the Black Lips

Gay Bashing in NYC

2008-06-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

After our show with the Raconteurs in New York I decided to go to see my friend DJ. My friend happens to be homo sexual, and he was DJing at a gay bar. After a drink or two I decided to go outside and have a cigarette. After a couple of puffs I felt a strange sensation on my leg, then I heard somebody scream "faggot". I looked down and my legs and shoes were covered in egg goo, and there were a dozen or so more hanging in the air above my head. I have been called a faggot many times, but I think this was my first official "hate crime" little did those dudes know that they didn't even get a gay man. I dig chicks.

Fanboy Love

2008-06-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

I was so sad when i read this that i tried to commit suicide but cole stopped me. The band almost broke up....

I saw you guys last night at Terminal 5, opening for the Raconeturs. With all due respect, you guys SUCKED. Seriously. I don't usually go out of my way to criticize, and I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but in all honesty, your guys' set may have been the most awful experience of my life.

Too much yelling, too much use of that stupid echo mic, too much sounding like the 4th place contestant at my high school battle of the bands. I actually boo'ed you guys but you were so loud and obnoxious that nobody else could hear it.

And another thing, when the lights come up, and the PA music starts playing, GET THE FUCK OFF STAGE. You are the shitty opening act, nobody wants to hear another shitty song from your repertoire.

Thanks, and good luck!

Bad Ol' Days 3

2008-05-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Mt. ranier was huge and bearing down on us as we boarded the van in the morning . It was hot and that made me feel sick and the ice blue on the peak of Mt Ranier reminded me of the booze I"d been drinking the night before which also made me feel sick. We were in the pink van headed east by southeast and northern soul blasted from the am radio.
In eastern Oregon there is nothing but flat land and scrubby brush that looks like blonde chest hair. I wrote my mom a letter and mailed it from a town called Hard Grounds.
"Dear Mom,
Hope you are not worrying about me too much. I am in the Pacific Northwest. I have seen the wonders of Gods Creation and they have placed peace and joy in my soul. If for the state of my soul you should fear remember that a man must walk through dark valleys at some point during his life. Did you believe that I would not become a man? We have played music throughout this nation and I think it is good and some people think we are funny and ugly and stupid but some people like us. Cole says that we will flourish some day and all these dark times will pass and our mothers will no longer fear for the state of our souls. As we bear our bodies and our equipment across the land I think of you and father and I know that I must bring you no peace, but I know I must bear on. As the peaks rise over the horizon and as the Phoenix rises from the flames so will the pink van rise in heavenly glory from its once lowly state.
With Love Your Son,
Jack
We continued our eastward course into Idaho and crossed the jagged platueas and mesas of that land and became sickened by the violent bobbing of the roadways. The bottom of the state, before passing into Utah, brought us gentle valleys and the need for a rest from our travels. We pulled the pink van into one of the gentle valleys for to make our camp. The pragmatic Joe Bradley sent me to gather logs as he stoked the kindling into flames. Jared tried to build a beaver trap in the nearby creek. Cole set out to get the lay of the land. As our fire reached a sustainable burn and the cheese within our frozen burritos began to sizzle Cole returned with some people he had met at a truck stop across the valley. Two lovely native squalls knelt down among us at our fire and we offered up to them our humble foodstuffs. In return they offered tidings of good weed and strong drink and as we reached intoxication the register of the girls voices descended and it became clear that fair maidens these were not. I don't know quite how nature took it's course but soon Jared and I found ourselves alone by the fire with Trani-tribes stash laid out before us. As we smoked an enormous fatty I fell back on my log and listened to the hooting owl and the ecstatic guttural moans of an Indian fag in mid coitus. I don't know if it was the voice of my God fearing mother or the Great Spirit of that valley but I received a vision. As I stared into the night sky and gazed upon the crescent moon the universe changed to negative, like the negative of a photograph. The black abyss turned blinding white and the stars and the moon turned inky black. The din of the valley rose as all the creatures cried out. The she-males screeched in horrific abandon. A deep peace like death passed over my soul.

the forces that saved music

2008-04-10T05:02:00.000-07:00

they say that we learn from history. Thats's mostly appopriated to holocaust talk. shit that went down in germany and rwanda, and the world wars in europe. but outside war mongering there is art. There are a few people that saved this art. and i commend them. for without them there would be no black lips. there would be no rock and roll as we know it.
it started with alan lomax and his father recording the desparate blues and soul that was the american south. what followed was a wave of white motherfuckers in a procession of awe, devouring theses strange beautiful sounds for years to come. I love amaerica for this, and all its many flaws and faults. NORTON records, CRYPT records and BOMP records have documented american roots and pop music. these people are not only music lovers but historians of the utmost degree. they are vital to the continuation of what we love. i love them and you shuold too. they are all we've got left to remember our fathers

