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November 30, 2005

making a set list, oh the horror

well, the guys are coming over in a few hours and we are going to bring our equipment back into the basement, set it up, and figure out a setlist. making a setlist is one of the most difficult things for us. however it didn’t used to be.....

we used to go on tour in the early days and simply play every song we had. we had two demos out, that’s eight songs, that’s eight songs, easy peazy we would play eight songs. no one cared what we played because no one knew any of the songs. maybe we did nine songs if we were feeling especially salty, but that was a rarity.
now? oh now it is just agony. there are some songs we are always gonna play, your ATE, your rookie, your knife trade, you know, the old faithfulls, but in what order? what other songs? how many new ones? what song do we strart with? which do we end with? this one is tuned weird, it cant run into that one. oh no! we gotta do samples! this is horrible....
it is even harder in europe. the first time we went over there we played our typical eight songs. that went over like a turd in a punch bowl, that is to say not very well. a couple hundred angry germans stared at us and wondered who these fricking rock stars were. we didn’t know! in usa rockstars play forever. we didn’t know!
do i sound whiney? well maybe i feel a little whiney ok! i got a cut on my hand and it hurts.
so here is a thought.
why dont you guys come up with a set list for this little run into europe we got coming up. we are thinking maybe sixteen songs or so. maybe a cover. some new ones.
i will leave you with this.
is it too early too cover refused? a song from fanning the flames? let me know!
j

Posted by joshbsf at 03:12 PM | Comments (73)

November 29, 2005

news regarding the record and the european promo tour

hey folks.

just an interesting link to BURNING HEART, so you can check out all relevant news regarding our short trip to europe and also further information about the record including a first view of the cover art and the liner notes!!!

just go to:

http://www.burningheart.com/news/article.php?id=327

Posted by robertbsf at 12:01 PM

November 23, 2005

done.

dear diary,

it's hard to put in words how these last couple of days felt...we finally finished this album und it's safe to say that (at least as far as i'm concerned) it was the hardest project i ever worked on in my life (musically speaking and beyond)...
3 years down the road and here it is: THE MISERY INDEX: NOTES FROM THE PLAGUE YEARS
...and if there's a more fitting record title out there (i strongly doubt it)is questionable at best.
it wasn't easy and only god and 4 other dudes know how hard it really was to create this record, but when we all sat in matt's car the other day, listening to the final master, i have to admit it was well worth it...

even though i would probably not be able to go through all of it again...not just yet anyways.

but i have to admit, that these songs & interludes capture the essence of us as people, musicians and spirit souls to an extent that is frightning and cannot be lessened by any recordsalesnumber or coverstory (or lack of it)...the fact that this record will hit the streets wolrdwide next year is in itself a huge middlefinger to the music business and the evil mantra of "this is how it's usually done".

i don't think i've ever been as proud of anything i was part of...

so now we all have a couple of days off, before we start practicing for our promo-tour in europe in december...there'll be some nice suprises at these small shows in 4 european cities, so if you have a chance come by and hang out...

i personally am missing the bouncing souls play tonight in NYC, which is kind of sad, but i wanted to rest a little more and get rid of a post-tour-cold, the nice albany rainstorm brought forth...i'll be spending some time in an ashram before we start making noise again, so all i have left to say here is thank you to everyone who stood by me, making this record possible...most and foremost my family and my band!

look out for tons of shows in the new year and check out the re-issues if you haven't yet.

thank you for stopping by here at our humble web-headquarters and be safe.

robert

Posted by robertbsf at 08:30 PM | Comments (26)

November 22, 2005

mix done, mastering done, art done

this is it, the moment we have been waiting for. after three years, over thirty songs written, countless demos, the record iis finally in the hands of the record labels. we want to thank everyone who helped us with this, we simply could not have done it without you. you know who you are and you know we couldn't have done it without you. the misery index; notes from the plague years is out of our hands and in the hands of those i hope will treat it like they love it as much as we do. it will be out late feb or early march. thank god it is done!

