7/16/08, Sacramento

1:19AM (Technically 7/17) - 1. Never drive in downtown Sacramento. UGH!

2. It is Joe's birthday today! He turned 18! Hooray!

3. I turn 19 in one day! Hooray!

Hello everyone. So it declines... we just came back from our last show and are heading home over the next three days. It has been so fantastic. Let me say first of all, we could never have done it without YOU. All of you. You who read the blog, check the Myspace, buy our merch, listen to our music, spread the word... YOU FLIPPIN RULE! 

We have met so many wonderful people along this trip, and have come face to face with some of the spread out fans we've made over the years of internetworking. It was amazing to see these people face to face. Some of them drove for over an hour just to hear us play. What an honor, seriously. To ANYONE who came to a show on this tour, we salute you, you made it so fantastic.

The Seattle house show was grrreeeeeaaattttt. It was Travis' sister's house, and it was gorgeous. His sister Nichole and her Danish husband Peter have the most rockin' 10-month old EVER. We learned that he was in the womb at Coachella, so that explains why he is and will continue to be cool for the rest of his life. Anyway the show was great, apparently we have some Seattle fans! Many people showed up to see us play and it went very well. We have the whole thing video-recorded, and I will continue to post splicings from it, and here is the first one:

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

(It's Calvin.)

Tonight's show was a lot of fun! It was another sort of house concert, just outside of Sacramento. The guy whose house it was is shipping out to boot camp and then the army for 5 years this morning at 4:00AM. Wow, that is crazy to comprehend. I hope we brightened his night before years of hard work. It was sort of a going away party as well as a 4-slot concert. First there was a punk rock band, second a cool guitarist from the local band 'The Secretions', we went third and our new friends 'The Dead Pony Society' went last. Our set went well, and everyone was really fun! The last guys were punk/cabaret style, and they did a Kimya Dawson cover!! Cool in my book. We sold some CDs and had a great time, I think they liked us. 

Following this will be short messages from Joe and Mack and THEN, yes, finally, a huge wonderful picture entry. YES!!!

We'll keep this up with further shows and let you know what's going on. Thanks again, I love you all so, so, so, so, so, so, so, SO much. And another so to go with that. 

Yours truly,

Kelsea Rae L. Esq.

Late night update

We are in Seattle, at our friend Travis P.'s sister's house. The boys are sleeping on the floor and I am in the couch, all in the den. Joe and Mack are arguing about what being a 'disciple' of a musical figure means. Mack claims to be a disciple of Charlie Haden, and Joe was refuting with the example of Chris Thile 'disciples' being waaayyy more legit. We need to go to sleep, this is just getting ridiculous. Mack just used the word guffaw. More proof of cabin fever. Or a gaudy vocabulary. 

I just wanted to update quick, so I don't fall behind. I'll post a better one later, with pics and better info. We have spent a collective amount of over $200 on music alone. These hip cities are dangerous. Do not go to Everyday Music in Portland or Seattle. Or wherever else they have them. It is a dangerous, lethal store. The vinyl section is particularly treacherous. Once the trip is coming of an end, we'll make a post with every single item of music we have gotten. It will take up the entire page. 

We also visited the largest bookstore in the world, equally amazing. Powell's books in Portland, it takes up an entire city block. Joseph bought a copy of Ender's Game, and I got a cool old copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover, recommended to me by my friend Kaylee. I have yet to read it, but it sounds great.

We went to the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum today, right below the Space Needle. It was very cool!

Our Seattle house concert got cancelled but we've arranged one here at our host's house in place. Address upon request only. There is still room, if you read this and decide you'd like to come.

Better blog soon, everyone is snoring and I'm sleepy!

Love,

Kelsea "For the last time, it's not 'Chelsey' " Little

7/9/08, Portland

12:07AM - Hello again!

We are in Portland. Got here last night, pretty late. The Cozmic Pizza gig was extremely awkward. It was really huge and there were about 10 people there, all pretty nonplussed by what was going on onstage. The food was great though! They gave us lots of free organic pizza and organic soda. 