Hella yes.(hella=greece in english)

2008-04-10T02:58:00.000-07:00

We are among the ancients. In a society that produced greatness.It is a pleasure, and a much needed retreat from the woes of western touring. The scene here in this hotel room is not unlike the opening scene of apocalypse now when martin sheen is drunk and doing karate in his room. only difference is i'm not doing karate in a doomed country. i'm somewhat tipsy and sipping on warm beer in an outdated hotel, and there is no chance i'm going out into the cambodian jungle to exterminate somebody. Unfortunately that probably won't happen to me. My life is boring. I'm just listening to the noisy traffic nd hustle and bustle that is athens.
Yesterday we had the typical athenian outing. climbed the acropolis and saw the parthenon. we also saw alot of american and japanese tourists. we didn't say hello. after that we did mad tv. not the really bad american "comedy" show, but sort of a live mtv style chat. it was cool. We ate the best food ever too. octopus,sardines,feta,calamaris, and a whole bunch of other stuff i don't know the name of but fell in love with. music is not an art. food is. and this region, the medaterranian(sp) is the best place in the world for that, among other things. I'm loving this. hope people come to the show tonight, then it's back to old europe.
jesus loves the little children
black lips

Stranded in Norway.So fucking gay.

2008-04-06T03:18:00.000-07:00

Our van is broken. We are in Oslo, Norway. It's hailing outside. They look like diamonds that God finally tired of, and cast them down upon our heads. We've been in Europe for a week or so, and it's really cold. Summer starts in two days though when we get to Greece for our first ever show in the Balkans. Our hotline is down because it doesn't work across the sea. So, sorry for being out of touch.
There's a shitload of white people in Europe. I think i'm gonna go lay down somewhere for a while.
peace out
black lips

Black lips Hotline

2008-03-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

we got a new phone and don't know what to do with it so we started a hotline. It's inspired by CB and Hamm radios, because people don't use those anymore, and we think truckers are cool. It'll give us something to do in the van. The minutes will probably expire, and i'm not paying for that shit. give us a ring if you are in trouble, need advice, or are just plain lonely.
949 836 7407

how we met king khan

2008-03-06T17:10:00.000-08:00

the first time i met KK was in munich germany, about a week into our first european tour. I had heard very little about him at that point. Only posters of his giant face plastered all over evry club in france and germany. I was just finishing my dinner that the club had cooked for me when a wild eyed indian man in an old german kaiser hat comes up and excitedly introduces himself to me as "blacksnake", then sat down and yammered on talking a mile a minute. I thought he was out of his mind on speed or something but he wasnt. He had hitchiked down from is home in kassel, germany just for the show. We got along pretty well, but we all thought he was crazy. he never stopped talking. The show finally got started and i was doing merch. he was high stepping all over the club and talking to everyone real loud and laughing like a mad man. He came over to the merch table and pulls out his dick and pees on some of our tshirts, then pees into a bottle and tries to drink it and spat it out everywhere. then threw the bottle. Me and cole were kinda pissed because we didn't know him. but he was still funny and charming. We finally start to play and i notice glass bottles being broken everywhere. He was breaking everybottle he could get his hands on, then jumping onstage and screaming. After that he came out with a massive bowl of salad and threw that everywhere. It was getting slippery and chaotic, and i had already slipped and cut my hand on the glass. So he came up and grabbed my hand and drank my blood, and declared us blood brothers. Then he went back to the kitchen and grabbed a huge cake(it was the promoters birthday) and he grabbed big chunks and smeared it everywhere, and on everybody. The germans were terrified. I didn't know what to think. After the show the place was destroyed. A bunch of german girls were following him around and screaming at him and telling us "king khan is not your friend" e turned the show into his own debacle. Backstage we were trying to do an interview, but the angry german girls followed and kept screaming at him. There was a table with about 100 or so beers on it and i guess out of frustration he cleard the whole table. every bottle. It was a fiasco. Interview over. We were asked to leave with our new friend. We got banned from the venue. A few weeks later i wrote him and his family a letter. We played with the shrines for the first time a month after that, and we have been best friends ever since. It took alot of thought. do i love him or hate him. Turns out we love him

