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October 24, 2007

Hey everyone!  I hope you are having an awesome fall.  We've been enjoying a few months off.  Joe's been studying physics.  I've been going to Springsteen shows and studying Pac-man Championship Edition on Xbox360.  It's been a good semester!  Now we're starting to gear up for our favorite time of year: the holidays!

If all goes according to plan, we will be having a pair of Yule Balls this year in the Boston area.  They will be on December 8th and 9th.  Hopefully we'll be able to announce the locations and line-ups very soon.  Stay tuned.

Also, we are very excited to announce that we are a part of Jingle Spells.  This is a holiday wizard rock CD that was put together by the fine folks at the Leaky Cauldron.  They are donating ALL proceeds from the sale of this CD to Book Aid International.  The Leaky Cauldron has already raised over $30,000 for Book Aid International and we think that we can double that with sales of this CD. 

This CD features 14 new and exclusive songs from an army of wizard rockers.  We contributed a song we wrote last year called "Xmas Rulez, Voldemort Droolz."  I've heard the entire CD and I can tell you that it's probably the best wizard rock compilation out there, holiday-themed or otherwise.

These CDs are available for pre-order now on Leaky's website.  They are only being offered for sale through December 10th, so go order it now!  DO IT!

Speaking of wizard rock, there are only about 100 subsciptions left in the Wizard Rock CD of the Month Club 2007.  We just released a new 14-song Enchanted Ceiling CD that's available exclusively through the EP club.  The EP is pretty great and so are the other albums that have been released so far this year.  And all proceeds from subscriptions go to First Book.  If you subscribe now, you'll be sent the first 10 (ten!) CDs from 2007 at the end of November!  Get your wizard rock fix for a whole year, all at once!

Get pumped!

-paul

September, 24, 2007

Our show tomorrow in Worcester, MA is CANCELLED!  Sorry

September 6, 2007

Wow, what an awesome summer! We toured for 11 and a half weeks and played over 70 shows! Thank you to every single person who came to the shows and partied with us! You make our lives awesome! Here's some highlights from the summer:

We finally completed our goal of playing in all 48 contiguous states! It's taken us over 3 years of touring, but we did it! Dear Alaska and Hawaii: You're Next! Anyone from either of those states who wants to help set up shows with us should contact me. We WILL play there in 2008!

On June 22nd, we celebrated the 5-year anniversary of our very first show!  We threw an awesome PIZZA PARTY in Phoenix!

Joe started writing fanfiction! He debuted chapter one of his first work during the LeakyMug podcast at Prophecy. You can listen here (Joe starts about 38 minutes in) or watch someone's YouTube footage.

We played some awesome whiffle ball games! I've even heard that kids in Nashville are now playing regularly next to the Parthenon!

I ate a lot of great hot dogs. I seriously need to update my dog blog. I also had my first hot dog review published in the Portland Mercury! I got paid $70 and the editor said I have a future in food writing! Attention media outlets: from here on out, I am available as a freelance food critic!

We birthed a new mascot. Wandicorn!!!!! He's half-wand, half-unicorn, half- giant squid, half-phoenix, half-dragon and he has a lobster claw, a hoof and a flux-capacitor.  We're looking into getting some plush toys made.  TEAR IT UP!

In Portland, OR we got to watch the 5th Harry Potter movie at midnight with about 300 people who had just come from our show. It was awesome! I won the costume contest!

In conjunction with Pottercast, we sold punk rock pin sets for $5 with all proceeds going to Reach Out and Read. Together we raised over $3500!

We were also selling copies of the Wizards and Muggles Rock for Social Justice compilation, with proceeds going to the Harry Potter Alliance. I just wrote them a check for $750! If you still don't have a copy, pick one up!

We also made a ton of new friends and we read an awesome book!  We played a show in a barn, one in a basement, and one in a doughnut shop and we threw some killer dance parties at Prophecy.  We played to about 15,000 people in our hometown on the eve of Deathly Hallows, and it all adds up to a summer that we will never forget.  Thank you everyone for being a part of it!

With all sincerity,
Paul

P.S. Joe's back in school, so we're taking it easy this fall.  We're only playing two shows during for the next 3 months, and one of them is in Brooklyn next weekend at the library!  Be there!

