IT HAS HAPPENED TO BE that The Places have no farther east to go. the Captain (the Van) has docked at the corner of Malcom X and Broadway in Bushwick sector, Brooklyn.* But man! This last tour has been one heck of a PUFFY CLOUD BENDER! I can't so much as look at a puffy cloud now without getting delerious. My heart, my heart...oh man, where to start, even. Many thanks to the gracious folks who set up shows, spread the word, listened to our music or made theirs and then played favorite records, provided safe haven, fruit off the trees, good company, guitar jams, creek walks, pets to pet, shots to shoot, babies to kiss, arms to sleep in and trips to the greenfields. Magic eddies churn in surprising places in this country, as you all can surely attest. It's you who make this happen. You see the city like a dreamer does. You wake up in the tree tops and see what your city looks like drifting down. You hear music in wind resonating in the dish of your ear, and the intonations of voices, eyeballs lit by the last of the evening light, and doppler-affected machine engine sounds. Pleased to meet you! Love and gratitude to these Places: Paul Brainard, Jude Webre, Andy Piper, Stellin Newsome, the patient robots in the drum machine, single-coil pickups, vacuum tubes, chords vocal and guitarred, sweet old wood and the tiny machines known as cassette tapes. It has been a pleasure making this music this way! It's how we travel by dragonfly. Big cities and townie towns, prairies, plains and mountains: all islands in the sound. It was a great surprise to have our old buddy Ryan Stowe sit in with us at the Know in Portland. Darling Dr. Stowe has grown a wierdo beardo. This grants him security clearance into CREATURE COUNTRY and afforded us full access to the strange cascading sound waves sourced in his fingertips. A few moments of exquisite danger: once high up on the Wyoming plateu a trucker caught a gust of wind and forced the Captain off the road. The truck driver had tears in his eyes when he stopped cause he thought we were goners! Now see, look at us, we are slightly more l u m i n o u s. With a shattered rear-view mirror to remind us. We also got caught by a flash flood in the Mojave Desert, where the locals call 'Yucky Valley'. Watched a monsoon storm rippin' in the valley from up at Vic's house. Then met it's powerful wake on the way down. The water hit so hard it went all the way over the top of the van and there's still some tumbleweeds stuck up in the grill. Come to think of it, the dirt from the flash flood is still all over the van too. In the cassette player, the little teeth engaged the little wheels. We probably reached most for 'AXIS: Bold As Love'. And it's flipside, the dawnwalker genius opus 'KNIFE HITS' by Reeks & the Wrecks. Although 'Out of The Blue' in its entirity is always welcome. And the NWA remix Brian's friend made, that's just the cuss words. We got the great Waylon Jennings tape from the thrift store in Green River, Wyoming, the one with the Dukes of Hazard theme song and the truly perplexing coked-out fades. "you're a hell of a singer, and a powerful man, but you surround yourself with people who demand so little of you" Most of all, we listened to those puffy clouds riffing on the mountaintops. How does a whole continent go so fast? Here now. Watch for some more New York shows in September. The Places will be back out there in some rare form in November. 'Songs For Creeps' is done and will sing itself to you as soon as it can. Meantime, Research & Development continues. FARE FORWARD, VOYAGERS! love, amy annelle. POST SCRIPT: a quick tip of the hat to the nation's Hottest Motel Parking Lot Scene: Salt Lake City, in the shadow of the Mormon Temple. Not hot like 'cool'--hot like, HOPPIN'. Oh!, the meth-mouthed shirtless chorus. Oh!, the hand job transacted in the shadowy stairwell. The bass playing dude on the 10-speed bike is Nacagdoches' loss, and SLC's gain. ________________________________________________ *[I couldn't bear to mention when it happened: right here, Bushwick, July 7th: a face print on the window, broken glass and a ransacking of my van, removal of random objects. It was perhaps the last great cassette-centric heist in history; a lode devoted to tape heads and their tiny reel-to-reel machines encased in clear plastic. Unremarkable tools with highly specialized jobs to do. Broken cameras my eyes saw through. Unfortunately motley spoils for the thief! What does one do with a half-broken 40-year-old film-guzzling Pentax? These things need to be understood, and encouraged into working: only then will they help you make something.]