Posted by joshbsf at 09:30 PM | Comments (16)

November 21, 2005

home sweet home

home sweet home.
we got home sunday morning at about six in the morning, exhausted but happy. the poughkeepsie show was fun, even though i missed shai hulud who are one of my favorite bands ever. i did get to meet matt fox who is the man behind the curtain in shai hulud who was one of the sweetest dudes i have ever met. so many great bands played that day that i would be remiss in trying to list them all but we had a blast and saw a lot of good music. congrats to the promoters and all that.

thanks for everyone who came out and humored us as we stumbled through our songs. we love you all!
thanks to gordon, the rakus, and gene. you guys were great.

we will be back after the holidays. to everyone asking when we are coming to their area, we will post the tour dates as soon as possible. dont worry we will come the left coast next time, possibly before the right coast.

new record will come out in early march. touring will commence around then.
we love you all!

Posted by joshbsf at 03:46 PM | Comments (5)

November 20, 2005

we are coming back to europe

we are very excited to announce that we are coming back to europe in december to do very small clubs and we are filming parts of a dvd at every club and a main show in cologne. here are the dates:

Dates:
12.12.05
UK
London
Garage
w/ Steelrulesdie 
Tickets:
www.meanfiddler.com
www.seetickets.com
13.12.05
D
Berlin
Magnet
Tickets sale starts on Tuesday, Nov. 8th. Please check www.magnet-club.de for details.
14.12.05
D
Cologne
Underground
w/ Tribute To Nothing 
Tickets available at all shops that sell CTS tickets.
15.12.05
F
Paris
Batofar
w/ The Locust,
Kill Me Tomorrow,
400 Blows,
Year Future

Posted by joshbsf at 06:10 PM | Comments (20)

November 18, 2005

boston and the kottonmouth kings

Posted by joshbsf at 05:42 PM | Comments (71)

boston and the kottonmouth kings

tonight was boston. we played in the shadow of fenway park which was pretty cool because we are kinda sport nerds. i spent the day watching the yet another king of the hill dvd. darn i love love those guys. that show is hilarious. we ate some food that was so horrible that most of us were angry that we actually had to pay for it. in fact the rakus and i put down our food and walked to a billiards club that was pretty fun and we had some delicious food and spent some very nice time together, speaking of politics, poetry and the best wine to serve with veggie turkey sandwiches.

so being on the road is an insular experience. we never watch the news, never hear about anything except for what people tell us. so i hear there were pirates somewhere and the ship about to be boarded defended themselves with some sort of raygun? were they space pirates? how awesome is that! sometimes life is pretty good huh...wow..space pirates...amazing.
so i feel the need to reflect on this past jaunt with from autumn to ashes, biology, and the esoteric. every band talks about the great friends they made on tour but i do feel that this one really may have created some life long ones for which i am very grateful. i know when when we go out again in march or whenever we are gonna have some very close friends all over the country that were spawned on this tour. and when we go to thailand we can hang with chip who worked for FATA. he is moving away because as he says “you know love it or leave it? well, i am leaving it.” brilliant! truer words never spoken.
for anyone reading this in lower delaware the look machine are playing a show this weekend in seaford delaware. you can find out more by checking out thelookmachine.com.
so the show in boston was really fun except for the stage had this incredibly slick floor that of course was immediately covered in water and became an ice rink which we slid back and forth on. so basically we had to very carefully limp around stage or we would have completely bitten the dirt.
the kottonmouth kings were playing at the avalon which was on the other side of the club in the big room. it was sold out and packed with people just going crazy to the Kottonmouth Kings which were about five white rappers rapping over a cd, it was such a different culture than what we were used to. they love weed and sang about it a lot. songs like “i am going to smoke weed everyday for the rest of our life” and “we love weed” drove the sold out crowd into near hysterics. very interesting.
after boston we drove most of the way to albany, went to sleep in a faceless hotel , woke up, got in a van. very glamorous, eh?
we got to albany very early for some reason and matt needed to use the van for a personal reason so we were dropped off at the hottest little burrito bar. i mean hot! it was sweltering and humid in there and our we couldn’t get any signal for our little laptops. it was miserable, at least until i heard about robert’s little adventure...

