If you didn’t get a chance to pick up copies in the wild have a listen here when ever you feel like it.  Enjoi!

Fools Gold/Loop Line:

After we finished our hang out sesh at the station, we had a few hours to poke around Santa Barbara, like tired hungry zombies. I fell asleep on the table at a coffee shop, and later in a park. It was perfect though since the weather was AMAZING!

After napping in nature (kind of) we toddled off to the Biko House, which was really awesome and made me miss being in college. The opening bands were Southern Belle and Mammory, who melted our hearts and wrapped the audience in yarn. The yarn was really fun to be a part of…until i had to pee and was stuck.  Both performers were simply the nicest people ever, and were also both gifted dancers, as were the rest of the attendees of the Biko Garage’s  evening soiree, and they showed us just how much they liked dancing. It ruled.

In between sets, we were treated to the room mates of our dancing friends, who were practicing their fire dancing skills in preparation for a trip to burning man. I don’t know where, but sometime in the last two years, I’ve lost my love of poi. My brief encounter with these beach-bum-stilt-walkers made me realize that I am going to quit my job and move to burning man and pursue a new career as a circus performer. I have yet to decide my specialty, but I have definitely narrowed it down to involve fire and basket weaving.

The next day we visited my family in Orange County, and Andy went to see some friends, and we reconvened and went to some intense bar in Costa Mesa. Day off was essential, and easy, as I lazed and ate most of the day. Today sees the most intense drive we will have for the whole of tour, then we shed our rock and roll garb and reenter society as every day working stiffs with secret powers. I’ll leave you with this picture, to remind you of the only reason you would ever think of stopping in Redding California.

So we’re on the longest stretch of driving that we’ve had to do so far, and its been an eventful couple of days.

We arrived early in Medford, which was a nice break from showing up right on time for the show. We laid by the pool and napped for what felt like a million years. After lazing for a good 3 hours, we went on radio KSKQ and did an interview which you can listen to on The Alternative Show’s Blog

The Ashland show was at my dear friend Amy’s gallery The MAda Shell Gallery” where we performed in front of a life sized portrait of the execution of Big Bird. This was our ultimate anarchist moment. There was butcher paper on the walls and all in attendance were encouraged to paint they’re visual interpretation of our music. The final result was some really cool sketches, outlines, and a cartoon ant saying “totally awesome”! It ruled.

We got up early and were ready to take San Francisco by storm. Unfortunately the wheels of our Honda didn’t seem to share our same ambitions, and we were stuck in Corning California for an hour getting new tires, which blew. Then our car decided the new tires were cool, and we got on our way.

We arrived in San Fran a little later than we though, but decided to grab some crepes, and then made our way to the Hemlock Tavern, which is a super clutch venue. Not only did we have a good crowd, but that crowd was made up of a lot of old friends, including a few that I haven’t seen in about 12 years, which was nutty and amazing. We played a fun set with SF band Endroit,3 and realized we have to be in Santa Barbara at 12 the next morning, so scurried back to the hotel and hit the hay. Anyone in the SoCal area who can get KCSB’s radio signal around 12:30 should tune in, we’ll be playing and interviewing before our show at the Biko House.

Day 2 into tour, and we actually didn’t feel very much at all like we were touring. A trip to Seattle and back in one day doesn’t really count. I guess that’s why the Portland show really felt like the beginning. Might I add that the Portland show FUCKING RULED! In addition to playing with two of the coolest new bands, Pocket Knife and WishYuNu, we got Stumptown moving! People danced they’re asses off and we had a blast, and saw a lot of friends and made a lot of new ones. Way to go Portland, really showed Seattle a thing or two about your dancing shoes.

We took the next day off, and kicked it around Portland. I hung with old friends and Andy went to Rontoms. As I had been out for like 3 nights in a row, and started Sunday with a morning bender that ended at the Doug Fir, I fell asleep promptly at six, and woke up at 8 the next morning giddy to get on the road. We arrived, enjoyed a few glasses of Ninkasi beer at the brewery, and got some grub, and were ready to play Cowfish. Cowfish is the new hip spot in Eugene, and doesn’t look like it belongs in Eugene. It was a really fun show and we saw a lot of old friends. Unfortunately a mic got snagged…boo. Post show we went out and met this guy, he was pretty rad.

