There’s been a lot of buzz going on about what happened down in SC – The short of it goes something like this: We’ve got John Law breathing down our neck, the van is literally falling apart, we haven’t a penny to our name, but goddamn, yall can’t keep a Growler down. We’ve got some ace shows coming up. We also could use a goddamn hand. If you could repost this, we’d greatly appreciate it.

So, what happened? As opposed to my normal flowery prose, I’ll keep it bullet pointed, short and sweet:

* Blown Tire, towed to a Walmart parking lot, late night – morning tire fix

* Next Day, Illegal stop by the South Carolina Sherrif’s Department (Driving too close – the highway was damn well near empty). Illegal, non-consented search of the van yielded a controlled substance (Psychobilin Mushrooms)

* Chestnut was arrested, and railroaded through a bond hearing at a time different told to us – Bail was set at $1,000, and a trial date was set over 7 months away, in June 2012.

* As opposed to letting a Brother in Arms rot for seven fucking months in a southern detention center for what is at best absolute bullshit, we came up with the $1,000 – literally everything the band had, and then some.

* The first judge tried to pull some further shady shit (than $1,000 for bail for a goddamn fungus), and tried to make sure he stayed overnight by leaving early, thereby fucking us over further and out of our last date of tour – we caught some luck with both a sympathetic corrections officier, as well as a sympathetic judge. I won’t mention their names because it’s clear that decent honest people are frowned upon in the South Carolina Legal system, but needless to say, we’re grateful. We were able to pay someone and get him out in time to hit the road up to Philly for our show with the nefarious Erik Petersen.

We’re shit broke. The van is breaking. We don’t even have any shirts left to sell (post tour reordering). We’re playing a few shows this month that we will be collecting donations at, and our next tour kickoff is a benefit show essentially for us to be able to continue to do what we do.

So, without much more of my fucking rambling, here is what’s up:

12/08/11 – Woodstock, NY – Colony Cafe – ALL AGES
http://www.facebook.com/events/209723939105366/

12/10/11 – NY, NY – ABC No Rio w/Mischief Brew – ALL AGES
http://www.facebook.com/events/245879932142396/

12/15/11 – Boston, MA – Church w/Bryan McPherson, Mark Lind, Jeff Rowe – 21+
http://www.facebook.com/events/170547526357829/

12/17/11 – Dover, NH – The Barley Pub – 21+ – 3 sets!
http://www.facebook.com/events/149295081841881/

1/12/12 – Jamaica Plain, MA – CHESTNUT’S BAILFEST – Midway Cafe
http://www.facebook.com/events/256129234447256/

Hopefully the wheel bearings won’t blow before we get the money up to fix them. Looking forward to fucking going nuts at these next few shows – hope to see you all there.

Cheers,
Swagger

Enjoying a cup of coffee from my own coffee maker in my own kitchen – What a beautiful thing this is! I do love the road, but sometimes it’s damn good to be home. Probably going to head over the space and get my practice amp so I can start working on new songs. There’s a lot to go through after the last few months! The world is a damn inspiring place, and living the life less boring will forever be my muse.

Thanks again to everyone who hung out, put us up, fed us, drank with us, danced, and otherwise made the last month an absolutely amazing time!

Cheers,
Swagger

PS: We’ve got some news coming up in the next few days, in regards to the bullshit that went down in SC. So stay tuned.

Sharing a couple of drinks, leaning, backs against the bar. Two maniacal madmen surveying the site of calamity, and goddamn, it is good. The elder of the two having the beautiful perspective that only comes with experience; However the conviction is shared. The room is full of the gloriously uncommon – the beautiful bastards of this life. The bright things, the star children. Lovers and rebels, beauty seeking madness craving wanderers, fighters and dancers, all in the same breath. The sort of people where you’re equally as likely to make out with someone in the middle of a pit as you are to catch a fist, and quite possibly could be the same person.

“Jack” I say, leaning slightly over – enough to hear and speak clearly but not enough to take my eyes off the crowd of fire dancers. They are fire dancers after all, and we bring the fire and light – we’re entertainers. It’s what we are and what we’ve pursued all of our lives. “Thank you for all the help you’ve given us; It means a lot, man. It’s really help get our asses out the door and on the road.”

He swirls his cocktail, turning a plastic dixi cup into something more sophisticated, more elegant, if only for a split second. A wine glass, perhaps; Maybe a heavy bottomed dram. Eyes still fixed on the crowd and ears on the barstool conversation. I can feel a smile, a weary smile, but a smile none the less. You don’t need to see these things to hear the inflections in the words. “Oh, don’t mention it, Jonny. We recognize our own tribe”.

The Devil’s delightfully wicked grin creeps across my face. The one I sing about so passionately. The words leave my mouth as they are thought, no brakes or restraint.

“Tonight is going to be such marvelous, beautiful fun, isn’t it?”

–
And you know what? It most certainly fucking was. It’s an honor and a joy to share the stage with you fine folks and hopefully it will be sooner than later when we get to do it again – I can say without a doubt it’s been the best Halloween I’ve ever had, that’s for fucking sure. Jack, Leslie, Sandra, Frank, Rebecca, Matt, Greg, and of course the delightful clan of Infernites – Thank you.

Also? Chestnut is coverd in glitter STILL and I can’t help but giggle. He sparkles.

-Jonny Swagger

In honor of the Six Strings & Gasoline tour, we’re offering the track “Six Strings & Gasoline” off our new album, Outlaw Waltz, for a free download. No strings attached, but if you could Like and +1 this page and the rest of our shit, we’d be grateful.

