DDW Tour Dates

Dark Dark Woods LP Release Tour Dates!

The end of husband&wife...

After somewhere between nine and twelve years (depending on who you ask...) of writing, recording, touring, planning and scheming, we've decided that it's time to call it a day for husband&wife. This may come as a surprise to some of you, and for others of you it's probably more like, "about dang time!". We've had a whole lot of fun over the last decade or so, more or less dedicating our lives to this thing. We've learned a lot of things, tried out a lot of things, made a few things we're embarrassed of, and even more things we're really very proud of. What a ride, you know!?

The truth is, we feel like this couldn't be happening at a better time. Yes, it's a bit of a bummer to throw in the towel, BUT we certainly feel like we're ending on a high note. The whole experience of this new 7" has been great. It has gone better than we ever could have imagined, and we've sincerely had a great time working on it. The recording sessions for "I'll Wait" and "Don't Rush" were some of the most fun times I've ever had in this band, and that's really saying something. Not to mention, these two songs are some of the most collaborative, best-sounding, and best songs we've had the pleasure of working on together. However, we know full well that 2 songs released after two and a half years of work is not what a band does. We've lost our steam. So, instead of dragging it out or forcing a final album together that we're not too excited about, we've decided to go ahead and pull the plug now. Clean break. Now - while we still like each other, you still like us, and we all still like the music. Well, kind of "Now"...

We're going to do a handful of final tour dates. One - to fulfill our out-standing obligations - but the more important reason is that we all felt it would be a ton of fun to hit the road one last time to give ourselves some closure and to give this band a proper send-off. The last show of the tour will be our final performance as husband&wife, and it will be right here in good old Bloomington, IN! the tour dates are listed below. (and a few of them aren't filled yet...if you or someone you know might be interested in helping us fill those dates, please let us know!)

Thurs. Feb. 7th - Muncie, IN - Village Green Records - w/ State Park
Fri. Feb. 8th - Ft. Wayne, IN - CS3 Tiger Room - Plural Pines, and House of Bread
Sat. Feb. 9th - Chicago, IL - Coles (Logan Square) - w/ Flowers, and Wally Dogger
Sun. Feb. 10th - Indianapolis, IN - Flannelgraph/XRA Records showcase - LUNA Records - w/ She Does Is Magic, Living Well, Frank Schweikhardt, and New Terrors

Thurs. Feb. 28th - Kalamazoo, MI - Louie's Trophy Shop - w/ Glowfriends, and TBA
Fri. Mar. 1st - Grand Rapids, MI - Mulligan's - w/ Pistolbrides, and Congress
Sat. Mar. 2nd - Ypsilanti, MI - The Playboy Mansion - w/ Congress, and TBA

Wed. April 10th - Kansas City, MO/Lawrence, KS - Help us book this!
Thur. April 11th - Ft. Collins, CO - TBA
Fri. 4/12/2013 Denver, CO - Help us book this!
Sat. 4/13/2013 Provo, UT - TBA
Sun. 4/14/2013 Salt Lake City, UT - TBA
Mon. 4/15/2013 ???? - Help us book this!
Tues. 4/16/2013 Kansas City, MO/Lawrence, KS - Help us book this!
Sat. 4/20/2013 Bloomington, IN - TBA (LAST husband&wife SHOW EVER!)

Another thing we wanted to tell you is that while this does mark the end of husband&wife, the music doesn't stop here. All of us are still very much involved in other on-going musical endeavors that will carry on. If you'd like to keep up with what's happening with all of us, here is a collection of links that will help you:

www.XRArecords.com
www.flannelgraphrecords.com
New Terrors (Burke's solo recording)
Mike Adams at His Honest Weight (Mike's solo recordings)
Living Well (Bryant's new band)
Frank Schweikhardt (Tim and Mike play together in this band)

As always, we can't say thanks enough for what all of you guys have given us over the life of this band, and allowed us to experience. Please do stay in touch, and feel free to write us with any questions or comments. And please, come and hang with us at these final shows. LeT's PaRtY!!

THANK YOU.

TL;DR - new 7" is nearly finished, husband&wife is breaking up but, doing one last tour!

"I'll Wait" b/w "Don't Rush" Day II

Our plan for yesterday was to start working around 10am and work all day until we had solid drum takes, then move on to the bass guitar and finish that up. We spent the most time on the drum sound. Dave and Adam jumped in right away talking about gear and mic placement that was well beyond all of us. We referenced a few recordings/videos that we all felt would be a good starting point for these tunes. We ended up using some drum mic'ing techniques that were new to all of us (including the engineers) and came out with something that was close to what we had in mind, and also sounds very unique. We were happy about that. All in all, we used 9 mics on "I'll Wait" and 10 on "Don't Rush". That's a lot more than we typically do, but the time and effort and extra stuff definitely seems to have paid off. I'm afraid I don't have many great pictures of our drum set-up because not only did we close mic EVERYTHING, we built a small fort around Burke with blankets and foam baffles that made photo taking kind of difficult. I think Bryant may have gotten some video and additional photos that wil probably surface before too long. Once we got two drum takes we were happy with, we moved on to the bass guitar. One thing that Bryant did that we've never really tried before was running his bass through two completely different and separate amp set-ups simultaneously. Dave and Adam also mic'd them separately. So, we effectively had two different bass sounds going at once that were totally in sync. It sounds great, and Bryant knocked both of those songs out in just a few takes. The only problem we ran into (which set us back about an hour...) was that Burke and I had miscounted a part (or two...) during the drum take. Keep in mind, we didn't discover this until we had already destroyed Burke's fort, and taken down all 10 mics and put up five or six more for this bass rig. LUCKILY, it was a very easy edit to make, so after some deliberation, cussing, and blushing Dave was able to fix it and save the day. No harm, no foul. Today we're recording guitars and vocals. More about that tomorrow. k, luv u, bye.

