We here at Look Mexico were sitting around LMHQ, decorating for the Holidays, when we thought, “Hey! We sure are thankful for our fans!” Getting in the spirit, we’ve decided to give away some rare and fun LM items to 3 deserving LM fans! How will we decide?? I’ll tell ya!
From today, Wednesday 11/25/09 until Tuesday 12/15/09, anyone who orders $15 or more worth of merchandise off our Online Merch Store will be entered into the Look Mexi-Holiday Sweepstakes! Three winners will be randomly chosen periodically over the next few weeks and then announced on our Facebook page. (For instance, one winner could be announced in a week, or maybe even sooner- just check the FB page frequently!)
What will you win?? Check it.
Limited Edition Hand Screen Printed Poster (Artwork by our very own Joshua Mikel)
Signed 11"x17" Poster
And Lastly, a one of a kind (x3) personal "Holiday Greetings" card from your buds, Look Mexico.
So! Tell your friends, add us on Facebook, and get ready for the festivities to begin! Hey, if you already have everything in the store, why not buy an early Christmas present?? Also, follow us on Twitter to catch hints on what the special "Holiday Greetings" card might be...
We've been having a BLAST in New York. The tour up here with Hop Along was fun as hell and the fun keeps on comin'. Tour starts tomorrow with Bridge and Tunnel, taking us back to Sunny Florida for FEST 8!
I promise I'll have one of Josh's long and beautiful updates on here soon, but for now... Indulge on THESE gems!
Look how much this guy loves Mario! I saw him on the G train today and had to share. Notice that he even looks like Mario. Mustache and all! Smith actually pointed that out. What you cannot see is that he had an NES controller for a belt buckle!
Speaking of Smith, he got TAZED a few times at The Milestone in Charlotte, NC. Willingly.
It’s been a real long time since we have spoken. Too long really. Honestly. Especially considering all that has happened since we last spoke. I mean, you, look at you. All grown up. And us? Well, shoot, got a minute? I’ll fill you in. We’ve been working really hard on our next album, and it’s coming together beautifully. We’ve got a planned ten tracks for this release, of which five are almost completely together, and we’ve started work on the second half, having recorded all the drums and started in on the guitars and what not too. It’s awesome. Matt laid down some of his sickest vocals yet, for a song we have yet titled, but endearingly call “thank you”.
The first batch of songs were collectively pretty sedate, but something happened in our writing process, and this second half are, well, balls out. We think you’re really going to approve, because we do ourselves. And even better, we have a bunch of stuff left over that we’re really excited about for the album to follow this one; at least the beginnings of three or four other songs.
A few weeks ago we went down to full sail to do some demos of our new stuff with the recording classes there. But before we left, Matt had to replace a couple of our bus' batteries that needed a-changin'.
We spent four days using their state of the art studios to track four songs. We learned some interesting things about the songs we're recording for this new record, and even changed a few parts. All in all, it was a solid four days.
I got to record on my new C&C drumset. It sounds like a dream. Some of those Full Sail kids sure dress funny though. It’s okay to poke fun because they are going to be really successful, and buy more computers than I can even imagine. I snapped a few pictures...
This guy has a funny hat on. This one wears a lot of clothes during the 100 degree summer heat! Get with it!! Nerd transport. Hey Slipknot called… The Sith will rise again! Credit card slots in the coke machines for the use of mom and dad’s credit card.
While we were in Orlando, our good British buddy, Frank Tuner, (and yes we have British friends. Lots of them) had picked up a string of opening shows with The Offspring and Sum 41. This particular show was at Orlando’s Hard Rock Live. It was pretty amazing to see Frank playing in front of over 2,000 people, when just a few months earlier he was out on the road with us. He and the always crucial John Berna got us backstage. We ate some of The Offsprings catering! Kind of like being famous.
This is a picture I snuck of the Sum 41 guy backstage. He looks just like he does in the videos OMG!!!! It’s hard to see, but I SWEAR that’s him. He <3’s Avril.
Dave and John Berna wrestled. John B won, but then I think Dave won. Who knows!? They gave us free drinks backstage!
We stayed with Matt’s parent’s in Auburndale. They always treat us like kings. They treated us to all you can eat chicken (which was surprisingly not very much. That is Smith and I were the only ones to get down more than one plate.). After that went swimming and played with puppies and everything.
The next two nights we played shows with out good friends XOXO and our new buds Dignan. Our first show in Ybor at the Crowbar was a little loose by our standards, but there was a great crowd, and we got to hang out with some of Matt’s closest Auburndale friends and also now our good friends (who are amazing), along with some other true scroots and our good buddies from Merchline and Reax Magazine. The folks at Reax magazine put together this little video for us. They are awesome!
