Magic Moment

Let's take a minute and delve into Elizabethan past. Many people wonder, "What are you trying to do, Elizabethan Report? Really?" Pretty much the whole point from the start was to play at BYU; to experience acceptance, to be normal, to fit in, to exchange nods with clean cut, friendly zoobers on campus, and to eat mint brownies just like everyone else in our happy valley. Finally, last year, we did it. Here is a brief report.

Tony Tony

Just a bit of news: Anthony Kiedis, singer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and organizer of the NAMU festival we're playing in later this summer, has been voted Sexiest Vegetarian of 2008 by PETA.

If Tony were a vegetarian he would have made the list. You know what I mean?

Park City Tele-Vision

Woo-wound of the week: Tom's shoulder, elbow, hand, and knee. As you can see in the video, he is uninhibited.



It's good to be back. The ER took a lighter than usual van up the canyon to Park City on Tuesday night to play live on Mountain Views. It's kind of a newsish weatherish show, and they have a music act play pretty regularly. Here's the interview.



Everyone's back to their lovers, secret crushes, sandwich shop jobs, and being cool in Provo. Tom already misses tour like a guy missing the stuff he sold to the pawn shop.

New types of cuddling:

Muddling - men cuddling
Guddling - girls cuddling
Buddling - cuddling with a bunny

Original Oregano Gangstas

Yeah-heah! Alright, man!

The first leg of tour couldn't have ended more magically. We played our music in the Jones's front yard on a stage Rob Jones had hand-built earlier that week for the music festival they put on ever year. It feels like a family reunion, but for a small town instead of a family, and with really good sound. Since there were so many folk acts, we were afraid we were going to blow people's faces off. But luckily out in the boonies, the jaw drop is a good thing.

(not us performing)

A few moments from Karen as she emceed the show: "I know I'm old, but I kind of have a crush on Tony!" Another: "Whenever I get a little naked around the house, my son goes, "Mom, cut it out, you're makin' me gay!" If you're ever in Santa Ynez, ask anyone in town where the Joneses live, and if you're lucky, you can see some of Karen's yard art.


It takes a lot to have us post the cheesy band pic, so Karen and Rob, just know how much you rule.


"Oh mah gawsh, I'm so sad we're going home!"

Quality Inn, More Like Awesome Inn

Tony's naked, toweled, and stepping out of the bathroom of our first hotel room of tour. Every time we hit one of these milestones, Tom goes, "Aright! We made it! YYeA!" And we all fake like we're going home.

The list: Times we woke up this morning (in order of appearance)

Aaron: 6:45
Tony: 7:15
Tom: 7:45
Spencer: 7:50
Hillery: 8:30

The GIGabethan Report:

You would think that a Starbucks show would be lame, corporate, and that the music would be out of place, especially for a band like us. And you would think a show booked by the same people who left us high and dry last week at a show would pan out similarly. However, last night was one of our best shows. It felt like home to have people dancing and meaning it in a Starbucks. Highlights included Tony on top of a speaker, Tony getting up on the counter, and Tony singing through the megaphone out the front door to some scared looking twelve-year-olds.

The Nicest Guys in the World

Let me introduce you to two of the nicest guys in the whole world.


Arlo and Gus, the old guys pictured above, run Mr. T's Bowl, an old bowling alley converted into a bar venue. And we're not just saying they're nice because Arlo is wearing his Elizabethan Report t-shirt; these guys are genuinely nice. If you're in LA, look this joint up, it's got a great feel.

And here's the hot drummer walking through the door pic:


We played at T's on Wednesday, and then the guys were nice enough to invite us back for tonight. That place just has this magic 'something' that made us play amazing music. Tom's fills were filling, Spencer's riffs were so right, and Tony's tones were on point. Creamy. Tonight's crowd of pissed off Laker fans were glad to have us to console their wounded spirits.

