and local beers that people are raving about and they're okay but I had a Natural Light in the can the other day and it was delicious. My friend Sarah reminded me that it is the beer with the taste for food.
I hope it likes Raleigh Times burgers because that's what it's getting.

I'm considering joining the YMCA. Do you exercise? I like the idea of it but haven't been able to commit to a gym because I generally despise the people who work at and go to the big, fancy gyms. I tried to join Peak Fitness once but instead, I narrowly escaped that awful place with my dignity. It was all I could do to not scream at the poor, orange creatures, "Fuck your techno!"
So the YMCA is starting to look more attractive.

You have any big Easter plans?
Kelly

Lady Chatterley's Lover--Reading Update

2008-03-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

Lady Chatterley's Lover
by D.H. Lawrence

In our hotel in Spain there was pornography on the television. For free!
Not Cinemax style, this was, in fact, the real deal y'all. And not even ugly actors. Pretty people.
If you had told me there was porn before I got there, I would have probably switched on the TV right away for proof... instead of finding it accidentally. And wouldn't you? For the novelty at least!

I was not surprised to learn that Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned in America when it was published in Europe in 1928. I was surprised, however, to learn that lots of people bought different pirated versions of the novel and at really high prices.
It was banned because of the treatment of sex. Lawrence treats it as if it is in the room and anyone can talk about it and, well, how's that supposed to work?

To get people interested in reading a book, you can do no better than to say, "Whatever you do, NEVER READ THAT FILTHY BOOK!!!"

But this book isn't pornographic it turns out. It's sexual content is sometimes beautiful in it's directness. Upon reading the first real sex scene I thought, "Oh, that's how people do it. They just walk into a room and start!" Without any embarrassing all-night-talking before they finally drunkenly kiss. In Lawrence, the man walks over to the woman and tells her to lay down on the floor and both of them know what is happening and neither of them snickers or makes a joke. I hadn't thought of that.

But the best part isn't learning how to be human, it's the heavy poetry. Listen to this... This is the first paragraph of the novel:

"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen."

I bet Lawrence really started living when the controversy of this book caught fire. I bet he just LOVED it. What self-respecting author wouldn't just delight in normal people being forced to take a side about an issue they're too embarrassed to name out loud? Normal people just behaving insanely over your novel. Hell yeah.

Because of the pirating, he decided to publish a cheap version on his own, to which he added an essay entitled "A Propos of "Lady Chatterley's Lover." In the essay he says:
"So, between the sick and the old puritan who is likely to fall into sexual indecency in advanced age, and the smart jazzy person of the young world, who says: 'We can do anything. If we can think a thing we can do it' --and then the low uncultured person with a dirty mind, who looks for dirt--this book has hardly a space to turn in. But to them all I say the same: Keep your perversions if you like them--your perversion of puritanism, your perversion of smart licentiousness, your perversion of a dirty mind. But I stick to my book and my position: Life is only bearable when the mind and the body are in harmony, and there is a natural balance between the two, and each has a natural respect for the other."

So it was curiosity that brought me to this novel but... Now I'm embarrassed that sexuality is still curious to anyone. Me.

Clairvoyance

2008-03-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

It was when I predicted Steve Erwin's death that I decided that I'm clairvoyant. So I went to the bookstore to try to find information on how to harnass my abilities so I can figure out who's going to die or what I should do with my life, or, basically, just any ideas for ways to exploit my gift.
Sylvia Browne is the best they can do at Borders.

I think she started a religion called Novus Spiritus where there are tenets that have the word "thou" in a lot of them. She channels a voice called "Francine" whom she's been listening to since she was 7. She hears Francine's voice in only one ear, making her "clairaudient" or possibly psychotic, according to Sigorney Weaver--psychiatrist and top serial killer expert in the movie Copycat.
In one book I picked up, Sylvia says that the visions sometimes come to the clairvoyant in colors and that you CAN learn to channel and control them.

I don't have "visions" or "colors" or "voices" but, rather, just information that already exists. It's a part of my knowledge--just in general. I was visiting my grandma and saw Steve Erwin on TV and thought, "He will die." I said it out loud actually. My grandma said, "What?" I said, "He's going to die," and by Monday he was dead. It wasn't a vision, it was just information I sort of already knew.
My friend said sarcastically: "Wait! You predicted the Crocodile Hunter's death!? A guy who constantly fucks with crocodiles!?"
Yes, that is silly. And also there's a small chance your girlfriend is pregnant. But I didn't say that out loud.

