well fancy that...

CD GIVEAWAY

For the next few weeks, we'll be including copies of our new e.p. "The Rinse, Sir?" with every T-Shirt order. FOR FREE! That's five searing pop-songs, lavishly packaged, for the price of a shirt. Just click over to the merch page, follow the prompts, and before you know it you'll receive a package stuffed to bursting with Rinserobelia.

THE RINSE & THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT: A SYMPOSIUM IN TWO PARTS
Earlier this year, we were asked to partake in a dual interview with our good friends and studio-mates, The English Department. We met over a tape recorder and some scotch at the Soft Spot and, over the course of an hour, asked six questions per band. The transcript was then cut down to a fraction of its size (in due time we might post the uncut version, in which TED singer David Wallace claims to have a BigMuff pedal strapped to his genitals) and published on the excellent haystack.com. Look for it at the top of the "tastemakers" page.

CD RELEASE SHOW NEXT SATURDAY

"THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK" WINTER TOUR 2007
With our new e.p. "The Rinse, Sir?" hot off the press, we decided to book another two-week sprint across the West.

This photo was taken the day after show #1, in Reno. The Rinse men had driven through the snow from Santa Cruz while Mex and her mom came from Salt Lake City. We played with some cool bands and spent the rest of the night in Harrah's (not pictured). Playing in the snow was our attempt to get over the recent news that Six Flags was closed for the whole month. We're cursed when it comes to amusement parks. Every time we get near one, it shuts down tighter than Wallyworld in National Lampoon's Vacation.

The best Chinese food ever tasted is at the House of Nanking in North Beach. Our gig that night was located in another part of San Francisco, one known by locals as "Crackton." I have never seen so many strung out zombies on a single block. Had there been fewer, I would have feared for my life. But this was a neon-lit zombie street party, and part of me was grateful to contribute some noise to it. We left just as the cops on the sidewalk pulled their guns and people started hitting the deck.

There's one on every tour: Mex getting a tattoo in Sacramento (see last two blogs). It's an "X" on the middle digit of her middle finger. Please stop asking her if she's getting "M" and "E" on the installment plan.

From Sacramento we drove eleven hours to Salt Lake City. Immediately upon arrival we went to Urban Lounge, where we were to play 24 hours hence, and saw the amazing Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The next day, after a trip to the Mormon Mall and the gig, we spent the night at Mex's mom's house. Her cat Dida, pictured above, once beat up a Doberman Pincer.

People said we were crazy to launch our own brand of air freshener, but WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?

Santa Cruz: Wills and Mex at the last show. Somehow five bands managed to play without attracting the cops (they didn't come till much later) and without shaking old P-Street down to the ground. Photo by Jason Flowers.

Thanks to the bands, promoters, and friends who came out and hosted us. Thanks to Mike Park, Howie Huxx, Hod, Charlie, and Greggy Tom for the gear. Thanks to our families for the pancakes. Thanks to Alex Trebec, whose "Computer Jeopardy" kept us spry through the long drives. xxx, The Rinse

we decided to leave the warm embrace of reno afer i lost 20 dollars at blackjack in as many seconds. gambling has never been something i've fully understood. i once won a cuddly elephant in a pink plastic dolphin race on the river thames, however, i never attributed this victory to chance. more a triumph of the human spirit and careful planning.
our travels next took us to davis california, stopping a couple of times for snowball fights and peanut butter. the proximity of the club to the amtrak railway line allowed me to experience my first experiments involving pennies, trains and railway tracks. in my country, we have evolved to a point where we no longer need the train tracks themselves to transport people, so instead use it to transport electricity from one town to another. this makes it hard to get to the tracks to put the pennies on em. enough about the trains.
at davis we played with the fabulous 'new centuries' and 'send for help'. the fact that mex lost her wallet somewhere in nevada meant that without id she can only come into bars to perform, we left her playing along the railway lines the rest of the time, while the boys got drunk in the bar.
on our arrival into san francisco, we realised that we'd left 2 rather essential cases of equipment in davis. naturally we only clocked this as we were setting up for sound check. however, our knight in shining armour for the evening was charlie of 'send for help' who we'd met the night before, and had agreed to do our sound for the show. little did he know that he'd be supplying most of the equipment we needed. thanks charlie. if you're ever in new york, you'll know not to trust us with your load out, but you have a new set of bros.
the evening in san francisco was completed with a drug raid across the street from the venue involving guns, shouting and a dozen people lying face down on the ground. all terribly exciting. unfortunately we'd already traded our guns for several large jars of peanut butter in auburn, so once again, the rinse avoided a scrape with the fuzz.
next was sacramento, on the way there we dropped in at davis and recovered the missing gear. bloody miracle. at sacramento, mex made good on her promise of getting a tatoo. there happened to be a tatoo place over the road from the gig, but once again, mex had to use her jedi skills to persuade the tatoo people to put an 'x' on her middle finger. got the tatoo, played a storming show. as usual, mex wasn't allowed into the bar, and without a train track to play next to, sacramento was no davis. the rest of us are planning our own tatoos; eachothers faces on our own.