(Robert)...a split tour diary (kind of like a split 7” but more punk), i love it and i’m proud i have such a strong partner in mr latshaw. so my day yesterday started much like josh’s (big suprise i know...since we share a room), but then took an even more evil turn after arriving in albany.
i like taking little walks before a show, you know. just see some of the city we play in, get some fresh air, call home and look for a nice little place to possibly indulge in some soy-chai tea. so off i went, while the rest of the crew retreated to the burrito place...and without really knowing it i walked all the way to downtown albany...maybe 40 minutes away from the venue. i found a coffee shop, got the beloved chai and even called home mentioning the warm weather and the cloudy but rainfree day...so i thought.
about 2 and a half seconds after jinxing myself that way, the sky turned black. clouds formed battle axes above the poor ALBANY skyline. it was probably the fiercest rainstorm my pale german body has yet encountered. pouring...a heavenly beatdown.
so since i try never to be late for load in i figured instead of waiting downtown i catch a cab back to the club...little did i know that albany holds around 4 and a half cabs painted in camo so no one actually sees them. the one or two i saw were filled with wet and grumpy albanians and by seeding by me just added to my wetness...so to make a painful experience short i walked back all the way uphill to the club, found no van (matt had taken it), no friends (remember:trapped in the burrito heaven) and of course no dry clothes. so i sat for an hour in a stewart’s, drinking hot tea, looking homeless and sad and freezing my ass off. even my boxers were dripping wet...
the night got saved though by a great crowd and finally meeting dan and steve from EVR. two of the very best people i have ever met. period.
i’m hands down honored to be on such a great label with these sincere and truthfull human beings. they turned the night into a real celebration and especially my conversation with steve reddy will stay with me for a long time i believe...what a great,honest man!
i’m dry now, driving to pittsburgh, listening to 108 and cave in..LOVE.
hold on gene has something to say: word!

Posted by joshbsf at 05:38 PM | Comments (7)

November 15, 2005

11/15/2005 Boston, MA

dear diary,

sorry for neglecting you so harshly the last couple of days, but i had family on the road with me and that left me with less time for my friend the powerbook and this diary...we're in boston today, after our first headlinging show on this tour yesterday night in NYC.

it went really well and we had fun...

instead of my desired walk around the area today i retreat to sitting backstage, answering e mails and trying to digest the most horrible chinese food i had in a while...usually not difficult to please once it's vegan, i have to say that if 6 packs of soy sauce still don't make it taste chinese it might be a lost cause...so i gave up. turned up the new propagandhi and "let god be a good man" (german saying casually translated). after the show we'll have a van-disco-party while cruising to Albany,NY...i'm a little sad, that we couldn't stick around lovely boston some more, but it's rainy and dark and cold, so that makes it easier to leave and snuggle up with chris rakus in the back...but way more important than all the band,music,spiritual travels of all of us...a major turning point in my young life presented itself the other day:

after more than 2 years of fiercly NOT granting dr. pepper and root beer any right to live in the soda section of any selfrespecting gas station and trying to fight it anywhere i went i had my first dr. pepper and immediately became addicted to the dangerous beverage...i'm convinced that this evil drink has magical power, turning a young german country boy around in the blink of an eye, but there you have it...at least one a day so far...pure addiction.
another young life gone down the wrong path...i'm looking for selfhelpgroups as i write.

alright, time to get ready for the nightly kirtan...let's see how far the sound vibrations influence our somewhat tired bones...love.

robert

Posted by robertbsf at 06:36 PM

lancaster, new jersey connecitut (i can never spell that state!)

well tonight was pretty awesome playing in our favorite amish outlet city in the world Lancaster. as always it was great playing with our good friends and hanging out with all of our newark friends and west chester friends and everyone else who were subjected to the barrage of noise we call boysetsfire.

so where to start? lemme see so baltimore was very nice always good to get into the northeast corridor with all our friends coming out to the show. it was the first show that our friend joey broderick didn’t have to be carried out of and actually got to see us play which i thought was cool.
so then it was new jersey. i am at a little bit of a loss to describe what exactly happened in new jersey but with out too much detail it is suffice to say that there was a band there who viewed hardcore one way and we didn’t exactly agree with them. they got their chance to speak for a complete half an hour, then we got our chance to say where we disagreed with them. we believe their is no room for violence homophobia or sexism in the scene and said so. they may think differently and in fact do and you can check everything out on our equal message board where we get threatened physically. oh well...can’t please them all, huh.
we would like take this few seconds to really thank all the friends we made on tour FATA, the esoteric, and biology plus all the friends we made and caught up with again. it was a great tour.
and now it is on to a week with the fall of troy and the sleeping. should be a blast! even though we are traveling in the frozen tundra of north america...burrrr.....cant wait to see shai hulud and converge and all the great bands in poughkeepsie. see ya...