What I know is random and the information is sometimes not really important so I forget that it might be true and I don't usually tell anybody about it so I occasionally catch myself saying, "Yeah, I already knew that was going to happen." Like an asshole.
And they say, "How did you know?" and I say, "I'm clairvoyant. I also predicted Steve Erwin's death."
Like an asshole.

PUSH IT

2008-01-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

We're on tour, so come see us:

Wed 01.16.08 Carrboro, NC Cat's Cradle
Thu 01.17.08 Washington, DC Rock and Roll Hotel
Fri 01.18.08 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg
Sat 01.19.08 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell's

Open Letter to Frank Black #2

2007-11-17T10:39:00.000-08:00

I read today in Prefix Magazine that Frank Black (Black Francis) recently played a show and one of the only two Pixies songs he played was "Break My Body," which I decided to sing when we were asked to cover it for the Pixies Tribute record entitled Dig for Fire.
Anyway, I am so excited that he chose my jam to play live! Ivan says he doesn't think The Pixies even played it during their reunion tour.

If you'll recall, I posted an open letter to Frank a few months ago inviting him to dinner. Have not heard back from him yet so here's another one...

Open Letter to Frank Black #2:

Frank,
What's up dawg?!
Congratulations on having a baby on the way! When are you guys due? I know you are excited!
I'm still serious about getting sushi together. I'll be in NYC at the end of November through December if you're in town by any chance. I'm starting to do stand-up again and I have a couple shows up there but I'll be free most of the time if you can hang!
Not much going on here in North Carolina... Ivan had knee surgery last week to have his ACL replaced so we're not touring right now. Working on new songs though.

Have you seen Boure Ultimatum? Everybody was talking about it but I couldn't go see it because I hadn't seen the first two yet. I finally did this week and they're pretty cool.

Okay, talk to you later.
Take care,
Kelly

Cutest Rosebuds

2007-10-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

These little guys are cute cute cute. First is my nephew Jonas in an Ivan hat. His favorite song is "Shake Our Tree" which is funny because it was written for him. He picked the song without knowing that though.
I've never met the little guy with the tattoo but his dad sent us this photo and I want to write a song for him too. His expression is so, I don't know... forlorn? Lovesick? It's like a Smiths song.
We are helping to raise some sensitive young men here people!

THE ROSEBUD

2007-09-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

This isn't as good as when we saw "The Rosebud 5" on a marqee at Spaceland Ballroom in LA where we played that night with "PORSTATASTIC."

Macon Puns

2007-08-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

Advertising this time of year is all about beating the heat with something. A product, in most cases. It started with a billboard for a sale on air conditioners: "Beat the Heat with Cool Summer Deals!!!" Then I started seeing it everywhere.

Yesterday I saw it on a hotel billboard. Like somebody is going to be on Capital Boulevard and just before he sees the sign, he thinks to himself, "Man, it is hot as balls out here. I wish I could rent a hotel room for the day to beat this heat... but I don't think it's in my budget..."

The variations on this ad get ridiculous. I saw a billboard that said "Beat the Heat with Gas Relief!" It was for a digestion-aide product that eliminates gas... the gas that didn't exactly create the heat problem... but isn't NOT contributing.

This is sort of a hobby of mine. Collecting these ads. I sort of already thought about moving to Macon, GA because they have the best signs. There's a used car lot called "Macon Deals" and that's a place where you want to shop because you know the guy has a sense of humor.

I thought I could move to Macon and rent a little office space where I'd come up with business names and advertising slogans. I could calll the business "Macon Puns" and everybody would know the deal and they'd say, "Yeah, she's funny and all, but she's also serious. And good at what she does. And attractive."
This is my fake business that I imagined, so you're probably thinking that I'm just making up these compliments about myself, but I'm not. I'm just really good at what I do.

Here. Let me illustrate. Because I can imagine that people have the desire to succeed in business but sometimes are afraid of going all the way and getting a kick-ass slogan, I already know I'm going to have to take the wheel at the presentation of the slogan and say,
"Guys, I hear what you're saying. But I'm telling you now, if you want to compete in today's marketplace, you'll go with the pun." They'll be all "I'm not sure if we're ready for something like this."
I'll have to reason with them. "Listen, you guys are good at animal husbandry. No doubt. But I know puns. It's my business but it's also my passion. That's why I know you need 'Macon Bacon'."

