yeah.

how come no one ever replies to my posts? damn it.

so, oddly enough, not one of the five of us found it necessary to write something relating to our experiences surrounding our cd release last weekend. yeah, i’m being sarcastic with the “oddly enough” part. but here’s one in earnest: as usual, i’m picking up the slack in this band to bring you this blog post. this post is brought-to-you by joe, picking up the slack.

when i was a kid and i heard announcers say “brought-to-you by”, i thought they were saying two words instead of four, the first word being “broctayued.” funny how stupid kids are.

allow me to write you a story, reader.

once, last weekend, a child was born unto this world of an asexual parent. this parent had carried the child for much longer than biologically necessary, and it was a great relief to the parent when the parent’s water broke and it started experiencing contractions: a mixture of intense physical pain and emotional pleasure. the parent, good night, states, named the child “short films on self-control” after good night, states’ uncle, ten five-minute videos to a better you. and then there was the afterbirth.

that was an allegory. the first person to interpret it correctly wins a good night, states toothbrush.

to be frank, not one of us had a negative experience last weekend. i don’t know any other way than understatement, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that one of the other four will write something that comes closer to expressing the positive feelings we have about the album, the show, and our good fans.

thank you for coming. we hope you enjoyed the show. we hope you continue to enjoy the album, indefinitely. a lot went into it, so we hope you get a lot out of it. thanks to army of me and lohio. we enjoyed you more than you enjoyed us. don’t argue. someone else, quick, tell them we love them. we do though, for real.

and if you were so kind to join us at the after-party, then you know how crazy it was. if you call drinking beer from the the east end brewing co. crazy. i sure do.

i just did like 20 reps of slack. time to drink a protein shake, take my shirt off, look at myself in the mirror, and get some sleep. night.

dear reader,

it’s been pretty well covered here that we had a great time out last week (and we did). i’ll try not to re-tread. monday i spend a lot of time thinking about our shows, especially philadelphia, and what made it so great; we almost cancelled the date because of problems with the club, and if we had we would have missed what i thought was the strongest set good night, states has ever played.

between deep thoughts and deep shots of novocaine on monday, i totally forgot to investigate the status of my registration here for yesterday’s all-important primary. for those in non-super tuesday states, i can happily corroborate the media’s refrain that no matter what your stance, man is this an exciting race. there was quite a turnout here, and a real feeling of expectation and agitation.

to me, this is the best face of politics: people–even cranky, prematurely crotchety armchair radicals like me–getting off their butts, overcoming for a brief, glorious moment their overwhelming defeatism, and DOING something. folks are activated, man! what more can you ask for?

and even more, they’re excited to have the opportunity to do something different. just look at the candidates: on the republican side, we’ve got a self-described maverick frontrunner, and the democratic turf is divided evenly between two history-makers.

let me be clear: good night, states is not a political band (the five of us don’t even necessarily agree on politics). 2004 evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, political rock is not cool. (does this mean “american idiot” is a bad album!?, you ask with a gasp. well, technically, no. it would be bad regardless of the lyrics.) we’re just a band who had a bunch of great live sets because we decided a) the way things are is not good enough, and b) that means we should do something DIFFERENT.

so, we’re coming to pittsburgh this saturday in firm opposition to what has felt lately to me like a bit of a curse, namely that our weakest shows are inevitably on home turf. good night, states is working hard for change. i bet megan is somewhere practicing right now (can she hear me?), and joe, while not yet awake, will soon be one with his lap steel.

as for me, reader, i just work on setlists in my pajamas, and ask plaintively to be for a moment the hypnosis tape in your head:

(do something.)

(do something different.)

(change is good.)

(i promise.)

Friends -

On our 4-day East Coast mini-tour, we were accompanied by Emily-my-wife and Emily-not-my-wife, who handled merch, got us food, listened to tense arguments about road directions,  and were a welcome addition to our spacious van.

Emily-not-my-wife is always curious about the inner workings of GN, S and “interviewed” us about what it was about being in a band that was so great.  She asked us about our love of performing these songs, writing music, and how long we had dreamed of making music a reality in our lives.  I told here that I’ve known since Day One.

Sculptors use the language of “finding” the art within their medium; they say it doesn’t have so much to do with “creating” as it has to do with “finding”.  You chisel at marble, you shave at wood, and somehow the combination of your brain and your heart and the medium and the tools and the moment leads you to finding what it was meant to be.  That’s the way I feel when helping to shape these beautiful songs, and it brings me unimaginable joy to rehearse for hours on end with my four friends, to drive ungodly distances through the night, and to share these creations/findings with each of you.

Our new website is launched, our album has arrived at our doorstep by the thousands, and we’re all set to enjoy the night in Pittsburgh this weekend and release the album to the world.  We’re excited about upcoming shows and tours, interviews and press, and seeing the mountain of work we’ve put into this begin to carry us into more creating and finding of new songs, new fans, new venues, etc.  Thank you for being along on the journey.  As always with our tours, there are too many people to thank and too many memories to try to distill and convey what happened to us/you on this trip, but you know who you are - thanks.  To those of you who met/heard us for the first time this week, welcome; to those of you who saw us for the 2nd or 12th time - thanks for doing this with us.

Each of us in the band believes that there is something to the notion that we were made to do what we’re doing with this music and this group of people, and I, for one, am more excited than you can imagine about what it is that we’ll find as we continue forward together.

We hope you enjoy “Short Films On Self-Control” as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it and making it available to you and we’ll see you on the road soon.