4-9-03:
What happened to Bright Eyes? Went to see them last night for the first time in about 2 years at the Fillmore in San Francisco and feel compelled to comment on the performance. Aside from bad sound quality the entire ordeal just seemed uninspired. And I certainly got geared up for the show like I had in the past too. Mixed a couple stiff whiskeys thinking it was gonna be that kinda night. What a dissapointment. I was really looking forward to seeing Conor up there filled with fright with a 100 eyes on him, but instead, he calmly stood there before his audience of a 1000 taking cues from the paper set list. One of the few pluses to the evening was a performance of Solid Jackson one of my favorites from the early days of the collection. Only one song from "Letting off..." which was a horribly sloppy version of Padraic my Prince. I still want to love this band. I still want to lay awake at night listening to them but it sure as hell isn't getting any easier. Sometimes I want Conor to take a cue from Jeff Mangum before it all ends up on a poo platter.
3-7-03:
I got an email today from Robb at Saddle Creek. and it looks like they are putting out a 2 cd disc set showcasing the best of all the Saddle Creek bands. Included on the disc is an exclusice Bright Eyes track. Hopefully the disc will include a couple tracks by S.C. most under-rated and long forgotten band Gabardine. Other than that Bright Eyes is setting off on another tour of the nation. Go see them in your town. Lastly, I finally got around to updating the long overdue tabs section. Sorry to all of those who sent in tabs only to have them appear 6 months later.
11-6-02:
Not too much new stuff on the Bright Eyes front other than constant touring and a Christmas Songs compilation offered exclusively through Saddle Creek. Go to the Saddle Creek Online store! It appears that Insound is releasing a compilation of some of their rare Insound Support Series. Included are tracks from Bright Eyes and Son, Ambulance. Go to Insound for details. Lastly, The lyrics page gas been updated to include "lifted."
10-02-02:
Lots of new releases from Bright Eyes since the last update, including a wonderful full length recording, the first since 2000. It is titled “Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.” Check the discography for details. Conor and a large orchestra should be touring in your city soon. Check the Saddle Creek site for details. Congratulations to Saddle Creek for another awesome release. I have been receiving tons of guitar tabs as of late. Keep ‘em coming. They will get released to the site…it just takes time, but they will get updated. Also, I don’t want to forget the wonderful split release from Better Looking Records featuring Bright Eyes and Jimmy Lavalle from the Album Leaf and Tristeza fame. It is part of a collaboration series and the lineup rules. They tell me they don’t have many left, so get yours now.
05-08-02:
The latest Bright Eyes 4 song E.P. has been released. It is titled, “There is no Beginning to the Story” and is available at Insound for purchase. The E.P. features one track from his upcoming full length, which is tentatively titled “The Story is in the Soil Keep your Ear to the Ground” and is scheduled to be released on August 12th. Conor and crew along with some folks from Azure Ray will be hitting the road for an east coast tour in support of the new e.p. Check the Saddle Creek site for specific dates.
04-16-02:
I got a lot of feedback back from folks regarding the Sony deal and it looks like it is a lot less restrictive than I originally thought. Essentially it gives Sony some rights to bright eyes back catalog for films and television. Hopefully, Conor will put this extra cash toward worthwhile future projects. So I’m sure that many of you have noticed that I haven’t updated the site in some time. I had some trouble with my ISP for a while, but I got that smoothed out and I’m hoping to have the time to make more regular updates to the site. Since I have last written, Bright Eyes has put out several more releases, including a terrific 7” on Blood of the Young Records, a Cdep/7” was released on the Wichita Records label titled “Drunk Kid Catholic,” and a Sub Pop singles club 7” featuring “I will be grateful for this day.” Also, Conor has taken up other musical pursuits outside of Bright Eyes, including a more straight up rock band, the Desaparecidos, who released “Read Music, Speak Spanish,” on their home Saddle Creek records, and the collaboration between Jimmy Lavalle of the Album Leaf and Tristeza, has finally been released as the 1st of 5 7” singles by Better Looking Records. Just recently, Saddle Creek announced the upcoming e.p. “There is no beginning to the Story” to be released in early May. The discography will be updated shortly. Oh, one last thing, I'll be auctioning off one of my very rare, never before worn, size medium bright eyes long sleeve shirts via this site. I have pictures of it here . Doing this will help me pay for the bills hosting this site. If you are interested in bidding, write me an email here.