We left that night for Portland and arrived at our friends Jen and Danielle's place. It's really adorable inside. Very hip, very Portland-cool. They have Nintendo!

Earlier tonight, we played our Portland gig at 'The Know'. It was a pretty cool bar, with an awesome sidestage. There weren't many people, but the ones who were there were really into it. There was a group of four people that came especially to see us. They were really attentive and knew the words too!! It was trippy. I'd like to give a thank you to them for their support and enthusiasm. It was great to meet you all! :) My dear friend Ezza Rose also came, which was so great. I hadn't seen her for quite a while. 

We all got some coffee afterwards and played some intense games of Egyptian Ratscrew. Who knows why it's called that. Joe won. He slapped some serious doubles.

Right now we're sitting in Jen and Danielle's living room, drinking 16 oz cans of Coke (3 inches taller than normal, it's really bizarre). I think some Flight of the Conchords watching is going to happen here soon.

I'm going to pass off to Joe so he can write a little. I can't write about EVERYTHING!

Talk soon, we are going to have many Portlandventures in the next few days. 

Love,

K.R.L. Stine

12:20AM (Joseph)

On the day off our show in San Luis Obispo we went to a beautiful place called Nit Wit Ridge. Kelsea told us that she visited it in a dream twice, and that then she found out that it was a real place.  It is a house that was dug into the hillside in Cambria, CA by the town garbage man and eccentric named Art Beal.  The house is built entirely on trash and other collections made by Mr. Beal.  It doesn't sound like much, but it was a truly beautiful place.  If you are ever in the area, it is a must-see.  Kelsea will elaborate...

Art Beal bought his multi-acre land for $500 in 1928 and spent the next 50 years carving a poor man's castle in a once blank hillside. He was a trash man and found it extremely easy to find discarded items. What others saw as trash, Art saw as treasure and building materials. There is honestly no way to describe how amazing this place is. All of the plumbing, electrical work, foundations, everything was made by him out of trash and unused items he found. The aesthetic aspect to this 3 story building is beautiful. It is a true example of folk art. The reason we went in the first place was because I had had two dreams in the last year, and I saw the building from my dream-settings in a 'Weird California' book. I dreamt it before I saw it and vowed to visit it someday, convinced something amazing would happen. (In one of my dreams Bjork was there, and in the other I stopped a robbery.) We just happened to find ourselves right by it and went. Thank goodness we did, it was life-changing to see such a thing. I did find myself having an amazing personal moment. Bjork wasn't involved, but while on the tour I found on the ground a blue feather. It would take too long to explain, but if you read the book 'Illusions' by Richard Bach (I was given it by a friend, I now recommend it to you) you'll understand. I found my blue feather, in a place where I felt a deep mental connection with a crazy junk man folk artist. Ahh. It was one of those signs from the universe. I felt injected with the energy of the earth or something... Please go someday, this is in no way an adequate description of Nitt Witt Ridge. You've got to experience it for yourself.

I guess Joseph is already done typing.

-Kelsea

7/6/08, San Fransisco

2:47PM - I just wanted to include this picture of Charlyne's awesome curtains. I was extremely envious.

Right now, we are sitting at Joseph's aunt Fran's huge beautiful house in suburban San Fransisco. We forgot to bring flowers for our hair, but I think the locals will forgive us. We stopped by to have lunch at Fran's husband's work party for residents at his hospital, and we're going to play for them in a little bit. I have a big delicious veggie burger in front of me. Yum!

Last night's show at Linnaea's was GREAT! There was a small but really attentive crowd, I swear they listened to each and every word. We sold lots of albums again, and many people donated to our little box. THANKS!! You helped us eat dinner. THAT is a whole other story... let me digress for a moment...

If you ever make it out to San Luis Obispo, you must promise me that you will take the time to go to this restaurant... this restaurant is not so much a restaurant, it's really more of a heaven on earth for those not allergic to potatoes. Make your way to Bel Frites. This amazing place is devoted to making french fries, but that's not all. They have an extensive list of seasonings and dipping sauces, and suggest pairings for overwhelmed customers, which we certainly were. We had Thai seasoning with peanut sauce, garlic seasoning with roasted red pepper sauce and lemon pepper seasoning with ranch sauce. That was only a small dent into the magnificence that is BEL FRITES.

