But let’s not jump ahead in the story. We had a great time going South last month. We spent a week in Austin and New Braunfels with a bunch of new friends including Chris from KVET, Shane and Zach from LoneStarMusic.com and Walt Wilkins (who bailed us out with a last minute gig when ours got rained out). We also spent a couple nights greeting the sunrise after jamming all night with Brady and the crew from Randy Rogers Band and our new friends Matt Skinner and Dub Miller. Badasses all around.

While we’re on the subject of greeting the sunrise, we should make note of the Lake Charles, Louisiana crew who were still awake to greet us (mixing Bloody Mary’s with Marleboro Reds) when we rolled into town at 6am after driving all night to get there. We spent several great days in Louisiana reconnecting with old friends (including our boys from back east American Aquarium, who are currently on tour out west) and making some new ones along the way. That’s one hell of a state, and if you can figure out anything to do that will help keep it from getting covered in oil, do it. Here’s a link where you can donate to the Gulf Coast Fund that’s helping with the cleanup. Here’s a link to BP’s website to hear about what their doing to cleanup. Or maybe you can just tell them to f**k off while you’re over there. (sidenote: I was told we should clean up our language a little. Do ***’s count?)

In general, it was a great month. We capped it all off with a brief trip to Ft. Worth to jam at the Randy Rogers Stockyard Stampede Festival. The weatherman said it would rain all day, but we still managed to all get sunburned. We saw a lot of great tunes, but nothing quite touched getting to see MC Hammer do his thing with a crew of 12 backup dancers (total stage tally: 12 dancers, 2 singers, 1 Hammer, 0 musicians). Todd had the presence of mind to pull out his trusty Droid during a key moment and get some priceless backstage video for your viewing pleasure. This might be the only video I’ve ever seen that’s awesomer than us covering “Fade to Black” at the Paramount last year. Enjoy.

We’ll be heading down to do some shows at the beach in the next couple weeks. We’ll hope to see you there and if not, we’ll certainly be back on the road in August.

stay cool,
SoB

But wait, there’s more… WE’VE GOT SOME BRAND NEW TUNES! Sons of Bill spent the last month or so in the studio and we’ve come out with three brand new songs which we’ll be releasing in a limited pressing as Take a Shower, Call Your Mother, Your Life is in Shambles. As a special thank you to all our die-hard fans who come see us every time we roll through town, the new music will only be available for purchase at shows on the upcoming Life in Shambles Tour. That’s right: no iTunes, no Best Buy, you gotta come out to the dirty rock clubs and lay your greasy $5 bills on the merch table.

You can wet your whistle by going to MySpace.com/SonsOfBillMusic and laying your ears on a sample of the title track off this new peice of hot wax. But remember the only place to get your grubby little hands on a copy of it is at a Sons of Bill show, the first of which is THIS FRIDAY at the Jefferson Theater IN CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA!

There will also be exclusive Tour T-shirts and maybe Tour Matchbooks and Tour Lunchboxes and Tour Beer Coozies too (not really, just the t-shirts, and maybe the coozies). These will also only be available on the Life in Shambles Tour so don’t come without any cash and think you’re just going to pick up your new SoB gear on the website later. This new product line is for concert-goers only.

An interesting sidenote, our performance from a few weeks ago on NPR’s Mountain Stage will finally be airing the week of April 23rd. Check your local listings and tune in to hear us share the stage with the likes of Lucero and the Bottle Rockets (not to mention Mr Sam Bush and Bud Carroll & The Southern Souls). As usual, you can still get free live downloads on SonsOfBill.com and the YouTube Channel is still full of prime SoB. We’ll be recording more material for those two mediums on the tour so look for updates once we get out there and start kicking in some teeth. We’ll also be coming back around for Life In Shambles 2.0 in June and hitting a few spots we missed on the first go-round. Tennessee and the Deep South are the most likely targets for that run but even if you live there, I don’t want to hear any excuses. We’re coming to the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Texas and this economy’s not bad enough yet that you can’t put a couple gallons in the car and cruise across the state line to get your face rocked. Until then…

Take a shower, call your mom, your life is in shambles.
Sons of Bill

We also joined Drive-By Truckers for the first time last week and we’ll be playing with them again next weekend in Charlotte, NC. If you live in the area, make your way down to the Neighborhood Theatre on Thursday February 25th for a full serving of rock in your face. If you miss that one (and you don’t already have tickets to see George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars at the Neighborhood on Saturday night) we’ll be moving to Asheville, NC on Friday Feb 26th and down to Birmingham on Saturday Feb 27th to join the Randy Rogers Band for our first ever show in Alabama. There are plenty other dates on the calendar for early March too so if none of those shows bring us close enough to you, be sure to check the Tour Dates. We’re coming.

