postcards home

Hi All,

2011 was an interesting year for me in terms of “new music.” I felt the most out of touch I have ever felt with new music, and I was not exactly happy about it, but being on the road for half the year and working around the clock/club dwelling forces me to constantly refresh my Ipod, especially with the time spent in a car; so I revisited tons of old records, and did my best to keep up with the new releases, but ultimately don’t think I did the best I could in terms of discovering new things. With that said…

The following list is based on the number of spins these records got, and although many of them are many of my friends, isn’t that how these things work? I know its biased, but when I listen to records that my friends poured a year or so of their lives into, my level of attraction for said record has already been established. I don’t need to explain myself, do I? In general, I think these records are goddamn fantastic. They span quite a few genres, and some of them are most certainly meant for certain times of the day or for certain situations.

If you need to know where to find these records, feel free to get in touch, but since its 2011, I figure most of you can find a way to listen to these records, and find out who these bands are or where they are from without me providing links. I’m fairly obsessed with all of them at this point. They are in alphabetical order, not order of better or worse. GO!

TOP 10 FULL LENGTH ALBUMS OF 2011

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1. BALANCE AND COMPOSURE - SEPARATION

2. BON IVER-BON IVER

3. DAD ROCKS! - MOUNT MODERN

4. DEFEATER-EMPTY DAYS AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

5. JUNIUS - REPORTS FROM THE THRESHOLD OF DEATH

6. MOVING MOUNTAINS - WAVES

7. PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH - THE LACK LONG AFTER

8. THURSDAY-NO DEVOLUCION

9. TRUE WIDOW - AS HIGH AS THE HIGHEST HEAVENS AND FROM THE CENTER TO THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE EARTH

10. WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS - IN THE PIT OF THE STOMACH

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HONORABLE MENTIONS FOR FULL LENGTH RECORDS IN 2011

1. CITY OF SHIPS - MINOR WORLD

2. SAINTHOOD REPS - MONOCULTURE

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TOP 5 EPS OF 2011

1. THE APPLESEED CAST-MIDDLE STATES

2. THE BRONZED CHORUS-GLEANING

3. ††† (CROSSES) - † EP

4. HIDDEN HOSPITALS - EP 001

5. NIGHT FRUIT - DARK HORSE

not updating this nearly enough! tonight we are in grand rapids on an off day from the RED SPAROWES/FANG ISLAND tour, playing with my good friends METAVARI. we started with red sparowes 2 days ago, both shows have been awesome. everything is going radical. uhhhh what else. weve been staying in a lot of hotels, been really lucky! blah blah blah tour is almost over!!

SO BEHIND ON UPDATES IM SORRY

IM IN A MIDAS IN LANCASTER, PA GETTING OUR BRAKE PADS REPLACED

I LOVE WAKING UP AT 8 AM ITS THE GREATEST!

two great shows in indiana! one with our good friends metavari, who we are meeting up with in 8 days in grand rapids. in a hotel in port huron, right near the canadian border. tomorrow, we face the border! woo! then two pretty much sold out canadian shows. score! from here on out, every show is going to be very well attended : )

we were put up by a complete stranger last night, we drove from dallas, tx to oklahoma city (getting us in at 5 AM). super nice dude, super nice mom, great house, now we are being taken out to breakfast! hell yuh!!

kinda sucks. showed up to the venue when we were supposed to, and then were told that the time we were given “is just a time we give bands so they show up early.” wow! thanks a lot! now we have an hour to kill in your piece of shit town!

past couple nights have been really good. denver was great, albuquerque ruled, and austin prevailed last night once again.

im writing outside the lounge on elm street, watching this doofus door man try to be serious and do his job when im fairly positive he cannot add numbers that are under ten. nights like this make me thankful i work at a legitimate venue with a legitimate staff.

apparently king kahn (spelling?) is playing down the street. they have a gigantic tour bus and a gigantic trailer. there are lots of nu-metal kids waiting outside. yipee!!

sounds really good right now. oh, whats that? we’re on our way to san francisco? thank god! im starving. let me recap the last few days…

LA:

Upon arriving at the venue, nobody was there since we were a tad early, so I ingested really horrible pad thai. Makes me miss Boston pad thai from brown sugar. the venue in LA was called pehrspace, and it  only could hold right around 100 people. as it goes, i had to help the venue staff work the door, as they apparently have never had a line around the corner for any show ever. this marked the 3rd night in a row that i had to assist with door duties to insure that everyone paid and what not. thank you middle east! show was packed, and was definitely my favorite set of tour so far.

