AMY ANNELLE: news

THURSDAY JANUARY 25 9 PM
HIGH PLAINS SIGH Warmly Invites You To
An Evening of Freaky Sounds and SIghts From Around Our Planet (and some from outer space)
DJs will dig deep into the stacks to play thee UNINTENTIONAL AND UNCONVENTIONAL PSYCHEDELIA: death chants, war whoops and mind blowers from mysterious lands.
LIVE MUSIC from That Damned Band and The Places Reeds & Strings VIbrational Assemblage
Special Late Night Psychedelic Kalimba & Mbira Set by Ralph E. White
"News Flash" Puppet Show by Low Rent
Large-Scale Out There video projections all night
Peacock Lounge Austin, Texas USA
515 East Pedernales

Ahoj Friends, from Six Feet Under the Underground!

This transmission emanates from the old pecan groves and flood plains
of Deepest East Austin. This street dead ends into a wash and a draw,
the beds of which are littered with rusty rebar, wheeless tricycles
and flat basketballs. And along their banks, arterial game trails
and bum nest eddies swirl in the urban forest. Turn around three
times to flatten the grass and lay your ass down to rest a while,
child. It's been one long haul, escaping those high plains.

We're brought to the brink again of a year. Revolved about the sun
again. And the lives lived by golden hours on lovers' isles, water
rushing the rock below your feet and you all the while watching the
light as it falls down the far bank and illuminites the tree leaves
to electric green.

Tiny claws clutch those twigs and branches. That thicket there's
where SONGS FOR CREEPS has found some friendly ears...recessed deep
in the skull, picking up the subharmonic frequencies of the earth's
rotation, aren't you, my feathered friends?

And in a feat of uncommon endurance, a single copy strayed far from
the flyway and made its way to a lady writer's desk in a skyscraper
in New York. And, lo: SONGS FOR CREEPS flickers among the BILLBOARD
MAGAZINE Critic's Choice/Top Ten Albums of 2006, alongside Neil
Young, Thom Yorke, Sonic Youth and TV On The Radio. A bloody
miracle, did you hear that ice breaking? Did you see the elegant
formation fly overhead?

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/yearend/2006/top10/staff_5.jsp#visakowitz
This honor may or may not translate into lavishly appointed tour
buses, personal masseuses and rapping the Gnostic Gospels with Sufjan
Stevens in the Green Room. Witness: a quantity of my own blood packed
in ice. 29 vials of it, waiting to be analyzed by one of the legions
of morbidly obese chain-smoking phlebotomists employed by the
clinical research facility where i just spent two of the longest
goddamned days and nights of my life. The place is like a hospital
and a jail with bad food and worse movies. Somebody make me a
t-shirt please, I SURVIVED 29 BLOOD DRAWS IN 15 HOURS, my first
in-house drug study for money was completed, anemically, the day
before christmas. A wash and a draw, and ten whole minutes to kill
before they do it again. I got sentimental sending off so much blood
into the unknown. I blacked out once and cried once. They wake you
up three hours before dawn.

I considered attaching photos of the bruises, but dismissed the
notion as gratuitous.

I'll cry instead, of albums for sale: SONGS FOR CREEPS! And all the
others that came before. Get 'em while they're hot. Get 'em when
they're not. Real, physical beauties, double and triple gatefolds,
saturated colors. Lyrics! Your hands are required to deliver these
missives to your ears, they cost ten dollars plus two dollars for the
mailman, they are worth every penny, and are only available through
the High Plains Sigh Handmade Music Boutique and Psychic Apothecary.
Delivered to your door!

http://highplainssigh.com/products.html
The online store is set up for paypal, but if you'd prefer to use old
fashioned currency or check please do send to:

AMY ANNELLE
HIGH PLAINS SIGH
1127 WALTON LANE
AUSTIN, TX 78721

You can also get your copy of the very limited edition handmade
covers album FAWNS WITH FANGS: SELECTIONS FROM THE DARK HEART OF THE
THICKET. This is a special batch with four secret bonus tracks! The
folks at Pitchdork said of this album, in a word: "excellent". No
really, that's the only word they said.

Elsewhere, the magnetos spark and burn. A west coast tour, with the
Real Places Fantasy Trio, is shaping up for mid-March. And late
March, a hop back to New, Improved York. Europe in June? Believe
it. The first split 7" vinyl from High Plains Sigh coming to you in
early 2007. Cause you know by 2012 the CD will be eliminated. The
idiot who invented jewel cases will finally meet his eternal
hellfire. It'll be all vinyl and downloads. Fire up your turntables.

To address the more urgent events on the space-time continuum: a
show right here in Austin on Friday. I am very pleased to play with
psychedelic fiddle/banjo/kalimba conjurer Ralph White. Ralph once
hung his hat with the Bad Livers, and now hangs it on abandoned
islands in the Little Colorado River, where he draws detailed star
charts and may very well be making the world's first low-frequency
field recordings of heavy metal concerts twelve miles distant.

