Vanderslice in 08

CHUCK PROPHET (SOLO) GIGS:

Aug 7 Berlin Guitars Berlin (sold out)

Aug 12 De Montfort Hall - Summer Sundae Leicester

CHUCK PROPHET and the Mission Express “SOAP AND WATER” TOUR DATES:

UK: *(w/Bob Frank and John Murry supporting)

*Sep 25 St Bonaventures Bristol

*Sep 26 New Roscoe Leeds

*Sep 27 King Tuts Wah Wah Hut Glasgow

*Sep 28 Esquires Club Bedford

*Sep 29 Norwich Arts Centre Norwich

*Sep 30 Club Academy Manchester

*Oct 1 The American Music Festival Kilburn, London

*Oct 2 The American Music Festival Kilburn, London

*Oct 3 Talking Heads Southampton

*Oct 4 The Musician Leicester

How did this happen honey? How’d Bob Frank and John Murry end up on tour with us? Well, John Murry moved into the recording studio we all share. He slept on the couch. He LIVED on the couch. He wouldn’t go home. He wouldn’t bathe. It became a problem. He got on my computer, hacked his way into my web site posing as me and posted random self aggrandizing messages about himself. He stole my pin numbers and ordered out for pizza. Then he didn’t touch it. When the pizza was cold I confronted him about it, he shrugged and said he was depressed.

So I attempted to pull him out of his funk. We talked shop. I asked him if he thought the record he made with Bob Frank (World Without End) condemns or glorify’s murder. He didn’t say anything for a while and then he said he wasn’t sure and asked me if I really cared and I said well I guess not. I asked him if he thought a class A Neve console could save a record from it’s own mediocrity and he said he didn’t think so and that I should ask John Vanderslice. We both agreed that we didn’t think much of his music but that John Vanderslice sure seems like a nice guy. And Neve or not, ultimately there are more important things in the world than obtuse indie rock or whatever, like a properly cooked hamburger for example, or a sense of humor.

We did arts and crafts together, we built new pedal-boards, we walked around the SOMA district and bought bike messenger backpacks for no good reason. We crashed the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign headquarters across the street from the studio, where we shouted “breasts not bombs” a few times and got bored. Then we got really bored and ducked into a Kinko’s and printed up “JOHN ‘hey buddy’ VANDERSLICE in 08” bumper stickers and stuck them on random car bumpers. (If you can’t laugh at yourself, make fun of other people someone once said). It didn’t really make us feel any better about ourselves. So off to the food court we went and ate ice cream. Major helpings of ice cream. Somewhere along the line, over a third scoop of mint and chip to be exact, in an effort to close a deal that involved John going home, I agreed to take he and Bob on tour.

And finally John Murry went home. Went home to brood. He’s still there. To both our credit, neither of us ever came out and said anything corny like “you can never go home” or quoted any well known writers of the 21st century. Now the question remains: will John turn out to be a blood sucker or an earner? Will he prove once and for all that “tuning is a decadent European tradition bordering on the homosexual” as Jim Dickinson once claimed? Or will he just take up space in the van? Will taking John and Bob on tour be just another big mistake in a long line of misjudgments? Another bad sitcom of a van tour?

I guess we’ll see. Pray for us if you can.