From now until October 10th, if you pre-order the new Finn Riggins album Vs. Wilderness from Tender Loving Empire, you’ll get a FREE copy of the 2 disc, 43 band, Friends and Friend of Friends Vol. 2 Compilation featuring tracks from Nurses, Starfucker, Tune-Yards, Kickball, Typhoon, Jared Mees & The Grown Children, Y La Bamba and tons of others. Its too good to refuse right? The new Glow in the Dark Finn Riggins album, AND a rad hand silkscreened 2 disc comp, all for $14 postage paid!

now that’s a deal.  go to Tender Loving Empire for details on how to order.

updates updates updates.

rad shows the last couple of weeks. a big Benefit for the Boise Bicycle Project at the Visual Arts Collective on April 17th with the freight train of fun Jared Mees & The Grown Children and our fellow Boise rippers Le Fleur and Juntura. raise a bunch of money for the BBP and had a whale of a time. the next day, The Grown Children and us headed to La Grande for another amazing chapter in the epic annuals of The Crawlspace… offically Crawlspace VI. with Test Audiences and City of Animals who were better than ever. a surprise set from pretty radical travelling troubadors Come Gather Round Us sealed the deal for what was possibly one of the best Crawlspace shows ever…

thanks to our buddy Shaun Daniel, here’s a glimpse into the crawlspace vortex… and of one of our new songs… :

“Wake” by Finn Riggins (Live at Crawlspace VI)

then last friday we helped host a sweaty sweaty dance party at Fresshies in Hailey… a classic indeed. Fresshies never fails. they know how to bring it and our love affair is a magnificent one. on Saturday we played a private birthday party in Fairfield at the ancient Breezie’s Outlaws Saloon. it was off the hook. amazing people. amazing stuff on the walls. amazing party.

in between all this we’ve been finishing up writing for the new record and preparing for our little NW tour… starts tomorrow. as soon as we get back, we head in to the studio for 4 days. followed by the shows with Built To Spill. busy times. but the big ball is rolling and we’re excited for it all.

below are the next month of shows, as always, help getting the word to people in these areas is appreciated to the power of forever.

4/29 MISSOULA, MT @ The Badlander w/ The Chalfonts + The Magic Square

*4/30 LEWISTON, ID @ Lewis & Clark State College SUB Ampitheatre 11am-1pm

4/30 MOSCOW, ID @ John’s Alley w/ The Holiday Friends

5/1 SANDPOINT, ID @ Three Glasses

5/2 CLARKSTON, WA @ Hogan’s Pub w/ Bart Budwig

*5/3 MOSCOW, ID @ Moscow Renaissance Fair in East City Park

*5/5 SPOKANE, WA @ The Empyrean w/ local guests

5/6 SEATTLE, WA @ The Comet Tavern w/ The Globes + The Glasses + The Magic Mirrors

*5/7 PORTLAND, OR @ Tender Loving Empire for 1st Thursday w/ Church

5/8 BELLINGHAM, WA @ The Rogue Hero w/ The Russians + The Mumbles

5/15 GARDEN CITY (boise), ID @ VaC opening for BUILT TO SPILL. w/ Juntura

*5/16 EAGLE, ID @ Eagle Island Experience Festival w/ Built to Spill + others

5/20 BOISE, ID @ Neurolux opening for MIKE WATT

*5/22 HAILEY, ID @ Sun Valley Brewery w/ Tartufi + Low Red Land

*5/23 the sticks, ID @ Ranch Fest w/ Tartufi + Low Red Land + Test Audiences + Le Fleur + Hillfolk Noir + Milo Duke + Piers Lamb + stars + bbq + camping + beer + fun

*denotes ALL AGES show

full details at www.myspace.com/finnriggins

check out Lisa playing drums:

and hot Cam:

to see more photos of hot Cam and his hairdos and more by Rachael Dara Fisher go here

also, here are a couple of photos from the Cherry City Music Festival we played in Salem, OR a few weeks ago… courtesy of Sam Guerrero:

for more photos from CCMF and from the Tender Loving Empire vaults go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tenderlovingempire/

that’s it for now. more soon.