We filled up on some oil after Tampa from a nice guy with regrettable tattoos.
The next night we played Orlando and had an epic freaking set. One of our most fun and tightest in a long time, which was such a relief. We’ve been working real hard on this album, and so getting back on stage is always a bit nerve-wracking for us. But the Orlando show was awesome.
That night we drove back up to Tally feeling pretty refreshed and focused to get back on the album. Having finished my drums, I headed up to Virginia for a few weeks to work on this production of a play I wrote, while the guys got back to tracking their instruments and vocals.
A few days later our good friend Billy Wallace (of the next disbanded Wading Girl) rolled into Tallahassee and was playing a solo show with my roomie Arnold and his band Oh! Geography. He, Matt, and Britain (Pie Party) traveled to a sly joint called Pockets to play some mini-bowling. Who knew? The next day Matt had him over to the studio to lay down some harmonica on our new record. Should be awesome.
And we’ve been busy coming up with names for our new record... Any ideas?
++joshua
----- My brand spank'n new iPhone made this jam-pic-packed post possible! Brought to you by the letter P. --- Matt
We have the biggest news in the freakin' world for you right now!!!
Look Mexico is proud to announce that we are now a part of the Suburban Home family! That's right! We'll be releasing our next record with Virgil and his amazing crew at Suburban Home in the fall of this year! We've had a wonderful stay at Lujo Records, and cannot thank Erik and Jocelyn enough for their care and support through these last couple of years, but we know Suburban Home is the right next step for us, and we cannot be more thrilled to have such an awesome group of folks releasing our next record. How do we know they're awesome? Because we met them on our last tour!!! Sweetest dudes/dude-ettes ever!
Speaking of the next record, I just finished laying down the first seven drum tracks from our new one. Here's some footage of me looking sloppy and Auggie manning the keys:
Still don't have a name for the record yet, but we're working on it. Big thanks to John Frank and Ronald for letting me borrow their sick drum kits so I could have the sickest sound on these new jams. Our main man, August Hansen, is now in the process of mixing those tracks down so we can get to laying all the other stuff on top. Smith is slated to start tracking his bass tomorrow, and then we'll roll from there. From the way things are looking with the drums- this is going to be our most awesome record yet. We have demos of two of our songs that are set to appear on the next record up on our myspace now, but they will only be up for a few days, so peep them while you can, baby!
In other amazing news, we're working very hard to try and figure out how to make our first UK tour a reality. Our Brit friends, This Town Needs Guns, have offered us a string of shows on their home turf, and we're trying to iron out the details as we speak. That tour is shaping up to be some time in October. Don't worry, though. We'll do our best to make it back for The Fest. We hope to have more amazing news in this department in the next few weeks.
To all our Tallahassee and Florida buds- we have a few shows coming up. Friday the 19th of June we're playing the Engine Room with Damion Suomi, Oh! Geography, and Relondondo (which features our producer Phil Martin on drums and drum tech August Hansen on the guitar and vox). Then we have two shows with our buddies XOXO from Orlando and Dignan from Texas. Those dates are the 17th of July at the Crowbar in Tampa and the 18th at Backbooth in Orlando. Come one, come all, okay?
The Look Mexico crew would like to give big ups to Matt's mom- wishing her a happy retirement after thirty nine dedicated years of elementary education in Auburndale, Florida!
Also- congrats to Slate and Smith's longtime bud Alex who just tied the knot last weekend. All right!!!
Well, that's all for now. Thanks so much for the support, and stay tuned for more awesome stuff!!!! +joshua
This is what Virgil from Suburban Home had to say about everything!
Today, I am excited to announce to the world that we have just "signed" Look Mexico. The Tallahassee, Floridians started writing music in mid 2004 having released a full length ("This is Animal Music"), a collection album ("The Crucial Collection"), and a number of EPs including a song on the first ever Under the Influence 7" with Fake Problems and one of my favorite 7"s of 2009, the Gasp Asp EP. We became fans of the band when we first spun "This is Animal Music" and was absolutely delighted that Fake Problems wanted to do their Under the Influence with them. We later met the band at the past year's Fest and have since been discussing the possibility of us working together. It is important for us to be able to get along with our bands, maybe even more important than any other factor, and Look Mexico are family. I realized it when the band were in Denver (while on tour with Frank Turner) as we shared more than a few drinks together, up front singing along to Frank Turner's set. Musically, Look Mexico are one of the few bands that everyone in our office enjoys. Their sound recalls, at least to me, early Minus the Bear mixed with some Get up Kids, 2 bands I absolutely love. They mix melody and technical precision in a way that just grabs us.