THE PLACES and RALPH E. WHITE
FRIDAY 12/29 at rock o'clock ! !
THE PARLOR
100B E. NORTH LOOP, Austin, Texas
(512) 454-8965
http://www.myspace.com/theparlor
Lastly, here is an excerpt from Goldmine Magazine's lovely review of
SONGS FOR CREEPS, in which my songs are likened to the "bastard child
of P.J. Harvey and Tom Waits"...a complex and delicate conception that
might involve a whiskey moondrunk, a rowboat, a retrograde Jupiter,
and a giant Celtic vulva floating ominously over a levee:

"a starkly beautiful collection of dark avant-folk wanderings that
can be eerily quiet and breathtakingly beautiful, Songs For Creeps
mirrors the nomadic lifestyle of its maker. Known to sleep overnight
in flop houses and trailer parks during long stretches of time on the
road, Annelle's inspiration comes from places even creeps fear to
tread...wonderfully weird, macabre songs about fading love, murderous
intentions, seers and midnight explorations"~~Peter Linblad, Goldmine
Magazine

A funny polish broad did the last blood draw the other night at the
research facility, she gave me her pierogi dough recipe. I made
three kinds for the Solstace Party: venison, sauerkraut/mushroom and
potato pierogi. In honor of the Polish broads who bore me. And I
don't mean boring I mean borned!

bring in the new and

Fare Forward, Voyagers!

xxamy annellexx

"I'll come stand at a typewriter in your corner

and shoot murderous words at the birds outside"

The new original Places album SONGS FOR CREEPS is here!

"a truly compelling and unusual collection of recordings...highly recommended" (Rating: 5+++) Don Seven, babysue/LMNOP

Planet Earth (that means international, y'all): mail order this triple-gatefold-sleeved beauty at www.highplainssigh.com ----------

To those who lost faith: farewell, farewell
To you who'd hear, lonely travelers all*: my tale to tell.

This is not for you, Precious Protector of the Image. Lost in your hall of mirrors. SONGS FOR CREEPS does not dig you. It sees you, and it wants to be seen!

This is for you: half-right rambler, sentence server: watch enough white lines go by, and you go blind.

That's when I started to see,

and THIS IS WHAT I SAW.

SONGS FOR CREEPS sings the song of you who labor too long at the task, and fail, and you never had it easy.

You: waking in the dead of night to a dream lover's departure, his kiss is still on your lips.

(You can't do nothin' right. You wear all your fears here, on the outside)

YOU GIVE ME THE CREEPS

You're standing there, in the glare of the spot light, holding the wrong hand.

SONGS FOR CREEPS understands; see? It's standing there, holding a hand too. The grasping one that thrust up from the grave it just dug. The enemy--that terror--may have been utterly conquered, but it is missed, now that it's not around.

(I did not mean any harm)

It will come back, because you let it come back.

(Stars of the third and fourth magnitude, your light dims as you measure your brother.
You've been had by savage masters: jealousy and anger.
Don't you see? Now love is all that's left)

----------

ORDER INFO:

EASIEST
mail order now with PayPal

just click the button at www.highplainssigh.com
PLAN B
please send $12 cash or check by October 9 to:
AMY ANNELLE/HIGH PLAINS SIGH

c/o 2401 Coronado St.
Austin, TX 78702 USA

SONGS FOR CREEPS official release date is October 10 but mail orders will be filled immediately.

After October 10 the album will continue to be available via mail order here at www.highplainssigh.com and probably elsewhere too. For those of you who like to keep it abstract, you will be able to download at ITunes, Napster etc. We will be selling these physical beauties at shows on our tour of the US as a trio in October 9--November 25. The Places Full Band Fantasy Sound, with Adam Kriney and Tom Hand, and I will write again soon to announce tour dates.

SONGS FOR CREEPS all songs ©2006 by Amy Annelle (BMI Make/Do Music) with Special Guests: Andy Piper, Paul Brainard, Brian Beattie and Jay Pellicci.

Produced with Brian Beattie and Jay Pellicci; mastered by Billy Stull. Original album art and design by E*Rock.

----------
track listing:

MINERS LIE!
BLESSED SPEED
THE LION'S SHARE
MY WEARY EYE
MERCY ME
GOLD TO GREEN
THE DAMN INSANE ASYLUM
THE NATURAL ARC
I'M A-GONE DOWN TO THE GREEN FIELDS
SUCH AS THE EARTH (NEVEROFF'S FATE)
WORSE AND WISE
----------

Fare Forward, Voyagers!
and peace to you too,

LOVE
xxthe placesxx

*"Farewell, Farewell" ©1969 by Richard Thompson

Salutations from the fourth pseudo-squat of mine here on the High Plains. This latest place I stay takes a great deal more effort to find something to like about it than did those preceding it. Rather than give up on it, I'd like to try and tell you something about it.

The edifice is a post-war former rental that borders the little-considered eastern front of the city. Then comes this nothing suburb, named for a night sky phenomenon, the consummation of the stranger qualities of solar radiation and atmospheric gases, seen by our eyes as streamers, folds or arches of colored light. The pretense is referenced--though in the abstract, perhaps--in the neon tubes of motel signs and lounges along Deepest East Colfax Avenue. The Wagon Wheel, The Stockman, The Arrow, The Flair.

Colfax is US Highway 40, and these motels paved what was once the bleary-eyed High Plains Traveler's preferred route to the heart of the Dead-Hearted City. That is, until Eisenhower's new Nuclear Warhead Superhighways steered the travelers clear, onto fast blue ribbons skirting the hypocenter. Now the old motels just sit there, brick and mortar, getting older. I am of the mind that nothing good comes to pass nowadays in those numberless rooms. There is survival, sure, but it's transacted in blowjobs and dime bags. I see the artifacts of these survival acts while taking my dog for walks, crossing parking lots and alleys. One thing I know: there's fucking and scoring galore on the streets of Northwest Aurora.

