chris mother fucking simpson came out to our show in austin.

he was really nice and it totally made our life. the end.

-keith

Happy New Year!

2009 Recap:

Get ready to think I'm really dorky..

53 Shows

46 Venues

38 Cities

16 States (CT, GA, IL, KY, MA, MD, MI, MO, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA & WI)

6 CYLS Record-Release Show Appearances (Each and Everyone, Boys' Life, Summer Months, Summer Fences, Perfect Future & What It Takes to Move Forward)

5 Lineups (23 shows w/ DJ on bass, 21 w/ Ahmad, 7 w/ Nate, 1 w/ No Bassist & 1 w/ just Keith and Cathy)

3 Releases (Summer Tour EP '09, What It Takes to Move Forward LP & Split 7" w/ Football, Etc.)

3 Mini-Tours (June, July & Thanksgiving)

2 Compilation Appearances (Title It Yourself & Almost Free Music)

2 Tours (March & August)

2 Ridiculous One-Day Tours (June & July)

Friends we shared the stage with: Ahmad Naboulsi, Annabel, Alco, Algernon Cadwallader, Brave Captain, Castevet, Cheap Girls, Continental Things, Death in the Park, Deer Friends, Definition Plexus, Eat People, Father Time, The Forecast, Freaky J & The Bears, The Gamma Foundation, The Give A Hoot, Grown Ups, Henry Gale, Husky Puppies, I Am the Branch, In the Clear, It's Just Vanity, Joie de Vivre, The Joint Chiefs of Math, Karate Christ, La Dispute, Lights at Sea, Moneen, Moving Mountains, мища, Native, New Brunswick, Noumenon, Orphans, Ossimer, Perfect Future, The Plurals, Prawn, Presea, Pswingset, The Reptilian, Run Forever, Sirdidymous, Sleep Bellum Sonno, Slingshot Dakota, Small Houses, Snakeosaurus Rex, Snowing, The Summer Pledge, Thought and Memory, Trisorta, Truncated Lions, The Usual, Victor! Fix the Sun, We Were Skeletons, & What's Good.

Clutch Performances: Keith graduated from grad school, Cathy got a sweet promotion, Jon became a substitute teacher & CYLS signed a bunch of sweet bands and put out a bunch of sweet records.

2010 Plans:

January Tour

Part I:

1/01 Fri - COLUMBUS, OH @ The Crackhouse w/ High Five, Atom Bomb

1/02 Sat - NASHVILLE, TN @ The Rabbit Hole w/ Leach

1/04 Mon - HOUSTON, TX @ The Mink w/ Football, Etc. (Unofficial Split 7" Release!)
1/05 Tue - AUSTIN, TX @ Trailer Space Records w/ The Reptilian, Cloud Mouth & For Want Of

1/06 Wed - FORT WORTH, TX @ 1919 Hemphill w/ Lemuria & O Pioneers!!!

1/07 Thu - Show Canceled. Help? (Oklahoma)

1/08 Fri - KANSAS CITY, MO @ Salt Water Taffy House w/ Emo Side Project

1/09 Sat - ST. LOUIS, MO @ Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center w/ My Heart to Joy & Hostage Calm

1/10 Sun - Help? (Indianapolis)

Part II

1/15 Fri - SOUTH BEND, IN @ The Cabana House w/ Merchant Ships & Leaving Songs

1/16 Sat - CHICAGO, IL @ Beat Kitchen (17+) w/ Joie de Vivre & Mountains for Clouds

1/17 Sun - Help? (Wisconsin)

1/23 Sat - EAST LANSING, MI @ The Small Planet for The Record Lounge's "Middle of the Mitten" Local Showcase (10 Bands)

Big thanks to everyone who helped us book those hot dates!