Speaking of places we’ve been recently, we spent the last few weeks hitting some favorite spots in our home state, including a full house at the Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach and a rowdy crowd down by the James River at the Canal Club in old Richmond, Va. We’ve been working on our mobile recording rig and managed to catch a few tracks from the Richmond show to share with you. Some vintage SoB – the second and third track off our debut album A Far Cry From Freedom – sounded especially good to us, so we hope you enjoy them too. And don’t forget, the Sons of Bill YouTube Channel is still chock full of new videos to tide you over till the next time you get to join us in person. Check ‘em all out and be sure to rate and review them to your little heart’s content. Keep an eye out for us, ’cause we’ve got a busy Spring ahead and it’s just around the corner.

Far Cry
My Hometown

Below you’ll find two tracks from that night. The first is an old traditional featuring our good friends Laura Wortman and Kagey Parish of The Honey Dewdrops doing a four-way duet with Sam and Abe. Although we were recently told it’s not technically a traditional and it has not yet passed into the “public domain”, it’s been played by enough folk singers to safely be called “traditional”, at least by us.) If you like the sound of this one, check out the Honey Dewdrops debut album If The Sun Will Shine. You won’t be disappointed.

The second track will hopefully be considered a traditional someday, but we’re not holding our breath. The tune was penned by the great American songsmith Mr James Hetfield and we are joined on dueling lead guitar by none other than Mr Nick Cordle. Nick has played in a number of great bands around Charlottesville and elsewhere, but he is currently employed melting face with a cute little group called Arsis. If your idea of holiday fun is having your brain blown out of your ear canals and splattered all over the Christmas tree, then check out their albums. They’ve got a new one out in February!

There’s also a secret bonus track from the same show, but you need to be on the email list to get it. You can sign up here and we’ll email that one to you. It’s just as awesome and being on the email list means you get to hear about all things Sons of Bill without eavesdropping on the cool kids conversation during lunch hour.

It also means you’ll hear about our Tour Dates, which include four shows NEXT WEEK in Texas opening for Robert Earl Keen! After that we’ll be heading up to Steamboat Springs, Colorado to play with a bunch of our favorite bands at Music Fest, and then hitting concert halls in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri and other exotic locations on our way back home. Keep an eye on that and we’ll keep you posted as we head west.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
Sons of BIll

Long Black Veil (feat. The Honey Dewdrops)
Fade to Black (feat. Nick Cordle)

In other news, the long-awaited reopening of The Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville has finally been scheduled, and look who gets to open her up! Sons of Bill will be co-headlining the opening evening with our good friends Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, coming up from Muscle Shoals, Alabama just for the occassion. Get your tickets soon ’cause last time we played C’ville we rocked the Paramount Theater across the street to a sellout crowd and it has about 300 more seats to fill than the Jefferson. Should be a night to remember.

Last but certainly not least in the News Column is something that’s probably a much bigger deal to those of us onstage than to those of you in the crowd, but we figured we’d let you in on it anyway. We are all excited to welcome our original drummer Mr. Todd Wellons back to the fold. After almost three great years with our old friend Brian Caputo filling the seat behind the kit, Todd will be rejoining the band starting Tuesday November 17th at The National in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. For those of you who don’t remember what Todd Wellons sounds like carrying a groove, pick up your dusty copy of A Far Cry From Freedom (or buy a new one here) and check the boy out. Then join us in our excitement.

Before you get there though, enjoy these samples of Brian slamming the skins in (almost) his hometown from a few weeks ago. Remember to put in your email to check out the rest of the show, and run your eyes over our Tour Dates to see when you can come check us out in the flesh.

Six Days on the Road

The Rain

However, the highlight of the tour was our Sunday afternoon set at the Austin City Limits Festival in beautifully muddy Austin, TX. We had a great crowd join us at the BMI Stage, about 5 hours before Pearl Jam took the stage several hundred yards away to close out the festival. They rocked. And they brought Perry Farrell up for the encore to sing “Mountain Song”. Awesome! We were unable to convince Perry to join us onstage, but we rocked none-the-less. Evidence is available below in form of rowdy and righteous versions of the opening track from our new album and the title track from our debut album. Speaking of righteous, there are also some sweet pictures of Sam wiping his face with a towel and Seth getting his Bruce Springsteen on, available on an Austin news website; and a gallery of Sons of Bill photos on the ACL Fest website. Paste magazine also took notice, putting a one-liner about us on their festival recap page, and providing you with a helpful link to get back to the update that you’re currently reading. Enjoy that!

We’ve got three shows with Jason Isbell left to close out the tour and then we’ll be in DC and New York in a week and a half. We’ll hope to see you soon and enjoy the ACL mementos.