Desire:

I want you to touch my blog.

That's why I made this quiz. It's over here on the right, "With the touch..." Come one, touch it. No one can press 'vote' like you can. I mean, the way you hold your mouse. The kind of mouse pad you mouse around on. Whether your mouse has a laser under it or one of those old balls that you have to clean out every two months. Or if you dance your fingers across the dancefloor that is your laptop's trackpad. You don't even have to look at it anymore, that's how good at it you are. Or maybe you just use one of those huge track balls from 1994, because that's 'your thing.' Whatever it is, you are totally unique. This is your world, your time. It's your time to do something totally meaningless that says to the world, "hey, it's me."

A little moment about our Pennyroyal Café here in Provo. I had a salad there that you've got to have. It's the Goshfather, and they do a really nice job with it. I mean, they do a nice job with more than just the name. The nuts, the dressing, the thin-sliced chicken.

Here's an idea for you, one which I'll make a bigger deal out of later. We're going on tour to California from March 18 - 30. If you're going to be there, catch one of our shows. You can pre-order tickets at our store. er.bigcartel.com It's the cool new place to shop! If you don't have California plans yet, you can start thinking about getting away now. Wouldn't a little trip in late March hit the spot? Right before taxes and finals, you know, right when the winter's gotten too long. It's the perfect time to catch a little sun, and catch ER playing at one of the coolest venues in all the land, the Whiskey a Go Go.

Let me also recommend four excellent albums that I've listened to lately: Q-Tip's The Renaissance, The Strokes' Room On Fire, Beck's Modern Guilt, and Elizabethan Report's Are you a murder?. I recommend Q-Tip for taking a shower, The Strokes for driving to work or school, Beck for doing the dishes to, and ER for the last hour before you have to give a presentation you're kind of nervous about.

Alternate Album Art part 1

Here's an alternate ideas for album art. "It's for fun!" (said with Spanish accent) Thanks to Greg Nichols.
What do you think, honestly: should we be nice to pigeons? How nice are we to them currently? Does mistreatment occur? Or should there be more mistreatment? Is this a problem the Obama administration should be more aggressive with?

Release Party Succeeds at Delighting

But first, this. I know I'm not supposed to use this blog to tell other band's stories, but this one just blew me away.



Okay, because we're worth talking about too, I'ma give you an update. In usual ER fashion, we've hardly spoken with each other since our big show. In any other band, that would be a bad sign. However, for us, it just means we're too tired from putting on a crazy show to pick up our phones when we call each other. And there's this understanding between us, 'yeah, take it easy, you were almost dying the other night.'

Thanks to those of you who adorned us with your presence last Friday night in Provo. Many of you seemed delighted, and we were delighted right back. If you didn't come, here are some things you missed. You missed a TV countdown to the start of the show. Who knew that if you simply put a countdown timer in front of people that they'll start counting down? Amazing. During the show, we unveiled the original album art (done by Jesse Royston), gave out two "Best at Stuff" trophies with special engravings, and then had men in paint splatter suits join us in a jumping-jack rendition of Sweat Swat Swote. We also had a Chinese dragon dance with the crowd during Soy Sauce Sailor. We partied til we puked.

And then the cops came.

Press Release

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Utah band Elizabethan Report to release new album

After breakthrough year, Elizabethan Report to release album at special event

Salt Lake City­-- Disco-punk band Elizabethan Report will release their first full-length album, Are you a murderer? at a special event that includes a New Year's Style countdown, Chinese dragon, and other surprises at Velour on February 20.

Are you a murderer? is released a year after Elizabethan Report's first disc, an EP called Hola May, which has been widely celebrated by Utah critics. The disc was praised in reviews by City Weekly, Slug, In Utah and others. Tracks from Hola May are played regularly on X96 and other Utah radio stations.

Elizabethan Report, a four-man group from Provo, is emerging as a contender in the indie music scene. Tony Petersen and Spencer Peterson, cousins, started performing in Provo in 2004. The group reworked its sound when Tom and Aaron Hatch joined in 2007, creating the Elizabethan Report's current recordings. Hatch and Spencer Petersen, graduates of BYU's recording program, engineered the album Are you a murderer?

This high-energy four-piece disco punk band has enjoyed a successful year. The band traveled to Pittsburgh to play in the New American Music Union festival. At the event Elizabethan Report played alongside Bob Dylan, Gnarls Barkely,The Roots and other bands. The Elizabethan Report performance received great acclaims by music critics.

In addition to playing with Bob Dylan, the band made several short tours over the past year, building their fan base in Southern California, Las Vegas, Idaho, and Colorado. Tony Petersen, Spencer Petersen, Tom Carroll and Aaron Hatch tour together in a natural-gas powered van.

