TROPHYBOYS [aileen burns]

Wow I can't believe how quickly the summer flew by! It's already September, and although I'm sitting here on my bed in my apartment in California in a false sense of peacefulness, things are actually REALLY crazy busy in Camp Plain White T's. We have the month "off" from tour, but the brand new album Big Bad World comes out on SEPTEMBER 23, which means for the band a lot of press and promo business. You can expect to see them on a handful of TV appearances this month (ABC Family's Greek, Leno, Good Morning America, Pepsi Smash, and MTV's Video Music Awards to name a few...) as well as a quick trip back to London at the end of the month for more promo there (the new album comes out in Europe in October).

Pre-order the CD at Smartpunk.com and get an exclusive free t-shirt!

Speaking of Europe, we just got back from our European "So Last Summer" Tour a few days ago. Europe tours for me always sort of drag on, but I think we had a really good run this time around. It's always nice to be over there this time of year when the weather is a bit better than normal, not so gloomy and cold. Our headlining club shows were a bit smaller than usual because we were going to cities we had never been to before - Stockholm, Copenhagen, Prague, Luxembourg City to name a few. I met a lot of a really nice people at the merch table, and I'm amazed again and again at how well everyone can speak English. Makes me feel like such a dumb American only being able to speak English (okay, I actually do speak a bit of Japanese as well, but that doesn't usually help me in Europe haha). We played a lot of HUGE festivals while we were there. Pukkelpop in Belgium was by far my favorite, it was a beautiful day, the backstage area and catering were amazing, I got to see some amazing bands (Sigur Ros and MGMT!), and I had a few drinks and got to let loose, which I don't usually do very often on tour.


Plain White T's @ Pukkelpop Fest


MGMT @ Pukkelpop Fest

We also played Leeds and Reading.... not as good of a reception by the crowd (they were all there to see Metallica, Tenacious D, Slipknot -who cancelled-, and Avenged Sevenfold -who also cancelled-), but regardless of all the bottles and mud that got thrown on stage at the band I think we all had a really good time. The guys were prepared to dodge bottles and walked off stage laughing. There was even a circle pit and "wall of death" during Hey There Delilah, courtesy of the Metallica fans in the crowd. I saw some of them singing along though, they can't deny it.



So now I'm back in California for the week. On Monday I'm flying to Hawaii to visit my family for a week. I haven't been back since March so it will be really nice to see my parents and my grandmother and sleep in the bed I grew up in. I'm also particularly excited for this trip home because my mom and I are going to the Humane Society to look at dogs! My beloved Golden Retriever Kona died last April at the age of 13, and our other dog Skippy just died this year, he was 14. Our house has been too quiet for too long, the dogs made it easy for my parents to cope with my being away at college. I'm an only child so the dogs were like more kids for them. My dad says he doesn't mind the quiet, but I know they both miss having the dogs around and I definitely don't like how quiet the house has been this past year. We're going to look at shelters first to see if we can rescue two dogs who otherwise might be humanely euthanized due to not finding a home. I really recommend everyone do this first when finding a pet. If you end up going to a pet store or breeder to find a new pet, be sure you do research on the store first. Puppy farms are one of the most horrifying forms of animal cruelty that exists today.


Kona in 2005

Later this month Plain White T's are playing a charity show in Novato, CA (NorCal) with Third Eye Blind! I grew up listening to Third Eye Blind but I've never seen them play, so I'm super excited. You can buy tickets for this show here: http://www.rocknbluesbythelake.com/tickets.asp. Proceeds from the show go to help fund public schools in Northern California.

Rock Band Live Tour starts October 5th! I've been planning some killer merch for the tour, so I hope everyone's saving up their money haha. Plain White T's will have a few headlining one-off shows during the tour:

10-25 Clifton Park, NY @ Northern Lights
10-27 Portland, ME @ The Station
11-05 Tallahassee, FL @ Floyd's Music Store

Last but not least, my friends in the band LOVEDRUG are releasing a new record on October 28. I'm actually listening to it right now and it's amazing. You may have seen them on tour with us in 2006, for me it was a huge honor to have one of my favorite bands play with the T's every night. You can listen to three new songs on their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/lovedrug.

Good luck to all of you who started high school or college classes recently! I know school is a drag, but you'll kind of miss it once it's all over... I promise!

I'll leave you with this last photo...


Plain White T's band and crew
Konstanz, Germany
So Last Summer Tour - Europe 2008

We had a day off in Chicago between shows, so while the band went to Lollapalooza, I went to Warped Tour out in Tinley Park with our guitar tech Evan (Bovee) and our drum tech Spyder. We didn't get out there til 2pm which was fine, Matt had given me the heads up earlier in the morning that the only three bands I was going to make plans to see were basically playing on top of each other at the end of the night. So that inconvenience made it actually easier to make up my mind about spending more time seeing friends than watching bands I don't really care about haha.