The rest of this burb could not be more different: vast flat expanses of tract house boxes, developed from the remains of the obsolete airport and shuttered air force base. Distracted young fathers follow toddlers as they circumnavigate the block on some little plastic vehicle, the fathers mourning the death of their dream self, that faded last stab at explorer or pioneer. My circuit doesn't take me much to these newly minted parts of town, except to jump onto an unprotected wireless signal (ever harder to find these days!) to send some words to you. So I'll write just what happens near here, on the corner where 18th street should be, but isn't:

HELP HELP came the suspicious cry, and I crossed the street to find out why. And I find two bored bird dogs pacing the fence line, sharing the yard with a yellow-headed amazon penned in his outdoor aviary. Don't be fooled by the approximations of our orations. Look at the naked claws and cold eye. That yard is host to a dinosaur with feathers, and a weird sense of humor!

Sadly, the Giant Metal Butterflies of DuPont have proved to be just that. Their natural habitat does not extend past Sand Creek, or the manmade boundary of Eisenhower's Interstate 70 (All underpasses having been engineered to accomodate the exact height of a Mobile Missle in transit). DuPont was host to innumerable specimens of Giant Metal Butterflies. If you looked closely they could be found on any block, family groups affixed in the sixties to the sides of the company houses, and fading gracefully now in the prairie sun. But just a few miles south in this night-sky phenomena town, I have seen but the slightst ripple of their influence: a single hand-painted weathered wooden butterly straight out of Wood Shop Class, nailed to a dead tree, missing the bottom half of one wing.

The clouds develop the same way every day on summer afternoons. Blowing down from the foothills and mountains, it's some sort of updraft made visible by these towering, growing cumulus columns, swiftly moving East despite their gravidity. Sucking heat energy from the vacant plains of the old Arsenal and shooting bitter forks of lightning at the tract house boxes. There may be a curtain of rain, which the air often reclaims before it can hit the the browning sod or the tiny sticks of trees stuck optimistically in what was once the footprint of an Air Force Runway.

In the park near here there can be found at any hour of the day, men relaxing in the grass under a shade tree. A crew set up early today in the picnic shelter. "Hey sister, what kind of dog is that?" "This is a mutt." "She said it's a mutt. That's a sewer hound! What you got there is a SEWER HOUND". Mutt masters, take note: what you got is a SEWER HOUND.

Well this was an experiment to see if I could shake off some orneriness and remember change is coming, and it's coming soon. And sure enough since writing it I've been blessed by visits from five traveling friends in as many days. Plus I got fired from the shitty restaurant job I've been trying to hold down. It's not exactly the grandiose promises of a chain letter: it's better.

The ciccadas are about ready to crawl out from a long spell under the dark bark.

The new Places album 'Songs For Creeps' is due back from the factory August 8th. Though the official release date is October 10, it can be mail ordered by you before then, dear mailing list deer. I'll be sending an email with all the details very soon. And dates are being confirmed for The Places' Full Band Fantasy Sound US tour October 9 to November 28.

I'll be playing a show with my friends Sarah T and the Love Letter Band on August 4. It's at Chielle, Sarah's handmade clothing store on 3333 E. Colfax Avenue in Denver. I'll also be playing a few more in August, including the Upland Breakdown Festival with Michael Hurley in Centennial, Wyoming!, oh, the geology!, which is sponsored by Arthur Magazine, the best magazine ever. Please check the web page for details.

There it goes.

Fare Forward, Voyagers!

xxamy annellexx

please visit www.highplainssigh.com,
new interstellar HQ for The Places

throw out the hardware. let's do it right.

and ahoj from my new handle.

this is the first transmission, once removed from ye olde hotmaille account.
i grew weary of the mysterious transmissions: from ho:RNY hoUsewives, CIaLis purveyors, trustees of a surprise inheritance from the republic of benin requesting that i send them cash money to prove i'm "serious", various and sundry assholes.

here at high plains sigh, there are no such invasions. only puffy clouds, train tracks, drunk butterflies. birds singing like a waterfall and lightning brain-storm communications. citizen's band radio humming over the prairie dog town sprawl. killer dogs. raptors! the bones have been picked. there's news of a friendly show:

BIG OLD PARTY IN SARAH'S BACKYARD
(CRAWL SPACE)
JUNE 16
with

the places
amy rau
esther hernandez
somebody and somebody
porlolo
little adam
rachel pollard

Denver, Colorado
Inca Street/7th,
somewhere in the crumbly sector south of downtown
8 p.m.

I understand this will not be feasable for most of you. If you live in Denver, and do not know Inca Street Sarah's backyard, you could ride your bike down Inca street and look for people smoking on a porch.

other news. The First High Plains Sigh release is the covers album FAWNS WITH FANGS: Selections From the Dark Heart of the Thicket. and it is making like the runt that survived. Top 20 at WNUR this week in Chicago? true. adding awkward dark splotches to the set lists of various venerable disc jockeys (they wear tight pants and carry crops to smack the flanks of stubborn, bloody music) at WFMU in New York? you bet. playing tetris with the smart kids on Princeton University's WPRB? it is. thank you for letting these songs into your brain waves and nerve endings.

it has also made its way over to thailand, spain, denmark, japan and antarctica, among other places...it was a long shot, and it hit something, somewhere, and i think that thing kind of likes it.

soon, very soon, very very soon i will write to you about the coming new original album called SONGS FOR CREEPS. it is at the factory RIGHT NOW getting made. this album is so close to my heart that releasing it will be like releasing some rare wild rehabilitated creature back into the wilderness at dusk, and it turning back to look at me one last time, and not wanting to reach out to it because i know it is better off free, even if it dies that very same night, and then it turns and flies or gambols off into the unknown. i have posted a few songs for you to hear. here. in the HEAR sector.

and in the photo gallery, documentary of the Giant Metal Butterflies of DuPont.

do you know what i mean?

then there's the tour.

october onward.

it will be the Fantasy Places Home Planet Sound Whole Band, and we will be pioneering through the material on SONGS FOR CREEPS and the frontiers of space/time/70s cocaine country, deep cuts and moldy oldies, and the shows might even be in the paper. we will join forces with illustrious/lascivious/genius/not famous friends along the way. If you would like us to come to your town, especially if it is out of the way, or has unusual local fauna, or is near the woods or a pond or estuary, or if your kind eats some peculiar regional thing for breakfast, or if you are in another freaking country, or have written in the past about playing a show together, please drop a line to

drifter@highplainssigh.com

also write if you just want to say hello: 'ahoj' in the czech tongue.

so now without me even noticing, the sky has darkened from the gloaming into to a black field of stars and with that, i bid you adieu and

FARE FORWARD

xxamy annelle.

