Stanley, Idaho was amazing. we do know now.
we all just spent the weekend at the Sawtooth Music festival, playing, river rafting, jumping from bridges (with life jackets, don't worry) and looking for big horned sheep because adam saw one sign that warned of their crossing and became enamored of the idea.
sadly we did not see one.
ALSO all ages shows are incredible and we love nothing more than young tykes coming on stage to play percussion for bag of hammers as they did in Salt Lake City.
why are kids so much cooler to talk to than middle aged dudes, i have my theories...
thank you st. louis for being so much better than we expected. not to say we didn't have expectations. but really. sleeper hit of the season.
two more weeks of tour. we are impatient to see what else happens.
best to you, see you soon, we are hopeful.
thao and the gdsd
YALL
long time no post and thus no read. sorry for the lag time but i thought it would make you miss us more.
we have been traipsing the country on the coat tails of a band called Rilo Kiley.
thank you to each and every RK band and crew member for your hospitality and generosity.
additional highlights from tour include:
Asheville, Texas, the adventure spoon we found in a box of Frosted Flakes, the additional (much smaller) headlining shows we had in Atlanta and Chapel Hill and air conditioning.
NEXT UP an almost month long headlining tour across the US where we will be morally and musically supported by friends Horsefeather, Tune-Yards, David Schultz and the Skyline, and Pepi Ginsberg. July 19th-August 14th
please let us try and make music for you.
best
thao and the get down stay down
YALL
thank you to much of the United States and select parts of Canada for your warmth and indulgence. We had a fantastic time and came home with nearly everything we started with. In particular but in no particular order: LA, SF, Seattle, PDX, NYC, LUBBOCK, TX, Austin, Chicago, OKC,SLC,
Thank you to labelmates Xiu Xiu for having us along.
NO thank you to the super 8 of Kearny, Nebraska. YOU are the soil on our sheet.
ALSO thanks but no thanks to the people (disproportionately focused in the midwest) who have senses of humor not palatable to tired travelers.
Example:
Thao (at gas station, speaking to attendant): Hi, can I get 50 dollars on number four?
Attendant: NOPE!! ALL OUT OF GAS!! SORRY!!! (attendant and friend laugh heartily. because in truth they are not out of gas. they are a gas station)
In other news- We are leaving soon for 3 weeks in Europe, and then we will haul it to the Sasquatch Festival in Washington, and then we will haul it to join Rilo Kiley on tour. and then we will have nothing left to haul.
see you soon, we are hopeful.
every day is earth day.
thao with the get down stay down
after our show at a vermont college, we were kindly and enthusiastically invited to a dorm party a short distance away. we originally declined, then accepted, then declined, and then realized we'd lost adam to collegiate exuberance and had to go fetch him from the party else wise we'd have no bassist for our next show.
it was what we had feared/ hoped for-- loud music, cramped spaces, a lot of drunk college kids, smoking with little to no ventilation, miller high life, adam drinking from a bottle while "raising the roof" and a security man who broke up festivities about 15 minutes after we arrived.
thank you bennington for the grey goose and the birthday serenade and taking such good care of our Adam.
i am typing but i can't hardly see, i feel like a sheep dog. the bangs are in need of maintenance. which is why we are going to portland.
I go to one place. i have one person. her name is jen. somehow tour always brings us through portland right around the time i start to get a headache from staring out under hair.
the band likes to get haircuts together, at places that serve Miller Highlife at any time of day. we are very supportive of each others' aesthetic efforts.
take for example our last visit to the clip n snip (not the real name, but if i were to open a place you go to be shorn, that's what it would be called):
Thao: this is my hair cut.
Frank: wow, that looks a lot better than the rat's nest you had going on before.
Willis: yeah.
Adam: yeah.
Thao: thanks.