The National is like, top 5.

2007-08-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

Josh said The National is a great band--in his top 5. I said, "You mean like number 5?"
"Yep."
"Really!? Of all time?"
"Yep."
"Who was number 5 but got knocked off the list?"
"Spin Doctors."

That Spin Doctors thing never gets old for me. He says it all the time and I always fall out in hysterics.
I also heard that The National are very nice guys. And I thought, "That's what people say about us." Which, in our case is a lie because we're dicks. But I'm sure it's true about them.

Either way, we're excited to do some shows with them because their music is beautiful.
And... there aren't any Spin Doctors tours going out, so...

Tue Sep 4th 2007 Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore at the TLA
Wed Sep 5th 2007 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
Thu Sep 6th 2007 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
Sat Sep 8th 2007 Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
Mon Sep 10th 2007 Orlando, FL @ Club Firestone
Tue Sep 11th 2007 Tallahassee, FL @ Club Downunder
Wed Sep 12th 2007 Birmingham, AL @ Bottletree Cafe

So Easy...

2007-08-04T12:42:00.002-07:00

Kid Rocking out to System of a Down

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I don't really need to say anything but, just so it's clear, this is a pretty spot-on dramatic interpretation by a baby... in a diaper. My favorite part is in the beginning just as the drums are coming in and Reese gets way serious.

Volvo Tour

2007-07-27T11:43:00.001-07:00

Ivan and I have romanced the idea of doing a two-piece tour in the fall in the old Volvo. We used to be able to tour in anything. We did a tour in the Volvo three years ago and when we played Detroit, there were around 9 people there and Meg White was one of them. We were hanging out after the show and she walked out with me to put the records in the car. I said, this is the tour bus. She said, "Yeah, when we started we toured in Jack's old Escort so I know all about it." She was so fun and we just got along so well and had so much in common. I'd been so proud of touring "small" and if there's ever been a success story for making something "small" into something kick-ass, it's the White Stripes.

Then we moved into a mini-van and I felt like that was big.

Then our little family grew and on our last tour we were five people on stage plus Josh and Tim L. And so we needed a big Sprinter. It was huge but it's a diesel engine so we got excellent gas mileage and, since we ran it on biodiesel, I didn't feel too bad about it. And, for me, it's a lot of fun being in a van with a thousand men.

But then we started talking about the fall and some last-minute shows that are coming in right now and how we should do them... and we're really in love with the idea of doing them as a bad-ass two-piece, in which case we could maybe take the old Volvo. Now the main question is, whether or not it will make it around the country again. So we decided to do some road testing...

Furies

2007-07-07T14:09:00.000-07:00

Is there anyone who can help me locate this painting? It is wonderful isn't it?

Ivan Enters 2008 NBA Draft

2007-06-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

We were in Whole Foods in Houston recently and Matt came up to Ivan and said, "Man, you have to go to the produce section right now. It will change your life." Ivan's first thought was, "There must be a huge, seedless watermelon sculpture over there!" Watermelon is Ivan's favorite thing and a sculpture... I'm sure that WOULD be lifechanging for him.

It was actaully Hakeem the Dream. Ivan introduced himself and talked to Hakeem for a little while, but not too long. Later, in the van, we said, "How was it!?" and Ivan said, "I've never been star struck in my life but, that was Hakeem the Dream! Do you know what I'm saying!? I had to talk to him." Everybody went on for a little while about what they thought of Hakeem and, at length, we all agreed that not only is he a legendary player, he's also a gentle giant.
It got quiet for a little while and then Ivan said, "Meeting him in there made me realize something... I could have dominated in the NBA."

Everybody thought that was great. We all laughed because, Hakeem is choosing oranges and Ivan's sizing him up.
I pointed out that Hakeem is HUGE. Ivan said, "Yeah, but I've played guys like that before. I played Erik Dampier who is big like that and those guys, you can go right up under them." He said, "I sized him up in there and I know I'm a good enough athlete to play at that level."

So, America, we are hoping you will do everything you can to help get the word out about Ivan entering the draft for next year. The Bowery Ballroom knee injury should be heeled by then and, if not, just another conversation topic for the guys over at Sports Center.

In other news, Ivan finally got a seedless watermelon today.

Oscar the Boxer

2007-06-27T20:06:00.001-07:00

I've been following this guy for a long time now. This is my favorite video of him. I love him.

What's it going to take to get you into this van today?