Listen to the whole darn album in the HEAR section...

GREETINGS from the rarified air that drafts behind the traveling people.

I have hauled balls in The Captain, back up the light brown prairie and plains. Up there right now are exquisite specimens of raptors riding thermals, striking prey and sulking in the bare branches of trees. There are pheasants dorking across the road. There is a smoky little prairie fire burning on the border of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. Right now there is a pack of 12 dogs living in a yard behind the Texline grain elevator like Lord of the Flies, but with dogs instead of kids. In that yard there is even a hill of dirt, the top of which sits the Lord Dog King. I wanted to get close for pictures but the fence wasn't all that high and I imagine all that'd be left of me after that would be a pile of bones getting buried in holes and gnawed on. I wanted to put their picutre here for you to see, and one of a volcano with a UFO cloud too, but I can't get the dang camera to work right.

But there are some pictures of us playing in Austin! If you were looking for love this year you went to the EASTSIDE and found it. Yes the East Side Parties Ruled…FXFY'all, FXFU, and the rad San Franciscans running the Rambler Stage off the back of their '80 Chevy Box Van http://www.rockinvan.com/rambler.html
While in Austin, we also mastered the new Places album, 'Songs For Creeps'. With the help of the live oaks, lily pads, horny squirrels and a gentle, ancient force emanating from behind a curtained stage in Clovis, New Mexico. to be heard by you, but soon! wait for the sun to hit its zenith.

I got back here to the cowboy town just in time to see the next-door neighbor get carted away in an ambulance. Red white and blue lights dancing around, the block looked like the disco of suffering…and now. a few hours later. I am bleary-eyed, cooking breakfasts for the prisoners.

Please drop a line with what's new with you, and fare forward, voyagers!

GREETINGS FROM SIX FEET UNDER THE UNDERGROUND!
hello from the cowboy town. home of many endearingly sleazy liquor stores with signs with log letters or rope letters. birthplace of the trench coat mafia. from the street, open flames can be seen behind the greasy windows of the columbine steak house. for a second you can even see the CNN ticker on the t.v.
but down in texas, our friend Lana Rebel's puttin' on the first annual Fuck By Fuck Y'all, the rowdy old country cousin of FXFU, which is the third finger, once removed, to the more unsavory aspects of SXSW. hear down there, the ciccadas already are stirring under the bark of trees, and the buzz sounds to me like: 'C'MON DOWN, EVERYBODY GONNA BE DOWN, PET THE BABIES AND KISS THE DOGS, PLAY SOME MUSIC, NOTHING TWIXT HERE AND THERE BUT TRAIN TRACKS, PUFFY CLOUDS, EQUIDISTANT HAWKS AND A HIGH PLAINS SIGH.'

The Places (Amy Annelle with Andy Piper and Paul Brainard) play FXFY'all FRIDAY 3/17 at the Typewriter Museum, Austin, TX.

Also there will be a friendly afternoon show at the Spider House SATURDAY 3/18 at 1:00 p.m.
and who knows what all else we'll get into.

for times, band listings etc for these and all upcoming shows, please visit the oh-so-user-friendly
myspace.com/theplacesamyannelle

fare forward, voyagers! xxaaxx

'FAWNS WITH FANGS: Selections From the Dark Heart of the Thicket'

"The Places have compiled a covers album. This is not the premeditated studio covers album. more of an accidental self-portrait, drawn from a pile of live recordings and home 4-track sessions. Songs that have always been and always will be, by Ronnie Lane, Bert Jansch, Michael Hurley, Elliott Smith, Syd Barrett, The Pretty Things and double-crossed mountain women on their deathbeds, as heard through the Places. Mostly live performances from the independent radio stations, tavern and tap room stages of this cursed plane. Also a couple hard-to-find album tracks, which had been secreted at the end, behind episodes of silence. Handmade and numbered in gatefold sleeve w/ booklet."

TO ORDER :
this album is MAIL ORDER ONLY
through a message: myspace.com/theplacesamyannelle

or by sending an email to:

highplainssigh@gmail.com

$10, postage paid.
you can also use THE PAYPAL if you wish to use the future technology... the account is highplainssigh@gmail.com


Giant anteaters, giant squids and creatures overseas, do not be discouraged! It can be done.


