theemobook

Hey Y'All,

Just to catch you up to speed, last Thursday we had a release party at the Annex in New York. All sorts of friends and family members came out to help us celebrate, and we even convinced a handful of our buddies to take the stage.

The first to do so was Justin Pierre from Motion City Soundtrack. Justin played a handful of MCS songs and then a Zolof The Rock 'N' Roll Destroyer cover that he prefaced by saying, "If this goes wrong, it's all of your fault." You gotta love that guy.

So then, as Justin was playing, a couple of our friends trickled in. One of them was our friend Tom, who manages both the Format and Brand New, came bearing a gift. This present quickly became known as "the emo wig" and was tried on by many people, including Tom. Yet another one of these people was Leslie's 82-year-old grandmother. This was later photographed, but as I already mentioned, there was a lot of free drinks going around, so I have no idea what happened to the photo.

Okay, as the "emo wig" began making the rounds, Kenny from the Starting Line took the stage. I think a lot of people missed his set because they were getting drunk, which is too bad, because he was fucking fan-tas-tic.

He played a handful of Starting Line songs, some of which he hasn't touched in years, and also turned out some Weezer and Roots covers. I really wish someone videotaped the Roots cover, because it could easily become a viral sensation, if only because I would watch it over and over again. He finished his set with a cover of the Get Up Kids' chestnut "Out Of Reach" and, by the end, a group of our freinds began singing along with him.

So after Kenny finished up, Zolof The Rock'N'Roll Destroyer played. Their covers were also well selected. They turned out two Promise Ring songs, "Happy Hour" and, appropriately, "Jersey Shore." Near the back of the bar, two members of Texas Is The Reason soaked it in. It wasn't quite like being at Brownies in 1997, but hey, after enough drinks...

Speaking of, after Zolof killed it, everyone headed over to our friends new bar Angels & Kings, where a few emo luminaries turned up. This portion of the evening later got written up by Gawker, which you can read about here.

I kind of wish I was around when the Gawker guy put on his eyeliner, but alas, Les and I were stuck on Houston trying to hail a cab. Once inside, I ran into our friend Matt from Taking Back Sunday as well as my buddy Geoff Rickly from Thursday.

At this point, everyone was a little hot, a little sweaty and a lot inebriated. So at around 2:00 AM, I quickly ate a burrito from San Loco, hopped into a cab, and then woke up the next morning to the sound of twin jackhammers going off in my head. Ahhh, the memories.

So that was our little party. Look for more pics later in the week. Until then…

XO TK (and Les)

So, there are three items I have to tell you about very quickly this evening. The first:



Yes, the Vintage Vinyl event is mere days away, and there's the flyer to prove it. Honestly, this is going to be a really fun event, so please come out if you can. We'd love to meet you. We'll remind you again, trust.

Secondly, we are running a contest at the moment where you can win not only a copy of Everybody Hurts, but a bunch of free clothes, CDs and haird dye. Our friends at Vans, Ordinary Clothing, Stolen Transmissions, Manic Panic, 31 Corn Lane and Harper Paperbacks made this contest possible, and they're giving away a lot of great stuff. So click right here and let the sweepstakin' begin.

Finally, I just received a text message from Les and, after two hours of taxing on the runway in Cleveland, she has arrived. Jesus, I think I would have filed down the plastic fork they give you and stabbed myself in the neck if I had to sit in an idle plane for that long. She's a trooper.

Anyway, tomorrow is day one of five straight days of promoting this book of ours. Our first stop? A certain little show you may have seen once or twice called STEVEN'S UNTITLED ROCK SHOW.



I really hope Steven and I get a chance to geek out about Jets To Brazil, but I think that I'm the only one hoping that'll go down.

Okay, more tomorrow,

TK (and Les)

So, did I mention we're doing a reading New Jersey? Well, we are, and we have a very special guest who will be playing alongside us. Ladies and gentlemen, please help welcome PERMANENT ME to our little event.





If you haven't picked up this band's new record, After The Room Clears, well, then you should really be ashamed of yourself. It's an amazingly sticky listen, and we really couldn't be more thrilled to have the guys play after us on Friday, at the Vintage Vinyl in Fords, NJ.

So here's how it's going to work. We're going to show up on Friday, read a little bit from the book, then take some questions from you guys. After that, the PM guys will rip it up, then we're going to stick around and sign whatever you want, but preferably a copy of Everybody Hurts, which Vintage Vinyl will obviously be selling.

Now, in the meanwhile, we really need to get as many people out to this event as possible.If you are willing to put up flyers at your school, let us know. That would be a huge help.