Posted by joshbsf at 04:57 PM | Comments (26)

November 11, 2005

gene

Posted by joshbsf at 09:34 PM | Comments (13)

November 09, 2005

please check out the new sermon

we have in the rakus black lodge. hell yeah!

Posted by joshbsf at 10:06 PM

i wish i was in the land of dixie

wow what a night. richmond, we love you so much! it was truly a pleasure to play our unique brand of soft rock for you last night.
so we get into richmond at around four thirty in the morning, exhausted from the drive out of north carolina. our friend and gordon’s brother chris (the ogre!) kindly let us stay at his house and so we all got into our sleeping positions and sacked out. i did take some time read some anne rice and i have to admit that i am kinda getting into it. anyways.....

so we slept late late late and leisurely had showers and then headed over to the galaxy diner where we had breakfast/lunch thing. i had a veggie dog. it was awesome. before we knew it was time to go to the club and load our gear into Alley Katz, a place everyone told me was the old Twisters but it totally was not. it was three floors and really a pretty fun place.
the show was awesome, it was great to see all of our old friends i h, which included gwomper, tim barry, zoe and danny, donavan, matt and everyone else andave to say i think it went very well, no equipment failures or anything like that which is a big plus.
then the real fun began....
all of our friends in richmond of course wanted to hang out so went to a place called mccormicks right down the street from the club but we quickly decided that that was just too expensive and we quickly hopped into a truck and drove over to a different bar called empire where we sat and quietly drank our pabst blue ribbon and talked about politics. until we heard thundering out of the speakers “Since you’ve been gone!” holy crap!! kelly clarkson!
the place went berserk we were dancing on the bar, the reverend rakus attempted to dance on a table but it buckled under him spilling about eighty drinks all over the place. chris’ friend fell off the bar and smacked her head then immediately leapt up and resumed rocking. what a night!
went home to chris’ house, matt slammed the rev. rakus into a stone chimney and then the reverend was given one free shot which he took, punching matt in the side. it was truly a good night.
hightlights. during the force majure robert handed his bass to chris rakus and dove into the crowd. it was pretty cool.
on to the norva where they have mr pibbs on tap and hot tubs. cannot wait!

Posted by joshbsf at 04:14 PM | Comments (10)

nov 8th, richmond,VA

november 8th, Richmond, VA

so i got to fill in for josh newton from FATA, who had to go home for a couple of days, for 4 songs on bass yesterday in raleigh (corey from the esoteric does the other half of the set) and it was a lot of fun. both shows (BSF & FATA) actually, so thank you to everyone who came out!

i sincerley hope i didn't slaughter the nice FATA tunes too too much, but everyone seemed to have fun. i got to pick my favourites from their setlist...two of the 4 songs even had cornbread from biology (x- engine down) on stage playing drums, which made it extra rad, since i always thought he's a very inspiring musician to watch and listen to...and a great guy on top of that! so in that sense it was a bit like a mini version of these old dylan shows where everyone would come out and jam...without the jamming (thank god). even though a convincing version of "knocking on heaven's door" was played by fata at soundcheck...which in return made josh's and my imaginery mullets wiggle.
everyone on this tour is actually really nice and fun is had by all it seems...i must sound like the goddamn hippie i truly am and that's ok by me ; )...

other than that today held indian food for breakfast, a visit to the virginia historic museum, buying new headphones ("earmuffs") @ a great record store and a nice walk...i miss home, but this tour is great. period. so now it's awaiting some friends to show up here in richmond and playing early and maybe even a visit to the haunted museum right across the street before the show...gwen stefani is sirening in my new headphones and that's pleasant too (sorry man, no i have not heard the latest satanic grindcore demo of your band...)

plus a guy outside the club tried to convince mr. chad that he was an actual slave back in the day and he said i reminded him of "the dude shadow", whatever that means...matt weights get bigger every day and soon i'm afraid me & nathan will have to hang on the bar while he's lifting. on a less fierce & disciplined note reverend rakus is having a day of feasting instead of fasting, having cracked his first adult beverage right after he got up...pretty impressive how far spiritual ecstacy can transcend a liver...more power to our pabst blue ribbon yogi.