2007-06-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

San Diego

2007-06-15T21:17:00.001-07:00

Portland, Hot Chip, Bare Feet...

2007-06-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

Hot Chip came to our show last night at the Doug Fir in Portland and I was so excited to meet them because I love their music. You know how it is after the show—everybody is tired and we have to load out and all that, but we did get a chance to talk and visit a little and they were really nice guys. They’d just flown in from London for their US dates that start tonight. I wish we could have stayed to see them tonight in Portland, but the drive to San Francisco is so long.
Didn’t see M. Ward there. (You still on tour Matt?)
I grabbed a bottle of champagne from breakfast at the Doug Fir for the trip today in case we have time to stop in the redwood forest.
My shoes were in the car and I just couldn’t make myself put the boots back on so I walked out of the room and crossed the parking lot barefooted with the booze, a stack of plastic cups, and a box of tissues I took from the room for the long drive with a van-full of boys with the sniffles. I was looking pretty homeless when everybody decided to leave their rooms all at once and I ducked as quickly as I could behind some bamboo so as not to seem like some kind of crazy woman--but ducking always makes people look way sketchy. In my defense, I am in the business of creating magic at night--not looking cool in a daytime parking lot! So, I heard doors opening and I naturally thought, "Hot Chip! Hide!"

California--Great American Music Hall

2007-06-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: Jake Thomas

Listening to Buck Owens in the van now on the way to San Diego. Driving through Bakersfield where my mother grew up. I must have something of the west coast in my blood and I’d like to think it’s the sunshine, but just now I’m thinking that it might be the smog. I’m not tired, I just have smog in my veins.

We played the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. It was magnificent.
Everybody was very nice to us—they made us all a wonderful dinner, they have a great lighting person, an excellent front-of-the-house sound man, and an attentive monitors man with beautiful eyes. Above is a photo of the venue before the show, and then three photos of us on stage being hella cool. Obviously.
The atmosphere is the best thing about the Great American. Try to imagine the most decadent party you could have gone to 100 years ago and this is the place. The colors are red, gold, and magic. For musicians, this is the Sistine Chapel.

Cat's Cradle

2007-05-29T17:44:00.001-07:00

Here's a photo Tim took of the show last week at the Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill. I love the stars hanging above the stage. I didn't notice them that night but Tim's perspective accounts for a lot I don't see.

Toronto

2007-05-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

True or False: Land of Talk kicked ass last night.

Tonight Ann Arbor. In the dressing room right now. "Nirvana" is written in blue painter's tape above the door. Something about that surprises me. Not that I'm in the dressing room Nirvana was in because they played a lot of these venues when they were our size, but more because I guess I think of them as a band who might not have had the energy for putting their name all over dressing rooms. You know? I picture them as a band who would roll out of the van hung over, come in and have a drink, sound check, nap until doors, drinks, play, then pack and leave for the hotel where they might leave a bunch of beer cans and drug odds and ends laying around. But apparently they were the kind of band to tape their name around. Unless somebody else put it up. Chris? What's the true story here? Dave?

Upstate NY

2007-05-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

Just driving through Albany area, listening to the Breeders. Is this not the perfect pop song in the end of everything?
Spitting in a wishing well.
Giorgio has been driving the whole trip until now. Matt just took over and there was a back and forth about cruise control. Some people are for it. Matt’s against it. It got quiet for a while and we were all just looking at the hills when Giorgio said, “I like cruise control because sometimes my foot gets tired.” Matt said, “Yeah, that’s how it is with pussies usually.”
Josh left the tour to go home today like he’d planned on doing. The plan was that he’d just go for a week but by the end we all realized that he’d have to come back and at least do the west coast with us. So he’s going home to normal life for a little while and we’re going to Canada. He said he’d have to email the “tips” address at Pitchfork that The Rosebuds’ merch guy “Is going to do the west coast after all.”
Are we the only band that has a merch guy that people blog about? I’ve read about Josh in blogs—about how nice and funny he is. When we play shows without him, people who have seen us before ask about him.

East Coast

2007-05-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

We’ve been making our way up the east coast and are headed to MA right now. I was told to try melatonin for getting to sleep on tour. Might have taken too much because I’m in a sort of dream state today. We are in Memorial Day traffic and there’s nothing to look at. We make a lot of how close people sit to their steering wheel. One woman was so close to the wheel that there were at least six different fatal scenarios floating in the van having to do with proximity to the airbag. Giorgio: “No, it’s just that the bag won’t be able to fully inflate.”
Josh: “Vertebra man. That’s the way to break one. That’s the way it happens.”
Justin: “Crush her fucking chest man that’s for sure.”

