5 Score Pachyderm - Mixtape

5 Score Pachyderm, a blog from St. Louis, decided to include my song "Letter From Southeast Asia" on their latest mixtape, along with the Bowerbirds, Damien Jurado, Dear Vincent, and more, check it out for some neat free downloads!

http://www.5scorepachyderm.com/?p=8454

Thanks, 5 Score Pachyderm!

Alaska Tour '10 - Dates Posted

picture from last year's Alaska Tour, May 2009

Dates have been officially posted to www.johnstatz.com and www.reverbnation.com/johnstatz for the summer Alaska tour, but for your convenience, I'll post them here as well:

July 22nd - College Coffeehouse, Fairbanks, AK @ 8pm ($5)

July 23rd - House Concert, Fairbanks, AK

July 24th - Denali Salmon Bake, Denali Nat'l Park, AK @ 9pm ($5) *opening for The Cooks + Salmon Bake's 26th Anniversary Party*

July 25th - Alaska Fine Arts Academy, Eagle River, AK @ 3pm ($10)

July 29th - Southeast Alaska State Fair, Haines, AK @ TBA

August 1st - Alaskan Hotel & Bar, Juneau, AK @ 9pm


In between those tour dates, I'll be vising my good buddy Matthew in Anchorage and standing up in a wedding in Juneau for an old friend. This tour will involve some crazy combinations of transportation, including planes, cars, and even a ferry or two. Can't wait!

Topical: Staircases

Today's topical picture post might seem boring at first: staircases.

Lets bust that myth right away...

This picture is from Prague, and obviously depicts a crazy-ass snowboarder trying to kill himself. There wasn't even any snow, either (aside from a small pile at the bottom). Crazy and cool.

Now that that is out of the way, lets move on to some more graceful staircases...

Graceful? I guess not so much, but this winding set of stairs takes you inside the dome of St. Peter's Cathedral in Vatican City, leading to breathtaking 360 degree views at the top of Rome. It gets pretty narrow towards the summit, and you have to duck a lot.

If you guessed that these regal stairs could only belong in a government building, you guessed correctly. But which government? Why these belong to the Swedish Embassy building in Prague, my favorite spot to couchsurf!

These steps led to my hostel in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina when I visited last year. Some girls that were also staying decided to set up a cool picture by dropping these streamers down the stairwell. I decided to mooch and take my own picture.

Taken during my first tour ever, and my first time in Philadelphia to boot back in 2006, this is a staircase within Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed back in 1776. I toured the building a year later with my dad, and they did not take us upstairs that time. A pity, this is one classy staircase.

Single From the New Album Available - Download for FREE!

I am pleased to announce the release of "Everything To Me", the first single from the upcoming album, Ghost Towns.

Visit johnstatz.bandcamp.com/ to download your copy. Pay whatever you want, or nothing at all if you want.

All tracking has been completed on the album, and we are no in the final mixing stage. Officially, Ghost Towns will be released on August 12th, 2010, but unofficially, copies will be available at shows well before that.

I hope you enjoy "Everything To Me", a free preview from the new album!

Credits:

Tracking/Mixing Engineer: Jeremiah Nelson

written by John Statz

Vocals/Acoustic Guitar/Banjo: John Statz
Vocals: Whitney Mann
Electric Guitar: Jeremiah Nelson
Electric Guitar: Ben Johnson
Upright Bass: Matt Donoghue
Drums: Adam Cargin

More news soon,

John

Food Pictures - I'm Hungry.

So its time to tweak the format of this blog a little bit. It has been, for the most part, a travel blog, dedicated to pictures from the road while I've been touring the United States and Europe. It will stay that way when I'm on tour, but I have had a hard time focusing it on anything in between tours, and generally the blog just sits unused between trips. I have, however, really enjoyed posting small groups of photos with descriptions during my travels, so I was thinking of keeping that format going and just changing the topic. Rather than, "this is where I've been traveling and here are pictures of it", I would like to pick random topics and display various pictures that conform. Perhaps this presentation will lively this blog up a bit, and at the least, hold my own attention between tours. I will try to keep up some photo-less posts as well when I feel inspired to actually write about something.

I decided on the topic for the first new post while hungry, so naturally it produced itself:

FOOD

While on tour last August with fellow songwriter Jeremiah Nelson, we stopped into a little town outside of Portland, Maine for some fresher than fresh lobster. The town was called South Freeport, and the restaurant was the Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster Company. Situated right on the docks, lobster trappers (is that what you would call them?) bring the crustaceans right off their boats and up to the restaurant, and all for a reasonable price. The lobsters also came with some steamers (clams) and a cob of corn. You really can't beat that.

In October of 2008 I played my first show in Pittsburgh, PA, at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern, which specializes in Polish food. Three months later I would be departing on my first trip to eastern Europe, starting in Poland, so this was a nice introduction to the food. On the plate you can see some potato pancakes, pierogies, kielbasa sausage, and some buttered noodles. Polish food is dee-lish, and I discovered after actually eating it in Poland that the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern (which also calls itself "Pittsburgh's #1 Polish Party House") was pretty darn accurate.

While walking down Petrin Hill in Prague, I treated myself to a lunch at a fancy restaurant partway down, Nebozizek, which wasn't really that expensive due to the dollar's strength i the Czech Republic. This meal features rabbit wrapped in bacon, alongside some gnocci and cherry tomatoes. Anything wrapped in bacon is bound to be pretty damned good, but I have to say that rabbit might take the cake as the best "bacon-stuffing". Amazing.

The empty beverage container with the dirty-looking word is "Cockta", Slovenia's communist answer to Coca-Cola. When Slovenia was a part of former Yugoslavia, the government did not import western products such as Coca-Cola, so this was their own version of the drink. I have to say that its not really a good substitute, as it doesn't taste much like Coke or Pepsi, it has a weird lemony flavor, but its pretty good when you think of it on its own and don't compare it. If you find yourself in Slovenia, have yourself a Cockta! (Pronounced "Coke-Ta")

Oh yea, and those tomatoes at the top? I took that picture in my very own garden, back in the summer of 2007. I decided to start the food post off with it, as I am starting a garden again this summer for the first time in a few years. My roommate and I are already harvesting kale and onion tops from it, yum!

Anyways, hope this new format keeps me on track a bit better, more photos and commentary soon!

Paris: Fin

Final pictures from Paris...

The Louvre. I did not go inside, as I basically only had one day to explore Paris. I just walked all over and tried to see as much as I possibly could.

Arc de Triomphe




Eiffel Tower... yea, the thing that got destroyed in G.I. Joe

Me up on the tower. We weren't allowed to walk all the way up that day, but this is mid-way.

This concludes all of my European travel photos. And now, for something completely different...

Paris: Deux

More from Paris...


The Montmartre at night.


The infamous Moulin Rouge, pretty gawdy.


Paris's Pantheon.


Notre Dame


Centre Pompidou, I believe?

Yet more pics on the way...