Well, I am in Nashville, recording, according to John Painter, "The rock 'n roll the kids are listening to these days."

John Painter is hilarious.

If you didn't know, we have a new website, and that website contains my new blog. The link is http://www.shapiropeople.com/author/john/. So from now on I will be using that site to continue my blogging.

Have a pleasant afternoon!

Happy New Year!

Shapiro has a new website! Check it: www.shapiropeople.com.

Cameron Diagle is the man. So is Daniel White.

As soon as I get the login information, I will be continuing this blog from my section of the new website. Here's a link to my new page; I will try to put up a persistent link as soon as I get the info.

Peace.

Merry Christmas!

Shapiro spent this past weekend recording a special Christmas song just for you. Go to our myspace to listen to/download it. It was all recorded with an 8-track generously loaned to us by Sean Namei. All instruments either went directly in or were recorded with a single SM-58.

Yes, we're poor musicians. Financially poor, too.

Thanks to EMU for letting us use your timpanis and other instruments. Actually, I should say thanks to EMU for not kicking us out after we snuck into Lehman and used your timpanis and other instruments.

Also thanks to Chris Hansen and George Borsay for recording help, and to Nathan for mixing the thing.

Enjoy.

Ahhh . . . finally done with finals. Finished up my last one about an hour ago.

Last week we played Blacksburg, at Attitudes again. Man. Talk about a crazy night. We had many friends with us. During our set our friends were surrounding the stage, walking onto the stage, jumping off the stage, singing into Nathan's mic', screaming, laughing, yelling . . . all sorts of emotions were going on. Personally I couldn't tell what was happening the entire time; everything was so loud and the lights were disorienting. I felt like I had lost my mind.

Also, thanks to Tokyo and Phillip Uster for being awesome bands. It was seriously a sweet lineup.

After the show, our manager worked a second hotel room into the deal. And I cannot believe we didn't get kicked out. Especially considering that we were basically screaming until around 4 in the morning, and there were parents and small children in the rooms across from us (it was parent weekend at VA Tech). Thanks to the Holiday Inn staff for being AWESOME and turning a deaf ear to our noise. And thanks to Pizza Hut for not calling the cops after Jim* nunchucked your window and Tom knocked over the construction fence. Our bad.

So yeah, Christmas . . . Shapiro is taking a break over the holidays from playing shows. We all need a break. Instead of playing shows, we are going to focusing our attention on getting new material together. We have a ton of new ideas and just need time to hash them out.

We are also going to be revamping our websites, so stay tuned for that. A completely new look to go with a completely new Shapiro.

Happy Holidays, everyone. Check back soon. Because if any more crazy times go down, I will use this blog website to recount them to you.

Peace.


*Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted. My apologies. I know the happiness of all my readers depends on my posting at least weekly. I've been lazy. Sorry. Thanksgiving, you know?

Before Thanksgiving too, I was busy. Played in DC and NYC. Rock and Roll Hotel in DC . . . had a great time rocking. What an awesome venue, too. Two levels, very artsy, flying guitars on the ceiling. Thanks to Emily and Elissa (did I spell that right?) for putting us up for the night. Jeremy and Emily cooked us all pancakes for breakfast Sunday morning---even some with bananas and chocolate chips---whilst Daniel White serenaded us with some tunes on the guitar. Guess he was remembering back to his old glory days, you know, when he was a rock star.

He's actually here right now, Daniel White is, keeping busy playing the Nintendo Wii that the Shapiro house just purchased. Yeah, it's sweet, and no, you can't come over and play it. Unless you ask really really nicely. Then I'll think about it. Jeremy will rule you in tennis though. Be forewarned.

Anyways, yes, DC, then NYC. The Annex is an awesome venue with an awesome sound guy (that's you, Andrew). The only un-awesome thing was that they apparently told the other bands that they had a house drumset INCLUDING hardware when they actually did not have any hardware to speak of. So I ended up loaning my hardware to the bands playing after us which meant we didn't leave NYC until after midnight. Got home at 6:00 a.m. I slept a few more hours once we got home, and then got up and went to school.