We've had the best juxtaposition of houses to crash at this week. House #1 was comfortably cluttered, and run by our most low-maintenance hosts yet. House #2 was almost playfully precise, as you can see from this set of instructions affixed to the shower wall:


I wanted them to add a few more lines in there, like "Return to bathroom in one hour; check moisture levels with a light cloth. If the cloth is damp, furrow your left brow slightly and invite other house guests to view the anomaly as well. You can then view your furrowed brows together in the bathroom mirror, which, if done with correctness and precision, will provide you with pleasure." It's so fun to see how people live.

Only a few more days of this tour left, but we'll keep blogging throughout the summer. Stay tuned, more to come in the months ahead, like Bob Dylan, band love triangles, and incredible amounts of suspense!

Tour Weekend is Monday through Tuseday

If you ever join a band, and if that band happens to be on tour, you should know that your weekend is not the traditional Saturday / Sunday. It's actually Monday / Tuesday. The cool thing is that the sabbath is actually interchangeable between those days, whichever one you don't have a show booked. Tour sabbath involves deep musical meditation and experimentation, and lots of laughing and having a grand time. Of course, there are more liberal interpretations of the tour sabbath code, like communicating with long distance lovers, or driving too far.

We've had a nice couple of rest days in San Diego. Other than hopping on a Monday night stint at the Beauty Bar in San Diego, Elizabethan Report is happily rested, shorn, primped, and ready for the work week.

We've continued to live in luxury's lap through the tour. It turns out accomplishing this is simple: just park the van in front of a really nice house and make friends with the occupants.

Out of our tour sabbath, or maybe just out of boredom, the ER has gotten really good at threatening each other for fun. These threats are best delivered deadpan. "I'm gonna tie you to a tobbogan and throw you off a glacier." "I'm going to punch you in the face, and then apologize and say some nice things. Then I'm going to punch you in the face again." "I'm going to read you bedtime stories, tuck you into bed, and then elbow drop you. Then I'll leave the books neatly on the bedside table."

Another cool product of tour sabbath is Aaron's new jam, "Secret Crush." He made it on his computer with the built in mic. Vocals were recorded in the house we stayed at and in the van on the way to LA. Click it to lick it.

Secret Crush

That's about it. ER over and out.

A Crowd of Four is All We Need

But before we elaborate on that, let me tell you about Aaron's new 'most hardcore thing he's done on tour': SHOPLIFTING. That's right, y'all heard me. Aaron shoplifted from Wal-Mart in L.A. last night. Now before all you Wal-Mart haters go thinking 'man, this band really gets it,' you should know that this shoplifting was: A, Purely functional, B, By all accounts, ethical, and C. A one time incident (he's such a pansie that he'll probably never do it again.) Ethical? Long story short, Aaron needed an allen wrench, and found a stray, incomplete set hidden in a bin in the Hardware section. The tool set it came from was no where in sight, obviously stolen, so there was no way Wal-Mart could sell the remaining part. Boring! Anyway, The ER got an allen wrench, Wal-Mart got one less problem to deal with, and L.A. got a lot happier.

In gig news, Elizabethan Report is happily paying its dues. After a booking guy skipped town, the ER played the Tribal Café Saturday night to an audience of four friends and two employees. Our policy is "no matter what, put on a killer show," and we can honestly say that at least one person at every show gets into our set.

Today's list: Love Language

Tony: Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation "Especially physical touch."

Aaron: Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation

Spencer: Quality Time

Hillery: Quality Time and Physical Touch

Tom: Sacrifice and Physical Touch

Thanks to Laura German for the photography.

Here's a few dreams for you. Tony had a dream about a town in Idaho where the people are more holy. In fact, the town was so holy that the plants all had really cool personalities. Tony says they were all just really nice to him. Anyway, Tony and some friends found an ant hill under a rock, and rescued the nice plants by spraying the ants with gasoline and lighting them on fire.

Another! Hillery dreamed that she was having an argument with her mom, and every time Hillery talked back, she sang it in her pop singer voice. "MOOOM, I'm NOT living with thirtee - hee - heen year olds!"

Aaron dreamed that he started dating his ex again, only she was a completely different person, way cooler, and not deceiving at all.

And finally, Tom had a dream that the LDS church threw a rave.

Passion

Today's list: The most hardcore thing each of us have done on tour:

Tony: Using the bar as a stage even after he fell off on the first attempt.

