Brandi Carlile is giving away a free double ocean-view cabin on the Cayamo 2009 cruise ship! To register for a chance to win the cabin simply make a donation to Brandi's Looking Out Foundation. The Looking Out Foundation [501(c)(3)] was created as a way for Brandi to financially support the causes and organizations that she strongly believes in. Although the focus will be mainly on the environment, the foundation will offer grants to a variety of organizations and causes.

For every $10 donated you will receive 1 entry into the drawing. For example, a $100 donation will give you 10 entries. One winner will be selected at random on January 15, 2009. Contest information is below.

You can make a donation via Paypal (credit card donations are accepted) to the email address lookingoutfoundation@cpahelpme.com

or mail a check to made out to "Looking Out Foundation." Please write account 4598 on the check, and mail it to:

The Looking Out Foundation-Acct 4598
2710 Centerville Road
STE 101
Wilmington, DE 19808

Thanks and good luck! Brandi can't wait to see all of you on the cruise!


Contest Rules:
No flights, hotel accommodations or ground transportation are included in this prize.

Contest winners must be 21 years of age or older at the time of sailing or accompanied by an adult age 25 or older. In accordance with Sixthman Policy, ANY guests (whether a winner or a guest of the winner) under the age of 21 at the time of sailing must be accompanied by an adult age 25 or older. By entering this contest, you are confirming that you and/or your guests will meet age requirements at the time of sailing.

All guests are bound by the Sixthman Ticketing contract found at www.cayamo.com.

This prize is not transferable, redeemable for cash or exchangeable for any other prize or cruise. If you as the winner cannot be contacted, choose not to accept the prize, cannot sail or are disqualified for any reason, A-Squared Management and Sixthman reserve the right to determine an alternate winner or not to award the prize, at their sole discretion.

If you are already a paid guest of Cayamo and win this prize you will be refunded monies paid on your existing reservation up to but not exceeding the value of the awarded cabin.

Upon receipt of any prize, the winner may be required to comply with any and all applicable federal, state and local tax that becomes due with respect to the prize(s). Please be aware that you may receive a 1099 for the value of your prize. Should you be unable to claim your prize you will not receive the 1099.

You may also enter the drawing by mailing an entry request to
Aware
Brandi/Looking Out Foundation
624 Davis St 2
Evanston IL 60201.

For ang:

Brandi Carlile, Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA 10/1/07

Madman Across the Water




Brandi Carlile, Orpheum Theatre, Boston, MA 10/5/07

Folsom Prison Blues (Gibb Droll's last night on tour with them!)

At over 500 strong - Againotoday.com - our Brandi Carlile Band fan community continues to grow by leaps and bounds!

Come join us and enjoy concert reviews, pre- and post-concert gatherings, and who knows what else!

Simmer Down Now!

Hi,

Check out info about a very special auction hosted exclusively by us at AgainToday.Com - a Brandi Carlile Fan Community. We are working directly with Brandi Carlile to help raise money in the wake of her family friend's sudden death. Read more about it on our website.





In addition, check out the Again Today Music Education Fund at the Maple Valley Creative Arts Council:

www.maplevalleyarts.com - then click "Donations"

We've created this fund in honor of Brandi Carlile's 26th birthday and the total donations since its origination total almost $2000. If you are looking for a great cause to support music in communities and schools consider donating to our fund!

Thanks!

We have been lucky enough to see Gibb Droll open for Brandi Carlile several times this past month. On Friday night we got to see him sit in with the band for several numbers. Brandi even had him sing his song "No Pain" - as she backed him up. Great stuff...Check it out!

What did you think of the show on Friday angledge? It was great fun hanging with you guys!

Comment and I'll:
1 - Tell you why I friended you.
2 - Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, a sexual position, etc. (Or, not)
3 - Tell you something I like about you.
4 - Tell you a memory I have of you.
5 - Associate you with a character/pairing.
6 - Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7 - Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
8 - In return, you must post this in your LJ.

Bert captured this AMAZING picture of Josh's cello during the early Triple Door show in Seattle, WA on 3/30/07. For some reason, Josh's cello is quite photogenic and this particular picture is just stunning.

That Triple Door show was probably my favorite show of our West Coast road trip for many, many reasons...

Bert and I leave tomorrow AM for Seattle and thus begins our West Coast Road Trip!

Our plans are to spend a few days in Seattle (seeing Brandi Carlile play two shows at the Triple Door on 3/30). From Seattle we'll head to Portland where Brandi will be playing two intimate shows at Mississippi Studios on 3/31 to a crowd of 75-80 people. From Portland we'll head down to San Fran for a few days. Brandi's playing Great American Music Hall there on April 2nd. We look forward to enjoying San Fran for a few days too.