love

gilbert

///the tour headed north and to chillier weather once again, but we continued to be blessed with plenty of sunshine and great shows…

1/13/09 The Stage Door MT. SHASTA, CA

after a lazy morning in Stockton, we beelined north toward the great mountain looming in the distance. Mt. Shasta is known to many to be an energy vortex and we certainly can’t deny such claims based on the fact that every time we’ve been there there’s been an element of magic in the air. this night would bring that front and center. despite being a Tuesday night, a bunch of people came out and turned The Stage Door into a rippin good time.

locals The Exorcism of Wilford Brimley opened the night with their hard to pin down proggy eclectic shreddery. with two of them still in high school, they helped get out a younger crowd. it was rad. they were a lot of fun. and big thanks to our friend Sarabecca who with the help of her promotional arm Girl Genius Music Promotions turned this Tuesday on its head. check out the video of the last song of our encore below… not the best of quality, but you get a good sense of the party… thanks to our “tour manager” Rachael for the footage…

“PANCAKES” at the end of our encore:

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we stayed that night with our friends Esther and Richard whom we met when we toured through Shasta with the beloved Evy Llyan… we had a great time with them and they were very generous with their space and even surprised us with post-show snacks when we got there! major bonus.

1/14/09 Sam Bond’s Garage EUGENE, OR

woke up in the morning at Esther and Richard’s and when we walked out to head to breakfast we found our driver side mirror in the middle of the road as someone had clipped in the middle of the night and didn’t bother to fess up to their crime… it was mostly funny, but kind of bummer as the cost of fixing it loomed over us… but if there’s one thing tour teaches you that’s the ability to roll with the punches… and so we headed to the Black Bear Diner and indulged in a glorious breakfast with the sun shining up over Mt. Shasta, and when we got back to the van we borrowed some duct tape from Richard and strapped the shattered mirror back on and continued north…

it was a pretty drive up into Oregon and we rolled in to Eugene just after dark amidst an appropriate amount of fog. it had been over a year since we’d last played in Eugene since we had to cancel our June date there at the last minute due to Cam’s grandma falling ill… so we were excited to be back at Sam Bond’s Garage and we had hooked up with THE DAVEYS once again who we’d missed playing with that time… this ended up being a really fun show. The Daveys were a blast and Sam Bond’s never fails us. met a bunch of rad people and got the big disco ball going round and round and round. and the fog outside only added to the mystery of it all.

afterwards we saddled up the Ghost Ghost and headed to Portland… we were psyched. it was a joyous ride all the way there. we rolled in to the Mees lair around 2:30 in the AM and did our best to contain our excitement and ease ourself into sleep…

1/15/09 Doug Fir PORTLAND, OR

this in many ways was the culmination of tour… we hatched the vision for this show while in Wyoming waiting for James Brown — the Grown Children tour wagon — to get fixed in the midst of our tour out to CMJ in New York City with Jared Mees and co. the rest of the tour was pretty much built around it. not only was it our first time back to Portland since Music Fest Northwest in September, but it was a reunion of sorts for us and our beloved family, the entourage, our teammates JARED MEES and THE GROWN CHILDREN

this show was sooooooo much fun. some other PDX buddies WORLD’S GREATEST GHOSTS opened the show. they absolutely destroy. please check them out. and they’re good people. thankful to keep such good company. by the middle of their set the place was pretty well filled out… i think the rest of this can be told in some pics (all of these below were taken by Sam Guerrero):

WORLD’S GREATEST GHOSTS

FINN RIGGINS

JARED MEES and THE GROWN CHILDREN

there are a bunch more photos from the Doug Fir that Sam Guerrero took if you go to the TenderLoving Empire flickr site. or there are a bunch more as well as others from our tour at myspace.com/finnriggins

the Doug Fir show was rowdy. tons of old and new friends there. it was a ton of fun. thanks to everyone that came out and to everyone that helped make it happen.

