The Taxpayers

RISE OF FUTURE DOGS. COMING SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15th.

In the year 6000 humans are dead.  Cats have risen to power using the cold calculations of mathematics.  Dogs can’t do math, and are being slowly eradicated by the evil cat tyrants.  But a pack of brave rebel dogs and their penguin friend have set out to change the course of history…

On Saturday, October 15th (Saturday!), the Taxpayers will be performing their 3-act play, “RISE OF FUTURE DOGS” during three consecutive shows.  The 1st Act will take place at Red and Black cafe (400 SE 12th) at 6 pm.  The 2nd Act will take place a few blocks away at Laughing Horse Books (12 NE 12th) at 9 pm.  Intermission (and possibly an extra SECRET act) will take place at the Andrew Jackson Jihad show at the Hawthorne Theater.  The final 3rd Act will take place at  the Jurassic Park House (5516 N. Mississippi) at midnight.

Come join us for an evening of musical theater, presented to you by Useless State Records.  Appropriate attire required.

You guys! The Wild is coming on tour with us!

HOLY ASSING SHIT YOU GUYS! A bunch of big news.

First off, THE WILD has joined the Taxpayers for the entire Florida leg of tour! This is incredible news! The Wild are one of our favorite bands around, and probably one of yours too. If you haven’t heard them, they inevitably will be after you click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ5NVviEEAg

Secondly, we are approaching the Useless State Records WEEKEND SHITSPLOSION OF FUCK!

That’s right, this weekend, there’s two amazing things happening. The first is on Friday, September 30^th at the Fail House (110 N. Failing) for MIX IT UP FUCK IT UP II! http://pc-pdx.com/show-detail/46716

The second is on Saturday, October 1st at the Sea Shanty (2419 N. Russet st.) for Andrew Link’s cassette release party! THE TAXPAYERS are playing their first show in forever, WALTER MITTY and his MAKESHIFT ORCHESTRA are playing their first show in Portland, SWORD OF A BAD SPELLER is gonna drop CRAZY ASS RHYMES, and we’re gonna party all night long. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=249109951797331

Bring your pina coladas, tell your Momz that you’re gonna be up late, and get ready to play Shoe Game until the early morn’!

Winter tour in the works

Well guess fuggin what?  We’re going on tour down to the warm South this winter again.  Snow birds 4lyfe!

This tour will be in preparation and celebration of some of us moving to New Orleans for school.  We will be bringing along our last album To Risk So Much For One Damn Meal on VINYL! and a limited-run tour exclusive EP.

There will be a lot of updates, check the PIX board here.

The Taxpayers’ Whirlwind Of Controversial Mystery Solving Extravaganza Featuring Vin Diesel and Starring Tom Hanks Tour

Thursday, Dec 1- Southern Oregon
Friday, Dec 2 - San Francisco, CA @ TBA
Saturday, Dec 3 - East Bay, CA @ TBA
Sunday, Dec 4 - Mountain View, CA @ TBA
Monday, Dec 5 - Santa Cruz, CA @subrosa infoshop 
Tuesday, Dec 6 - Central Cali
Wednesday, Dec 7 - Santa Barbara, CA @ TBA
Thursday, Dec 8 - So Cal
Friday, Dec 9 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Grape House
Saturday, Dec 10 - San Diego, CA @ Che Cafe (benefit show for Che) w/ Joyce Manor, Watercolor Paintings, Roman Candles, and much MORE!
Sunday, Dec 11 - Phoenix, AZ
Monday, Dec 12 - Tucson, AZ
Tuesday, Dec 13 - El Paso, TX @ TBA
Wednesday, Dec 14 - Odessa / Midland, TX
Thursday, Dec 15 - Fort Worth, TX @ 1919 Hemphill
Friday, Dec 16 - Denton, TX
Saturday, Dec 17 - Austin, TX
Sunday, Dec 18 - San Antonio, TX @ TBA with Unfun Productions
Monday, Dec 19 - Houston, TX
Tuesday, Dec 20 - New Orleans, LA

BREAK

Thursday, Dec 29 - Pensacola, FL
Friday, Dec 30 - Gainesville, FL
Saturday, Dec 31 - Sarasota, FL
Sunday, Jan 1 - Sarasota, FL
Monday, Jan 2 - Miami, FL
Tuesday, Jan 3 - Miami, FL
Wednesday, Jan 4 - The KEYS!
Thursday, Jan 5 - THE KEYS!
Friday, Jan 6 - Lake Worth, FL
Saturday, Jan 7 - St. Augustine, FL
Sunday, Jan 8 - Tallahassee, FL
Monday, Jan 9 - Back to New Orleans, LA

Useless State on tumblr

Well, shoot.  Useless State started a tumblr account!

You should stop on by and say hi.  Here is the link:
http://useless-state.tumblr.com/

Keep updated to find out what the hell we’re doing with our spare time.  The tumblr will let you know of upcoming Useless State releases, mp3 downloads, upcoming shows/tours, and poorly written blog posts.  We shoot for the stars here at Useless State

And you should probably know about the REAL website, too.
http://useless-state.com

It has clouds and grass.  Very serene.

CAT BAT PRINCESS

Well, Richmond Elementary had it’s last day of classes today.  It’s kind of both scary, sad, and exciting when that happens, for both the teachers and the students, because yeah, you’re getting out for the summer (!), but you’re also turning a page…you’re never going to see the same group of kids in the same capacity ever again, and…well, what the hell are you gonna do now?!  We had a talent show with the preschoolers and kindergarteners - the talents were things like “running”, “hopping”, “fake sleeping”, “burping”, and “light saber fighting”, and each of the talents were accompanied by one of the teachers playing a piano jingle while the kids hopped around on stage.  One of the boys came up to me at the end of the day with cardboard wings on, lipstick all over his face, and started yelling “ROB!!! I AM CAT BAT PRINCESS! I AM CAT BAT PRINCESS!!!!” while flapping his wings.  He then turned around and ran out the front doors of the school, no longer a student, but rather a deranged creature of the summer night.