Chicken soup for a cocksuckin' soul

2008-02-21T21:44:00.000-08:00

If yall want some good music for the time bein here's my list
Los saicos-available on munster records
the mighty hannibal-on norton records
back from the grave- on crypt records
Jaques Dutronc-i had the internet and so do you
tarkus- peruvian awesomeness good luck
the germs- yall know whats up
the falcons- lu pine records(and evrything that detroit label did)
and for the rest you'll find a plethora of the best shit ever from NORTON records, CRYPT records, and BOMP records.
google or wiki this shit NOW NOW NOW!!!!!!

yo soy el rey de maricones

2008-02-21T21:27:00.000-08:00

Dear people...my friends.
I am sorry, I have not kept up with this. We've been busy as a shit hound on a trail of heaps of shit. Not too clever but i'm not losing any sleep over it.
So....west coast tour was amazing. Pierced arrows were our support and heroes. What can I say. They killed it every night. Fred and Toody Cole are my heroes, and i really hope i have it together as much as they do when i'm their age. An eternal inspiration, and the best folks to boot. We did the tom green show with eric roberts. you can see it at Tomgreen.com
I wanna be funny but i can't. my whole family just died in a horrible accident......NOT!
not funny but i got nothing to say. It was good, and I'm starting a tour diary tomorrow, as we are leaving in a few hours. If you have any questions about our doings then post here and i'll answer them honestly for real.
peace for all yall
jared

Chunklet whirleyball single

2008-01-23T19:50:00.000-08:00

Chunklet just released a four way split single featuring us, Gentlemen Jesse and his men, the Baby shakes, and Coffin bound. The single doubled as a ticket to get into the show at Whirleyball. Whirleyball is like bumper cars mixed with basketball, and that Indonesian game that's kind of like lacrosse. It's fun. We played a show there and there are singles left over. I would suggest investing in one because they'll be worth alot on ebay pretty soon. And it's really good. get them here

www.chunklet.com

http://www.chunklet.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=60

am 1690 atlanta, voice of the arts

2008-01-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

In an age of soul less syndicated dj's, bland FM playlists, and mind numbingly boring college radio, it's such a breath of fresh air to know that there are still a few real radio stations out there. am 1690 is one of them. It's nothing groundbreaking. Just good music you can listen to in your car without having to fumble with the knob forever. Nothing too obscure. Just solid rock n roll,soul,country,blues, even mariachi music.
If they play chuck berry it's usually a cool b-side. And you almost never hear the same rotated playlist like other oldies station. It's not an oldies station. There's no format. Just people playing cool records they like. If you are fortunate enough to live in atlanta you should definately tune in. It makes me happy that things like 1690 still exist

"Gutlless Kiwi chuck enrages Aussies"

2007-12-13T23:05:00.000-08:00

"in an act of supreme cowardice, New Zealand has surreptitiously questioned Shaun Tait's bowling action just three days after being humiliated by Australia's EXTREME pace in a twenty20 match."

I have no idea what the fuck that means, but I love Australia and New Zealand alike. Who couldn't with sport quotes like that. Not to mention kangaroo fillets, and solid gentry to boot. Landed in Wellington, New Zealand three days ago, and with a stop in Aukland we're now livin it up in Melbourne. It's summer here(probably) to the chagrin of the upper hemispheres, and it rules.
We have alot planned after my afternon nap(i'm a little tired after all the cooper's and kangaroo)
Tomorrow we play a festival in the outback, followed by a couple days n Sydney where we play a hotel roof party(million dollar view) Make a really shitty surf movie, and teach the Aussies how to make "soul food" for vbs tv.
We saw a killer fight as the daft punk show was letting out last night (f.y.i we were not attendees) some meth couple was fighting and the dude scissor kicked the lady mortal kombat style. Don't worry, some brave drunk guys beat up the meth dude and we were out. The chick was probably okay....PARTY!!!
Also, in November they have this thing called "mo-vember" where dudes grow moustaches and get grants to donate to cancer stuff. I have a moustache, and as much as i think cancer sucks for real, I want all kiwis and aussies to know...this ain't no cancer stache!! we'll see what these next few days bring...and they better bring it all. we ain't playin ya'll..we gonna have a ball.
don't cry for me Argentina.....
love
jared and the black lips(fuck christmas)

santa...please come to the ghetto..

