March Tour

Don't really know where to post these dates now that Myspace has all but imploded, so I'm gonna start here.  We'll fill in the holes as things were working on get confirmed.  See you soon, hopefully.


March 1- Virginia Beach, VA @ Concrete Grow Together
March 2- Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter
March 3- Charlottesville, VA TBA
March 4- Hyattsville, MD @ The Kennel
March 5- TBA
March 6- Lancaster, PA @ House show
March 7- Pittsburgh, PA @ Garfield Artworks
March 8- Cleveland, OH @ Beechland Tavern^
March 9- Fort Wayne, IN @ Pint & Slice
March 10- Pontiac, MI @ The Pike Room*^
March 11- Detroit, MI @ The Old Miami*
March 12- Chicago, IL @ Reggies*^
March 13- TBA*
March 14- St Louis, MO @ Cranky Yellow*
March 18- Austin, TX @ Valhalla, Mylene Sheath Showcase
March 21- San Antonio, TX @ The Ten Eleven*
March 22- Houston, TX @ Minks Backroom*
March 23- Baton Rouge, LA @ Northgate Tavern*
March 24- New Orleans, LA @ TBA*
March 25- TBA
March 26- TBA
March 30- Charlotte, NC @ TBA
March 31- Durham, NC @ Motorco
April 2- MACRock @ Blue Nile

*- w/ The Summer Pledge
^- w/ If These Trees Could Talk

<3

so we realize that the lyrics in the artwork of our new record are very hard to read. this was intentional. however, we feel now that we'd like for those people who are curious enough to look for them to be able to find them somewhere. plus, a decent chunk wound up online already, so I figure we might as well go ahead and put the rest of them up. we would also like for people to be able to get what we're trying to say with this record, because it has a lot to do with our feelings towards the category that our band has been placed in. thank you for being interested, if you are.


lionized
you've been plagued by repetition
you've been plagued by feigned emotion
(etc)


dime and suture
I can't believe what I see
staring out from the coast of this
glittering neon sea
standing still for the first time
as the tide climbs up to kiss my feet
and my senses scream 'its freezing'
but I know better than to believe them now
they tell me 'theres no meaning there'
as if I'd never searched on solid ground
and found nothing more than
the firm adherence to an old belief
that the air that fills a red balloon
would be different
were it green

but I can see
how you'd believe it
they were both so full of emptiness
they almost seemed real
and it can be so hard to tell
until they pop


alagoas
how needing of compassion are we
who eavesdrop so obsessively
listening in on sick men mumbling secrets to themselves in empty rooms
and what audacity
what childish sort of pride
to drop their heartache at their feet
and cast their candidness aside
and looking not into their eyes
but through the vast network of screens
we scream:
'these strange new words of yours
no longer suit our needs'
as if we were the ones they sought to please

(the cure is your own words
if it doesn't burn its not working)


grime and glass
---


rearview
sometimes there's just so much to say
you don't say a word
silence buys you a little time
but not a reason why

(overheat and evaporate
leaving like smoke from between your teeth
hanging in dark clouds above our heads
old silence haunting us still
fenced in broken fields
missing points
in every voice a song
and every song a voice)



-n

As usual, its been forever since we've updated this thing. Rest assured, we've been hard at work. Our self titled full length is going to be released July 13th through The Mylene Sheath. Pre-order starts on June 25th. You can listen to one new track on our Myspace and another on Absolutepunk. You can read an interview in which I talk about the album in depth here. To summarize: it's different and we're stoked about it. We're still wrapping up a few loose ends, but here's our summer tour info:

