GUARD RECORDS

The new split 7" with ourladyband & @ourveryownestates is now available! After some delay, we officially has these in stock and are shipping now. Uniquely packaged 7" courtesy of momrecords Screen Printed Covers and full booklet stapled into the casing. 

Doby Watson day 9/19

Dover is located on the east side of Ohio.  We soon found out that though it was close to Pennsylvania, it was certainly no where near our next destination.  So we began our journey across Pennsylvania.  Somehow we lost a lot of time and I still haven't figured out how.  We got to the show pretty much right as it started and it was in the top floor of an old church.  It was one of the coolest spaces I've ever played in.  Our friend Greg from These Elk Forever really hooked us up.  When he told us how much work had gone into the show I actually felt a little bad about it.  You really need to listen to his material!  The show that night had an insanely stacked bill.  On top of Greg being awesome we also played with a project called Wicca Phase Springs Eternal.  The moment he started playing the three of us look at each other and mouthed something like "Spooky Black!"  We've spent multiple hours of drives listening to Spooky Black in the last couple of weeks and  after the set we found out he'd actually been featured in the latest Spooky Black recordings.  Though Greg put together an awesome show the venue took most of the money and left us living on the charity of Wilkes-Barre.  Hearing the practices of the space left me questioning the ethical choices of the venue.  After the show, Greg took us back to his place and we all hung out talking about music and the different scenes we are from and have been involved in.  Greg is absolutely one of the best people I've met on tour.  I couldn't believe some of the stories he had.  They were amazing and we had a great time.  The next morning we went to a diner on a mission to find Doby some Perogies.  I had never had them before and totally understood his love for them.  Luckily due to the geographical location of Wilkes-Barre we were only a couple of hours from NYC and we hit the road. 

http://theseelkforever.bandcamp.com/releases

Doby Watson day 6-8/19

Day five of 6 of tour started with us having the day off.  This short stretch on the way up to NYC has unfortunately ended up providing us with a few of those.  In order to not outwear our welcome with Drew we moved our sleeping bags to Hope Arthurs house.  We spent most of the time admiring her talent and listening to stories of cool things she's doing in Fort Wayne.  It's really impressive to see a town embrace a local musician like Hope.  It's something I don't feel like there's much of where we come from.  The night we arrived at Hope's she was practicing with a bandmate for a live performance of a score she had put together for a silent film showing.  Ryan and I went on a beer run for everyone and got to the store right before they closed.  We were approached with an incredible amount of aggression and were told to, "hurry the fuck up." The store owner then apologized for his behavior and said it wasn't us causing his anger but that it was in fact one of his employees.  He then told us he planned to shoot the man in the stomach and send photos to his wife before he started on the rest of the family.  There's something about Fort Wayne....  Even with all these strange things happening we did have a good time in Fort Wayne.  We practiced our set and rearranged an old song of Doby's.  We stopped by Sweetwater Music, as Fort Wayne is the national headquarters and headed to a ballet rehearsal Hope was playing piano for.  Hope was a fantastic host, but we decided to leave for Dover so we would have the entire day to relax.  

 Dover, Ohio was a true statement to the power of the internet.  We ended up in Dover because of a man named Atom Lax.  Doby originally found Atom on youtube covering a song called "Monster" that he originally wrote as Boo Hiss.  Atom was more than willing to help us set up a show in his town and spent the day with us after our arrival.  I'm unable to form words for the level in which Atom can play the guitar.  He's one of the craziest guitarists I've ever seen live.  It became really obvious when he took us to his favorite local music store and started playing all the guitars.  Atom requested Doby play "Monster" at the show and actually ended up reteaching it to him because it was so old.  Our hosts put together a big halloween kegger to get people out to the show and we had a great time.  It's hard for quiet music to compete with the level of intoxication reached with a keg but we turned up louder than normal and went for it.  Atom and Doby played the song together at the show and it was actually really touching.  Atom closed out the night with what had to have been over an hour of music.    I was exhausted and accidentally passed out in my sleeping bag before the party was over.  Everybody had a great time.  It was really obvious the next morning.  

http://hopearthur.com

https://www.facebook.com/atomlaxmusic

Doby Watson day 5/19

I know the blog was supposed to be updated daily, but some things have happened causing the entire process to actually be impossible.  