Passing through Yonkers I remembered a trip Saskia and I took to the big city when we were in college. We drove up to Yonkers so we could meet another friend and stay with his sister. She lived in one of those yellow Yonkers apartments. We’d been warned by Saskia’s mother not to talk to anyone because of muggings and murders. She’d been a writer in NY in the 70s and told us all about the crime. As we walked up to this woman’s apartment building a man wearing a baggy blanket-coat affair shiftily whisper-hissed “White trash white trash,” to us as we passed.
The apartment was really nice because the sister of our friend was rich from exotic dancing in the city.

Philadelphia

2007-05-28T16:34:00.001-07:00

Tim Lytvinenko took this photo of us in the photo booth of the venue. The camera in the photo booth wasn't working very well with all of us in there and Tim stuck his arm in to get this shot and we all loved this photo and we said, "Yeah, that's great! Let's do it again!" and put more money in the photo booth. Then we said, "What are we doing!? Tim, you just take more of the good ones!"
From left to right: Justin, Giorgio, Kelly, Matt, Ivan, and Josh. Justin plays guitar, Giorgio plays bass, Matt plays drums, Josh is in charge of everything.

Ivan's knee

2007-05-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

I'm sure some people noticed something was going on with Ivan's knee last night at the Bowery Ballroom show. He really hurt it playing basketball recently and he reinjured it last night on stage. Too many leg kicks, too much jumping around. So he crawled off stage. Today it is pretty bad--he won't be able to walk without something. We plan on continuing the tour as of now though.

Conway Twitty

2007-05-20T11:59:00.001-07:00

Conway Twitty's bus went down my dirt road when I was 10. I was the only person to see it.

Get Up Get Out Video Shoot

2007-05-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

This is our first official video shoot with people, a set, cameras and all that. You should know that we are very stubborn and this makes us think we can just do everything ourselves. This doesn't always produce positive results, but whatever. Inventing the future is always weird because you don't know what people will decide to do with your ideas. The point is, we decided to forego all the great directors who had really solid ideas. We didn't know what we were waiting for, but we just couldn't commit to working with anybody we didn't already know. Then Charles Story--our long-time friend who plays bass and recently played with Ivan at the Great Cover Up at King's--said he could do it. So we started talking about ideas and ways to make it happen and Charles totally became our hero. So we put him in charge. Then he said, "No, I'm not in charge." Then I said, "Charles, you are the director." He said, "No, I'm just gonna..."
"No Charles. You're in charge."
"No..."
"Yes."
Anyway, he's a nice guy so we agreed on a compromise: We won't call him "The Director" and he will be in charge of everything and direct and produce the video.
Agreed.

Open Letter to Frank Black

2007-04-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

We were asked to cover The Pixies' "Break My Body" for an upcoming tribute record. It seems natural that Ivan would sing it since it's Frank singing lead on the original, but I think I should sing it! If Ivan sings "Break my body, hold my bones," it's one thing. But I think if I sing it...
The bottom line is: This is a woman's song!

Okay, open letter to Frank Black:

Frank,
Do you think it is possible that you wrote this song for a woman? "I'm a belly dancer" isn't even the only thing I'm talking about here. Frank, just let me know if you don't want me to sing it. No, don't do that. I really want to do it. Or try it at least. If it sounds horrible, I'll let Ivan sing it after all. And also, do you eat sushi? I want to take you out to dinner. Or you take me out to dinner because there's a good place called Waraji here in Raleigh. But they have other stuff too if you don't eat sushi.
Love,
Kelly

Ivan among his people

2007-04-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

In Moscow we saw a news article in a local paper about our show and it was in Russian so I couldn't read it but I kept seeing the names "Kelly Crisp" and "John Howard" in the standard English alphabet. And I realized, they've translated Ivan's name from it's Russian form into it's English form. Funny.
After the show, a group of people were calling to Ivan to come over and one said, "What is your name!?" And Ivan said, "My name is Ivan." They all looked so baffled. Then the guy said, "Write it. Write it." He gave Ivan a piece of paper and Ivan wrote his name and showed it to them and they all laughed and said, "EEEEVONNN! It's Russian!"