2007-12-03T02:38:00.000-08:00

Bad Ol' Days 2

2007-11-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

So that winter I was baptized a Black Lip. The coming year was as a purifying fire that we would be forced to pass through. Precarious pinnacles were mounted, heart-breaking disasters shrugged off and laughed at, monies borrowed and never repaid, curfews broken, expensive equipment stolen and subsequently destroyed, freedoms wrenched from the jaws of defeat and bondage. Our strength was in accepting situations that would cause much consternation and hand wringing in lesser men and turning them into a slapstick routine. In this way we made the consequences of our oversights, our follies and foibles, work for us. We pulled ourselves free from the vicious circle of cause and effect. We were fettered only to one another and to the fifteen minutes a night that we had to be on stage to totally go off.
After I got to Atlanta we began to rehearse a little in preparation for a handful of upcoming shows at home and in New York. I’d heard all the songs a hundred times and picked them up pretty easily. I had a guitar at the time but no amplifier. Cole, who lives by the edict “the show must go on”, gave me his good amp. He used his back up which was a speaker cabinet with a detached head shoddily wired into it. The head did not have the protective casing around it so all the circuits and wires were exposed. To remedy this Cole pulled some empty Busch beer cases out of the garbage and duct taped them around the outside of his “amplifier”. People wondered if we had a corporate beer sponsor. When our audiences where particularly zealous they would often shower us with beer causing Cole to have to replace his “amplifiers” cardboard casing. He used this jerry-rigged piece of shit to play shows throughout North America for close to a year.
My first show was for Julie’s birthday party at the Alphabet house in Atlanta. It is a blur. I know we tried and mostly failed to play any real songs. There was no separation between the party and the band. People swarmed all over us and there wasn’t any room to strum our instruments. Birthday cake was plastered to the ceiling and the sound of shattering glass was heard throughout the night. I had a splendid time, although the experience wasn’t exactly edifying for me as a musician. We played one more Atlanta show and then the guys said, ”Fuck it. We’re good enough, I guess,” and we took our spectacle on the road.
We were slated to play live on WFMU’s “Dave the Spazz” show and we were chomping at the bit to get to New York. However, the van from the previous tour had completely shit the bed. The motor had seized or blown up or something and the thing wasn’t moving. In the end, Atlanta’s great nurturer Kristin Klein offered her extremely dilapidated Chrysler Town & Country minivan if she and Jane could drive us up there and participate in the festivities. The van was a mess: four bald tires, cracked windshield, full of trash, hood tied down with twine and bungy cords. In short, it was just the type of circumstance that the Black Lips thrive under.
We set out on a clear winters day. I was behind the wheel and we were tailing the Carbonas who were also playing some of the shows. We had barely reached the Atlanta suburbs when the half secured hood of the minivan van began to tremble and wobble around like a night crawler. I called it to the attention of Joe Bradley and we decided to press on. All of the sudden the thing flew back and slammed against the cracked windshield. Everyone screamed in unison, just like in cartoons. I couldn’t see anything but bent metal as I tried to keep the wheel as straight as possible. Joe managed to chill everybody out and hung his head out of the passenger side window to guide me to the next exit.
We pulled into one of those quick lube places to see if the guys could put a band-aid on our little problem. The grease monkey presiding over the place ran some screws through the hood and into the frame of the van while making a clear denunciation of any liability if his handy work should come apart again. This was fine with us. We had shows to play and no time to waste.
The highways were covered with a sludgy gray, icy mixture throughout that night’s journey. Finally reaching Manhattan, we barreled through a snow bank while entering the Williamsburg Bridge on our way to Alberto’s pad in Queens. Kristin had the wheel and everyone was franticly screaming conflicting directions to her the whole way. Alberto and Sonia, true believers in our quest, soothed our nausea and anxiety when we arrived with food, coffee and grass.
The day was spent resting and digging Alberto’s stockpile of cool shit. We were set to play WFMU that night and there was a lot of discussion about how we might make our performance as ludicrous as possible. Some of those idiotic plans made it into the performance, greatly tempered by the effects of whiskey consumption.
We got to East Orange, NJ a little early and sat around in the Green Room at the radio station downing Evan Williams. We were all quite nervous, I think. Jane and Kristin were going to accompany us into the studio as a cheering section. At this point, the Black Lips weren’t the hot shit musicians that their fans are familiar with today. We relied on noise and chants and cheering whenever possible to pad out our lack of technical proficiency. The recording of that night’s performance is a testament to this.
So, at the cue from Mr. Spazz, we began roaring through our set. We tried our best to whip up frenzy in that studio. We butchered a few songs. When I listen to the recording there a couple that I’m not even sure what we were trying to play. Jared did a fine job of PR spokesman in between fits of caveman jibber-jabber. Dave the Spazz summed it up nicely at the close of our set, saying, “What a mess.”
The mess of that night had only begun. We called Alberto afterwards. He and Sonia had heard the whole thing and loved it (I said they were true believers). We set out to meet them at some bar in Manhattan, high on a cloud to the last man. In the Holland Tunnel we opened the doors on the van and grabbed traffic cones off the road. We screamed and chanted and laughed the whole way. Nothing could have punctured our drunken joy.
At the first bar we dropped into was a band playing on the floor in the back. We all collapsed into the place and set up by the bar. I don’t know why, but Jared quickly developed a strong aversion to that night’s entertainment. After a few minutes he walked right up to the band, shoved the guy out of the way, and started screaming into the mike. I guess he thought these guys were stealing his thunder or something. The management didn’t stand idly by for too long before some hunk of humanity in the customary black leather jacket came to remove our boy. But Jared wasn’t about to go so easily. He began throwing his best licks at the guy as he backed towards the door. The brawl spilled out into the street for a minute or two before Jared booked ass out of there. As drunk as Jared was he probably wasn’t that hard for this guy to handle. Though, I think he may have landed a punch or two.
Needless to say, we had to get the hell out of there and fast. Jared had taken off around the block so I went to find him. He was hiding out in the stairwell of one of those basement apartments, thinking about what he had done. I reported back to the crew and we reconnoitered and set off again.
The tone for the night was set. At the Mars Bar I put my fist through one of the panel windows thinking it was plexiglass and we would all have a good laugh. It was not plexiglass and, in addition to a minor beating from the bouncer, I received some deep gashes in my knuckles. My pals found my lying in a bloody snow pile on the sidewalk.
Now everybody was stressed out about whether or not I would be able to play guitar with my wounded mitt. We went to Alberto’s place and I was doctored up with a torn t-shirt and some duct tape. I got a serious lecture and was ordered to report to the hospital first thing in the morning. We had another show the next night and I had to get my act together.
Jared offered to accompany me to the emergency room the next day. We walked the few blocks over there only to discover a line at least two hours long. No way that was happening. We came up with a story to tell the grown-ups about how the wound had been open for too long and there was nothing they could do. One of us had heard about this kind of complication somewhere before and it sounded good enough. On the way home we dropped into a place and had a couple of beers.
So we played that nights show and everything was cool. My hand, heavily bandaged, was no problem. It was, up to that point, the most attended Black Lips show outside of Atlanta. Cole welcomed our new fans with a golden shower. I think they dug it.

