hey there. so my christmas break is nearly over. school starts monday. my new years resolution is to regain my early 20′s easy confidence. somehow i’ve been wringing my hands about the dumbest things. no mas. i don’t wear nervous very well. so anyhow, the break was good. i slept in every day, stayed up late, watched a lot of tv, and rented some movies. i can’t really complain. but i have to say that the coldplay album kinda ruined my break – “warning sign” is really a staggeringly sad song. no wonder gwyneth passed me over for the coldplay singer. ben kweller/spoon is on austin city limits tonight. later.

arrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!! alright, alright!! i recant. the solo rhett miller album is a masterstroke. “this is what i do” and “world inside the world” and “terrible vision” are really good. you knew i’d come around anyway. i have a soft spot for that guy. i thought the old 97′s formula was played out by wreck your life, even though lots of people went nuts for the next album. but who cares? fight songs was where it’s at. big star and beatles melodies. brilliant pop songwriting. satellite rides was kinda shite except for murray’s “up the devil’s pay” which will get its due in 20 years. but i’m cool with the new rhett album. now if he’d just cut his hair, get rid of the highlights, throw out the couture, and get his hair cut by an old man who charges $6.

the new folk implosion album is finished. i can’t wait to see lou.

hmm…so i’m thinking of what to say. the summer’s been pretty perfect. some highlights: a few barbecues, centre court at wimbledon, debauchery in manchester, being freaked out at 3 am by david lynch’s mulholland drive, reading jhumpa lahiri’s collection of short stories, seeing will johnson play a solo show at a bbq joint in denton tx, and helping my parents move into a new house. not much going on other than that. oh yeah, the ben kweller album’s been rocking my world. i don’t know how that brat did it. i wonder if the kids that worshipped ben’s old band radish know how good he is now. anyway, on wednesday i fly up to nashville to start recording the new foxymorons album, hesitation eyes. how do i explain this album? words, words…it’s hard to describe really. i won’t say “textured” or “pretty” or “weird.” but it really will be those things, i think. i guess i’ll just say that it will be another blazing rock-and-roll record by the foxymorons. we’ve got about 15 songs to work with, so we’ll see. oh, and saturday we’ll be playing a full-on rock show in nashville at the sutler. if you’re around, i’ll see you there. or have dinner with us at prince’s hot chicken. david’s paying.

so summer’s here, and i’m cruising around europe on a “study” abroad program. hilarious. i tell you what… so i heard the white stripes played mtv music awards? interesting. and just when i was going to get rid of cable. i guess the white stripes color-coded uniforms appeal to the kids more than the band-of-epsteins known as the strokes (welcome back kotter reference courtesy of my pal, erik). the strokes, the white stripes – i don’t care anymore. i’d like to get behind someone, but i’ve been on the sidelines ever since ginger spice broke up my favorite band of the post-nirvana 90′s. i saw that rhett miller played that played-out mtv show some weeks back. i was all for the quasi-mullet and striped shirts, but i think rhett’s lost it completely now. look, i love him as much as the next guy – he’s well-read, talented, nice, and a 7th-generation texan – but why must he unbutton his shirt to his bellybutton when he plays? sex sells, i guess. i don’t care – i’ll buy the solo album anyway. oh, the foxymorons will be recording much of the highly-anticipated, warped mesquite classic “hesitation eyes” this august. sound as ever…………..

hey, hey, hey. foxymoron jerry here. evan was good. i’ll post the review i gave david: evan came out sporting a beard, long hair, and his trusty acoustic. played all the old standards + the velvets + victoria williams + gram. i thought the new song “all my life” and “hard drive” are pretty good. “all my life” is actually pretty great. i wish he’d work harder.

i don’t have much else to say. i’ve been listening to yankee hotel foxtrot like nobody’s business. what a record. i’m on spring break and we’ve got lots of songs to record. if we don’t get together this week, david will record some basic tracks by himself. rest assured, hesitiaton eyes will come out and it will be good. later.

why haven’t i heard of Loobiecore before. it’s lou barlow’s own personal website. lots of cryptic artsy pages and some mp3s! i miss lou. jerry saw lou solo acoustic once. i’m going to see centro-matic tonight in nashville. nothing else is new. no plans for the recording of our record yet. we’ve got the songs, just no recording plans. we’re on the sxsw standby list… again. we’ve been asked every year that we apply, but we had to turn them down last year. i hope they ask us sooner this year.

