Gratitude Adjustment

A chance encounter with Casey Bonham Leto last night reaffirmed my belief that there exist people and things that are inherently good. The kid is destined for greatness. Watch him grow under The Others link. Underneath all The Black Hollies' belly aching and at the root of all the band's psychedelic comedy is a deep sense of gratitude indebted to all of our friends, family members, and audiences who have lent us support in trying to get this operation off the ground. The recently completed tour was certainly deemed a success. On behalf of the Black Hollies Palestinian Bluetooth would like to send out the sincerest of 'Thank Yous' to everyone at Ernest Jenning, our amazing friends and audience in Baltimore, the Nouvellas for playing with us in NYC and performing a truly inspirational set, Greenflower, Dan Rumain, our amazing friends and audience in Memphis, especially Dirk Kitterlan for allowing us the privilege of entering The Stax museum on the arm, Jonathon at The Hi Tone and The Bulletproof Vests for making the Buccaneer show come together in one day, John at The Mercy, John Forsdahl for taking Palestinian Bluetooth to Autozone in Grapevine, TX, Adam Schrader and everyone who took care of us at The Raven Cafe in Prescott, AZ, everyone who helped make our two Los Angeles shows come together in less than a week's time and all of our friends who came out to support us there, especially Bryan Brown, Jim Brown, Dave Clifford, Cliff Meyer, Paul Fig, Miles Wilson, Cara Heller, Mande Whitaker, Megan Barthalomay, Jessica Gronvold, Nina Tarr, Woju, Emily Meyer, Uncle Gerry, Jessica Simpson, Switched on Audrey, Nicole Claudet, Jennimatz & Lambskins, our friends who came out to the Hemlock in San Francisco, Jesse Carew, Phil Manly, our friends, amazing audience, and incredible staff at The East End in Portland, John Sherman, Kelly Hinkle, Dead Meadow, and our amazing audience at The Comet Tavern in Seattle. The Black Hollies know that the positive response from every individual the band had the pleasure of performing for is precisely that which carried the band home safely.


The Black Hollies are currently working on new material and hope to perform overseas in the immediate future. In the short term, the current dilemma is figuring out how we're going to put food in Foodman's mouth, a fair question. Another question I am often asked is, "What's a grown man doing spending so much time driving around in his grandmother's 1988 Lincoln Continental?" The car baffled on lookers on the show room floor of a Lincoln demonstration in '88 when the hood was opened to reveal an engine the size of a pea powered by a 9-volt battery. The short answer, well, time's are tough. The long answer to the aforementioned question is a question itself. That being, of course, "What's a grown man doing spending any time at all wearing his grandmother's wigs?"

Morey's Weapons

What does every musician want to wrap his or her hands around each time he or she opens a door? A Yamaha seven string guitar neck, not unlike the one that Steve Vai uses to battle Ralph Macchio in the late 80's disgrace of a film known as Crossroads. That's right, a Yamaha guitar neck. Aside from smelling like day old vomit and an alcoholic geriatric uncle's day old feces, known in some circles as 'Bud Mud,' The Off Broadway club in St. Louis also knows what musicians want to grab onto when opening doors and has made it a point to adorn every door in the joint with a Yamaha guitar neck. The main entrance, men's bathroom, women's bathroom, and greenroom all offer Yamaha guitar necks as entrance enhancers. Above, Justin Angelo Morey taps his way into Off Broadway as he prepares to perform for a crowd of six, not including the bartender, soundman, and doorguy.

Speaking of Justin Angelo Morey...

There are two types of people in this world. There are people who refuse to reveal their own birthdays. And there are people who love their own birthdays. Justin Angelo Morey is one of the latter. In fact, Justin Angelo Morey is the East Coast chairman for the "I Love My Own Birthday What Are You Getting Me?" support group. And guess what today is? If you guessed Morey's birthday you're only half correct. The correct answer in it's entirety is Justin Angelo Morey's birthday as well as the beginning of the three and three quarters of a month countdown to the Yellville Turkey Trot, within which occurs an actual Turkey Drop, a yearly event held during October in Yellville, Arkansas, where roughly 10 live wild turkeys are dropped from low flying airplanes. The maimed turkeys that survive the drop on account of being half-inclined toward flight are often snatched up and raised as pets by the local folk. The turkeys who eat it are oftentimes eaten saving lucky carnivores the trouble of breaking the turkeys' necks themselves in preparation for the hot pot. In honor of Justin Angelo's special day, the Yellville Turkey Trot, and to coincide with Palestinian Bluetooth's return from a two and a half week long dentist's visit let us be the first to say, "Happy Birthday Turkey!"

How does he do it? How does a man who subsists on wine, liquid hot fire, researching Northern soul records, and belaboring over crafting tweaked out psychedelic song arrangements remain cool during the summer months? 'Morey's Weapons' is a brief Palestinian Bluetooth expose designed to shed light on the aforementioned question.



The Hair Dryer: Before leaving the house each day the hair dryer dictates when Morey's feet will actually hit the street. If when picking up Morey noon is the agreed upon time of inception prepare to arrive at the earliest 1:30PM and await his offer to come up to have some peas or green beans while he finishes up "shuffling."



Thee Hot Sauce: This particular hot sauce is referred to by Morey as the definitive hot sauce, El Yucateco. If Morey went to the movies he'd put hot sauce on his Milk Duds. Justin Angelo Morey refuses to attend movie theaters.




The Freeze Out: Song writing sessions for The Black Hollies are conducted behind the Ice Curtain in a 10X12 room that fluctuates between the actual temperatures of 58 and 62 degrees. Both Ferrante and Wiley have taken to wearing the poncho during rehearsals not as a fashion statement but as a literal source of warmth. Carlo Rossi jugs of Paisano wine provide the warmth for Morey and Gonnelli. The logic of the Ice Curtain is such that the frigid temperature acts as a sound proofing agent against a neighboring room which houses a band that Justin Angelo refers to as, "Motley Brew." The colder it is in The Black Hollies' room the less offensive are the sounds emanating from that of Motley Brew.