late night with Conan O'brien

2007-10-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

we're playing Conan tonight and we're excited. Marky Mark(wahlberg) is the guest and he refused to do a mash up with us. And Max Weinberg is on tour with the Boss so he won't be here. Nothing much more to say. West coast tour with the spits starts tomorrow. LIVE IT!

thank you. i love my job.

2007-09-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday we woke up and headed out for Toronto. All we
> did was sleep until we got there and we found out the
> highway was shutdown. Took us forever to get to
> criminal records where we were doing an in-store. We
> were really late but there were still about 100 or so
> kids patiently waiting outside. I got an ice cream
> because I was starving and then went to set up and
> play. Nothing very exciting happened. After that we
> ate some sushi, and waited around to play. The
> legendary Horseshoe tavern was pretty rowdy and packed
> for a sunday night. Kids were going crazy even before
> we played. We finally took the stage and I noticed
> alot of folks had brought props. Foam #1 fingers that
> said black lips on them, a candian flag with
> "die Canuckhaus" written on it, and lots of glow
> sticks. I think people were crowd surfing to us
> getting ready to play. Anyways, after the second song
> I turned around to talk to cole, and some dopehead
> threw a glass bottle full speed, right to the back of
> my skull. I'm not really into the projectile thing.
> Then a girl started jerking my microphone towards my
> mouth while I was singing and it almost took my teeth
> out. I had to politely remind the insured-canadian
> crowd, that health care for me is a very foreign
> thing, and i can't stand to lose my chompers without
> losing my ass.
> after the show we went to an after party to see BBQ(mark sultan)
> play. It was awesome. people danced like hell. then I
> made a poor decision. I went with the Selmanaires to
> go to sleep at a hotel they had spotted on the way
> into town. It was called the Hotel Waverley. I really
> shoulda asked somebody local, but i was tired. We got there
> and we instantly realized it was a crack hotel, with
> hourly rates, and a 24 hour discotec in the basement.
> MY room was filthy. the mirror was broken, the bed was
> moldy loking with obvious bloodstains and cigarette
> burns all over. I was so exhausted i got a sleeping
> bag, got in with all my clothes on and tried to sleep.
> A few hours later I hear the roof start to
> creak(luckily i'm a light sleeper) Without thinking i
> jumped out of the bed and watched in utter disbelief
> as the ceiling caved in. onto my bed. After a few big
> deep breaths of moldy asbestos I went to the
> selmanaires room and slept on the floor for 2 hours or
> so. the next day they tried to argue with me about
> giving a refund. I almost died in that hell hole and
> they didn't wanna give me a refund. Luckily i had my
> trusty boost mobile camera phone with me to document
> the damage, and I got a full refund.
>