August 6, 2007

We've just been having the most awesome summer ever and I know that you are too!  2007 truly is the Best Year Ever.  Let's keep it going!

Right now we're only a day removed from the Prophecy 2007 symposium.  This was just an incredible experience all around.  We kicked off the whole weekend with an unbelievable show on Thursday night with Whompy, Remus and Draco - seriously this was possibly the greatest wizard rock show EVER.  Then we followed it up with all kinds of high-fives, 3am dance parties and dawn bedtimes.  Not only did we party hard, but we were also inspired and invigorated by being around so many awesome Potter fans.  I even had the honor of serving as a keynote speaker on a panel of experts discussing the future of the Harry Potter fandom and it's creative output now that the series has concluded.  I'm happy to report that everyone had a really positive outlook on the future.  From now on, Harry Potter is what we make of it.  We're free to continue to make awesome music and art, to throw killer parties, to maintain our incredible friendships, to do cool things in our communities, and to continue fighting in real-world Dumbledore's Armies like the Harry Potter Alliance.  As we go forth, we pledge to make the world a better place, to never fail our friends, and to do our best to make JK Rowling proud.  She's given us so much joy and happiness, and it is our responsibility to continue to spread that throughout our world.  If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.  Let's do this!

We've got 2 weeks of shows left for the summer, so that still leave some of you with one last chance to party with the Potters before we head back to Hogwarts.  We're going to keep our NO Spoiler policy in effect for the rest of the tour because we are still encountering people who have not finished Book 7.  Thanks for all your cooperation on this!  You can read the policy just below this.

Thanks again!  We'll see you soon!

-paul

July 22, 2007

Wow.  So that was a pretty fun week, eh? 

In the run-up to Book 7, we found ourselves playing some of our most insane shows ever.  Thank you everyone who came to see is in Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York.  It was a pleasure to spend this week with all of you.  And then we got to Harvard Square on July 20th. 

I cannot even begin to describe what it felt like to take the stage in front of 10-15,000 people here in our hometown of Boston.  Joe and I are pretty far beyond the point of getting nervous for shows, but there was a point just before we went on stage, where he squeezed my arm, and we looked at each other and realized, "This is IT!"  This was the moment that our band was born for.  This is what five years of Harry and the Potters has led to.  I don't remember too much of what happened on the stage.   Trust me when I said that it was wonderful to look down and see so many familar faces in the crwod.  To see people who had travelled from all over the country to be with us on this most special evening.  To see our drummer Andrew's grandmother rocking like crazy in the front row.  To have Ernie return to the throne dressed as the Giant Squid and play drums with us for 3 songs.  To have Brad and Brian and the Hungarian Horntails join us on stage for the Weapon.  Needless to say, it was an intense and emotional evening for us, and, if you'll pardon our modesty, we truly feel like we couldn't have thrown a better party to close out this wonderful series.  It was an honor to play for you on Friday night.  To everyone who was a part of this special evening, THANK YOU.  We mean that from the bottom of our Harry Potter-lovin' hearts.  This will forever stand as one of the most amazing moments of our lives.   

But now you'll have to wipe the tears from you eyes, cause we got more touring to do!  And because we have show dates so close to the release of this fine book, we're trying to exercise some precautions to ensure that your show-going experiences are tons of fun and spoiler-free.  Until August 1st, we'd like to ask show-goers to abide by the following guidelines:

• No t-shirts with spoilers - anyone seeking entry to one of our shows with a spoiler on their shirt will either be denied entry or have their shirt spray-painted on the way in. We are buying spray-paint tomorrow.
• Please be courteous with other fans. Before racing into discussion with them, make sure they have finished the book.
• No shouting out stuff. That's a total jerk move and if you pull something like that we'll do our best to eject and humiliate you.
• We will not play be playing any Book 7 songs.

We hope that these guidelines will ensure happy and fun shows for fast and slow readers alike. Please check out our remaining summer tour dates, all of which have Draco and the Malfoys opening..

And finally, I know this almost goes without saying, but ENJOY THE FINAL BOOK!

-paul

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