Bassist Situation

November & December were so crazy with work/school/shows/label stuff/family reunions/illnesses/booking tour/hanging with old friends that we literally have not had time to even begin to address this seemingly fundamental issue. So.. we haven't held any "tryouts" yet. To everyone who has inquired, we're sorry for taking forever getting back to you.. Our old bassist, DJ, will be filling in for January, and after that we will hopefully have more time to sort out this dilemma. We won't be booking any more shows until we find someone, so it's "Bassist by February or Bust", because:

We're Probably Going to Europe in April

This awesome band from Budapest, called Marionette ID, has invited us to go on tour with them overseas. We're really excited; however, this- coupled with our current lack of a bassist- means that our previous plans for a tour this March are officially defunct. Sorry, southeast USA.. I was really looking forward to Spring Break Tour '10.

Upcoming Recordings?

We have two new songs that are just about ready to be recorded. We'd like to lay them down soon after tour. One of them is going on a Split 10" with our CYLS label-mates Joie de Vivre, The Reptilian, and Annabel. The other will be a bonus track on the vinyl release of "When the Sea Became a Giant." After that? Maybe we'll be feeling really sassy. We might just pump out a new EP!

Other CYLS Releases to Look Forward to:

Joie de Vivre's "The North End" LP

Boris Smile's "Rockets" EP

Moving Mountains' "Pnuema" 2xLP

Colossal's EP on Vinyl

Full-lengths from Football, Etc., Snowing & Pswingset!

Brave Captain? Someday?

.. and Deer Friends?!

-Jon

E!E!(IWALE) Discography

In case anyone was curious/confused, I think this pretty much covers everything, with the exception of Keep It Together's pending cassette tape release of "What It Takes to Move Forward." The Football, Etc. Split is my first recording with the band :)
-Jon

When The Sea Became A Giant
CDEP - 19:27 - 01/16/07 - CYLS 000
Out of Print - Available Digitally

1. Our Love Has Made Us Pariahs
2. You Have to Believe That Life Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts, Kiddo
3. Lilly, I Have Something Important to Tell You
4. They Will Throw Us to the Wolves
5. K.O. K.O. (The Most of My Worries Are the Least of Your Concerns)

Year of the Rabbit
7" - 8:56 - 2/19/08 - CYLS 001/SNCL 011
Out of Print - Available Digitally

SIDE A: Year of the Rabbit
SIDE B: IDK, My BFF Jill

Summer Tour EP '09
CD-R - 17:30 - 08/12/09 - Self-Released
Out of Print - Tour Exclusive

1. Everything Is Connected and Everything Matters (A Temporary Solution to a Permanent Problem)
2. What Safe Means
3. Rally the Troops! Poke Holes In Their Defenses! Line Our Coffers With Their Coffins!
4. It Was Your Heart That Saved You
5. How to Stay Afloat in a Sea of Change

Title It Yourself
Cassette Tape - 95:00 - 9/14/09 - KIT 002
In Print - 100 Black / 100 Red
http://keepittogetherrecords.com/


SIDE A:
1. Victor V-B - It's Not You, It's Me
2. Brown Bird - Lake Bed
3. Death Metal Steve - Remember Love
4. Eric Ayotte - Wavin' Flag (by K'naan)
5. Wabash - Here To Learn
6. A.P. Swearengin - Find
7. Toby Foster - Speech Patterns
8. Perpetual Dusk at Curtsy Caverns - Likewise, Spinning Wheels
9. Paul Baribeau - Things I Wish
10. Big Spirit - Cryin' Shame
11. Ghost Mice - The Alcheist
12. Y Lime? - Faries
13. Dustin and the Furniture - Intruder
14. Plumwife - Green Stone, Slight Moan
15. Ben Block - Italy or Sorrento
16. Spoonboy - Gerald Lee Palmer
17. Teeadora - Sharing Chairs
18. Jenny Is A Boy - Eggs
SIDE B:
1. Amo Joy - Diggity Doom
2. Joie de Vivre - Salt
3. Get Rad - It's Not A Fire
4. Loose Lips Sink Ships - Duck Funk
5. Erfert - Cross Your Fingers
6. The Burnside Fountains - Thinking of You
7. Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) - Jacob's Song
8. Suffix - Brutal Knowledge
9. Pianos Become The Teeth - Creatures of Habit
10. Monsters Armed With Scissors - We Are All Spiders
11. Sleep Bellum Sonno - Hunter
12. One Win Choice - Where My Allegiance Lies
13. Arkansas? - Hashbrowns
14. Victor! Fix The Sun - Paper Thin Feather Fuck