Jared-3 Canada-0

2007-09-23T19:12:00.000-07:00

I have beaten the system once again. thanks to Mike, Melissa, and Mike's mom for letting us borrow the car. It was really easy and with the impeccable story, mom-mobile, and french speaking mike it was foolproof. The Montreal show was great. We threw down. In Toronto now. Feelin good. Thanks for the tips on posting pictures. I'll do that soon.
bye

2007-09-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

/Users/jaredswilley/Desktop/1413642715_f11e381de8.jpg

This was the funnest parade i have ever attended. our first annual? bad kids parade.

Frontier Blues (fuck canada)

2007-09-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting in a Mobil gas station in St. Albans Vermont for the past 4 hours waiting on some folks from Montreal to come down here and smuggle me over the border. At least I have a computer and some books and a shred of hope. I know the show tonight is gonna rule, so I really wanna go.
I've been to every country in Europe including Russia and most of the eastern bloc, Israel, Palestine, Peru, Mexico, about to go to Australia, New Zealand,Brazil, and Japan......and fucking Canada is the only Nation on the planet (other than north korea) that won't let me in?? a D.U.I seven years ago, and a little white lie 3 years ago. If I don't get in I get a little mid-tour vacation in scenic detroit.

i'm gonna learn to post pictures when i find out how. i want everyone to see how sad i am right now

Sorry for the delay

2007-09-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

been way for a while because we've been on tour forever and ever and I just got a computer recently so now we'll be able to keep up. Did Sardinia, Italy, England, Scotland, and the eastern US. Tomorrow we go into Canada. Well, at least three of us. I'm banned from the great white north, and I have yet to find a Canadian willing to risk the endeavor of sneaking me over that ridiculous border. We're with the Selmanaires from Atlanta(who are great) for this leg, and the Spits for the west coast. Amazing tour so far, and a few interesting things happened in New York while we were there. Check these links below and see for yourself. We'll be updating alot more from now on.....as in almost everyday.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/45701-man-in-skates-climbs-nyc-globe-statue-throws-a-bunch-of-black-lips-fliers-eats-orange-gets-arrested

www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570237/ 20070920/index.jhtml?rsspartner=rssColdFusion - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Jammin' in Jerusalem

2007-08-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

We like to go to places that other bands don't go, like Sardinia or, in this case, Israel. The guys at Vice in the journalist part of the magazine wanted to coordinate their trip to Israel with our trip, so we all left on the same airplane from London.

When you get to Tel Aviv, the first thing you notice is that the entire city is overrun with stray cats. You can walk down the street and see like six stray cats just fighting and running around. It's crazy. We played in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and Haifa is a beautiful city. The show they set up for us was in the main square of the town. We got to meet the mayor and the chief of police of Haifa, and they served us up a dinner after we played. There were all these little kids going crazy, little seven-year-old kids jumping around and screaming. There was even one of them crowd-surfing, which was awesome. It was the first time we ever came across any paparazzi. We were sitting around talking and, all of the sudden in the distance, we see these people with telescopic lens in the bushes taking pictures of us.

One of our main hosts was from Jerusalem, so we went to go play there. One thing about Jerusalem, it's three-fourths surrounded by the West Bank. Of course you have the Dome of the Rock, which is a very religious place for any Islamic person, and for Muslims and Christians and Hebrews the city of Jerusalem is a holy place, but there's a really strong tension in the air. You can feel it. There's all these different types of people walking around and you never know quite what to expect. Right next to Jerusalem is the sister city of Bethlehem, and they'd basically be the same city except for these twenty foot guard walls that separate the West Bank from the rest of Israel. It's really ominous to see these walls. When we were driving by the Dead Sea we went right by them. You'd look over and see these massive guard towers and plenty of people with guns, civilians and the army alike.