Here's Adam, fooling with me and hopping around between dimensions while I'm trying to take his photo. So annoying...

Here's what breakfast looked like. Weird. Breakfast was weird.

"I'll Wait" b/w "Don't Rush" Executive Producer, Werner

Tim, catching the fade during drum set-up.

Here's Adam with a microphone we borrowed from a friend, who got it from a pedophile. Ask us about that in private...

Burke didn't know I was taking this picture. Here he is getting in the zone.

This is what recording looks like while you're not the one who is doing recording.

Or, it can also look like this...

It was Mexican food for lunch. Have you ever noticed the mondo B-A-B-E-S on Univision? We did!

Dave and Adam in a daze after realizing what they've gotten themselves into...

Public House Recording Studio

I had a short break yesterday, so I went record shopping/free arcade game and pinball playing at Logan Hardware for about an hour. If you're ever in Chicago, DO NOT MISS this national treasure.

Like the stars say in Hollywood, California...slappin de beeaaassssssss

Bryant's bass riggs

This is Dave right after he said "Hop Thesis" to the waitress and we all laughed at him. Ask us about that in private...

"I'll Wait" b/w "Don't Rush" Day I

We packed up our duds last evening and headed for Chicago. We're very excited to begin recording for this new 7". In fact, we're just getting some microphones on the drums now and we're having a great time. The trip was great, we had a nice opportunity to hang out with Adam and Dave last night and get a plan together for the weekend. So far, so good.

Twenty Twelve

It's been a little bit since our last post....I warned you, though. 2012 is half-gone. We got booted out of our secret rehearsal space and moved into what turns out to be a much more comfortable, cheaper, and more productive working environment for us. Who knew? Sometimes, you don't know what you've got til it's gone. And sometimes what you had was an albatross. We're busy now, steadily pecking away at new material. I still can't say what exactly we're getting ourselves into, but things are taking shape and being revealed to us a little at a time. We're planning a couple of things, loosely. For one, we'd like to release a 7" single soon(er than later) that has two new songs on it. We've been playing these songs at our live shows recently and feeling pretty good about them. More info on this soon. other things we have in mind are even more abstract than that. did you ever notice how easy it is to accidentally type "thongs" when you meant to type "things"? When we're not on tour (like now) this blog is kind of slow. I'm sorry. The real action is happening at our newly minted twitter handle which is found at @hubndubs. Do i need to say "at", or do you guys read "at" in your brain when you see "@". I know i do. lots of recording photos, weird ideas, limericks, and that kind of thing are happening from us on twitter. the writing is brief, but it's frequent and pertinent. there are some new wearable husband&wife things for sale at xrarecords.bigcartel.com. it's the only place to get most of that stuff at the moment, so head on over there and spend yer dough. maybe soon we can post some mp3s that will serve as a progress report, or at least a taste of what we're working on. I don't know. I just thought of that and i'll have to run it by the others. stay tuned, i guess!!!!!!

Is This Art?

Well, that was 2011....our touring has come to an end for the year and now we're hunkering down for the winter to write and hopefully record a new record. We've recently, and secretly, been moving things into our new top secret classified as-yet-unnamed rehearsal space/studio in order to get started. It's a fantastic little spot, that suits us very well. Preliminary work has already begun on some new material and we're starting to get excited. I can't really say what the new record is going to be like, because it just isn't clear yet, but it's shaping up to be a very different kind of record than any we have made before.

Perhaps this blog will morph for a time into a recording blog, rather than a tour blog? Either way, we'll keep the interested parties well informed about what's going on with us.

For the time being, it's the holiday season, i'm laid up with a mysteriously broken foot, Bryant's Poland-bound and my son is due to arrive in just a few weeks. Things are probably going to be somewhat quiet around here for at least a little while, so I thought i'd share something with you that came up in the van on our recent trip to Michigan...

CONCERNING THE PROUD FLESH ALBUM ARTWORK :

For each of our previous records (Operation:Surgery, and Dark Dark Woods) we felt it very important to do something kind of crafty for the album art. Something that we made with our own hands, that no one else had ever made or put together before. The whole approach to those records was kind of like that on all levels; capturing moments unique to us on tape, on film, whatever, that had never happened before. Proud Flesh was very different than that for us, because we wanted to make a high-energy record, very quickly. In order to do that, we had to borrow a lot of things...equipment, ideas, lyrics, and even artwork.

