Photo & Design by Jake Buntjer
Art Direction: Jake Buntjer & Corey Fox

The new album: Turn Coats
Available Dec 3rd @ The State Room in SLC, UT
And Dec 11th @ The Walnut Room in Denver, CO
And March 2011 to the rest of the world

Touring w/ JJ Grey & Mofro - Telluride Blues & Brews Festival

photo by Nathaniel Ray Photography

...touring with JJ GREY & MOFRO and the blessed town of Telluride

Boise, ID - Salt Lake City, UT - Telluride, CO

Grateful, gratefilled, gratitude, blessed... What an ultra smooth week...

"Well, that couldn't have gone any better" - Eric

JJ, Dennis, Andrew, Todd, Art, the Anthony's, Colin and Aaron couldn't have been a smoother, kinder more laid back group of guys... We enjoyed our limited time with these guys and hope to do it again.

"Hey man, JJ and the guys are giving us their hotel room for the night." - Josh
"What? Are you shitting me?" - Cory

"Nope." - Josh

photo by Dustin Christensen's Iphone

The road was kind this trip (knock,knock) and the venues, cities, friends and fans were even kinder... The Boise Knitting Factory was run and operated by some of nicest folks we've ever met, thank you Cedric, Chris and Wayne (to name only a few). We hope to get back there soon, real soon.

"Well, that couldn't have gone any better" - Eric

photo by Nathaniel Edwards

Salt Lake City @ The State Room - ultra smooth as always - Sold Out crowds are very nice to play to. We owe alot of our recent success to Darin Piccoli and The State Room - many thank you's to both and to all who attended and brought good vibes with you...

"Nice song man, im going shopping" - Anthony Cole

photo by Nathaniel Ray

Telluride... We love this little town. The Bubble Lounge... We love this little club. Telluride Blues & Brews Festival... We love this festival and the people involved. No pretension here... Just people being happy people. We play a 2, 1.5 hour sets at The Bubble and Cory ends up winning the Blues & Brews acoustic competition the morning after (gratitude, humility) and is awarded what ends up to be a 40 minute slot on the main stage playing in front of a good 9 to 10,000 folks, sandwiched between JJ & Mofro and Galactic (more gratitude and an extra cup of humility) along with a Gibson guitar and some much needed cash. Such an honor. We hope to be back to the festival as a full band someday.

"Well, that couldn't have gone any better" - Eric

photo by Joshua Dunn's Iphone

Many thanks to JJ Grey & Mofro, Joshua Knight, Jerry Lima, Monterey International and Valerie James along with the rest of the Telluride Blues & Brews staff.

"Very true Eric, it really couldn't have gone any better." - Cory

V-TUNES MUSIC FESTIVAL
Big Water UT (Lake Powell)
www.vtunesmusic.com

Speechless... words can't describe the gratitiude...

The good folks of V-Tunes Music Festival and Big Water UT were kind enough to invite us to play their festival again this year. We were treated like kings of a most royal lineage. This was a truly humbling experience to have been treated so well and to have been so well received. As we headed back towards home our good friend Mr. Corey Fox put it best, "Man after this weekend I'm sure to come crashing back down to reality...". But for the next 6 hours as we traveled home in the beloved "Brutus" we were still living in the bliss that we had experienced for the 3 days previous...

We were provided an immaculate house boat 'The River Run' for the weekend. We had been told that this would be the case beforehand... but we were floored by just how big of a boat it was when it was delivered to us on Lone Rock Beach.

Josh and myself headed down late Thursday night with our best mates Scott Shepard (from book on tape worm), Corey Fox (owner of Velour Live Music Gallery) and Patrick Kintz (from the upstairs bedroom of our house aka 'Starlight Manor').

