Preparation

December is near, and it's bound to be a doozy.

On the 10th we're playing with Population, Teaadora, and Ghost Pope at Dawson's Creek. Really looking forward to this one.

On the 14th we'll be at Pizza Works from 6-9 playing a benefit show for a friend's family. We'll be joined by The Dirty Gentlemen, and Emileilei. More details to come.

We also have plans to record a split with evil eye hOneytree sometime between now and 2012.

Tour is slowly piecing itself together. Expect a flyer in the next couple weeks. We could still use some help in a couple places. On January 1st we are looking for a show in southern IL (Springfield, Carbondale, St. Louis, MO). We're also searching for something slightly more promising for January 2nd (OK,AR). The 17th is still WIDE open. We're hoping to find something in northern UT. Get ahold of us at onesadfamily@gmail.com if you think you can lend a hand.

We'll be wrapping up the month with our tour kick-off show/ New Years extravaganza on the 31st at Nate's.

Not to mention finals...

Separate Lives

Since the beginning of 2011, a crucial dude named Rich has been giving us the live recordings of our sets at many of the shows we've been playing in Peoria. We have also had the good fortune to have been recorded by Jeff Gregory, as well as Brody Maag. Using 11 tracks from 7 different shows since January 28, in chronological order, we have compiled a collection of almost all of the songs we've ever written (excluding the newest of the new, of course).

Crippled Sound Records will be releasing Separate Lives on 75 clear purple tapes, complete with download card. Pre-orders will be up soon on crippledsound.net.

Have a listen!

Tracks 1-3 (A Flower, Nesting Insect, and Terrible Excuse) were recorded by Rich at Mate's Fest 2011, 1/29/11. Our old drummer, and good friend Grant plays drums on these songs. Track 2, titled Nesting Insect, was originally a song written for Chris, Austin, and Grant's prior band, LATEX NUNS.

Tracks 4-5 (Telephone Conversations and Don't Let These Words...) were recorded by Jeff Gregory at the Bloody Mess and the Hollowbodys show on 5/21/11. This was our first show as a three piece, and coincidentally was the same day "The Rapture" was supposed to happen. Mr. Gregory was nice enough to hook us up with a killer recording of our set.

Track 6 (Urticating Hairs) was recorded by Rich at Peoria Pizza Works on 5/22/11. This was a stressful night initially. Besides being our second show back, which happened to be the day after our first show, Pizza Werkz was also putting a time crunch on us big time. Thanks to The Oogies for kicking out the jams last minute, and bringing out a crowd!

Track 7 (As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs) was recorded at Eric's Loft, in Lincoln 7/16/11 by Brody Maag.That night we played by candle light, and did a special SadEye FamilyTree set with our friends evileye hOneytree.

Track 8 (Ordinary Purple) was recorded at Red Barn 8/17/11 by Rich. This was Cole Hollow's first show. They are awesome.

Track 9 (Six Cups of Coffee) was recorded by Rich at This is Peoria Fest on 9/10/11. This show was a showcase of Peoria area bands put together by Jake Heflin. We played with many great musicians that night.

Tracks 10-11 (Millionaire's Enlightenment Course and With Laughter) were recorded at Art Show 9/24/11 by Rich, during Christember.

Many thanks to all who helped make these recordings possible, from the great guys that recorded the tracks, to all the people talking in the background. We love you.

Tour-Spiel

We returned last night from our four day tour with Lark's Tongue. Awesome shows were played, we met some great people, made lots of age-related jokes, and smelled some terrible smells. All in all, it was the best time we could have ever asked for, and it ended way too soon.

Thanks to Nathalie, Brief Candles, and Sarah for giving us places to rest our heads, and to everyone who bought a CD or t-shirt from us while we were on the road. Without you, we would not survive. Well, we might, but we wouldn't have been able to afford to indulge in the Sad Family-sized jar of Nutella.

"And with the guitar turned off, and the gas tank empty, and the typewriter on, but my head is empty, and to really find me, I've got to look inside me."

Conniving and Conquering 2012.

Time to kick things up a notch.