After making a round of the tents and saying hello to everyone I could find, the guys and I went over to production to see Angels & Airwaves do a private AT&T acoustic set. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of their music but I am a huge huge fan of those guys as people. I got a chance to catch up with David Kennedy a bit, whom I have the pleasure of knowing through my roommate and best friend, KT. He might actually be one of the most interesting conversationalists I've ever talked with. They're all such awesome genuine guys. Spyder was particularly excited to see Matt Wachter as he used to be Matt's bass tech with 30 Seconds To Mars.

Bovee and I left the AVA set early to go see Mayday Parade, but got there late and opted for watching Relient K instead. I hadn't seen them play since we toured with them in late 2006 so that was really fun. Got to catch up with Matt Theissen and thank him again for treating me to lunch the last time we hung out together... which was almost a year ago. Crazy how quickly time goes by. My friend Derek is guitar teching for them now, but when we toured together he was the merch guy. Bummed I didn't get to spend more time with him. Also got to see Relient K's old guitar tech Danny, who lives in Valparaiso and actually came to the PWTs show the night before Warped Tour in Crown Point, IN (worst show ever).

Fast forward a few hours of me hanging out with merch friends and escaping to the air conditioning / non-porta potty on All Time Low's bus. Sidenote, I still can't believe how huge ATL has gotten since last summer. I skipped their set in favor of watching the beginning of Say Anything.... Max Bemis was sick and couldn't sing so they recruited singers from other bands to fill in for him, which actually turned out to be really rad. Justin from Motion City Soundtrack kicked off the set with "Alive In The Glory Of Love" and it was amazing / hilarious to see him jumping around with the lyrics on a tiny piece of paper in his left hand. The singer from Norma Jean followed and was a lot less entertaining, but sounded equally great. I wish I could've stayed to see the rest of the set, which had guest appearances by Stephen from Anberlin, Theissen from Relient K, and Sweet James from The Bled (who isn't even on Warped Tour this summer, he just lives in Chicago now and happened to be there that day). I left during dude from Norma Jean's song to run across the venue to the other main stage where Motion City was closing out the night. I watched the set with Jessica - Neglectnormalcy and Luis - Mendoza and we did a lot of singing and dancing and air drumming as usual. This would make my fourth year seeing MCS on Warped Tour... I will always have great memories of that band and Warped Tour, starting in 2004 when Tony was my only friend in the band, and the look on their faces when they saw my "Back To The Beat" tattoo for the first time. They've really settled into their niche in the "scene" and they're not going anywhere.

My night ended with some more craziness of saying hellos/goodbyes to friends on the tour. It turned out to be a nice day, beautiful weather, wonderful friends... but when it comes down to it, I think my time on Warped Tour is done. I don't think I'll ever do the tour again, unless I'm getting paid an unrefusable amount of money! I have some amazing memories from my three summers working the tour (five total years of attendance) and I think I'm happy and satisfied to leave it at that.

Now you guys can watch Jessica, Luis and I geek out during the MCS set:

This email correspondence transpired today:

------

from: Mike Babcock
to: Craig Tiede, Aileen Burns, Charles Wallace, Jon Martin, Evan Bovee
date: Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 11:08 AM
subject: Tour Supply order is in

Anything other than the following will have to be called in seperate:

1 roll of green gaff
1 big bends Nut lube
4 yards of dual lock
Mechanix fast fit size large
2 rolls of black gaff
2 right angled sennheiser wireless cables for EW172
2 sennheiser power adapters for EW172
1 Pelican 1640 case
1 2 space shock mount case
2 Shurefire Bulbs
2 Shurefire Batteries
1 Sennheiser Power Supply for AC2/NT3

Again I had to order Sennheiser stuff from Tour Supply because our guy isn't replying to me or answering my calls. Trip, can you help me out and get ... mind is blank, the woman's contact info from Sennheiser that the Foos deal with?

------

from: Aileen Burns
date: Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 11:09 AM
subject: Re: Tour Supply order is in

Is the big bends nut lube for bovee on his days off?

Xoxo :)

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

------

from: Evan Bovee
date: Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 11:19 AM
subject: Re: Tour Supply order is in

Oh ha ha ha. Very funny!

Sent from my iPhone

------


Sometimes I take advantage of the fact that I'm the only girl on tour with a bunch of dudes!

Showers taken to days on tour ratio = 19:18 BOOYAH

I'm home from tour! I was only gone 18 days but they felt so long. The last week was brutal with all the fly outs and 5am lobby calls. It's so nice to be home even if it will only last for a week.... also, I walked into my apartment yesterday afternoon and found a Jonas Brothers poster taped to my bedroom door. My roommates are funny.

