Here's what I spent several hours on tonight

It kinda sucks I missed Victoria's surprise birthday party for this, but it needed to be turned in asap, and anyway I've been going out too much as of late. It's for the Carnegie Hall playbill.




Arbouretum, a band known for its epic, folk-driven songs underscored by ferocious, acid-drenched guitar breakouts, brings a slightly more pastoral side to the fore tonight with its first-ever performance at the legendary Carnegie Hall.

This past March, Arbouretum released its third full-length LP, the internationally-acclaimed gem Song of the Pearl. The album eclipsed expectations and transcended genre with its grand and melodious songs driven by surging rhythms, otherworldly twin-guitar explorations, and band founder David Heumann's compelling and emotive vocals. It is from this record that they draw the bulk of their selections tonight, as well as unique re-tellings of choice earlier material.

Having been invited to play a series of East Coast shows with Band of Horses, the members of Arbouretum have had their sights set on the Carnegie performance in particular as an opportunity to bring out a different aspect of their musical expression and songcraft, augmenting their core membership of Corey Allender, Daniel Franz, David Heumann, and Stephen Strohmeier with special appearances by some of the Mid-Atlantic region's finest. Guest vocalist Meg Baird, pedal steel ace Dave Hadley, and erstwhile full-time Arbourist Walker Teret lend their singular talents to the proceedings for this uncommon event, helping to start the evening with music that radiates as well as resonates. Tonight's a jewel indeed.

Arbouretum radio appearance

Steve and I did a thing for WYPR's "the signal"(88.1 in Baltimore) yesterday, to be aired Friday the 29th. It was easy-going and laid back, didn't feel as if I "ended up alone with a microphone", or anything to that effect. It consisted of some interview segments and a bit of acoustic guitar playing. When it airs, it will also be archived on the web, at which point I will post it.

Imminent Trajectories

I thought it would be a good idea to let people know about things we have planned for the warm season that's approaching. We're entering into a relatively busy period now, with these near-future doings that loom precipitously before us. The events that are to come have motivated us to put a lot of time into our playing and arrangements as of late...something that will be reflected in our live sets for sure.

A general overview-

A May 22nd show at the Webster Hall Studio in NYC
-playing with D.Charles Speer and TK Webb&The Visions.
I hear this space is nice, and we're looking forward to the bill as a whole.

A June 4th show at Baltimore's Creative Alliance (Patterson Theater).

It'll be an acoustic set, with guest appearances by Meg Baird (vocals), Dave Hadley (pedal steel), and Walker Teret (various instruments). The Violet Hour opens.

I think this one will be especially cool. In some ways it will be a warm-up for the set we are to play at Carnegie Hall a week afterward, but there are some aspects that will be even cooler because we'll be able to stretch it out a bit more and really explore the concept of doing such a format.
Plus any time spent listening to the Violet Hour is time well spent, in our opinion.

June 11 through June 18- several East Coast dates opening for the Band of Horses, with a little break in the middle. Details here.
Really looking forward to these. It'll be nice to play some big rooms to a bunch of people, and particularly to their audience. I think there's really something to this Band of Horses/Arbouretum thing. Sure, the kinds of songs that each band writes are fairly different than one another and so are the two bands' approaches to arrangements, but there's a lot of common ground too- both bands have some really tuneful songs that get rocked out live, and both bands put a lot of stock in guitar interplay. I saw them this past New Year's, actually, where I met them for the first time, and they put on a great live show- One gets the sense that these guys really believe. We're extremely grateful that they invited us for this upcoming run and are looking at it as an opportunity to strengthen what we do and play some really well-thought out, well-executed sets.

Then there's a show in Wilmington, NC on our way back from the last show with B.O.H. on June 19th.
I need to get the name and address of the venue so I can post it...but it should be really fun- they want us to play a really long time (by our standards, at least), and this, I think, will help us get some ideas together for some of the longer sets typically expected of bands headlining European shows.

which brings me now to...

European and UK Shows, July 10th-ish through July 31.

Details of these are being posted on our myspace page as we get confirmations. They include 4 festivals and a bunch of club dates. Some of these festival gigs are looking awesome, especially the UK's Supersonic Festival (we get to play the same day as Pontiak!), and I also have a good feeling about the club dates. Seems our record is doing pretty well in the UK and parts of Europe, so I'm anticipating seeing more people at the shows than we did last time we did a full tour over there, that being the fall of '07.

More updates soon- will try to update this thing more frequently.

Arbouretum Image from a fan of ours who does graphic design work

Mark Kunac from Australia randomly/not so randomly sent us this image via the blog. I like it- it really seems to capture a certain aspect of our recent stuff, as well as referencing some of my recent photos.

Click on it to embiggen- it's worth it.