There Are Two Exclamation Points In Our Name


Welcome to our terribly unreliable site! For all questions that don't get answered here, write me at pleasestopit@aol.com 10/29/04 Is it normal for your friends to pick you up from the airport with two boxes of pizza? We're home. It's different yet totally the same. I know you're all waiting for this information, so here it is: Europe '04 - Painkiller-Induced Reviews of Books We Read On Tour The First Counsel, Brad Meltzer This came from Tyler, whose favorite genre of literature is what I call "legal thrillers," but I don't know if I made up that term or not. This refers to stuff like The Firm, The Bourne Identity, or anything else in which one man eventually runs from the very system that employs him. Those "trust no one" stories where you also learn some things about law, government, the military, whatever. In this case, a White House employee starts dating the first daughter and sees something he shouldn't and then has to cover himself. Even though Josh professed to falling in love with one of the characters and in his excitement gave away the ending, admittedly, I couldn't put this down. I hated myself for this as the writing was often laughable and kind of arrogant. However, like The Manchurian Candidate which I watched on the plane, this was good election year entertainment. A much heard phrase was "Damn...First Counsel's heatin' up!" One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey Better know perhaps for its film counterpart that I haven't seen, this is your classic Christ tale--man comes into town, changes something, leaves. In this case, town is a mental ward. The characters are what makes this one work, with the hero as a loveable rabble-rouser, the antagonist a manipulative nurse, and the narrator an Indian pretending to be deaf and mute. At one point they take a fishing trip at sea, and I reached that point just as we boarded a ferry. Coincidence? Life imitates art, or VICE VERSA? YOU BE THE JUDGE! A Heartbraking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers For years people told me I should read this book, so naturally I avoided it as long as possible. This has absolutely no plot but somehow keeps you interested. It's worth it for the writing--at times you feel like you're deep in his head and other times he's in yours. When the early 20's narrator's parents both die of cancer, he is left to raise his younger brother. Sounds like a sitcom, feels more like psychoanalysis. I wondered if he ever had a single thought that he didn't write down. Inspiring, really. If people still cared about books this could define a generation, much like that Caulfield book, I forget the name. A Riot of Our Own--Night and Day With The Clash, Johnny Green This works because it's written by the roadie and therefore lacks an outsiders judgment, analysis, or ass-kissing a la so many Rolling Stone writers, Joan Didion, or someone sent to "cover" the band. It would seem obvious to say this mirrored our own tour in some way, but I honestly saw more parallels in Cuckoo's Nest. Snakepit Anthology II, Ben White Found this in a distro in Lyon, which is odd because this is a friend from our very own hometown. We're proud of our own and are ready to claim him as we do Pat Benatar, Aimee Mann, or the guy who drew Nickelodeon's Doug. This is a comic zine in which Ben draws a 3 panel strip each day about his life which says more and will make you laugh harder than most comics, Mark Trail included. He's an under-appreciated artist in the punk community, so try to find this. An actual book was published recently, somewhere, by someone. Other books that floated around but I personally didn't get around to: an autobiography by David Lee Roth that seemed to be embellished Van Halen stories, an autobiography called Moonwalker by Michael Jackson (found in the ferry station in Dover), and The Prometheus Deception--a Robert Ludlum book with a funny name. 9/2/04 We leave for Blacksburg, VA in a few hours, the first of five shows with various combinations of Life At These Speeds, Wilderness Medicine, and Sinaloa. Lineups have changed so much that I honestly have no idea which of those bands are playing each show--my apologies for confusion on our shows page, or any inaccurate info. I will just be pleasantly surprised each night. I'm excited to see LATS in a way that I haven't been excited to see a band in a long time, it feels nice. Blacksburg is a town I haven't visited in quite some time either. My first trip there was perhaps 1997, my first band played a show with Brendan's first band, I hardly knew them at the time. If you had told me then that he and I would be going to Europe together I certainly would have laughed. Hell, I'm laughing now. Sorry for slipping into nostalgia there, I won't do it again. There's an interview with us in the newest Heartattack zine. We'll have copies with us if you'd like one. July 30th, 2004* Meet the new site, same as the old site. You've found us, I don't know how you did it but you found us. If you're here then you know we're here, so no point in me telling you. I updated the shows with all the current info--and again, that is all we'll be playing for now. Our hands are too full. When we're not working, Adam is doing lots of art--look for his most recent work on the Van Johnson record on Exotic Fever, and our own enhanced demo out soon on Waking Records. Brendan has been playing a lot of tennis, Tyler has been watching a lot of soccer. I have been vacationing, writing songs and playing some shows with my other band, Pink Razors. It's good to be in Richmond for the summer. Check out the older updates here.