U2 played chicago the other night. THis tour is the biggest grossing tour ever. Amazing. They are tiny ants on stage. ITs been said that these  big shows just don’t work no matter how much money you throw at production.  i agree.

Israel has nukes. And no one ever mentions it. I remember a while ago when i was traveling and for some reason the “relationship” between Aparthied South Africa and Israel came up.  Apparently the relation ship included sharing yellowcake!!!

speaking of SKeevy

this Strauss -Kahn stuff is ….yuck.

THe dude was propositioning  hotel workers all night, then has mystery lady over the night before. ,,,,,THen gets morning blowjob from housekeeper, probably forced …………… THen goes to McCormick and Schmidts  for lunch with daughter!!!  Im assuming this is an average sunday for the guy.  TO each his own?

quick hits–

Ellsworth Kelly was looking great at the CHicago Art Institute.  THey have a   Meatyard exhibit too.  FOrgot about him.

WIttgenstein loved dimestore detective stories.

The Indiana Dunes are amazing for fourth of july.

Millennium Park is looking a success

Adam Dunn totally sucks and Eric Hosmer looks for real (went to game)

Danny Espinosa is having a great year and I predicted that one.

CHECK out : EMA ,TY Segall ,Real EState ,Cass McCombs county line, any SHeepeater records out of Hailey Idaho,

Neptune COllection (folkways) ,Crazyhead 12″,  ROn and SHirley Rock and Scroll

Matador’s running a contest to see who can come up with the best replacement for “b___  j__” in the chorus to Senator. Will the winner have his/her lyrics recorded by Stephen and pressed onto a one of a kind 7″ record? Yes! Will they receive songwriting royalties? No! (read the lengthy submission agreement and contest rules). We want this song to be a massive radio hit, so get cracking.

http://whatdoesthesenatorwant.com/

We’re having lots of fun practicing for the upcoming tour; re-learning all the songs off Mirror Traffic with Jake, plus dusting off a few deep-ish tracks from the first 4 records. Also, over the course of the last year plus, Stephen’s written a whole new album’s worth of tunes, so we’ll probably play a few different new ones every night. And we’re learning some surprise covers too, so it should make for a fun show.

We’re gearing up on the promo front too, doing some interviews and photo shoots (even snuck into the Mayor’s office for one), and lining up some release week events, which we’ll announce as soon as they get confirmed, so stay tuned…

“Hey its May 2011– and we have some updates. Yeah, the new album is called “Mirror Traffic”. There was a lot of deliberation on the album title front but in the end we went the cryptic route–for some reason “Madonna in Love” didnt swing it with the test market. FOr a long stretch when it was gonna be called “L.A. Guns”, but with lawsuits flying left and right these days, I was talked off the ledge by cooler minds. This is bad form to talked about what might have been, Negative Hypnosis, but in the age of tell-all I thought I’d join in.

We recorded it with Beck over the last year. It took a while to finish due to “Life”–the actual “rock hours” were pretty reasonable……..in fact 68% of the tracking, vocals included, took place on one day, a first for me. We pretty much left it all out there, so look for 50 minutes of tunage, 13 songs, and LOTS of good times.

Also, Janet Weiss is not with us anymore–over the last year she started Wild Flag …..its a growing concern–We couldn’t hit the daily double. We wish her well in her future shredding. …

THe silver lining — Jake Morris of the Joggers and newly hatched Night Moves has assumed the throne, and it’s a pretty swank fit. Look for us in all the usual places in September.

THats all for now. Thanks y’all
steve