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HOUSE OF BLOG

It was a cool and breezy night in the bustling city of Dallas Texas. Darcy piled in the Van Occupanther (our van) and rattled off into the sunset. But this was no happy ending. No, this was just the beginning of Darcy's House of blues extravaganza. Early for the first time in history, Darcy made it's way to the loading dock at the legendary House of Blues, parking beside a team of enormous tour buses. Fear Factory had arrived only moments earlier leaving a trail of fear in their wake. Darcy, trembling and whimpering like newborn kittens, staggered toward the stage, not knowing what to expect (they weren't playing with Fear Factory, in case you were wondering).

The band loaded in and ordered a few HOB burgers, so juicy, so filling. And as they ate, the room began filling... with people who slowly crept out of the woodwork to see what Darcy had been cooking up over the past few months. Then, with bellies full and sagging, Darcy lunged for the stage, eager to unveil some new songs. They played. They rocked. They burped. And in what seemed like an instant, they were finished.

They made some new friends and saw some old friends. Rachel Altsman drove from Memphis TN to see the show and wend home with the highly coveted Most Dedicated Fan Award. Lee Martin won the Invited the Most People Award, and of course, Stacy Blaylock won the Took The Best Pictures Award... again.

All in all, the night was a smashing success... except that the recording equipment didn't work. But hey, there will always be next time. As soon as we know when it is, we'll let you know. Who knows maybe you'll walk home with a highly coveted Darcy Award. (no actual awards are handed out, but maybe someday we'll be filthy rich and we can afford trophies. and i don' t mean the short stupid trophies that you get even if you lose. no i'm talking a double decker, shiny won with a guy rocking out on top!)

Well guys, here's the video.

If you like what you see, please copy this code and embed the video any place you like! The more views this video gets the better for ol' darcy.

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We had a little bit of a script and a little time... but we didn't have any money.

Here's how it went down: we needed a music video for Catchy Melody. We hired/asked our friends at Storied Productions to help us out. Fearless director, Josh Mcfall, took on the project without realizing how many ridiculous ideas Darcy would hurl his way. After a week he was a believer, but creating the storyline for the Catchy Melody was only half the battle... actually we would find out that it was not even close to half the battle. It was more like the plan for the battle, but what we found out about battles is that planning the battle is quite a bit easier that actually battling in the battle. So after much analogizing i finished the story.

we hit the streets of Denton with a camera and a dream. The first night of shooting went about 4 hours longer than we had planned. At the end of the night we were sweaty, tired, hungry, and happy... just like the end of our tour this summer, except for the happy part. Anyway, the second day of shooting was just as wild and spectacular as the first. we shot a huge party scene in the basement of J&J's pizza. Ironically Darcy has never even played there,  but it will forever hold a special pizza shaped place in our hearts and stomachs.

with the first few shots out of the way we were sure the shooting would end some time the next week. little did we know that action shots such as a West Side Story remake and a Charlie Chaplain mock-up would take days and weeks and years to shoot!

after 1 and 1/2 months or rigorous shooting, we finially finished and the editing began... BUT NOW we dare say, the video is finished and ready to air at our Boiler Room show on Sept. 10th.

here's a peek behind the scenes of our video. If you can't make the showing, don't worry. we'll send you the youtube link and you can watch it over and over until you either die or just get sick of it.

It started innocently enough. We were booked to play a show at the White Rabbit in San Antonio. The show was great, by the way. Very few people were there to see us, but the room slowly filled while we were playing. I guess you have to start somewhere. We left at 1:30 in the morning to drive back to Dallas (we had a wedding in the morning). We got back at 6:00 am, slept for a little bit and went to the wedding. Happy Honey Moon Josh and Melissa! Nathan and Gunnar actually played at the reception. Then we loaded up, left our piano peddle, and went back to Denton for a short nap and ANOTHER SHOW! we played an acoustic show at Art 6, then went back to Austin for another acoustic show at The Saxon Pub. When we finally got home at 2:00 am Monday morning, we swore we'd never plan so poorly again... but that's yet to be seen.

Later this week, we'll be viewing the rough cut of our Catchy Melody music video that Storied Productions is frantically putting together for us. Also, we'll be reviewing a new website that Iamhypeonline.com just whipped up. It's going to be a fun week, and hopefully we won't have to drive 500 miles, like last weekend!

Here's a little welcome video that we made for our new website... it might be really dumb, but at the very least it's true to the nature of Darcy.

Lost video from the Darcy tour wherein Dustin dances and is stopped by the police. He then tries to woo the female cop with a flower. It fails.

As you know, darcy is home from their first tour, and Dustin has compiled a little video of their escapades. also, all of darcy would like to thank the people who voted for Darcy in the New Band Showcase at Cornerstone. We had a blast and really made some good contacts. we owe you mucho.

Also, if you read the comments on our last blog, you'll see that a lady by the name of Juliet found our band via a Wikipedia article about Mr. Darcy! What fortune!

here's the video:

(There's still a video on the way, by the way)

There I was, shaking in my boots, wondering how little Darcy would ever survive a weeks worth of heavy metal rock shows, and how we could ever manage to pull off THE MUSICAL...