But if you don't have time for that, maybe you can just post a bulletin about it. You can copy the info below or, if you message us, I can send you a JPG of the flyer.

Anyway, here's the info:

Friday, May 04, 2007 at 7:00 PM
VINTAGE VINYL
51 Lafayette Rd.
Ford, NJ 08863
732-225-7717

See you soon, Les and TK

Hey Everyone,

I'm writing this blog post from 35,000 feet in the air, listening to Infiniti On High on repeat as to drown out the chatty women next to me gabbing about whatever news item ran about Reese Witherspoon in this week's issue of In Touch. Ughh.

So here is what has been learned over the past two days: Pimping ain't easy. Especially when you're pimping a book. I arrived in Cleveland on Thursday and checked into my room at the Hyatt downtown, which looks like this:



It was a strange place, this hotel. They played Pavement constantly in the lobby and the bottom two floors were sort of like a mall, with a food court and bargain clothing boutiques.

I'm not sure why you would build a hotel in the midst of all this, but whatever. I wasn't there much seeing that Les and I had two appearances to make in two days, including a reading at a Joseph Beth inside an actual mall. (You know you've made it when you're reading across the parking lot from a Cheesecake Factory!)

Anyway, we read four passages from the book and then answered a bunch of questions from the audience. Many of those in attendance were, of course, from Alternative Press and if you squint just enough at the picture below, you can see everyone's favorite Minus The Bear-obsessed music editor grinning in the back...



Also, how cool is Aaron Wilson? That's him waving on the left, while rocking a sort of Terry Richardson-gone-high-fashion look. That dude is my hero.

As for the reading itself, Les was a pro, I started off a bit shaky, but by the time that we were onto the question-and-answer session, things were running smoothly and we were even able to sneak in an Vinnie Acardi joke. Man, it's a year-and-a-half after we started writing this book and let me tell you, I still love a good Vinnie Acardi joke…

So then, all of this sounds like great fun, right? Then why don't you join us for our next reading, which is this Friday at the Vintage Vinyl in Fords, New Jersey. Some of you in the New Jersey area may have already seen this advertised at the store, but just in case, here are the details:

Friday, May 04, 2007
VINTAGE VINYL
51 Lafayette Rd.
Ford, NJ 08863
732-225-7717

Now, as some of you may know, the original idea was for us to read, then we were going to have a band play, then all of us were going to sign our respective products together. We've already received a couple of MySpace messages about who might be performing alongside us, so I'm going to clear this up now...

Unfortunately, Ben and P.J. from Armor For Sleep WILL NOT be playing after our reading. They planned on it. Really, they did. But as you may already be aware, Armor For Sleep are currently recording their first album for Sire Records and, unfortunately, they had a scheduling conflict that made it impossible to be there. However, we are working on finding a replacement, and as soon we secure someone, we'll post something here.

In the meanwhile, we need your help. How many of you go to, say, Rutgers or a college near Fords? What about a high school? Would you want to post some flyers at said educational institution? Some of you have already reached out about this, but we have a box full of new flyers, and we're really trying to get as many people out to this event as possible. So if you think you can help, please get in touch with us ASAP. We'll get some flyers to you overnight.

So that's it for now. If you haven't already, head over to Fueled By Ramen's website and sign up for their newsletter, "The Dish." They are running a contest where you can win a copy of Everybody Hurts. Just be prepared to know your Almost Here lyrical references… or forever hold your peace in pieces.

Man, that was bad. Next time, we'll keep the tawdry jokes to a minimum…

Until then,

XO TK (and Les)

Question: What exactly happened to that guy in the tie?



You remember Jesse Lacey, right? He was always clean-shaven, obsessed with The Queen Is Dead and spent most of his money at H&M? That's the Jesse Lacey we all came to know and love, but last night, at the Brand New show in New York, that guy was nowhere to be found.

Throughout the band's two-and-a-half-hour set, Jesse wore a bear mask, spoke in a fake New Jersey dock worker accent, dove into a drum set and, as his final act of the evening, threw a cymbal at Brian Lane's head. Oh, and there were three drummers and about 18 other people onstage when he did so.

In short, the dude has lost his mind, and I mean that in the best way possible. The show was terrific, bizzare, and ridiculously memorable. I don't know if things were quite as unhigned at other stops on the tour, but I can't help but applaud his turnaround. Anyway, that's not what I came here to post about today. Instead, I come to you with a contest that I'm hoping you will be very excited about.