The band are currently recording what will become their Suburban Home Records' debut. They will again be working with Phil Martin and August Hansen who will be engineering and producing the recording out of a rented out basement (underneath a pizza joint). We hope to release the album in the Fall of 2009 with a 7" single prior to the album's release. Expect the band to tour like crazy throughout the UK, Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United States after the release of their new albu. Stay tuned for further details and know that we here at Suburban Home are absolutely positively excited to be able to work with such a talented band.
Right now through the weekend, you can listen to 2 demo recordings of songs that will be featured on Look Mexico's upcoming album. Just visit their Myspace page to listen to the songs.
While waiting for their Suburban Home Records' debut, I recommend you check out the following sites:
Alright. Matt here, making my debut on the writing side of the blog! I will apologize ahead of time for this not being too lengthy, but I'm actually heading over to our "studio" (the quotations because it's a basement under a pizza shop that we rent out) to finally set up and record. Woo!
Over the past month, we've all been hard at work (literally at work- like jobs), makin' the big bucks. Well, that is when we're not practicing and writing. Too bad we don't get paid to make music! Ha.
Dave's uncle let us borrow some amazing preamps and microphones to add to our gear lists and Dave has been fixing a few of them up. He also modded several of his own mics and REALLY souped 'em up. I'll let him tell you about it all later.
ANYWAYZ. We start recording tomorrow! Starting with 8 songs, we'll have another 6 or 7 to record in about a month. And no, we're not making a rap album with 21 tracks on it. At the end we'll pick the best 10 for the album and probably blow up the extras.
Awesome! matt
In the meantime, here are some videos of my new dog, Samson, playing with other puppies. (Sorry don't have a lot of band footage for this one)
We’ve been back from tour for a few days, but here’s the highlights!!!
Our show in Lawrence, Kansas was the freakin’ bomb! The Replay Lounge again handed us out our most attractive paycheck of the entire tour, and it’s always a pleasure to play that place.
The next day we drove to Dallas. The show at The Door was pretty righteous. A solid showing of folks there to see us, and we rocked it real hard. I had a drum riser for my drums, which is always kind of embarrassing. I got to see my good friend Jules, who is an amazing filmmaker. Other than that- Matt went down the street and heard a real amazing band that was playing a city festival there. (Sarcasm). They had a song called Tel Aviv in which they shouted Tel Aviv over and over. (Also sarcasm).
After that we drove the crap home! In the middle of the night we found some amazing vegetable oil behind a Chinese buffet that lasted us the rest of the way to Tallahassee.
The tour all in all was a success. We came back with a little green, some amazing stories to tell, and energized and eager to get to tracking this new record. We were so stoked to see our crowd sizes steadily grow from our last treks across the states. And even more encouraging, we played with a number of bands out there that told us that we were one of their favorite bands and biggest influences. That’s a real amazing thing, and it always gets us buzzing to hear stuff like that. A huge thank you to everyone who came out to these past shows, and thanks for bringing friends too. It was one of our most comfortable tours yet.
A few days after our return we headed down to Full Sail (an arts school in Orlando, Florida) at which we spent three days tracking four of our songs with four separate recording classes. The sessions went very quickly, but we laid down real solid demos of three of our new songs, and a new version of “I Like Being a Millionaire, You Will Too Believe Me.” You can expect to hear those demos in a live stream some time in the next couple of weeks on Punknews.com and the new version of Millionaire should be uploaded to our myspace. It promises to be a bit more, how should we say… balls out.
On a day off from recording, our main man Ian got us passes to go to Disney’s Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) through his mother that works at the Disney Parks. A big thank you to the Kutch family for letting us sleep at their place, and getting us those tickets. Also thanks to Slate and Smith’s long time friend Navid, for letting us crash at his place and making us some of the best popcorn we’ve ever had.
We had a real awesome time at Disney. I think all of us have real fond childhood memories of the spot. To mark the occasion, Ian bought us a round of beers inside the park. It was kind of surreal. We saw the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, went on Star Tours (the Star Wars ride), Tower of Terror, and Muppets 3D which is still hilarious after all these years. Dave was real scared on Tower of Terror- even though he likes to think he wasn’t. I put together this little video of our time there. Ian took all the video with his digital camera. Disney World RULZ! Thanks Mama Kutch!!
We came back to Tallahassee and had a few practices where we locked down a fresh new track that will appear on this new record. We also started work on the infamous song two- and may have cracked the case as to why that song was giving us such trouble. (We just needed to speed it the crap up and make it ROCK AND ROLLLLLLLL!) Thankfully enough- our frustration with song two has acted as the catalyst for a number of other songs we’ve written thus far for the new record.