What It Takes to Move Forward
CDLP - 55:39 - 9/29/09 - CYLS 012
2xLP - 67:25 - 9/29/09 - CYLS 012/SNCL 015
In Print - http://cylsrecords.com/home/
http://sncl.collective-zine.co.uk/

CD:
1. How to Make Love Stay
2. Keep What You Have Built Up Here
3. What Safe Means
4. It Happened Because You Left
5. Rally the Troops! Poke Holes In Their Defenses! Line Our Coffers With Their Coffins!
6. It's a Plague, and You're Invited
7. Everything Is Connected and Everything Matters (A Temporary Solution to a Permanent Problem)
8. The Next Step to Regaining Control
9. With Your Greatest Fears Realized, You Will Not Be Comforted
10. I Am a Snail, and You Are a Pace I Cannot Match
11. An Idea Is a Greater Monument Than a Cathedral
Vinyl:
1A:
1. How to Make Love Stay
2. Keep What You Have Built Up Here
3. What Safe Means
4. With Your Greatest Fears Realized, You Will Not Be Comforted
1B:
5. It Happened Because You Left
6. Rally the Troops! Poke Holes In Their Defenses! Line Our Coffers With Their Coffins!
7. It's a Plague, and You're Invited
2A:
8. Everything Is Connected and Everything Matters (A Temporary Solution to a Permanent Problem)
9. The Next Step to Regaining Control
10. An Idea Is a Greater Monument Than a Cathedral
2B:
11. I Am a Snail, and You Are a Pace I Cannot Match
12. It Was Your Heart That Saved You
13. Actually, I'm Just Wearing Your Glasses

What It Takes to Move Forward (Japanese Import)
CDLP - 62:13 - 2009 - STSL 038
In Print - http://www.stiffslack.com/

1. How to Make Love Stay
2. Keep What You Have Built Up Here
3. What Safe Means
4. It Happened Because You Left
5. Rally the Troops! Poke Holes In Their Defenses! Line Our Coffers With Their Coffins!
6. It's a Plague, and You're Invited
7. Everything Is Connected and Everything Matters (A Temporary Solution to a Permanent Problem)
8. The Next Step to Regaining Control
9. With Your Greatest Fears Realized, You Will Not Be Comforted
10. I Am a Snail, and You Are a Pace I Cannot Match
11. An Idea Is a Greater Monument Than a Cathedral
12. It Was Your Heart That Saved You
13. So How Many Points Do You Have 'Till You Gain, You Know, the Ultimate Power?

Almost Free Music - A Compilation
CD - 60:48 - 12/15/09 - PP 105
In Print - http://thosephoenixproductions.com/

1. Banana Convention - Taking Back the Fun
2. After the Dust - Hollow
3. This Level Is Clouds! - Syracuse
4. Annadelle - Get Away
5. Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) - Rally the Troops! Poke Holes In Their Defenses! Line Our Coffers With Their Coffins!
6. Sean Stout - Little Pirouettes
7. Fail - Could Be You (live)
8. After the Dust - Heartsick Lullaby
9. Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) - What Safe Means
10. Fail - Sick (live)
11. This Level Is Clouds! - Now You Really Are
12. Sean Stout - French Sister
13. Annadelle - Dissonance
14. Banana Convention - Don't

Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) / Football, Etc. - Split 7"
7" Split - 10:17 - 12/15/09 - CYLS 014/SNCL 019
In Print - http://cylsrecords.com/home/
http://sncl.collective-zine.co.uk/

SIDE A: Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) - Documenting Thirty Days
SIDE B: Football, Etc. - Fightin' Phoenix

Oh yeah...