Last night I dragged my best friend KT down to Soma for the Cute Is What We Aim For show. As usual, I spent most of the night at merch catching up with my friend Jose who is doing merch for Cute right now. After the show, I said a quick hello to Shaant and Jeff before taking Jose and Dave out for some late night Mexican. Funniest moment of the night happened when drunk Dave jumped over the wall of the Mexican place and ran next door to the Wendy's drive thru in an attempt to order a frosty on foot. We went back to our conversation until we heard his flip flops slapping the asphalt and saw Dave running across the empty intersection to McDonald's, who also denied his drive thru on foot request for a milkshake. Poor kid haha. It was good seeing the dudes again, last time we were all in San Diego we were across the parking lot at the Sports Arena on the second to last night of the Young Wild Things Tour with Fall Out Boy and Gym Class Heroes. There's still a month left of this tour so if you're going to one of the shows, be sure you say hello to Jose at merch. And if you buy a copy of the new Cute record from him, you get a wristband into the meet and greet.

So I should be relaxing, but I'll actually be spending most of this week working on figuring out merchandise for our upcoming festivals in Europe in August, and our fall merch line for a BIG tour that will be announced soon. Always working!

How's everyone's summer going?



PS. For those of you who asked about the Jimmy Eat World show I went to last week in Calgary, this was their amazing set list for the night:

Big Casino
Sweetness
Crush
Work
Always Be
Dizzy
Blister
Here It Goes
A Praise Chorus
Disintegration
Get It Faster
Let It Happen
Authority Song
23
Your New Aesthetic
Bleed American
Pain
----------
Here You Me
Goodbye Sky Harbor
Futures
The Middle

Well I have internet which is rare for being on tour in Canada, and I was about to go to sleep but I figured I'd do a quick update first. It's currently 3:30am, I'm laying in my bunk and I should be sleeping because tomorrow morning our bus leaves at 7:30am to drop us off at the airport. We fly to Calgary to play the Calgary Stampede on Monday night, but we will have the rest of Sunday off. Jimmy Eat World is conveniently playing in Calgary on Sunday night and our booking agent got us all tickets through the promoter, so hopefully all ten of us are going to the show. I'm so excited! If any of you know me, you know how much I love Jimmy Eat World. This will be my fourth time seeing them live this year, and also the third country I've seen them in...

Let's see, so my last updated was from Atlantic City. That night was fun, after the show a lot of us went down to the bar in the casino. We've all known Mae for a while (my first time seeing both Mae and Plain White T's live was when they did a one-off show together in NYC opening for Allister in April 2003, it was Zach's first performance with Mae before he became an official member of the band), Plain White T's toured with Mae a few years ago when they were opening for Simple Plan. In fact come to think of it, I ditched out in the middle of Mae's set the night they played in NYC because I went to see Jimmy Eat World play at another venue in the city. Weird. Anyway, that was a fun night in Atlantic City, hanging out and having drinks together. The bartender had a heavy hand too.

The next day was in Newport, RI which is a pretty little coast town with huge Victorian houses. It was really muggy that day but the sun was out and kids bought the PWT sunglasses like crazy. My friends Justin and Andrew from the band Monty Are I came to hang out which was really nice cause it had been a while since I had seen them. Our last show with Mae and Kung Fu Girls was in Hyannis, MA which is where the Kennedy Family compound is located. The Kennedy Family invited the band out on their sailboat that morning, I guess some of the kids are big fans. So the band got to go out on the boat for a few hours and took a lot of amazing photographs and came back with a lot of neat stories. The Kennedy kids came back to the venue to watch the band soundcheck. It's kind of crazy to think that the Kennedy family are your fans, they're basically American royalty.

We've been in Canada the past few days, starting with the last two nights in Ottawa. We played Ottawa on the Fall Out Boy tour last year but it was an arena and I didn't get to see any of the city. This time, my friends Mike and George invited us to an amazing sushi place and almost everyone in the band/crew ended up going over there to join them for dinner. We had 2 tables of six so we got a separate check for each table... my table ordered over 100 maki roll pieces and probably another 50 sushi pieces, plus 4 bottles of unfiltered sake and who knows how many beers.... including a nice tip, our bill came out to $500 and it was worth every penny. My mouth is watering just thinking about it right now. The next day was the festival, my friend Peter was assistant stage manager for our stage so it was nice hanging out with him all day. My good friend Ian also came out from Toronto with a band that is signed to his label, Crash Parallel. Very nice guys, and they do a great cover of The Bends by Radiohead. The Black Crowes headlined the festival and unfortunately played the same time as the T's, but my friends and I watched half of the T's set then ran over and caught the last five or so songs by the Crowes. Hearing them live made me feel like I was back in the 70s, I felt like I should've been tripping on drugs and dancing. So I danced, but I don't do drugs haha. Settling merch was a nightmare but it got done eventually.

