Our faithful friend Lazerbeak is taking the morning off (having cleared it, of course, through Doomtree’s HR department) and in his stead I’ll be reporting live from the field.

Having descended the West Coast, we’re now turning inland, making our way towards Austin, Texas. There we’ll convene with thousands of other bands for the music-and-barbecue-super-fiasco of SXSW.  Some of us have already donned practice sunburns in preparation for the Texan heat. (I’ve warned the guys that I’ll be periodically ambushing them in Austin with SPF30. All told I’m not much of a den mother [too fond of whiskey], but a sunburn–well, gentlemen, that’s just an unforced error.)

I’m proud to relay that we sold out a bunch of shows this past week (thank you to showgoers in Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and LA for the full houses). On our way through California we picked up our photogrofriend Ricardo. He shot this pretty sweet team photo outside the Roxy in LA.

Ricardo will be cruising with us for the rest of the run; you can check out his handiwork in real time at the Doomtree Instagram account. Here are a couple images and a little video he put together, recapping our last couple of shows in Cali:

Speaking of videos (alright, alright, I’m no Lazerbeak with these segues), our recent performance at KEXP is now live. My favorite moment happens at 1:03, when we’re all plainly thrilled that we remembered not to swear on the radio.

After some great shows and some long drives, we snuck away into the woods for a much-needed day off. Snake, our tour manager, secured a TRAIN CAR at a motel in the forest.

All were delighted, but none more so than Cecil “Boxcar” Otter. (It should be noted that the photo below was originally posted with the caption, “Don’t stop believing…hold on to that feline.”)

 Here’s Stef captured in a classic Amanda Damn Weber pose.

Sims, inverting it for a while.

And yours truly, with a red-bellied newt, a Macbook Air, and a cup of wine.

On returning to civilization, both Stef and Mike got tattooed by Isaiah Toothtaker in Tucson.

We’ve got one last show before hitting the SXSW madness. If you’re near Albuquerque tonight, you can still score some tickets here. For those of you making the trek to Austin, we’ll see you soon (and bring some sunblock, huh?). The Doomtree official showcase goes down on Thursday at the Karma Lounge, but we’ve got a bunch of day shows too.

Mike is playing a solo show as well:

For those following along from home, stay tuned. Lazerbeak will be back as regularly scheduled next Tuesday.

Til then, your friend in art and commerce,

Dessica.