News
March 29, 2008
So, the Fredricksburg show on April 6th is back on after all. We'll be doing an acoustic show for that one, so if you were planning on coming before, please put it back on your ledger. It'll be me, Laura and Michael playing an acoustic set. We've also got a regular electric show the night before at Black Cat in D.C. Laura and I have a handful of acoustic shows on the west coast in mid-April and they're all posted on the site. Thanks. - JD
March 21, 2008
We've had to postpone our April 6th show in Fredricksburg, VA. due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict. We're really sorry about that and we hope to reschedule the show again before too long. All of our other spring shows are on as planned. The acoustic west coast tour is just about totally booked and the shows are up now in the Shows section (as you might expect). Also, check out the Store section, as it has links to buy our album, shirts and a few other things (like the new Cake Parade single on white vinyl). Thanks. - JD
February 22, 2008
It's been a while since we've had an update and there's plenty afoot. First off, we'll be playing "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" this coming Wednesday, February 27th. This will be our "National Television Debut," as they say, so we're duly psyched. Should be weird, but hopefully good, too. There's a little interview with me about it here. We've got some more shows in the works for the spring and they'll be a mix of some acoustic sets (just me and Laura) and full band shows (me and Laura, along with Michael Cotterman on bass and James Canty on drums). We've got an acoustic show next week in Brooklyn, the night after Conan. We're playing with Las Palabras, which is Rafael from Supersystem's amazing new project. After that, we head down to Austin for SXSW and we'll be doing the acoustic thing at all of our sets down there. We come back for some full band shows in the D.C. region in March and early April. We're trying to set more up around that time and we'll keep posting them as we confirm them. We're flying out west in mid-April do to do some radio sets and interviews and we figured we'd try to do some acoustic shows out there, too. So far, we have L.A. and San Francisco confirmed. We will try to add a few more and will post those as they are confirmed, too. I've been guest-hosting the "AIR Time" radio show on XM Radio (on the XMU channel, #43) in the month of February and it's been great. They've given me the chance to play a lot of the music that inspires me and the other GJers and it's been a cool opportunity. I have one more show this month, which airs on Tuesday the 26th at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific. There are encore airings on Wednesday at 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific and again on Thursday at 6am Eastern/3am Pacific. Finally, the "Cake Parade" single was released on the 19th. The digital single features "Cake Parade," "You You You You You" (a cover of a song by The 6ths), the demo version of "Cheap Champagne" and "El Condor Pasa" (the Simon & Garfunkel cover that we released a while back on the original "Need Your Needs" single but had since gone out of print). It's available now. The vinyl version of the single is on white vinyl and has "Cake Parade" and "You You You You You." It should be arriving any day now. Oh yeah, one other thing: We're going to be one of the "Freshmen Five" bands on mtvU this spring and they're having us come by for one of their Backstage Pass features, too. There is a segment where they have the fans ask us questions. Now, I have to admit I'm not really expecting any questions when the time comes, but maybe you could ease our humilation by submitting some? Go to www.mtvu.com/music/backstage_pass/questions.jhtml. The questions need to be in by February 29th and I think the segment should air sometime in March or April. Anyway, that's enough for now. I know there's more to talk about, but I'm forgetting it for now. We'll post more news as we get it. Thanks. - JD
January 2, 2008
Happy New Year everyone. We've got most of our European/UK tour dates posted over on the Shows page. We should have the rest up shortly. U.S. tour plans for the spring are being put together now and we should have those announced before too long. Thanks. - JD
December 18, 2007
NPR has just added the "Project Song" segment we recorded for them a couple months to their website. Check it out at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17260110. We'd like to thank Bob Boilen from All Songs Considered/NPR for inviting us to take part in the project. In other news, we're taking a little time off right now before we head back out at the end of January to Europe. We should have dates to post very soon. Most of the tour will be on the continent, though there should be a couple UK dates as well. We're also putting together a U.S. tour for March and April now as well. As that gets closer to being booked, we'll start announcing dates for that, too. But we should be able to make up most, if not all, of the dates we had to postpone from the fall tour. Thanks. - JD
October 31, 2007
I did some backing vocals and tambourinist-work on the new record by The Caribbean, a fellow D.C. band. The album is called "Populations" and it was released by the Home Tapes label. I'm pretty sure it's out now. We recorded it back in January and I'm on two songs, "Do You Believe In Dinosaurs?" and "Bees, Their Vision and Language." Head over to http://www.myspace.com/thecaribbean if you want to learn more. - John
October 24, 2007
Hey folks. Sorry to report this, but we have to postpone our next ten shows, starting tonight in Orlando and running through November 7th in Denver. We'll pick it back up again in Omaha on the 8th and finish out the U.S. tour. The European tour in December is still on, too. Basically, I've been sick for the past few weeks and things haven't improved at all. Since it's been four nights in a row onstage of me wondering if I can remain conscious til the end of the set, we decided to just take two weeks off to recover. So, we'll be back out soon and thanks to those folks down south and out west for understanding. We'll be back out on tour in March and we'll make up the dates then. Thanks and see you soon. -- John
October 17, 2007
The video for "Need Your Needs" is up now over in the Media section. Have a look. As we mentioned before, it's directed by Eric Cheevers and Scott Mueller.