That brings us to today in Quebec City. I'm sorry to say it but I am just not a fan of the French language and culture, whether it be in France or in Quebec City. There's something abrasive that just rubs me the wrong way and I was in a bad mood all day. Crash Parallel played with us again so I got to hang out with my friend Ian for another night. Checking in and settling merch was again a nightmare and I'm looking forward to getting through the last Canadian show and getting back to America.

So now it's 3:41 and I should definitely get some sleep. So excited for Jimmy Eat World tomorrow!

So we're in Atlantic City, NJ tonight, it's our second night of this mini-tour with our friends in Mae and Kung Fu Girls. So far things have been going great and merch is selling like crazy. The silly hacker got my Buzznet the other day but looks like Mark got everything back to normal. I've already posted a bunch of photos from Summerfest, and I took a handful last night of Mae on stage which I'll try to edit and upload soon.

I always think it's kind of strange/funny when people come up to the merch table and are surprised that I'm the same person who sold them a tshirt the last time we were in town.

I've been eating Nerds all night and it's starting to make my tongue feel funny but they're so tasty I can't stop.

Jessica C., Erica, Jessica, and Fannie are here, it's nice seeing familiar faces. I'm so close to NYC but so far away!

I just booked a flight to Buffalo and will be in Toronto from July 29-31. I'll be at The Fullblast final show at The Reverb on the 30th and I'm so excited to see all my favourite Canadians!

Days on tour to showers taken ratio = 4:5... yes, I did take two showers yesterday in NH :)


/end random blog entry

I'm listening to some new music as I get my stuff packed for tour. I'm honestly trying to give as many of these new bands a chance, so I can at least get them sorted out in my head... right now my brain thinks they're all one big pop band with all the same songs haha.

Hit The Lights - Skip School, Start Fights
Catchy, poppy, sounds just like every other band now that Colin is no longer the vocalist. Probably will do really well with the All Time Low crowd considering it could be mistaken for an ATL record. Moving on...

The Maine - Can't Stop, Won't Stop
I just realized that listening to this album is making me miss The Starting Line. I never appreciated The Starting Line as much as I should've while they were still a band. I guess we have The Maine now. Or I'll just go back to listening to TSL's earlier releases. "Island" should've been a #1 single.

There For Tomorrow - s/t EP
My friend Leigh who works for Invisible Children is friends with this band and was really excited about this EP last night when we were talking about up and coming bands. I'm going to go with this band sounding like the love child of Anberlin and Saosin. I think it could potentially grow on me even though the hooks aren't as strong as either band in comparison.

3OH!3 - Want
It's like Punk Goes Crunk on crack.... do not want. I get it that they're being cheeky and there are a few songs with lyrics that I found amusing, but it's just hard to listen to. Also, my friends in Emanuel were already doing this a couple years ago with 812 Dirty Squad.

Cute Is What We Aim For - Rotation
I'm still enjoying this record after listening to it a whole bunch this past week. As long as I don't start paying attention to the lyrics, I can listen to most of the record all the way through.

Alkaline Trio - Agony & Irony
Yes please. Thank you. It's nice to know that there are still current bands making timeless music.


My packing turned into a closet-cleaning project... I've been working on it for the past two hours and finally got down to only having tour clothes on my bed, rather than my entire dresser. My second load of laundry just finished, I'm about to pop load #3 into the dryer and load #4 will go into the washer later tonight probably. I hate packing! My roommates are making me dinner tonight which is sweet of them. I'll only be gone three weeks for this leg of tour (usually we're on the road for at least two months at a time) and even though it's such a short run, I'm actually a little bit nervous. I've never packed for a summer tour that wasn't Warped Tour (apparently it's thunderstorming and cold in the midwest right now... do I bring a jacket for that?!). It's been a long four months of off time, this is actually the longest I've been home since I was finishing my college credits at the end of 2006. I'm sure I'll fall back into the swing of things right away, but it's definitely a weird feeling having pre-tour jitters.

With that said, I'm going to go dig my suitcase out of storage! If you're coming out to any of the shows this summer please let me know! I'll be personally selling merch in Hampton Beach NH, Atlantic City NJ, Newport RI, Hyannis MA, Calgary AB, and Central Point OR (the rest will be sold by the venue) so don't be a stranger if you're at any of those shows.

I admit it.

