And the summer 2017 announcements begin! Dispatch is returning to Colorado this June for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Tickets are available here.

The 20th anniversary pressing of Silent Steeples landed this morning and it's available now in our web store.

Every copy of the white 2xLP album is individually numbered and comes with an instant MP3 download.

So that’s it!  Just as fast as we went into the cave we came right back out.  14 days straight recording batches of songs, 17 in total that will likely get whittled down to 10-12 for our new album.  All the primary rhythm guitar tracks, secondary color tracks, and now drums + percussion have been laid down. So exciting to feel and see the center of each new song now that they have finally moved from demo to production! 

We also surfed without wetsuits for about 11 minutes one day, met a blind dog named Atticus hiking around some old missile silos, ate beet salad like it was going out of style, and quoted our go to movies until we could laugh no more… Saturday Night Live clips, particularly Kate McKinnon skits, lit us up many many times… Anything to keep it fresh and the creativity light and flowing...

Stoked to take a week long break now to get our ears back, and then we’ll get back crackin’ on all the overdubbin’. And den mon, we be laying down all dem vocals! Honestly can’t wait for this next phase… Kind of like building a house where it can take forever to get from dreaming it up to drawings, and then to laying the foundation and framing out the structure... Well that’s where it feels like we are now, checking out all the wet cement and framing of these new tunes… And if all is completely Bomber, than we’ll so enjoy seeing it all go up so fast from here!  Vocals, harmonies, and keys are walls and paint; claves, shakers, programming, boot stomps and claps are floors and ceilings; and then the last little bright & chimy details, usually on kiddie piano, xylophone, finger bells, or glockenspiel, are the finishing details like doors and tile and backsplash and… Yea something like that anyway!

Just a really fun and ever-changing process, with so many twists and turns that you just have to go for the ride… There’s this illusion of control in a recording process because of all the preparation and practice you’ve put into a new batch of songs. But the truth is the creative process is something you can’t control, but instead have to surrender to… And then the songs start to reveal themselves by the strength of their spirit and how much they have to say, and we just respond to what a song is calling for!  So yea, it’s been and will continue to be a melting down of many thoughts and ideas, riffs + references, to create an alchemy unique to this moment for the band. 

More to come… We’ll surely keep you posted as we can’t wait to share the new music with you!!

B,C+P

We are set half way up a mountain side in a recording studio that is equal parts tall ship and castle- made from timber, glass, and stone of all different shapes and sizes. Pretty much everything here feels like it was found, salvaged, or drifted up on shore! And we can see and hear the constant wash of the waves breaking a quarter mile below us too. (Ahh if we could only zip line it!) Just an amazing and super inspiring place to make music and bring new songs to life.

We’re 5 days in at this point and have been laying down layer upon layer of everything stringed - acoustic guitar, electric, 12 string, suitcase guitar, high strung, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, & charango- for 9 songs thus far. Another 5-6 songs to go the next few days and then we’ll start building the thump, where we’ll bring out all the frame drums, percussion, & drum kit.

And it’s all happening in one huge open room which is a really cool vibe. Really different than a conventional studio with lots of separation, glass, and isolation booths. Starting our days with hikes, beach walks, coffee, and Dandy Lion tea.
Speaking of, day 6 is about to begin!

- Brad

P.S. You can keep up with the latest stuff happening in the studio on Facebook and Instagram.

We've posted the first installment of the DISPATCH Bootleg Series. Volume #1 is a recording of our acoustic show at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC where we performed for the prime minister of Zimbabwe. The free album download is available now in the music hub. More to come!

iPhones and iPads don't support .zip file downloads so you'll want to visit the music hub on your computer or Android device. However, you can stream the album from any device.

P.S. Please consider leaving a dollar or two to help us cover server costs and continue to provide free music for the DISPATCH community.

Hope your summer is kicking off with heaps of sunshine.. So hard to believe this time last year we were rehearsing for our DISPATCH:HUNGER shows at MSG. Man time is flying, and well so are we - in just a few weeks - to Europe for our summer tour. So yea, we’re psyched to hit the road on the other side of the pond and hope to see a lot of you over there...

Well let’s see… So what’s been happening as of late? Well I (Brad) recently got back from Nicaragua where Love Light + Melody hosted our annual Day of Light Music Festival... Pete and his family were recently rocking out with Beck and many other amazing artists at Mountain Jam Festival… And rumor has it Chaddo has been spotted driving the Big Blue across the country (actually that’s his cousin Jake who just won the national title in lacrosse!)

But what we’ve really been doing is writing and demo’ing lots of new songs for a new DISPATCH record - stoked to record these puppies and play 'em live.

Our plan is to record the album in the late fall and then release it sometime early next year, rolling right into a summer '17 tour…

And for any of you who will be in Europe with us, we’ll be road testing a handful of the new songs over there! We're gonna try to record some of the shows and post some songs on the web. We'd also love to see any footage or hear any recordings you all do during the tour so drop us an e-mail with a link.

The one bit of sad tour news is that our compadre Pete has to stay stateside because of some unexpected health issues. So we’ll be flying in the Missing Man formation for this run, but will rock hard with Petey in our pockets as we anticipate his quick return. Our friends Matt Embree (from RX Bandits) and JR will be joining in to help us crank up the volume! We've been in the barn shedding the newbies hard in preparation for our trip to Europe.

Speaking of tunes, we just launched a new DISPATCH website (this one you're on right now) where you can stream and download our entire catalog, for free! We're gonna try to add some board tapes from the archives in the coming months so let us know if there are any shows you want to hear. One other thing, iPhones and iPads don't support album downloads from websites so you'll want to use your computer or Android device.

Thanks as always for listening and playing it loud! And we’ll be back in touch soon with an update on the new album and our touring plans for next summer…

Brad, Chad, & Pete

DISPATCH has a lot planned for the next year so we thought it was the perfect time to launch a new website, including the music hub where you can stream and download all of DISPATCH's music for free. Enjoy.