This is so cool. Gibson just came out with a new guitar... the SG Zoot Suit in radical bright colors. And perhaps the coolest part: no paint is used. Different pieces of wood are stained and pressed together to form the guitar. I really want to play some tasty sweet licks on these lolipop-delicious guitars. Gibson? Hook a brothahh up??
I threw this together last night with some footage I shot on mah fone! Just a little glimpse into our life and travels. Enjoy plz.
///Luke
Check out our performance of Me + Yr Daughter and Sophisticated Side Ponytail (complete with questionable censorship!) live on Fuel TV right now! And yes, as some of you may have noticed at our recent shows, these are new versions of the songs! Ponytail is longer! Me+ has a second verse! More info on the studio release of these (and other) tracks soon. Meanwhile, please enjoy:
Love,
NPSH
Today was pretty much the quintessential summer day. Woke up a little before noon, and headed to QA for an annual baseball game among friends, dubbed The Midsummer Classic. It was about 95 degrees outside, but we stuck it out and battled in a fierce clash of leather on wood on dirt on air on leather. Our team was clearly the underdogs but we fought well. The final score was something like 19 to 24 and we made it almost 9 innings, until Liam (pitching) started to play "Liamball" where he would throw such bad pitches that we would swing at terrible pitches and get bad hits or strike out.
Apparently there was a small oyster fest in my front yard yesterday.
Also, that's my cat Willow. Named by my sister for Buffy's BFF, not the young dwarf magician who teamed up with a very long-haired Val Kilmer to save an important baby.
It's summer (sorry Australia/NZ) and you don't have much to blog about. You think maybe you will just post a few random cool pictures from your flickr favorites. That will probably do for now. 
Who's going to the block partee?
No, not this one. (Although, it is pretty badass)
These will do the trick. 
I never thought I'd really need an axe, but now I seems like a good thing to have. This would be the perfect accessory for the cabin in the woods. First I need a cabin in the woods...
Look at more nice axes here:
http://www.bestmadeco.com/
I think my fav would be the classic "Auld Reekie."
(via Cool Hunting)
July 13th, 2009 (Spaceland, LA)
We got breakfast at Urth Caffé over on Melrose, which was two or three blocks away from where we were staying. We were planning on meeting up with someone who was gonna show us where all the cool shopping spots were in LA. We started in Silverlake (which is one of my favorite neighborhood in LA) and ended over near Spaceland in Echo Park. Every Monday night at Spaceland they have free shows so they were expecting it to be packed, and from the very beginning, it was. We went on and had the most technical difficulties I think we’ve ever had at a show before. We started off the set and immediately Shaun’s mic stopped working so we had to stop during the first song so we could fix it. The next song, Claire’s bass stopped coming out the front speakers, and apparently, though we didn’t even notice it, the fuses blew for the main speakers so they were off for at least two songs. Luckily, everyone working there and everyone who came out were completely awesome and helped us get through it. Other than the technical difficulties it was a really fun show though. Andy Clockwise was super rad and so were Hey Champ. We packed all our gear up then had to leave right after the show to go to sleep so we could get up at 7am to film two songs for Fuel TV.
I just went to the dentist.
He was all, "So how's the band?"
And I was all, "Great, we're touring a lot."
And he was all, "What's it called again?"
And I was all, "Natalie Portman's Shaved Head."
And he was all, "Oh that's right, I remembered the 'Shaved' part.
Now, who's Natalie Portman again?"
And I was all, "She's an actress. She was in the new Star Wars and stuff."
And he was all, "Oh that's right. Are you guys on facebook?"
He's a real nice guy.
(P.S. He wasn't wearing scrubs today because they had some kind of terrible water leak in the office and he had to come in early. He offered to change but I told him it was cool and we both agreed it was probably better that he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
P.P.S. NO DOUBT WAS SO AMAZING.)
YouTube recommended this vid to me today... I guess that says something about the vids I watch. The u2b recommendation algorithm must be working extra hard to dig up obscure gems like this one. Anyway, this is like the most awkward dude in a trench coat and high-waisted pants, dancing awkwardly, on an awkwardly empty stage, with no audience. What is going on here?? Alls I know is it makes for a funny video.
Has anyone heard of this guy? Sorry if you are him and you're offended.
Today we woke up on Vashon Island after a party at a friend's house. I like being on islands. So quaint. We managed to catch a really long and festive parade for the Strawberry Festival while having a hearty cOuNtRy BrEaKfAsT. It was fun.
This is Claire meeting some puppies!
These are some cool sweaters they were selling. It was totally NOT sweater weather.
This is an important summer gas pump message. Not sure why it was necessary... 
This is a view from the ferry. So beautiful. Feeling lucky to live here.
July 12th, 2009 (The Casbah, San Diego)
We started driving around 9:30 in the morning. The ride was really pretty, with tons of open fields and rolling hills. We stopped somewhere to eat food and it was a toss up between Quiznos, Subway and Jack and the Box. I’ve had too many bad experiences with Subway on the road to ever want to eat it again so I got Quiznos (which was still not that good). There’s something about being out on tour that makes it so much worse to eat at fast food places cause you know that sometimes it's your only option. At least when you’re at home you can choose if you want to eat there or not. Anyway, we moved on to the second disc of The O.C. and let me tell you, this shit gets intense! The best part about it all was that we were watching it while we were driving through the O.C. Now here's my question, while The O.C. was on, did people in the O.C. (the place, not the show) watch it? I guess it’s the same thing as people in New York watching Gossip Girl. I know people in Seattle that watched Grey’s Anatomy but that was about a hospital, not the social lifestyle of angst-ridden teenagers. These are serious questions that you guys should help me out with.
