What a wonderful weekend. What did you do to celebrate? I helped some friends turn 0.5595% of the internet carbon neutral, then watched in horror as the press release blew up on Digg, and wound up pulling my first true all-nighter of the year launching the website a day early.

So it seems only natural that Misha and I should publish our most embarrassing moment at this time. While there’s no shortage of candidates for the title, if you were to put us each in separate rooms and ask us, “What’s the one thing you’ve done as a band that you really never want anyone to know about?” we would each, without hesitation, say: “Granola Morning Goodness.”

A bit of backstory: we have a friend in LA who works for a film licensing company and occasionally asks us for weird, highly-specific concept songs. Sometimes we take them on, just because there’s usually something like a 24 hour deadline and it’s a fun “songwriter’s challenge” kind of thing. For instance, Temporary States was originally written for “a hard PG-13 animated romantic comedy.” (It didn’t make the cut.)

But this was probably the weirdest set of instructions we’ve ever received, for anything, in our lives:

From : The Amazing LG

Sent : Tuesday, February 15, 2005 6:47 PM

To : Speechwriters LLC

Subject : Cereal commercial?

Hi guys,

Please let me know if you have anything you would like me to pitch…see description below:

We’re testing a new campaign that’s a cross between a granola, healthy morning cereal spot and a cosmetic/beauty ad. Looking for a track about beauty, without saying the word ….not too slow, should have some energy, music to make you move/wake up/feel good – nothing moody/chill out.

Key Words:

glowing from the inside

shine

happiness

alive

Please send me ideas by end of day Wed or first thing Thurs morning.

Thank you!

-LG

To this day, we still have no clue what it was for or who wound up getting the contract, but I think you’ll agree: we hit this one out of the park.

Happy Earth Day,

Dave