It’s been a rough few days.  After our show in Champaign we headed to Chicago.  Justin Klaas was a perfect host and put on a really fantastic show.  The show was well attended and everyone treated us like royalty despite Doby being very difficult while sound checking, as well as accidentally breaking a lamp that belonged to Justin’s roommate (he claimed he thought it functioned like a mic stand when trying to adjust it).  We are so in debt to Justin for being such a gracious host (although, Doby has already paid his lamp debts by dipping into his merch fund). I can’t say enough about how wonderful Chicago was. 

After Chicago we headed north to Milwaukee.  Ryan lived in Milwaukee for a short period and in that time played in his band Good Night & Good Morning. His old band mate Sahan still lives there and we got together with him before the show to spend about 45 minutes recording an improvised drone piece.  The space seemed to be an addition on top of what was either an auto shop or a paint store and the attic space it was in seemed ancient.  Myles and Matt set up a show for us in the Chapter III house and the line up was stacked.  Jamie Yanda was the highlight of the night.  Jamie is one of my absolute favorite song writers, he can usually be found fronting the band Temple and it was really a pleasure to play with him doing solo stuff.  When the show ended we went to a tiki bar where we were gifted pizza and drinks.  We stayed with Ryan’s friend Casey and met her glorious cats.  

Problems started arising the next morning as I had left my computer in Chicago at Justin’s in the hustle to get to Milwaukee.  It wasn’t a completely awful problem because Chicago was on the way to our next stop, Peoria.  We parked downtown to retrieve the laptop from the coffee shop Justin works at when Ryan realized he didn’t have his wallet… Doby and I went inside for the laptop and Ryan tore apart the van in search of his wallet.  He did not find his wallet and we spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out a way to find it or figure out where it was.  Ryan last used it in a Dunkin Donuts somewhere between Milwaukee and Chicago. We eventually tracked down the number for said Dunkin Donuts and they claimed to have no idea where it was so we took every item out of the van in order to try and find it.  

This delayed our arrival to Peoria by a few hours. In a sour mood we all gave up and drove to Peoria for the show, late and still with no wallet.  After the Peoria show we planned a drive to Champaign to pick up items from Ryan’s parents (birth certificate, proof of address, etc, etc) to get a new copy of his I.D.  This particular part of the solution posed a bit of a problem because Ryan received a phone call right before his performance in Milwaukee from his mom.  Apparently being a self promoted DIY musician is something she felt she had raised him better than.  While it’s not my place to comment it really brought his mood down and the loss of his wallet and the fact that he now had to return home only made things worse.  

Within ten minutes of our departure from Champaign the Dunkin Donuts called Ryan back with news of his wallet. They found it and to send the wallet all the way to the space we are playing in New York City next week. We celebrated by going to a new vegan place and stopping by Error Records to get all of us matching Error Records sunglasses for the rest of the tour. From there we headed to Fort Wayne, Indiana. About fifteen minutes into the drive towards Fort Wayne, Ryan got a phone call - he had left his backpack at a shop in Champaign. We of course turned around to revertive it. This prompted Doby to make an itemized list of everything we’ve got with us on this trip (from speaker cabinets to sunglasses).  

The night in Fort Wayne started off on a stressful note by our arrival being greeted with the venue having no idea we were playing.  While the place figured out that we were in fact playing we walked down the street to a record store called Neat Neat Neat. Morrison, the owner, was standing outside the shop and had us wait to enter because there was a young woman standing in the store shaking and crying while borrowing the store’s phone. The second she hung up she literally ran away from the store. When Morrison asked if everything was going to be ok, she replied in a sob “no it’s not” before running off.  We all stood in the doorway in a bit of a daze as we watched her run off.  Someone called the store back a few moments later saying she was being chased.  Morrison ended up calling the police and we never heard anything else about it…  We hope she’s ok. The show ended up going slightly better than expected and we got the pleasure of the night being ended with a performance by Hope Arthur.  After the show we stayed with a friend of Doby’s named Drew and met his two dogs and listened to a rare Japanese Nirvana CD. Years ago, Drew and his now ex-wife Mary hosted tons of shows at this house (then known as the Fahrenheit house); it now sits half empty with a for sale sign in the yard - maybe a sign of the times for house shows and DIY? Today we slept until noon (finally) and now we are sitting in a coffee shop called Firefly in Fort Wayne with little to no money and are surviving off the generosity of the people of Fort Wayne.  Our show for tonight in Detroit got cancelled and we moved tomorrows show back a day to make room for a show in Ohio that we failed to set up.  If things keep running this way our week is going to end very strangely and maybe even quickly.

