Well, well, well.
It certainly has been a long time since last we posted on
this thing. We’ve been running amok,
going on tours, making records, eating various exotic meals of the
vegetarian/vegan/ideological eating disorder variety, imbibing in illicit
substances of every type, and not telling any of the faithful blog readers (Hi
mom!) about a damn second of it. What a
bunch of slackers we’ve been.
Let’s start fresh, babe; it’ll be different this time.
First and first-mostly: we’re hitting the road this week for
some two months with a handful of long-time friends and first-time
tourmates. We’ll be touring the west
coast with the 3.2% quaffing titans of the Oklahoma prairies, Red City Radio
and Milwaukee’s own Direct Hit! After
departing with the Okies, we’ll be playing a few Midwest shows, including our
first show in Chicago in 7 months or something crazy, after which we’ll meet up
with Philadelphia hunky starlets The Menzingers and Minneapolis’ sad rockers Off
With Their Heads for a short jaunt eastward.
We’ll leave those buddies in Baltimore and tour our way up through New
England and back toward the Midwest, during which we’ll play some shows with
Worship This. To cap it all off, we’ll
return to the East Coast again for a run with famed Epitaph records haircut
visionaries The Lawrence Arms and Carbondale, Illinois pop punks The
Copyrights. It’s going to be a good
couple of months. We’re stoked
shitless. Dates are as follows:
|
DATE
|
CITY
|
VENUE
|
WITH
|
|
1/17/2014
|
Dallas
|
Gas Monkey
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/18/2014
|
San Antonio
|
Korova
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/19/2014
|
Austin
|
Infest
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/21/2014
|
El Paso
|
Lowbrow Palace
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/22/2014
|
Tempe
|
Yucca Tap
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/23/2014
|
San Diego
|
Til Two
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/24/2014
|
LA
|
Redwood
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/25/2014
|
LA/Pomona
|
Redwood/Characters
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/26/2014
|
SF
|
Bottom of the Hill
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/27/2014
|
Portland
|
Slabtown
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/28/2014
|
Seattle
|
El Corazon
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/29/2014
|
Spokane
|
Carr's Corner
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/30/2014
|
Boise
|
Shredder
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
1/31/2014
|
Salt Lake
|
Shred Shed
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
2/1/2014
|
Fort Collins
|
Road 34
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
2/2/2014
|
Denver
|
Moon Room
|
RCR/Direct Hit
|
|
2/3/2014
|
Omaha
|
Sweatshop
|
Direct Hit
|
|
2/4/2014
|
Kansas City
|
The Black and Gold
|
Direct Hit
|
|
2/5/2014
|
St Louis
|
Demo
|
Direct Hit
|
|
2/6/2014
|
Moline
|
Bierstube
|
Solo
|
|
2/7/2014
|
Chicago
|
Beat Kitchen
|
Solo
|
|
2/8/2014
|
Madison
|
The Frequency
|
Solo
|
|
2/9/2014
|
Des Moines
|
Gaslamp
|
Solo
|
|
2/10/2014
|
Lincoln
|
Bourbon Room
|
Menzingers/OWTH
|
|
2/11/2014
|
Normal
|
Firehouse
|
Menzingers/OWTH
|
|
2/12/2014
|
Lansing
|
Mac's
|
Menzingers/OWTH
|
|
2/13/2014
|
Keyser, WV
|
Clancy's
|
Solo
|
|
2/14/2014
|
Asbury Park
|
Asbury Lanes
|
Menzingers
|
|
2/15/2014
|
Baltimore
|
Ottobar
|
Menzingers
|
|
2/16/2014
|
New York
|
St Vitus
|
Solo
|
|
2/18/2014
|
Boston
|
O'Briens
|
Solo
|
|
2/19/2014
|
Philadelphia
|
The Fire
|
Solo
|
|
2/20/2014
|
Pittsburgh
|
Ormsby
|
Solo
|
|
2/21/2014
|
Cleveland
|
Now That's Class
|
Worship This!
|
|
2/21/2014
|
Detroit
|
Small's
|
Worship This!
|
|
2/22/2014
|
Kalamazoo
|
Louie’s
|
Worship This!