Seattle is a funny place to start a tour. Let me start by saying that I”m totally into it. It’s a fun town! We arrived greeted by take-offs and landings of seaplanes, the smell of the

bay, and traffic…a shit ton of traffic. Luckily we made it to the bar way before sound check.

The bar was pretty cool. I’ve played Seattle twice before, but only in people’s basements, so it was kinda cool to see the people that go to shows at venues.

At the beginning of the night, we couldn’t really tell what kind of people went out to venues, mainly because no one was at the venue…We kicked up our heels and jammed, and wouldn’t you know, the people they came! It was some real life Field of Dreams shit.

We we’re happy with our set, performed well, and people had lovely things to say. The

following bands were really great too! Er Don and Tito Ramsey Were really great, wonderful people.

The next morning we played tourist for a split second at pikes place (ate some bomb Piroshkys and Donuts) and continued on our way to the Seattle Stumptown. We were skeptical, but ultimately pleased, as the interior was pretty damn hip.

Our way home was mellow and uneventful, which is probably good. Andy and I chatted for most of the way, and given that 24 hours together has = zero diva fits, we can safely assume that DoublePlusGood is officially the most successful bro/gay duo since Ernie and Bert! See if you can find the 10 differences between these two photos.

It was wicked fun, we turned our practice space into a tv set, everyone smiled too big, and we all did the mash potato. Keep your eyes out for the clip towards the end of fall.

In other news, we leave for Seattle on Friday to begin our tour. We’re super stoked to get out of town, and meet a lot of people. Again, if you didn’t read the last post, our tour sched is:

Aug 20th – Mars Bar, Seattle (with Er Don)

Aug 21st – Backspace, Portland (with Wishyunu, and Pocket Knife)

Aug 23rd- Cowfish, Eugene

Aug 24th – MAda Gallery, Ashland

Aug 25th – Hemlock Tavern, San Francisco (with Endroit)

Aug 26th – Biko Garage, Santa Barbara

Hope to see you all out there, also check out this trailer for 531’s most recent movie, The Darkest Corner Of Paradise!

Aug 20 – Seattle – Mars Bar with Er Don and Tito Ramsey

Aug 21 – Portland – Backspace with Pocketknife and Wishyunu

Aug 23 – Eugene – Cowfish

Aug 24 – Ashland – MAda Shell Gallery

Aug 25 – San Francisco – Hemlock Tavern

Aug 26 – Santa Barbara – Biko Garage

Were really excited to get on the road and share some new stuff!

If thats too far off in the future for you, August 8th we’re playing a kickin’ show at Rontoms with Mnemonic (who’s new CD is fucking chronic!) and Dat’r. It’s free, and its a Sunday night, which is the new Saturday.

EVEN MORE EXCITING – 4 mixes are done for our album, and artwork is being done, and cool shit is starting to happen. We REALLY want to play the mixes for you but don’t want to spoil the surprise, you really get more out of waiting for something, you know, like the whole concept of DEFERRED GRATIFICATION. Anyways fellow Portlanders (and world wide people), enjoy this great weather!

8/19 – Vancouver

8/20 -PDX

8/21-  Seattle

8/22 – Salem

8/23 – Eugene

8/24 – Redding/Arcata/General N.California

8/25 – Sacramento

8/26 – San Francisco

8/27 – Santa Barbara

8/28 – LA

8/29 – San Diego

If you could repost this to anyone who has tour hookups/interest in bands, that’d be SOO cool!

-Erik

SO PUMPED, that we have a new volume of Mixtape out and about today!!! Wanna know where to get one, go to Fresh Pots, Mississippi Records, CD Game Exchange, Music Millenium, or Everday Music and scope the flier section, this one has got an exclusive remix of Guidance Counselor on it, and its pretty fun! We were really stoked on the art too, by our truest dearest Pamela. Also, our live show is going to be really dope, we’ve done some gussying up of our music, and you’ll be most pleased i’m sure.

Tracklist for new Mixtape:
1 Guidance Counselor – A23 (DPG Remix)
2 Don’t Call Back (I can make your bedrock mix)
3 I Heard You Do (DPG take 222)

In a second RAD piece of news a month or so ago DPG had the opportunity to record track with the Penny Jam folks. It was super dope, and they just got the session edited and up on their site. The video is below, but make sure to drop over to their site and check out all the other super cool acts that they’ve had play for them.

DoublePlusGood at Engrave Your Tech from The Penny Jam on Vimeo.

Stay cool everyone!