I'm so tired, it's late and I have to be up early to take my friend to the airport. After work tonight, KT and I drove downtown to see some friends who were at a bowling alley / bar for a day off Warped Tour charity bowling event. We got there pretty late considering it started at 5pm and we didn't get there til 9:30. Turns out so many of my friends were there, it was amazing seeing so many people I miss all the time.... my scumbag loves in Protest The Hero! Duncan, Lisp, and some of the Say Anything dudes, Erica from Keep-A-Breast, my old Bus 13 girls - Kristy, Shelley, and AJ, Dylan, some of TAI and crew, Chels, Monaca! and more. Had a few drinks, took a shot with Lisp and Tony Marino. Then KT and I took Duncan to In N Out and tried to convince him to move to San Diego. He and Jake really want to, it's only a matter of time I hope. Would be nice to add more friends to our group out here and Duncan is one of the best dudes I know.

Seeing so many friends and a lot of faces I recognize from my past years on the tour made me really sad. Hearing my friends say they miss me and that tour would be so much better if I were around is comforting, but I actually got kind of teary eyed at one point. It will get easier when I leave for tour and have my hands full dealing with Plain White T's. But I'm also excited for my day off in Chicago which I do plan to spend sweating my ass off at Warped Tour. If you want to find me, I'll probably spend a lot of the day hanging out in the Say Anything and Angels & Airwaves merch tents haha.

Speaking of tour, I just found out today that we (PWTs) are confirmed for what will hopefully be a pretty big tour this fall in Oct/Nov. A support tour, not headliner, but that will come in time once the new album is released. Got my fingers crossed

This is where I stand right now:



Described perfectly by the artistry of Kurt Halsey.

Side note: I purchased a Pacifica candle in Indian Chai scent last weekend at a little vintage shop in Oceanside and it's smelling amazing right now.

TO TOUR OR NOT TO TOUR (in music, specifically)?

TO TOUR:
- You have been hired by an artist, band, record label, management, production crew, or sponsor company (I would maybe include traveling catering company in this)
- You have a job which you do on every show day, and usually work on days off to prepare you for other show days
- You are paid by salary, flat rate, commission for the work you do, often times with an additional per diem paid in cash
- Your job comes before your social life because you are a professional and there on tour to do a job first and foremost

NOT TO TOUR:
- You follow a band in your car for X number of days and call it "going on tour"
- You somehow manage to finagle your way onto riding on a tour bus for X number of days, although you have no job to do and are realistically just taking up space on said bus where other working people make their home away from home
- You spend more time showering, dressing up, styling your hair, and applying makeup than you do accomplishing work that needs to be done to make the tour (or merely your job on the tour) function smoothly - this isn't touring, this is tricking someone into paying you to slack off in favor of making your social life more entertaining and your social circle more buzz(net)worthy


Okay just wanted to clarify.






Stickam.com/trophyboys - add me, I need reasons to use this thing.

Ok so after some deliberation, I made a Stickam profile late last night. As though I need any other internet profiles. The thing is, I have no clue how this stupid thing works! If you can explain this craziness to me or want to be Stickam friends, please feel free to add me. Maybe I'll start doing Stickam chats from tour?

http://www.stickam.com/trophyboys

In exactly three weeks I fly out to start tour! I can't believe three months have already gone by since we got home from Australia and I moved to California. Wow. I'm packing as much as I can into my last three weeks before tour and I'm excited about it! Here's what's coming up:

June 11 - The Matches @ Soma
The Matches have been dear friends of mine since 2004 and I'm excited to have them in town! It's like getting to see the cousins who live upstate, or something. Extended family. They're good people, I'm lucky to have them as friends. And when The Matches are in town, it usually means I get to reunite with my sister in merch, Monaca. It's hard to find decent girls in this business, and Monaca is one of the best. Some of you may have met her on the AP Tour this spring, she was one of the two lovely ladies behind the merch table, three if you include my friend Erica with Keep-A-Breast! :)

June 14 - Angels and Airwaves Start The Machine movie premiere
I get to bring a bunch of my friends to the friends/family screening of this! My "yomies" Joey, Robbie, and Cove, Kenny and Leigh from Invisible Children are coming up from downtown, and Zack and Nick are coming down from Huntington Beach with their friend. Should be a fun time. Hopefully a lot of kids come to the public showings, if you live in the San Diego / North County area you should come!! I've already watched the movie probably 20 times while working at the store so I have at least half of it memorized by now haha.



June 17 - Grand Funk Railroad @ Del Mar Fairgrounds
My cousin Bruce is an ex-member of KISS and now plays lead guitar in Grand Funk Railroad. I've always wanted to see him play live (when I was little my parents used to tell me that my cousin played in a band that wore make-up haha) and I plan on totally geeking out. Bruce is in his 40s but he and his older brother are the only family I have who are in the same business as me, and Bruce has always been one of my biggest supporters.