Nathan pulled me aside, slapped me around a little and gave me pep talk of Biblical proportions. He said, "Fight and you may die. Run and you'll live, at least a while. And dying in your bed, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance--JUST ONE CHANCE!--to come back here and tell Cornerstone Christian Music Festival that they may take our lives, but they will never take our FREEDOM! BRAAAAAAARG!" and that really got my attention.

here's a blog that some dude at the festival wrote about us after our first show:

In addition to the aforementioned set from Stephen Petree, the other musical highlights of the day for me were the following:

• Darcy, a hooky, poppy band from Texas with a pretty good stage presence.  ”Catchy Melody” was the highlight of their set.

As mentioned by Jeff in an earlier post, Darcy showed up in vests & ties. I think this was their first Cornerstone - and they should be thankful that yesterday was cool and not blast-furnace hot as we often see here! It looks like these guys come from the University of North Texas, a school with a good reputation for their music program - it wouldn’t surprise me if the guys in Darcy were trained that way; it was apparent they knew how to play & sing.

thanks to Steve White for the Photos.

After this show we ran into a couple young ladies in a band called Poema. They said they were fans of Darcy from the new band showcase thing that we got 2nd place in. Their music was good and we got one of their hand-made CDs. They actually colored on each and every CD by hand, so no two are the same. Check them out and tell them Darcy sent you. Actually tell them Dustin sent you. I don't know where the other guys in the band are. www.myspace.com/poemamyspace

Even with such a smashing first show, Andrew had wrangled us into a Cornerstone Debut Performance of the Darcy Musical and i was still a little scared... the video of the performance is yet to come.

(Video still to come)

In case you didn't know already, Darcy is home from the DON'T TAKE NO PRISONERS FOR AN ANSWER tour. It was quite the roller coaster ride of laughs and cries.

We played a smoky club in Chicago on Friday night, but here’s the catch… no one under 21 was allowed in the club. Luckily for Darcy, Chase would be turning 21 at midnight that night… unluckily for Darcy, the show was at 11. We were worried, but we prayed that Chase would get in, and sure enough he just walked right in like he owned the place. What we forgot to pray was that I (Dustin) would bring my I.D. to the club. I left it on the other side of Chicago, so while everyone else was laughing and partying in the nice warm club, I was literally standing on the sidewalk looking thought the window, imagining what funny jokes and happy high-fives I’d be getting if I had only gotten in to the Red Line Tap that night. In the end, I got in, and we played a good show.

--time passed—

The next day we walked around Chicago during the Taste of Chicago festival. There were thousands of people milling around in the streets. It was like the scene in the movie where everyone is having innocent fun at a big, city wide festival right before a giant tidal wave comes and washes it all away… except no tidal waves ever showed up. we wound up having a great time.

--time passed—

We played a little church in Moline IL. We met two bands Delux Republic and Stria. We slept in someone’s basement… basements are good for sleeping.

--time passed—

We rolled into cornerstone and I was scared. There were 20 stages, and every one of them had a heavy metal band, growling and barking away. For the next week we would be camping amid the torrent of thunderous noise. Suddenly I was worried that the barber shop/pop/sissy rock style of Darcy would not go over well at Cornerstone. Little did I realize that Andrew had signed us up to perform THE MUSICAL!!!

--to be continued—

(Video still to come)

also dustin is on twitter, so if you want to get play-by-play updates on your favorite alien-loving friend you can follow him at www.twitter.com/dustindarcy

Good evening, or morning, however you would like to look at it.  Nathan and McKinney are busy playing chess, Gunnar and Alicia are chilling out, and Dustin is staring over my shoulder to make sure that I don't write anything incredibly dumb or heretical.  In case you haven't figured out, that leaves me, Chase, behind the wheel of this text machine.  Tour has been awesome so far, we played at Arsaga's last night, and our wonderful new friend, Kim, offered a place for us to stay, (she was house-sitting, so don't tell anyone), (on that note: to the Jones', you have a lovely house, and Darcy very much appreciates your hospitality, although you didn't offer it).  We are about to leave the Magic Bean and get on the road to meet Jason Todd in St Louis, where we have warm beds with soft pillows and various stuffed animals waiting for us.

Thoughts on the Magic Bean:  An interesting venue to say the least.  When we walked in, the ultra-vintage, super-fly Batman and Robin movie was playing on a big screen.  You know, the one with the World Security Panel, and the incredible Batcopter crash into the foam rubber truck.  Yeah, that one.  We saw tons of lightning bugs, Dustin ate tons of lightning bugs, and there was a kid rave-dancing with fireballs, with lightning bugs all around him.  It was a fun venue, and we definitely enjoyed talking to the Missourians.  

So, to calm your fears and quell your suspicions, nobody has died, we are all sane, although we'll see after tonight.

---------- (time passes)

McKinney told me to stop writing two days ago so that we could get on the road.  Thank you Jason Todd for letting us stay at your brother's house in St Louis yesterday! It was full of star wars memorabilia, and we all freaked out about the lightsaber.  So we drove from St Louis up here to Chicago, and now we're staying at Alicia's new place, and I have to admit, it's sweet, except for the suspicious murderer that lives downstairs.

Now we're trying to figure out what we want to do for the day, so if you think of anything, let us know... but i'm signing off.  Here's some pictures to remind you how much you love us.  

Darcy is for married people

a little F & R... flexing and resting

swimming anyone? yes.

only one more day... one more day

Au revoir.

By the way, keep voting for Darcy on the Cornerstone Website. We're still in the top ten, but we want to be first! go check it out and remember to vote early and vote often!

http://www.cornerstonefestival.com/newbandshowcase/Darcy/