RM64 Artists Record

I wanted to pull you guys in by showing you some skin. That’s us, in Joshua Tree, looking awesome. Hope you like it!

Anyway, now we’re in Portland, and I’m sitting in the Doug Fir Lounge’s green room, which is larger than some of the rooms we’ve played in on this tour. Tonight is one of the more anticipated nights of the tour, at least for me, as we’re playing w/ an awesome band called Odawas. I’m not sure how many of you have been to this venue, but this is really one of the best (if not the best) places we could ever play. Awesome place to play, awesome place to watch a show. (more…)

Shall we?  If you’d like to come, we’re leaving half an hour ago.  At least we were supposed to, but then everything took longer than planned and I’m still doing things I meant to this morning, including making this post.

But once these things are done we will drive to Las Vegas maybe?  Really we just need to be in Tempe tomorrow night, and wherever we decide to stop tonight is just a sidenote to that.  Some people call this “touring,” and that’s what begins today and ends a few weeks from now.

Backtracking: we had a wonderful weekend.  We played two shows that were advertised as “CD release shows,” and so we released a new record. This new record has also garnered us our very first ever Journey comparison which makes me happy to a level that my three semesters of college and 1.8 GPA don’t allow me to articulate.

We were joined on Saturday by our friends the Future of the Ghost and some friends from Seattle called the Head and the Heart. They were both fantastic and everyone loved everyone and by the end of the night I was feeling like this. Which is the best way to feel. We will reconvene w/ the Head and the Heart folks in just a few short weeks in Seattle, WA (July 9).

Also, my refrigerator gave me its two week notice today. But luckily I’m going out of town!

I wish I could make this longer but I really need to be going. The good news is, just a few hours from now, my life will get more exciting than normal, so hopefully in a few days I’ll have a nice story or two to share. Five of us in a 4-Runner. Things are bound to get weird. How weird? We shall soon find out.

Hello, internet! I love you.

I spent the last ten days in my home state of Michigan w/ parents, siblings, in-laws, nephews, niece. Do yourself a favor and google image “Pictured Rocks,” and you’ll how see how amazing northern Michigan is. That’s where I was for a good part of the trip. Camping, hiking, pontoon boating, shipwreck searching. While doing the last of those two activities a storm rolled in and frightened me into thinking we’d be a tiny forgettable version of the Edmund Fitzgerald. But as fate would have it, we survived! A surprise ending to me, but not to the rational mind or the reader (you). (more…)

Locked in a stairwell, recording guitars.

Good evening, folks. It’s been a while. It’s been a while, and I apologize. I suppose we should catch up, like the old friends we are?

At about 3am last night we finished mixing the EP we’ll be releasing in June. We were mixing under conditions that aren’t ideal, but so it goes for the unsigned band, right? The crux of the problem being that I am here in Salt Lake City and Shawn (engineer, mix-master, guru) is in Seattle. Now thank god for the internet, but sometimes the internet is slow! So, basically it took us two days longer than planned/hoped, but we got it done. I’ll post a couple of the songs here, even. How about it? (more…)

Oh well.

Here I am, six days removed from the SXSW safari and still decompressing. Five straight 4am bed-times and a 24 hour drive back to good old Utah set me back a bit. Listen: I wish I had a more unique angle w/ which to report on SXSW than “Holy shit it is crazy,” but it really is crazy. Bands and people everywhere. I can’t imagine how it would take the good city of Austin any less than two months to clean up all that trash. (more…)

Poker night in Stillwater

Stillwater, OK is where I am right now. Hometown of Garth Brooks (I’ve been informed). Subsequently: Hometown of Chris Gaines? You would think so, and yet no one here knows what the hell I’m talking about when I ask. Talk about life in the shadows.

I made the trek w/ a couple good friends of mine, Chris and Anna, owners of Slowtrain Records.  We left a couple days ago and stopped here in Stillwater because Anna has family here.  We are en route to Austin, of course, for SXSW, or as Anna’s grandma likes to tell people, we’re “driving to Texas to go to a concert.”

