Saturday, December 30, 2006

My 21st Christmas

Hello everyone. As some of you may already know, we are playing a show on the 10th of January at the Hotel Cafe here in Los Angeles. We're playing at 8 pm I think. Pretty early. Maybe we need to ease back into playing these live shows. We're also working on getting some residencies in February. And not just in LA bear in mind! I'll keep you updated.

Christmas was wonderful. I got Blake 'The Magical Mystery Tour' and 'Spencer Davis Group Live' dvds as well as the entire Police catalogue. He got me this amazing delay pedal that I couldn't be more excited to put to use. Now I can make as much noise as anyone else in this band. Wylie and I, unbeknownst to us at the time, got each other Yerba Mate tea sets. It's absolutely as pretentious as it sounds. Blake got Wylie a great graffitti art book, but I don't know what Wylie got Blake yet. Nor what's Stuart's gifts are (to and from) and I don't want to say what I got him in case he reads this.

Right now I'm off to look at rotary speakers for an organ. Let that be an indication of a Simon Dawes to come! Pray that I've found the best, cheapest rotary speaker in existence.

Tell your friends about Simon Dawes.
-Taylor

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

A belated holiday gift of sorts

Hope you enjoy it. Our buddy Matt Jacoby made it.
-Taylor

In Vain

I think it would be fun to play a house party for New Years. Anyone throwing a party in the greater Los Angeles area? Want us to play? How cool are your neighbors with loudness?

Was that lonesome comment on my last entry very dissapointing? That video is hillarious to good people. If Melissa is the sole reader of this blog, than the last entry was hugely successful. 100% Audience Participation. Thanks Melissa.

Hey Melissa, what's with the word "tragic"? And blueberries? What is the deal with blueberries? How do they manage to find their way into everything? Syrup, candy, soap, crayons, bagels, pancakes, muffins, my white collared shirt?

Jesus Christ had a good birthday. Daddy got him a Sex Machine.

I'm about to begin some sessions on Jonathan Rice's record. Lots of my friends are playing on these tracks. I'm very excited!

Why do my posts always read like bad stand-up comedy routines?

Thursday, December 21, 2006

3,367,626.88 Acres of Ancient Desert Swallowed My Link to Civilization

Sorry about the hiatus. I lost my computer charger in the middle of Death Valley, a National Park in California. About 3,300,000 acres of sand attacked my backpack. Stu and I went out there to be in a Honda commercial. They dressed us up in tuxedos, gave us a couple of mallets and timpani drums, and stuck us out in the bush with the car. It was about 36 degrees Fahrenheit. It sucked so bad that it rocked.

Today we have a video from Bas Rutten, champion bare knuckle boxer and streetfighter. He totally open mouth kissed my sister live on national TV at last year's Billboard Music Awards, and I couldn't do shit about it...



Don't forget to hide the spice bottle this Holiday season.

-Blake

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Fuel TV™ Segment Online!

Just uploaded our Fuel TV™ performance exclusively to africadabra™. I made it blog-exclusive in order to exclude others from viewing it. However, we reserve® the right to allow anyone™ and everyone© of various size and shape to view the clip®, granted they enjoy Snickers™ candy bars and/or other Snickers™ products.


Click© the Trademark™:


Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The Grand Opera

I just got back home from our playing at this charity event at the roxy. We had somewhat of a stripped down approach and only played 4 songs, as did all the other acts. Friends like Tim Curren, John and Tony from Mellowdrone and Z from the Like played as well. On her chosen cover, 'Ode to Billie Joe' by Bobbie Gentry, Z had Blake and I come onstage and accompany her, while she lived out her kareoke fantasies...brilliantly ironic for a lead singer in a band. I'm not exactly clear on what the charity event was for, and I rarely do with these kinds of situations. I should probably take more of an interest.

For our more passionate readers, we've been considering different avenues to take with this 'blogging' business. We've thought to show you our developing shirt and merchandise ideas, or somehow incorporating some kind of shorts or videos made by us...a sort of artistic output through a different medium (I would imagine most of those being documentary or instructional, but not by any means serious). We've even been considering sharing appropriate recordings (be it early demos, good songs that seemed to have fallen by the wayside, or even NEW SONGS) to show you guys.

Definitely pictures as well.

Your thoughts? Feel free to add to this list of possibilities.

Also, let this news remain unofficial and something we can back out of at any time we please if it at any point becomes too ambitious, BUT... we have a possible residency coming up in January, and if it works out, we're going to be playing 4 completely separate shows in which we won't play the same song twice. 40+ songs in 4 shows. I've got a lot of confidence in us. Once things become confirmed any further, I'll keep you updated.