After driving from 2 am to 5 pm on Friday, we are back in the Great
Lakes state! The show Friday night at the Black Shamrock was great. We
got to play Sleep Bellum Sono again, and those guys are amazing.
Thought and Memory also rocked the house. Ahmad raised the roof during
their entire set. We had a lot of fun, but not too much fun... we knew
what was ahead of us. Because of Jon's craziness and wanting to run
the Crim on Saturday morning, and my needing to be at work, we decided
to drive right from the show in East Meadow (Long Island) all the way
to Michigan. So drive we did. Keith and I took turns driving from 2 am
to 8 am, and then Jon and Ahmad took over until we got home.
We made a slightly random stop in Toledo after finding out that
Keith's parents and grandpa were in town (also from Michigan). So we
hung out, and got lunch at a yummy eatery with delicious waffle fries!
.
Jon kicked ass in the Crim (which is a big race in Flint where he ran
10 miles).

I heard he earned a gold star. And before we knew it, it
was Sunday and we had another show at the amazing Maruma open house
('09). We partied hard. Really hard. We watched some Guitar Hero
prodigies, and ate cake. We left the night with a seemingly 30 lb bag
full of meatballs. What more could you ask for?
All in all, the tour was great!

cathy

I thought we were tight, CT. I thought we were like THIS (fingers crossed).

Despite Tony and Jeff's best efforts to put on a good Tuesday night show at Cousin Larry's in Danbury, we were simply out of our element. The place sounds amazing, but unfortch no one came out, and winning over bar crowds isn't exactly our strong suit. We even had a heckler or two. I personally enjoyed Failure's Art and Supervolcano, but on the whole, Connecticut can suck it.

So for Wednesday, it was back to the basement, where we belong. Thanks to: Sam's parents, for letting us be loud in their home; Karate Christ, Along the Way, and In the Clear for letting us on the bill; and Joseph and everyone else who came out to watch us and/or bought a shirt and/or EP. I hope those disposable camera shots surface at some point. My only regret is that we didn't have time to partake in the rope swing / pond activities, which sounded scary but awesome.

BIG THANKS to Keith's sister Amy and her boyfriend Jeff for letting us stink up their living room for the last three nights. We had a blast sweating it out with you in the van at 60 mph on the way to and from the show.

Today, we wave a final goodbye to Providence, RI. On the way out, I will make sure to keep an eye out for Harry's Mutt Cutts van. Maybe we'll even stop at Freda Feltcher's in Cranston for some French tickling. Hopefully we don't have to trade in our van straight up to some kid for his moped.

I will now leave you with some assorted tour photos and maybe even a few videos of us being ballers in Philly.











-Jon

Feel better Hampton, thanks for the brownies!

What a day! After a long drive from Erik's in New Brunswick we finally made it to Hagerstown, Maryland for an awesome afternoon show at Hampton's. Sadly, Hampton is insanely ill and fighting for his life against an unnamed ailment (probably the flu). But he's still young and spry, feel better buddy!

The show was totally awesome. We played with local badasses Eat People and мища(pronounced Mischa), as well as The Usual and Sunlines. Because it was an afternoon show in a garage, it was hot as hell and my bass is now covered in delicious sweat streaks. COOL! But it was totally awesome anyway and can't wait to get back to Hagerstown.

Post show, we realized that we had no where to stay! So instead of staying in Maryland, we decided to supplement our 4 hour drive from New Brunswick to Hagerstown with a (supposedly) 6 hour drive to Rhode Island where Keith's sister Amy lives. So we said good bye to Hampton and thanked his mom for the yummy brownies and Gatorade and hit the road around 7ish. It is now 3:20am and we are still only in Connecticut. Why? Because being from Michigan, we underestimated the severity (and smelliness) that is I-95 traffic in New Jersey. Tolls are now the arch nemesis of Empire! Empire!. We are now about 2 hours behind schedule and $12.10 poorer. New York City tolls were no help either. So in short, thanks, tolls. You're a douche.

Here's a video from Hamptons! Enoy!