San Diego:

The che cafe is in the middle of the woods on the UCSD campus. really cool spot, big windows on the side and they cooked us as many veggie bargers as we wanted. show went off without a hitch, and we made our way back to LA for a long day of hanging out with Beware of Safety, a great local band from the area, and label mates of Caspian. We went to the beach, played on a shitty foosball table, grilled, drank some beer, and eventually hit the road to go to pomona.

Pomona:

After arriving slightly late at the venue, it turns out we only missed the first band. Pomona is wierd. Sort of sketchy, very diverse, not really a fun place to walk around. Everyone had slept before we left and our whole camp is starting to get sort of sick at this point. Arms and Sleepers plays and nobody in the crowd is standing, as the venue was set up like a big jazz cafe on one side and a shitty dance club on the other side. therefore, every time someone opened the double doors to get to the other half, techno would come blasting into the room. for two bands with tons of quiet parts, it pretty much ruined the vibe. after a few technical difficulties during the set, and waiting around 10100213123 hours to get paid (from the bar), we got the fuck out of pomona and never plan on returning.

today, we had a flat tire. then i threw up behind a dumpster because on top of feeling sick, we opted to take the 101 highway up through california, which is windy and did not do wonders for my stomach. sweet! were almost to san fran, which is looking like its going to be a really good show. we scoped out the menu in the van and the food also looks delicious.

so far,  tour is going great, with its typical ups and downs, but for the most part, people are out and are fucking siked to see Caspian. We are running out of merch after 2 weeks and we have about 5 weeks left.

Wow, really into the time zone switch heading west. A tm dream of sorts, everyone gets an extra hour to sleep and get ready to leave on time!! Off to tucson we go to play a radical church show!

hurts a lot. first day was pretty amazing, got to see everybody from boston i wanted to see in pretty much one day. caspian has their first showcase today, going on at 1 AM. epic set time.

we have arrived in austin. got in at 5 am last night, and now we are up and eating breakfast and ready to hit the town bitches!

has fucking miserable roads. 

my last two hours were just spent walking on a beach, swimming in a heated pool, and eating the peppermint patty that was placed on my bed in this luxurious LA QINTA hotel room that freddy and I will be sharing tonight (the other 4 guys are sharing 2 other rooms…jeez.) big ups to phil’s dad for putting us up in this amazing joint! sometimes, you just really luck out on tour, and goddamn does it feel good! its been a good week for parents supporting their children in everything they do : )

Well, day five and we have a day off. Past 4 shows have been real solid. DC was a great crowd, a great venue staff and hospitality, and an all around amazing kick off. VA was with good friends of ours, and we were fed some delicious ethiopian food. Johnson City, TN was the first real dirty club we played, but by dirty i mean punk-rock-awesome. The guy who ran the place, Tarvo, cooked us a giant pot of soup, which was f-ing delicious. This was the first show that Arms and Sleepers made it down for, as they had van troubles early on, so it was good to start up with them. Last night in Nashville, well, the outskirts of Nashville, we played at the loudest club I have ever heard. To date. Now imagine that with the combination of Caspian and you can bet that my earplugs were barely doing their job, but it still sounded great. The guys were siked to be with good friends of theirs, a band called Rest. Check them out when you get a chance. We are staying at their amazing home right now, equipped with a shower the size of my bedroom, a separate room that has a studio/foosball table/pool table, an amazing kitchen/deck, and ahhhh amazing breakfast. Its funny how sometimes you eat better on tour here and there, and get treated so nice for being smelly dudes.

I am really bummed that blackberries don’t recognize time zone changes. Sucks!!

We drive to HOTLANTA tonight to stay with some of Phil’s friends, and from there, we make the 9 hour drive to Orlando. Best flyer for the tour I have seen so far! Check it out!