CARRIKI!

Hi everyone.

I'm in a hotel in Kansas City, Missouri waiting til we need to drive down to the venue. These shows have been so amazing. We've been playing the most amazing venues, particularly Red Rocks in Denver and the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. Even if you're not from those areas, everyone should somehow find a way to see a show at those venues. There is nothing better. Also, when we played in Red Rocks, Dylan was playing the very next night, so obviously that contributed to the whole experience; reminding myself that he'd be standing in the exact same spot I stood in a matter of hours!

Our friend Matt Jacoby, who has come on this whole tour with us is gonna start writing in these blogs along with us. He has been helping us with gear, but more importantly he's been taking a lot of good photos and he's gonna start posting them on here. Now that we've sort of found or rhythm on this tour, I'm certain we'll be on here writing a lot more.

Here's our current set list:

Love is After Me
Save Your Ticket
Wilderness
Peace in the Valley
Awful Things
History of my Life
Blood and Guts

The majority of them are new ones mainly because when we get back from this tour, we wanna get that second record MADE. This tour has served as a real nice set up for that.

Also, we've been adding a lot of people to the email list and we're gonna start making that a lot more active. So if any of you blog readers are NOT on the email list, go to the myspace ..... www.myspace.com/simondawes ..... and there's a little link to sign up. And then we'll have yet another means of communication at our disposal.

Write back - I'll be reading and responding...promise.

-taylor

daytrotter

This is finally the blog you've all been waiting for. When we were in Austin Texas for SXSW we went down to the daytrotter studios to record some stuff live for their website. We thought it'd be really fun to ONLY do new songs for it. Something to listen back to I guess. And now they've posted all five on their website:

http://www.daytrotter.com/article/876/simon-dawes-conservation-of-blood-and-guts-with-a-bow-on-top

If you read that page, close to the top you'll see the little button that'll take you to the songs page. I hope you like it all.

And also, that is the first time I've ever seen a painting of myself, so you can imagine how exciting this is for me.

OTHER NEWS:
- TOMORROW'S THE WEDDING
- THE DAY AFTER IS THE FIRST INCUBUS SHOW IN ARIZONA
- TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY ARE THE LA INCUBUS DATES
- THURSDAY WE LEAVE TO SEE THE REST OF YOU FOR THE NEXT TWO MONTHS

Everyone comment back letting us know if you liked the tunes.

I hope you're all well.
-taylor

The Wedding Band

Hi.

So, first and foremost, go look at our friend's band Chief. www.myspace.com/chieftheband They're based out of new york but they've been in LA so we've gotten to see a couple shows in the last two weeks and I think you'd all really love it. We hope to be playing shows with them soon very soon.
I was thinking about it and it's really great that it feels like a lot of bands and writers are coming from the same place right now. Maybe I'm only hyper sensitive because that's where we're at. But with Chief, our friends in Delta Spirit, or our good friend Robert Francis (who has a record coming out soon on which our beloved Wylie plays some bass on), we all seem to be drawn to and drawing from the same pool. Here are some records that might help you know exactly what I mean....

Our Mother The Mountain - Townes Van Zandt
Everyone Knows This is Nowhere - Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Frisco Mabel Joy - Mickey Newbury
I Wanna See The Bright Lights Tonight - Richard & Linda Thompson

Maybe not. You might not see what I'm talking about at all. But at the very least, those are all great records.

We've been real busy with learning cover songs. We've been asked to be the wedding band a good friend's wedding and we have a list of 25+ songs to learn. The process has been so good for us, learning how different people approach the instruments and such, so we've been having a great time, but as you could imagine, it's been a lot of work for us. That's my justification for not blogging recently, so deal with it.

Also, tour's starting soon. Everyone have their tickets?
-taylor

From Headquarters at Debra Avenue

So, after not writing a blog in a long time, I had assumed that perhaps we had lost some of you readers. And then to my surprise, 22 comments and counting on that last blog. You were here all along! I should have never doubted you. Hopefully someday soon it'll be 500 times that.

Also, I read that we have a total of 3 UK fans that read our blog. A small number perhaps, but from what I know of them...they're fierce and as long as they keep telling people, and they keep telling people to tell people, it becomes exponential. That's the whole idea.

For news....