Skipping Thanksgiving week which was full of eating and sleeping and procrastinating schoolwork . . . Tuesday we did a live radio interview at WNRN and played a few songs acoustically on-air. It went very well; we made Anne Williams feel very awkward, I believe, when we pleaded with her on-air to come to Starr Hill to see our show on Wednesday. Sorry about that, Anne. Thanks for having us on your show, regardless. Also, I achieved my lifelong goal of performing live, on the radio, playing drums with brushes while Nathan played the autoharp. For those of you who missed it, I believe it sounded pretty whimsical. Oh la la.

Starr Hill last night was a blast, as usual. Thanks to Starr Hill for continuing to have us back no matter how much we suck. And to everyone who came out, particularly the Harrisonburgers. Anyone who travelled a great distance.

So tomorrow we play in Blacksburg at Attitudes. It's always fun there. And on Tuesday I must turn in my 15-20 page research paper on Native American literature, a paper that I of course have not started yet. I'm too busy, you know?

Shapiro's a-going to some BIG CITES this weekend.



Nathan made it. Who else, right? Click it to view both sides.

We had a great time in Cumberland, Maryland two weekends ago. The Embassy Theater is definitely a sweet venue and we appreciate The Royal Army Recording Co. for getting us on the bill. And thanks to everyone who bought CDs! We sold a ton of them. Definitely helped us pay for the gas it took to get there. And filled our stomachs with MTO food on the way home. Nathan ordered a hot dog with cheddar cheese and bacon.

See, your money is spent solely on the essentials.

So yeah, as I was saying, D.C. (an all-ages show this time) and New York City this weekend. For the specifics, go to www.shapiropeople.com.

YES and how are all of you? I'm doing well, taking a breather from all these shows.

October 20th---Gettysburg, PA. Thanks to Emmaus for having us. Thanks to the kids that danced from the start of our set all the way through it. Seriously, they didn't stop dancing---it was great. And to the Emmaus Mom who cooked us a meal---that alone was worth the trip. And SANCHEZ the MANCHEZ you are one crazy kid. We would've taken you with us if we'd had room (and your parents' permission of course).

October 21st---Charlottesville, Virginia, at a private party for some of Carl's friends. Played outside. As soon as I picked up the sticks to start "Prelude" I realized I should have warmed them up a bit. It was like drumming with icicles. Regardless, we had a lot of fun, and Mallory's mom makes the best pumpkin soup. Seriously. Lots of moms cooking for us recently. It's nice. Reminds me of home. Oh, we also covered "Lady Madonna." Reminded me of the olden days of "Don't Let Me Down." Anyone remember those times? Jeremy's senior piano recital?

October 25th---State Park, PA. Played with Oppenheimer, an awesome band from Northern Ireland (they're on the same label as Architecture in Helsinki). Thanks to the Darkhorse Tavern for being so accomodating. Good to see our old housemate and EMU grad Joel Lehman as well.

October 27th---Virginia Beach. Drove straight down there after Jeremy got off of work to make it to Relative Theory in time to play a short set before our scheduled spot in a show at Club Relevant which was ten minutes away from Relative Theory. With Dan's help, upon arriving at Relative we unloaded everything up several flights of stairs, set up, played 5 songs, tore down, loaded back up, and were back in the van on our way to Club Relevant, all within 50 minutes. We were pretty impressed with ourselves and pumped to play show #2 when we got a call saying it had been cancelled. Bummer. So we made our way to Cheeseburger in Paradise, the restaurant/bar established by Jimmy Buffet. We then drove another 45 minutes to Dan's parents' house, who were gracious enough to let us crash there for the night.

October 28th---woke up to a huge breakfast prepared for us by---you guessed it---Daniel's mom. So we ate and just kind of sat around until it was time to leave for Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. Arrived at Longwood to find out we were playing outside again. It wasn't as cold as Charlottesville but definitely cold. We had fun anyways, and made it back to Harrisonburg in time to catch the end of a few Halloween weekend parties/shows.

So there you have it. This weekend we're off to Cumberland, MD, followed by an all-day recording session here at the Shapiro house on Sunday. Going to try to lay down some more roughs for Daniel as we set our sights on the distant goal of recording a full-length album that doesn't suck.

It's 1:30 a.m. and time for bed. Peace.