The Long Time Darlings put another notch in the old tour belt, earlier this month. 48 hours. Indianapolis and Chicago. Great shows, great folks in both towns. Indianapolis was tiny. Like, smaller-than-Pittsburgh tiny. Super laid-back place. Nothing wild and crazy going on, there. Everyone is just cool and wants to hang out and rock. Evan from Hero, Jr. was a splendid host—showed us around town, in the haze of the morning after.

Driving from Indy to Chicago, Saturday afternoon in the jam van (provided by Bryan Kinney, our fill-in bass player for this swing), we couldn’t help but notice that the side of the highway was on fucking fire in several spots. What’s up with that? Is it just from the drought? No idea. Freaky shit.

Anyway, I’d never been to Chicago, before. Holy Jesus wept—that place is huge. I mean, I knew it was a big city, but, I didn’t expect it to be that big. Pretty impressive. I think I’ve been to New York enough times that it’s size doesn’t surprise me, anymore. But, Chicago surprised me, for sure. Guess I didn’t think there was anywhere else that could feel as gigantic as New York.Played a joint called Tonic Room, in Chicago. Pretty cramped room, cramped stage—but we had a blast. It was the third night of Tonic Room’s Fuckapalooza Festival, which is their small-club local/regional fuck you to the corporate enormity of Lollapalooza.

Who knew bars could stay open pretty much all night in Chicago? I did not. Sproul and I crapped out and fell asleep, on the street, in the van at about 3:30 AM. Brett and Kinney managed to find a little blues club, down the street, where they saw an (and I quote) old, fat lady play absolutely killer electric guitar with until the sun came up. Sounds like Sproul and I missed the boat on that one.Brett and Kinney stocked up on 24-hour Mexican, jumped back in the van at about 6:00 AM, and, surprisingly, decided to floor it for home. Kinney only made it about an hour outside of Chicago before his lids were drooping. By that time, I was up, and took over driving.

All in all, one of our better outings. Went off with out even a hint of a hitch.

♫ Buffalo Killers ► Farewell

If you want your voice to be heard in 2012, fuck the presidential election. Vote for us, The Long Time Darlings, to be the next Iron City® Sound Ambassadors. If we win this shit, we get $5,000 to further our righteous musical endeavors, the full backing of the Iron City® beer marketing machine and, most importantly, free beer for a year.

So, if you can find it in your heart, click here and give us your vote. You can vote once a day—and you actually have to vote for 3 of the finalists. So, if you’re into helping us win, we ask that you vote for us everyday, and spread your other selections around evenly.

Thanks, kids!

It’s debut day! The Long Time Darlings’ first proper music video, for our single, Downtown Sugar.

Pittsburgh City Paper was kind enough to launch this thing for us—very cool. I’ll post it here, eventually—probably next week. For now, though, it’s a City Paper exclusive, so check it out on their site. It’s your classic band-meets-glitter fairy, glitter fairy-strips-and-teases-band, band-loses-glitter fairy story. A real heart-warmer. Enjoy!

Last week, we shot the first Long Time Darlings music video. Pretty wild. And, no—this wasn’t just us throwing a digital camcorder on a tripod and then cutting in cheesy effects in iMovie®. We brought in a heavy hitter to direct. Chris Lockerman of Lockerman Studios. He’s a buddy of mine, but, he brings the skills, man. He’s shot videos for Wiz Khalifa, Donora and Rusted Root (to name a few) and traveled the world directing for ESPN and the New England Patriots. (His resumé is a lot longer than that, of course, but, that’s some of the cooler stuff.)

Totally kick-ass shoot, technically speaking. Chris did some great, stark lighting design in Brett’s garage. Brought in the dolly and crane for some sweet tracking shots and a Stedi-Cam™ rig for some cool close-up stuff.

The concept of the video is pretty classic. Nice and simple—rock band, girl, bikini. And glitter. Lots of glitter. You can see how it all plays out when the video debuts on the City Paper site in February.

That poor girl, though. She was freezing. Horrible timing. I mean, it was 50° the day before the shoot, and almost 60° the day after the shoot. But, during the shoot? It was about 10°. Shooting at night. In a garage with no heat. That was bad enough, but, it got worse—she had a few exterior (as in outside) scenes to shoot. We piled as many blankets onto her as we possibly in could between shots, but—holy God—that had to suck.

She didn’t once complain, though. The incredible and beautiful Eva Trapp, ladies and gentlemen. She was a real trooper.

Super-excited to see a rough cut.

♫ Danzig ► Girl

Well, there we are. In print, larger than life. Pick up a City Paper, today, and read all about us—The Long Time Darlings. Pretty good article, I’d say. We sound cool and interesting. If you can’t find a City Paper box, you can read the whole article online, right here. Enjoy. And maybe come out on Friday and watch us light riffs on fire at Frankie and Georgie’s in Squirrel Hill.

♫ Big Scary ► Leaving Home

So, it’s been a great few weeks for The Long Time Darlings. We officially released our first full-length (get it via the iTunes® Store). We played our first single, Downtown Sugar (free download), live on the WDVE morning show (and apparently impressed the morning show hosts, Jim and Randy, pictured above—they told us we’re in their wheelhouse and to come back anytime). That same morning, we got a call from the booking manager at Hard Rock Café Pittsburgh (he heard us on show and contacted us immediately) to play their night-before-Thanksgiving (also know as the biggest party night of the year) rock show. Score. And, to top it off, we went to New York City and played to a pretty packed and raucous room, this past weekend. Hell of a reception. And a Hell of a test drive for this ferocious new set of ours. All killer, no filler, as they say.

We keep right on rocking through this week. The Hard Rock show, of course, which will be the Pittsburgh debut of our new set, on Wednesday night. And then we’re the special guests at our friends The Dirty Charms’ record release show in Squirrel Hill on Friday night.

Too much rock, my friends. Too much rock.

♫ Marty Robbins ► The Master’s Call

And the track list is kind-of finalized, too. The order may still change. Check out the back cover here.

We, The Long Time Darlings, have finally found ourselves a spot on a bill with some of the widely-accepted crème de la crème of the Pittsburgh music scene. And, if we get our asses in gear, this could be our record release show. Shit. Quite a chance to impress the hipsters.

“This is it. Don’t get scared, now.”

♫ The Wonder Years ► Local Man Ruins Everything

I’m sure some of you realize that we (The Long Time Darlings) have been working on a full-length record. I haven’t been talking much about it because, honestly, it’s been a pretty arduous process. Had a bit of a breakthrough, this past week, though. Sproul and I got together with Johnny, our producer/engineer and took a listen to somewhat-mixed versions of all 12 tracks. Pleasantly surprised, hearing it all at once. It’s a kick-ass, epic, diverse album. I think—just maybe—people are going to notice it in this fucking town.

Banged out about 3 pages of mix notes. Easy stuff. Did some cleaning up and editing. Started adding effects, samples, loops—one pretty sickening loop of my hi-hat track played backwards for a song called Black Hole Valium.

We can see a light at the end of the tunnel, now, for sure. Just wanted to give you a little update.

♫ Dopethrone ► Porcelain God