For everyone 21+ in LA, come to spaceland this Wednesday to see the Morning Benders. They're bass player couldn't make the trip so I get to sub in. I'm sure most of you have heard them already, but their music is wonderful.

Also, for anyone who hasn't heard or doesn't own the song we did for the Spiderman 3 soundtrack, it's available for download here....

http://mainstreamisntsobad.blogspot.com/2007/05/web-slinging-songs.html

Note: Anyone who makes that download, has to make a promise to his/herself that they will eventually buy it, or find some sort of way to contribute to Simon Dawes financially as payment.

I couldn't think up too much else for news other than we are thoroughly enjoying our new home and getting ready for the tour with incubus which is sneaking up on us, it seems. Do you all have your tickets already?

Finally, again, everyone in LA, keep June 17th open. We're gonna be playing at Little Radio. It's a during the day kind of thing with a water slide. It's clearly going to be a lot of fun. When I get more info, I promise to post it. Talk to you soon.

-taylor

Prose in my Grief (yet another fine suggestion)

Hi. I'm sitting in our friend Chris Chu of the Morning Benders' kitchen up in Berkeley. Everyone else is asleep. Blake on the couch, and Wylie in his sleeping bag.

'Why didn't you mention Stuart, Taylor?'

Oh, ummm....I guess there's a lot to say. Should I get into it?

'Yes, I'm very curious.'

The beloved Stuart Johnson is no longer a member of Simon Dawes. He's had certain circumstances come up in his life which make it so that it's not possible for him to be in a band right now. He has our blessing and understanding and hope we all end up playing music together very soon. THEREFORE, we've been playing with our good friend Darren Weiss of Wires on Fire for some shows, and some shows just the three of us with a more brokendown arrangement for the songs. Once we finish these colour dates, we'll be going home and finding out who will be playing for us on the upcoming incubus tour.

We found out last night that Tahoe is one of the most beautiful areas that we've seen. You should all find time to go see it. And if you happen to make that time around July 15th, we can experience it together, being that we'll be playing there at Harvey's Amphitheatre that night.

If anyone reads the comment from the wonderfully pleasant girl Hilary fresh on our myspace...let this be my opportunity to make it known that those words about Ernest Hemingway are HERS and regardless of their being a bit of truth in him being called a 'chauvinist,' I think of him with the highest regard and even wish to somehow learn to approach, understand and enjoy life in the same way he had (minus the suicide). Okay I said it! Now I feel better.

A couple blog entries down in '3:05 AM Thursday May 3, 2007,' a girl named Patricia posts in the comments, the lyrics to "Scared of Myself" from the Spiderman Soundtrack. That was very nice of her, and it is greatly appreciated, but there is ONE minor correction. The lyric in the third line isn't "rose in my tea," it's "rose in my TEETH"...Think more along the lines of a passionate latin dance, or even Zorro. While 'rose in my tea' definitely has strong suggestions of it's own (particularly aromatic) 'rose in my teeth' is more of the feeling I was trying to get across.

I know we've been slacking off with blog entries. We've had a lot going on. But I promise that the hiatus is over and that we will definitely talk very soon.

taylor

Ash-piring Directors in the May-king

Chris Chu of the The Morning Benders sent this over. A first...



Blake

Oregon and Washington don't exist

So, our dates with the Colour are up! - www.myspace.com/simondawes

But I guess that we aren't getting as far north as Oregon or Washington. How sorry I am. I know we're playing in Victoria, Canada. How far away is that? Everyone seems to be nicer in Canada anyway.

The picture on our myspace of our house is really our house, for all of you nonbelievers. Wylie covered up the address with the word 'perfection,' not only because he thinks so highly of his new home, but I guess he's worried about some of you gathering up your facts and finding out where the house was. I mean, even if any of you cared to come to our home, I'd be happy to see you. But I guess it's good that Wylie is better safe than sorry. He didn't include the picture of the roses that are blooming on the side of the house. When we went to inspect it before moving in, the house was in shambles. Smelled terrible, needed all new floors, needed walls to be repainted, needed all new appliances. Almost everything wrong that you could think of, but for some reason, out front, these roses looked as if they have had the most careful gardener ever:


Also, I recorded a Michael Jackson song. I hope you like it. www.recordcollectionmusic.com/SimonDawes/Ben.m4a


-taylor