After about a week back, we made our way back down Florida for a show at the University Of Florida Campus in Gainesville. We’re all FSU alums- man did we have them fooled- I’ll punch a gator right in his brain.
It was an awesome show in their outdoor amphitheater. We did feel a bit bad though- the UF students had to set up a huge lighting rig for our show. It was a bit immodest for our tastes, and it weighed on our collective conscience since those dudes had to spend their night setting up and striking lights and sound equipment (sans pay I am sure). The show was nonetheless a bad A success, and we felt for once that we could rock a bigger area with no problems.
That night we made our way over to The Top and The Atlantic where our buddy Cam (No Idea/ Southern Lovin’) let us in the show FO FREE!!! Playing were Anchor Arms, Gatorface, and a few other bad-A bands. Gatorface’s drummer, Richard, used to play for the band New Mexican Disaster Squad, and is also known under the penname Horsebites. If you’re not familiar with him, he does amazing design stuff, and it was my first time meeting the design juggernaut. He’s a real awesome dude. We also hung with our good bro Tony from No Idea Records, where we locked down our spot at this year’s The Fest, and I will again be designing a t-shirt. After the show (again with Ian Kutch and now accompanied by his brother Paul), we partied hard, as per usual when we make our way through Gainesville.
The next day we spent about five hours in a Tire Kingdom getting some simple maintenance done on our bus. After that we made our way down to Tampa for our show at The Crowbar. The show went real well. And it felt good when the crowd that for the most of the night had been clinging to the walls, made their way forward to get close and comfortable to us. We played with our long time buddies In Passing, to whom we owe a great deal to for getting folks out to our early shows in the Tampa and Brandon areas. We also played with this real awesome band from the area called Anthony and the Grapes. Solid musicians writing solid music. Hope to play with those guys again soon. We drove all night back and arrived around eight the next morning.
Dave, Matt, Smith and Slate returned to their glamorous restaurant jobs. Here you can see some little characters Matt fashioned with a coworker on a particularly "busy" night.
I head out to L.A. this week to get some work done with a friend, and when I return we’re going to start laying down the drum tracks for the first five songs for our upcoming record. We’re freakin’ stoked! We have all of May, June and July basically off , but might take a little run through Florida some time in June/ July and a Tallahassee show there in the mix too. Our main man Phil Martin is giving up any partying until this baby gets done, and our good buddy Auggie (ex One Small Step For Landmines drummer) is going to be drum teching on the record. (The same production team behind Gasp Asp).
In other news:
I ordered a new drumset from C&C drums. They make amazing kits. It’s going to be turquoise sparkle. I am so pumped about it, I could punch a whole bunch of idiots in the face. Sadly- it won’t be done for a few weeks, so it may not appear on the next record.
I have a play I wrote going up in Amherst, VA this July at Sweetbriar College with Endstation Theater Company (www.endstationtheatre.org) It’s called My Brother’s Knife and it’s about an old rock and roller whose suicide attempt is thwarted by a loose cannon cop that forces the suicider to start a rock and roll band with him. It should be awesome. If you’re in the area- hit me up, and I’ll get you tix.
All right, dudes. Thanks for reading. More soon. +joshua
Wassssuuuuup? Here’s a video of some of our time in California and a look at our studio session for Lujo’s Choose Your Own Holiday comp- for which we recorded Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman.”
We played Thee Parkside in San Francisco. It’s one of our favorite places to play. Always a good crowd, super professional staff, and killer sound. My childhood friend Tony showed up, as well as our friends from Tallahassee Kenneth, Dave Geis, the Say It Twice boys John and Matt and friends. It was our last show of the tour with Steve Soto and the Twisted Hearts, and we bid them farewell and thanked them for an insight at true musical professionalism. In our few conversations with them they unloaded a wealth of knowledge and insight of being self-sustaining musicians.
That night we crashed with a friend of Frank Tuner’s and Ian, Matt, Smith, and I slept on the bus, tired enough to make it quite comfortable. We woke in the morning, found some coffee and began the long haul to Portland, now with our British tour buddy Frank Tuner riding along. From our few days out west last summer with Frank, we knew we’d like him, but the coming days with Frank riding along would only fan the fire of our infatuation with that “chap”. Highlights: we talked about important things with Frank like Dame Judi Dench, how sad he was when his British mate The Crocodile Hunter took that sting ray barb to the heart, British Office vs. American Office, why British people call fries chips and chips crisps, the amazing British cartoon character Rocko from Rocko’s Modern Life, popular British idiom like “jog on” and “quit bitchin’ my shit” among a slue of fun cross cultural topics. Needless to say, we are deftly keen to all things British. Thanks, Frank Turner.