Anyway... we drove to Salinas after dinner and drove to San Fran this morning. Oregon tonight! Talk soon.

KRL

7/5/08, San Luis Obispo

10:53AM, San Luis Obispo

We now write to you from Linnaea's Cafe, where we are playing tonight in SLO.  I am very glad that we are able to spend time here because, although I have only been here for brief amounts of time, I really like it here.  The cafe looks like another wonderful place to play, and the kind of place that Mack would like to live.

We played at the Zephyr Coffee and Art Gallery on Wednesday, and the show went great.  We played outside on their patio, and there were three people there just to see us.  This has become our new benchmark for each show.  Although there were few people there for us, there was also a group of five (most likely) Armenian men gambling and smoking from a large hookah.  When I first saw them, I feared that they would be bothered by our music, but they were very nice, and bought a few CDs.  One man even gave us $20, but didn't a disc, saying that he would "burn a copy" from his friends who also bought one.  After we played, we were given delicious free food by the baristas, and we ate and hit the road again.  The money that we had made bought another tank of gas, and we set off towards our Motel 6 Reservation in Ventura.

-Joseph

11:34AM - Hey everyone! Sitting here with the boys at tonight's venue. This is my first time in SLO and I absolutely love it. It's a precious town with a really cool vibe. We left Ventura on the morning of July 4th (happy birthday America!) and headed towards SLO. We stopped at a grocery store for brunch which turned out to be extremely delicious. Lots of fruit and veggies and Mack bought himself a whole baguette which I'm pretty sure is gone by now. 

I drove from there so the boys could eat and it was a gorgeous drive. We passed vineyards aplenty and the grass was pastorally yellow. We have decided to do a vineyard tour when we're all 21. Supporting local and organic grape growers and wine makers. And the scenery would be beautiful! Sign up now for your seat on the bus (we'll have a big bus by then, of course).

We pulled over once we got to SLO and called a few hotels. All the prices were very jacked up because of the holiday. Joe used his handheld GPS and we called almost every number in it, vowing to not take a double room over $129.00. We started calling all the ones with the sketchiest names, and they got progressively less expensive, but progressively more sketchy. Finally we got ahold of 'El Toro Motel' which was $99.00 per night, and of course we said YES PLEASE! We found it pretty quick, but our insides started feeling uneasy, as it looked a little bit too much like Norman Bates resided there. The sign outside, instead of advertising features like 'Heated Pool' or 'WiFi', proudly advertised that it had 'HBO' and 'Phones'. Please, let the phones be functional, we thought as we timidly checked in.

It wasn't so bad. We left that evening, and Mack and Joe dragged me to go see Hancock. Hancock. Really? REALLY? That is 100+ minutes I will never get back. Still, we had a lot of fun making fun of the bad story line. The best part is when Will Smith picks up a beached whale and throws it back in the ocean, but accidentally hits a sailboat. Yes, that was the best part. 

After that, we had dinner at this asian/western fusion place. It was very tasty, especially the hand-mixed ginger ale. We wanted to see some fireworks so we drove out to Pismo Beach. There were SO many people there, so we found a side road to park on, and we sat on the roof. The ones we could see were nice, and we had a lot of fun listening to Charlie Haden + Ornette Coleman, "The Shape of Jazz To Come". Says Mack, one of the most influential albums of all time. 

We went back to the hotel and got our Twilight Zone on for a bit, before falling asleep. 

Today, we plan to go to 'Nit Witt Ridge'. We're going there because I had a twice reoccurring dream about a house, and then one day, months ago when I was in Barnes and Noble, I picked up one of those 'Weird California' books on a whim, and when I was flipping through, the house from my dream was right there on the page. I had never heard of it before. I told Joe, and we sort of forgot and I forgot the name of the place. Then, when we were on our way to see the movie, that book was on display in the side window of SLO's B&N. I went and found the name of the place and it just so happens it's in this area! I have been convinced that if I go there, something amazing will happen, so we are going today to find out. 