Tom: Going for six days without a shower.

Hillery: Surviving the absence of her true love, while also surviving the smelly, loud nature of her band-mates, who are consistently prone to delving into the intricacies of scatological humor.

Aaron: Running into a plate glass window.

Spencer: Going the whole without a cell phone in an act of rock n' roll self-denial.

We recently found out that if you're ever locked out of your vehicle, Santa Anna is the place to be. Almost every male who passed us on the street as we were trying to break in to our van offered some knowledge or a tool. We had coat hangers, flashlights, Slim Jims, and most importantly, techniques. They must teach this stuff in their school districts. But you have to understand that this is more than just something these people know how to do. It's a passion for them. At one point we had three strangers helping us out, and one guy, who was out of suggestions, stuck around to learn how to do it. "I want to get in on that s***, man," he said, grinning ear to ear from the sheer joy of learning.

After rescuing our instruments from van prison, we took them into open mic night, which Ghost Town Jenny helped us find. It turns out that if you bring drums and a megaphone to open mic night, people think you're pretty cool and let you play a few more songs. It was actually a pretty eclectic open mic night. There was a Steely Dan jazz solo guitar guy, a girl who sang about dying rich and keeping all your toys, Ghost Town Jenny, and finally the night rounded out with Josie, a transvestite who sang Christian death metal songs unplugged, and apologized in advance if the audience saw any "nipple action" due to gravitational pull on her top.

Can Elizabethan Report officially endorse someone opening a Trader Joe's in Utah? Mormons are health conscious, right? Mormons are cheap, right? What's missing from this important cultural leap equation?

Last night we got into San Diego, and after dinner from Trader Joe's and a short trip to the beach, we played at Joe n' Andy's Hole in the Wall. We met Jessie, a lightly toasted, friendly guy who was really into knee drumming. "Hey...check this out...did you ever do this in high school?" [Jessie drums his knees] "Check it out!" ER: "Oh yeah, man, that's cool." [ER starts knee drumming too] Jessie: "And what's freaking me out...is you guys already know it!" [everyone drums knees, smiling at each other] Jessie: "I talk to drummers from San Diego...they don't get it, man. They don't get it!" After meeting Jessie, we walked back into the bar to play another set. Aaron: "I don't know why, but I love that guy." Tom: "Yeah, I'm IN love with him, and I don't know why."


If anyone was wondering, here's the story behind the spelling of Hillery's name. When she was born, there was a family acquaintance named Larry who was not very popular in the Hathaway household. Feeling strongly that Hillary was the right name but not wanting to be reminded of Larry, the Hathaways named her Hillery. So there you go.

O.C. People

Here's a song each of us have running through our heads:

Tony: Bring on the Dancing Horses - Echo and the Bunnymen
Hillery: I Will Posses Your Heart - Death Cab for Cutie
Spencer: I am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco
Aaron: Juicy - Notorious B.I.G.
Tom: Odyssey, 2nd Movement - Incubus

Elizabethan Report had no idea the O.C. had so many interesting people. Yesterday, we had dinner with Sam and Liz Lambson. Liz, who just graduated from college, has recently begun 'the experiment,' basically she went and got a job at the local McDonald's so she could find out what kind of people really work there. You can read about it here. After one week, she says it's starting to wear on her. Anyway, she cooked us some really fine stuffed chicken, and then we were off to eVocal.

We are such pleasant company.

After we unloaded our stuff, we met Matt, the singer of Sweet Sweet Thing, a band on the bill later that night. He told us about his five solo albums, with songs about wiener dogs and pissed off punks. One of the highlights of Sweet Sweet Thing's set was Matt's one-note solo. Picture an almost Jack Nicholas-esque smile on the frontman's face as he plays the same note over and over again for about a minute.

Later that night, as we were about to leave, we noticed Hillery was missing. After a minute, we got a call from her, saying she was still inside the venue, but apparently they had locked up the place while she was still in the bathroom. Luckily one of the charming Evocal workers was in the neighborhood, and he recovered our Hillery unscathed.