July 16th- Harrisonburg VA @ Blue Nile w/ Tone, +1 TBA
July 17th- Greensboro, NC @ Legitimate Business w/ Nigredo, Irata
July 18th- TBA
July 19th- Clarksville, TN @ The Coup w/ Nigredo
July 20th- Memphis, TN @ The Hi-Tone w/ Nigredo
July 21st- Shreveport, LA @ Bears Oyster House w/ Nigredo
July 22nd- Dallas, TX @ The Cavern w/ Nigredo
July 23rd- Austin, TX @ Club Deville w/ My Education
July 24th- San Antonio, TX @ The Ten Eleven w/ My Education
July 26th- Albuquerque, NM @ The Fusion Factory w/Battlefields, City of Ships, Rosetta
July 28th- Phoenix, AZ @ Revolver Records w/ Hellas Mounds
July 29th- Las Vegas, NV @ Yoyo Tacos w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert, Caravels
July 30th- Los Angeles, CA @ Pehrspace w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert, Beware of Safety
July 31st- Goleta, CA @ The Hard to Find Show Space w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert, Beware of Safety
August 1st- TBA w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert
August 2nd- San Francisco, CA @ Retox Lounge w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert
August 3rd- Chico, CA @ Cafe Coda w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert
August 4th- TBA w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert
August 5th- Portland, OR @ The Doug Fir Lounge w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert, We're From Japan!
August 6th- Bellevue, WA @ Ground Zero w/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert
August 7th- Boise, ID @ House Show TBA
August 9th- Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
August 10th- Grand Junction, CO @ The Panthernaut
August 11th- Denver, CO @ The Meadowlark
August 13th- Kansas City, MO @ The Record Bar
August 14th- Iowa City, IA @ Public Space One
August 15th- Chicago, IL @ TBA w/ The Summer Pledge
August 16th- Detroit, MI @ TBA w/ Sunlight Ascending
August 17th- Akron, OH @ Musica w/ If These Trees Could Talk
August 18th- Pittsburgh, PA @ House Show TBA
August 19th- New York, NY @ TBA
August 20th- Rhode Island @ TBA w/ Irepress
August 21st- Boston, MA @ Great Scott w/ Irepress
August 22nd- TBA
August 23rd- TBA
August 24th- TBA
August 25th- TBA
August 26th- Washington, DC @ TBA w/ Tone
August 27th- Charlottesville, VA @ TBA w/ Tone
August 28th- Harrisonburg, VA @ TBA

After a few weeks of rest, we're going to be heading over to Europe for the first time. Here's our dates for that:

September 15th- TBA
September 16th- TBA
September 17th- GER-Dresden, AZ Conni
September 18th- TBA
September 19th- POL-Poznan, Pod Minoga
September 20th- CZ-Praha, 007
September 21st- AT-Vienna, Rhiz
September 22nd- HU-Budapest, TBA
September 23rd- GER-Ostfildern, Zinsholz
September 24th- GER-Siegen, Vortex
September 25th- Belgium, TBA
September 26th- FR- Lille, TBA
September 27th- GER-Oberhausen, Drucklufthaus
September 28th- GER-Hamburg, Hafenklang
September 29th- DK-Copenhagen, Lades
September 30th- TBA
October 1st- GER-Chemnitz, Weltecho
October 2nd- TBA
October 3rd- TBA

And then, we'll be heading over to the UK to support The Ocean Fracture. Those dates are still in the works, but will be posted as soon as possible.

If you're interested in helping us fill any dates in the US, email us at: Giftsfromenola@Gmail.com

For dates in Mainland Europe, email Niels at: niels@selmatravels.de

For dates in the UK, email John at: outburstbooking@googlemail.com

Thats all for now, see you on the road!
-nate

whoa, we haven't updated this thing in forever. that will change very soon

So the blog was hijacked for a little bit. By which I mean I got quite drunk with the dastardly Bill Bressin one night after practice and gave him the password. It was a good joke at first, but one that has unfortunately gone too far. I hope that the goings-on of our house in Harrisonburg will still be documented on the internet, as Bressin is a talented writer, and very funny, it just needs to happen on its own webspace. This space is reserved for the occasional band updates for which Twitter does not provide enough room and occasional rants from yours truly. And now, for some more of that.

We are extremely busy right now, but a lot is up in the air and we don't want to announce anything until we're completely sure that its going to happen. Suffice to say, we are writing new music. A lot of it. And, we're writing in a live environment for the first time, which is very exciting. We've already started breaking some of these new songs in live, and theres a good chance they'll keep changing and developing from show to show. We're working to make sure that this music gets released in 2010, and we'll post updates as they become available.

We're also working hard to make sure that we're on the road more in 2010 than ever before. We'll be out for a little bit in the spring, for longer in the summer, and then hopefully again in the fall/winter. The big question right now is "where?" We'll be doing a full U.S again at some time during the year, and we've also got our eye on the other side of the Atlantic. We're also looking to play more one off shows, so keep an eye out.

So, if you might be interested in helping us book or playing a show (or shows) with us, either in the US or Europe, now is the perfect time to get in touch! Myspace works, but Gmail is better- giftsfromenola@gmail.com.