1/16/09 IKE Box SALEM, OR

friday night marked our return to our favorite former morgue in Oregon… the IKE Box. it was another foggy night as we drove in, which seemed perfect in so many ways. show that night was good. nice crew of kids out and up for the adventure. local DSR opened with his haunting tunes and voice. really enjoyed his set. Julian from Mill Race sat in on keys for a couple of tunes, which was rad. Jared Mees & The Grown Children followed and were in hilarious form. like i told them at the end of their set, i really do enjoy their sets that are 2 parts music 1 part comedy. it was a riot. rad rad rad Salem trio MILL RACE followed. we’ve played with them several times now and absolutely love their quirk and skill. pretty wild stuff. we closed the night out. it was good. i sweated a lot. which is good. there was dancing. and hooting and hollering. all things good. we’re thankful to have such nice people come to our shows when we’re away from home. THANK YOU.

1/17/09 day off. PORTLAND, OR

goes completely against my nature to purposely schedule a day off on a Saturday of tour, but we desperately wanted some quality time with people we love that we don’t get to see very often. all of this happened on this day. if we were lucky enough to spend time with you on this day and you’re reading this right now know that we are very grateful for the time we spent together. it was an amazing day. it will not be recounted here for we saw and hugged and played with too many awesome people to go into all the gory details. just know that we love you and look forward to more of what we had on this day. THANK YOU.

this is a piece of truth we found in our friend Lucas’s OZ Cafe:

1/18/08 Fort George Brewery ASTORIA, OR

had a nice luxurious morning before piling us, our “tour manager” Rachael, Jared and Brianne Mees and Jeni Rose into the Ghost Ghost and taking a family road trip over to the Oregon Coast and the mouth of the Columbia and more importantly the beloved home of the Goonies… Astoria, OR… we rolled in as the sun had just set and decided we’d take advantage of the joy ride offered by the huge bridge bridging the Columbia and connecting Washington and Oregon… so we sailed our trusty steed up and over and across the mighty Columbia and then back across and over and down into the nice little town of Astoria…

show was at the Fort George Brewery as part of their Sunday night Astoria Hideouts series. they fed us some fine fine morsels and we set up and played for close to two hours. ended up playing lots of old stuff and sort of aired out the rep. it was really fun and a great end to this little west coast tour. had a great time with Jared and Brianne all weekend, but the family roadtrip capped it off nicely. especially with the addition of Jeni Rose.

we headed back to Portland after the show. and slept in the next day before heading back to Idaho and our new home in Boise.

thanks to everyone that made this little tour sooooooo much fun. really. thank you. it wouldn’t have been the same without you.

here are a couple of pretty photos on our drive home:

MT. HOOD

COLUMBIA GORGE

///reporting for all of us finn rigginses.

///love,

///gilbert

///wow. been just over 2 weeks since we posted here… and so much has happened… christmas, 60 inches of snow, lots and lots of shoveling, lots and lots of cookies eaten, wild and super fun show at Fresshies in Hailey, incredible New Year’s Eve show at The Crawlspace in La Grande, OR with a rad rad group of people and the amazing Test Audiences crew and our beloved and longtime friend Milo Duke… a fantastic kickoff to 2009… still reeling from it’s awesomeness….

and as of a few days ago, Finn Riggins has officially relocated to Boise, which we’re very very excited about. all kinds of great things happening around here and it’s exhilarating being in the midst of it all. so much so that we intend to stay relatively close to home for the next several months with no extended touring planned until at least May as we work on a new record… except for this little two week West Coast Tour that we leave for tomorrow…