Here's the deal: On Thursday May 3rd, we're having the official release party for Everybody Hurts at the Annex on 152 Orchard St in New York City. We have convinced a few of our friends to come out and help us celebrate, many of which should be familiar to you guys. These people include...

This wildly coifed man here.



This sweet little dude.



And these fine Pennsylvanians.



To recap: Justin Pierre from Motion City Soundtrack, Kenny Vasoli from the Starting Line, and Zolof The Rock 'N' Roll Destroyer are all playing our little shindig. Both Kenny and Justin will be playing acoustic, and there's even talk about them dusting off some vintage emo tunes from this time that we so affectionately refer to as "the '90s." (I will never tire of that joke, really… )

Now here's where you come in: We want some of you, the potential readers of Everybody Hurts, to be there, and thus we are holding a contest in which we're going to give away five spots on the guest list.

Here is how you can win them: There is a passage in the book about how to name your emo band. We have provided eight different formulas, so to speak, and we want you guys to use these formulas and send in your best emo band names to us.

To better understand what we're talking about, you're going to actually have to go out and buy they book. (Hey, you were going to do that tomorrow, anyway, right?) Once you've read them over, you should then really craft the perfect emo band name using said formulas.

From there, you should send in three of your best emo band names to us at theemobook@yahoo.com. Make sure to include all of your info and write BOOK RELEASE PARTY CONTEST in the subject line. That last part is very important. We'll then rate the fake band names, and post the winning entries here next Monday. Those five winners will then get to go the best party in the history of... well, Les and I throwing parties.

There are, however, two conditions. The first, obviously, is that you have to be in New York on May 3rd. The good news is that if you don't actually live in the greater New York area, our party is on the Thursday before Bamboozle. Thus, if you won, you could just come to town a couple days early.

But you'll also have to qualify for the second condition, which is that you have to be at least 21 years old to attend. Unfortunately, we couldn't find an all-ages venue to house our little bash, so you'll have to be of legal drinking age. If you're not of legal drinking age and you have somehow figured out how to get into bars on a regular basis, well, I'm not going to encourage you to give this contest a shot… but I'm not going to not encourage you, either.

Either way, it should be a total blast and we do want to see some of you guys out there. So then, grab a book at your local bookstore tomorrow, put your thinking cap (or just your Castro hat) on and start sending those emo band names in pronto. We'll need all entries by this weekend and, as previously stated, we'll announce the winner next Monday. Get into it.

Oh, and we'll have more news to come tomorrow,

That subject line is from one of my favorite Academy Is... songs. I don't think they will be calling me on my next birthday, but I do love some of the music that band makes. Anyway, that subject line is also a way to announce that, yes, people are reviewing the book right now and… well, they've been surprisingly positive. This week at your local newsstand you can read about Everybody Hurts in both Nylon and Revolver. These magazines are very unlike each other. One of them is read by girls like this...



The other… ugh, well...



But both of their staffs seem to love our book. With that being said, if you want to know how you can get a Lower East Side hipster and a dust-tache sporting Chimaira fan in the same room, the answer is to simply leave a copy of our book in the corner. It warms the heart just knowing that.

However, that wasn't the first review that ran this week. On Tuesday, word came down that Penthouse also wrote about the book in their current issue, which meant Leslie and I were going to have to plunk down eight bucks to see Everybody Hurts mentioned alongside an article about the greatest celeberity sex tapes, like, ever!

The writer at Pentohouse also liked the book (maybe it was all the Suicide Girl references?) and Leslie and I were both pleased with the mention, but I gotta say, I think the relationship between me and the guy at my corner bodega is forever changed.

For the past year, it's been strictly business: One diet coke, every four hours. But on Tuesday, it became a diet coke and an expensive porno mag and, dude, the man behind the counter was amped. He smiled approvingly as then handed me my purchase in a think black plastic bag, while making me feel like the biggest creep walking down Manhattan Avenue. Which is saying something.

Anyway, I'm sure it's nothing a couple warm showers won't cure. So then, moving on, the big news this week is that we will be reading our book to you, the people who theoretically want to hear us read our book.

This will happen first, as hinted at in last week's post, in Cleveland. This will be the fist time that we've ever done this, so we'd really love to have some people who are excited about the book sitting front and center. That being said, here's the info you'll need:

Thursday, April 26, 2007
07:00 PM
JOSEPH BETH CLEVELAND
24519 Cedar Road Lyndhurst, OH 44124
216-912-1980

Oh, and did I mention that we have a book coming out this Tuesday? How crazy is that? TK (and Les)

We're about to get all emo on your asses. Prepare accordingly.