02-08-01:
Anyone wish to fend off the rumors that Bright Eyes signed
to Sony? I've heard it through the grapevine. I really couldn't
imagine them on any other label but Saddle
Creek. Anyway, I had the great fortune of bumping into a fellah that
so graciously scanned in some of Conor's earliest solo releases long out of
print and only available on cassette tapes. I also added a few
"related" projects to the discography
including a side project entitled "TRC 112" in which Conor and Tim
Kasher of Cursive collaborated and Norman Bailer, a band that included Mr.
Oberst and some current members of the Faint. If it sounds anything like
Gabardine, I think the Creek should re-release it. Other than that, Bright
Eyes have a northwest tour in progress and are playing the noise pop festival
out here in San Francisco. Check it out. Over and Out for
now. Feel free to write
and/or submit material or join the mailing list. -Parker
01-14-01:
Oh Holy Fools should be out any day now. I've
heard it. Its quite good. 4 tracks from Bright Eyes and 4 tracks
from Son, Ambulance. Anyone who feels reluctant to check it out based on
the Insound split should give 'em another try. Son, Ambulance rules
you. New stuff in order: Better Looking Records will be
releasing a series of 7" from the Album Leaf (Jimmy
Lavalle from Tristeza's
solo thing) and each release will feature a different accompanying guest
artist. The debut release features Conor Oberst and is due for release in
the coming few months. According to Paul Fischer of better looking, Jimmy
recorded some stuff and sent the material to Conor for him to add to.
Conor returned it back to Jimmy for final mixing. The long distance
chemistry should prove interesting. As far as the site goes, there was a
comp released a few months ago that slipped my attention. Bright Eyes has
a track on the Summersteps
label comp "Naked in the Afternoon - a Tribute to Jandek".
Check out the summersteps site or write them here. If you have any questions or
want to join the bright eyes mailing list, or want to submit any material to
the site, feel free to wrote me here.
10-11-00:
Bright Eyes has released another 7" (and cdep
equivalent)! It is a split with Her Space Holiday and it is out on Wichita Records and as far as I
can tell it is only available overseas. I'm not so sure how many copies
my buddy phil has left but you can try to obtain one at norman records. Once I receive a
copy myself i'll be sure to update the discography and
lyrics section. So debi, my partner in crime
here at listen.com let me borrow some of
the photos that she took at the bottom
of the hill show (mentioned more below) and I have scanned them in and they
are available in the images section. The site
is constantly improving (can't you tell?) and I have some new entries in the
guitar tabs section and I have added a few new links. Worthy of a check
out is my friend Jason's site which
includes a bright eyes digitized video from an older show in Athens. So
not too much other than that. Looking forward to my visit to Atlanta in a
few weeks. --parker
9-27-00:
Last nights show at bottom of the hill was good clean
fun. Bright Eyes played a drunken set with Her Space Holiday and some
crazy nocturnal bastard actually went home last night after the show and wrote
up a review. Click here
to check it out. After seeing them so many times now it is hard for me to
decide if I like the bands recently acquired level of confidence and
professionalism. While i was really happy to see them play a set longer
than 25 minutes, i very much enjoyed the days when they would come out and
Conor would blast nervously through a 6 song set with his feet tangled and
quivering. Once the set was over he was long gone. Last night he
calmly dealt with technical difficulties, managed to acknowledge the crowd, and
even slipped in a few words between songs. It was good; it was
different. And where the hell was Andy Lemaster? The band mentioned
that he was busy working in Athens (producing another Macha album?). They
needed that Jeremy Boyle look-alike to handle all of the technical
difficulties.
They played a few older tunes too, including one of my all
time personal faves "February 15th" (someone called out for them to
play February 14th...who was that jackass anyway?). I was pleased
to hear Conor belting out "somethings just can't wait," with the same
enthusiasm as on the recorded album. It isn't the same without Neely, but
I was just happy they played it. Now if only they could be convinced to
play "if winter ends," i would be truly content. There was only
one song that I had never heard them play before, so I am holding out for
another e.p. soon or perhaps a 7"? I figured that saddle creek would have released that
long awaited 7" split with ambulance by now.
We have a few new additions to the site. The performances section has another entry from Tuscon and
I suspect soon enough I will have some photos from last nights show to
post. So check back soon! And dang the guitar tabs section
sucks. Will someone submit some new material (pat hill, where are
you)? Oh yeah, I just have to do this for vanity's sake. If you
want to see a stupid picture of me, go to your local newstand and pick up a
copy of "the industry standard." I'm the dork on the far left
in orange on page 53.
