Friday, September 29th 2006

"Hello ladies and gentlemen, we are here with an update because a lot of people have been wondering what we have been up to.

THE PAST

We've had some issues with the van, the steering wheel was on the verge of falling off for like 3 weeks and we still drove it to Cleveland and Louisville... Oh, and the trailer we were pulling popped off the ball on the highway and starting going ballistic on the highway.

Yes, it was awful. But we're still alive and young and have fixed our travel issues.

We played the Midwest Music Summit in Indianapolis and it was pretty fun. We played a great, cocky show at a quality 1000+ capacity club there called The Vouge. We were sandwiched between some awkward old-dude rock band and some new-metal "gods" but I guess that's the way these festivals go. Or at least MMS. Check our Profile for two live videos from the festival, they're on the main page. It was fun though, we got pretty tore up with our friends in the Apparitions, and Scorge of the Sea. Between me and you (and all of Myspace) I'd have to say Kentucky owns the Midwest.

THE PRESENT

Parlour Boys have been touring around sporadically, playing a lot of festivals and meeting a lot of great people. We have been pretty broke and had some utilities cut off :( which is always frustrating, but such is the sacrifice you take to do what you've always wanted in a world that doesn't seem to understand that sort of thing... Maybe you know what we're talking about?

But we've still been writing some songs, we've got a new one tentatively called "The Shakes" that is scary good, and a couple more up our sleeves! We still go out too much and eat too much crap (which goes along with being poor and on the road a lot).

We just rented an amazing loft space in the heart of downtown Lexington, our home away from the road. It has a beautiful roof and lots of space and studio rooms and it is insanely affordable. We love it, and so do our friends. It has given us the opportunity to play music at any hour of the day and record demos and write songs, as well as a great place to hang out and party and crash downtown if we don't want to go home. (There should be some pictures with this blog.)

We are taking a break from playing too many shows so we can focus on writing new material and um, finding ourselves. But don't worry we'll go on a real tour within a year and blow this world up.

THE FUTURE

Well, we are doing a lot of label talk. Can't tell you how far along we are or what label, but we are very excited about the possibilities. We have decided to wait on releasing another EP and want to record a full-length album as soon as we have enough great songs that we are happy with, and you know...money.

The video is done and we have yet to see the 100% polished piece but we are very happy with the results. Its a good introduction to Parlour Boys, and I think it represents us very well. Big ups to Pamela and Muhammad and Jennifer and Ruha and everyone else on the set in LA, it was a long long day...

We also have two shows we are very excited about. One is this Friday, Sept. 29th in our hometown of Lexington KY. Its going to be a showcase for a bunch of labels and everyone under the sun we know will be there, including our kick-ass manager Steve Saporito. Our boys from VHS of Beta will be spinning so you know it will get nasty!

ALSO, we will be playing CMJ in New York City! We can't wait to get up there, and its going to be right in the middle of Hall-o-ween! We're trying to hit up some shows (or at least some parties on the way up, so you just might run into us!) We will be playing at the Delancey on November 2nd and its going to be great, we'll be there for a whole week, so if you're from New York shoot us a message and let us know where the party is at!

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http://www.parlourboys.com

http://www.myspace.com/parlourboysmusic

Wednesday, June 28th 2006

Leaving the Grog shop turned into a pointless fiasco. Once it was figured out, we ended up staying with these girls we had met last time we were in Cleveland. We followed them in the van not very far to this monstrously huge house, the backyard of which was completely covered in catering tables full of food and buckets of wine and beer… It was really one of those moments that you dream about, but when it happens you're just hoping you don’t get arrested because you're pretty sure things like this don’t just "happen". Well, there were no arrests made. There had been a graduation party the previous afternoon. So we were put to rest by our friends at about 5:00 in the morning.

At 7:00am we awoke to the most horrific noise we had heard in a long, long time. It could be described as a barking dog, the slamming of a large wooden door, a crazy, crazy Russian girl named "Annie-Banannie", and an air horn. As we came to we realized it was just Annie, um Bannanie making these noises. I think she was saying "OUT OUT OUT OUT" but it was so loud and piercing it seemed to distort like a blown speaker. If you ever run into us, we have this all on video on our cell phones.

So long story short: the NANNY of the house kicked us out. Apparently Annie Bannanie is a Nanny and Mr. Warbucks was on his way home. We were still half-asleep as we grabbed our things and skedaddled. Slept in a parking lot for a few.... And then got a nice suite at the Intercontinental.... We LOVE hotel rooms.

We decided to stay another night to go to this little indie-rock dance party that a place next to Grog Shop called B Side Lounge hosts every Sunday. We had fun last time we came, so we gave it another shot. Have to say the crowd was a little skimmer than last time and (yikes!) younger but a few more later and we were right out there with em...like we do. It was good fun and all. Oh, and there was a beautiful girl in white shorts.