The Vice guys and us cooked up this idea that we were going to play on the street in Jerusalem as well as on the street in Bethlehem, so we'd have played on both Israel and the West Bank. Unfortunately we never got around to Bethlehem, but we got a minivan and drove across the checkpoint, just flashed our passports and they waved us right into the West Bank. We drove into the West Bank and found some random square with a mosque in it. In the middle of the afternoon we just set up on the street with a bunch of guitars and started playing some of our songs. All of these old cops were looking at us, giving us dirty looks. Eventually all of these little kids came out of the woodwork and they were all standing around watching. Every so often a little girl would show up, but her father would quickly snatch her away from the performance—because rock and roll is not for girls, particularly not on the West Bank.

We played about five songs, and the kids were having a good time, and they just wanted to play our guitars and drums and stuff. To top it off we ended with playing "Johnny B. Goode." That was the one song that the kids actually recognized, so they tried to sing along and we gave them the guitars, and they started singing a Hamas chant to the tune of "Johnny B. Goode." It was really funny.

The Bad Ol' Days

2007-08-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

Hey Y'all. This is ex-Black Lips champion Jack. Swilley dropped me a line asking me to pen some of my most shamefully sublime memories from my tenure with the group. I know that I must live it up because I will never live it down. So, here goes....

I'll begin with the tall tale of my first tour with them boys. I was living in New York City when it all began. The ultimate ex-Black Lips champion, not to mention one of my best buddies, Ben Eberbaugh (r.i.p.), had just passed on in a tragic car crash. I returned to Atlanta to pay my respects and, while I was there, the dudes asked me to come on tour with them. In my mournful state it was an easy decision. I quit my NYC job and took off on the road with the Black Lips. From the outset I knew I had made the most irresponsible decision of my young life.

Ben's funeral had wrapped up only a couple of days prior to the scheduled beginning of the tour. Every bad kid in Atlanta turned out for it. It was just like the scene in "Suburbia" where all the punk kids fuck up the funeral of the dead girl, except there was about three times that many kids and none of the "parents" got pissed at us. It was actually quite touching.

The sadness of the whole affair was made particularly poignant by the fact that the Black Lips had just signed a record deal with Bomp!. I'm sure all y'all know about it, but that fact made it really heart breaking. We (the Black Lips and all us teenage buddies from Dunwoody) had always been way into Bomp! and all that type of shit, and it hurt everybody’s feelings to lose Ben right on the cusp of all that.

In spite of their sadness, the Black Lips decided to do what they thought "Old Gentle Ben" would want them to do and tour as a three-piece. Three days after the Old Boy's funeral they were scheduled to drive out for Chicago with the Carbonas. We got a huge party going at Die SlaughterHaus and a bunch of people came over to see us off. After a few cases of Busch, we set out on tour.

That night of driving would prove to be one of the most harrowing of my continuously mobile young life. It began at about 11 p.m. Atlanta time with everyone, except the perpetually responsible Joe Bradley, completely wasted. We were driving northwest toward Chicago. By the time we had reached Nashville the freeway was frozen solid. The van was slipping and wiggling as the tires tried uselessly to grab onto the ice. We kept morale up by inventing bawdy campfire versions of the entire Hank Williams canon. Jared had taken a leak out of one of the van windows and the pee created a sheet of yellow ice splattered in a wondrous, wind-swept pattern along the side of the van.

In northern Kentucky the drivers had to stop and rest their eyes. We stopped in some hillbilly burg called London. It must have been about two in the morning. We all piled out of the vans (Black Lips, Carbonas, Bobby Eubangi, Kevin Lee, Allen Suh, Alix Brown, myself) and started slipping and busting our asses on the icy parking lot.

Somehow, some of the guys got to talking to the late night Arby’s employees and told them that we were in bands. Well, these hicks were pretty impressed. I guess they thought that we were famous or something. I think it was Dave Rahn (Carbonas drummer) who worked out a swap of a couple of 7-inches for, like, 20 Arby’s sandwiches. We were all quite stoked on this deal as our beer was wearing off and it was high time we glutted ourselves with partial-meat product of some sort or another.

