///above is the view from the top of Whitebird Hill just North of Riggins, ID… after all the miles and epic drives we’ve travelled all around this country, we were present once again to how incredible the north-south drive through Idaho is… what we like to call the spine of idaho… 6 hours of diverse and glorious country, most of which following either the Payette or Salmon Rivers… if you’ve never been, it comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED… and from some folks that have driven a whole helluva lot of roads in the lower 48.

last weekend we drove that drive north for shows in Moscow, ID and Clarkston, WA with our friend and labelmate Scott Garred aka Super XX Man. and then back down the same gorgeous way for Boise Community Radio Benefit at the Visual Arts Collective in Garden City on Saturday night… Super XX Man played that as well.

thursday’s show was a bit of an experiment as we set Super XX Man up at the One World Cafe with local Bart Budwig for an all ages and free early show, then when that was done we started the show right down the street at John’s Alley with Yarn Owl from Pullman, WA… they were rad. played with Ted and Javier before when they were in Ether Hour, really like this new project of theirs… mostly focused on Javier’s songs. very cool. after them we closed the place down with a couple of long sets. the Alley was rowdy as usual and led to a late late night… thanks Simba for the late night Kenyan food!!

and thanks once again to the McMurtry’s for hosting a pre-show dinner at their place with us and Scott. chicken & dumplins! oh my!

friday’s show was really special because Scott grew up in Clarkston and hadn’t played there in several years. we got to meet his mom Jean and she was very nice to open up her house to us and to cook us a good ‘ol American breakfast in the morning! show was really fun that night. really cool crowd came out to see Super XX Man and he slayed them with a bunch of songs about growing up in Clarkston and around the Clearwater River and whatnot. heartwarming to say the least. we were excited to be back at Hogan’s in general as we love the place, but this was a great added bonus. thanks again to Tony and Skate and Bailey and Sam and the rest of the Hogan’s staff… they took great care of us and rocked out with us until closing time… Scott took some great pictures from here and from the whole weekend and posted them on his photo blog for the Willamette Week’s Local Cut… check it out here (his camera is much nicer than mine) http://localcut.wweek.com/2008/12/08/super-xx-man-pea-and-lentil-tour-wa-and-boise-id/

a huge honor travelling and playing these shows with Scott and fun to get his insight on things. he’s put out 12 albums now as Super XX Man! so cool. and he currently works as a music therapist at a mental institute in Oregon and it’s obvious that he’s great at this job. his 12th album “There Will Be Diamonds” just came out on Tender Loving Empire last month and it has some amazing tunes on it… definitely recommend picking it up if you haven’t already…

last show of our little mini-tour was a Boise tour homecoming show for us and a benefit for Boise Community Radio, which we are really excited to support, especially as we’re moving to Boise… finally the Treasure Valley has independent radio!! not fully on air yet, but well on its way once the fundage is raised. all very exciting. so thanks to Gavin + Jeff + Art Hodge + everyone else involved with helping get BCR off the ground!

show that night was at our new favorite venue — the Visual Arts Collective or VAC. and our new friends The Very Most from Boise were nice enough to play with us… great to finally see them! Jeremy writes fantastic tunes and i have a hunch we’ll be seeing a lot of them, and probably playing a bunch more together… and we’ll be sharing a practice space with them come the beginning of the year!! glory glory! Scott played after them to a really really appreciative crowd. nice long set and at the end Lisa and I jumped up and sang the backup vocals on “Medication” — a song that i absolutely love. it was really fun.

thanks to everyone that came out for the cause and to welcome us home! and for sticking around, it was a really fun show and it was great to see all your smiling faces! thanks to Jeremy Martin for donating his time behind the soundboard, and to Julia Green for donating her time and effort on the beautiful poster she did and to Sam and Anneliessa and the VAC for hosting and for being awesome.

here are some more photos from the weekend (make sure and check out Scott’s photo blog!!! link above):

super spicy pad thai before the boise show…kind of got us all a little freaky…

///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