June 18 - The Almost, Emery, Envy On The Coast, Army Of Me @ The Glasshouse
My roommate and I are probably going to make the drive up to Pomona for this show because the tour will be in San Diego the night of Pomona Warped Tour... Which means I'm probably going to make the Carlsbad to Pomona drive (1.5 hours) two, maybe three times that week. I missed Army Of Me when they were in town on The Used tour though because I was home with a terrible cold. KT (my roommate) and I have known those guys since January 2004, they're seriously underrated and finally picking up some good tours so I'm excited for them. I haven't seen the Emery guys in a while too, since they played in Hawaii last year. They're old tourmates with the T's from Nintendo Fusion Tour in 2006. I went into that tour having never really cared much for their music, but after seeing them live I was completely converted. Such a great live band. I only watch The Almost to see the Leprechaun Dance.


I made that. Too much time.

June 19 or 20 - Pomona Warped Tour
I'm a little bummed that I'm not doing the tour again, but it would've been my fourth summer in a row and I really needed a break. A lot of my friends are back on the tour this summer though and the convenient thing about events like Warped Tour or Bamboozle is that a lot of my friends are forced to be in one place on the same day. And this time I'm not working!

June 25 - Cartel in-store @ Loserkids / Cartel @ Del Mar Fairgrounds
I was talking to my friend Baby Chuck who sells merch for Cartel while I was at work at Loserkids yesterday. I knew they were going to be in town for the Del Mar Fair and suggested they come into the store to do an acoustic performance that afternoon. We've done a good number of acoustic in-stores in the past with bands like Angels and Airwaves, The Matches, Motion City Soundtrack, Meg & Dia, The Color Fred, Mae, Eisley, I Am The Avalanche, etc. I figured I'd throw the idea out there and apparently Cartel and their management were really into the idea. Brendan, my boss and the store's manager, will be out of town that week so he's coordinating details now but I have to run the in-store haha. Cartel are good friends though so I'm excited that we're making this happen and I hope a lot of kids come out for it. If you live in the San Diego area, PLEASE COME!

July 2 - Fly to Chicago to start tour!

For the days in-between I'll be splitting time between working at Loserkids (loserkids.com), hanging out at the beach (apparently it's 90 degrees and hotter everywhere else in America... in North County San Diego the average weather has been 65-75 degrees and sunny, booyah), and learning Garageband with my brand new M-Audio Oxygen 49 midi keyboard. Yep, I went ahead and got myself one! I've been spending a lot of time teaching myself how to play Coldplay and Saves The Day songs to get back into the hang of playing a keyboard (I took piano lessons when I was 7 years old, then played cello from age 8-18). I'm very excited about this new venture, I just wish it were small enough for me to take on tour! Oh well.



Do you guys have any big plans for the summer? What shows and concerts do you have tickets for? Are school and exams done yet?

Lately I've been feeling more than anything like I need a fresh start.

I mean, I guess that's why I moved to California. But I brought a lot of baggage with me and I already had stuff in storage here. Ha I just ruined that metaphor. I miss New York so much (seeing the Sex And The City movie didn't help) but I need to give California at least a year to live up to my expectations. I do have some amazing friends here, there's no denying that. And I left some amazing people on the East Coast that I'm always going to love. I've just gotta get myself through the next three weeks until I leave for tour and get back to regular life. Haha, "regular life" is such an abnormal concept in my world.

Let's talk about trust for a second. I have major trust issues. And not in the normal sense of having a difficult time trusting people for the shit I've been through in the past. I actually trust people with surprising ease, considering my history with family, relationships, friends, etc. I always give people the benefit of the doubt before they have a chance to prove that they're worthy of my trust. It's a serious issue, and no matter how many times I get burned I let it slide by. I can't distrust people. Or maybe I can, but I just let it boil inside my stomach until it gives me an anxiety attack. I harbor jealousy inside my ribcage so as not to appear jealous (read: crazy) on the outside. And it makes my brain crazy instead. I work so hard to maintain my sanity. I wish I could find a way to release it somehow.

I finally got my hands on MGMT's Oracular Spectacular record. What a great album name. It isn't what I normally listen to, but I'm into it. I'm looking to invest in an M-Audio keyboard to play around with. I miss my cello and acoustic guitar, they're both in Hawaii at my parents' house collecting dust. I want to be creative. It's been a long time. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a permanent state of creator's block. I just want to make something other people can appreciate. I want a fisheye lens for my Canon. I want art to flow from my fingertips.

Luis (Mendoza) and I are working on bringing the Internet a new blog site with some of our friends (tba). We'll be posting our words and photos from tour, maybe some thoughts on current music trends, things like that. Luis and I have been friends since 2005 when we met on Warped Tour and I'm excited about this joint venture.

I'm probably bored, feel free to ask any questions you've been curious to ask me, if there are any at all, and I'll do my best to answer them. Anonymously too if you feel more comfortable that way.