P.S. if you’re wondering why there are little to no pictures of Doby, so far he’s asked me not to post the pictures I’ve taken of him. Anyone want to send him an angry email asking him not to be such a diva? Doby’s email is - [email protected] 

http://justinklaas.bandcamp.com

http://temple.bandcamp.com

http://hopearthur.com

http://www.neatneatneatrecords.com

Doby Watson day 2/19

Yesterday, we played our first show of tour with ZXO.  Ryan was nice enough to drive all the way to Kansas City from Champagne to pick Doby and I (Adam) up, only to drive all the way back to Champagne the next day. The album release show was held at Error Records and Nathan really did a fantastic job putting together the tapes for Doby.  Seeing the tapes in a physical form for the first time yesterday made everything seem more real somehow.  The show was small but everything was well received.  Despite all the efforts of amazing local press for the show and everybody doing a fantastic job spreading word for the tour kickoff/tape release show (seriously, not being sarcastic), it seems everyone in Champagne was more interested in seeing a band called Bone Jugs and Harmony.  Guess we can't blame them, even Ryan wanted to go.  Single Player finished out the night with big sounding emo gems and we had a great time. Our friend Darwin let us stay at his apartment but took us out on the town before going home.  We admired his beautiful VHS collection and uncomfortably laughed as he poured ice cold water on Ryan as he showered (they used to be bandmates).  We were all pretty spent from the drive and went back to his place for sleep.  I made some food that included some gifted peppers that were entirely too hot.  The food was so spicy it kept us from sleeping right away which really slowed us down this morning.  Today we got up and Doby and Ryan (ZXO) were interviewed and played on a college radio station called Pizza FM. Although there was no pizza, it was pretty fun. 

Tonight we are playing a show in Chicago which just happens to be my favorite city.  The night is looking magnificent and I'm glad to be back.  We'll see how it goes!

Until tomorrow check out these links! http://errorrecords.com

http://singleplayer.bandcamp.com

http://www.bonesjugs.com/music/

Temple graced KCMO with their presence for the fourth time Saturday night.  In this interview with Adam they talk about the end of their tour, new recordings, and Jamie moving back to Milwaukee and Jamie plays the song, "Your Plane."

Hear more from Temple here ------ http://temple.bandcamp.com

Listen to the interview/download here 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jyaoqe7nh1bs6u8/templeinterview.m4a?dl=0

Listen/Download Temples track "Your Plane," here

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gg4a7a1iobf2k5o/yourplane.m4a?dl=0

Adam got a chance to sit down with the guys in Shahman yesterday on their way through Kansas City.  They talk about their latest album and some tour experiences and Peter plays a new, unreleased song titled "Park."  We hope you find some enjoyment in the first ever episode of Conversations On a Couch.  

Hear more from Shahman here---- http://shahman.bandcamp.com

and go see them on the remainder of their tour dates

Sept. 7th Oklahoma City, OK @ Dope Chapel Sept. 8th Denton, TX @ Gatsby's Mansion Sept. 9th Austin, TX @ Beerland  Sept. 11th Memphis, TN @ The Buccaneer  Sept. 12th Carbondale, IL @ The Swamp Sept. 13th Milwaukee, WI @ Ynot 3 w/ Eaten by Trees

  Listen to the interview/download the interview here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g97fs1qghgiug8v/shahmanconversation.m4a?dl=0

Listen/download Shahmans "Park" here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ghl4lnxc9o0pppo/shahmanpark.m4a?dl=0