We made it to Portland in the early hours of the morning and holed up with our friend Jordan. We made quick work of making his nice new pad smell like bum pants. Our buddy Jordan is one of those rare souls who open their doors completely and whole-heartedly to us every time we cross paths, and we are lucky to know him.
After about three hours of sleep we headed over to the Wieden + Kennedy advertising headquarters for a radio interview set up by my Florida State friend Simone (who is now interning at the advertising juggernaut’s headquarters). That gal is going places. The interview went very well, and you’ll be able to hear it online here.
That night we played a killer coffee house/ venue called The Backspace. They treated us very well and the show was awesome. Lots of attentive applauding folks. Frank closed out the night with a killer set, and was accompanied by our very own David Pinkham who played a ripping harmonica solo on one of Frank’s new songs.
Later that night Jordan and Ian treated us to a wild go at Portland’s night life. We will leave it at that. Ian caught a cab to the airport around six A.M. for his return flight to Orlando after three months in the northwest. Sad to see him go, but so nice to see him walk away. Not sure if that applies…
After about another three hours of sleep, we woke up again very early to make our move to Nampa, Idaho. We spent all day in the van, and arrived to The Flying M a bit late. Our performance wore our tired van suffocated personalities like campfire smoke in a sweater. After the show, we took our time loading out, desperate to not get back into the cave of our bus to again hit the road. The venue again treated us very well, and I recommend stopping through if your tour needs a stop in Idaho.
We drove all night to Salt Lake City and again arrived, in the words of the great Bob Segar, strung out from the road. Somewhere between 5 and 6 a.m. with Smith at the wheel, we were caught in a nasty snow storm that took our road visibility to about zero. One cavalier truck driver tried his luck, and we later saw him t-boned on the side of the road. We had a quick interview at the Weber University radio station with our new buddies Matt and Shay, at which our Slate and Matt plucked out acoustic versions of “You Ever Been…” and “You’re not Afraid…” I played the knee slap and the scotch tape holder. We played our first show of two a few hours later to a mild but attentive crowd, and had a solid show. Following that show we rode over to our second show at a bar down the road. And there in the crowd of about fifteen, four of which were the other band, four of which had seen us earlier that day, and the rest could care less if a band was playing or not, we were struck with the stinging backhand of hubris. With no real local support, beers that only pack a punch of at most 3.0% alcohol (due to Salt Lake legislation), and the realization that Salt Lake is not a town anyone should try and play two shows in one night at, we packed up our stuff and checked into a motel down the way, much more bloated than drunk from the six pitchers of water-beer the bar offered us as consolation prize. High point- we got to play with the tight band Shark Speed.
The next morning, we helped ourselves to Super 8’s continental breakfast and hit the road again for another blistering drive. At this point we’re so excited about making it home. The routing and time frame for this tour has been disastrous, and if we weren’t running veggie oil, we’d be coming home in the red. But thankfully we like each other enough, the shows have been encouragingly attended, and our shuttle bus is supremely comfortable.
Shortly after we arrived in Denver, we stopped off at our friend Virgil’s place, the Vinyl Collective/ Suburban Home headquarters. It was our first time at the spot, and Virgil snapped a photo of us with our favorite records he carries. The spot is staffed by an awesome group of folks, and Virgil is yet again another one of those dudes we are lucky to know.
The show in Denver at The Marquee Theater went very well. We were treated exceptionally well with drink tickets, food vouchers, a green room, an amazing guarantee, and a real healthy welcoming crowd. We played one of the most energetic rocking sets of the entire tour, and I broke a cymbal. Sometimes things like that can quickly be under-rug-swept in the face of an amazing show, and so it was.
Here are a couple vids Virgil took!
It was our last show with Frank Turner, and we stood front and center singing at the lengths of our breath to all the words we learned and a few we didn’t. Dave again played a ripping harmonica solo, and Frank finished to very pleased audience. Denver rocks. After a few hugs goodbye, Frank, that amazingly hard working Brit, was again out of our lives. Ah, what a dude. Hopefully we will make it to his side of the pond later this year. More on that to come post recording our next record.
Dave has a number of family members that live in Denver, and so we stayed with his warmly welcoming Aunt and Uncle. We shared a Jameson whiskey and ran each other through our favorite youtube videos. Patrick Stewart on Extras, David Goes to Dentist, The amazing rock band from Fort Worth Texas Complete, and Dave’s uncle- a long time musician- delivered a special gem of youtube hilarity in the video “Korean Drummer Steals the Show.”
