happy to report that the presale tickets went like crazy. twice as many as the remedy club tour. seriously, crazy! but sept is way too far away. killing me.

so, episode 3 of the rockumentary was posted. it’s my favorite scene of someone getting their face owned. i’ll include it here in case you haven’t seen it yet. the next one is going to be my favorite though. it’s title is going to be “twitter will kill you”. awesome.

also, if you haven’t heard, the new radio single, which is a cover of the fantastic song, “how he loves”, is now available on itunes. this is the radio version, the album version is completely different. it’s really tough to get the emotion of this song into a 4 minute radio format. it’s just a dang good song though and we want every single person on the planet to hear it. right before we started recording the new album, “church music”, i was on a plane flight listening to a friend of ours cd when this song started playing. about a minute into the thing i was weeping like a small child. it was slightly embarrassing, seeing as i was on a plane in the near proximity of other humans whom i didn’t wish to frightened. but dang, this song! i don’t know how i avoided hearing it for so long, but i knew there were more people out there like myself that hadn’t heard it yet and i became determined to change that. it’s one of those you just want to sing. here’s the link:

and don’t panic, if you are disappointed that the first song we release is a cover of a song that’s been out for several years now, you’ll be happy to know that “church music” has no less than 17 songs on it. 73 minutes of music. there is one other cover, a flyleaf song titled “all around”, that we gave a piano/string/weird-ambient-noises treatment to, and the starting song is, “phos hiliron,” (also known as “gladdening light” or “evening hymn”) the earliest known christian hymn still in use, but the rest are brand new, never recorded before tunes. it is a massive amount of music. think of it as our stimulus package.

edit: i just went to itunes and the radio single is number one on the christian/gospel music chart, which is pretty cool. then i went to check the main itunes chart, you know, just to see, not expecting anything to pop up there, but what do you know, there it was at number 89 (i think) just above miley cyrus’s song “hoedown throwdown”. so i did what i had to do, i had no choice, i downloaded it – hoedown throwdown! yes! she’s just being miley.

firstly, i need to point out that some fantastic entries were presented for me to pass along to bwack. i have added some of them to the end of my previous entry, the one pertaining to bwack and the green screen. mind bending for sure! you people are sick!!

ok, now on to some other happiness –

i am here to inform you, if you aren’t already aware, that tickets went up monday at noon for priority seating for our fall tour that will be in support of our “church music” album that will release on sept 22.

we’ve secured a limited number of tickets at each venue that you can purchase for a limited time before the tickets officially go up for sale at your typical ticket outlets. this is good because –

1) you can purchase in groups larger than 8
2) you will be the first in the door at any general admission gatherings or on one of the first few rows at assigned seat gatherings
3) this will make the evening much more enjoyable for all of us because the people who are nearest and dearest to us will actually be the ones who are literally nearest to us and therefore dearest to us because we will, at the point of seeing you there so near, become aware that you consider us dear to you because it will be obvious to us, seeing you there, so near, that it was important enough to you to be this near to us that you are in fact there – near to us, and this, in turn, will be interpreted to mean that we are also dear to you, since you did make such effort to be so near, and this will provoke a deep emotional response in us of dearness toward you, as has been previously pointed out, and this just feels right and happy and will surely add to an already pleasant night.

so, act quickly, this way the anticipation can begin now and will grow exponentially until fever pitch is reached by the time we’re in the same space. it will sort of be like when you’re going on vacation and the looking forward to the vacation is almost as fantastic as being on the vacation, because on the vacation you actually got sunburned and lost your wallet, and also there was that food poisoning thing, but still, looking back, it was sure fun, the looking forward to the vacation. yeah, it will be like that.

–––– also, when you place your order for the priority ticket, an email will be sent to you with a link for a free download of one of the new songs from “church music” that won’t be available other wise until sept 22.

so, in summary: tickets so close that we will see your happy shining face and also a free song.

––––click here for tickets—-

much love for your happy comments and mind bending bwack pictures and for your continued support of what we’re attempting to do as a band. seriously, much happiness and love!

well, sort of. we have finished tracking. we have finished mixing. (one shane d. wilson at the console pushing the ones and zeros. he is a wizard!) and the songs will soon be on their way to new york city for mastering by one ted jensen. our job now is to nod along or humbly suggest changes to what we’re hearing. this is all really super, except when you get toward the end of the process there is something that becomes necessary that we, as a band, genuinely hate -– the photo shoot. it is excruciating. standing there, or sitting there, attempting to look normal, like this is what we do all the time — hang out with our band mates in a semi circle so everyone can be seen, making very serious faces so that people later viewing the photos will think things like, “wow, these guys are really serious about sitting there in a semi circle, and it is very nice that they sit there so that all of them can be seen.”

on our first photo shoot the photographer literally said, “give me kitty cat, give me kitty cat,” while making a clawing motion out to the side of her camera. this didn’t make us feel comfortable while sitting in a semi circle. it was confusing. does “kitty cat” mean “cute or playful face”, or should we bat at the air like the photographer, as in – this a frolicsome action sequence! – or are we just supposed to smile because that is a stupid thing to say, “give me kitty cat,” and this is the intent, to make us smile by saying such a stupid thing. i smiled. i was immediately told not to smile. evidently, kitty cats don’t smile, they look very serious. the next photo shoot was with one of my favorite photographers, dan winters. he’s amazing. his stuff is in magazines a lot, and when i see one of his photos i think, wow, that is a really nice photo, and then i sort of panic and start to sweat because it reminds me of the photo shoot. he told me not to smile. he would take like 100 shots of me looking very serious and i would think, maybe i should smile now, you know to just have the option of me projecting a pleasant feeling, and i would smile and he would say, “don’t smile.” he was also pretty obsessed with my beard. he shot from the profile quite a bit. it made me anxious. he would say, “stare out the window,” and i would stare out the window and think, “people will see me in this photograph and speculate, ‘hm, i wonder what he’s staring at.’” and i would smile because this was funny to me, because there wasn’t anything out the window, and mr. winters would then say, “don’t smile!”

last tuesday we had our photo shoot. and, believe it or not, we had a good time. the last three photo shoots we have done with kaysie dorsey — wife of one gary dorsey, who, incidentally, has done the art work for our last three albums. both of the dorsey’s are from my hometown of texarkana. they are wizards, the both of them. and speaking of suits.

i’m pretty serious about that cane. i kept hitting everyone with it, because i kept thinking of dumb and dumber.

also, we did some stuff in front of a green screen. mark took one of bwack when no one was looking.

now bwack is in space.

we posted the green screen picture on twitter and a few people bit. my opinion is that you diligent blog readers are also quite clever and the potential for me to deliver a special photo to bwack, courtesy of you, is great.

bwack homecoming.

bwack tooting his horn.

bwack and unicorn. magical.

bwack and coldplay. also magical.

so, i beseech thee, make something i can present to bwack that will bend his mind.

oh, and i should also mention that the cover for the new album is ridiculous! there is no possible way you will be able to look at it and not smile. i would say, “don’t smile,” and you would still smile, regardless of my admonition not to.

––––– happy submissions following the previous request ––––––