We are pleased to announce the upcoming release of “Weapons For War/Spread It All Around” on 7″ vinyl!!!!

The records will be for sale at our show at SXSW and and the subsequent shows after that. We will begin shipping pre-orders in the first week of March. If you live in Chicago, come pick get one at Subterranean on April 3, a show that looks like it will serve as a sort of belated release party.

Both songs will be on our forthcoming full-length, “Confetti,” but we wanted to get something in your hands in the mean time.

As well as the vinyl release, both songs are available right now for free download on our website and are streaming on our Myspace page.

Of course there’s more. Accompanying the digital release of “Weapons For War/Spread It All Around” will be four remixes of “Weapons For War.” The tracks were remixed by Triobelisk, Soft Crest, Kiko Correa and Burrows, and they are great, individual takes on the original.

So, order one now or wait and pick one up at SXSW or Subterranean, but either way,we’d love it if you headed over and download the two songs and the remixes right now. ENJOY!!

Thank you!

www.alull.com

We drove the new van to Texas, and when we were 40 miles east of Austin, a clogged radiator totaled the motor. Pistons shot through the engine, destroying it, and leaving us stranded again, this time in Texas instead of Alabama. We couldn’t believe that this was happening again. There was a lot of towing and maneuvering, and in the end, we made it to Austin to play the show, and the next day some of us came back to Chicago in a rental car and some of us stayed in Austin until the engine is replaced in the van.

The only thing worse than totaling two vans in one week would have been actually totaling them in accidents and injuring our bodies along with the vans. In spite of all that’s happened, we’re thankful that everyone is safe and that we’re talking about mechanics and engine transplants rather than doctors and organ transplants.

It isn’t all bad. The church we bought the van from is getting some money back to us to cover the engine. The mechanic is a solid dude who is getting us a really good deal on a new engine. It was a bummer to have to cancel a bunch of shows, but on the bright side, we’ll come out of this whole thing with a practically new van, ready to take us back to Austin for SXSW next month.

We’ll be laying low until then, writing and recording more songs for our elusive debut full-length album, which we promise will be completed soon. Also, we may have a couple other secrets up our sleeves, maybe. Keep checking back in the coming month for more info.

The plan was to play in Tallahassee, Birmingham, Mobile and then spend Sunday in New Orleans for the Super Bowl before heading to Texas.

In Tallahassee, the brakes started to smoke. No problem. We had some money and some time so we replaced the two front brake pads and calipers. We played at The Engine Room, slept in Florida, woke up and drove four hours to Montgomery, AL.

In Montgomery, a woman pointed out to us that our front driver’s side wheel looked like it was about to fall off. We pulled over at a service center to have it looked at, hoping that the wheel had just been put back on wrong in Tallahassee. But, upon further inspection, we learned that the problem was much bigger than we imagined. in the end, basically, among other things, our entire front axle was broken. The cost would have been near two thousand dollars and it would have taken ten days to fix it. We decided not to fix it and that we would find another solution. The mechanics advised that we not even drive down the block to a motel, let alone two m0re hours to Birmingham. We drove it cautiously to a Days Inn down the street and we have been here since then (today is Sunday), waiting.

While we’ve been waiting, along with large amounts of beer, Domino’s pizza and HBO movies, we’ve done something so crazy, we can’t really believe it ourselves. We bought a new van.

On Friday, when we got the news that the old van was not going to be a cheap or easy fix, we began exploring other options within minutes, we found a van for sale on Craigslist, but it was in Birmingham and we were stuck in Montgomery.

Brother Jim was selling the van for his church. The van, also a ‘96 Dodge Ram, had been used lightly by the church over the years. It had only 77,ooo miles on it and had been kept current on oil changes by a member of the church who worked at a Jiffy Lube. The biggest selling point, though, was that it is a fifteen passenger van, much bigger than the old conversion van.

We pulled together some cash, emptying bank accounts and credit card limits, and called Jim to try and figure out, logistically, how we would get the van that was being sold two hours away. He offered to drive it down and on Saturday morning, he, with Brother Bill following in his car, drove 120 miles from Birmingham to Montgomery.

Everything looked really good and we bought it. We were all ready to go, almost. The new van doesn’t have a trailer hitch, which we knew beforehand, but we didn’t think it would be as hard as it has been to get one installed. No one in Montgomery could get it done before Wednesday. Basically, no one in all of Alabama, western Georgia or eastern Mississippi could get it done before Monday at the earliest. So, we waited some more.

We’re going to watch the Super Bowl in Montgomery instead of in New Orleans, and on Monday morning, we’re going to wake up and drive an hour north to get the hitch installed, drive back to get the trailer and then head to Texas.

Thanks to some extremely generous people, we are going to get to where we need to be in a vehicle that’s going to get us there. Its a better van than we had and in the end, it will be an all around better situation.

We’ll see you when we (eventually) get there.