Virginia Tour

Just got off a really spectacular tour of Virginia with the wonderful Relatives!

Check out some amazing pictures and videos at our tour blog here

Isaac Gillespie w/ The Relatives "Rain In the City" - Live at a house, Fredericksburg, VA 06.10.2010 from The Relatives on Vimeo.

Donor Blues

Here is a video of last month's Zebulon show with Morgan Hank on backup vocals. The song is a songwriting collaboration with Shakey Graves and the whole thing was shot by our buddy Eric Hinojosa.

Little Purple Flowers Today

Can you see them?

Cover of the Day: Goodbye Joshy

Today's Cover of the Day comes from our good friends and yours PAPS!



With an appearance by Clairey, whom I'm visiting and who arrived home just at the beginning of the song!

Astounded By Modernity

Ever since Aaron got me to go to the Air & Space museum in January, I've been thinking a lot about the space program. I feel like I belong the generation that would see this video:



and give it that title. I mean, this is a video of a person ON THE MOON! That is totally crazy (I feel like part of my fascination, too, is not just that they landed people on the moon, but that they did it with 1960s technology. Part of me kind of believes that if need be, my phone could get me to the moon. But those 60s space suits just look like they were sewn by the astronauts moms!)

So I've been reading all about NASA (Did you know that the Saturn V rocket that launched the moon mission is still the biggest rocket ever launched. It was 30 stories high. Just think about that - a 30 story building levitating into the air as a product of just lots and lots of fire) and watching videos online and I've ended up at this amazing documentary on Netflix called "For All Mankind". It is totally awesome. They take all this original NASA footage and weave it into a compelling story.

I had to stop at the part where the three astronauts are floating in space halfway between the earth and the moon. I'm worried about them.

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Apart from that, I've been looking at pictures of old monuments like stonehenge and this one too (seahenge):



This was in the paper today:


It's a 4,000 year old cemetery in the deserts of China. Just think, 4,000 years ago somebody erected wooden timbers because they were sad. And it's still here. It makes me wonder, what is this going to look like in 4,000 years?

Speak Softly and Generate a Flurry of Media

Last night at the open mic, Morgan and Ali (Shakey) and I worked out this song in this arrangement:

Change by Isaac Gillespie

If you come tonight at midnight, you will hear us in our last minute recording-performance. Just don't make a lot of noise.

Purity of Heart

Last weekend I went out to Flushing to record piano overdubs with Jo of the Shivers.

When we got there I realized I had left a very crucial mini-USB cable all the way back in Manhattan. So we set out to the storefronts to see if we could replace it.

I arrived at Flower Computer Repair on Northern Blvd. There was a young American dude (or I'm guessing, he seemed to be a native English speaker at least) at the front desk and then back in the corner an older Chinese man (again, I'm guessing at basically all of these descriptive adjectives).

I rush in the door: "Hey, I just need a mini-USB cable, do you have that?" The guy at the desk gives me a blank stare for a moment, then stands and picks up a mini-USB limply. He looks back at me: "Like this?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I need. How much is it?" The guy behind the counter sort of looks at me like that's a question he'd never considered. It's obvious that Flower Computer Repair considers itself to be specifically computer repair and NOT retail sales. Perhaps if I'd asked to have my mini-USB repaired they'd know what to do with me.

So the guy behind the counter looks back at the older Chinese gentlemen. He approaches, looks at the cable, looks at me and then slowly shakes his head: "No."

"No?"

The young dude: "It's not really for sale. This is just for our own use."

"You won't sell it to me?"

Again, the young guy looks at the older guy. Who looks again at the cable and again at me. He shakes his head. "No."

I'm desparate. I need this cable! We've been trying to record these piano parts for months and if we can't do it today it'll be another six weeks before the Shivers even get back from their UK tour.

I pull out my wallet. "I'll give you ten bucks for that cable. That's a good deal."

The older man: "Ten bucks?" Younger man: "That's ten dollars." A subtle shift in the room. The older man takes the cable, turns to me and offers it out. "Take it," he says.

"Oh, thank you so much!" I say as I reach inside my wallet.

"No," he says. "No charge. Free."

I was shocked! Flower Computer Repair man! Only intending the whole time to test my mettle! Only once I proved that I truly wanted the USB cable and would be willing to part with ten "bucks" could I be trusted with it's custody!

The piano recording, by the way, went amazing. We got this beautiful Steinway Grand on four tracks and then did a take with the pipe organ.