FAWNS WITH FANGS:
SELECTIONS FROM THE DARK HEART OF THE THICKET
by the places

JUST A BUM michael hurley
SICKLE CLOWNS the pretty things
ONE MORNING IN MAY traditional
FRIENDS led zeppelin
HALF RIGHT heatmiser
BIG LOG robert plant
LATE NIGHT syd barrett
IT'S ALL OVER NOW, BABY BLUE bob dylan
DEED I DO bert jansch
ANYMORE FOR ANYMORE ronnie lane
ANOTHER SLEEP SONG graham nash
DON'T SING LOVE SONGS (SILVER DAGGER) traditional
NO NAME #3 elliott smith

the gory details:
--just a bum 2005 recorded in chamber of wonder, austin, texas by brian beattie to ¼" tape
--sickle clowns 2005 recorded in one room country little shack, austin texas by amy annelle to 4 track cassette and mixed by brian beattie
--one morning in may 2005 live on KUT radio austin, texas engineered by clif hargrove
--friends 2003 live at dunes portland, oregon recorded by todd barnes
--half-right 1999 recorded des moines, iowa by mike gustafson in the apartment over the liquor store
--big log 2005 live on WPRB radio princeton, new jersey engineered by jon solomon
--late night 2000 recorded in the ghost of laundry rules, portland oregon by amy annelle to 4 track cassette and mixed by larry crane
--it's all over now, baby blue 2005 live on WPRB radio princeton, new jersey engineered by jon Solomon
--deed I do 2003 live at dunes portland, oregon recorded by todd barnes
--anymore for anymore 2005 live on WPRB radio princeton, new jersey engineered by jon Solomon
--another sleep song 2003 live on KBOO radio portland, oregon recordist unknown
--don't sing love songs 2005 live on WPRB radio princeton, new jersey engineered by jon Solomon
--no name #3 2005 recorded in freaky brown and pink room, austin texas by amy annelle to 4 track cassette, mixed by brian beattie
MUSICIANS: amy annelle (guitar, vocals, dulcimer, drums, percussion), andy piper (percussion, tenor slide guitar), jason sands (drums), timothy horner (fiddle), jude webre (electric bass, lap steel), dylan reilly (upright bass, harmonica). THANK YOU to the songwriters for writing these songs and thank you recordists and engineers for recording these versions. thank you to the places past and present for playing them with me. thank you michelle for having the idea. thank you josh and mark in chicago for getting it rolling. thank you rob and chad in portland and thank you joe and matt in denver for helping reel 'er in. thank you for listening.

THE WILLING CONSENT OF THE SATELLITES
hail, weary travelers of the space-time continuum:
this summer was an endless one that stretched on into fall.
nature freaked, seasons ceased to be.
see, what should have been the Last Butterfly turned into the Last Last 
Butterfly and finally the Last Last LAST Butterfly,
pale yellow beat and bored there
in the drainage ditch beside the Interstate (November 7th).
it was like an old person who had lived longer than they'd ever intended.
filling the hours and looking for a drink from a flower
that had withered the week before.
i wouldn't have even seen this record holder, had the Pennsylvania state trooper
not pulled me over to ask me probing questions about controlled substances, and 'could his dog sniff my van'.
i declined, as his dog didn't look like it liked to 'party'.
now it's now. the season did change.
mother nature's having panic attacks.
flames floods and swirling currents.
up on the High Plains here the prairie fires light up the dark
...and then again it's been ten below zero
and the prairie dogs town doors
froze shut from what?
prairie dog breath condensation?
hawk drool? yes.
watch for those shadows.
2005 went out, like a light
...2006 begins with other forces.
a cloud of friendly giant moths
with powdery wings is due to arrive any time.
they are carrying me to each side of the continent, but soon:
AMY ANNELLE solo with MICHAEL HURLEY, THE FINCHES
Tuesday, Jan 17 at Cafe Du Nord, San Francisco
http://www.cafedunord.com/?temp=calendar
http://www.robotwisdom.com/jorn/hurley.html
http://www.finchesmusic.com/ AMY ANNELLE with OKAY, SUSURRUS STATION
Thursday, Jan 18 at Hemlock Tavern, San Francsico
http://www.tagteammedia.com/artist_okay.htm
http://www.susurrusstation.com/ AMY ANNELLE solo WITH COLIN MELOY, LAURA VEIRS
Thursday, January 26 at The Town Hall, New York
http://www.the-townhall-nyc.org/
www.decemberists.com
www.lauraveirs.com THE PLACES, LEWIS & CLARKE, VAGUE ANGELS (chris leo)
and DRAGON TURTLE Saturday, January 28 at Three Moons, Deleware Water Gap, PA
'in the heart of the spooky Poconos'
http://lewisandclarkemusic.com/
http://onlyangels.free.fr/interviews/l/chrisleo.htm
http://brianlightbody.com/dragonturtle.html a high-five to Places [drummer-->US-->east-->capricorn/earth] Adam Kriney:
The Wire Magazine 'crost the pond realizes his Owl Sounds record "Cows On Mushrooms" is one of the best Jazz/Improv recordings from that year, there, see it fading?
g'won and get at www.vorg.net and finally:
a mysterious force emanating from a broom closet
in the condemned sub-basement of the brill building
has siezed one of my songs and its interpretation is being sold,
with the willing consent of the satellites (but not mine!), as a 
'downloadable cell phone ring tone'.
that wasn't supposed to happen but neither was a lot of other things.
modify the parameters of your phone so vibrate comes off like 'stun'.
[like the gun]
wouldn't that be fun?