8-16-00:
Alright we got a new section--guitar
tabs. Rule!, but we need way more. Submit them to me. So we also got a new gallery
in the images section. Thats 'bout it for
now. --Parker
8-8-00:
New tour dates. And the west coast even! Check saddle creek for the dates. So my pal Robin from back south wrote up a little something on the recent bright eyes show in Athens. It is the next best thing to being there, although I would have very much liked to have a pre-show jeff mangum encounter. Read it here...and thanks prab! Now if we could get conor and him to collaborate on a record or soemthing. I finally got around to adding some discography images and sienna wrote up most of the lyrics to the insound tour support release. We need more photos and good show reviews. Send them to me and while you are at it ask me to put you on the bright eyes mailing list. --parker
7-30-00:
Just thought I’d let you know that you can check out a live show at digital club network. You need realplayer for it.
7-28-00:
Hello everyone.Just thought I’d check in…let you know I’m still here.Looks like bright eyes planned a few more tour dates. Saddle Creek has the latest. Nothing here on the west coast just yet. Hopefully soon enough. So I’ve almost finished reading “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” By Milan Kundera. Conor based the last song on “letting off the happiness, ” on the characters Tomas and Tereza of this novel. Reading the book after listening to the music and reading the lyrics is pretty interesting. And while the book and Bright Eyes’ themes are slightly different, it is easy to see where some of Conor’s influences come from. It is a phenomenonal book, especially for those who constantly have things like relationships on their minds. A large portion of the novel deals with the metaphors of love and lovers. Its fun. Right now it is keeping me motivated knowing that such things exist in this world. Well, I’m off now. Enjoy—parker
7-18-00:
Well, I’m pretty bummed out. Bright Eyes is playing Athens tomorrow night and I’m off in California, away from the action. Hopefully they’ll will be touring the west coast soon so that I can get my fill. So I saw The Faint play bottom of the hill last week and Joel of gabardine fame was playing bass with them so I suspect he will not be in the current bright eyes tour lineup. I finally got a chance to listen to the Bright Eyes Insound tour support split with Ambulance. Not too shabby and I especially like Conor’s interjection (or rather introduction) in the middle of the disc. “Hi, this is Conor.” So I haven’t heard to much in the way of future releases except that there is going to be split released from .unread. Lots of people writing me to find where the can secure a copy of the “love is real” song which I believe is titled “K is for Kathy.” Rumor has it that it is named after one of his booking agents, but I’d like to think that it is dedicated to Kathy, my road trip co-conspirator and contributor to this site. In any case, as far as I know it hasn’t been released yet. Since I really have no time anymore to work on this during the daytime (i.e. during work hours), I hope that when the telephone company comes to San Carlos with dsl, I’ll be able to spend a little more quality time getting everything in order. I might even be able to run this site from out of my house (no one has offered me space anywhere else), but first I still gotta track down my sketchy-ass movers and have them deliver my belongings. Not much else to say now. Even though Bright Eyes is getting a lot more exposure, I don’t any new news. To all my friends in Atlanta, get your ass to Athens, eat a moss burger at the grill and use the toilet seat covers at the 40 watt. Love ya.--Parker
6-29-00:
Phew! I can't believe I actually made out here to
California. Yup, I did it. Atlanta to California in week and a half
and I've got a place to stay and a job to keep me busy. Busy enough it
seems that regular updates might suddenly become less regular. Is this
the bright eyes site? Right, I almost forgot. Basically, sorry
about being so despondent. So the site is in jeopardy! I'm not sure
whats going to happen with this thing once my account gets deleted from this
server. I am looking for help. Please write me if you have server space (currently
the site is <4MB). So Insound released their
bright eyes tour support cd. So visit them and check it out. It is
a split cd with ambulance. I haven't had the chance to give it a listen
(movers have taken stereo equipment ransom), but i've heard that the production
is more stripped down than recent releases (good? bad? good, i
think). Supposedly, there is a split 7" release from the same bands
available from .unread in
the future too. So i'll be in touch more later. Once everything is
set up 'round here i'll be able to do more frequent updates (discography,
lyrics, images, mailing list, etc.) Love ya, Parker
click here for old news
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