Facts about Furies

2007-03-16T22:55:00.001-07:00

1. The record is self-produced.
2. Some real drums sound like machines (!!!) and some machines sound like machines.
3. Ivan's bass lines sound like Bill Withers to me.
4. The songs are 100% totally made up.
5. I was born in the future, so how could this be about my family?

Columbia, SC Setlist

2007-03-11T00:16:00.000-08:00

On our way to SxSW. This is the setlist for the show tonight. We are hanging with Beach House tonight at the old hotel in Columbia so I better get out of here. See you soon love.

Hold on to This Coat
Cemetery Lawn
Back to Boston
I Better Run
Bluebird
Shake Our Tree
Waiting for the Carnival
Leaves Do Fall
Lights Went Dim
Boxcar
Night of the Furies
Kicks in the Schoolyard
Drunkards Worst Nightmare

Russia, you are a cold lover

2007-03-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

It was the coldest week of the winter in Moscow. Here you see Mr. Justin Vernon with a note from Eau Claire, WI. Below is a wonderful and dark image of the cathedral with the steam of the power plants aglow. And then, as we take the stage, we fall in love with the people and find them beautiful, enchanted creatures of the ice. We sang, "Blood and love tonight!" and a man tore his shirt off and a girl, across the room, climbed onto another man's shoulders and began to scream and then it all happened.

The Furies

2007-01-22T21:30:00.000-08:00

The Furies were Roman goddesses named Tisiphone (avenger of murder), Megaera (grudging), and Alecto (constant anger). They were born from night and they punish crimes on Earth that go unpunished.

Russia in February

2007-01-22T20:47:00.000-08:00

We have been invited to go to Russia for a show in February.
I wish I could read this in the original Russian, but here is a translation of an Aleksandr Pushkin poem called The Prophet.

Tormented by spiritual thirst I dragged myself through a sombre desert. And a six-winged seraph appeared to me at the crossing of the ways. He touched my eyes with fingers as light as a dream: and my prophetic eyes opened like those of a frightened eagle. He touched my ears and they were filled with noise and ringing: and I heard the shuttering of the heavens, and the flight of the angels in the heights, and the movement of the beasts of the sea under the waters, and the sound of the vine growing in the valley. He bent down to my mouth and tore out my tongue, sinful, deceitful, and given to idle talk; and with his right hand steeped in blood he inserted the forked tongue of a wise serpent into my benumbed mouth. He clove my breast with a sword, and plucked out my quivering heart, and thrust a coal of live fire into my gaping breast. Like a corpse I lay in the desert. And the voice of God called out to me: 'Arise, O prophet, see and hear, be filled with My will, go forth over the land and sea, and set the hearts of men on fire with your Word.'

Smallest Traveler

2006-11-08T20:50:00.000-08:00

Everyone in the small company of travelers became so sleepy that they began to wither and, because it was happening to all of them, no one noticed that they were actually, physically getting smaller. So small that they became nearly invisible. When the man walked in he saw that everyone was gone. He took such a deep breath at that point that the small folks became friable and they all flew in, on this breath, into his lungs, and found a soft place to sleep, each in their own landing place. The smallest one, a foreigner, was attracted, naturally, to the rhythmic beating of the man’s heart and so the traveler found a soft spot closest in to the heart. The man fell asleep, being himself overcome by sleepiness and unknowingly persuaded by the sleeping boarders within. In the early morning, as the travelers began to wake, they felt themselves refreshed and yearned to be big again. They decided to leave so they flew out and away on a heavy exhale. The smallest traveler, however, overslept and upon finding everyone gone, decided to stay for a while.
For amusement, the little traveler began singing songs to the man’s heartbeat. This woke him because even though the traveler was so small that any normal sized human would never hear the little songs, the man could feel and hear them. But it was not very loud. In fact, it was so soft, that only some parts could be understood and some parts of the songs were not understood, but they made the man smile nonetheless.
This was years ago. No one knows now if the smallest traveler ever decided to leave the man because the man stopped telling people about the traveler when they became judgmental. Some would say, “If this is true, how long do you plan to keep the little traveler?” And some people would say, “I don’t want you to talk about the little traveler anymore because it’s strange.” So the man stopped talking about it. He stopped talking altogether and now he only sings quietly to himself.

New album is almost finished!

2006-11-05T17:19:00.000-08:00

We are a couple of weeks away from the completion of our next full length record! We can't wait for you to hear it, but it looks like April 10th 2007 will be the release date in the US from our good friends at Merge Records.