With a big thanks to Dave’s aunt and uncle, we set sail for Lawrence, Kansas for our show at the replay lounge.
In other Look Mexico news- our best friends Fake Problems are about to embark on a supporting tour with The Riverboat Gamblers. And recently confirmed our other best bros Bear Colony just picked up a string of dates with mewithoutYou and The Dear Hunter. Two amazing tours, and plenty of opportunity to catch some great music near you.
Back on the road! We made it out of Austin catatonically tired from the three full days of partying, and headed deep into the long stretch across west Texas. If you’ve never had the displeasure of taking the trek across that part of the state, it is safe to say it’s one of the straightest most boring drives one could subject themselves to.
We rolled into Phoenix for our show at Chyro arts. It was probably the worst shows of the tour thus far, and to follow at the heels of such an awesome SXSW weekend, it was straight up saddening. When you’ve been a band for four plus years and have seen your audiences steadily grow- to be suddenly faced with a sparse attendance of around 13, it’s a bit hard to take. Our good friend Tracy showed, and it’s always nice to see that bro. He’s sports one of the few Look Mexico tattoos out there so far. And one of my best friends Clint, with whom I played in Kids Like Us with, and who now is studying entomology at The University of Arizona, also was in attendance. We stayed the night at Clint’s- which was pleasingly uneventful in comparison to our first visit with him at which we battled a black widow spider and a scorpion that we found in Clint’s yard. The black widow won. Insects are freaking awesome. Clint is freaking awesome. The next morning we picked some oranges from a tree in his yard. They were delicious.
Our next stop was San Diego. We rolled in very late (due to a few curvy mountain passes) to the show and ran one of the quickest set up, play, take down cadences we’ve ever run. We played a solid show to a very attentive crowd. We were again floored by the musicianship of Steve Soto’s backing band the Twisted Hearts and the bitingly witty lyrical stylings of Frank Turner.
The venue, The Flying Elephant, which is owned by a member of Flogging Molly treated us very well, and the folks there were freaking awesome. We also met up with our main man Ian who had just finished a job working as a marine fisheries observer on a crab boat out of Dutch Harbor Alaska. Ian is one of our dearest friends from Tallahassee. Matt crashed in his bed for a few months when he was between homes. He is the most solid of scoots. He took this amazing picture at sea that I’m trying to convince him to enter into photo contests.
That night we rode up to L.A. buzzing from the show and excited to have Ian riding with us to Portland. We crashed the night at another one of my best friend’s, Travis’, place. Travis handled the animation on our “You Come Into My House While I Sleep?” video as well as cam-opping for our “Guys I Need a Helicopter” video. He’s one of my favorite people to work with professionally, and I think he will be a lifelong collaborator.
The next day we woke, saw some sights around L.A. including the Hustler building which features a towering bronze statue of John Wayne at its entrance, simply epic. Then we made our way to the show at the infamous Viper Room. The place was packed, and we had a guest list of over twenty folks. A few record label dudes, and a whole butt load of my friends from Florida State. Most of the folks I had met through the school of theater and film schools at FSU. We played a real fine set, not perfect, but a very solid show under the given stressful circumstances. We had all intentions of making it to the Cha Cha Lounge in Silver Lake for the after party, but I got caught up handling money stuff and had to turn our bus into in ipso facto party lounge, booze supplied by Trader Joes and their amazingly economically baffling two dollar bottles of wine; the “two buck chuck”. For the record, Jenn Oakley, Ben Hayes, and anyone else who went to the Cha Cha that night- I am so sorry we didn’t show. The night wailed on as Travis, Ian, and the Look Mexi-bros did it up L.A. style. Needless to say, we were wrecked when we woke in the morning to begin our trek to San Jose. We always have an epic time in Los Angeles. Oh L.A., like the statues of a cinema hero sbronzed outside the megaplex of pornography, you are a veritable buffet of unabashed decadence and American splendor.
It’s always a bittersweet thing to leave L.A. On the one hand it is the epicenter of entertainment brimming with some of my favorite friends I’ve ever known, but on the other hand- it’s one of those cities that fall in the ranks of places we could never live because we would get absolutely nothing accomplished.
After a deathly tedious drive up California’s torso, and a short stop for a bit of strength training, we arrived in San Jose for our show.
It was all right, but not a whole lot to speak of other than our label heads, and dear friends, Erik and Jocelyn showed up with Jocelyn’s amazing folks with whom we crashed the night in the most comfortable digs we have had all tour.
