Hello Friends,We're back on the road, currently in some super beautiful area outside of Austin, Texas. We are happy to be back in our natural state: our possessions are crammed into a sweaty storage unit, our podcasts and audio books are downloaded and queued, our hygiene is on an oddly graceful decline, and hopefully everything else is in the trailer.We had a fantastic show in Flagstaff, AZ last week at the Hotel Monte Vista where Jonathan Best and Carlos B. Jones joined us for a great evening of tunes. We want to thank all our friends who dressed up, piled into several cars, drove two hours north to support us (you make us look so good!!), then returned home around 4 AM on a school/work night. You're insane. And we really benefit from that. THANK YOU. We miss you terribly and can't wait to see you again on May 5th back in Preskitt. Let's get together and make some regrettable decisions.The next day we drove to Albuquerque to meet up with our sweet and wonderful friends, Tara and Brooks, whom we know from Bozeman. We had a nice, relaxing evening in perfect weather and company and a fantastic home-cooked dinner to boot. The next day, Jonathan and Carlos drove from Prescott at 5 AM and joined us in Albuquerque to play a swanky speakeasy-themed joint called Vernon's Black Diamond Lounge. Once again, we had a great time with our fabulous band-mates, and staggered into bed quite late that night. Thanks to Jonathan and Carlos for driving all that way, playing their asses off, and driving all the way home the next day. We adore those two.On Saturday, we drove down to Las Cruces, NM for a show at the Las Alturas House Concert series with our host, Lee Herman. We're relatively new to the house concert thing, and we are officially hooked. Lee cooked us a lovely dinner with wine, set us up in a grand guest room, and had about 25 fabulous friends walk through the door for a super fun, intimate show experience. He has the perfect living room complete with stage lights and great sound. As you can imagine, house concerts are all about the personal, intimate concert experience and they provide the perfect situation for back stories. And let's be honest, many of our songs could use an explanation, so that was a good thing. Lee is moving to Chicago and will be doing the Windy City Concert Series at that point so we sure hope to see him again up north.The next morning, Lee filled us with a delicious frittata and a pitcher of coffee and we started our 12 hour drive to Austin, Texas. As the landscape changed from brown to green and the air took on a damp weight, we listened to Steinbeck's "Cannery Row", some new favorite artists, and enough silence to work on some new material. We stopped in Ozona for dinner at "Pepe's" (which, from the outside, reminded us of Quentin Tarantino's "From Dusk Til Dawn", but luckily for us, what you see is what you get at Pepe's, and we got great Mexican food in a room packed full of Ebay plunder).Next up: we visit Austin today, we play in Memphis on Thursday, Knoxville on Saturday for a radio show and then again that night in Asheville, North Carolina. All details under our "Tour Dates" tab.Until next time...
Our New Album is Finally Released!
Today is the day folks! Our new album, Fables And Falsehoods, is available today on a few major retailers, such as CD Baby, Itunes, and Amazon (Physical CD or MP3 Download). Here is the first paragraph from a recent review:"Fables and Falsehoods is the brilliant, sepia-toned soaked offering from Tumbledown House that starts off like a black and white silent film and keeps rollicking along into a colorful tapestry of clever tales of woe and object lessons wrapped in a crushed-velvet punch. Gillian Howe and Tyler Ryan Miller, the duo who are Tumbledown House spared no expense; left no rock unturned, and climbed every mountain high to unearth a sweet, tasty, little gem of an album."For this album, we enlisted the talents of 10 other musicians (including members of New Orleans' Dirty Dozen Brass Band) for a whimsical collection of songs tinged with 1920′s big band and dark tango.Releasing an album is both rewarding and challenging. I often relate the process of writing, tracking, mixing, and producing a new CD to childbirth (not that I have any real experience of what it's like to be in labor). But producing an album is daunting; it forces an artist to be extremely self-critical. During the mixing process, we labored over every note and contemplated the most subtle of effects. The discussions over artistic direction, visual presentation, and theme lasted well into the early morning hours of many a night. After the album is mixed and mastered, after the artwork has been tediously finalized, and after the online marketing campaign has been executed, the body and mind need time to forget the horrors they've endured. Slowly, the creative process resumes again: ideas start churning, melodies introduce themselves, and the cycle continues..We hope you love Fables and Falsehoods. Special Thanks go out to Jeremiah at Peach St. Studios for his engineering expertise during the tracking process, Robert and Rhea Hawkins for the beautiful photography, Brett Allen at SnowGhost Music for being a damn fine mixing engineer, and David Glasser over at Airshow for adding that last coat of paint in mastering.Cheers,TR
Maybe Critics Aren't So Bad After All...
