Creature Fear
of Bon Iver.
Us Boys, Der
Sweet Beats, Troubled Sleep
Justin recently contributed to his friends, The Rosebud’s, latest project: a remix of their most recent album, Night of The Furies. You can hear and download the entire record on Merge, here.
Turf Club in April Quickly Selling Out...
We have announced another Turf Club date in April. We had alot of people who couldn’t come out to see us play last time, because it was super sold out. If you missed us last time and want to get in this time, please visit the turf club’s website and snatch some tickets up.
Click here.
Or…you can get ‘em on IndieTIckets.com
See you back in the land of 10,000 lakes.
At the Foot of Black Mountain
Hey er’body,
We have embarked on our U.S. and Canadian tour with label-mates, Black Mountain. We feel lucky, and jazzed. We listen to their record constantly in the van, and alway get huge smiles on our faces when the first notes of “Stormy High” chime in through the PA.
Our new friends hit Conan O’Brien tonight, and we are playing the wonderful Sound Fix Records in Brooklyn.
We are all NOT sick now and doing much better.
see you soon,
Bon Iver
We played a hometown show at The Nucleus in Eau Claire last Sunday to kick-off the tour! Here’s a quick shot of the line before the show.
Thanks to all who came out! Sorry to those who were turned away; we’ll play two nights next time around.
The Funniest People in My World (Right Now)
Matt Besser
Nick Swardson
Last January. Journal entry.
January 3, 2007
i reallllllly think i am going out of my head sometimes.
im watching re-run marathons of sexual victims shows and shows about sex in the city, in a little barn house that my father built. He started in ‘79 and we just put in a toilet and a shower a couple of months ago. Im atleast 60 miles away from anyone I love, sometimes more like 1500. I am about 18 feet away from everything i love, however. Just up the poppel plank stairs, there is a pile of old guitars, a mound of microphones, wires, chords, electric boxes.
today, though I am taking a break from the previous 3 days of tirelessly working on an opus: seven songs that have succeeded to pull me through a hardened shell of myself, suprise me, entertain, impress and even heal me. They are me, and I am them, but, they sound nothing like I have ever really written before. No need to explain, I kind of understand.
So today, instead of sitting in the recording chair and working from basically when I wake up till 2 or 3 in the morning (just because nothing fills time better than that for me, except maybe for sitting with people) I woke up, ate a piece of toast with mom’s strawberry jelly, took a jog down the road and back, walked out to the woods to check on a deer carcass, ate a cheddarwurst cut up into pieces, watched a couple of these shows, teared up.
in the afternoon, i took some shit over to the town dump. I call it “town” but this is not a town. Its a township, and there are no garbage trucks or garbage men. I took two truck loads, and after driving back the second time I parked by the pull barn and hitched up the log splitter. I drove it down the road to an older couple that lives down the road.
Dick just quintuple bypass surgery but he helped me and Sharon split a large, huge pile of wood for about an hour. Sharon went lighting fast, carrying, stacking, picking up, putting down. It was cold, but I didn’t need gloves. At one point he left to sit down and the newly met strangers, Sharon and I, were a well oiled machine. It was loud, with the woodsplitter, so these new folks I offered to help with wood with, couldn’t really have a conversation to break the ice. Instead we just split and stack. Split and stack. There was this time when the hot exaust from briggs and statton was blowing on Sharons purple sweat pants and I could see the exact shape or her calf. It was just a metaphor for closley we were working together, with really having no idea about anything about eachother. touching hands as we hand off logs, unloading logs, logs that will heat thier home the rest of the winter. One of us farted. I don’t know who, she was moving to fast to notice.
i twitched a smile, but it didn’t even break our stride.
I was leaving in the truck, when I suddendly heard my self say “I feel good.” followed with the retort: “I feel great.” I punched on the cd player and, i know it seems unpoetic. Micheal Jackson’s solo version of “We are the World”.
It was strange being that close to the house of I was concieved in and not really thinking about it all that much. I don’t really know if it was Dick and Sharon that was living in the house at the time, about 25 yeras ago on a rainy summer night. And I don’t know if that gives more or less of an “in” asking Dick and Sharon if I could go in and see the room. ‘Cause, c’mon, who gets a chance to do that.
My friends are a thousand miles away. I miss them. But here I am with re-run marathons and an opus. Im okay. Im doing okay.
December. Tonight, I will bury my powerbook in the new fallen snow.
December 6th, 2006
Tonight, I bury my past and powerbook in the new fallen snow.
Tonight, I will bury my powerbook in the snow. This seems a) like a waste of money, even if it was a junker — I could atleast sell it. b) rather dramatic considering right next to the new fallen snow is a BFI co. garbage hauler. But, nevertheless, I will proceed.
I have heard computer crashing stories, never really fearing that “would happen to me”. But of course I have never been all that great at the backup game, and through unscrewing 40 some screws and 2 days of testing the hardrive in various data rescue operations, the thing was simply — zapped clean. Washed completly of any trace of these things of mine. These 010110’s of mine. But they were faces and lines of strung together honesty, however horribly illetirate and run-ony.
I still don’t know exactly how to phrase what lesson I learned, and I usually don’t care enough to follow through with my self learning to the point of coherently framing it in language, because at the core I know what it is I’ve learned; BUT, I do know that I feel new. I feel like dumping those bad songs and journal entry’s was the best thing that could of happened. I am guilty of it, maybe more than others, but drudging our past around with us too much is of obvious badness, but here I sit in as old of a place as they come, with a new feeling.
Very much love to all of you through this Christmas season.
Im putting on my boots and my mom’s packer jacket she left up here and heading to the limestone bed for a little ceromony they call, renew.
cheers,
Justin
Two November's ago.
November 17th, 2006
I’m now technically back home. Although home is much more north than it has been for the last 25 years. The last few months in Raleigh, were… many things… trying, rewarding, hard, sad, exciting. Right now, I am just glad to not have a plan and to be able to concentrate on music. Not where to play it, not when, not with who; just music. And I have that now. Between that and digging, building, cutting, buzzing, sawing, nailing and spliting… my days are full up.
In my last two months I had a few of my most meaningful and fulfilling experiences as a musician. I spent the better half of the year working on a record with one of my favorite bands in the universe, Nola. Working on this record with my new friends, and working on it, and working on it, and finishing it…. I can’t not discuss exactly how proud of this record and their music I am. And, also, I spent the last 4 weeks of my time in Raleigh, finishing the latest record by The Rosebuds. Ivan and Kelly took me in, let me flourish as a producer, fed me amazing sushi and bojangles, showed me episodes of Automan, and most of all erected a wonderful new friendship. Thank you guys.
As for now, in less than 20 hours, I will be sitting the middle of nowhere, with a freezing nose, toes and fingers, at 5 am, watching the sun come up through the trees.
see ya,
Justin
