Seattle WA. Today the Olympic Mountains
I think the thing that astonishes me the most is the mentality That you are the metropolis you live in. You may say to yourself, “for vacation I’m going to the mountains. Or, for vacation I’m going to the ocean.”
“I will go to India and Ireland!”
These ideas we have about these places that represent magic to us, are actually what our soul is telling us we desire. Our soul deficiencies.
What we may have is available to us daily.
The ideas, the magic and the feeling that we are children again are the things that take care of us.
Inspiration will always be stronger and more filled with mystery than the wildest mind could conjure up.
I don’t want these tired eyes to look at the same gas station across the street from my house everyday. My skin is dehydrated from waiting hand and foot on strangers in some restaurant. It had been months since I smelled rain or grass.
My mouth spilled out with road rage in more than one moment of weakness.
My ears are experimenting with the noise of a city bus.
I’m again flexing my senses muscles.
I never again want to take for granted my inspiration. I don’t want to silence it. I don’t want to be embarrassed by it. I don’t want to hate it.
Inspiration is picking me up as the weaker half and whispering to me that it will always be there. It will always help.
It’s giving me rising tunnels through very steep climbs. It’s showing me how to live.
-Kelsey Crawford
:: 05-19-08 Chico, CA @ CRUX GALLERY ::
chico is a hell of a town. i’ve only played there once before, over 5 years ago, but this time it was very special, as chico town is now home to my parents, David Scott and Toni Elizabeth McIntosh. it seems only fitting that we play an art space with THE NEW TRUST, who are also as much a family as my own blood. YOU TOO JEFF! thanks for being there. we will be back often. mad props to Sesar, and the shimmies and surrogat ! you guys made this show amazing. if you haven’t heard these band……SSSSSSSSSHECKEMMOUT!
We Love You Dave and Toni! you are wonderful people!
:: 5-18-08 Petaluma, CA @ The Church ::
we rolled into our old home town, where we birthed THEMES, to open arms, and man!, our friends in santa rosa/ petaluma are some of the most colorful and creative people in the nation! we had a wonderful time….
SANTA ROSA!!!! guns, grills, yard beers, an oil change, pants on fire, riding wheelies, THE NEW TRUST! LITANY FOR THE WHALE! AHHHHHH!
i live for this family! THANK YOU FOR THE INSPIRATION! YOU ARE THE REASON WE ARE HERE!
here’s a review of the show and our new 7″ from Gabe @ the Bohemian
http://www.bohemian.com/citysound/
:: 5-16 / 5-17 S.F. / Oakland ::
although it’s actually 5-21…i’m playing catchup. THANK YOU ALL so very much…it was great to revisit the place of my birth and have so much fun with such beautiful souls….oh, BRIAN you are amazing….thanks for letting us live with you!
:: 5-14-08 TOIYABE National Forest::
with the desert at our backs, and time to ourselves we break free from the confines of the the interstate, and it asphalt spires, into the Sierra Nevada mountain range, at the foot hills of Yosemite. in need of some open spaces, we find ourselves in a magnificently glaciated hemlock rich place called the Toiyabe National Forest.
Click here for the video of Toiyabe National forest, set to a demo of the song “Justice”.
:: 05-12-08 Departing Reno ::
reno is a magical place where dreams come true, and everyone has all that they need, even the people who have meth labs. thanks everyone. check back tomorrow for more about the thrill ride that we had here.
::05-13-08 Nevada ::
05-13-08 Jessup, Nevada…In All It’s Shining Glory
photos: Justin
We’re in Reno Now!
::5-12-08 Departing Denver ::
this is my new favorite public artist..(Jacy)
Not All of Denver looks like this.. ( Justin )
Avon, Colorado ( Justin )
Into the Gaping Wounds of Giants…
I begin writing today at 75 miles per hour just outside of Vail Colorado. ( 8,150 feet above sea level.). Our hearts are filled with gratitude today, as we’ve been experiencing a great amount of support and kindness, from those we’ve happened to cross paths with on these beginning days of our journey. I have grown to believe so strongly in the necessity of establishing, and moreover, maintaining lines of communication with these like minded individuals, that it has become more of a part of my life than most believe the actual art to be. It seems that the music we bring is almost secondary to who we are, and the stories our lives have become. Yet as we travel now, our pasts shine like beams of sunlight Into the Gaping Wounds of The Giants, scathed motorways cut deep into layers of stone to provide us safe passage, and uncovering layers of messages to show us, once again, a history we can hardly conceive of. Being in the presence of such exposed natural beauty raises many questions of self worth, in just how much anything we’ve ever done, or will do will actually mean when we leave these body vehicles, for we are not miners or bankers, nor are we politicians or representatives to anyone but ourselves. We are storytellers of adventures that stand to be forgotten in the face of what the United States is becoming.