Then we haul down to LA for the last few days of our trip. We'll see Brandi pay the Troubadour on April 3rd (the day her album, The Story, is released) and we'll be in the audience of the Tonight Show on April 4th when they star as musical guests. On April 5th we plan on meeting a fellow JBro pal, Allison, for lunch on the Warner Brothers back lot. She works there and is going to give us a behind the scenes tour.

April 6th we'll fly home and spend the weekend recuperating! I can't wait....my goal is to post to LJ during the trip to keep you updated. So - keep watching for cool stuff.

Coming to a town near you (hopefully!)...in support of their sophomore record, The Story...Brandi Carlile and the Twins!

Bert and I will be attending about 7 of these shows...including a few not-listed gigs (WXPN Member's Show on 2/20 with Brandi Carlile, WFUV live show at the Cutting Room in NYC on 2/22). We will be at the first 4 gigs of the tour out West Coast...our BCB Vacation begins then!

The band will also be on Conan O'Brien on 4/27...we hope to get to that show, too.

Check out the AMAZINGLY beautiful photos on the updated Brandi Carlile website at www.brandicarlile.com.

Also join our fan community at www.againtoday.com.


NOTE:
Seattle (3/30) and Portland (3/31) are "Special acoustic performance and album listening party" shows.
Dallas (4/11) is an acoustic headlining show.
All other tour dates are full band headlining shows.


03-30-07 - The Triple Door - Seattle, WA
03-31-07 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR
04-02-07 - Great American Music Hall - San Francisco, CA
04-03-07 - Troubadour - West Hollywood, CA
04-06-07 - The Casbah - San Diego, CA
04-07-07 - Rialto Theatre - Tuczon, Az
04-10-07 - Bend Studio - Dallas, TX
04-11-07 - The Parish - Austin, TX
04-13-07 - The Parish at House of Blues - New Orleans, LA
04-16-07 - WorkPlay Theater - Birmingham, AL
04-17-07 - Belcourt Theatre - Nashville, TN
04-18-07 - Newby's - Memphis, TN
04-19-07 - Variety Playhouse - Atlanta, GA
04-24-07 - Birchmere - Alexandria, VA
04-25-07 - World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA
04-26-07 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY
04-28-07 - Iron Horse Music Hall - Northhampton, MA
04-30-07 - Recher Theatre - Towson, MD
05-02-07 - Higher Ground Showcase Lounge - Burlington, VT
05-04-07 - The Music Hall - Portsmouth, NH
05-05-07 - Paradise Rock Club - Boston, MA
05-07-07 - Horseshoe Tavern - Toronto, Canada
05-08-07 - House of Blues (Cambridge Room) - Cleveland, OH
05-09-07 - The Ark - Ann Arbor, MI
05-11-07 - Schubas Tavern - Chicago, IL
05-12-07 - Schubas Tavern - Chicago, IL
05-15-07 - The Music Mill - Indianapolis, IN
05-16-07 - Shank Hall - Milwaukee, WI
05-18-07 - Varsity Theatre - Minneapolis, MN
05-19-07 - Varsity Theatre - Minneapolis, MN
05-22-07 - Fox Theatre - Boulder, CO
05-23-07 - The Big Easy - Boise, ID
05-24-07 - Big Easy Concert House - Spokane, WA

WXPN just started a fund drive today and they are encouraging new members to join at the $10/month level by offering members at this level two tickets (as well as other goodies) to see Brandi Carlile on 2/20 at World Cafe Live. It's well worth the $$!

Additionally, if you are a current XPN member you may call the station and get tickets to this same show for $25 as long as tickets are available.

So hop on over to WXPN at www.xpn.org and support a great station and an amazing artist!

Here's a great write-up describing Brandi's upcoming sophomore release, The Story - in stores on April 3rd. If you want to find out more about the Brandi Carlile Band go to www.againtoday.com or www.myspace.com/brandicarlileband!

"So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am"