Our show is tonight, it should be a good one! Talk soon. 

All my love,

Kelpond Small

11:45AM - Kelsea is addicted to honey. I've seen her eat like of these 6 honey sticks she got in Pasadena. This coffee shop is cool despite my sub par soy latte. K&J were unnecessarily freaked out by the motel, it was just fine. The manager was kind of an ass though. He was bothered that Joe was 17 and told me about 4 times not to drink wine in the room even after I pointed out to him that I am 20 and couldn't get any. He also scrutinized my ID for way too long. He did offer us another night for 30 bucks less this morning but we declined. Our meter is up.

Mack

The Real Tour Begins! 7/3/08

2:51 PM - writing from Pasadena, CA

Pasadena 

That's how you spell Pasadena in Webdings, incase you ever need a quick reference. Having started off the blog like that, you may be able to tell we don't have TOO much to say yet. Mack and I got back from Telluride a week ago, and we just hung around, takin' it easy before Joseph got back from his Mandolin "Symposium" (it's really just a camp) last Sunday. Then we had one day before hitting the road!

We left early Monday afternoon from my house again. We stopped in Encinitas to have lunch at our favorite restaurant there, Sub Palace. It gives us warm fuzzy memories, because we ate there while on lunch break, recording the album just up the street at Peter's house. I expect it always will. 

The drive was actually very good. There was little traffic for the 405's standards, which was nice because it's usually stop and go the whole way.

We went to this amazing vintage store on La Brea called Jet Rag. Please go there if you even have just a tiny interest in clothes. It is two stories and organiz

ed amazingly, sometimes by fabric, sometimes by sleeve length and sometimes just by item, as in they have SO many cute aprons that they need 2 entire racks. Ahhhh. I bought a lovely blue Gunne Sax dress and Joseph got his light brown 30s chapeau that he's been wanting. Mack got nothing. Boo!

 Then we headed over to the venue for July 1st, The Steve Allen Theatre at The Center For Inquiry. We played there once before and had a great show. For this show, the line-up was the same and we've made friends with the bands by now. One was 

Don't Stop Or We'll Die, a hilarious funky band with awesome engaging songs, and the other was The Glass Beef, comprised of Paul Rust (look for him in an upcoming movie with that girl from Heroes, I heard) and Charlyne Yi 

(we found out recently that she played 'Jodi' in the movie Knocked Up!). They are both really, really nice people who happen to be super modest famous actors. We had to find out on our own, haha

. 

The show itself went really well, and we sold CDs to almost half the audience!!! Notable audience members included Casey Wilson from SNL and a very enthusiastic friend of Charlyne's named Armande. I can't even explain him, but he cracked us up. Charlyne and her roomies let us stay at her really awesome L.A. apartment for the night, THANKS CHARYLNE! The next morning we headed out early, ate breakfast/lunch at Canter's (please go there as well someday) and drove towards Pasadena. We'll write again once something interesting happens. 

(Our delicious matzah ball soup from Canter's famous deli)

- Kelsea R. L. Stine

Telluride Photo Blog

Hello,

We took a million pictures on this trip, so I wanted to add some of them to show you all. Also, we did not make it to the second round of the contest, but it was still a lot of fun.

First of all, we need to introduce to you "The Professor"! He is our trusty mini-van taking us on all of our adventures.






























This is the awesome sign that greets you in Gila Bend, AZ.

















These were really cool sculptures in Gila Bend.



































Here is another view of the beauty in Telluride.
















This is us playing in the competition.




















I had to fly home today because I am going to the Mandolin Symposium in Santa Cruz. This is the aerial view of Colorado.
















Even though Telluride was wonderful, there is nothing like coming home. I always forget how beautiful it is to fly into San Diego, but this is what it looks like from the right side of the plane.




















I hope you enjoyed these photos. Stay tuned for our next leg of the tour!

Joseph.