we have all kinds of good news. some of this will be in a newsletter too:

1. we are going to be in the studio this summer beginning work on our second album.
2. this website is brand new.
3. we have lots of ohio shows coming up.

1. It is official. We will be working with Atlanta-based producer/engineer/mixer Kirk Kelsey on a full length album, hopefully in August/September. We’ll record the album mostly in Cincinnati. It will be our second release as July For Kings, and the first with Dan and Drew. I will be writing a whole lot over the next few months. While we probably have enough songs for an album now, in order to really make this eclectic (and good.) musically and lyrically, we are hoping for another five or ten songs to choose from. and by song i mean good song. i have to write like ten songs or pieces of songs to end up with one good one. so i am going to be busy. there’s always that thing that happens when you are going into the studio–you end up with one or two songs just before you’re ready to record that you know have to end up on the album. that was normal life for us last time around. in fact, we went back into the studio to record it after we finished tracking seventeen other songs. of course only eleven made the cut. rambling.

Throughout this journal, I’ll have some random photos from the last few weeks. it’s really more of a scrapbook these days, so the redesign was with that in mind. and what’s a scrapbook without photos? here’s dan playing a jembe on the song “Just Right” at a recent performance in Lexington, KY:

Wait ’til you hear it. And the surprise at the end. I am more and more excited about that song. Thanks to Kevin for taking these photos and e-mailing them to me.

i have been a little lax about updating the journal as i’ve been working on this website. i took these a few weeks ago on the way to a show in Columbus:

Sunset is my favorite time to take pictures.

since i last wrote, we played at Avio’s (formerly A1A) in lexington with strip the image and oddfellows temple. it was fun. the new club is great. totally remodeled and much nicer. we love it. other than that it’s been a ton of rehearsal and pre-production. T and trav have been going to lots of Reds games. We all went to Jammin’ in the rain on Main and saw Fuel, Switchfoot, and Mr. North. I really wanted to see Silvertide but apparently they cancelled.

2. i do hope you’ve had a chance to explore the new site. we have new band photos, new boards, new everything. special thanks to rebecca davis, street team coordinator and webdesigner, for helping me with the tour section stuff. a few months ago i came to her with some ideas that might possibly add up to “the greatest band tour page in the world”. that was the goal anyway. those ideas included the flier machine, the e-mail a friend feature, addresses, phone numbers, details, driving directions and maps for every show, and the auto update tour history page. everything is connected through a database and a programming language called php, and it’s incredibly easy for us to update. i know i’m boring the crap out of you now, but i am just so pleased with how everything came out. thanks a ton rebecca. we make a good team.

3. the bottom line is that there is no excuse for you ohioans to not come to a show. we’ve made it as easy as we can. head over to the tour page and check it out. This weekend we’re playing at the madison theater in covington ky, and at mcguffy’s in dayton, oh. next weekend is cleveland and columbus.

one more photo from avios:

and to everyone not from the mid-west, thanks for visiting this website and sticking by us even when we haven’t been traveling to see you much… at least now we have real plans for a second album. when it’s finished, hopefully it will bring us to faraway places.

don’t forget JFK chat on thursdays at 9:00! i’ll try and stop by this week. i may be late.

welcome to the new. hopefully we’ll see you soon.
peace
joe