good morning..

i have recently woken up on my buddy’s couch in ashland.. last night we drank jack daniels and pabst.. it was a relaxing night..

the last few days have been absolutely insane.. i got back from las vegas on sunday at 11:30am, after spending a brilliant weekend with my best friends in the world and going to bed at 5:30am and waking up at 6:30am.. dave picked me up and then we rented a u-haul and then we lifted lots of heavy furniture into it (again, my twig arms realized that skinny men should not live this phat as i lifted our plush oak loveseat into the truck)..

we spent all afternoon lifting and unlifting things (our stuff, dave’s parents’ stuff, etc..)

we finished around 10pm and passed out within the hour.

we woke up the next morning at *8am, ran a bunch of leaving town errands, went over to dave’s parents house for a last meal (lamb, delicious), and then started packing out of apartment and into the van.

dave was remixing an old song that we had been touching up, and i played van tetris for about five hours.. around 7am, the end was in sight, the song was done, the van was **ridiculously packed, and we went back to dave’s parents house to sleep.

we woke around 3pm, left town at 5pm, got into ashland at 10pm after listening to an amazing book on tape that we’ll probably talk about too much at upcoming shows (about greek history.. it’s really fantastic), got to ashland, and started relaxing.

goodbye portland. hello california. goodbye rain. hello sun.

*all stated times are averages of dave and i.. he pretty much always wakes up an hour earlier than me, because he is ultimately a better and more noble person, and i am an amazing sleeper

**/unsafely

Happy New Year! Speechwriters LLC is now four.

Our spring tour dates are starting to trickle in, so check the tour page from time to time and see if our travels are going to be bringing us anywhere near wherever it is that you are.

Beyond that, MySpace and the forums are pretty much where it’s at these days, inasmuch as there even is that much “it” right, as we’re all still in the process of moving out of our respective apartments and gearing up for an epic, Viking spring.

We are also contractually obligated to remind you that we have a number of new and semi-new items for sale on the store page, including our now-infamous slap bracelets.

Please let us know if we forgot anything.

Cheers,

The Band

Happy New Year, now that it’s pretty much February. We’ve been benignly neglecting the website since December, in hopes that it would take the hint and start updating itself, but it hasn’t, so here we are. Chellam seems to have covered all of the bases, vis a vis our turning four and waxing nostalgaic over a recently located tape of our first show ever*, back when the world still kind of liked America and Misha and I were exactly as good at our instruments as we are today, if not better, and gas cost $.35 a gallon and licorice fell from the sky and everything else was made out of either chocolate or gold.

It’s been a great four years, and it’s been a terrible four years, but throughout it all we’ve met some damn good people, and I say with absolutely zero authority that if you’re reading this right now, we’re going to do everything in our power to shake your hand in the next four years and thank you personally for keeping us going, be it financially, nutritionally, emotionally, or some combination thereof.

As for the part you actually care about**, we are hard at work building the band that will take us all the way to Washington, and fleshing out the stable of songs that will propel us into said District like a mighty wind escaping from California’s southern half immediately after a five-course dinner of salad, steak, shallots, cold pie, hot milk, and freedom.

Here’s a picture as proof:

Pay no attention to Jack’s gaping knife wound. The doctor says he’ll have feeling back in that part of his hand as early as April.

* = 1/25/01, Claremont, CA
** = the music, as opposed to our vague, dripping prose interludes