Thank you to my friend Ezra Lipp for playing drums and being the only member of The Get Ezra Stay Ezra.
for sound check i played drums and ezra played guitar and sang. it was... transcendental.
we had a great time in the early afternoon with our college aged friends. thanks to all those who attended. we played in the same space as a gelato bar. i was distracted the whole time.
this is what i do off tour to make up for what i don't do on tour: sleep. eat hot foods. shower everyday. brush my hair. wear different outfits. moisturize my hands. read things besides road signs and menus. return phone calls. hang out with people more than once.
high five with follow through,
thao
Well hullo there
if you are interested- the Get Down Stay Down and I visited world cafe in Philadelphia and played some songs and shot the breeze a bit with host David Dye:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18941631sorry i don't know how to post a link and I stopped wanting to learn.
the band and i are on a 3 week sabbatical-- preparing mentally and physically for the epic and fruitful journey that will be our support tour with Xiu Xiu. we will be on the road for about a month and half, wherein we will sport the same three outfits and eat trail mix for four days straight and run out of shampoo about half way through and never really get around to re-stocking.
(these are predictions)
we are very excited to see you. so excited we each text one another about not being able to sleep/ accidentally peeing ourselves a little bit ( a dollop) in anticipation.
it's embarrassing. but it's the truth.
soon!!
best
thao
well hullo there!
if you are the least bit inclined to hear my speaking voice AND see me sing in sync to the camera (Bag of Hammers Music Video)-- please visit:
http://krs5rc.com/podcast/the boys and i are on a bit of an east coast tour. So far we have encountered:
- Laptop disappearances
- motel towels that smell like gasoline
- Cat Power
-NPR
-tolls
-enthusiastic people who buy us drinks
-late night pizza
-dinosaur state park with too high admission and... no dinosaurs.
-radio live rooms
-nice radio hosts
-questions about where "Get Down Stay Down" came from
*tour dates for the next rest of our lives will be posted soon.
thanks for playing, see you around campus
t
YALL
the Get Down Stay Down and I will be rolling through New York, Boston, and some select Virginia shows in the next week. We play boston on super bowl sunday. the turnout is going to be epic, i'm sure.
On thursday we played our hometown release show ( i guess just my hometown, the fellas are from different places) and had such a fantastic time we talked about it the next day and wished we had paid more attention while it was happening. Thank you to all who shared the evening with us.
i just went to target today and bought several pairs of underwear because:
1. on the road, clean underwear is king/queen. and most likely that will be the only thing clean you have on, and it might as well/should be the thing closest to your body
2. i left my bag of laundry in my friends' living room in London, and it had almost all of my underwear in it. Yes, i already apologized to my hosts for how incredibly unclassy and kind of weird and gross that was.
thanks for playing
see you around campus
best
thao
Well Hullo There
Willis and I arrived back in the states last night. Might i share with you the high and low lights of our journey:
Highs:
-European taxi cabs all have very nice leather interior.
-Germany, as a country.
- Hamburg, Leipzig, and Berlin as German cities in particular.
-German concert promoters who cook for you and harbor you and take you to sweet dance parties.
- German journalists who pick you up from the train station and send their friends to your other shows in different cities with snacks for you.
-The Paradiso in Amsterdam for a real dressing room with a light dimmer and organic fruit platter
-Riding bikes in Amsterdam
-Making merry after London's waterats at the pub across the street
-eating sushi from a moving conveyor belt with incredibly funny English people
****
Lows:
-That fellow in Amsterdam who kissed his own bicep while we were talking.
- His friend who sexually harassed me a little.
- That model in Paris who thought I worked at the club and asked me for a drink right after our set.
-Not speaking French.
-the exchange rate
***
Not really high or low, just kind of weird:
Staying in a Christian Hostel in Amsterdam
Really Low and bizarre:
Getting ambushed by a middle aged British woman in the Amsterdamned Christian hostel bathroom after I checked into the top bunk of our room at 2 am(when it closed) and woke her up (i moved as lightly and sveltly as i could) and having her tell me she was amazed they let me in and that she had to wake up really early and she'd been asleep for 3 hours and what was she supposed to do now.
really though we had a fantastic time. thank you to all those who put themselves out on our behalf, and to all those who came to the shows, and we hope that attending a show was not the same as putting yourself out.
best
thao