On her new album, The Story, Brandi Carlile opens up her heart, soul, and psyche in a series of memorable songs that invite you into her world. To her growing community of fans, it's Carlile's revelatory imagery, stark emotive vocals and finely-detailed songs which provide the keys to who she is, where she's been, and where's she's going.
Shortly after the release of her critically-acclaimed self-titled Red Ink debut (Rolling Stone named her one of the magazine's "10 Artists To Watch in 2005") -- Carlile left her home in Seattle and set out with twin brothers Tim (guitar) and Phil (bass) Hanseroth, with whom she'd worked on her earliest recordings and independent regional tours. The tightly knit trio, which forms the core of her band today, spent the better part of two years on the road. By the end of 2006, Brandi Carlile had embarked on several headlining tours and supported a variety of artists including Ray LaMontagne, The Fray, Chris Isaak, Tori Amos, and Shawn Colvin.
The sound and songs of The Story first formed during the rigors of touring as Brandi began working the new songs into the band's repertoire, road-testing and refining the material under the spotlights, giving each performance its own character. The intensity and authenticity of her music brought her to the attention of the Grammy Award-winning producer T Bone Burnett (Counting Crows, Roy Orbison) who came on-board to produce The Story.
By the time she went into a Vancouver studio with T Bone, Brandi's new songs had become second nature. "We've been playing some of these songs for years – I wrote 'Turpentine' when I was a teenager," Carlile says. "T Bone helped us hear these songs through fresh ears and gave the whole album a great energy."
The Story builds on the plaintive aching melodies, moody atmosphere and heartfelt lyrics characterizing Brandi's first album with nuanced arrangements including electric guitar ("My Song," "Losing Heart"), piano ("Wasted") and cello ("Turpentine," "Late Morning Lullaby").
Driven by Carlile's dynamic vocals, the album's 13 tracks pulse with a raw and road-worthy intensity that is much closer to her live concert sound than her self-titled debut album. "The new songs may surprise people who only know us through the first album," Brandi says. "If you've seen us play, you'll realize this is the direction we've been heading in the whole time."
After recording her first album under sporadic conditions over the course of a year, Brandi decided to cut out all distractions and record The Story in a focused extended session. "This is the album I've always wanted to make," she explains. "I love Elton John because his albums captured moments in time. My favorite records have the timeless feeling you get when a band locks itself in the studio for two weeks and comes out with a record."
So Brandi, Tim, and Phil hooked up with renowned drummer Matt Chamberlain (Tori Amos, Morrissey) and set out to capture that "timeless feeling" in a real-time 11-day session. Brandi recorded The Story live with Tim, Phil and Matt in the same room while she looked on from the vocal booth. “Being able to see each other was important because it allowed us to lock in and let things flow like we do on stage,” Carlile explains.
Carlile's decision to record live mainly to tape gives The Story a stark and soulful authenticity accentuating the humanity of each performance. "When you record to tape, it forces you not to dwell on small imperfections and keep a lot of the things you would usually edit out…like a weird breath or a strangely sharp note," Carlile explains. "When I listen back and hear those things now, I'm glad we didn't take them out because they give this album a real human character."
The intensity of the title track comes from one of those "beautiful mistakes" that sometimes underlie hidden, subconscious intentions. "The song peaks in a way that takes everything in my voice to hit it," Carlile admits. "When I went for that note, my voice cracked and I almost stopped, but I'm glad I kept going because it turned out to be such a pure moment – technically wrong, but emotionally right."
The intricate harmonies defining "Josephine" become all the more stunning when you realize that the song was recorded in one take with the trio gathered around a single microphone. "What you actually hear on the album is us running through the song not realizing T Bone was rolling tape," explains Tim, who penned the track. "The performance is so relaxed; we're just flowing, which suits the song's mood perfectly."
One of the album's highlights, according to Carlile, is "Cannonball," a song she recorded with in Atlanta with Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls. "I don't think I would play guitar if it weren't for the Indigo Girls," says Brandi (who made a guest appearance on the Indigo Girl's recent release Despite Our Differences). It means the world to me to have them on my record."
The album's closing track, "Again Today," brings The Story to its transcendent emotional crescendo using a wall of ambient sound as a backdrop to her voice swinging confidently from bulletproof power to a vulnerable falsetto asking, "Who's gonna break my fall, when the spinning starts?" "It's a different kind of song for me, but it's still very organic" Carlile says. "We've been closing our sets with this song for such a long time now, that it just felt right ending the record this way too."
Brandi's first steps toward creating The Story began years ago outside of Seattle, where, while growing up, Carlile taught herself to sing and play guitar at a young age with her family. Dedicating her life to music, Carlile became a disciplined musician playing constantly and performing whenever possible as a way to learn her craft and develop her art. She expanded her sound with the addition of twin brothers, Tim and Phil Hanseroth.
Columbia Records signed Carlile in late 2004 on the strength of songs she'd been recording periodically at her home. Released in 2005, Brandi Carlile, her debut showcased those early songs along with several newly recorded tracks. Reviews of the album universally heralded Carlile as an important new singer-songwriter. She hit the road opening for other artists while going on to headline her own shows.
Brandi found a new wider audience when the ABC hit medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" showcased three of Brandi's songs -- "Tragedy," "What Can I Say" and "Throw It All Away" -- an unprecedented honor for a new artist.
With The Story, Brandi Carlile takes you into the deepest most poetic moments of her own experiences, creating the kind of artist-audience bond that makes you feel you're living inside those moments yourself.

www.brandicarlile.com
www.columbiarecords.com