Word has reached us that we’ve made a few year-end lists ourselves, which is awesome and quite an honor, considering who wrote about us and who we were up against. Here’s what’s what:

• Andy and Jen from the awesome Band in Boston listed us in their “Best Bands You Should Know” list for Light in the Attic’s “2nd Annual End of the Year Extravaganza”
• Dog’s Hymns was named as one of BAGeL Radio’s “Top Bay Area Albums of 2008″
• “Dog’s Hymn” was named as one of BAGeL Radio’s “Top SF Bay Area Songs of 2008″
• Local shredders and friends extraordinaire, Tartufi, named us as one of their “11 Favorite Sounds of 2008″ list for the San Francisco Chronicle
• Tartufi also wrote about Dog’s Hymns for The Bay Bridged’s year-end guest-blogger best-of hyphenation fest (I was fortunate enough to be able to write about Dame Satan, and Birds & Batteries also got local love)
• We were named as one of SF Station’s “Best Albums of 2008″ (featured alongside Wichita, Kansas bros, Paper Airplanes)

Nevermind the fact that the last three things all had to do with Tartufi, it’s still awesome that our band and our new album is getting these mentions. Actually, mind that fact. Tartufi is an amazing band and even more amazing people. They have gone out of their way to mention us to anyone who will listen, and that goes a long way. Those two are the best, and they have been such amazing supporters and friends that they get Low Red Land’s “Top of 2008″ award that I just made up. Check it out:

Low Red Land’s “Top of 2008″ Award goes to…

TARTUFI

Congratulations to them for putting together an amazing new album, Nests of Wave and Wire, which will see release in 2009 on Southern Records. Be on the look-out.

Now that all of that is out of the way, here are our lists of things that totally ruled in 2008. Please keep in mind that we are (mostly) totally irresponsible and forgetful and there are probably a million things that were left off unintentionally.

Ben’s top albums of 2008:
Birds & Batteries, I’ll Never Sleep Again (and the people in the band, in general)
Dame Satan, Beaches and Bridges (ditto)
Tartufi, Nests of Wave and Wire (ditto)
Appomattox, A O (ditto)
Harvey Milk, Life…The Best Game in Town (and their show at the Great American Music Hall)
Earth, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull
Young Widows, Old Wounds
Boris, Smile (Japanese version)
Cursed, III: The Architects of Troubled Sleep
Opeth, Watershed
Trap Them, Seizures in Barren Praise
These Arms Are Snakes, Tail Swallower and Dove
Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Lie Down in the Light
The Black Angels, Directions to See a Ghost
Disfear, Live the Storm
Spiritualized, Songs in A + E

Neil’s top stuff of 2008:
Birds & Batteries, I’ll Never Sleep Again
Tartufi, Nests of Waves and Wire (wink wink on the pre-release listen)
Cook Out
Dame Satan, Beaches and Bridges
Sears photos
new apartment
our new record
The Hangar and Robert Cheek, Wizard of the Faders
touring on a new record
Barack Freaking Obama
my lady
finishing Moby Dick
Top Chef Season 5
HBO’s John Adams
Wallace Stevens, The Palm at the End of the Mind
acoustic shows

Mark’s “Molto Bene 2008!”:
a-pizza
a-pasta
some-a nice-a gelato

That’s it for now. Happy New Year. We’ll see you soon.

The next night found us hosting a show at the Ghost Mansion, my house, featuring acoustic performances by Biagio Biondolillo, Birds & Batteries, members of Dame Satan, and Neil and myself.  There was plenty of intermingling, which was awesome.  We joined Dame for a few of their songs, including a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,” Michael “Fourth Meal” Chopko sat in on a bunch of our songs, and Andy and Jumpy joined in for a cover of David Bowie’s “Five Years.”  Biagio and Anna were great, and so was Birds & Batteries.  It was great to hang out at home and host a show.  There will be more in the future, so we’ll keep you posted.  The night was also recorded, so, with any luck, we’ll have some listenable audio to post at some point in the future.

That’s it for now.  We’ll probably get one more post in before the end of the year.  There have been some reviews of “Dog’s Hymns” trickling in, and we’ll get those up on the site at some point in the near future.  Thanks for reading.

Our friends over at Band in Boston posted our first Flophouse session, which took place during our fall tour in 2007.  There are four songs up, all in one convenient track, and they don’t sound nearly as bad as I remember them.  Ha.  They also renamed “Hawks Die” as “Hogstyle,” and though I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, I don’t care, because the new name is far superior.  You can listen to it and download it here.