1/7 RENO,​ NV @ Red Rock Studi​os
*1/8 MONTE​REY,​ CA @ Monte​rey Live
*1/9 SANTA​ CRUZ,​ CA @ The Crepe​ Place​
*​1/​10 SAN FRANC​ISCO,​ CA @ El Rio
*​1/​12 SACRA​MENTO​,​ CA @ The Press​ Club for CLUB POW!
1/13 MOUNT​ SHAST​A,​ CA @ The Stage​ Door
1/14 EUGEN​E,​ OR @ Sam Bond’​s Garag​e
# 1/15 PORTL​AND,​ OR @ Doug Fir
# 1/16 SALEM​,​ OR @ the IKE Box
1/18 ASTOR​IA,​ OR @ Fort Georg​e Brewe​ry
1/20 BOISE​,​ ID @ TBA — Obama​ inaug​urati​on party​!​!​
1/27 GARDE​N CITY,​ ID @ Visua​l Arts Colle​ctive​
1/29 SPOKA​NE,​ WA @ Baby Bar
1/30 MOSCO​W,​ ID @ 1912 Cente​r — Frien​ds of the Clear​water​ Benef​it
1/31 KELLO​GG,​ ID @ Dirty​ Ernie​’​s — USCSA​ Colle​giate​ Ski Races​ after​ party​!​!​

for full detai​ls on each show visit​ our myspace site www.myspa​ce.​com/​finnr​iggin​s

here’s a good picture of Milo Duke celebrating late night on New Year’s Eve…

wow.
see you soon.

///gilbert

///we ended up having two shows at CMJ on Friday. the first being part of the Portland Showcase at the Knitting Factory during the day… we were grouped into this showcase thanks to our friends at Tender Loving Empire… load in was at noon. it was intense. three floors of rock music. all day.

we played right in between good friends and Tender Loving Empire labelmates Super XX Man and Jared Mees & The Grown Children. it was a tight stage. we rocked it hard. it was a our last show with The Grown Children on the two week family tour we’d been on and had started in Clarkston, WA. their set after ours was the bestest. it raged. we were all onstage for their last song. perfect end to two weeks of awesomeness.

the whole Portland Fest day was a big love fest with friends. our buddies Merrill and Patrick from Sister Suvi even made it over. soooooo good to see them. very bummed we weren’t able to catch any of their sets. we also made some new friends in Strangers Die Everyday who played before Super XX Man and were very very cool.

here’s a blogger review from this afternoon set… that includes some very kind words aimed at us: Best of CMJ includes a big photo of lots and lots of the people that performed that afternoon… including Lisa and I (in the back).

we wrapped things up at the Knitting Factory then headed over to Williamsburg (Brooklyn) for our night CMJ showcase at The Charleston… grabbed some epic pizza across the street, then hunkered down for a rather strange but super fun show with Capitol K, Peachcake and Team Genius. all were super nice. we closed the evening out at around 1am to a cozy and rowdy basement of friends and friends of friends and CMJ showgoers in general… even our recent tour buddies Low Red Land showed up to rage with us… and The Grown Children! and Scott from Super XX Man! and Marty! and Steve-o! and Kyle! and so on and so on. fantastic end to a wild wild couple of days.

things got really weird after the show at where we were supposed to crash nearby… so we said goodbye to The Grown Children then cruised back to Steve-o’s for another night of comfy, but not very much sleep…

///gilbert

///rolled into NYC around 6pm and headed straight to Greenwich Village and the church where we were supposed to check in for the CMJ Music Marathon that was already two days over and would be what we would be up to for the next two days. www.cmj.com

after getting checked in we met up with The Grown Children then went on a direct pursuit for Indian food. we succeeded in that mission, but parking was a whole nother story. Jared and I drove around for a good 30 min before finally settling on a spot near the restaurant… turns out it was metered until 10:30pm!! so i got nailed with a $65 parking ticket… not too stoked about that…

but the amazing Indian food made up for it… as well as the company…

from there we cruised to the Lower East Side and spent the evening venue hopping catching a bunch of CMJ shows… highlight being bumping into our friends from We Vs. The Shark and then catching their side project’s set at the Cake Shop… Pegasuses XL. it was awesome. although sound at the Cake Shop wasn’t all that awesome. soon found out that the best part of CMJ was bumping in to friends and chillin with friends… friday would embody this spirit super well… thursday was a good start…