Dec 31st- IL
Jan 1st- Memphis, TN
Jan 2nd- OK City, OK  
Jan 3rd- Dallas, TX
Jan 4th- Santa Fe, NM
Jan 5th- Albuquerque, NM
Jan 6th- Phoenix, AZ
Jan 7th- CA
Jan 8th- Davis, CA
Jan 9th- SF area, CA
Jan 10th- Eureka, CA
Jan 11th- Medford, OR
Jan 12th- OR
Jan 13th- Portland, OR
Jan 14th- Olympia, WA
Jan 15th- Seattle, WA
Jan 16th- OFF
Jan 17th- UT
Jan 18th- Denver, CO
Jan 19th- KS
Jan 20th- Des Moines, IA
Jan 21st- Chicago, IL

Discussed these dates last night after practice. Some of them are subject to change. If anyone can help us out, or point us in the right direction, we would greatly appreciate it. A little winter never hurt anyone.
Get in touch with us here: onesadfamily@gmail.com
or here: Sad Book

It's Happening.

Sept 1 - The Bishop in Bloomington, IN with Lark's Tongue, and Kam Kamma
Sept 2 - Quarters in Milwaukee, WI, with Lark's Tongue, Brief Candles
Sept 3 - Hill Valley in Minneapolis, MN, with Lark's Tongue and Lungs
Sept 4 - Rozz Tox in Rock Island, IL with Lark's Tongue

Jazz into Rock

August 6th we made our way east to Bloomington IN. We played an awesome basement, which boasted wolf spiders bigger than your average wolf. Our friend Nathalie and her boyfriend Jon fed us some spicy spaghetti and treated us to the town on Sunday. We all bought some fantastic records, had some great Soma, and ate some mediocre chineefoo. Great times were had, and a year's worth of stories were shared.

We're going to be heading back that way with Lark's Tongue on September 1st during our little Labor Day stint with those fellas.

Sad Family's first show ever was at Yardfest 2010. Yesterday we played at Yardfest 2011. We brought our dry erase board, because we wanted to make it clear that we are a serious band.

Yardfest is always fun, and this year was no exception. A big thanks goes out to the Satterfields for having us again in 2011.

As we have mentioned before, we are going to be hitting the road at the beginning of September with Lark's Tongue. We're playing Bloomington IN on the 1st at The Bishop with Kam Kamma, Milwaukee on the 2nd at Quarters with Brief Candles, Minneapolis on the 3rd at Hill Valley with Lungs, hopefully Des Moines on the 4th and somewhere in the Quad Cities on the 5th. Counting the days.

Speaking of those Brief Candles, we're going to be spending the evening with them and Cole Hollow this Wednesday, the 17th, at the Red Barn in Peoria. This is Cole Hollow's first show so come out and show them some love.

We are also going to record our new song "Arms Back" on August 21st to release as a split with evileyehOneytree. Looking forward to that, as well as another release that we will unveil in the near future.

More to come, said we three.

John Coltrane, John Coltrane, John Coltrane.

We sure have been keeping busy lately! There are now a few t-shirts for sale, and we hope to have more of those and some stickers done soon. Since May, we've received quite a few live recordings from some very cool people who came to our shows. There's talk of releasing some of them, both on tape and cd... But you'll just have to wait and see about that! We will too, actually.

Recently, we played a show in Lincoln with our friends (and our drummer's other band) evileye hOneytree. The venue there was super cool, and it was fun playing a cover of Pere Ubu's "Final Solution" as SadEye FamilyTree. Also, over this past weekend, we played not one, but two Peoria gigs, both of which were a good time. Before our Brass Rail show on Sunday, we made a stop at the open field by the stock car race track, and had a nice off-road adventure whilst driving over the miniature hills in the evening mist.  It got even more magical, when we made it a picnic! (Thanks to Angel, who made this band photo opportunity possible!)

So, as for current goings-on, our next show will be with our friend Nathalie's new band Closet Burner in Bloomington, Indiana, on August 6th. The next day, we hope to also play with them in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Talk about branching out! We're really excited to do some travelin', and bring the "sad" to other states.