After the show, we went with Ghost Town Jenny (another band on the bill) to Alejandro's across the street. There we met José, who rides the biggest, longest street cruiser any of us has ever seen, complete with six blinking blue and red lights, and a stuffed bear stuck on the middle of the handle bars. It's like the bike version of one of those huge choppers you see in sixties TV shows, except more frail, and tricked out by a Mexican. José told us he welded his own reinforcement beams onto it. He also said it was very difficult to ride. "If any of you can ride it, I'll give you the bike." Aaron took a stab at it, narrowly missing curbs and wobbling uncontrollably. No Mexican beach cruiser for Elizabethan Report. José said he was going to ride it to Pasedena later that night. "It's been four days. I miss my five month old daughter." What was this guy doing at midnight riding to Pasedena? And is his baby's momma cool with him stopping in just...whenever? I'm sure they've got something nice figured out.


Today we hung out with Kim from Ghost Town Jenny. She's a sweetie, and she's got a song with a really great hook called "Without You" that we all loved. She plays with a lap steel player and a banjo player, but she envisions her music with french horn, trumpet, and mandolin added in too. You can hear her here. We went to the beach with her, where she played us Beirut on her ukulele, and then she invited us to her mom's trailer to eat generous amounts of meat, which we did.

Dreams

The tour goes on to West LA, where we've been staying at cousin Megan's house.

Everyone in Elizabethan Report had a dream last night. Here they all are; you can draw your own conclusions. If any of you have some interpretations, feel free to give them.


Hillary dreamed she was being chased by a swarm of bees in a forest in her old neighborhood in North Carolina.

Spencer dreamed he got into a fight with a neighbor, and suddenly the fight turned into a war. He killed several people and felt bad, and then woke up sweating bullets.

Tony dreamed he was walking by a club and had a feeling he shouldn't go there. When he looked in the club, there were goth lesbians doing the dirty. After realizing what was goin on, Tony left immediately. He wishes he would have stayed longer, 'cause it was only a dream.

Aaron dreamed he was in a teleporting chase, like in the movie Jumper. He was running and teleporting at sunset around some girl's house.

Tom dreamed that Jason from Friday the 13th was trying to kill him in a chase. As the dream wore on, Tom was getting frustrated that Jason didn't just kill him already. For real.

In other news, we have acquired a megaphone. It's come in handy on the freeway, where it's now possible to tell people they look good while going 70 miles an hour. Megaphone + Big Boy giant white van = MegaFun. We're going to start doing outdoor shows with Tony on the megaphone. It's got a nice rubber ring around the horn, so no one has to worry about Tony banging them with it. There won't be a problem; rubber is a soft material. The megaphone also has Beethoven's Fur Elise on it, just in case we forget our songs.

The band consensus is that we like LA, and that there's probably a lot more to discover. We've been to a Dodger's game:

-too much to sit still

The Original Tommy Burger (pidgeon ridden):

-"You and me, we eat."

And Sunset Boulevard.

-Paparazzi!

Band practice this morning:


We're getting a little antsy to play shows, so we're getting creative. Tomorrow we play Costa Mesa! We also booked a burrito shop opening next week. Who wouldn't want to see a burrito shop show?

Big boy, what???

Big boy has gotting himself into mischief again, ladies and gentlemen! This is the second complete tire blow out of tour. This time it was an hour outside Vegas, on our way to a gig in Long Beach that night. So good!


We drove back to Vegas, found this great Mexican tire shop near the strip, and got fixed up real nice. Unfortunately we rolled into Long Beach at 1am, a little too late to play the show we had booked. By the way, this is what our gas stations look like. Natural gas makes our Dodge 12 passenger cost the same as a Honda Civic to drive.


It feels good to be here.

Viva

Last night we played in a bar converted from an old strip joint just across the freeway from the Las Vegas Strip. We made friends and had a killer time. Here's a shot of us by the freeway.

Best thing about this tour: so far, no one's been a jerk to us. I know, crazy, it's been three whole days! It's meant to be. ER over and out.

thomas says: I'm thankful to be a part of such a good group of guys and girl, and I'm very lucky to have found music. Vegas is hot and sketchy.