The October Update: JJ got to the bottom of the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah hype. The Astros are in the World Series! Our dancing keyboard player, Jackson, got married. I had a song written about me. Brian and I saw our first South San Gabriel show. We demoed a ton of new songs. The new Silver Jews album was released. Our friend Duke started a music blog. The new My Morning Jacket blew my mind. Halloween is on a Monday. Oh, and we're playing in Philadelphia for the first time.

we're leaving for a long california weekend tomorrow and i'm finally getting my packing done. it's hard to cram merch, cds, pedals, and a guitar in a carry-on suitcase. this calls for some extreme measures. i might have to "check" some baggage. the horror. anyways, drummer brian and i are flying out of nashville and hooking up with jerry in el lay. our pals duke and sylvia have hooked us up big time with some cool shows and lodging. a guy i've never met, stan, will be our bass player for the shows and none of it could be done if our boy diaz wasn't providing all the gear. cheers all around. it's all out of our hands and i couldn't be happier. nothing's getting in the way of my california vacation.

Well, the album is officially finished. I picked up the masters last weekend. Mixing and mastering have both been completed and all that's left to tackle is the artwork. We're currently duking it out over all the proposed cover ideas. Maybe we should just take a cue from the Beatles and make it a solid color. No muss, no fuss - over and done with. The Foxymorons - The Aqua Album.

All in all, this project has been a blast to work on. Our first two albums were recorded really quickly over stolen weekends with all of the recording dependant upon the goodwill and graciousness of our producer friends. This time around we were in 100% control of every aspect of the recording. We bought the gear, learned to use it, engineered it, and performed it. Heck, we even fired ourselves a few times!

The Hesitation Eyes album, while ridiculously drawn-out, was certainly more of a labor of love. It highlights the last 4 years of our lives in a way that we never really intended or imagined. It goes without saying that we're extremely anxious to share the new album with people. We'll have more info about the official release date in the coming months. There's a finally a light at the end of the tunnel!

Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to get back to fighting over non vs. serif fonts, CMYK color, and royalty-free images.

so i flew out to los angeles last weekend to see jerry and take care of some foxy band business. last time i was out there our lil' buddy was living on a series of friend's couches. this time was a different story - he's living in a wicked cool apartment on sunset boulevard. i felt like i was on that show melrose place. one of his neighbors is winnie cooper! she's just as foxy as a grownup as she was as a middle school nerd. (did that make sense?)

jerry took me on a tour of the 20th century fox studios lot. we bought drinks from a lunch cart and walked around looking at all of the production companies, studios, and external sets. really cool. didn't see any movie stars while on the lot though.

another highlight of the trip was getting an all-access tour of the capitol records building. historic basements studios, mastering facilities, circular hallways, and the vip party roof. we took the trip up the elevator with an a&r guy and another band about to sign with capitol. we also scored a big bag full of free swag from capitol artists so might hear some new beastie boys influence on our new album. big thanks to rachel.

we spent a bunch of time walking around neat little neighborhoods and shopping for thrift store duds. we both scored some sweet polyester pants and western shirts. my favorite streets were melrose and vermont. other highlights included amoeba records, lo-fi tshirts, rodeo drive, hermosa beach, santa monica, and the 3rd street promenade. jj bought a swatch at the swatch store. thanks to duke for once again being a great tour guide and helping me pick on jerry too.

we ate at a bunch of really good restaurants while i was out there. the first being roscoe's chicken and waffles. i love that place. one fried chicken breast served along side a big ole' waffle and syrup. it's an odd combination but very tasty. swingers was the name of another place where i ordered the $5 milkshake and fries. we ended up eating breakfast twice in a row at a place right next to jerry's apartment called the griddle. they serve a wide variety of enormous pancakes. i ordered oreo pancakes the first day and berry pancakes the next day. jj went with pumpkin and something else that i can't remember. one evening we had a really bad experience at a mexican place ironically called, malo. luckily we were with good friends but the bad service was comical.

jj played me 3 new songs for our next album. yeah, i'm sorry if you're getting confused at home. our "new" album, hesitation eyes, won't come out until 2005 but we're in the writing stages of our "next" album. hey, that's what we do. i didn't have much to play him. i need to get busy. thanks to jj for another great la weekend.

the foxymorons were devastated to hear about the death of elliott smith last month. he's been a longtime hero of ours and an inspiration. we accidentally saw him open for sebadoh in austin back in 1996. there aren't many artists whose entire catalog i own. he's the reason i'm still not embarrassed to play a crummy yamaha acoustic with a dean markley pickup. we've chased his sound on many of our recordings. when i was in los angeles last august we went to his favorite bar in hopes he might be there and we even took cheesy tourist photos in front of the figure 8 mural. we were lucky enough to see him perform at a sparsley attended kinks tribute that same weekend. i remember being shocked to see him smile during one song. last night jerry went to a los angeles concert in his honor. here's the story from mtv.

hey, wilco cleans up pretty nice. check out these excellent photos from the recent chicago show. i looks like they had some extra musicians on stage. cool.

i love the idea of jj living in california. i hope he ends up in the movies or getting one of our songs played on the wb. i can hear baby blue or august moon playing during an episode of the gilmore girls.

i'm looking forward to my trip out there in a couple weeks. he's gonna show me the town and all the happening joints. i know a trip to largo to see jon brion is on the schedule. i also plan to attempt surfing for the first time in my life. wish me luck. i hope this summer isn't a bummer for everyone.

congratulations are in order. jerry graduated from the university of texas business school today. i think that means people have to call him "master" now. way to go holmes! welcome back to the real world. college life is over... again. now, it's time to get some serious rocking done.

jerry's overseas again. i'm not really sure where this time though. one email came from singapore. another from malaysia. i wish i could say he was on a rock-n-roll tour over there but i think he's really just laying on the beach and meeting girls. sounds good to me. be safe bro! don't drink the water and don't forget to eat an applejack a day.

what the? i knew he was writing songs for a movie... but who put jack white in a movie? if any musician should be in a movie it should be jerry. he's the woody allen of our generation. girls, you know what i'm talking about.