We just wanted to share a few things that have been written about us recently. Here's a sparkling review of our new album from The Bozone, a local entertainment paper in Bozeman, Montana.The Bozeman Magpie also ran an article about us that can be found here.Thank you so much to the writers that took the time to listen and put in the effort to compose such engaging pieces.Cheers!TR
A Seasonal Review in Pictures
When the snows come to northern Arizona, there is less shock and insult than when they come to, say, Montana, where one hardly feels one has gotten a fair share of the long-awaited summer months one deserves. Instead, the snow in Prescott, Arizona, falls in thick, soft flakes, and the courtyard square is decorated to an extent that would make Jesus blush; there are countless parades and events celebrating celebration. Then the snow usually disappears completely in the next 72 hours or so. That’s really the way to do it. Everyone gets drunk on festivities (and hot toddies) and sunshine, yet no one has to be bitter about commuting with chains and a shovel.Although these perfect Arizona winter conditions gently remind us of our not-so-gentle winter ahead in Montana, we can’t help but feel a little nostalgic for the glorious summer and fall we had this year. So before we pack our summer things away, we wanted to stroll down memory lane, in the only modern marketing way we know how: a blog with more pictures than words.
Enjoy.
Alaska in June: 12 shows in 13 days, thanks to the boys at Monolith Agency. We’ve got complete and never-ending love for that state and we can’t wait to return in 2012.
Then we went back to Arizona for a hot second, just in time for some desert blooms and a fabulous Great Gatsby party. When it comes to costume parties, our lovely Prescott friends are willing, nay, eager to impress.
Then it was back to Montana, where we rented a U.S. Forest Service Cabin for 6 days. No electricity, heat, or plumbing. Good for songwriting, reading, drinking, and the honing of mountain-man skills. Maybe if you’re already in the mountains they’re just called man skills.
We recorded our next album at Peach Street Studios in Bozeman with Emmy-winning engineer, Jeremiah Slovarp. The stars aligned: the Dirty Dozen Brass Band happened to be coming through town and we got E.T., Roger, and Greg on the album! Then we found ourselves in beautiful Bigfork, Montana, singing at Jack Hanna’s house and partying with Wayne Newton. These things just won’t happen if we stay home every night.
We finally got to beautiful Colorado and did a quick tour through Boulder, Nederland, and Denver. The highlight was the loving crowd that came to see us at Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret in downtown Denver. That room blew our minds; it even had hand-made chandeliers.
In Whitefish, Montana, we mixed our album at SnowGhost with Brett Allen. We were tempted to touch a bunch of his knobs. He told us not to. Afterward, we sent the mixes to Airshow, in Boulder, to be mastered by David Glasser. It will be officially released in March, but we'll let you know all about that later. These pics are of the beautiful SnowGhost Studios.
We got to see lots of our family (even the arrival of another little niece, three days after my birthday!). We spent my birthday in the best bar in Montana: the Sip ‘N Dip. This is where Piano Pat (around 76 yrs. old) still plays 4 days a week and live mermaids swim behind the bar. I’ll spare my family's privacy, but those mermaids had it comin’.
We had a photo shoot for our upcoming album with Rhea and Robert Hawkins of Be A Deer, but those photos will be revealed in due time, my precious.
Then we went to northern California and spent Halloween with some friendly freaks...
Come to think of it, Thanksgiving wasn't much different: 
Well, we only have about 5 days left in Prescott (just enough to fit in another costume party before we go!). We have one more show with Jonathan Best on piano and Carlos B. Jones on drums (Saturday, Dec. 10th at The Raven Cafe), then a mid-day holiday party at Granite Creek Vineyards in Chino Valley (12:30-3:30pm, Sunday, Dec. 11th), then we’re off to Montana for two months of COLD. And hot springs. And hot toddies. And sunshine. Doesn’t sound so bad, after all.We hope to see you there.