Anyway, this stop has extended to me lots of kindness, air hockey, and free food. So I kind of never want to leave, but here’s the thing:

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Picture by Jaci Twiss // our home for the last week

Well. We’re making some progress. Slowly but surely.

A week and a half ago we drove up here to Seattle w/ a goal in mind of finishing the tracking for a pair of releases we’d like to crank out this year. We didn’t achieve that goal completely, but we made some real headway. Encountered a few curve balls.  Some led to cool things, some led to not-cool things.  But as the old saying goes, that’s the nature of the curve ball. (more…)

Us, in my living room///shooting video blog for inyourspeakers.com

At one point in my life, I had the misfortune of being taught a four-quadrant system from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This grid displayed the intersections between “urgency” and “importance” and in effect told rich people where they should spend their time (Quadrant Two : important, not urgent).

Luckily, I don’t live on that grid (the one that advises spending money on programs that pedal the obvious), while I certainly spend plenty of time on a much more fulfilling grid (the one that unfortunately destroys Mother Earth). That being said, this past week has been a Quadrant Two week for the Devil Whale.

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There’s a coffee shop two blocks from my house called Nobrow Coffee and Tea Company, or as normal people call it, Nobrow. I also call it my office. It’s where I spend the majority of, and bulk of, my days. Internetting, social networking, you know, finding out who my peers are.

Anyway, Joe (the owner, and an overall stand-up dude), has started a Sunday afternoon concert series of sorts. The concept is that all of these shows will be recorded, and at the end of it (which hopefully happens before the End of Time), he will be able to release a nice compilation of the pillars of Salt Lake City rock n roll performing their songs in his shop.

So this past Sunday, I had my turn and ended up just taking a stab at it solo. So. This video offers a glimpse into the past.

Love,
Brinton

A crude photographic depiction of last night: BEACH HOUSE @ Sundance////Park City, UTAH(!!!)

This past week featured the arrival of Sundance and the departure of Conan O’Brien. I have stronger feelings about one event than the other, the funny thing being the one I DO care about doesn’t affect me in the least and the one I don’t care about takes place in my own backyard.

But let’s talk about Conan’s departure for a minute. And not to get carried away feeling sorry for—or being able to relate to, for that matter—a guy who just voluntarily left a job w/ a $45M severance, but man, what a send-off. As much as I was hoping for the entertainment that an hour of the Masturbating Bear and a complete annihilation of the studio would have provided, I found myself being pleasantly surprised by the unexpected turn of him taking the normally boring high road.

What about this final gem from O’Brien : “All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

I haven’t owned a TV in about five years, so I wasn’t able to watch the drama unfold live. Instead, I watched it via Hulu on Sunday morning in a coffee shop and found myself nearly choking up as he delivered his parting words. It’s kind of crazy how candid people can become when they know the end is near.

And then we have Sundance. An event I have successfully avoided altogether–other than a handful of times–in my nine winters here in Utah. Holding a film festival in a town the size of Park City is like trying on a boot three sizes too small. If this post were written in the vernacular of “Fantastic Mr. Fox”, Sundance would be described as a “cluster-cuss.”

But here’s the thing. Because of Sundance, I saw BEACH HOUSE perform last night, in a small room. And Holy Moses. It was amazing. To quote my friend Anna who was standing next to me when they opened w/ “Zebra”, “I can’t believe that voice is actually coming from her.” She couldn’t have sounded better. Thanks to bit torrent, I’ve been enjoying their new record for a few weeks now. As of tomorrow, I’ll be able to purchase the real deal. And what a good one it is. I highly highly recommend.

But other than last night’s show and ODDSAC (“an experimental film featuring psychedelic visuals and music by Animal Collective”), I shall steer clear of the fray, and my only knowledge of the goings-on will be via the twitter feeds of Questlove and Levar Burton. That’s as close as I’ll get.

Runaway people. Let’s go home tonight. Bye bye bye.

Love,Brinton