Monday, August 31, 2009

home day 1


here is a crappy picture:
my idea for the next poster. photoshop will make it pretty

home:
day one:

clean out car,
vacuum car
laundry
acquire (purchase) the following:

screen printing ink
and squeegeeeee
t-shirts
blank cds
cd sleeves
fabric

wake up chad
dinner
paint

get chad to play with me


Friday, August 28, 2009

what



it is 11 hours to knoxville from Iowa City, where we are playing in a couple hours.

the last few nights have been hard on us.



I would blob about the other cities... but, i'm too tired and frankly they all just blur together right now.

we have 2 cities left:

Urbana and Indianapolis

its only 5 1/2 hours drive from indianapolis to knoxville.

we will be home August 31st at approximately 5 am.



Saturday, August 22, 2009

Documented fights with chad


Chad vs. Renee Fight #2

"lets just explore..." (sheer disappointment face)

"explore what?-" " over here!"

"oh wow look its a tennis court, I've never seen one of these before"

"come on!"
"you know what's really special about this - "

(indistinct fed-up response)
" you know what's really special about this tennis court?.... its wild... its a wild tennis court in the middle of this wild wood-hey...."





" i don't know whats so hard about taking a pictures"

"fine i will"

"I'll go up on the curb and you can take a good curby picture"

"alright i'll take a picture of the stupid bridge for your stupid collection"

"... (long silence)... that hurts"

"I'll show you what hurts bad"


(then he realized i was setting him up...)


Pictures of New Orleans, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma soon!
We are at Kirby's beer store about to load in!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Mobile Bridge


The next time you go to mobile, over the bridge, when you're at this point... the city on the horizon... tune your radio to 540 am... and just wait ... for the tunnel.

we always record it on the 4 track.
(that should be showing up on Chad's next album)



We are in New Orleans this morning, played at the Dragon's Den last night.

New Orleans..

we've met before, seen each other around.

Chad and i have decided to move here for a month next year... in the fall, maybe November when it turns cooler. We wanted to document the streets this October, but it just didn't work out this year. We have to keep traveling for now. We have decided to move to so many places, Athens, Tallahassee, now New Orleans. Just for a month, to ride bikes and move through all the smells. Share in the darkness, the drunkenness, and sorrow. The moldy crumbling remains from the storm and of course the music and magic (and people) that brought the city back.


We walked all around looking for graffiti, pictures tomorrow.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Home and gone again

We came to Pensacola, and it is home. To chad because he lived here and grew up here, for me because this was the place that i first lived on my own, the only place i've lived on my own. And it was a great 5 years, but that's a whole other blog.

On the way we played in Panama city at this brand new record store called TEk records, it's owned by this really awesome young guy. More details on this later:

for now just check it out!
this venue gets an A in my book.





We played with a hand selected cast... 2 of my favorite artists from the Panhandle:

Cody Copeland (not a mac spokesmodel, but i love this picture)


And Taylor... my friend from way back in the first years of living in Pensacola.
His project name is Exploding into Sleep


yea... thats taylor alright... which I'm proud to say is the latest artist to get signed to my record label... ZombiesandLizards (which is just starting up...) and was established so i could help out my favorite musicians/friends with putting out their records and booking tours. I dont have money to offer these artist... but i have experience... and a high speed duplicator... so... its pretty cool


While we were home we played at the end of Palafox on the Pier:




We played a "last" bobe street show too... i mean it this time. From now on, all Bobe Street shows will be reunions.


but this is what home looks like:






(no not starbucks... thats Melody!)






Davy Hooligan!


Freddy Fudd Pucker! this guy was amazing... from New Zealand


And what night is complete in Pensacola with out the dick.... Sir Richards that is, how did this darkest of dark bar become our bar. Its not hard to feel at home here.
Thanks guys, all my p-cola friends.



(this really happened... i had to hit the bullseye 8 times to win... bam)


Here are some portraits:














now we're off to New Orleans... i wonder what we'll find there... or what will find us.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

my first Zine!!!






Its called


We thought it up on our way to Hattiesburg, while we meandered the western parts of 98. I have been brainstorming another zine I want to put out about recipes we make on the road with our cookstove, like a guide to resourceful traveling to give to the largest community we are a part of... traveling, poor artists. We all seem to have this bug that bites us at an early age and drives us to travel to far off places. To do that on a musicians/artist budget, you have to be smart, so I wanted to put out a zine about that.


So when we saw a bait shop we started to joke about making Minnows and Rice for supper. It all descended into madness from there... hilarious madness that make me happy the whole night, just smiling. You know those jokes that are so stupid they make you laugh over and over hours later while you are sitting in a public... like school, or work.

I started right away on "Minnows and Rice"




It has all kinds of wonderful recipes for minnows and rice.


And secret perfected techniques for preparing the sweet delicacy:


Exclusive interviews with some of the top names and execs in the minnow industry.


Advertisements for the latest and greatest products on the market, all the must haves for the minnow enthusiasts:



and really cute pictures of Chad with his hair-doo.



about the author:



I know these pictures are shitty, i dont have a scanner that i carry around with me. lord knows i wish i did. I had so much fun today making it. It has been a long time (relative to my head space time) since I could throw myself into an art project. Being away from my sewing machine, and constantly on tour where it's hard to find some place/time to write songs. This has been amazing. Lately I have been really down about productivity, as in, beating myself up for not accomplishing art and jumping on all the ideas that i have for promoting spider+Octopus and making our show better. I feel great now. It may be just a stupid zine, but live for this stuff.

you know, my parents have always said that my "fortune" was not to be found making music... but drawing stick figures.

thanks guys. :-)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Home.... sorta


After an amazing show at TEk Records last night (pictures later) we rolled into Pensacola down familiar roads... aaaahh, it feels so good. slept in a bed. Chad's parents has a fancy fancy (everything really) including a coffee machine that makes espresso and steams milk. ooooooh.

We have been making percolated coffee to save money, and we have... and its rewarding, but rewarding coffee sometimes has lots of grounds in it. 

So... no point to this blog really, except to reminisce about lattes and watching cartoons.

oooh, so good.



so freaking good.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Chad rides a Whale



St Simon Island
What to say about st. Simon Island. After days of percolated coffee and boiled eggs, (resourceful, delicious, homemade) we were treated to dinner at this fancy-pancy coffee/wine/bougie cafe. Burgers, Spinach salad with Seared Tuna Steak, spanicopita, lattes... we went nuts. the food was an amazing treat. we played, alright. it wasn't a place where people go to hear music. They came to drink $7 glasses of wine. we merely provided a water-colored background of sound for them. People in St Simon are either a) rich enough to live there or b) on vacation and expecting vacation thrills. So, they ignored us. no big deal, we got fed, and we got paid... aaand we got to pretend we were on vacation for a few hours walking around paradise. 





Penny Collection!
(inspired by Rancho Cocoa)










oh look honey! local color!


In closing... I am starting a new collection to join other such collections as:

public bathroom
people's pets
Chad pointing to the sky

and now...

Gas Stations across the Nation!