-Ahmad

So hot...

alright, it's finally my turn to update this beast!

where to start? i'm going to go back and touch on the algernon show and say that it was amazing, but it was also a total bummer because we ran into some technical difficulties in the first time for like two years. bad timing! so we scrambled around during our set and tried to figure it out, and we tried every option we thought it might be until we finally figured out that it was cathy's cab. which is pretty random because those things hardly ever are the problem. but joe from algernon let us borrow his cab (thanks!) and we barrelled through three more songs for a short but fun set. sweet redemption.

after that, we hung out with jon and ross from snowing, and heard how they mispronounce "tour". also had an invigorating chat about gilmore girls, which is an amazing show if you didn't already know. rory is a hottie! and kirk is now doing those kgb commercials! bill buckner!

in the morning, jon and his parents totally made us waffles! heck yeah!

then we set up for new jersey, but we had some time to kill, and it was jon's birthday so we decided to take a little detour to philly. i am not going to lie, philly cheese steaks were the motivation, and it was all worth it.



there was a basketball court right across the street and jon had brought along a ball, so he grabbed it, and we proved to all philly we had absolutely no game. fresh prince eat your heart out!

after that, we fulfilled jon's life-long dream of running up the steps of the philadelphia art museum ala rocky, and it was an epic moment for all of us. except for maybe cathy because she was far too lazy to run up the steps and follow him. tsk! tsk!

i'm going to go on a small tangent here to explain one of the reasons it was such an epic moment. jon, for whatever reason, is not a fan of sleeping bags. the man refuses to take one with him, and to everyone else, they are tour essentials. last time we brought and extra for him, and it never left the van. he is a anti-sleeping bag semite.

at any rate, in leau of a sleeping bag, jon instead dons a fantastic gray sweatsuit to sleep in. and he just lays on the floor and goes to sleep. i imagine in his dreams he is sweating to the oldies and jazzersizing like there is no tomorrow. richard simmons eat your heart out!

so what could more perfect for jon's ascension to rocky-like status than wearing this magnificent jumpsuit? complete with incredible rocky impressions and gray glory, jon pumped his way to the top. my heart almost stopped when he reached the top, and if i had seen the movie in the last ten years, i might have cried. ahmad did.



thinking of sylvester stallone reminds me of rambo as well, but more of the nintendo game than the movie. for those of you foolish enough not to know of the glory of this nintendo game, you should seriously reevaluate your lives. i am tempted to post nothing but screen shots of the action as opposed to actual video, but since it was jon's birthday, i will pass. still, it might be a good time to buy stock in nintendo, because after this blog post i am guessing stock will rise at least 10,000% solely from people purchasing this game.

then it was time to head back to the hot, hot, sauna-like van. let me take a minute to appreciate this glorious piece of machinery: there is no air-conditioning and all of the sudden this very mild summer has taken a turn for the worse and actually decided to grow some balls.
bad timing! to make matters far worse, the driver's side window is a total jerk and refuses to roll down, and all the windows in the back only open a crack, which does little to nothing to cool things down. all of this is a dreaded combination for august, and it is safe to say we have all sweat off like five pounds already.

while cathy and i took a nap on the way to jersey, ahmad and jon were stuck in a good ol' sunday night traffic jam. all of which meant we missed our good friends deer friends set, as well as sad zombie. we were totally bummed. all the kids at the show told us that it was probably beach traffic of people coming back to jersey, but i would rather believe it was a conspiracy designed to make us late for the show.

after we got there, we immediately did some surgery on cathy's cab, and got that bad-boy back in action and had a great time rocking out in a hot, hot basement. though it was debatable which was hotter: the basement or the van.

after the set, we hung out with jersey's finest people! erik, my friend, you are an amazing guy, and we had a good time talking music and maps. we will forever cherish the map you gave us, and as we speak the m and m's are melting to a glorious mess in our van.

next stop, maryland!

xoxo

keith <3<3<3<3<3<3



with a cartridge like that, you are already getting a boner. even if
you are a chick.




...and now you are spent!

i am in the van right now so i can't upload the video's, but they will
be up soon!

-Keith