The Graduate - http://myspace.com/thegraduate

Paper Rival - http://myspace.com/paperrival (used to be Keating)

Edison Glass - http://myspace.com/edisonglass


All three bands are currently on The Bang Tour supporting Nightmare Of You and I highly recommend all three. There are still two weeks left of their tour so if it's coming to your city you should really try to make it out. If anything, those bands are even better live than they are recorded both vocally and instrumentally.

Let me know what you guys think and if there are any bands out there I should check out.

THIS BAND HAS A MINI DE'MAR!


http://myspace.com/singitloud


Plain White T's

I'm freaking out. I think we need to take them on tour. I haven't even heard their EP yet but Josh Cain (Motion City Soundtrack) produced it so it has to be at least half decent haha. Either way, they have a MINI DE'MAR!!!!

This is an open invitation from me to Sing It Loud to come on tour with Plain White T's. Granted, I'm just the merch girl so they'll have to have their people contact our people and sort out the details, but still.... let's make it happen.

And I apologize in advance if they do end up getting a tour with PWTs and I have trouble learning that kid's name because I call him Mini De'Mar for the entirety of the tour. I'm already bad with names as it is, but the similarities might just be too much for my brain to handle.

So amazing.

MERCHWAR.COM

This blog was brought to my attention last night. So far no one has really figured out who is behind it, although there's speculation. For those of you who nerd out about the industry, it might be an interesting blog to keep track of. Merch World is a much more complex business than a lot of people think, and it's becoming even more complicated with all the record companies trying to get involved.

As the merchandise manager for a band, it's my responsibility to make sure we never run out of product to sell at our shows. Sometimes it happens, but we've rarely gone more than a day or two without a full stock of sizes. On a daily basis I send in sales reports which includes an up to date inventory. Whether or not the merch company reads these reports is another matter all together, but you do what you can on your end and trust that the people you work with do the same.

Pete Wentz mentioned Merch War in his blog as well, and I want to do the same poll: what band merch do you like the best? I actually read every response left on Pete's blog because it's important for me to know what the consumer likes, just like in any other business. So spill the beans, tell me what kind of merch or whose merch you liked! Do you prefer American Apparel printed shirts over basic tees? Do you have a favorite hoodie brand? Would you rather get a girls fitted tee over a regular t-shirt?

Oh, and what was up with those Paramore leggings from Warped Tour last summer? Does anyone actually own and wear those???


EDIT:
Here's another question, HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH FOR MERCH?
What do you consider the highest reasonable price for a tshirt, hoodie, tote bag, etc?

My dog Skippy died in his sleep last week. He was a pretty old guy, maybe 15 years old. My parents surprised me with him one Christmas when I was little and I was convinced for years that he was a gift from Santa. A year ago our other dog Kona passed away, she was 13. With no dogs and all but one cat now gone, our house is pretty quiet. Noel is the last one left, the matriarch of all our previous cats. I brought her home from the Humane Society in 1990 when she was just a tiny kitten and held her in my zip up jacket all the way home.

After Kona died, I couldn't stand to be in the house by myself. It was too still and quiet without her doggie toenails tapping on the floor where she walked. I can't even imagine what it will be like the next time I go home, without Skippy and Kai (my favorite cat, who died on Valentine's Day this year). My parents have decided that we'll get two dogs this year. I think I'm going to name them Benson and Stabler. I'm actually really stoked on that idea.

I watched Law & Order today from 4-11pm on three different networks. Making great use of my day off.


Currently listening to:
Carolina Liar - Coming To Terms
Paper Rival - Dialog
Lights - EP

I don't like what's been leaked of the new Weezer.

Sorry about that! Now that my high-speed internet is installed, I have quit stealing shoddy wireless from the neighbors and can post more frequently! Unfortunately, there hasn't been a whole lot to post. Let's see. Last weekend I worked at the Bamboozle Festival in New Jersey for the non-profit I'm closely involved in, Shirts For A Cure. We had a busy and successful weekend so thanks to everyone who came by and picked up a shirt! Jimmy Eat World and Saves The Day were (as expected) the highlights of my weekend. Those two bands can never disappoint me.

Plain White T's are in England right now for the Give It A Name Festival. Unfortunately, I'm sitting at home in California. We WILL have merchandise for sale, but I won't be there selling it. I'm bummed about missing that trip, but on the other hand I came down with an awful sinus infection this week and probably wouldn't have recovered quickly if I had been traveling these last few days.

Speaking of the PWTs, you may have noticed a bunch of new tour dates on the right hand of my Buzznet. Those are all confirmed and we might be adding a few more in the States before July rolls around.