Dear Creatures,
The visas of a band due to tour here from the Czech republic did not come through--fallen, perhaps between an almond-colored file cabinet and a cubicle wall in a five-story cement office building on the outskirts of Usti nad Labem?-- but fear not! free-spirited musical mercenaries THE PLACES, consisting of AMY ANNELLE and improv/out rock drummer ADAM KRINEY would hate to see a midwest music venue fall still. hell we'll play the salad bar at the Sizzler in Ponca City on a Tuesday Night if it means we get to find out what lurks in the Valley of the Vapors.
[We hate flourescent lights and shatter every cursed pulsing tube we can.]
THE PLACES MIDWEST TOUR DATES:
TU 10.18 BLOOMINGTON, IN @ BLUEBIRD
WE 10.19 INDIANAPOLIS, IN @ MELODY INN with the Abner Trio
TH 10.20 CHAMPAIGN, IL @ U OF IL / COURTYARD CAFE with Jim-Yoshii PileUp
FR 10.21 MEMPHIS, TN
SA 10.23 HOT SPRINGS, AK @ VALLEY OF THE VAPORS FESTIVAL
MO 10.24 OKLAHOMA CITY @ CONSERVATORY with the Mae-Shi
TU 10.25 KANSAS CITY @ RECORD BAR
WE 10.26 DES MOINES, IA @ VAUDEVILLE MEWS w/ Autumn Project
TH 10.27 ST. PAUL, MN @ TURF CLUB W/ Pocahontas County Bluegrass Band
FR 10.28 CHICAGO, IL @ SCHUBAS with Del Rey
-------------------->>>Adam plays in Owl Sounds and other aural freekouts, and he runs a label called Color Sounds "weird fucking musik, psych freak out jams, noisy tones, scorched improv/free-jazz, and out soundz"...here:
http://vorg.net/csr/index.html

Hello friends from a smokey valley in eastern Pennsylvania. Vultures have been seen circling above the worksite. Ration cards, day labouring on the border between 'ain't no more coal' and 'ain't no more steel'. Rrrrrrrrrright across the road I am from Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians' abandoned World Headquarters, The Castle Inn Music Hall.
Are you with me? Fred Waring had a huge band and choral group that made pop music and toured the world from the 1920s until 1984. That's when Fred had his stroke, and traveled on. I used to have a 5,000 gram 10" record of his group that was just a beautiful, black-and white one-microphoned teetotalin' chiffon and cufflinked time-warp. Grandmas could argue from the grave or brown velvet La-Z-Boy about the relative merits of Lawrence Welk and his bubble machine, and Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. He hung with the heavies, like Frank Sinatra. cross him and you might wake up with cement boots on, catching your breath between the pier and the water. Fred Waring's performance hall is but a ghost hall now--nobody smoking cigarettes and drinking highballs in the grand foyer, nobody warming up in the little tile-floored warm-up rooms. The acoustics however are FANTASTIC, and remain intact. And so we were, in the darkest hours the other night, recording some songs courtesy of a pried-open window and a very long extension cord, man it was sounding good when we met the state trooper. The time warp was over and the ghosts took off. We saw handcuffs and the back of the cruiser. The cop said it was a felony and assumed that we were smoking crack up there. Smoking crack in Fred Waring's abandned rehearsal hall??? This is the Poconos. I would think the place saw more martini blackouts than crack rocks.

creatures,
if you can believe the way things are looking right now, just a few hours after the mist was hanging off the whole of manhattan island and glowing red and green off a few skyscraper lights of questionable aesthetic, then all the little golden lights underneath the glowing mists beating back the dark for some of your fellow creatures lodged in quarters of those endless tall buildings, and the whole of it reflecting off of the east river to just send it all into the truly sublime...if this is your reality, then you'll see that our friend Michael Hurley a.k.a. SNOCK will be making like a Places, sitting in playing free fiddle and foot stomps. That's today folks.
4:30 TODAY SATURDAY SEPTEMBER WHATEVER-IT-IS
the places with michael hurley
mazarin
the mighty flashlight
arbouretum
168 DELANCEY in the basement
LOWER EAST SIDE
MANHATTAN ISLAND
NEW YORK.

IT HAS HAPPENED TO BE that The Places have no farther east to go. the Captain (the Van) has docked at the corner of Malcom X and Broadway in Bushwick sector, Brooklyn.*
But man! This last tour has been one heck of a PUFFY CLOUD BENDER! I can't so much as look at a puffy cloud now without getting delerious. My heart, my heart...oh man, where to start, even. Many thanks to the gracious folks who set up shows, spread the word, listened to our music or made theirs and then played favorite records, provided safe haven, fruit off the trees, good company, guitar jams, creek walks, pets to pet, shots to shoot, babies to kiss, arms to sleep in and trips to the greenfields. Magic eddies churn in surprising places in this country, as you all can surely attest. It's you who make this happen. You see the city like a dreamer does. You wake up in the tree tops and see what your city looks like drifting down. You hear music in wind resonating in the dish of your ear, and the intonations of voices, eyeballs lit by the last of the evening light, and doppler-affected machine engine sounds. Pleased to meet you!
Love and gratitude to these Places: Paul Brainard, Jude Webre, Andy Piper, Stellin Newsome, the patient robots in the drum machine, single-coil pickups, vacuum tubes, chords vocal and guitarred, sweet old wood and the tiny machines known as cassette tapes. It has been a pleasure making this music this way! It's how we travel by dragonfly. Big cities and townie towns, prairies, plains and mountains: all islands in the sound.
It was a great surprise to have our old buddy Ryan Stowe sit in with us at the Know in Portland. Darling Dr. Stowe has grown a wierdo beardo. This grants him security clearance into CREATURE COUNTRY and afforded us full access to the strange cascading sound waves sourced in his fingertips.
A few moments of exquisite danger: once high up on the Wyoming plateu a trucker caught a gust of wind and forced the Captain off the road. The truck driver had tears in his eyes when he stopped cause he thought we were goners! Now see, look at us, we are slightly more
l u m i n o u s.
With a shattered rear-view mirror to remind us. We also got caught by a flash flood in the Mojave Desert, where the locals call 'Yucky Valley'. Watched a monsoon storm rippin' in the valley from up at Vic's house. Then met it's powerful wake on the way down. The water hit so hard it went all the way over the top of the van and there's still some tumbleweeds stuck up in the grill. Come to think of it, the dirt from the flash flood is still all over the van too.
In the cassette player, the little teeth engaged the little wheels. We probably reached most for 'AXIS: Bold As Love'. And it's flipside, the dawnwalker genius opus 'KNIFE HITS' by Reeks & the Wrecks. Although 'Out of The Blue' in its entirity is always welcome. And the NWA remix Brian's friend made, that's just the cuss words. We got the great Waylon Jennings tape from the thrift store in Green River, Wyoming, the one with the Dukes of Hazard theme song and the truly perplexing coked-out fades.
"you're a hell of a singer, and a powerful man,
but you surround yourself with people who demand so little of you"
Most of all, we listened to those puffy clouds riffing on the mountaintops. How does a whole continent go so fast?
Here now. Watch for some more New York shows in September.
The Places will be back out there in some rare form in November.
'Songs For Creeps' is done and will sing itself to you as soon as it can.
Meantime, Research & Development continues.
FARE FORWARD, VOYAGERS!
love,
amy annelle.
POST SCRIPT: a quick tip of the hat to the nation's Hottest Motel Parking Lot Scene: Salt Lake City, in the shadow of the Mormon Temple. Not hot like 'cool'--hot like, HOPPIN'. Oh!, the meth-mouthed shirtless chorus. Oh!, the hand job transacted in the shadowy stairwell. The bass playing dude on the 10-speed bike is Nacagdoches' loss, and SLC's gain.
________________________________________________
*[I couldn't bear to mention when it happened: right here, Bushwick, July 7th: a face print on the window, broken glass and a ransacking of my van, removal of random objects. It was perhaps the last great cassette-centric heist in history; a lode devoted to tape heads and their tiny reel-to-reel machines encased in clear plastic. Unremarkable tools with highly specialized jobs to do. Broken cameras my eyes saw through. Unfortunately motley spoils for the thief! What does one do with a half-broken 40-year-old film-guzzling Pentax? These things need to be understood, and encouraged into working: only then will they help you make something.]