We ended setting up camp around 4am and woke up to a horde of naughty little nats and the scorching Lake Powell sun around 7amish. We met up with Vallis, Austin, Easy, Sarah and Jessica from V-Tunes said our hellos then ran into the town of Page Arizona for some breakfast at the Ranch House with the local natives. We then picked up some necessities (sun screen, coca-cola, gummy worms, towels) and headed to Lone Rock Beach were we met back up with the V-tunes crew along with some of their friends.

We were escorted about the lake on fancy schmancy boat, did some swimming, wakeboarding etc. The house boat arrived a bit later followed by Eric, Jacob, Jana Thompson, Sarah Skaggs, Matt Skaggs and Dustin Christensen (from Dustinonline.com) and a handful of other friends (thank you for coming yall know who you are). Tons o' swimming, sun-bathing, grunge rock hits on the classical guitar, boondogglin', jumping off the house boat, rope swinging, sliding, the ever so common Skaggs act pushing an unsuspecting companion into the lake and good conversation were had...

We were honored to play the festival with a talented crew of artists including Pat & Rose Maloney, Steven Swift, Dave Mcgraw, Austin Joseph, Easy Joseph and The Remnants. We were especially stoked to share the stage and the houseboat (if but only for a short while) with our good friend and brother Mr. Joshua James (www.joshuajames.tv) who by the way is one of my most favoritest of songwriters and musicians. Love you brother friend.

All in all we had ourselves a handsome little vacation and were able to participate in a ultra-smooth music festival that feels much like a large family gathering. Good souls enjoying one another, good music and some good food, all goodness. There are too many people to thank individually for what could possibly have been the best and most heart warming musical experience of our short career.

A trillion thank yous to Big Water, the V-Tunes crew and all of our friends and fans that traveled to the festival! We love love love you all... we are family.


"C'Mon Cory Mon!"

So there are shows/road experiences that encourage a musician to keep pushing forward and then there are those that make one question what in the hell one is doing with one's life, oddly Denver w/ Wes Kirkpatrick was a mixture of both...


Travelog:
Cory Mon, Eric Ellsworth, Josh Dunn, Brandon Cummings

Thursday 18th

9pmish: Depart from Orem
930: Stop in Spanish, food jokes (mainly Payson folklore with Joshua Dunn and references to Leroy Jenkins - Brandon plays with country artist Charley Jenkins, check him and Leroy Jenkins out!), back to the road - dry roads trying to stay ahead of the prospective storm

Friday 19th
330: through the Eisenhower tunnel into a massive snow-storm (it was like we warped into another world)
630: Denver - what should be an hour drive took 3 through the snow
700: Englewood -Clarks (thanks again Bronco), bedding down
1230ish: Downtown food at Earls with Wes and Company
5ish: Sound Check (tired, extremely)
8ish: Doors open (it's snowed a good 7-12 inches in downtown Denver since the morning)
830: the wonderful Stephanie Mabey (www.stephaniemabey.com)
930ish: Music (the smooth part- mostly smooth;) )
1030ish: Wes Kirkpatrick (www.myspace.com/weskirkpatrick) - sounded great
12ish: load up and head back to clarks
130-230ish: bed

Saturday 20th
11ish: wakeup (much needed long sleepness)
12ish: Boulder Colorado
1230ish: Truck starts making funny noises (sounds like the trailer hitch just acting up - maybe we packed the trailer poorly)
6ish: back to Clarks for the Cougs NCAA tourney game (truck making more noise - better get this checked out)
9-10ish: Dinner and truck trouble shooting, mechanic referrals? (definitely need to get the truck looked at - we've got issues)
11ish: a little cards action followed by bed

Sunday 21st
8ish: calling around
10shi: Mechanic, waiting, Orange Julius, Borders
2shi: bad news (transfer case needs replacing we cant do it here nor can anyone on Sunday)
3ish: Walmart for a trailer lock and back to Clarks to load out (yes the truck still runs but she be sputtering and clanking - with each individual clank Brandon exclaims "oh!" "ah!" "eee!")
5ish: Hotel nap
8ish: Movie Repomen (great flick Josh loved it especially the scanning scene is a must see - me a bit disturbed due to the fact that i dont have the most healthy of hearts...too close to home)
930: we schedule a professional band photo shoot with the photo booth
9:31: photo shoot is complete, photos in hand
9:45: Hotel Lobby hang out with our new friends
10:00: swimming and pool dance competition (Eric destroys)
12ish: wind down in front of the boob tube and eventually fade in to sleep