Elizabethan Report will share the bill with One Man Short and The Yaks, two local bands. Doors will open at 8:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the door for $6. Elizabethan Report's new album Are you a murderer? will be available for purchase. For ticket information contact Velour at (801) 818-BAND. Velour is located at 135 N. University Avenue in Provo, UT.

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X96 Debut

I should have let you know earlier, but our album was premiered on x96 last Sunday at 10:00 pm. Portia played Are You a Murderer? at the top of the show, and to finish it off she played Silver Medal.

You can call 1-877-602-9696 to request us.

Or send a text to 79640 with ER and whatever song you want:

Silver Medal
Are You a Murderer?
Never Alone
Haughtie Hottie
I Think I Care
Work It Correctly
Invasive Orange
Don't Wait
Two Silver Trumpets
Soy Sauce Sailor

Here's some fun:

Best word that T9 predictive text recognizes: ecclesiastical

Best word that my T9 fails to recognize: taco

Why am I using the word ecclesiastical in a text? You know, a little Valentine's Day flirting. Piety can be a turn on.

V-Day

I recieved a text from an old friend this morning. It was the same text I've recieved from her for the past several Valentine's Days. It reads like this:

Hi! I hope you
have a lovely
day and a Happy
Black History
Month!
12:11P Sat Feb14

Now there's nothing wrong with being a little tongue-in-cheek on Valentine's Day. Isn't that the point, after all?

However, rather than mocking or being bitter this Valentine's Day, ER is just going to be honest with you.

We're all totally single.

Favulous pt. 2

Remember the pre-Valentine quandry? Well, I found out the other day that my good friend got one exactly like the one I got, from the same person. Lame! I wouldn't have been surprised if they were color copies. Inspired by my let-down, I decided to make a really mediocre Valentine and stick it up around Provo. It reads like this:

Hey 'so cool!' person,

Have I ever told you that I think about you occasionally? Well, on the occasion that I run into you on campus. Everyone's 'so cool!' around here, and as far as I can tell, you fall into that same category. In fact, whenever I'm talking with someone about the people we know, I often agree with them that you and most of our mutual acquaintances are 'so cool!' So I thought I'd take a sec to put into words the feelings I have about you that I wouldn't have otherwise noticed. This Valentine's Day, I hope the lady at K-Mart asks you if you "found everything okay?" I hope your server at Los Hermanos asks you if you'd like to pay with cash or credit, because baby, that's the kind of special treatment you deserve when you're 'so cool!' I hope you wait an average amount of time for the traffic signal to turn green. And I hope your boss is a little bit nicer this time of year and says things like "I want that project on my desk by Friday." I guess this is my little way of saying, you're so cool!

Truly yours,
Aaron

P.S. I definitely love so much how we've run into each other twice last year, and I'm excited for our relationship to keep that steady pace. You're so easy to be around, once in a while.

Rexburg 1.20.09

No words. Thanks Andy for the pics.

Tobert Petertant

In the pictures above, you are observing two massive leaps in technology. First is the leap from black and white to color photofinishing. The second is the technology that allows microphone stands to stay up without any hands, allowing singers like Tony to bleed onstage without making the microphone a biohazard. Thank you Monica for noticing the similarity, you can read her cool mom blog here.

Favulous

Look at how much fun the cartoons are having!

By the way, did you realize Valentine's Day is coming up? This morning I found a pre-valentine on my door. It was the seventh grade kind, complete with smoochie smoochers and anonymity. Ten points to whoever can help me think of the best response (if I can figure out where to send it back).

Puberty

Everything's done, the album art is finished, the master is mastered, and now we are ready to exit band puberty with our first full length album:

Are you a murderer?

That's the title, and that is the correct capitalization, lest you typists think that I'm forgetting something. And that is the plot, lest you fictionists think we've lost our sense of narrative.

So like I was saying, we're done with puberty, finished with awkward dates and looking at our shoes. We're over that one girl who never showed up even though we left flowers in her locker, twice. Some days we were the class clown, and some days we were mega introverted. We realize that we've been popular at times but that it didn't really mean anything, and from now on we're not just going to survive with our slightly above average looks and charm. We've learned that you actually have to know how to do things in life, and that's why we put in hard time writing our words, planning our parts, and learning our lines. We've moved out of mom's house, and we get along with our sister much better. We've still got all our youthful hormones, which give us crazy ideas in our heads, and it's all we can do to keep ourselves from throwing things across the room, or blowing up our amps. But we think about it, and we end up just throwing something harmless, or playing five bad notes at once instead of just two, and pretending we're really infuriated, but really we're just pleased as piss to be here.

Basically what I'm saying, love, is that it's been awhile, and I think we should get reacquainted.

Wanna get together on February 20 and play in a giant pile of our new CDs? Meet us at Velour in Provo at 8:00 pm.

P.S. this website will give you a little bit of an idea what it'll be like. Don't worry, it's completely appropriate for all ages. www.sexypeople-blog.com

For Your Consideration

Good album cover?