Greetings from the back of the Honky (our van). We’re a little more than half way into our first summer swing through the mountains, the west coast, the midwest and the south. That’s some nice routing… At the moment we’re on our way to Des Moines for a show tonight at People’s. I think we’ll be stopping in at KFMG in a little while for a performance that should air at http://www.kfmg991.org sometime just after 5pm Central Time Today.
This is our first tour with the new rhythm section, Ryan Bowman and Richard Millsap. They’re both sounding great, already adding their own sonic funky flavor to the mix, and we’re having a great time with it. Thanks to everyone for making them feel so welcome at the shows.
We just posted some choice pics to facebook from the past week too. Check them out at www.facebook.com/thebandofheathens
Some highlights off stage have been the beauty of the Joshua Tree Desert, the Wasatch mountains, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone National Park (and Old Faithful), a couple of pet alpacas living at a gas station (they look like mini llamas), and a fight between two restaurant owners in Park City we got to watch while we drank coffee, which ended with, “Get off my property you silver spooned asshole!” and the appropriate and expected response, “My lawyer’s gonna eat you for lunch!” Classic.
Musically we’ve been jamming to some Warren Zevon, Father John Misty, Dr. John, Michael Kiwanuka, Blitzen Trapper, Ry Cooder, and John Coltrane. Dig in if you’re looking for some good tunes.
Last night we had a night off in Minneapolis, MN and I got to spend some time with my grandma and lots of other family I don’t get to see often enough. The rest of the guys split up and half of them went to go see The Dark Knight Rises and the other half went to Bunkers to check out the funky sounds of Dr. Mambo’s Combo. Needless to say, we all had a great night off.
Starting tonight, for the next 5 days in a row we’ve got shows in Des Moines, IA; Bloomington, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Nashville, TN; and Little Rock, AR.
If you can’t make it to a show, we are recording all of the shows, and we’ll be posting the recordings online soon. We’ve run into a few complications with our current CHNL platform (at http://bandofheathens.chnl.pro/) so some of the recent shows haven’t been posted, but the man behind the curtain is working on fixing the issues for us soon. Thanks for your patience!
Anyway, that’s all we’ve got for now. Gotta write a set list for tonight. Any song suggestions?
Hope to see you soon.
Gordy