dearest mama,

thank you for driving me to reno to meet up with my band. i hope you enjoyed our first reno show ever. i’m quite sure i saw you bopping your head with the rest of the welcoming crowd at the satellite bar. i think reno loves us. but in the few minutes in town we had after you headed off to slc, the dudes were mistaken by the waitress for members of the singing and dancing group called Twelve Irish Tenors, who also happen to be in town. kind of like the concierge figured i was a high school flute player when they heard I was in a band. nobody gets us.

The sierra nevadas sucked us in as we played with strangers’ dogs and crawled in hip high snow. now, we drive. we look ahead to the winding road with excitement for davis frisco disco madness. i’ll see you in salt lake on wednesday. you and my hometown people will send us off to las vegas feeling just as good as we feel today. i can’t wait. i think i’m going to get a new tattoo.

THANKS MAMA.
mex

p.s. thank you (and ju) for dinner, and for finding my wallet in elko middle of nowhere nevada.

RINSING THIS FRIDAY
Join us for a rare neighborhood gig at the new Williamsburg location of Luna Lounge. We go on at the extremely civilized hour of 8:00, but there are good bands to follow, and Black Betty's is just across the street. And it's only five dollars. Here are the details:

FRI 23 FEB
THE RINSE
HYPE of the STATE
THE MOOD
THE RULING PARTY
@ LUNA LOUNGE
361 Metropolitan/Havemeyer
$5 / 21+

Our next all-ages show will be at the Tank, upon our return from our West Coast tour. By then, we'll finally have copies of our e.p. Yes, tremble in fear!

xxx,
R

SPRING TOUR: STRIKING WHILE THE IRONY IS HOT
Next month we head back out West, where we’ll revisit some favorite spots, play one rafter-cracking houseparty, and introduce ourselves to new towns as far-flung as Reno and Salt Lake City. Here are the dates:

3/1: Satellite (Reno, NV) w/ The Stops
3/2: G Street Pub (Davis, CA) w/ Push to Talk
3/3: “Frisco Disco” at Arrow (San Francisco, CA)
3/5: “Club Pow” at Press Club (Sacramento, CA)
3/7: Urban Lounge (Salt Lake City, UT) w/ Bons Savants
3/8: TBA (Las Vegas, NV)
3/9: Beauty Bar (San Diego, CA)
3/10: P-Street (Santa Cruz, CA) w/ The Huxtables

THE RINSE, SIR? AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD!
Our new five-song ep, recorded one magical Autumn month last year, is now ready for purchase on iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, and other online sources. We’re also printing up lavishly designed physical copies for you luddites. They’ll be available at shows and for mailorder in a couple of weeks. I’ve mentioned this before, but we’re awfully proud of this little record. It’s loud.

NEW PRESS: VIVE “LA SCIACQUATURA”
2007 has already proven to be a good year for blogs. Most notably, the excellent psychopedia.com featured a clip from our Hiro Ballroom show, along with a very kind review. A couple of weeks earlier, we were download.com’s pick of the day. International acclaim continues to pour in, with Japan’s Style Band calling us “Kings of popmaker in Brooklyn” and Italy’s Vitamin C helpfully translating our name. (“La Sciacquatura” is, “piú o meno,” Italian for “The Rinse.”) You can see it all on our press page. Repost, disseminate, spread the word.

TV ON THE RINSIO
Fearless TV, a weekly live music program, will air footage of us playing “Young Offender” this Saturday night (2/17) on Fox 5 in NYC. (The song will be followed by a brief interview between Wills and Bill O’Reilly.) If you’re not in New York, you can go to fearlessmusic.tv/channels.html to find out when and where else they are. We recommend that you check out their website anyway. It’s jam-packed with studio performances by some of our favorite bands: Hello Stranger, The Grates, Imogen Heap, Supergrass, and The Dresden Dolls, to name a few.

LOCAL SHOWS
We’ll be playing the recently resurrected Luna Lounge, now in Williamsburg, on Friday, Feb. 23. The old Luna Lounge had it all: foosball, cheap drinks, cool staff, and the patronage of Elliott Smith. The new location is sure to be even better. Expect new songs and a few other surprises I can’t talk about right now. When we return from the tour, we’ll play April dates at The White Room and good old Tank.