Monday 22nd
8:00: searching for a mechanic that says they can take a look and possibly do the job
8:10: found the man (thanks to Jim Lacher @ buffalo wings)
9:10: Pit Row Auto - waiting, cards, guitars, bad news , frustration, scheduling flights (Josh and Brandon)
2ish: Josh and Brandon say farewell and head for the airport
5ish: Scott (pit row auto) comes through like a champ and we are fixed up and ready to go
6ish: we depart - many conversations had, lots of driving, snow through spanish canyon

Tuesday 23rd
1amish: home, unload, wash the trailer take it back (thanks Justin)
2-3ish: bed

I hate money, I want nothing to do with it. Unfortunately those who have it or access to it are typically open to more freedom (i am aware that philosophical minds could debate this somewhat ignorant comment over and over again). I love people, I love my friends, I love my boys (my brethren in life and music) and spending time, adventure with them. This was the first show with our current band line-up (very positive and exciting despite the not so awesome turn-out due to 8-12 inches of snow). On the road is where I am me, Cory, the most. I feel more, I am more aware, I am challenged... this was a rough one... an expensive one... but my resolve to make music with others and bring it to others in only strengthened.

times up, let's do this!

ok, ok... somebody is reading this besides my mother...

so people be reading... my mother and at least the two friends who contacted me over the last 5 minutes....

The record is recorded. Mixing is next. 10 songs:

Lover Come Home (formerly known as 3/4)
3 Step
Wings
Gypsy
Hold
Venus
Fever
Dr. Pleasure MD
Broken Train
Colors Fade

apologies...

So we were going to update this as the record was being worked on... ha! A bit of stress mixed with the amount of focus it takes to record contributed to our lack of posts.... does anyone read this?

THE BASEMENT SESSIONS

So it's been a while since we have updated this here blogdogger... We've had a great year of music and have been blessed with many opportunities to share the stage with some amazing musicians. We, The Starlight Gospel, find ourselves working on another record with our good friend Mr. Chad Weis. Chad has flown out from Minnesota to Utah and will be living with us for the next 2 weeks as we make the new record out of the comfort of our own basement. We have been putting together a "make-shift basement studio" over the past 2 days and come 5pm this evening we will begin the actual recording process. I would like to publicly thank and praise our friend Jordan Clark who has lent us a good deal of his gear...he's a saint, a scholar and a gentleman... we owe him bigtime. We are shooting for 10 songs on this record. Unlike the last one (6 days in the devils workshop) this coming record is quite undefined coming into the recording process. We have 6 solid song choices and then alot of options for filling out the rest of the record. It's got us a bit nervous, on edge to work like this but i must say it is also quite exciting to know that alot more of the creating process will actually happen in studio. We also have a new change in the band lineup. We are excited to announce that our pal Josh Dunn will be laying down the baselines for this record. Our good friend (and future band lawyer) will take a different role in this coming record. Devin enters Law School come next fall and has found himself less and less available to "SG time". We are sad to see "Devballs" go but we are thrilled that he will be here for a portion of the album giving feedback, coaching and coordinating with Josh and of course playing some stand-up bass where needed. It's an exciting time for us. Of course we are saddened to see Devin fade into lawdom but this is something that we knew would eventually happen. With each new band member there comes a new feel, a new energy and I must say after just a handful of practices with Josh I am really excited about the energy, groove and heightened sense of rock that Josh brings to the mix. So we start recording Jacobs drums in about an hour. We'll try to have atleast one band member post daily so come along yall who like to be in the starlight know...