Macky and Jimmy Nine

Currently enjoying a delicious penne pasta with a light spinach creme sauce. Paired with a pint of Berliner Kind at our last show for this tour in Berlin.

Seeing as the below mentioned humans have literally been our eyes, ears and muscle for this expedition, I feel its not only appropriate, but necessary to expose their amazingness to the world. Not unlike two giant English Eagles riding into the apocalypse atop horses made from the steel of the Eiffel Tower, these two fine young gentlemen have entered the Local Natives family in all the right ways.

Meet Mark:

He can either be found behind the wheel of our "hell van" or in most cases twiddling his thumbs behind the sound board. In his right hand a latte and in his left an blood pudding sausage. None of us know whos holding the wheel. He sense of humor is spot on, his sound assessments are even better and he deserves his own late night talk show. Truly a good person all around. Also the only man I know that drinks hot chocolate when he needs a pick me up after driving for 6 hours.

Meet Chris:

He can be discovered inside any Travelodge that exists in the UK or pacing outside working way too hard on his blackberry. We get to where we need to be because of him. We get the things we need because of him and we get woken up every morning right as Im about to enter a wonderful dream because of him. He's on top of literally everything. We are like spoiled children around him and are truly lucky to have come across such a man. In his left hand is nothing bc he misplaced his blackberry again and in his right is a half lit American Spirit...which I think might be a little too "strong" for him.

If you have read anything remotely good(which there's been a lot) about the past four weeks on this blog then its because of these two. Thank you.

Local Natives

Glasgow

It’s funny to me when Brit folk are impressed by the 4 hour drives, like the one we had from Leeds to Glasgow. Used to touring the states, our average city to city time is over 6 hours, and we’ve become much too familiar with the occasional 30+ hour drive in the last few months. Van time is good time. It’s time for humus and pita and reading books. Finished The History of Love while a constant portrait of gloomy skied, ship laden fields filled the van window.

As a support band, it can take a few songs for a crowd who don’t know your music to respond, but the Glasgow kids would have gone crazy for a miniature monkey clashing a cymbal thrown out onto the stage. These were kids ready for new music. Everything is cake until halfway through the second song we hear muffled yell through our monitors; “stop f*cking playing!!” Confused, half the band decides to keep going with the song until the fire alarm kicked in, completely drowning us out. We finally relinquished as the crowd evacuated the building. They say it was the smoke machine that did it, which I think is a much better theory than someone straight hated our set and in a last ditch effort to escape misery decided to try and end the show.

Once they let everyone back inside our set time was almost up, so we finished with a couple songs and ended with Sun Hands. We invited up Nick from Marina, Alexis from Golden Silvers, and Joey from Yes Giantess for a massive ending drum jam session. So many drums on stage my ears were bleeding after the set. Needless to say that will be a repeat set closer for the rest of the tour.

I was determined to get in a solid night at Glasgow based off two reasons: 1. We had a day off following and 2. When we asked the bartender what was the recommended Scottish beer, he replied, “Whiskey.”

We ended up at the local Art School turned euro trance club in downtown. Three hours of intense communal dance moves and a few “beers” later, we were ready to go find a place to continue the celebration of Glasgow, but unfortunately had no common sense. First place we were kicked out of was Yes Giantess’ Hilton suite. Dance moves were auditioned, beds were somersaulted over, lamps overturned, and a three member Hilton employee confrontation council was at our door not to be haggled with within a half an hour. Next we tried to bring the group to our own room at the Glasgow Travel Lodge. We literally didn’t make it through the door as the desk woman was threatening angrily to call the police the moment she saw us approaching. Soggy, miserably tired and near deciding to just bum it and sleep in some cushionless couches left outside for the trash, we finally found victory at Nick and Nick’s (Marina’s rhythm section) who were at another hotel down the street. We pushed the two single beds next to each other and crammed seven people horizontally like sardines, finally closing our eyes at 7:30am. Needless, to say Glagow lived up to the infamy.

Taylor

Local Natives

Album Artwork

Matt:


Ryan:Andy:


Taylor:

Kelcey:


There is a little tail end on the album artwork so for sharing purposes only...

An idea is sparked somewhere in the think blob of the better known human brain. This idea soon sprouts a new think stem from which blooms a road map of new trails, rails and roads. Every once and a while we will focus and dwell, analyze and reanalyze this idea to the point of over inflation. The head throbs and swells like a belly breathing and suddenly your focal point is lost and bursts into varieties you can't recall. It's funny how this idea, this dream and this pursuit over time molds itself into an ever constant pressure to obtain what you've always wanted...and it makes you feel as if your head is going to explode.

With this atrocity in mind I headed out to Ralphs(supermarket) around the corner from our house to get some supplies. I had been really wanting to use meat in something for awhile so I knew I needed that. With the rest of the bits and chunks I tried to find elements that would apply to each one of our personalities. I could go into detail on why Taylor has foil in his head or why Kelcey has cottage cheese but I won't. White trash bags which were taped to the yellow tile floor in our upstairs bathroom. I had a pile of groceries, dirt, weeds, paint and a camera. Like a fool with a sleep mask on I proceeded to blop, drop and throw specific liquids and solids onto the flattened trash bags. For the broken skulls I supplied shattered bottles and broken melons. Cleaning the melon seeds out of my bath tub drain proved to be the longest part of the entire process. I thought a splatter logo would fit well enough with the rest of these piles created and the words were brought about with left over black paint. The layout of LN was based off the wolf poster we had.

The mouths on the back were simply my way of fucking with an image of each of us singing. I just really liked the idea of someone imaging those images when listening.

The inside poster was done by Matt. It was originally a random photo someone had taken at a party turned food fight at our previous house. All of us have always loved this image and thought it really captured the idea of "Gorilla Manor" in a nutshell. Notice how Matt is literally in mid air caught in the mayhem of flour, peanut butter, pasta, sugar, cereal and liquor.

Thats it. Hope you enjoy

Andy
Local Natives




Front Cover:


Back Cover:Inside Lyrics/Info fold out:


Inside fold:
Inside Poster:

First date in Newcastle

We have now been on the road overseas for about one week. Sufficient to say that the little details that squiggle their way in between people from the states and people over here are beginning to show their necks. Its a breathe of fresh air to find trophies like a greek salad, pita bread and hummus or four kinds of couscous inside many of the gas stations along our routes. I also feel the need to mention they are selling for around $2. I think most Americans would guess couscous is a small beetle found in Australia or maybe in Florida. I am nipped by the fact that most of the showers here are quite awkward and small. I feel as if I am completing my weekend chores as a kid while trying to find out if hot water was just a fantasy of mine or not. The older architecture can be blamed and would also explain the smaller elevators and consistent smell of body odor in the air. A pint is a true pint and people could give two shits who you are before they say hello to you. In other words, we are enjoying ourselves very much.

In many ways we are on a first awkward date with the UK. We have decided to meet solely based on pure fascination with each other. Neither of us know exactly what we are looking for and don't really care. Unsure of what to say we sip our wine and spew nothing by hot air making asses out of ourselves. We'll drink, we'll dance and maybe, just maybe not one of us, but both of us will get lucky.




just discovered animation on photoshop...

Making me queasy at the moment:
1. Triangles
2. Space art
3. Rainbows
4. coughing
5. commitment
6. Travelodge bedding

Making me healthy at the moment:
1. Vernon Courtland Johnston
2. skulls
3. bad animation
4. Mark and Spencers
5. ksubi
6. commitment

Andy
Local Natives