We’ve got a couple of shows happening this week:

Thursday, December 11th at 9:00 p.m.
@ The Eagle Tavern
Low Red Land
Them Hills
Tartufi

Friday, December 12th, at 9:00 p.m.
@ Ghost Mansion
Low Red Land
Birds & Batteries
Biagio Biondolillo
Dame Satan

The first one is Thursday and it’s an electric banger at the Eagle Tavern in honor of Lynne’s birthday.  She and Brian, known together as Tartufi, are opening the night so that she can spend the rest of the evening getting smashed.  Nevada City’s Them Hills play second, and we get to close out the night with some standard rock and some special surprises.

The second one is Friday and it’s an acoustic throw-down at the Ghost Mansion.  4 acts, 5 or 6 songs each, and a party after.  Dame Satan will be performing as a duo, Bellingham’s Biagio Biondolillo will be performing solo, Birds & Batteries will be stripping it down, and Neil and I will be performing as a duo.  If you know where the Ghost Mansion is, come on by.  If you don’t…well, there may be a reason for that.  We’ll be recording the night, and, with any luck, it will be released through Ghost Mansion Records as the first in our series of “Live from the Ghost Mansion” (or something like that) CD-Rs or digital downloads.

Hopefully, everyone is enjoying the holiday season.  That’s about it for now.  Feel free to get in touch with us, unless you’re a drunk ex-pat living in China.

Speaking of tour, we made it home safely.  San Francisco was more or less as we left it.  We’ve been practicing and writing new material for our upcoming shows.  They’re all listed on the right of the screen.  Check them out.

We’re excited to be playing the Eagle again, this time for Lynne’s birthday.  We haven’t played in San Francisco since the middle of September, and we’re excited for this bill.  We love Tartufi and Them Hills.  Love them.  It’s going to rule.  We’ll have copies of our new album, “Dog’s Hymns,” available at the show, along with copies of the new (and free) Thread Productions compilation, “Dragon Slayers, Volume III.”  I also found some copies of “Dragon Slayers, Volume II” while cleaning out the Ghost Mansion archives, so they’ll be there, as well.

Speaking of our new album, it’s also available all over the web (iTunes, eMusic, aMazon.com, other lowercase-uppercase-lowercase sites) through our friends at Thinker Thought Records.  So, if you want a copy but you aren’t going to be seeing us any time soon, go ahead and buy it online.  Thanks to Jared for being a number-one pal, and for picking one of the douchier photos we’ve taken to use as our promo shot.

That’s about it for now.  We’re going to be hard at work, promoting “Dog’s Hymns,” playing shows locally (January sees us playing a bunch of shows with awesome out-of-towners, Finn Riggins and Ketman), and planning our next tour.  Keep checking back.  Take it easy.

Tour update coming shortly.

The latter half of September was spent gearing up for our national fall tour, and so the three of us set about working as much as possible, emailing, promoting, booking, printing, pressing, practicing, and all of the other stuff that goes into tour preparation. Now that we’re out on the road, we get to relax a bit and enjoy playing music and spending time together. It’s about time.

We’re heading out on tour in a couple of days, heading all over the U.S. (except the northwest).  We’ll be on the road from October 2nd until November 14th.  We’re touring in support of our recently-released new album, “Dog’s Hymns.”  If we’re coming to your town, please come out and say hi.  We’ll have copies of the new album, some new shirts, some more new merchandise, and, depending on how long it’s been since you’ve seen us, some new music.

I owe some updates on our recent northwestern tour with Finn Riggins, our album-release show at Slim’s with Tartufi and Built for the Sea, and some other stuff.  Things are kind of hectic right now, so just lay off and be patient.

Speaking of blowing it, sorry for the lack of updates.  Things have been busy.  Soon, I will post a recap of what’s been going on, including our recent Northwest tour with Finn Riggins, and some information on what’s coming up.  Also, if anyone is reading this looking for the promised “additional album credits, thanks, and band information” promised inside the “Dog’s Hymns” packaging, please be patient.  It’s on its way.  Take it easy.

We played a last-minute show at the Press Club in Sacramento last Wednesday. We’re getting pretty good at bumming out the folks in Sacramento. We played with Bright Light Fever and most of their crowd decided to stay outside during our set, while the rest decided to show up after we got done. It worked out well. We had a great time, though, and we’d like to thank Jeremy, Schuyler, Matt, and friends for showing up. Check out their respective bands, Goodness Gracious Me! and Prieta. The Cheek and his lady were there, as well, and they’re pretty funny together (and drunk).

We’ll be back in Sacramento on Thursday to play Old Ironsides with Goodness Gracious Me! and Them Hills. Girls who want to hear Muse will be bummed.