///woke up before daylight in New Hampshire to hit the road for our 9am load-in for a recording session in Burlington, VT. beautiful sunrise on our way. fog. fall colors.

our friend Jamie Wiener engineered the session at Eclectic Recording Studios. with just two eight hour days to work with, we focused on 4 songs. three of which have been in live rotation for awhile now: Battle, Bus Pilot and the new version of Mahoney (My Homie). the fourth song we laid down is brand new. we started practicing it the week before tour and have played it a few times on this tour to help get it ready. it’s called Antoinette.

we got drum tracks for all four songs done on the first day as well as keys on Battle, then cruised back to Jamie’s farm house about an hour away north of Montpelier and ate dinner with him and his wife Alex. they cooked up their rooster that had been killed by a weasel a couple of days before. it was surprisingly good. we slept amazingly.

next morning we got to hang with their kids Finneas and Zephyr as well as their goats and pigs — super cute — before heading back into Burlington to finish up. we had an amazing time at their farm. really blessed to have such good people in our lives.

second and final day of recording went great. busted all the keys, guitar and vocal tracks without any major problems. curious to hear how it’ll all turn out. no direct plans for release just yet, but it felt good to get the ball rolling on some new recordings.

cruised back to New Hampshire that evening in a pretty nasty rain / snow / sleet storm, but made it safely to Lisa’s parents house and hit the sack since we had an early date at Lisa’s high school alma mater in the morning.

///gilbert

Cam and i woke up at our buddy Jamie’s Vermont farmhouse to a clear and brisk april morning. It warmed up quickly though. Amazing day. We made some waffles with Jamie then stepped outside and met his goats before rolling in to Burlington, VT for the day. We caught up with Jamie later to check out his studio: A-9 Studio. good chance we’ll do some recording there when we’re back out East in the fall. He’s got a great setup. and great taste.

We tracked down some monster burritos for dinner then cruised to the Higher Ground to catch a show… Surprise Me Mr. Davis was in town, and we’re long time fans of The Slip (who play in SMMD) and thought it would be a fun way to spend our day off…
we ended up helping them with merch and chillin. it was fun. chatted a bunch about the state of the music biz and what the future holds for bands like us and them… lots of good things going on, but it’s getting tougher and tougher to travel as extensively as we have been with fuel costs booming right now… curious to see where the next couple of years will take us… and the scene in general… we finally decided to roll as they began packing up… we drove for about 40min then crashed in a rest area… btw, had a good time with the fellas and girl from The Low Anthem too… good peeps, enjoyed their opening set… we had a good time behind the merch table together…

Lisa, on the other hand, had ridden back to New Hampshire with her friend Harmony the night before and spent the day hangin with their dog Samson while Harmony was at school (she teaches). They got to spend the afternoon together and lisa got a whole day off from us boys and some bonus time with her parents that evening. Seemed like a much needed rest for the Simps.

yow.
gilbert

lisa and i met in the tiny town of johnson, vermont. lisa got her undergrad at johnson state college there. i schooled there for one whole year. we were excited to be taking this project there for the first time. and it was a beautiful day to do so. we enjoyed a nostalgic drive through the vermont countryside and got to town early enough to romp around some old stomps. mainly campus. the tiny little JSC campus. then met our old friend Laura downtown at a new pizza shop. lisa commented on the little changes in the town and how time had made her a stranger in a town that she used to be so tight with. tis the nature of a college town though… always changing. always being reinvented by new faces and ideas.

the show was on Railroad St. at a house appropriately dubbed the Railroad House, home of Lincoln from Hello Shark — the host for the evening. it was a tiny place. we spent the early evening getting to know the place and its inhabitants. it was good. real good. got us excited for the show.

right before music got rolling a big crew led by our friend Laura, which included some other old friends of Lisa’s, showed up and turned the gathering into a party. oh my. Hello Shark played first. helloooo shark! they were rad. raucous and raw. inspired tunes. i’ve really grown to love the shark. and my button that says so.

we played next. we decided early on to play way stripped down and without vocal mics again. so we did. vocal mics probably woulda been nice, but we cut it loose anyhow. it was a rockin set with some great crowd interaction during most of it and an amped up dance party despite our low volume. it was exciting.

our new friends The Future of the Ghost (slc, ut) played last since they were running way behind time. as soon as we were done, we decided to setup our PA so that they could sing through mics. they were sweethearts. and they proceeded to blow the place up. their set was pure mayhem as the party had certainly reached that magical place at that point. check the video for a little tasty taste. their set featured a sweaty dance mess, a bloody nose, a noise complaint and a visit from the defenders of the peace. it was a blast.

reporting for all of us finn rigginses.
-gilbert

PS thanks Laura for the cozy place to crash!!

We enjoyed a nice drive through Vermont and got to Burlington early so we could meet up with Joe and Hope (the Von Stengels) once again and catch some dinner before the show. We ended up having lots of time and used it to hit up some sights along Burlington’s infamous Church Street. Burlington’s awesome, and it was great to be back.

This time we played at the Radio Bean — a super rad itsy-bitsy coffeeshop / pub / live music venue that is a classic fixture on the Burlington music scene. They have music from 6pm until 2am. Pretty wild. We had coordinated a bill with two sweet local acts called Villanelles and Lendway that started at 10pm and didn’t realize that there would be 4 other acts before that. It was intense and made for an interesting evening. Some other acts that played included Acoustic Chatter from Boston and Ben Hammond from Montreal.

The place packed out pretty early and stayed that way throughout the night. At one point, there was a line outside the door and all the windows were steaming up as it was a pretty chilly night in Burlington, and the bodies inside were definitely putting off some heat. It was a fun scene.

Stage was super tiny, so we stripped down our setup a little bit but still brought the rock, and Joe did some projections once again. Awesome as always. (if you haven’t already, check out more of his art at www.culturerecycling.com.

Both Villanelles and Lendway were fantastic and great guys as well. Check them out if you get a chance… especially if you’re in Vermont as they are pretty active in the Burlington area.

Since Burlington is an old stomping ground of mine, I got to see some old friends including one of my college roommates and good friends Kelley as well as meet her girlfriend. A constant tour perk: catching up with old friends and getting a better sense of what they’re doing these days.

After the show, we drove back towards my parents house and slept in the van at a rest area. We had the next day off and had plans to hang out with my family, have a big family dinner and see everyone. I was excited. I think we all were excited.