After the group gorging we returned to the vans and set out again on our treacherous journey. The snow was still driving hard into the windshield and visibility was down to about 18 inches, but we pressed on. I don’t know who was driving the Carbonas van, but Joe was getting the job done like a seasoned pro. I think a bit of Adderall might have been giving him the assistance that he needed.

As we struggled to find even filthier words to replace Hank’s lyrics we all began to notice that Jared was acting like a Down’s syndrome kid on a sugar rush. I mean, even more than usual. He was screaming and yelling and stumbling all over the van. He kept trying to sing along, but he sounded like his tongue was stapled to the roof of his mouth.

Jared’s behavior soon started pissing Joe Bradley off quite a bit. He was already having enough trouble seeing the road without a mongoloid mangling the English language at 55 decibels in his ear. So they started arguing.

Joe was like, “What the fuck is wrong with you, Jared.”

Jared responded, “You just tank um floom!”

Exchanges of this type proceeded for way, way too long. After a while, when everyone was fed up with trying to figure out what the fuck WAS wrong with Jared, we decided that some reefer might be just the thing to knock out his lights, so we lit a large joint.

After smoking the joint Jared normalized a little bit. It was then that he revealed to us what had so distorted his mind. Apparently, the backwater Arby’s boys had invited him into he back of the place to “do a line.” Jared assumed, as most urban dwellers would, that these humperdinks were offering him some coke. He was to tragically find out that he was wrong. This was a one truck stop, Kentucky shit-hole town and these cud-chewers were snorting METH.

So, as we proceeded to Chicago at around thirty-five miles per hour over the ice-bound interstate, Jared was twitching and fast-tempo foot tapping the entire way. The obscene honky-tonk rolled on and I think we may have stopped for more beer at one point. Eventually we reached Chicago safely and were greeted by friends new and old. The Black Lips and Carbonas played a few shows with the Tyrades and Chicago’s love affair with them was consummated.

The tour continued, many more shows were played and much more poison consumed. In the next few weeks every member of our entourage would have a chance to prove what he or she was made of as we sloughed our way through the jungles and mires of America. In Ohio, Kevin Lee extinguished the flames on the back of a burning truck driver while barrels of some caustic chemical exploded all around him. In New York, Alberto of Wowsville saw the Black Lips for the first time and is rumored to have exclaimed, “This is the future.” When we all returned to Atlanta I joined the band and the adventure proceeded.

More to come……

Euro Jams!!!

2007-08-20T05:35:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go again. Back in the olde country. Just landed in England and we're trollin around searching for adventure. Tomorrow we go to our little paradise we call Sardinia. So we'll have some killer beach and food stories to tell ya'll about. For now it's cold and cloudy and there's no waves in sight. Get ready for our new beef with 50 cent, kanye, and that little cracker ass motherfucker Kenny Chesney. They're all bitches. Currently listening to CCR, and that makes me happy and love the USA for all the right reasons. My highlight of the trip so far was standing in the British Airways check in line with that delightful fellow "DENNIS RODMAN" I almost iced that motherfucker but Jesus got me feeling bad so I left that triflin' ass fool alone. He should consider himself the luckiest man on earth. I gotta go now my "ZIMA" is getting warm.
wordz of wizdom-" if you play.....you lose"-Inez

Wilderness Treatment Center

2007-08-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

When I was 16 years old I got expelled from school and got into a bit of trouble with the law. As a result my parents and the courts thought it would be a good idea for me to spend some time at a ranch outside of Marion Montana near Glacier national park. I spent three months there. Half the time working on the ranch living in a cabin heated by a wood stove, and the other half dragging a sled on cross-country skis through Glacier park camping and mountain climbing and wiping my ass with compacted snow. It was February. It sucked hard. Here's a letter I Cole wrote me that I found today while cleaning my room.

Dear Jared,
sorry it took me so long to write back. The show at the Earl went excellent. We are starting to get a good reputation around town. The El Caminos got a write up in the Creative Loafing(free Atlanta weekly paper) and we got mentione. Your mom and Jim(ex- stepdad of mine) came to Alpha Soda(diner cole washed dishes at) and said that you might get sent to a halfway house for three months, that's ridiculous! you need to work hard at whatever you need to do to get out of there. Jim also said that you wouldn't be playing with the Blacklips anymore when you got back, and I was about to tell him to shut the fuck up, but I figured I'd play it cool. Well I hope you make it back on the 27th. Don't forget the Blacklips and the house.
later,
Cole

I did make it back on the 27th, and kept playing with the blacklips and moved into die slaughterhaus. I'm really glad i did.