We rolled up to the Casbah early so we drove to a coffee shop to meet up with one of Liam’s friends and our friend Jasmine who helped us do merch while we were in Cali. The Casbah is a really cool club, it has an outdoor area right outside the main room, which is really nice cause it was hot as hell on stage. After the show the bar tender called Liam and I out for recently turning 21 because I ordered a shot of whiskey and a rum and coke and he order a shot of whiskey and a vodka tonic, all to be consumed at once. I guess those things don’t go well together. 
We drove back up to LA that night to this absolutely stunning hotel. There were two areas in each room, a living room with a kitchen, a fold out couch and a small balcony, and then an area that was two beds with a curtain separating it from the living room. We passed out as soon as we got there.
I've been meaning to put more of these up but it's been hard finding internet over these past few days. I'll catch back up real soon though, promise.
July 11th, 2009 (Driving from Sutherlin to Santa Nella)
We started off the day right by watching The O.C. season 2 from the very start of the drive. While i was watching it, I remembered how awesome/absurd that show was and how much I wish we were a band back then so we could play on it. After four episodes in a row we pulled off somewhere in the middle of nowhere [ed. note: Redding, CA, not quite the "middle of nowhere"] to get lunch. We ended up finding this place called Fatboys. It was a sandwich shop where I had one of the best pulled pork sandwiches I’ve ever had. Before we left Shaun ended up getting a free tank top as long as he agreed to tell ever one about the place, he's now officially earned it.
After a few more hours of watching Big Love/The O.C. we pulled into our hotel in Santa Nella [ed. note: actually in the "middle of nowhere"]. We spent the next few hours swimming in a huge pool and chilling in the hot tub before trying to find a place to eat. Right across the street was a restaurant called Pea Soup Anderson that we ended up going to under recommendation from the person at the front desk. We were told that the only way you should eat their pea soup is with all the toppings on it (bacon, cheese, ham, scallions and croutons) and trust me, that is how it’s supposed to be done. 
It was amazing! I’ve only had pea soup once or twice before but it was never like this. After eating we went back to the hotel lounged around by the pool until they kicked us out, at which point we watched the 40 biggest Internet stars on VH1. There have been some terrible Internet stars, most of which I luckily don’t remember. I think I made it till number 23 before I feel asleep.
A while back Liam bought a tour diary of Henry Rollin's called "Get in the Van" that were his notes from right before he joined black flag, '81, till '86. This thing was one of the most ridiculous and, at times, hilarious things i've ever read. It was also really cool being able to read where he was on any given day what they did that day. You would be surprised by how many times he wakes up to find that their van is broken down in a snow storm. I got really inspired by this and decided i'd give it a go.
July 10th, (Driving from Seattle to Sutherlin)
We all met at my house around two today to load everything in and head off. While we were all hanging out getting ready to go, a friend of ours came by and brought us a dozen cup cakes (from cup cake royal in Seattle) for the road. Loaded up with all of our gear and our snacks we headed out and immediately hit traffic. It should have only taken us six hours to get from Seattle to Sutherlin (in Oregon) but some how it ended up being nine. Longer than planned drives seem to be the reoccurring theme for this tour. To pass the time, Shaun and I started watching the first season of Big Love. This show is seriously amazing and now I have such a crush on Chloë Sevigny. One really awesome thing about the show is that they’re actually full hour episodes because it was made for HBO. Pretty much all I plan on doing for the rest of this tour is watching it.
We pulled off some where in the middle of Oregon to grab dinner and found this Teriyaki/Sushi place that looked legit. We walked in and the first thing I noticed was the wall was covered with pictures of highschool sports teams with strange themes to them. For example, the basketball one said “All In” and had the team sitting around poker tables with chips and cards thrown about. The best one was the lacross team (side note: Luke used to play lacross in middle school). Their theme was “We’re Sick”, so everyone was either on crutches, had a thermometer in their mouths, or was pretending to have head wounds and while standing on bleachers. The woman running the restaurant was very proud of all the pictures and told us that she was friends with all of the kids from the teams on Facebook (like 120 kids). The food there was pretty good, I had chicken teriyaki but a few people got the bento box which they all said was mostly delicious. After more Big Love we rolled into Sutherlin at around 11. Tomorrow we’re going to some place in California and after that, San Diego and playing more shows!
I thought I had a lot of Super Soakers... This bro has over 269! I recognize so many models in this pic that I used to have. Makes me wanna take a trip to the local Toys R Us and pick up some neon squirty beauties. It used to be an anual summertime thing, but alas not anymore. I think I'm gonna bring it back. Who's with me?? It might be early to say, but I think our Bumbershoot crowd is gonna get SOAKED.
A few of my soakers that I pulled out today:
BONUS:
Questionable Super Soaker
Today is the day we play with a little band called Duran Duran. Gonna be so amazing. Old school meets new school?
NPSH + DURAN DURAN
I don't wanna hear anyone bad-mouthing badminton. It is a fierce sport. I just played a few fierce rounds in the backyard with my brother and it was exactly like this:
Pretty amazing right? Who wants to play badminton? When we get a bus we'll bring a net and tie one end to the bus and the other to the venue wall and we'll play right there. Who is up for a badminton challenge??
src
I saw it on flickr and thought it looked awesome, then I found out what it was and thought it was disgusting, but still awesome.
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