|
|
3/3/2014
|
Boston
|
The Sinclair
|
TLA/Copys
|
|
3/4/2014
|
Providence
|
The Met
|
TLA/Copys
|
|
3/5/2014
|
New York
|
The Gramercy
|
TLA/Copys
|
|
3/6/2014
|
Philadelphia
|
Theatre of Living Arts
|
TLA/Copys
|
|
3/7/2014
|
Asbury Park
|
Asbury Lanes
|
TLA/Copys
|
|
3/8/2014
|
Baltimore
|
Baltimore Soundstage
|
TLA/Copys
|
|
3/9/2014
|
Newport, KY
|
Southgate Revival
|
Copyrights
|
Elway buddies of the European/Canadian variety can expect
some good news in the coming weeks as well, as we’ll be touring our asses off
for the first half of the year of our lord, 2014.
Now, a brief change of pace.
Recently, I was deadlocked in a debate with the sort of
self-ascribed erudite fellow who believes that people who consume music
digitally is ‘totally missing the point, man.’
I am of the opinion that if you truly love music then it shouldn’t
matter what kind of packaging it comes in.
That being said, I am always pretty interested in the way that bands use
visual art to compliment their own. It
is in that spirit that I want to share with you a small sampling of art we’ve
used over the years and talk a bit about each artist. Indulge me, won’t you?
First is our good friend Josh House, who flew the coop from
Fort Collins to work and make art in Austin, Texas. Josh is a brilliant illustrator and has worked
with us more than any other artist, including the album art for Delusions. Below is a small sampling of his work for
Elway, starting with the poster for our upcoming US tour. Check out his seriously impressive portfolio
over at http://joshhouse.daportfolio.com/
We saw a clown 'street performer' in Ulm, Germany who's only talent was having a small horse.
We'll have this guy on shirts and hoodies on tour, but it was originally a hand-screened poster
About the closest we'll ever get to being a metal band.
Inspired by The American Astronaut. Tell me you've seen it.
Me and Cory from Arliss Nancy used to have beer chugging contests. He was Big Foot and usually won, but I was Gravedigger, which is way more tight,
Next is Benjamin Buttice from our native Fort Collins, who keeps
a large piece of Elway’s collective hearts via his spellbindingly macabre
indie-folk band, Sour Boy Bitter Girl, and has also contributed some cool
paintings for a couple of EP covers.
Check them out below and be sure to listen to his band at http://sourboybittergirl.bandcamp.com/
The rarely seen Itunes only Passing Days EP cover. Pretty neat.
Hence My Optimism EP cover. Plath/Hemingway/Lovecraft-type stuff.
Next is Californian guitar-shredder Tyler Gibson at Doom
Toof Design who has done a number of shirt designs for us, as well as the album
art and layout for Leavetaking. My
favorite piece he’s done for us is the below design used for our first European
tour poster. Peep his wares at http://doomtoof.com/
Lost Saint Christopher. Rad.
Speaking of European tour posters, this next design came
from our Russian buddy Vika Vi, who we spent some time hanging out with in
Moscow and Saint Petersburg. This is one
of my favorite things ever done for us and is very representative of her striking
work. Peep that shit at http://vikavi.tumblr.com/
We had handbags with this awesome fucking design on them for our second Euro tour as well.
Last is Sveta Sokolova, another friend we met in Russia,
currently residing in Berlin. This is a
shirt design that we’ll have with us on tour for the next couple of months and
I just fucking love it. You can find
more of Sveta’s work at http://humblehurts.tumblr.com/
Hands, rosaries, abstraction, stress. Fucking cool, eh?
Hopefully, throughout the course of these upcoming tours, we’ll
be keeping up with this blog once again.
Our apologies for not even acknowledging that this thing exists for the
past year. Expect more frequent updates,
anecdotes about hayseed gas station clerks, pictures of Joe making a drunk ass
of himself on stage, but looking better than the rest of us doing it, words of
wisdom from Dan Case, vivid descriptions of stains on a Motel 6 window drape,
and tales of the search for the nation’s greatest burrito, all in that
characteristic Elway tableau!
Sniff you jerks later!
-Elway
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