Believe this or not, but during the day all four of us have to hold down steady jobs in order to pay our bills and stay alive. Not because husband&wife doesn't bring in boat loads of money, it does, but because we live very extravagant lifestyles. It's not easy to keep up with the Joneses on the meager few millions that this rock n roll dream brings in every couple of weeks. So, we each go off to our favorite little day jobs everyday in order to supplement...you know how it goes.

Anyway, my job is at a local television station. Every third Thursday of each month we tape an event at the county history center called, "Third Thursday Event". Typically, a TTE is a powerpoint-style slideshow accompanied by a guest lecturer who happens to be an expert on the subject of the day. One such event happened to be led by a former professor of mine (I dropped his class in order to work in a warehouse...) from Indiana University, Dr. Eric Sandweiss. And, his subject was the Kodachrome slide collection of Charles W. Cushman, recently donated to IU.

Dr. Sandweiss is a great, personable speaker and there's no way I can do his lecture justice here, so I'm just going to give you some of the information from his presentation that stood out to me. If you're interested, or if you want to fact check me (I could use the editing...) Dr. S has a book coming out in March that i'm eager to check out about this very subject.

The main point of the lecture was about color. Through the 1930's and 40's professional photography was apparently limited to black & white. Color was new and novel and reserved for advertisements, cartoons, and cheap hobby photographers. And that's precisely what Charles Cushman was, a hobby photographer. He was also a world traveler. He and his wife loved to travel around the States, and the world, and he loved taking photos of ordinary, everyday things he encountered. He also kept a strict catalog of every photo that he took, where it was taken, and the slides' subject matter. All in all, after his death, over 14,000 color kodachrome slides were donated to his alma mater, IU, along with his detailed catalogs, and his photo equipment. One of the most fascinating things about his collection, aside from the detailed record, is that it gives us a rare, full-color, view of the US in the late 30's and 40's that we're simply not used to experiencing.

The photo on the cover of Proud Flesh was taken in 1938, in Posey County, Indiana.


I was really intrigued and interested in this stuff after that lecture, so I came home and told the other dudes about it and showed them the unbelievable online archive of Cushman's stuff. We agreed that this would make great album art, if we could get permission to use it, so we started combing through the photos, looking for the ones that suited us and went loosely with the themes from Proud Flesh. Like I mentioned before, there are over 14,000 of these images, so we intentionally limited ourselves to only choosing from photos taken in Indiana.

Even with our self-imposed limitations, narrowing down the field was very difficult. There were many runners-up that, for one reason or another, ruled themselves out. As you know, these were the results :







Another interesting thing about Cushman's life that I haven't mentioned yet has to do with his wife, Jean. Jean accompanied Charles on most of his travels and can be seen in many of the photos (including seated in the car, on our album cover).

At some point Jean began suffering from some sort of mental illness, i don't really know what it was, or to what extent. But, the story goes, one evening after Charles heard some commotion downstairs he came out of his office to find Jean waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase. She said something to the effect of, "I'm going to Hell, and you're coming with me". She then fired a shot at Charles, turned the gun on herself and fired one shot into her own head. Remarkably, both Cushmans (Cushmen?) survived!

Subsequently, Jean was hospitalized for a time, treated and medicated. Once her illness was addressed and she was properly taken care of, she continued to travel with Charles. She pops up less frequently in the pictures, and when she does there's a marked difference in her demeanor.

But what a living testament to what it means to be husband&wife! AMIRIGHT!

and in the end...

i don't remember where we left off before, but at some point while we were driving to grand rapids we passed through this very interesting, dense fog that covered the entire road. it had a weird smell to it, and it was very hard to see where we were going. by the time we came out the other side...wouldn't you know it....we landed smack-dab in the middle of ANOTHER alternate reality. thems the breaks, i guess. here's burke, from the past, trying to comprehend a metavari soundcheck from the future at the Max.


unfortunately, it took me so long to get the framing just right on this picture that i didn't have time to warn bryant before the gigantic monster licking it's chops right behind him bit his head off.....AGAIN...


there were no indian heads around this time, so we just jammed this crummy old box on his shoulders until the show was over and we could figure out something better.


then we suddenly realized that bryant's head wasn't gone at all, but that when he was eaten by the monster his soul got trapped in this elaborate ghost-busters style trap. we tried every 4-digit combination we could think of to set him free, from our bank pin numbers, to our birthdates. wouldn't you know, it was 1-2-3-4...last thing we tried!


once we released him, though, we realized he wasn't alone in there. sad to say, my own body was temporarily possessed by the souls of the giant monsters past victims. they compelled me to build the machine you see here in the picture, which served as a holding cell for the monster and rendered it powerless. no. big. deal.


Charles the Osprey at the Pyramid Scheme, Grand Rapids, Michigan


a meeting of the minds. i'm sure something awfully important is being discussed in this photograph. it was probably hard to tell what it was though, because everyone was probably talking very loudly and all at the same time.



Metavari and husband&wife Tour the universe and back, brought to you by...Hot Dogs.



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mexican brunch with jen and laura.



stranded.....