Posted by robertbsf at 12:03 AM | Comments (9)

November 06, 2005

nov 6th, day off-driving

today is reserved for a pretty intense drive from orlando to raleigh or at least 2/3rds of the way...it started off with me being up (as usual) a good bit before the rest of the guys, sitting at our Motel 6 pool observing a gentelman undressing himself, putting on his speedos and going for a swim, which reminded me of....yeah, home and after his wife came down to the pool too i had to admit i wasn't overly suprised when they actually started speaking german...we like to get naked more than the average american which is how we recognize eachother far from home...so next time you see someone undressed publicly or one who rocks the mighty speedos just say "wie geht's?"

the day continued with more stories of last night's adventures, that matt & me missed due to an extended "goodfellas" session back at the hotel. but before too much sparks of bromance could fill the room i fell asleep 30 min into the movie...not only too lame to go out after a show, but now officially too lame to watch an entire movie...it's time to get some viagra & steroids (maybe wearing more speedos would help)

other than that it's rolling down the good old roads of 'merica (no a!) after a family lunch at denny's...my search for boild peanuts continues and since we just entered georgia i will most likely prevail after horrible dissapointments down in the sunshine state (denver right?!)...that and me & chuckles re-enachting "gone with the wind"...

what else can i tell you? they don't sell beer on sunday's here (which caused reverend rakus to have misty eyes), matt is pounding on the dashboard listening to the police (envisioning himself wearing tight 80's pants, striped shirts and huge sunglasses as a reincarnation of steward copeland...and killing him of course since he's far from dead), reverend rakus partly being depressed because of the lack of the required dayoff-buzz and partly watching harry potter movies...and as far as i'm concerned, daydreaming of kicking nathan in the nuts while playing tomorrow night.

Posted by robertbsf at 11:10 PM | Comments (9)

November 05, 2005

goth dance club and a shot rang out!

so here we are safe in sound in orlando the land of mickey and great shows. we love this city and its people so much, we are a little dissapointed that we are not playing in our favorite location the Social where we historically have a blast playing, but such is life and there isn’t much we can do about that. Oh what’s that? what has happened the last few days? lemme tell and i will try to keep it brief......

the ride into florida was nice, it was interesting to see the damage done by various hurricanes and the cleanup efforts being instigated and all the work left, not just on various businesses but on individual houses as well. roofing companies down here must be busier than a one legged man at an ass kicking contest!
so two nights ago was tampa which was nice and reminded me of visiting my grandparents as a small boy. i most remember the monorail system they have here at the airport, i loved it ! the club was called the masquerade and was just huge with lurking bouncers who repeatedly warned us against smoking weed in the club even though we most assuredly were not. sound was good, oh wait the meal we got a restaurant called dish was amazing! it was a place were you kinda made your own food and a cook in the middle cooked it up....it was awesome and very delicious.
so after the FATA played, which was very nice, the main group decided that dancing might sound like a nice idea so went to little dance club called the castle which was HUGE! and filled with drunken goths buggying to sounds of the eighties. it was nice i guess and we brought all the moves and everyone loved it of course. then after the show we were outside the club ready to head on home when there was a huge disturbance outside and we knew we knew who was involved...ry-ry the tech from FATA. so of course we had to get involved since it was like 12 on 1 which we felt were not fair odds in any way. so me nathan gene and gordon were throwing kids off ry and ry gets in one good punch...on ME! oh tampa tampa your soul is being lost to the Wolf Pack and those who live by the fist! then we left and before we left we heard a shot go off overhead. so obviously fun was had by all!

