Sounds Under Radio on MTV's The Real World Hollywood

Greetings All,

Tonight (Wednesday June 25th) Sounds Under Radio's 'Portrait of a Summer Thief' from the forthcoming Cinematica release will be featured on MTV's "The Real World-Hollywood" episode #2011. You can tune in at 9, 10 or 11 ET/PT to see the show and hear the soundtrack! If you miss these broadcasts... have no fear, there will be many re-broadcasts! find out more info at www.mtv.com

ALSO... don't forget to check out the Sounds Under Radio online store by visiting;

http://soundsunderradio.bigcartel.com/

To celebrate the inclusion of 'Portrait of a Summer Thief' on MTV's The Real World Hollywood, the band will be giving away FREE 3 Song preview EP's with any online purchase for the next 10 days!

indiana jones, Dallas, CC and moving

indiana jones... i just have to say it... i was disappointed for the most part.  while the ten year old boy in me who's favorite movies are and forever will be  'raiders of the lost ark', 'star wars,' 'rad' and 'the goonies' was absolutely satiated... the older, more mature (and more cynical i must admit) 20-something person i am today, who much more prefers watching 'films' than 'movies' felt like i was watching an older and greyer harrison ford star in a B level parody film poking fun at the movies that the 10 year old in me loved so much in the 80's.  anyway... bradley and i discussed this on the van ride to and from Corpus Christi this past weekend and we came to agree... you just can't make those kinds of movies anymore.  that kind of humor... that kind of campy action and general style of film making that was acceptable and flourished in the 80's... well... it just doesn't work anymore.  audiences are conditioned for different things.  while we can watch movies from the elder 'vintage' and enjoy them as they were then... its difficult to enjoy a new movie with that same motif (and oh ya... an obnoxious amount of CGI) in the same way.  you just can't.  same thing with why the newer 'star wars' films just didn't hold up... same idea... and oh ya, Jar Jar Binx was the most annoying character in the history of film.  that didn't help those films.  people said that the Ewoks in the original star wars trilogy were annoying (i beg to differ actually), but it can't be argued that Jar Jar Binx was exponentially more aggravating of a character... i almost walked out of the theatre on that one.  wow ya.  so ok... indiana jones wasnt THAT bad, but i was a bit let down regardless.  

ok the shows... 

Acoustic show in Dallas... just Bradley and I made the trek for this one... very intimate, very interactive... we had a lot of fun.  I think someone posted a few clips on youtube... search out if you're interested.  went down a day early to spend an evening with my parents... two of the absolute best people on the planet hands down... i wish i got to spend more time with them.  I missed my now florida dwelling older brother by a day as he was in town for a golfing expedition earlier in the week... he's the one who introduced me to led zeppelin, pink floyd, the beatles and this whole rock and roll thing... so you could say he's to blame for all the things i do :)  haha

Coprus Christi... flag day celebration.  Good to get back out with the electric guitars and turn our amps up... which we did.  it was loud and raucous and just completely enjoyable.  got a write up in the Corpus Christi Caller as we found out when we got there and a handful of folks said that made it out to the show because of the paper... pleasant suprise for us!  Bradley got a new case for a lot of his gear... it cuts his stage set up time in half, but required to design an entire new trailer pack for all our our road cases... which wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been 110 degrees while we were doing it.  2 hours playing human sized tetris on a 6x12 trailer with a few other guys is not my definition of fun... but we did it, got all of our gear to Corpus and I have to say... this new pack (even with the addition of the new case) is actually a better pack than the old.  What strange things I find satisfaction in these days.  

Drove home after CC... short weekend of shows... made it back to home base around 7am just as folks were heading out to their sunday morning church services.  We pulled in to the SUR house driveway, parked the van and were exhaustedly stumbling towards our beds just as our neighbor Bernie (a super nice fella actually) was walking out to the street to get his sunday paper... i think we startled him for a second... but our neighbors know what we do... they know the hours we keep and actually are really great about being accepting of us, watching the house when we're on tour and keeping an eye out on everything when we're away.  Our house is in a very 'family oriented' neighborhood in Austin and I think when we moved in many of the neighbors were afraid that we were going to be throwing wild parties in to the wee hours ever night of the week and i'm sure they put the police on speed dial the moment they heard what we do for a living... but the truth is, we're actually quite tame when we're at home... we are home so infrequently that when we're here we just want to rest... quietly write songs and enjoy a little life outside of the dingy rock club... however much we do love them... when we're home is nice to kind of turn that off for a bit.  i actually think the neighbors like us now to be completely honest... we even get invited to neighborhood events and have notes put in our mailbox that generally begin with something like, "Dear Band Guys... you are cordially invited to..." its actually quite amusing.  

ok so tonight marked the next to last rehearsal we are going to have in our current rehearsal space... its actually quite sad... this little 12x18 room has been good to us... its gotten us ready for tours, its helped us write a great many songs and its helped us grow as a band in more ways that we could have ever imagined... its been the place that we've spent almost every waking hour of our lives when we're not on the road... yet its time to change the scenery... mix things up a little bit and see if a new environment will spawn some new creativity and tell us some new and interesting... so goodbye room 62... you have been the good to us.