Since I have another two months at home before we leave again for tour, I've started working part-time at the Loserkids retail store in San Marcos, CA. It's been five years since I've done actual retail work (I had a summer job at Hot Topic when I was 19!), so I'm getting used to it all over again. The store is great though, I work with a very small handful of great people, we listen to good music and watch skateboarding DVDs and host acoustic in-store performances with our favorite bands. Last month we had performances by Meg & Dia, The Color Fred, Jackson United, Mae, and Motion City Soundtrack. On May 16 we'll have one of my favorite bands, Eisley, in the store (so so so so excited).

Here's what I've been listening to lately:

Cinematic Sunrise - A Coloring Storybook And Long Playing Record EP
Feeder - Silent Cry (anyone remember when Rooney/Feeder did that co-headlining tour?)
International Superheroes of Hardcore - Takin' It Ova'
Santogold - Santogold
Say Anything - In Defense Of The Genre
We Shot The Moon - Fear And Love

I've also been digging the two new Cute Is What We Aim For tunes that are posted on their myspace. I ran into Shaant and Jeff at Bamboozle, it was a nice surprise seeing their faces after all these months post- our FOB tour together.

Speaking of new bands, I start to feel older and older with all these up and coming pop punk bands that are finding a nice cushioned spot on MTV's current rotation.... to name a few, Metro Station, We The Kings, The Cab, Secondhand Serenade (I would never have known who this band was if not for being forced to listen to them at both Bamboozles, hello Dashboard Confessional ripoff?), the list goes on and on. I saw the Metro Station video for their single "Shake It" today and I don't even know where to start! Boys, you don't need a combover if you've got a full head of hair! Do you realize that band doesn't have a bass player?! Haha. I guess The Cab is trying to do something different, but I already went through my years of loving *NSYNC and I was perfectly happy watching them dance instead of attempt to play instruments. As for We The Kings, I'm sure they're nice kids, but I was watching their Hitlist on MTV today and halfway through it turned into hip hop hour. In five songs, two of them were Snoop Dogg, and I'm pretty sure that's against the rules.

Okay, rant over. I'm just old and grumpy! If you've got any tunes to recommend to me, please do!


The only photos I took at Bamboozle!


Myself and Mendoza!


Keller and I (Metro Station's A&R manager)

Here I come! This will be my third year in a row working the New Jersey festival. At the 2006 Bamboozle I got so sick that I lost my voice for two weeks and my mom literally nursed me back to life so I could walk at my college graduation the following Monday haha.

I'll be with Shirts For A Cure again, so please! If you're going to be at the festival, stop by and say hello! Check out our collection of tshirts, maybe buy one or three, or at least pick up a catalog so you can read about the organization and tell your friends about it.

I'll be working so I won't have much time to hang which is always slightly disappointing. But I'm very excited to see Jimmy Eat World and Saves The Day again, I can never get sick of seeing either play live. Also not so secretly excited about Snoop Dogg. Sunday I'm going to make sure to watch The Receiving End Of Sirens play one of their last performances as a band.

If you're going to be there that weekend, try to catch Lydia on Saturday and As Tall As Lions on Sunday. Those are my recommendations.

Looking forward to seeing loads of familiar faces!

Side note, I totally miss when the festival used to be held at Asbury Park under the name Skate & Surf. Those were some good memories.

Surprise hangs are the best!

I got a text Sunday morning from my long lost Warped Tour 06 friend, Duncan. Last time I saw him was when our tours crossed paths in fall 06 when he was out with Hellogoodbye and I was on Nintendo Tour. Since HGB has been writing and recording, he's out drum teching for Say Anything. I've been known to not really like Say Anything's music, but KT and I made last minute plans to drive downtown to see Duncan at House Of Blues and then probably peace out during Say Anything's set. We ended up leaving to get dinner during the set, coming back at the end of the show, and hanging out until 3am. How does that even happen!?

More surprises, my friend Lisp is doing Say Anything's merch and I haven't seen him since he was merching for Bayside on Warped last summer. My other friend Canetti is tour managing Manchester Orchestra again since his regular job with Brand New is on hiatus while they take x-number of years to write a new album hah.

The dudes from Say Anything that I met were very nice and my world just got that much smaller with all our mutual friends. I met a guy last night who was friends with Jake from Say Anything, and this guy actually grew up with Derrick Sherman and used to play little league with him on Long Island. So nuts. Coby and Duncan were drunk and made KT play fuck/marry/kill, and Jake told me about five times that he has really bad "yellow fever." They're going to Hawaii in a couple days, it's like yellow fever paradise over there. He's done for.

Weird and totally fun night.

Jake and his brother's side project, XO, is really good (http://www.myspace.com/xotheband). Everyone should go check them out, they have a new ep that they'll be releasing in limited run this summer and every song on it sounds epic. If you're a fan of Jimmy Eat World's Clarity, Mew, Death Cab For Cutie, Dashboard Confessional, etc I think you'll really dig XO.