Blake Mills told me tonight that he listens to nearly 12 hours of music throughout the day. Now you know the secret.

Saturday, December 9, 2006

Season's Greetings

From where I'm sitting I can see the piano and the highway.

I like you.
I don't like you.
You help me get a cup of coffee.
hee hee hee

Taylor: I'm trying to get this blog typed up for a lot of reasons. Mainly to make sure that people don't think I've stopped posting them.
Laptop: But Taylor, don't you think you're ignoring the fact that there's a part of you that enjoys writing these blogs?
Taylor: Yeah, you might be right.
Laptop: Why do you think that's the case?
Taylor: Well, I guess I selfishly enjoy talking about myself.
Laptop and Taylor together: Maybe that's why (I/you) write songs.

You want a boy to melt your heart
I want a drink to melt my face

Thursday, December 7, 2006

Photo Journal

I thought it might be sweet to post a few pics from the tour. I mean what the hell else is there to do in Las Vegas when you're 20? Already seen the aquarium at Ceaser's. Gotten plenty sauced off the house wine at Hole In The Wall.
I may not have the gambling man's budget, but I'm working on his stomach; I handled one of the most pathetic waffles in the Western Hemisphere this morning. Served here.


I love our tour manager. Driving us 12 hours through the middle of the desert takes a very certain breed of dude. Say hello to a very certain Chris Warndahl this morning.


Let's see... one more. Came out of Everyday Music in Portland with some good stuff.


Plus more, but this is getting sorta boring. Catch you on the flip my little babies.

Monday, December 4, 2006

Downsides to the Information Age

This camera business is so difficult for us. None of us know how to hold a camera correctly and none of us know what we're supposed to talk about or film. We need a person on this tour with us that only mans the camera. I'm confident that something will definitely be able to be derived from this, but we are so collectively inept with all of this sort of thing.

Trouble
Trouble
Trouble

We're in Vancouver right now and the shows couldn't be going better. The guys in both Wolfmother and Silversun Pickups could not be nicer and the audiences are very responsive.

Set list for those who couldn't make it:

Love is After Me
Save Your Ticket
Salute The Institution
Blood and Guts
End Of Everyday
Execution Song

Also, I thought of this great idea. If everybody reading this would immediately following the completion of the blog, call or email a friend and introduce them to simon dawes in one way or another. I realize you may not feel like it at the moment, but once you did, you'd probably smile to yourself and if you told me about it, I'd smile to myself and then we'd probably become friends and you'd most definitely be getting into all of our shows in your town for free. That's not a joke. But don't look at it as an incentive. See it as a reward. And the great thing is that if you don't feel like it, I'll never know.

Talk soon.

Saturday, December 2, 2006

A blogger's blogger's blog

It's difficult for our fragile L.A. body temperatures to get accostomed to those of up here near Portland. I'm concerned that at least one of us will be sick soon.

We've spent the entire day driving. Our manager Ryan came with us for the first couple shows, which is a rarity and a pleasure, I brought the first season of 'Lost' for the other guys to watch and they seem to be very much enjoying it, and Current TV has given us a camera for us to film this entire tour. Once Stuart, excited about any sort of visual documentation, got a hold of the camera, he's spent a lot of his time filming trees and gas stations and things. Enjoy, Current TV!

Also, in regards to this blog...As undoubtedly proud you all are of me staying punctual in writing to all of you, I've never really been familiar with the nature of these things, so if there is any way I'm supposed to approach it or any way you want me to approach it, I'm willing to do so. Basically, start leaving comments on these things, and through which we can start somewhat of a correspondense.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

In the throes of anticipation!

We leave in two days for our wolfmother shows and I'm proud to say new material will be played. You might be thinking, 'hmpf, their record just came out and they think it's appropriate to play new material?' You might be right. We probably should stay pretty true to the record and push the songs as you'd hear them on the cd itself in order to give people an accurate impression of a new band. By all past understanding of how to make a record successful, we should probably look less forward to writing new songs and redefining older ones. You might even say that we should do this all for the sake of new audiences. But if you DIDN'T say that, then maybe you'd be as excited as we are. If nothing else, we want to never be boring.

Some new song titles for you to think about what they sound like based on the title alone:

Triangular Syntax
Blood and Guts
Bedside Manner
Love is After Me

Collective recent interests of the band:

Klaus Kinski
Glen Danzig
Disrupting small birthday parties
Wylie's new glasses
Eating for blood type or veganism?

Lastly, a couple of nights ago an older friend said to us 'People don't know who I think I am.' And I thought I should definitely share that.