also dropped in to the Mercury Lounge, the Living Room, the Bowery Ballroom, Crash Mansion and Arlene’s Grocery. ended at Arlene’s and just hung out at the bar since we were with our friend Steve who didn’t have a CMJ badge… super fun night. hangin with Jared, Brianne and Megan in NYC. we were all very excited. we were originally supposed to play a Fanatic showcase this night, but it being cancelled allowed us to just chill and roam… it was nice.

we all crashed that night at Steve-o’s place in Brooklyn. yet another late night.

///gilbert

///unbelievable drive through rural upstate New York between Ithaca and Oneonta. rolled into town around 5pm and headed straight to Hope and Joseph Von Stengel’s place… good buddies of ours from the Moscow days… they were hosting a pre-show potluck and invited us over for some grub and hangtime.

show that night was a benefit for the Oneonta Teen Center and held there as well. what a rad space. decent crowd came out on a rainy and cold Wednesday night. it had been set up by Joe, who has collaborated with us on several occasions now doing projections with his MAshUp, RE-Mix Digital MEdia SHow. the space worked great for the collaboration. the whole show was videoed and we should have footage soon. really really fun working with Joe. check out more of his work and philosophy at culturerecycling.com

Jared Mees & The Grown Children played first. here’s a few photos and a video of “Slabtown (Friday Night)” featuring Joe’s projections… keep in mind that this video is lo-fi off of my digital camera, and not from the video that the venue did… still pretty cool though… note Zissou Cam dancing….

Joe’s always been a wealth of quality conversation… thus we conversed into the wee wee hours… lots of big thinking. psyched we’ve been able to schedule stops in Oneonta on all of our tours out East… this was the first official show though. cool town. look forward to more.

///gilbert

///long rainy drive through north western Pennsylvania and in to New York state up to Ithaca. cold and rainy was definitely the theme. beautiful place though. still plenty of fall leafery remaining for our eager eyes. lisa, however, stayed focused on her reading addiction…

show that night was mostly about visiting Ithaca and seeing our BFF Liz Bageant. all of those things were accomplished marvelously. show was fun, although pretty sparsely attended. good times. cool place. Lost Dog Lounge. right in downtown. thanks to Sprocket for having us and for incredible hospitality.

another wild adventure after the show as The Grown Children’s infamous van James Brown was once again not starting… we pushed it around in the rain for awhile with some drunk guys, then shuttled everyone to Liz’s house for some sleep.

///gilbert

///got an early start from Middletown since we had an 11am appointment in Columbus, OH to film an in-studio performance and interview with Palestra.net. we met them at the studios in the 1305 Artists Ltd building. really nice place. great staff. thanks to Freddy and Jason for their hospitality!! and to Brian, Nick and Dan from Palestra for having us and asking some fantastic questions. we played three tunes: Detamble Wings, Pankakes and Geology. and interviewed for about a half hour. should be posted on their site in the next couple of weeks.

from their we headed north to Cleveland. the drive was gorgeous. 65 degree fall day in Ohio. fall colors ruling. rolled into Cleveland and the home of Cliff & Marie Hershman — parents of Jake from The Grown Children — in Shaker Heights. super rad place and they were incredible to us. lots of food and comforts of home. beautiful yard. and a basketball hoop. my inner basketball star came out immediately.

show that night was at a funky little place called Pat’s In The Flat’s tucked in an industrial part of Cleveland, just down a hill from the hip Tremont neighborhood. Pat’s is owned and operated by Pat — an older lady and an obvious institution in Cleveland. newspaper articles and photos on the wall talked about and showed that Pat’s has been bringing blue collar Cleveland and alternative underground music together since the late 80′s. lots of history.