alright... san antonio this weekend and actually a webcast interview on sunday with our good friends at Open Labs who make an amazing product called the 'miko' which we own and are soon to integrate in to our live show... if you're in to checking it out visit www.openlabs.com  -alright thats all for now... 4am and i need to try and sleep.  we shall see if it actually happens or not.

quiet... the nothing more guys are sleeping downstairs

Greetings all... so its monday at 1am... or technically tues at 1am (it is the morning now i guess) and I'm quietly working away in the upstairs studio in the Sounds Under Radio house in Austin Tx.  Been writing a lot lately and Ive actually taken recently to gaff taping (gaff tape for those that don't know is like over glorified duct tape that is used on stages because of its durability and also ease of removal) pages from my writing journals to the walls of the studio... I have also gaff taped a sharpie on a string to the same wall so that I can stand in front of what i've now deemed 'the word wall' and make swift edits and changes, combine things, fracture things, break them down, build them up... so on and so forth.  I've been challenging myself recently to exploring some new ways to write... and this method has actually been quite helpful and inspiring.  There is something i'm finding to be rather powerful about just standing in front of these words... words that hold great meaning to me... and in a way confronting myself again with these themes and ideas... I can't close my journal, I can't escape it... anywhere in this room the words are all around me... I have to face them and I have to be honest with them and myself.  Its been brutal sometimes... but again, a great means of catharsis once i've gone through the process.   I wish I knew how to post pics on this thing because the 'word wall' is actually quite amusing to see... I'll try to figure it out and get something up soon.  

So downstairs right now (and thus why i am 'quietly working upstairs') are sleeping our good friends in the band 'Nothing More'  who are staying with us for a few days while they begin tracking parts of their new record in a studio here in Austin with our much loved producer Will Hoffman.  I can't wait to hear what comes of this collaboration... I've been hoping Will and Nothing More would work together for quite some time now... glad its finally all going down.  But needless to say... they have an early morning, so are fast asleep and the rest of us here are trying to respect their need for quiet...  although I keep hearing what might be a smoke detector beep every few minutes... probably need to go investigate when i'm done writing this.

so road updates... once again, been traveling a great deal in the great state of Texas... I believe in the last week we saw almost every mile of IH35 in Texas... Laredo Tx took us too the Mexican border and a trip in the the DFW metroplex took us about 50 miles from the Oklahoma border on the north.  IH35 really is an aweful highway... constantly under construction, traffic jams at every corner... I once heard 35 referred to by a fellow musician as a 'work horse' highway, 'no frills... just lots of pavement and potholes.'  that is the damndest of truths for sure.  From border patrol stops and drug dog at 4am heading out of Laredo, to 10 mile long roadjams in Waco (which we hilariously found out to have been caused by our good friends in the band Alpha Rev and their broken down mini bus), 35 has been a good... yet painful road companion the last few weeks.  

Last weekends show at the Cavern Club in Dallas (a tiny room modeled after the Cavern Club in Liverpool where the Beatles found their start) proved to be an amazingly intimate and suprisingly fantastic show for us.  We in the 11th hour had to strip back and perform the show as a trio acoustic (or acoustic in the way that we do acoustic i guess) as Sonny had some last minute family issues to attend to... but we soldiered through and had somewhat of a 'VH1 Storytellers' evening in the Cavern Club with a few hundred of our closest Dallas fans and friends all packed in to a room whos capacity I could only imagine to be no more than 50 or 75 people.  It was hot and cramped... but it was amazing show... stellar sound in the room a wonderfully attentive audience... also my folks (who live in Dallas) got to come out to the show which was just great for me... always such a blast having them there at shows.

Heading back to the metroplex actually later this week for a bono fide acoustic show and a little writing sabbatical... light week of touring so it'll be a good opportunity to kinda get out of my element here... do some fresh thinking and some fresh writing.  Been doing a few of these acoustic dates recently and have a slew of them lined up for the coming months.  Been really cool to hang out with some friends and fellow songwriters... don't get to do that much with how busy we are these days... so its been good for us to be working and also be hanging with friends.  Did a show with a good friend Johnny Goudie in Houston 2 weeks ago... we traveled together to and from the show and I can honestly say... I haven't laughed that much in a long time... I'm thinking about inviting him on the road with Sounds Under Radio every now and again just to keep us entertained.... ha... and oh ya... he's a BRILLIANT singer and songwriter as well... that doesn't hurt at all.  Also had Casey McPherson travel back from Dallas to Austin with us this last weekend (his band Alpha Rev as well as our other good friend The Soldier Thread played at the Cavern with us), such a good time hanging with Casey.  Another BRILLIANT songwriter we are fortunate enough to call a friend.  

 Anyway... after writing in Dallas early this week, acoustic show on Thurs, we are back in Austin late week... rehearsals (working in some new material) and then a rock show in Corpus Christi this weekend... busy as always.... but busy is good!  more soon