Here Come The Warm Jets

I'm on the way to Coachella. Heatstroke be damned. Thanks to the magic of the interweb I can throw all of this together on a moving bus. Who knew? Last night I shunned the bright lights of Vegas for a proper night's sleep. I'm fighting some near-debilitating insomnia lately that keeps me up until about 6am every morning. The only possible upside is that I'm getting lots of work done, as well as plenty of reading and shoddy movie watching. I can say, with utter certainty, that neither Rambo nor Dead Alive have lulled me to pleasant slumber. And the tour rolls on. Eugene, Oregon was a good one, from what I can recall.






















































We were also in Eureka for a day off this week.

It was oddly comical being in Humboldt County, the marijuana capital of most of this side of the world, on April 20th. Unfortunately there wasn't much to mention other than an impromptu drum circle (which, to be honest, happens every day anyway), an unusually long line at Denny's and more than four people at the movie theatre to see that new Keaneau Reeves movie. Yeah, grass does strange things to people. Often it means terrible movies and the occasional drum circle, but sometimes there is chocolate cake involved.

The most fascinating thing about this little promo tour so far has been the odd re-branding, I guess, of the band. It's a new record and (sort of) a new image. I made a new backdrop. We had to throw away a stack of glossy head shots because Nick now has a beard, and didn't like my idea of implementing a 'beard stamp' to cut costs. The last tour, to every one's dismay, seemed to conjure up artwork and images (by sources other than the band) almost exclusively of hearts and birds. Honestly, and with no logical explanation, the collective consciousness of poster makers and ad-men worldwide could only come up with, when faced with the task of promoting a death cab show, a damn bird flying out of a heart-shaped tree, or a heart with the wings of a bird, or a bird with hearts for legs or something. This time around it has become a parade of cartoons of the band with huge, over sized bobble heads. I've seen it several times so far, and I'm not sure I like the new direction. One of the more shocking designs featured the image of the drummer, who must have been added as an afterthought, and with little or no room to fit in a fourth giant, balloon head. He came away with a half-body rendering resembling more of a potato. Someone asked if it was the Dalai Lama. However funny, the likeness is, unfortunately pretty uncanny, and naturally the picture ended up on an amp, so that it could be shared with a new group of people each and every night.















If you need me I can be found in the desert...