Our goal was met in less than a week. Thank you for your continued support through these last four years. We are proud to know you.

And a special thanks for helping with this last push:

Katherine Kline, Andrea Crain, Ethan Berry, Liam Liar, Gwen Lis, Ronit Bezalel, Brenda Schumacher, M. Pratt, Dawn, Quin Miller, Diantha, Colin Palombi, Ray Vanek, Jenny, LP, Brandon Dill, Kevin, Hanna, Jimmy, Tobie and Cara, Radford Bishop, Traci Schlesinger, Lewis Wallace, Raquel Rodriguez, Beth Simpson, Kelley, Lisa Logan, Alaure, Sgokner, Ali McDonald, Erin Moore, Jaclyn Pryor, and Kadji Amin.

We spent June and July touring with our new album “Hardly,” which was amazing and inspiring, but also had a few unfortunate bumps, the largest of which being that all of our merch money made on Hardly Boys Tour 2011 was stolen. As many of you know, Actor Slash Model CD sales has been one of the main ways we have funded the Riot Acts film project, and with the sales of our new album (plus the $ we put into it making it awesome), we were hoping to return home to FINALLY, once and for all, be able to pay off Riot Acts. And sadly, it just hasn’t turned out that way.

So now we’re asking for a last bit of help for this project. We have been hesitant to ask for more financial help, because this community has given us so much support with this project, but thought we would give it one last whirl. Through the kickstarter platform, we have one month to raise $1,000. Any help you could give would be so much appreciated. There are some “rewards” to entice you. Please Please spread the word to any of your friends and/or fans that would like to further support this film.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/riotacts/riot-acts-finishing-funds

As always, with love,
Madsen & Simon

reverbnation.com/actorslashmodel
facebook.com/actorslashmodel
facebook.com/RiotActsthemovie
myspace.com/actorslashmodelmusic

Life on the Road

Welp, tour is well under way! We’ve played 4 shows now, some of which have been amazing in everyway, others, well, not so amazing. Here’s the backlog – We rolled into Des Moines late the evening of June 30^th to perform at the Vaudville Mews, a rad-ass venue with the best sound guy (yeah, Logan) ever. My new acoustic bass was in bad shape from the humidity and riding in the 100 degree trunk for a 5 hours, the neck had warped and caused the higher strings to ride the fret board rending the instrument (that I just got for this tour the day before) totally f’n useless. Logan fixed that shit and showed me how to keep it functional until we get home. We played with the band Penny Hawk, from Ames, who were amazing. In fact, there awesomeness almost made up for the fact that 1, yes 1 person that was not in either band came to the show. Eh, it’s Des Moines, I don’t know what we expected… But the first show of tour is always the sloppiest, so we got some good practice in.

The next day we drove to Omaha to play at DC’s Saloon, a gay leather rodeo bar in downtown Omaha. Friendly folk all way round, but I guess all the homos we’re at the Cheap Trick concert down the road, cuz they sure as shit we’re at DC’s Saloon! But we performed with some rad queens who could leap into the splits. Long story short – Eli ate some bad food and got a migraine and passed out at the motel, leaving us stranded at the bar. Eventually he came to, and came to get us, head spinning and all (and kind of maybe possibly backed into a truck when he pulled up to the bar). When we got to the motel our room had somehow locked itself from the inside (we’d find out later that the inside door handle broke), so we had to sit outside our room in the middle of the night watching different men each take turns trying to open the door with different keys. They gave us another room, and had the other one opened later from the inside so we could get our stuff and beat it!

Nebraska was one long ass drive, but things started looking up as we rolled into Denver, picked up Athens Boys Choir from the airport and arrived at the Denver Zine Library. And damn ya’ll, Denver brought it! A puppet show opened the night, followed by Elias Krell, (who killed it) The Homoticons, andAthens Boys Choir. Then Bearsnail played, who were so much fun to watch and Kyle Harris is a fantastic songwriter and person -  “This song is a tribute to all of the projects we have failed on…” Unfortunately dear readers, I, Madsen, then fell to the same sickness the Eli had the day before, killer migraine and stomach flu. Thanks Hilary for letting me sleep it off in your bed (aka puking into your trash can).

The next day Simon, Katz, Eli and I drove us across the great state of Wyoming into “the bee hive” state of Utah, which we learned, has nothing to do with Utah having lots of bees, but is like some kind of Mormon labor tribute to being ‘busy as bees’ or something. After playing in Denver and at Mestizo in Salt Lake City last night, tour is looking up. Those kids brought it out, packed that place up, and know how to support. We all played killer sets then got taken out to dinner at the local diner, Dee’s, where I sort of fell in love with our waitress, and not so secretly longed to have braces again, so our braces could “lock.”

Later that night Simon got sick, so now 3 of 4 of us have been sick, which means that shit should be done! So between a couple of awesome shows, a couple of shitty shows, and 3 of the 4 of us recovering from sickness, crappy motel issues, boundary-less roommates, and green food withdrawl, I think I can safely say that we are on the upswing. We’ve driven 8 hours a day for the last 2 days, and today we’re driving 10 hours to get to Sacramento. So we’re a little car loopy, but in good spirits, and stoked for our first night off in Sacramento tonight. We play with Joe Stevens of Coyote Grace tomorrow at Mondo Bizarro, which we are confident will be as great as Denver and SLC. More Soon!!

ActorSlashHomotiChoirKrell Love from Nevada (probably California by the time we post)!!

We also have a few more show of the tour left to book. If you live (or know folks who live) in Memphis, New Orleans or Austin, hit us up! We’re looking for venues and a local act to join the bill (Actor Slash Model, Elias Krell and The Homoticons). Be seein’ ya soon.