Thanks!

current listening:
-neil young
-the six parts seven

went a whole 'nother tour without a single blog. so what, want to fight about it? I'm pretty sure this is just one more way for me to talk to myself anyways. so lets recap.

tour was good, mostly. except for the torturous amount of gear failure during our time with our brothers in irepress. perseverance. a continued education in what it means to perform. crash course in diesel/vegetable oil mechanics. lots of sweat and truck stops. there were dozens of dying beautiful moths and butterflies at one gas station in the middle of the night. there was a roadrunner that confronted cj and I in the desert. there were chickens thrown in portland. much of it feels unreal, but my beard, bank statements, and back pains remind me of the truth: I lived on a schoolbus for 9 weeks with five dudes. weird, right?

now were back at home, if you can call it that. we returned to harrisonburg, had a few harrisonburg (read: drunk) nights and then some returned to school and the others to the "real world." for the first time in this bands history we are scattered across the state. its different. more importantly, we are writing music and do not plan on taking such a long time to release some of it this time. we are making plans. we are thinking about music differently. we will be playing shows this fall and winter. we will play new things. that being said, after four-ish (? jesus) years of constantly writing, recording, booking, touring, or some combination of the above, this feels like a standstill. one of my best friends told me the other day that she was able to remember what the word "ennui" meant while studying for her GREs by thinking about my life outlook right now. bummer.

you know, when we started doing this people used to come up to us in bars and ask us "man how come yall guys dont have a singer?" and now people on message boards talk about how dissapointing it is that we "went vocal," about how it ruins it for them. the more we hear what we do being called "post-rock," the more determined we are to be anything but. in such a short period of time we have watched what we knew would happen, what happens to every "new" musical subgenre. I'm afraid that one of these days "post-rock" is going to be something like metalcore is right now.

played out, overpopulated, soulless, all out of ideas, all out of ideals. rotting.

its already happening, the wound has been inflicted. theres no stopping it, of course, it has to happen. forests have to burn in order for new ones to grow. in order for us to breathe. on a sinking ship, captains die. rats thrive. david bazans new record is very good, and I think hed be picking up what Im putting down here:

You used to feel like a smoker, shivering in the cold
Waiting outside the bar 'til the opener's over
But now you feel like a drinker, 20 days off the sauce
Down at the liquor store, trying to call your sponsor

You used to feel like the forrest fire burning
But now you feel like a child, throwing tantrums for your turn

You used to sound like a prophet, and everyone wanted to know
How you could tell the truth without losing that soft glow
But now you feel like a salesman, closing another deal
Or some drunk ship captain, raging after the white whale

You used to feel like the forrest fire burning
But now you feel like a child, throwing tantrums and then some
You used to feel like the prodigal returning
But now, now you hate what you made, and you want to watch it burn

that songs called "lost my shape."

this used to be a wide open field, a way of shedding the most basic restriction there was in the american idol frontman fetish culture. funny how things change.

rats took out something like a hundred million civilized human beings back in the day. back when that was over a quarter of the planet.

there are temples elsewhere in the world where rats are fed by holy men, and food that they've touched is considered to be blessed. perspective is a crazy thing.

-nate

cruch time

besides fear, stress is the best motivator. coffee helps too.

less than two weeks til tour and so much on our plates:

buswork. still got plenty to do, but the filter/ pump setup is up and running and smelling like french fries.

gearfest 09. rewired cjs new (old and gnarly) 2x15 to run at 16ohms. taking the guts out of the fender studio bass and putting them into a head. going to run it through the mesa 4x10. sounds beautiful. just picked up a mesa 1516 cab and it sounds beautiful as well. just about got everything up and running. still need to build a case for all the keyboard/drum machine/ sampling stuff though. busybusybusy.




inventory. our house is full of records:

and weve got a new shipment of shirts on the way, modeled here by the illustrious tim skirven:
AND, I have to move out of here. havent even really thought about that yet. need to get a wedding present too, and something to wear to a wedding. am I forgetting anything? oh yeah, we need to practice too. that whole thing. and wade and andrew have class. fucking a.

to summarize: shits crazy right now. and I dont think its ever going to stop raining in harrisonburg. time to leave.

-nate

current listening-
the mars volta- octahedron
the avett brothers- the gleam and second gleam eps
bjork- medulla (and how bout that cover, eh?)

current reading-
cs lewis- the pilgrims regress
kerouac- big sur