The next day we woke up early and headed over to a close studio Erik had contacted to record a rendition of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” for Lujo’s annual holiday compilation. It was a long day in the studio, but we had a killer session, and think the track will make a real fine addition to the compilation that will hit shelves later this summer. Ian, Smith, and I took advantage of the bay scenery, taking a nice jog around the surrounding lake and bay area. Real beautiful. Special thanks to Erik and Jocelyn for buying me some killer comic books (for research of course), stuffing our bellies, and Jocelyn’s parents for housing us an treating us so well. Jocelyn took some photos of the recording session and us getting some oil. You can see those here!
In other Look Mexico news- the second edition of the blog I wrote about our veggie van is up at inconvenientyouth.org – check it out!
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading, dudes! More to come. +joshua
Freakin’ tour! We rolled out of Tallahassee around six? Seven? Or eight p.m. on Wednesday with two full tanks of vegetable oil bound for our first couple of shows in Austin, TX. We drove all night, three hour shifts, and made it to Houston Texas around nine in the morning. We crashed at our good friends Eric and Val’s place from I Heart U Productions, and Eric was kind enough to let us get a quick practice in at his band’s, O’Pioneers, practice space. Following practice, we loaded up and hit the road.
South By Southwest was ridiculous. Hands down some of the most fun we’ve had in a good long time. Enough fun, in fact, to make us consider a future move to the music hot spot.
We arrived and met up with our friends at Amp energy drink, who gave us dangerous amounts of their product, and then caught up with our dearest bros Fake Problems and loaded in for our first show at Plush. We played after Consider the Source and Frank Turner. It was a real tight space, but we made due and played an all right set. Particularly in thanks to our main man John B., who helped keep folks off the dude’s pedals and cords. Our new Austin buddy Jerome, was front and center (um, mildly intoxicated) singing along, and it was real nice to know we had some friends in the audience. We were followed by our good friends Constants, to whom we owe our vegetable oil salvation. They owned and have gotten so tight and full as a three piece. Thanks to James from Consider the Source for getting us on that show.
Following the set, we took to the streets of Austin for Thursday night’s festivities. We followed Fake Problems into the artist lounge- which we would do all weekend- helping ourselves to free booze and fruit drinks… yep… fruit drinks.
Good and tired from the long drive, show, and party times, we crashed on our Tallahassee bros, Matt and Costa’s, Motel 8 floor. Those dudes are real solid.
We woke and made it over to our second showcase, the Consequence of Sound day party. We played a fine show amongst a real healthy line-up: Sybris, Gringo Scarr, among others. Oh yeah and Rachel Ray’s husband’s band. Yep… you got it. Rachel Ray- as in 30 minute meals. She failed to show, and he and his band failed to be any good. The showcase was a lot of fun though, and we are real lucky that Dan, Mike, and Alex at COS are solid enough dudes to have helped us get on that one. Not to mention we got free PBR.
After the show we rolled over to the Amp energy drink’s Rock Paper Scissors battle. The winner would walk away with five grand. Spoiler alert: we didn’t win. Smith put up a valiant effort, but was cut down in two sets. Matt, who adopted the RPS nomen “The Barber” won his first battle and miraculously by some stroke of luck or pulled strings, made it to the final eight. I, in the meantime, won five dollars from a busty babe bartendress in a side game.
The barber’s reign at the top was short lived, as he fell to the soon to be winner, and we left the tournament sad for the loss, but harboring a great deal of pride for the journey. NOT- the barber was f-in pissed. He’ll be back next year and cut their dreams.
That night we picked up a house show that our new buddy Jerome put on. It was freakin’ awesome. Hot dogs, keg beer, good people, and Jerome’s band “The United Snakes of America,” were both kind to us and a real awesome rock and roll band. That night we got our party on with our friends Fake Problems. We crashed the artist lounge again, and were the last to leave. It seems we still have things to talk about when the beer dries up.
The next day we partook in the Austin Festivities yet again, catching sets from our friends Slow Claw and One Small Step For Landmines. Amazing to see those dudes. Smith and Slate later caught a set from Cursive which they hailed as “f-ing awesome.”
That night we rolled over to catch the Fake Problems set. Matt played horn along with them, having written the horn stuff for their latest record “It’s Great to be Alive” released earlier this year on Side One Dummy. They owned, as usual, and we stuck around following the set to again partake in the free booze and food that was offered up at their showcase spot. We eventually made our way to the Vice party, and well… things got raucous. Highlights- Casey Lee puked in a beer bin. Frank Turner (from the U.K.) got a tattoo of Texas. Party. Party. Party.
The next morning we woke and bid farewell to the sweet Fakers over a hearty lack luster meal at Denny’s, and hit the road for San Antonio.
