This is one eBay auction all Pickpockets fans will want to own:

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Thanks to everyone that came out to see us the Humboldt Park Art Fair over the weekend. When the day started, it didn’t look like the weather would cooperate, but in the end it turned out to be a beautiful day with some nice breezes keeping us cool while we played. Playing in Humboldt Park is always a change for us – the unique acoustic properties of the boathouse mean that we usually sound okay to the audience, but can’t hear ourselves as well as in a tightly packed club. Singing real harmonies for the first time without being able to hear them was a little daunting for me. Ditto for debuting a new song. The upside is not being a puddle of sweat after the show.

A few weeks back Kiri and I did an acoustic show at the Elbo Room, which is also a change of pace for us. Anyone who’s seen us knows that we’re loud, and I probably hide my limitations as a guitarist behind some of that volume. Stripping the songs down means you’ve actually got to play the right chords and stuff. We also threw a couple of covers together, including one at the last minute as a sort of tribute to the late Jay Bennett. We also worked up some different arrangements of our songs, including a folksy take on a bombastic tune we sometimes end shows with. All told, it was a nice change of pace and something we’ll probably do again.

But for now it’s back to the amiliar – a show at Silvie’s Lounge on August 21.

So I was moving some files around from my laptop back to my PC when I noticed this:

If I scroll just right, the entire Windows Explorer window is taken up by handclaps tracks. A lot of folks have been asking what we’ve been up to lately and when are we going to play again. And here’s the answer. We’ve been recording. Handclaps.

In all seriousness, for the last two months or so, we’ve been hunkered down in our practice space laying some songs to tape, or actually, hard drive. Our previous attempts at recording songs have always been on away turf; this is our first real try at doing it ourselves and so far we’ve been pretty pleased with the results.

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Sometimes I knock one out in a night and sometimes it takes me years before I’ve got something I like out of an idea. Words are a particularly thorny part for me. Imagine trying to tell a story. Now make it fit in a rhythm and a melody, and possibly make sure some of the words rhyme.  Ambiguity is often my best friend. An impressive vocabulary is often Allen’s.

And that’s before the rest of the band gets their hands on it.

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Hey party people -

As the people who know us the best and see us the most, we want your feedback. Give us the good, the bad, and the ugly. Tell us your favorite songs and your not-so-favorites. Tell us the things that work and the things that don’t. And punches need not be pulled – we can take it!

So email us, tell us in person, or leave anonymous notes on our cars – just don’t be afraid to let your opinions be heard! … Do you love Allen’s stoicism? Did Brian’s feedback melt your faces? Did my shirt make me look like an oompa-loompa? Are Shelly’s drums just the coolest setup you’ve seen in a while?

Let us know!