show ended up being a blast. not a huge crowd, but a great crowd. lots of dancing and merrymaking. a fun fun sextet from Kent, OH called See Urchin opened the show and set the fun knob on high from the getgo. one of the most fun shows of tour so far. after sweaty sweaty Grown Children and Finn Riggins sets, local Sarah Nowicki provided a nightcap with her perty tunes on elec. guitar with some help from cello player Matthew. solid night all around. and we made some great new friends.

thanks to Steve (lightning fingers) for setting the show up, Pat!, See Urchin!, Sarah and Matthew!, Cliff & Marie!, the Grown Children, and everyone that danced and made this Monday night show in Cleveland super super super fun.

SEE URCHIN

///gilbert

///we were super excited to be back at Tree’s Farm… we befriended the family in April on our last tour when our old friend from Moscow, ID — Josh Kettleshake — set us up to play in their barn after a show in Cleveland fell through… we had such a good time with them that we routed them back in on this tour… and this time, we were going to help them celebrate their daughter Mary’s 10th birthday and what would probably be the last music fest/party at the farm.

with The Grown Children in tow, we rolled in around 5:30 to homemade chili and sunshine and a happy happy Tree and Big Dannie and Mary and friends. after munchin some dinner we got the PA and stage setup on their back porch and got the opening band Rev & The Hot Carls started just after sunset. they had put up some crazy lights shining on the trees above the stage and this blue light that responded to the music. and a bonfire to help keep us all warm since it was definitely pretty chilly. it was a Halloween Costume Party too, so that definitely helped increase the intensity of the setting. pretty trippy all around.

Tree’s Farm regulars Burnt Grass played second. and featured our buddy Josh on drums. they were dressed as Alvin & The Chipmunks and were suckin helium balloons on stage. very hilarious set. it was obvious that they were amongst friends and family. even sang a fun song about the farm. amongst other things.

we were scheduled to play a first set before The Grown Children and a second set after them… made for a wild night. our first set was fun and included lots of tunes that we thought Mary would be excited to hear since she probably wouldn’t still be awake for our second set… we closed with her favorite song “A President, A Pacifist, An Auto Restorer” and it featured most of The Grown Children onstage in their bandito costumes and sombreros and local trumpet master Jason. here’s a video of that tune from a distance… gives you a decent idea of the setting… so fun.

HOLLOWTREE FINN RIGGINS TREES FARM

after that, The Grown Children played a good long set. it was wild and fun as usual. and sounded great in the blue light. really interesting to see them in that setting. once again, Cam played the whole set with them as a bonus drummer. i enjoyed it all immensely.

from there it kind of gets crazy. our second set consisted of Pankakes, Thumbs To Muse, Mahoney > A Whale, A Fish > Blackrock. then we started bringing up members of The Grown Children, starting with Kevin on additional drums at the end of Blackrock. then Sam (fiddle) and Jake (bass) joined in. they’re also known as the appropriately-named Team Of Mavericks. it got crazy from there. played an old tune of mine from the Oracle Shack days called MIC, then a pretty sloppy but inspired Pump It that included my Tall Tales rap… all for our buddy Josh…. then for awhile we jammed on several different things old and new before bringing it back to some tunes to end the set… Geology > Glitch > noise freakout > Battle. it was pretty rad. the six of us really settled in together for the final stretch. really enjoyed the Finn Riggins Mavericky Grown Children set. we’ve been getting a kick out of recent superjams with our friends. this was pretty damn fun. and the perfect setting to rock it out like that.

by the time we were all packed up and crashing out it was around 4am or so. wow. big thanks for the day of rest today. and on that note, i’m off to bed.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to Tree + Big Dannie + Mary + Josh + Josh’s Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Bob for the cozy place to stay today and tonight and for dinner and for cookies and for the opportunity to watch some baseball + everyone else that made the Hallow Tree Jam such an incredible experience…. it will definitely be much much much different than NYC in 4 days… wow.

///reporting for all of us finn rigginses
///gilbert