On the evening prior to our 8th national tour, I keep thinking about Cat Bat Princess - wings flapping against all odds, lipstick defiantly smeared all over his face.  This tour is sort of bittersweet - it’ll be the last one for a while.  Kevin’s moving to New Orleans for a year, I’m going off to grad school to get my teacher’s license, and while we’ll continue doing the Taxpayers, there’ll be less tours for the next 2 years or so.  We’re so incredibly lucky to have discovered DIY music, and to have made all the incredible friends all across the damn country that we have, that I’m not even all that sad about it, just excited to become another deranged creature of the summer night.  Like Cat Bat Princess.

I’m searching for the lipstick as we speak.

CAT BAT PRINCESS TOUR

(subtitled: Punk’s Not Dead, It’s Locked in my Basement Eating Fish Heads Tour)

JUNE TOUR:
June 15: Tacoma, WA @ The Red Room (2313 S. Tacoma ave)  All ages!  We play at 9pm! w/ The Fun Police
June 16: Cheney, WA @ 601 Clay St w/ Harpo, Wombo Combo, and others! (6:30PM SHARP!!)
June 17: Missoula, MT @ the ZACC Basement ( 235 N. 1st St. West) w/ Buffler, Tyson Ballew, Harpo, and The Scribblers (link)
June 18: Day Off
June 19: Minneapolis, MN @ Psychic School - 2440 Lyndale Ave S w/ Destroy Nate Allen, The Scurvies, Apathedicks, Crimes (ex Paper Cup Band!) (link)
June 20: Minneapolis, MN @ Hymie’s Vintage Records w/ the FUCKING Annadale Cardinals!!!! (link)
June 21: Minneapolis, MN - @ The Krondstadt (ask a punk!) 9 PM SHARP!  music over by 10pm w/ Bouncer Fighter
June 22: Milwaukee, WI - Anthony Pointer Benefit @ Cream City Collectives w/ Harpo, State of Nature, Temple, and Borderline Human (link)
June 23: Chicago, IL @ Pancho’s w/ BUST!, Street Eaters, This Is My Fist, and Mean Mug  (link) 18+ boo.
June 24: Bloomington, IN @ Plan-It-X Fest (link)
June 25: Bloomington, IN @ Plan-It-X Fest
June 26: Bloomington, IN @ Plan-It-X Fest (WE PLAY!)
June 27: Belleville, IL (near St Louis, MO) @ Illegal Tone Recordings (8 South Church St)  w/ Family Might.  16+ or accompanied by a person 18+
June 28: Lincoln, NE @ Mad Ave (2800 N 48th st) 7PM w/ Scratch Howl, Gutterbal, and Minkus (link)
June 29: Fort Collins, CO @ Old Fort Collins Airport Terminal (2200 Airway Ave) w/ Sour Boy Bitter Girl and Dead Dogs (10 pm!)
June 30: SLC, UT @ BOING! w/ Fuck Yes!!!, Society Mis-call, and Cuddleslut.
July 1: Reno, NV @ TBA
July 2: Oakland, CA @ TBA
July 3: Eugene, OR @ TBA w/ Hi Ho Silver, Away! and Quick Attack

Hello? Is that you Darby Splash??

Holy crap you guys!!  In 2 days, we’ve already reached 125% on Kickstarter!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!  I think y’all made me cry last night…

There are still a bunch of ridiculous prizes available and we have a bunch of gratuitous energy to spend.  We also have a few new AMAZING prizes, including adopting a tour-fish to be in care of The Taxpayers.  We’re naming him Darby Splash.

Spread the word yo!  Tell yo friends, tell yo tumblrs, tell yo blogs, yo facebooks, go tell it off yo mountain, tell yo mama!  The Taxpayers are coming to your town.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/155204315/who-killed-tonya-harding

HERES A LITTLE FRESH SAMPLE OF COOKING WITH ROB:

YUM!!!!

WHO KILLED TONYA HARDING!?

Hello interwebz!!!!

How are you on this most excellent day?  It’s so nice out right now!  Guess what we did last night?  Go ahead, guess! …..   We made a Kickstarter page!

Why you ask?  Cause someone killed Tonya Harding!  No, NOT that Tonya Harding, the big beautiful boxey metallic one that sits on the road in front of our house.  Our van!  Simply put, Tonya is super sick and we fear she will not be able to safely travel to Bloomington, Indiana for Plan-It-X Fest.  Given this, we need to find a solution and FAST!  PIX Fest is next month and it’s a great honor and dream-come-true to be a part of this event, WE HAVE TO BE THERE (we’re playing the same day as Mountain Goats!!!!).  So we made a Kickstarter page to help remedy this.

The goal is set pretty low at $400, but the real expense of the trip is much much higher.  We have 20 days to meet the goal of $400 (hopefully it will exceed it!!!) and there are a BUNCH of awesome, weird prizes we offer for your lovely dollars.

Please visit our Kickstarter page to read more and PLEASE PLEASE spread the word.  Being a true DIY band is expensive and incurs a lot of costs that we cannot generally afford most of the time.  We’ve done nine national tours, lets hope for many many more!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped us over the years.  You mean so much to us!

xoxo,
The Taxpayers