A deep breath, and a glance out the window at a sequoia grove, and miles of wild sage reaching upward towards the suns embrace washes minds clean of the filthy urban landscapes wallpapered with currency that ties tightly around our necks like fresh itchy rope, but our necks are just made of words and air that is crisp and sharp, cutting through like shimmering blades for the sake self preservation, for our freedom of speech, and the unification of the common mind.
These mountains have seen such great pilgrimages of greed, in the human’s nature, to place value in their guts, and forcefully take the with ungrateful recklessness, yet they are resilient and vivid the colors of Spring’s rebirth, and they welcome us back again. They show no signs of a disapproval of our passage, for we want nothing from them but their mystery, instead, a light spring rain that freshens and cools the air. For that we are also thankful as Colorado fades into our rear view mirrors, we forge ahead, but it does not leave our boiling hearts. -Moon, Son of chief
05-11-08 Denver/Mothers day
NO! we didn’t forget about you mothers out there…we made this little movie as we drove into denver on the highway 25m which is not really anything more than a 21 lane dirt road full of huge trucks, that think we’re terrorists…much love from the basement of the hi-dive, we play in a few hours, and man the food here at the sputnik cafe is stellar. sleep tight. more tomorrow. -jacy, kelsey, justin, bryce.
05-10-08 Fort Collins, CO
All Photos: Justin Burckhard, except the three live shots, thanks Kirsten
05-09-08 Day 1
welcome to our lives in real time, or as real as we can make it, as we travel on limited battery life, building history. we are THEMES and this is your country.
05-09-09 Minneapolis, MN. DAY 1
Into The Great Plains…On The Trail Of Treaties.
We awake to the spring sun, as flowers opening. Rubbing our eyes clean of the night times vivid visions. I am alive, awkwardly trying to relate to there return of the bright glowing presence in the sky, that has eluded us for the previous six months. Leaving the Twin Cities, I am filled with a familiar feeling that washes over my shoulders like a cool stream running of a mossy shale cliff. It is a feeling of relief that comes to me when I travel. It comes like a message in the forest. It comes, as a reward for working hard with ones hands, and I am satisfied. The feeling in my guts however is an uneasy one, as we travel past the reservation where I used to live. The sprawling buildings of overpopulation and
capitalist expansion cloud my vision almost erasing my childhood memories of tracking animals in that forest of my past. Now gone. All I am left with here are stories as. I squint my eyes and try as hard as I can to remember empty spaces. I used to say “I see the future in empty spaces”, but these days it has become more a challenge for me to maintain this belief. It seems our values are in as much
danger as mother earth is and I believe it to be crucial to heed the warnings we are being given. I’m not sure what will become of this place, although I’m afraid it’s so far gone with endless miles of concrete I cannot help the feelings of disassociation that drive me to move on from this place.
For hundreds of years the leaders of our states
and country have built up organizations that govern the usage of land and the people who walk on it, to land us in an almost imperialistic crisis of boundaries. We were once forced onto pieces of land that were deemed less favorable. We made them our own, and now they are being slowly repossessed by the same organizations that sanctioned them initially. History has an institutional connotation and Folklore has one that may seem too mystical to some, but it is, our own failure to pass these things on
first hand that hinders us from maintaining moral values through generations, and that is most prevalent reason our nation is so divided. There is a War over the Great Plains, and we have risen up from these reservation lands, so rich with colorful stories, with a respect for life and privilege that grows stronger than any Oak tree. This how our story will begin and how it will ultimately end in a struggle we can never quite come out on top of. This is our folklore, and it’s all we’ve got, as we walk the Trail of Treaties.
Passing through small town southern Minnesota is like opening a dusty old book, filled with tales tribal conflict, and stories of massacres so terrible my arm hair stands on end and my tear ducts swell. Despite all, there is a quiet haunting poetry here, in the freshly plowed fields as the wind slides across them filling the air with the smell of ripe wet earth and carrying the whispers of ghosts, across the swollen rivers that divide us.
They land safely on the muddy banks of our eardrums, cradled as a secret, and we know why they are here.
-moon son of chief
