Dear y'all,

Very sorry to have left you all sitting and wondering what the hell happened to us…I know you’ve been checking this page diligently every day for the past year, or in some cases dozens of times a day, hoping and praying for an update…hitting the “Refresh” button over and over until your fingers are raw and bleeding…wailing “Why oh why can’t the Aviation Blondes update their blog?? WHY GOD WHY???” before passing out in an alcoholic stupor...another bleak, gray day without an ABs blog update having mercifully come to an end.

So a lot has happened since our last entry! Let’s hit the highlights:

• MAY-JUNE ’09: We mixed the CD.

• JULY-AUGUST ’09: We had it mastered by West Coast engineer extraordinaire John Cuniberti, formerly of the legendary Record Plant in Sausalito, CA (Google it). John took our humble mixes and made them sound stellar.

• MAY-SEPTEMBER ’09: We established a relationship with Get Hip Records to release the CD on Pittsburgh’s great garage-rock indie label. (No small feat considering that we are not a garage-rock band…)

• SEPTEMBER ’09: Our drummer Dave Klug designed a beautiful CD cover package, basing a theme around a cool mod-ish illustration by his friend John Ritter.

• OCTOBER ’09: We had the CD manufactured at DiskMakers in New Jersey and had them delivered in time for our release party.

• NOVEMBER ’09: In the days leading up to the release, we went 3-for-3 with feature articles in all of Pittsburgh's main print outlets – the Post-Gazette, Tribune-Review, and City Paper:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09316/1012674-388.stm
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/s_652706.html
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A71469

• OCTOBER-NOVEMBER ’09: Our intrepid Merchandise Committee (Jen and Dave) oversaw the design and manufacture of the 2010 Aviation Blondes Product Line: a standard white T-shirt, two kinds of women’s tees (tank and babydoll), and the ultrafashionable black skully cap with AB logo on one side and Aviation Blondes written on the other.

• NOVEMBER 14, ’09: OUR DEBUT CD "EDGE OF FOREVER" RELEASED ON GET HIP RECORDINGS (GH-1155CD). The release party was at the Rex Theater and was a blast.

• FEBRUARY ’10 and APRIL ’10: Further shows at the Rex.

• APRIL 5, ’10: The Pittsburgh Pirates featured our song "Catch and Release" at the home opener to kick off their new "local band inning" series. The idea originated when their in-game entertainment manager saw us at the Arts Fesival last summer and dug us. So we got pride of place as the first band featured.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=1218423&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=34918503849&aid=-1&id=1242572657

• PRESENT: Writing songs. New songs include: “Just a Little Now,” “Watch Me Drown,” “(Does Anybody Still Want) A Rock ’n Roll Girl,” and “Great Big Battle,” and several more are in the works as we start thinking about recording our follow-up CD.

Whew, that’s just the highlights! I didn’t even get into the really juicy stuff…things that could get us thrown in jail and, in Daryl's case, deported. I’ll have to save that for next time.

In the meantime, you can listen to the CD for free if you haven’t heard it yet, here:
http://www.myspace.com/aviationblondes
and if you like what you hear, you can buy it here:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/AviationBlondes
or
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/edge-forever/id340755157
or
other online outlets that I'm too lazy to link to.

More updates soon, promise.