Back home. The Cretin Pop show was a lot of fun. This should be the last of the confusing \”October Show\” updates. (This year, anyway.)

Our next show is in December. Until then, for me it\’ll just be a couple history tests and some recording; Tanner will be saving up money to blow in Vegas next month; Deedle\’s moving for the 43rd time in five years; and Matt M will ride a few hundred miles on his bike, daily, alongside bobcats and leopards. Oh, and I think there\’s like a vote or something coming up. I don\’t really remember – I think I may have heard something about it on TV – but maybe we\’ll look into that, too.

Okay, here\’s the deal.

We ARE playing tomorrow (Sat, the 30th) at the Cretin Hop (or Pop) Festival in Waco. I\’ll post directions and times just as soon as I can. All that stuff, believe it or not, is still being finalized. Regardless, it\’s going to be a great show, if only because this band will be there.

Also, that show on the right (the 29th one in Fort Worth) IS NOT HAPPENING. I haven\’t been able to get that side of the screen updated, so I\’m sorry for the confusion.

If you are planning on going to the Waco show and need directions, email me and I\’ll get them to you just as soon as I get them. I\’ll also post them here.

Friday night\’s show has been cancelled. Saturday\’s show in Waco is going to happen. Details within minutes (hopefully).

We\’ll be up in Stillwater, Oklahoma this Saturday at Mike\’s College Bar (317 S Washington Street, 74074) with Ophil from Wichita. Nine pm.

Then the next weekend, we\’re supposed to be participating in the \”Cretin Hop\” festival in Waco, but right now the status of it is \”looking for a generator\”. As unpromising as that sounds, we\’re sure Andrew and the boys will come through and make it the best gasoline-ran, Halloween-time punk festival Waco\’s ever seen. I mean it.

UPDATE: We\’ll also be playing a show with Joe Jitsu on October 29th in Fort Worth. Details coming momentarily.

Jon Stewart was just on Crossfire. That was the best 20 minutes of TV I have seen all year. (Although, Al Roker on Conan last night was pretty darn funny. Even though Conan didn\’t seem to think so.)

If you missed it, I\’m sure there\’s a transcript out there. The Jon Stewart thing, I mean. The Roker thing didn\’t have many words to transcribe…

UPDATE: (10/20/04) Wow, this thing blew up on the internet. The Jon Stewart thing, I mean. Sadly, the Roker thing hasn\’t been spoken of since.

Well, folks…

Actually, why don\’t you just hear it straight from the horse\’s mouth:

A message from Deedle:

Hello Everyone.

As 41 Gorgeous Blocks enters it\’s 6th year as a band
the time has come for me to step down. The decision has
not come easy but I believe it is best for me at this
point in my life. I\’m in the process of lightening my
load a bit and focusing on other important parts of my
life.

I\’ve had a great time making and playing music with my
good friends and I will continue to support them and be
a huge fan of the music. Who knows, someday I might be
back.

I\’ll be finishing out the year with these guys so make
sure you come out to a show and say bye.

Thanks everyone!

Deedle

Needless to say, we\’ve certainly enjoyed having the Deed onstage with us for so long. Matt M has been playing with him almost ten years and I\’ve been playing with him for over five, so things are certainly going to feel strange \’round here. But we certainly know first hand the amount of things Deedle\’s had on his plate for the last few years are just glad he\’s put up with it for so long.

It\’s also important to note that he\’ll still be around \”behind the scenes\”, as we, stubbornly, aren\’t going to quit making albums anytime soon and will continue to use the best studio and engineer this area has ever seen.

Final show info.

I meant to link to this review of \”Well…\” and \”Well I Sorta Know How You Feel\” like 8 months ago, but Google Alerts reminded me that I didn\’t. Oh well, better late than… never?

Thanks, Craig.

It\’s pretty much common knowledge that just because somebody works at Guitar Center, it doesn\’t necessarily mean they know their ass from their elbow. But what I experienced today has got to be somewhere near top of the “Dumb Things Guys at Guitar Center Do or Say” list.

I was looking for some small speakers for my home recording setup. I came across a pair looked like they might work just as a salesperson came in and asked if I needed help. I told him that I\’d like to hear the little speakers to make sure they sounded okay.

“Oh, they sound great, man!“ he immediately replied. I told him I wanted to hear them anyway, just to make sure.

\”No problem, bro,\” he barked and pressed play on a nearby CD player. After five or six seconds of silence, I looked around at the back of the speakers. They weren\’t hooked up. I pointed that out to him and he said, \”Oh, I know that bro, I was just checking something else.” I gave him the benefit of the doubt and let him carry on.

He picked up one of the small speakers and walked to the other side of the gear-filled room. There sat another CD player in front of a wall of about 20 other speakers – some big, some huge. He unhooked the back of one of them and plugged the cables into the one he had brought over. He then turned on the CD player.

All at once, this hideous techno number came blaring – and I mean blaring – out of every speaker in the room. (I would make fun of how it startled him so bad that he literally jumped off the ground, but the same thing happened to me.) Instead of just stopping the CD player, he started turning down every knob in sight. None of them did a thing. The “music” was so loud, my eyes were watering, so I reached over and firmly hit stop on the deck.

He said something along the lines of, \”Wow, that was a jam!\” and I didn\’t laugh. After doing a second or two of thinking, he hit play again.

The blood-curdling techno once again poured out of every speaker along the wall, violently forcing each woofer and tweeter as far as they could go, and beyond. And once again, my sales guy frantically started turning down knobs – the same knobs he\’d already turned only moments before. I decided to just stand back and watch.

About a minute (!) later, his ears must have gotten numb to the horrendous sound, because he was now smiling. I looked down and the little 5-inch speaker I was wanting to audition was in his hands, pumping its little heart out. I could actually see its woofer slamming back and forth with each manufactured kick drum beat. It was hurting and hurting bad.

As the guy bobbed his head to the distorted noise, we made eye contact. \”What do you think?!\” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

I started to answer him but, instead, decided to cover my ears and run away.

I love that damn store. Seriously.