Outlaw Waltz – 04 – Six Strings and Gasoline

The album will be for sale directly through us (mp3 download link) on Oct 1st. Itunes and the like whenever the hell they feel like processing it. Thanks! Hope to see you all on Oct 1st for the Daytime matinee release show.

-Swagger

So, if any of you don’t know, we got hit pretty hard by van repairs gearing up for touring – so we’re taking back to the streets, trying to busk our assess of to make up the difference. We were playing A Pair of Brown Eyes out by Park Street, and an gentleman in his 50s started singing along. After we finished, he said that we were wonderful, and that he had actually spent a good deal of time with Shane MacGowan, and that the Wolf Tones were his cousins. This gentleman, named Walter, through a $20 in the case and wished us well – to which I say, thank you sir, you’re helping us pay for our shirt designs and put out our 3rd album – we really fucking appreciate it. And per request, I will never call you a sir so long as my liquor addled brain can remember it.

Actually it was really great – Ryan and I got to run through a bunch of the old songs – our pub set songs, things we almost NEVER get the chance to play anymore, as well as songs from the first two albums. We did just about everything save This Road and Bound for Glory (the latter I’m hoping we can go over and re-add to the set). It’s funny, you hit a point where songs are almost like old friends, and you really start to miss some of them after a while. We joked about sending Erik Petersen a fully electric version of Love and Rage, not to mention how many other songs we promptly and delightfully mutilated throughout the night. I felt like Sweeny Todd – TRY THE PRIEST!

At one point, there was a drunk group of Italians who proceded to turn Park Street into a flat out dance party, not to mention this sweetheart of a girl named Meridan who came up to us during our break. Also, the guy who just plain rocked the fuck out during Drunk Before Noon was wonderful. Really, it’s all about the people you meet along the way. I got to slut out our Oct 1st show to so many people – I really hope it ends up being the fucking fantastic party that I see it in my head as.

Now I’m here, drinking Narragansett’s Fest trying to capture wat was a downright wonderful night; I hope all of your nights were as fantastic as ours – I’ve got to wake up early and start tracking guitar parts.

Or the alternative title: Smashed Glass Vacuum Tubes, Missing Wheels, Black Eyes, and a hell of a time.

So where the hell should I begin? It’s been a HELL of a weekend, only to hit the ground running with booking when I awoke this morning. (Which really, is quite wonderful – it’s all coming together!)

First and foremost: Fuck Verizon’s GPS for not allowing us to enter in the address for Cherry Street Station properly. Bitches, all of them

Anyways, after much cursing, we arrive at Cherry Street Station for an epic show with The Alehounds, Sadplant, and The McGunks. This might be one of the best goddamn lineups we’ve played with down at Cherry St – it was a full on bill of absolute awesome. Also, the ever lovely Sarah reprised her roll as the Powers Irish Whiskey Queen – Dangerous as she is inviting – just how we love our ladies. Alehounds, Sadplant, and the McGunks were fucking incredible. I’m not going to play favorites, because it would be a waste of time. Every band just ripped it right the fuck up.

Regardless, Powers was in full effect courtesy of Dennis and Sarah, so we had a straight up whiskey drunk by the time we took stage. This means that we played everything stupid fast and what a fucking good time that was. Thanks to the two girls to my right who kept pouring pitchers of beer down my throat, I almost booted by the second to last song – spent most of it dry heaving. Finally after a good BELTCH, I got my shit back together and we tore into one of our favorite closers, “You Won’t Take Me Alive”. Fuck yeah! You guys were all awesome.

From there, we ended up at Sarah’s apartment. Where of course she has a bar setup in her living room, complete with 2 liters of Powers, a 30 rack of PBR, and then Dennis showed up with beer, as did Kacie with a case of Guinness. Also, there was this AWESOME little dog by the name of Zooey – Half Jack Russell, half Chihuahua – all intrepid. She became both my hero and found herself a nice nook at the foot of the couch I commandeered. Seeing as how my day started at 2:30am, I was out by about 3:30am, while the night carried forth until at least 7am, I’ve been told. I’ll let Chestnut fill in the details… if he can remember them.

Morning found us with an awake an maniacal Ethan simply uttering one word on repetition, as a delicious mantra: “Pancakes”. So naturally, we gravitate towards the nearest diner, this great place right by both Sarah’s and Cherry Street – Couldn’t remember the name to save my life. But it was delicious, and we were obnoxious, but the waitress made sure the coffee and food was plentiful

We parted ways with Sarah, and made for NYC – uneventful ride outside of normal NYC bullshit (read: traffic) and we even found parking near Trash Bar. Though, fuck the security guards who bitched at me for changing my strings on the sidewalk for being a nuisance while the woman screaming at the top of her lungs talking about getting her crew up in some other broads face was ‘politely ignored’, but man, fuck those musicians – They’re scumbags. ANYWAYS. Killing time and looking for a place to piss, we find the near by Midway Lounge (sister bar to our beloved midway cafe?) and partake in happy hour pints. The bartender looks at me for a second and goes “hey, wait, weren’t you guys here last month? I remember a bearded band from Boston!”. She was of course, referring to my blackout adventure post Jeff Rowe’s Trash Bar debut with the Old Edison. THE LEGEND GROWS!

Anyways, more on that night, and the next day, when I get the chance. Off to work, and then we set up for recording tonight – Drums and Bass the Next Two Days.