okkervil river

i got an email this morning, a reply from one i sent a good month-and-a-half ago, from will sheff, frontman for okkervil river. in it he apologized for the late response and explained that he was taking a month off of playing music before his new record drops and he hits the road for the rest of time. i had asked if he would like to play at this book launch that is happening in nyc tomorrow. instead, i will be playing, as will slim moon and what army. apparently there are no microphones at the place so it should make for an interesting evening.

anyway, the reason i am posting this is that moments after receiving that email, i stumbled upon this wonderful interview with will from the (also wonderful) believer magazine and thought you might like it. i think getting interviewed by the believer and having a little drawing of yourself on the top of the page would be one of the best things ever.

the watson twins

last nite the watson twins came thru town with the ineffable, lavender diamond. it was nice to catch up and got some good heart-to-heart time in there. both those girls (and both those boys, while we're at it) have huge hearts and it is nice to see them finally getting out and getting some attention. we talked about the book some, let chandra know that her story about the kentucky derby parties made the cut. she then proceeded to fill me in on this year's happenings which took place only a few weeks ago. hilariously, this little backyard hodown has blossomed into a full-fledged "event," even going so far as to have maker's mark sponser the thing.

i went to a derby party here this year. i made a succotash, donned a suit and won $53. it was fun but just made me miss los angeles and all the friends there that i left last year. luckily, they all come thru on tour pretty regularily so that's cool.

more fun trivia: in talking with the twins, i realized that the polaroid on the cover of real fun was taken at a derby party. someday, when the party spans several blocks and includes vendors and rock bands on multiple stages, i imagine we'll all look back on that hot aqua with much fondness.

here's a polaroid of chan and russ singing songs on my porchswing that didn't make the real fun cut.

fiver

since some anon friend asked in the comments to the last post, and since magnet magazine will likely cut all my recent pontification on this very subject in favor of something more juicy, i thought i would address it here. by "it" i mean fiver. and by "fiver" i mean one of the best, most fun bands from the central valley circle circa the turn of the millenium. i met fiver when earlimart signed to devil in the woods and we hit it off instantly. they seemed poised to make a dent in the scene with some features in magazines and rad tours and whatnot but it never really came together as it did for say, death cab for cutie. i use dcfc as an example as both bands circled the nation together before anyone really knew who they were. one thing i tried to accomplish with my book was to give equal attention to both bands like death cab and bands like fiver, cuz in my mind, they are very equal. it would be amazing if some o.c. kid went out and tried to find a fiver cd because of their early ties to death cab. likewise, there are some other bands that you should track down if you want to connect some of these dots:

tigers can bite you - affectionately known as tcby, this very-fiver sounding band features fiver's mainest man, dave woody, as well as sammy (ariana from earlimart's lil sis) and byron (of let's go sailing, sea wolf, and lots of other bands) and maybe a couple of other people i don't know very well.

dan and sean - the latter replaced the former in fiver and together they made up the amazing stabone and demar rock group. both may or may not have hands in these pies as well as countless others, i'm sure: i love lamp, wizard combat, the twin commandments, and kid mud. someday i pray for a massive gbv-esque boxset of all of the f'd up stuff these dudes are constantly creating.

i don't know what kind of music luis and zach are making but i think they are still involved in stuff from time to time. i do know that guitarist chris doud made a wonderful record of pirate chanties and apparently now is branching out into other forms of music from the outskirts. he also contributes to the good luck thrift store outfit, a ragtag bluegrassy kick up your heels cuntry bar band that features aaron burtch of grandaddy behind the kit. truly a force to be reckoned with.

speaking of burtch, here's another glowing response to the book that will maybe help convince you to go buy if you haven't yet:

"hey ashod....
the book's really awesome. thanks for including the flattering photo of me outdoorin'...you did an incredible job with the concept and the words and photos and all...
nice fuckin' work.....
aaron"

hop to it...link to buy from amazon over there---->

fan mail

even better than the positive press that is starting to trickle in (here, and here, and here) is letters like this from old friends. i use the word "fan mail" lightly but i say with much heaviness that i am very much a fan of this dude. luis played bass in the version of fiver that accompanied earlimart on our first national tour. it was a two month trek that is pretty well documented within the pages of real fun. not documented is the fact that luis left us in denver to fly home and birth his baby girl, missed one (cruddy) show in salt lake city, and flew back and met us in new mexico to finish up the last few days of tour. totally golden dude. anyway, this showed up in my inbox the other day:


"I have read through the pages you made. Quite a few times.. read all the words and studied all the photos. I think you did a fantastic job.. with context and content. I think your vision definitely held true..You depicted the interconnectivity of many people trying to create and express and most importantly have fun while adventuring. Looking through brought back many memories and its neat that as a whole everyone involved even people i havent met within those pages... i still felt connected."

there was some other stuff, too, but in the back of my head, what luis says here is definitely something i was shooting for and i am ecstatic to hear that i was, at least, somewhat successful in achieving that.

feel free to send your thoughts my way - ashod at ashodsimonian.com - i am curious to know what folks are thinking/feeling as they finally have the opportunity to flip through this thing.