PUFFY CLOUD BENDER CONTINUES
Well. A short spell in the Port Town, and the Places are compelled to roll on: the PUFFY CLOUD BENDER CONTINUES. Today was spent imbibing the puffy clouds that flow freely over Idaho. The clouds riffing on the way the tops of the mountains are shaped. The lava fields and nuclear waste repositories, glass buttes, homemade tattoos and wolves. Homemade tattoos of wolves. We broke the sound barrier at Bonneville Flats.
8.24 SPICE CAFE SALT LAKE CITY, UT
8.25 HI-DIVE DENVER, CO
8.26 O'LEAVERS OMAHA, NE
8.28 BEAT KITCHEN, CHICAGO, IL
8.29THUNDERBIRD, JACKSON, MI
8.30 MODERN EXCHANGE, SOUTHGATE MI
8.31 ROUSTABOUT! AT DARKHORSE TAVERN, STAGE COLLEGE, PA
9.2 TALKING HEAD CLUB, BALTIMORE, MD
9.3 TEST PATTERN GALLERY, SCRANTON, PA
9.6 TONIC, NEW YORK, NY

A summer stayed in Austin, Texas would mean being slowly, surely eaten alive by insects. There is no shortage of fodder for the critters, the giant cockroaches will still eat enough of whatever they need to eat to fly towards the faces of humans in a menacing fashion, the fleas will feast on the blood of roof rats, stray cats, and the spot where the knee meets the calf. These creatures known as The Places choose another way: a Puffy Cloud Bender to take us closer to you. The more goddamn puffy clouds we imbibe, the better. Falcons fledge their young from dead trees, Cherokee ladies in Washington Redskins sports jerseys give you shit for not paying the campground fee, and the only gold in El Dorado is 15 kt on sale at Wal Mart. Amongst all this, we ride. You can't stop us so don't try. The Places: 'PUFFY CLOUD BENDER' 2005 SUMMER TOUR 8/1 AUSTIN, TX at FLIPNOTICS with Tenlons Fort, Paul Brainard
8/4 OKLAHOMA CITY, OK at THE CONSERVATORY with Ali Harter, Our Anticipation
8/5 ALBUQUERQUE, NM at ATOMIC CANTINA with Beginning Is the End, The Gracchi
8/6 TUCSON, AZ at PLUSH with The Teeth, Lemon Man and Friends
8/8 PIONEERTOWN, CA at PAPPY AND HARRIET'S with Victoria Williams
8/9 LOS ANGELES, CA at TANGIER wtih Richard Swift, Great Northern
8/10 LOS ANGELES, CA at ECHO PARK FILM CENTER with the Lowlights, Here & Now
8/11 LOMPOC, CA
8/12 BLUE LAKE (ARCATA), CA at THE LOGGER BAR with The Lowlights
8/17 PORTLAND, OR at The Know Amy Annelle solo with Al James (Dolorean), Jack G (Tenlons Fort), Emil Amos (Holysons)
8/18 OLYMPIA, WA
8/19 BELLINGHAM, WA with Lone Bird, Gold Star
8/20 PORTLAND, OR at DOUG FIR with Cass Mc Combs, Mt Egypt
8/24 SALT LAKE CITY, UT at SPICE CAFE
8/25 DENVER, CO at HI-DIVE with More Paloma Songs
8/26 OMAHA at O'LEAVERS
8/28 CHICAGO
8/29 JACKSON, MI at THUNDERBIRD
8/30 SOUTHGATE, MI at MODERN EXCHANGE
8/31 STATE COLLEGE, PA at ROUSTABOUT! @ DARKHORSE TAVERN
9/1 HOBOKEN, NJ at MAXWELL'S
9/2 BALTIMORE, MD at TALKING HEAD CLUB with NeDelle, Human Bell, The Tall Grass More dates as they come to be. Fare Forward, Voyagers!!! xxaaxx _________________________________________________________________ THE PLACES are back in Texas for an eye-blink. This show tonight at Flipnotics will feature a suspiciously high percentage of Native Texans. They may be planning to establish a Republic. It will also feature at least one Martian Warrior, an alpha female, and the leader of the nefarious PB-Rkestra. MONDAY, AUGUST 1 (tonight)
8:30 PM
FLIPNOTICS
1603 Barton Springs Road
Austin, TX TENLONS FORT www.tenlonsfort.com shade-dappled musical hideaway of Jack G and friends, who also makes it with you in the band Dolorean THE PLACES you bet! PAUL BRAINARD Portland/Austin rounder, and keeper of ghost notes and flat sixths. Joined by very special guest Jordan Price. No currency will be exchanged at any door or portal or passageway. and maybe afterwards, we should all go swimming.