Monday, June 26th 2006

Cleveland, Cleveland, Cleveland. Yes, that's three Clevelands, one for every night we spent in that fair city. We had been there about a month earlier to play a show and party, and as always were excited to come back. The drive isn’t too bad, six hours, and Moody and John manned the wheel. Time was spent with useless conversation, foul mouthed rants and cell phone games. We played a gig @ a dance club downtown on Friday night to a mildly interested crowd. But it never fails that the kids who get it got it and we made some friends, and even saw a couple people from our last stint there. Our new friend Anthony (voted "best bartender in Cleveland" btw) was as willing as last time to let us crash at his swanky little apartment. We awoke to the beautiful sounds of the World Cup...

The next day was spent lingering around Cleveland Heights doing basically nothing. Ate some decent Thai and spent a lot of time lying in the grass at the park. Our gig was at The Grog Shop, which is a really dope ~300 capacity club with good sound and a lot of great bands in and out. We played a really good show tonight, lots of energy and we were super tight. You know what that means? Its time to write new songs... Which we will be doing a lot of here in the next month or two. We feel really good as a band right now about what we want to go for and how to get there with our songs. At least we hope we are :)

Tuesday, June 20th 2006

We're now lounging around the beautiful streets of Kentucky after an action-packed week in Los Angeles, and we are now ready to report our adventures from the City of Angels.

Monday:
We touched down at LAX around 11AM and were met by our manager Steve, who arrived to meet us in a brand new mini van that he rented for our transportation needs. John on the other hand wouldn't have anything nice to say about this van over the course of the next week..
Apparently he fancies himself to be a first-class van connoisseur who is not easily pleased by vehicles made for six to seven people to ride in comfort. We stayed in a hotel in Hollywood that had a swimming pool the size of a bathtub and an "office" down the street.. After we settled in, we had dinner with Steve and then went out on the town with our MySpace friends Laura and Sam. They took us out for some "John Bonhams" and a quick walk through Hollywood. Unfortunately, we had to call it an early night since we had a 6 AM call for the video shoot. All in all, our arrival date was uneventful aside from the pleasantries.

Tuesday:
We arrived at the video shoot, which took place at a bar in Glendale named the Scene. Despite the early morning call, the production crew was ready to go, as were we. Moody was particularly excited about the makeup, and wanted to look as pretty as possible for the cameras.
It was tough to play the song for the countless number of takes required, and frequently we took breaks plopped down in front of the fan to cool off. The catered food, however, was impeccable much to the pleasure of the Boys. We didn't realize how much work went into making a music video before our trip, and we wrapped up the day around
8 PM so that the bar would be open for business that night. The production staff, the extras, and everyone involved were great, and we would like to give a big shout out to Pamela for all of her hard work.

Wednesday:
After waking up, we headed to our practice space to prepare for our show at Spaceland that night. It was way out in North Hollywood, and we pulled into a barbed wire compound. We weren't sure what to expect, but when we opened up the door and saw a vintage Pink Floyd road case, we knew that everything was going to be alright.
The space was owned by the drummer for Quiet Riot. He had echos on the drums and vocals so that it sounded like we were playing in a big arena. Needless to say, we were quite pleased.
We practiced for a couple of hours, and then our gear was picked up by equipment extraordinary Rich and his brilliant flame-truck. We grabbed some In n' Out burger and headed on over to Spaceland. The show was stellar and many of our friends, new and old, were quite pleased. Kifer Sutherland was rocking out and shooting pool and our good friend Myron Kerstein came out partied the night away with us.

Thursday:
Met with some very pleasant folks and ate some excellent sushi. Made an early trip to the office and lounged by the pool.

Friday:
Made our way out to Venice Beach and continued our endless string of meetings with quite pleasant people. During a little R & R on the beach, Clay turned into a lobster and plunged into the ocean. That was last we saw of him for a couple of days. Steve made an amazing feast for dinner and we watched some films. Moody and John went out on the town with our friend Ruha. By the end of the night they climbed a mountain that over looked LA.

Saturday:
Our first real day off. We woke up and watched the World Cup action.
Later, we picked up some fresh duds on Melrose and made an early visit to the office down the way. Later on that night the boys hit the scene to check out a party from Little Radio. MSTRKRFT played their first show in L.A. Met a lot of like-minded people who love to get down and that we did. Afterwards, the band had their first experience of hailing a cab in downtown Los Angeles, not fun.

Sunday:
Made our way out to Laguna Beach to kick it with our man Lenny. We lounged at his house and watched the U.S. Open debating swing technique and pin placement. Later, we visited his private beach.
Lacking sufficient beach attire, the band hid behind rocks, stripped to their skives, and ran for the water. Everything was cool until Matt was caught by the undertow. Panic engulfed the boys until they realized that it wasn't the undertow or rip tide, rather Clay returning from his oceanic lobster voyage just in time to mess around. After the beach, we caught game 5 and Steve cooked homemade vodka sauce with rigatoni pasta, the best Italian food in L.A.