howdy from tennessee. hope everyone had a swell holiday season. i was able to visit relatives in both texas and california. for christmas i got a new acoustic guitar from my parents that i plan on using during the recording of the next foxymoron album. it’s the perfect little guitar to have sitting around the house. i can grab it on a whim and work out a new song or melody that’s floating around my head. i also received three harmonicas but i don’t really know how to play them yet. i think harmonicas are cool but i don’t want to sound like alanis or anything. maybe we’ll find a tasteful way to use them on the new record.

the new record, the new record, yadda, yadda, yadda. it’s kinda strange to have an entire record written but not recorded. we’ve never really been in this situation before. hopefully by spring we’ll have some definite plans or news to share with you. in the meantime all i can say is that we’re strongly leaning toward calling the album hesitation eyes. that’s the name of one of our new songs plus we think it’s just a cool title. we just know that we didn’t want to name the album after a city again.

in recent news, i posted information how to obtain your very own foxymorons sticker. yes, we’ve finally joined the ranks of millions of other bands, and created stickers. now we can plaster rest rooms all across america with the good message of the foxymorons.

i also posted our old SXSW debut concert video on the web. it was our first concert ever so please be sure you go check it out. it’s a real bootleg blast. sxsw didn’t allow cameras or video equipment but my cool mom was able to sneak her video camera in. thanks mom! now you can see thirty minutes of blazing rock-n-roll engery with a bunch of nervous stage banter.

i also want to apologize for all my jumping around. i guess i was really excited to be playing. i think i was also excited to be playing guitar. at that point in my life, i was playing a lot of bass with the luxury liners so maybe i was just jumping for joy due to having a guitar around my neck. i did have (i mean “get”) to play bass on one song though. our bass player for the night, chad edgington, played guitar during broken heart. boy am i glad we switched. his solo was so ripping and dripping with country twang. (it was so good we totally forgave him for singing the first chorus too long.) chad’s excellent harmony vocals really made it a top notch concert too. action jackson chang played keyboards and carlos jackson was the drummer that night. it’s a true crime that you can’t see jackson on the video. he was a dancing fool. his whistle blowing was a highlight during perfectly. that’s also the song where jerry’s guitar strap broke. classic foxymoron comedy relief. jerry also stopped the rock for a while when he layed down his axe to play jingle bells for the duke of gloucester. nice touch. the final song, ten time, is one of my favorites. everyone chanting the trivial lyrics to ten x and getting crazy on the freak-out noise drop-the-beat solo section. rock!

ahh yea! it’s back. they are once again streaming the new wilco album, yankee hotel foxtrot, over at wilcoworld.net. i was beginning to have withdrawals.

hope everyone had a good holiday. i went home to mesquite for a few days. luckily i didn’t have to see jerry! the ten hour drive did give me a chance to sort out the plans for next year. we plan to do some pre-production on the new album over christmas and start the recording in february in nashville. no plans or idea when/how it’ll be released.

the internet is an amazing resource tool for finding facts and information about all aspects of life. it’s also useful for finding out information on dumb stuff like this.

on a more musical note, we received our sxsw confirmation last week. so now we can wait with baited breath, praying, hoping, and crossing our fingers that we’ll get invited back again. feel free to join us in the cause. lets all cross our fingers and eyes right now in hopes that the foxymorons will get invited back to sxsw in march. thanks.

i guess we need to officially annouce the winner of the sticker design contest. look for the offical announcement on monday. i’ll be sending the design information to the plant then too. can’t wait to see them. i have a guitar case that is begging for a new sticker. have a good weekend.

here’s the report on my solo show. i’d never done one before so it took me a few songs to get used to the acoustic thing and knowing that i was “the boring acoustic guy” for the night. it was weird to not have a band to hide behind. luckily, i was warmed up after three songs. for the fourth song i played baby blue and gave a big plug for the band and our albums. as usual in nashville, i had to convince a few people i wasn’t lying. our name just lends it’s self to jokes. the first song, “the lazy librarian’s son” was awesome. the crowd was dead silent. it was like a foxymorons spell had been cast. i should have just left. jerry told me the same thing happened when he played it at his solo show. man, i can’t wait to record that one. all in all, i played luxury liners songs, foxymorons songs, and a few songs that i just wanted to play for the fun of it. i’d wanted to play more unreleased songs but i couldn’t remember all the words so i played it safe with older material.

here’s the set list:

1. it’s you – luxury liner song to get me warmed up

2. without you – luxury song

3. fifteen again – newer luxury song

4. baby blue – this song went pretty good

5. lazy librarian’s son – the best one of the night. it’ll be on our next album.

6. i love you – old david song

7. i wanna be with you – old david song

8. tell me tonight – old david song

9. waiting for the sun – luxury song

10. something out there – i laughed on the bridge just like on the record