Pre-Tour Rumblies, Kids, and Alana is famous.

Chris just spent a week back in town…It was a week filled with practices galore, shows, and loads of hang-time….

(Source: fiercebad.com)

FOCOMX this weekend is the best time in Fort Collins in the spring.  Our own grass roots home built music festival.  If you haven’t gone before you really should! We play tonight at the Aggie at 11:00pm and then there are some really great bands playing tomorrow. Check out http://focomx.focoma.org/

for the line up

Oh the All Mighty Tour and Its Infinite Wisdom -or- Hooray For Cheesecurds

So, before moving on - a word about our Midwest stint…

This one was a short-but-sweet, keep-your-heads-up-and-off-the-sticky-bar, that-is-the-biggest-blizzard-I’ve-seen-which-we’re-about-to-drive-through, kind of tour. There were some hairy moments on and off the road, as there usually are.

The midwest is great because of the people. Certainly, the weather is not what makes it a warm and inviting experience every time. Here’s what happened:

Lincoln…The Zoo Bar, A wonderfully packed house

Kansas City…Cousin Harry, The incident of Dayton’s tube-amp tubes, Riot Room and GUSTO, we get our kicks…

Des Moines…Talking Heads, The Amish and the pear tree..

Wausau…Cheese Curds, Nigel with the red afro - not the employed cook but grilled the fish anyway, the blizzard and Reservoir Dogs

Chicago….Elbo Room, Keith Richards’ autobiography, Blake (my Dovekins compatriot) and I reunite, I get stalked by an enormous kitty at Linoln Park Zoo

Davenport….Great sound at the show, great turnout, Mom and Dad swooped on in and had cocktails with the mates stuck around for the show (they were on a road-trip of their own..), saw the Blues Brothers statue, “does Darla have teeth?”, Crash Test Dummies…

Lawrence…Thunderstorms and Thai food, The Jackpot, Let’s go home…

Thanks to Dayton’s premium driving we made it back in one piece. That may have been one of the more scary trips in all these years of touring! Made the top three anyway. I-70 was closed at one point, semis were lining parts of the highway, strewn about, tossed away like their slim jim wrappers. Yikes. I think we were all mega-relieved to be seeing the mountains that morning…

See ya there,

Max

It’s Not Always Easy….

This morning my wife, sounding some what alarmed, said “honey you need to look at the van!”  It seems last night someone broke the window of our van.  An act of vandalism or drunken carelessness.  Nothing was stolen (although nothing was in there, but a dollar and some AWESOME chili cheese Fritos), but now we have a broken window, which we will pay money to replace…cause we have to.  Thank you drunk guy (or girl?), vandal, or sworn enemy of FBR.  Your timing was impeccable, we get it.  You don’t like us. 

I would like to say 2012 ended really well. We produced an album we are really proud of.  Working with Andrew Berlin on The Maestro was so much fun and we had  a great time recording it.  We left for Christmas break, came back together ready to kick 2013 off, but there was a bit of a snag. Maybe you’ve heard,  but all of our things were stolen…all of our gear.  It was about 24 hours before we were scheduled to play a wedding in Estes and 2 days before a series of CD release shows we were scheduled for through the month of January.  So we made some phone calls and everyone in the community came together (thank you!) and loaned us gear.  Later, local musicians put on a benefit show to help absorb the costs that we incurred in trying to replace all of this stuff.  Again, we thank you. 

Limping along, piecing gear together, one bit at a time (thank you mom for the keyboard), show after show playing on different things and trying to get back to our fun selves has been difficult. But, we’ve been able to pull it together and are feeling like we are getting back to where we were, back in November before we took a break. 

Waking up today finding out another cost, another outside “attack” if you will, deflates you.  Whatever happened to playing music? Maybe I should write a song about it….

Some positive things coming, as the days get warmer, and festivals and outdoor shows start to come together, it seems 2013 could shape up to be not so bad.  We can’t wait to head to Austin to play at SXSW.  We are all ready to get on the road (with a fixed window). We are excited to visit our friends in Amarillo (The 806 3/12) and to have what we hope to be the most busy SXSW we’ve done so far…so keep an eye on our calendar.

If you haven’t gotten to hear our new album you can stream it here on our website (www.fiercebad.com) and buy it, if feeling so inclined.  This is the most fun I think we’ve all had making an album.

So…to the vandals and thieves trying to bum us out and make our lives difficult and to 2013 and its awesome start of forcing us to “pull ourselves up by our boot straps” in the words of ELO “Don’t bring me down!” 

ENJOY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj8kMmUxkSE

-Chris

Get tickets for FBR’s NYE CD release party here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/302721 #maestroandtheelephant

Laying low for a few weeks and finishing up our upcoming album ‘The Maestro And The Elephant’ We will see you all at Hodi’s Half Note in Fort Collins on New Years Eve for our release party!

Please help us reach our goal of funding our upcoming album!  We only have 5 days left! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1307141000/new-album-the-maestro-and-the-elephant-by-fbr