AMY ANNELLE: news

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.
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*[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

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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