Hello friends, the CREATURE COUNTRY tour of 2005 is well underway. we would like to send our fond regards to all traces of tornadic activity remaining in tornado alley, as it spawned a fantastic series of shows for the places, the lowlights and lone bird. we took a right at illinois, the baby birds stuck their open mouth in my face, the raccoons got it on all night. then we veered right in bloomington and made a racket with many awesome folks there. there was west virginia and there it went, west virginia being far saltier than virginia, in a most appetizing way. we ate at biscuit world and slept in hurricane. this missive finds us in chapel hill, a friendly god damn town if there ever was one. the cave yesterday was all it was meant to be, now hoppy the bartender is rollin out the hospitality carpet, and floyd the dog is on duty and watching our guitars so don't even think about it.
TONIGHT 6/11 CHAPEL HILL PANE Y VINO or somethin like that, a last minute hustle--it's a wine bar on franklin street and we play at 11.
SUNDAY 6/12 ARLINGTON, VA (D.C.) THE GALAXY HUT
MONDAY 6/13 BALTIMORE, MD TALKING HEAD CLUB
WEDNESDAY 6/15 PHILLY THE FIVE SPOT with cynthia g. mason
THURSDAY 6/16 NYC THE CAKE SHOP with castles, starts at 8:00
SUNDAY 6/19 NYC TONIC with Michael Hurley (hail)
all hands together!
xxaaxx

_____________

this is happening: a colony of feral parrots are procreating, in a communal nest, high atop the cell phone tower behind the quickiemart. the guy who lives kitty-corner from the quickie mart is staying up all night watching t.v. on the lawn, he's tearing down walls, he's burning the studs and drywall in his barbeque grill and the flames, along with the flashing television screen, make an intriguing array of lighting situations on his bare chest and back. some kid's weed wrapped up in his spanish homework got found on a particularly lonesome stretch of railroad tracks, about a half mile up from where a while ago somebody found, and left, a giant gold crucifix. and a few streets over the 12th street cowboy is riding his horse past the projects, all the way down 12th street, then back up it. In otherwords it's SPRINGTIME IN EAST AUSTIN! and it's glorious here. the frogs in the drainage ditch are starting to singing again and i thought, "that's the spirit". go, team frogs!
A WHOLE LOTTA SHOWS IN AUSTIN, TEXAS (or: LONE BIRD, RETURN OF): Andy Piper, the creature known as lone bird, has survived the annual migration from Bellingham, Washington to Austin. and in his little claws he carried his washboard and suitcase bass drummm, his 4 stringer dropped to C and a singing saw, the guild tape delay and other soundmaking devices. Come see this latest invocation of the Places at a bunch of shows in Austin, TX:
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27 flipnotics www.flipnotics.com
starts at 8:00
THURSDAY, APRIL 28 --NEW-- the places and lone bird play happy hour at headhunters starts at 6:00
then later THRUSDAY APRIL 28 the places at emo's www.emosaustin.com with two gallants, sail on, sailor! and damian jurado starts at 10.
SATURDAY MAY 7 the Places and Lone Bird with My Education at the Carousel Lounge, Austin, TX starts at 10.
TUESDAY MAY 23 The Places and Lone Bird & friends at the Church of the Friendly Ghost, Austin, TX
May 31 The places will be projected live on the radiowaves coming out of the KUT transmitter. Performing on John Aielli's Eklektikos at noon.
JUNE 1 The Places and the Lowlights at Flipnotics, Austin, TX
THEN, A TOUR IN JUNE me and Andy tour up to new york with our friends the lowlights www.thelowlights.com their new album, 'Dark End Road' hits the street in May and it'll slay ya.
A reunion with elemental Places Jude Webre and Jack Martin will occur in NYC and we will head out again, four of us will, to spread love and happiness and the full band release to every dark hearted gandy gang, every run-down rounder out there. if you would like to help set up a show in your town, please email: theplacesbooking@hotmail.com
I MEAN IT OKKERVIL RIVER'S cryptic fantastic new album 'Black Sheep Boy' is out now, and I had the pleasure of singing on a few of their tunes. Go on and get it. On vinyl even www.jound.com/okkervil and finally, as tends to happen this time of year, the mockingbirds are so wound up with desire and longing that they are doing their best singing in the dead of night. they can't help themselves. they sing when they fly, they will sing in the courtyard of a depressing apartment complex because the acoustics suit them. and it's the boys who are the songbirds, not the girls.
now, and ever, all hands together!
love,
xxaaxx