Posted by joshbsf at 05:54 PM | Comments (7)

November 03, 2005

november 3rd Tampa, FL

today was yet another beautiful day on this tour...woke up next to the god-like body of mr krupanski (a temptress from hell really...) and instantly followed by a family-breakfast @ waffelhouse that matt loudly demanded...the drive was chill. nathan and me continued our punk/hc-roots programm with GB, cro-mags (if you had to think about which one you already lost the punk-quiz ; ) and bad brains. we came to the club a tiny bit late and after load in we went to a nice restaurant, where you picked out food which was then grilled on a huge, hot plate...we were helpless since none of our hometowns had such a fanzy establishment, but we prevailed due to the help of our caring waitress mary...the show went good and i think there's talk about a dance party...i might prefer the back of the van, but then again dancing with ben and brian from FATA might just be the thing to do tonight...we'll see what happens. josh and me will most likely end up having yet another long conversation about spiritual life and the traps of organized religion...he is reading "monkey on a stick" for the second time in 3 days and that leads to many interesting talks, late night and driving...i read "betrayal of the spirit", so that fits perfectly.
alright, talk to you soon.
good night.
love.
robert

Posted by robertbsf at 10:57 PM | Comments (8)

south cakalaky and dern tootin'

last night we were in south carolina and had a very nice time playing music for our southern friends. the show was fun and more than made up for an incredibly boring day that started with a five hour drive and continued with us basically going into the club sitting for five minutes, losing interest, then going outside wandering around, looking at people, the sighing and going back into the club. ho-hum.....

we did meet someone from the old country, keith, a former soldier who spent six years in Iraq and Afghanistan and was a former denizen of newark delaware, who grew up watching us play at girls inc and other places around newark. he had some interesting stories about iraq that i was glad to hear and really appreciated him telling me and giving me a moment of his time.

by the way robert didn’t mention that my mix cd was by far the best one, especially better than the one nathan did which was called “12 hours of Crass” and which annoyed all of us.

reading : monkey on a stick, a great book on the krishna movement in the US and specifically the temple in west virginia which became an armed camp and used dealing drugs as a way to raise money for building temples. fascinating read!

listening: thrice’s new record. pretty darn good. i am hearing a lot of dc in those boy’s music and i like it

Posted by joshbsf at 06:13 PM | Comments (4)

November 02, 2005

tour diary nov 2005

november 1st, Atlanta, GA

after a 14 hour drive (including fierce i tunes DJ battles...)we arrived in hot-lanta and not only are we checking into a nice, little, cosy hotel (much different from the usual motel 6 or knights inn...), but next door is the famous "soul vegetarian restaurant south", which made some of our days...nathan, chad, josh and me stormed over there immediately and the food was divine. then it was nap time and off we were to greet the FATA guys, get our equipment together and so forth...getting the equipment together included putting together the world's biggest weight bench ever to bless a tour, which matt had brought along. the "putting together" made every work out afterwards unnecessary, cause it took quiet some time all in all and hence left us exhausted, but now the thing is set up and looking fierce. let's see how much we put it to use...the show was good and there were tons of people and bands (i guess two different shows got put together)...after we played and we packed everything up i went back to the nice hotel for some reading and another cold shower, while the rest of the bsf camp went out and i have yet to hear if they have a good time but something tells me chris rakus & co were able to spread the "black church halleluja" all over this beautiful city...all in all i don't think i ever had a better first day of tour.

Posted by robertbsf at 06:30 PM

Message Boards

Hi all --

The current message boards are maintained and paid for by Wind Up Records. They were actually pretty nice to let us continue to use it while we put together a new place to discuss things.

As part of the switchover to Equal Vision, starting next week the new official bsf message board will be located here.

So take this week to say goodbye to the old board, and set up a identity at the new place.

Posted by joshbsf at 03:12 PM | Comments (2)

Before the Eulogy

Yep this is late coming. . . but Before the Eulogy is now available for sale. 20 songs, all of the early recordings in one nice package. And yes, the more observant have already noticed that Rocket Man is not really Rocket Man. . . a mistake was made. We'll see how that is solved exactly. We're not sure.

Posted by jason at 03:04 PM | Comments (42)