Monday:
Caught the 7 AM flight. Houston has a terrible airport. Flying to Lexington can be tricky. The plane started going crazy on the landing and took forever to land.

Thursday, June 8th 2006

So in a few days we leave for Hollywood to film a music video and, you know, "make it." We have an insanely early flight both to LA and back (thanks MySpace!) but I guess that's just how it goes. We'll be in LA before we usually wake up which will could be very depressing. We are flying in on a Monday, June 12th, and staying through June 19th, a full 7 days of scheduled debauchery, right?

The video is going to be great. We have a great director, Pamela Littky (http://www.pamelalittky.com) who has taken genius promo shots for everyone from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to Green Day to Lil Wayne. The setting of the video will be a club and the entire thing will have a kind of collage like introduction of images of Parlour Boys hanging out and partying like usual and also some crisp performance shots highlighting our awkward stage moves and "music faces." Seriously though, we are stoked to make this video. I don't think anyone is particularly nervous about it, nor are we terribly excited. Parlour Boys are complete skeptics that anything positive can arrive out of a situation involving music and getting paid to make it. (An attitude which we find very healthy, especially in this fine business we've landed ourselves in.) What I mean is, we'll wait to form an opinion or get butterflies until we're there.

We are playing a show the day after we shoot, on Wednesday at the great Spaceland. It’s going to be a killer club to play at, and we're glad we got a chance to do it. We got thrown on to the show kind of late, we weren't sure if we were going to play a show while we were down there or not. Speaking of which, we need to start practicing.... We'll be playing on all rented equipment which will be new for us, and poor Willie flies to LA literally the day after he returns from Europe (more on that in the future...) Oh well, we'll rock the house for sure.

Aside from the shoot and the show, we'll be hanging out for sure, crashing on floors and seeing shows and meeting new people. If any of you beautiful people want to party with us, you should hit us up on MySpace!

Wednesday, June 7th 2006

Back in the studio. Again. Working those backup vocals into a psych-frenzy. We like it. And we can't complain about some comfortable chairs to relax in while Duane works the knobs. Slowly but surely, in three bursts, another installment, we wait with baited breath. As the tension builds, we release ours each night in various and sundry pleasures of the hometown. Back porch cookout to downtown crawl, late nights with the animals and the angels, we're ready to bring it to you.

By the peak of summer sweat we'll have another EP for all hungry ears. A love song, an epic, an anthem, perhaps tethers in your mind to a place you will have been. Aught six, the year of the dog. Stay with us.

Wednesday, May 31st 2006

So this is our first blog post people, I hope you're ready. We have been having a very interesting and exciting ride ever since we won the Myspace.com and Verizon Wireless "Calling All Bands" contest. We have received a lot of exposure and love from people all over the world thanks to some key placement on Myspace.com, as well as Verizon Wireless's Music Website ( http://www.verizonwireless.com/music/ ) and their mobile V CAST store.

Most of the prizes have been acquired and our new phones Verizon Wireless gave us are sick! We have barely figured out how to use all the features, but compared to the shape of our last phones we feel like we've been living in a wireless cave. Its got a sweet camera and camcorder which has led to some very interesting multimedia messages swapped around our Parlour Boys phones, but we won't go into details. You can also play all kinds of crazy games, which is great when you're pretending to listen to your parents. I'd have to say the coolest thing is the ability to download CD quality full-length songs off V CAST and basically turn your phone into an MP3 player, they've got the click-wheel and play controls on the outside of the phone when it's closed. John got made fun of when he mentioned that "now he won't have to LUG around his iPod". Funny how we grow accustomed to technology, eh?

But enough about our phones for gods sake, we play music too, did you know that? And we've been spreading Parlour Boys love around the region with some fun shows in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Nashville, and Lexington. We have been having a blast being on the road. We were gone for about 2 weeks, spending a few days in Nashville with Willie's family and friends. We had a great show in Pittsburg where we met some great bands eho were super kind to let us stay at their place (we always return the favor).

We also hit up Cleveland where we stayed for two nights. The first night was a Sunday and a club there called the B Side Lounge has a weekly indie-rock dance party which was a blast. There are some pictures from that party included with this post. We also hit up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, of course. Saw tons of great stuff, probably the coolest being the broken guitar from the front of The Clash's London Calling. Willie and Moody took a tour of the battle ships, I think you might find a picture of that as well.

So, more good news, we're in this week's issue of Billboard Magazine!
Woot, Woot! Go pick it up if you have a chance. Its a article on technology and music written by Antony Bruno, an expert on the subject. Check this out, we couldn't get a copy of the magazine in Lexington yet, but Moody was up in Chicago and had one. So he took a picture of us in the table of contents with his phone and sent it to us in a message. Well, after tooling around a little we realized we can email pictures from our phone to Verizon's PIX PLACE and I did just that. Now the picture is on our computer and you guys can see it!
Nifty, huh?

We love every one of you who took the time to read through all this blabbering down to this last sentence. We hope it wasn't a terrible bore, at least there are pictures to look at, right?