September 26, 2007
So, the new site is up and the album is out. It took a long time to get it all together, but it's all done. Thanks to Jason and Nick for their great work on the new site. We'll keep adding pictures and such and we'll have a clip of the "Need Your Needs" video up shortly, too. We're home for a few days now after our trip to England, Holland and Germany. It was great to get over there for our first GJ shows outside of the U.S. and we're psyched to get back there at the end of November. We'll post Euro dates as they get confirmed. In the meantime, our entire U.S. tour is booked and all of the dates are up for October and November. Hopefully we'll see you out there. Thanks. - JD
September 2, 2007
The U.S. tour is almost all set. We'll be heading out for different stretches with Ted Leo Rx, The Good Life, Aqueduct, Le Loup and some other fine bands. We're psyched for it. The Euro dates for this month are set, though there's still some extra info to come for the Berlin show on the 19th. We'll be coming back over to Europe for a more extensive run in late November and December. Also, the new website is nearing completion and will be up very soon, finally. This past week, Laura and I went into the studio at National Public Radio to record something for the "All Songs Considered" show. They're unveiling a new idea where they'll bring a band in for two days and have them write and record a song from scratch. I was skeptical, but it worked out and it was fun. It should air sometime this fall and we'll post a date when we know it. Thanks. - JD
August 17, 2007
Tour dates are starting to come in for the fall dates in the U.S., U.K. and Europe. We'll keep posting them as we get them, along with any other news. Also, the Euro-only single of "Need Your Needs" will be out September 11th. The vinyl B-side will be "Aftermath" and the digital B-sides will be "Aftermath" and "Hard Feelings (Demo)." A video for "Need Your Needs," directed by Eric Cheevers (who has directed videos for Dead Meadow and Weird War, as well as directed the short film classics "!Las Historias Mas Sexy Del Mundo! Pts. 1 and 2"), should be premiering in early September. Around that time, our new website should be bowing, so we'll have the video and other sound clips up then, too. Thanks. - JD
July 26, 2007
We now have a September 25th release date for Places. It'll be available on CD, vinyl and the digital format. There will also be a single available from Saddle Creek Europe that will feature "Need Your Needs" and a few non-album tracks. We'll get details out as soon as we have them. Unfortunately, we've had to back out of our shows on August 24th and 25th in Pittsburgh, PA. and Richmond, IN. due to unforseen circumstances. We hope to make those shows up as soon as we can. Tour dates for the rest of fall should be up soon, too. We'll be playing all over the U.S. and Europe, as well as a few Canadian shows. The "Need Your Needs" single on Laboratory Records finally went up on ITunes a few weeks ago. It'll be available there for a little while longer. Thanks. - JD
June 7, 2007
I forgot to mention a while back that we have a song on the Play compilation that DeSoto Records issued in April. Play is comprised of kids songs and it was the first recording that we did (back in August '05). I think it may have even been the first song we actually wrote, though I'm not sure about that. Anyway, I've been friends with Kim at DeSoto for almost a decade and a half now, so it was great to collaborate with her on this. I should also mention that the "Need Your Needs" single on Laboratory is fairly close to going out of print. Dischord still has some copies and we'll be selling the rest at our shows this summer. Two of the three songs will be on Places and we'll probably find another home for the cover of "El Condor Pasa." That single should be going up on iTunes any day now, as well. Not sure how long it'll be up there, but it should be available at least through the summer. We're busy putting together tours in Europe and U.S. for the fall and, as mentioned before, we'll post dates as soon as they firm up. In the meantime, we're doing a few U.S. shows this summer. Soon, Paul Michel will be moving over from bass to second guitar and Michael Cotterman will take over bass duties. As usual, Andrew Black has the drums covered. We're hoping to unveil this lineup sometime in July, though we'll see how long it takes to get it together. Thanks for reading. - JD
May 15, 2007
We're happy to say that we've signed with Saddle Creek and that they'll be issuing our debut record, Places, sometime in September or October. We'll have a release date pretty soon. We're also going to be touring the U.S. and Europe for most of the fall, so we'll have dates posted for that later in the summer. In the meantime, we're playing some regional shows over the next few months and we still have some copies of the "Need Your Needs" single left. You can still get that from dischord.com in the "Stuff We Sell" section, if you're interested. - JD
Januyary 17, 2007
Our debut single, "Need Your Needs", comes out next week on Laura's label, Laboratory Records. It includes two songs ("Need Your Needs" and "Cake Parade") from the album we just finished, as well as a non-album cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)". Our friends at Dischord will be selling it for us on their website, so check www.dischord.com later next week and you'll be able to buy the new single, as well as the limited-edition Demos at Dance Place CDEP and Laura's solo album from 2004. We're continuing to add shows throughout the winter and spring, so check back for more info. Thanks. - JD