That night we played the best set of the tour thus far. Also playing the show was Frank Turner, who wailed, and punk rock legends Kepi Ghoulie from the Groovie Ghoulies, Kevin Seconds, from the legendary 7 Seconds, with his folk project. And Steve Soto from the legendary Adolescents. It was our first show on our tour with Steve Soto and the Twisted Hearts, and we were real impressed with their effortless musicianship.
It’s been a solid tour thus far. After our short stay in Austin we have been seriously considering the option of relocating to that musical hub. There will undoubtedly be more on that to come. We’re in route to a show in Phoenix tonight. We drove all night. Smith and I are coming down with something… but things are still looking good. Thanks for reading. More to come.
+joshua
PS- Dave has been cooking a bunch of stuff in the crock pot.
So last week we played the Harvest of Hope Fest in St. Augustine. It was freaking awesome! We stopped by Slate’s parent’s place for a real fine meal his mom prepped for us, and then made way to the festival. We arrived punctually, signed in about four hours before our set, and were so pleased to find that we had gotten a very large write up in the HOH Guide Book, along with a Lujo Records ad for Gasp Asp on the opposite page. We met up with our friends Tony and Cam from No Idea, Nate and the Merchline dudes, Eric and Val from O’Pioneers, and Matt’s, Smith’s, and Slate’s parents all showed up to support.
We did have a bit of a messy start to the night though. Our keyboardist Dave left Tallahassee around six o’clock for our set scheduled for at nine fifteen. That would have just barely been enough time to make it, but alas, it was the beginning of spring break for college kids all over, and there was plenty of traffic. With about ten minutes until our set, more stressed out than we’ve been for a long long time, we had to compromise our set and play a completely new one. We had practiced all week, and had incorporated three completely fresh songs into the set, but all three of them feature Dave. So we had to revert back to stuff we played as a four piece. We took to the stage a bit ill tempered, but after the first song, amazing crowd, and beautiful smiling singing familiar faces beaming up at us, it was hard not to put all that mess behind us. We played, if I might say, a real fine rock and roll set. It was so much fun and such a relief that the night wasn’t botched. Dave apologized to us profusely as we got off the stage, and all’s well. Granted, he probably won’t live that one down for a very long time.
The line up for the festival was incredible. I got a chance to see Girl Talk, Propaghandi, Lucero, Summerbirds in the Cellar, Less Than Jake, Against Me!, JohnVanderslice, The Mountain Goats, and Tilly and The Wall, among others.
After the show Smith and I took a spin on the whirl-a-gig carnival ride. It was a real fine bro- date, and I captured it with my phone. Later Smith went again with Matt. Smith is a big fan of the whirl-a-gig. Matt also captured it with his phone...
I think the stand out band of the weekend was Monotonix from Tel Aviv, Israel, who are hands down the most rock and roll band I have ever seen (we had the pleasure of playing the Summerbirds in the Cellar CD release show with these dudes over a year ago, and were amazed by them then). They wrap their arms around something more rock and roll than any band from the states could pull off without seeming a bit contrived. This three piece hurls their bodies across the stage, out into the crowd, ripping off their shirts, moving their drumset from place to place, as the singer crowd surfs like a drunk monkey, lands, chugs a beer out of some dudes hand, and hangs on to anyone within arm’s length. I caught wind from a friend that after our show in Orlando with them that the band offered him some drugs and led him to their rental car, in which they had cut out some of the carpeting to hide their whatever. Rock and Roll. If you get a chance to see these dudes, do it. If that opportunity doesn’t present itself- check out their youtube videos, and you’ll get a sense of what I am talking about.
On Saturday we were treated to an amazing meal by the Smith family, who live in Jacksonville. Afterwards we made it back to the festival for good times with our friend Nate and the awesome dudes at the Merchline booth who brought along some awesome yard games, and tons of candy and beverages. Those dudes are awesome. It was a stellar weekend. Only regret- we didn’t get to stick around late Sunday to see our good bros Fake Problems. Luckily they’ll be out in Austin for SXSW the same time as us.
The last week we’ve been working hard on demoing two more tracks. If you’re keeping count, we’ve demoed four completely- and have them in a very solid spot. We have about four other songs we have yet to demo for the new record. Yesterday we laid down some bell tracks, drums, and guitars for the forth of the new demos. We’ll hopefully have those squared away to show off before we head out on tour. We are super stoked about this record. Matt said last night, “Sometimes I listen to Gasp Asp just to be proud of it. I think I may listen to these new tracks because I honestly want to listen to them.” And I think that’s how we all feel.
We leave for tour on Wednesday with our first show in Austin on the 19th. It’s going to be awesome! Stay tuned. More blogs from the road to come!
