Christmas is just too fun for us to pass up a chance to pump out Christmas themed podcasts all month long! Send us a Christmas card and we'll make sure to read it on the Christmas podcasts over then next several weeks leading up to Christmas. Clintons Headquarters Po Box 7068 Bozeman, MT 59771 Tell me what you think of this episode... Clintons Television: Podcast 7 (Xmas 1)

he standard format for a song is something like this: Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, guitar lead, bridge, chorus or Chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, guitar lead or Verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus There are more variations of this but whatever the case may be, you must get to the chorus no later than one minute after the start of the song. In most cases, if your song doesn't get to the chorus, otherwise known as the "hook", sooner than 45 seconds into the song, most producers, record labels, and radio stations won't think it's "radio friendly" and therefore it won't get played on the radio. This is why there's a "standard" for the format of a song. If you want radio play then you follow the rules. Those who take risks with this format rarely get radio play. John Mayer's new album is amazing. He gets better with every album and he's going to be around for a long time. He is respected by some of the biggest stars and musicians ever to exist and therefore has power in the music business. One of the most amazing songs on his new record, Continuum, called "Belief", breaks the rules. This song's format is: verse, verse, chorus, bridge, guitar lead, chorus. The "hook" doesn't even come in until 1:49!! Absolutely blows my mind. I believe that his label said something like "John, the subject matter of this song is so amazing, it's so timely with the state of the world, it can hit so hard right now if you just arrange it so that hook is in there three or four times instead of just two...and damn it, John, with the potential of this song, you really need to hit the hook at around forty five seconds!" I believe John will release many songs on this record (more than the standard three) and I believe that "Belief" will be one of them despite it's glaring disrespect for "the rules". "We're never gonna win the world, we're never gonna stop the war, we're never gonna beat this if belief is what we're fighting for" -John Mayer

As you know, John bought a monkey last year and it can finally walk.
But seriously folks...I'm totally messing with you. I was just checking out the Ryan Shupe & The Rubber Band site that John was talking about in his blog and saw the monkey in one of their blogs. It cracked me up so I thought I would steal it!

So I got the pictures up but still no Jimmy Jessup. Soon, my friends. Soon. We're heading into the studio tonight to record a few songs in front of a live audience. Hopefully it'll turn out good! It's really last minute which is sort of exciting because sometimes that's how you can get really magical stuff but I suppose it could really suck too. We'll see I guess. I thought I'd officially let you all know that Andrew will be leaving the band in a few weeks. He and his girlfriend are moving to Tennessee for school and whatever else that wonderful state brings them. The good news is that, after plenty of worrying, we've found an amazing replacement named A.J. He's originally from Billings and has one more year of school at U of M. He's been playing bass for about eight years and has loads of attitude and confidence all the while maintaining his status as Montana's nicest guy. We're really jacked to have him aboard.

Damn it's been a while. My head has been spinning with amazing new plans for the Clintons. Here's a brief description for you: The next Jimmy Jessup REALLY IS on it's way. I'm just a dumb ass and messed up some of the project files and need to redo some parts of it. Hopefully soon. If you haven't noticed the link on the right side of the main page that says MAPS, go CHECK IT OUT Expect to see further developments with the new association between MAPS and The Clintons! The next bootleg is still scheduled for sometime in August. I'm not stringing you along, I promise! It just takes time to get everything printed and all of the packages put together. We have a deal pending with Spark Entertainment out of LA. Their job is to place our music in Film and Television as well as anything else that requires original music, like video games and tv commercials etc. I'll keep you all posted. A new photo gallery is on its way. It'll contain several live shots from our recent outdoor shows in Helena and Bozeman. Two very successful shows!

At the deli I usually go to, there are four choices for smoked turkey ranging from $2.99/lb to $5.49/lb.  Sure, the more expensive stuff does taste better and has a more not-processed texture, but do you REALLY need to spend the extra money for the "good" stuff?

My answer is no.  All you have to do is have the cheap stuff cut REALLY thin.  Then you get around the cheap, almost ham-like, consistency and it's as good as the "good" stuff.  Problem solved.  Now go spend all of that extra money that you saved on upgrading that 18er of Keystone Light to a 30 pack!

The bootleg list has been keeping me busy this past week or so.  I'm ecstatic that so many people are signing up to get free music in the mail.  It really seems to be taking off like crazy.  

If you sign up now you'll still get bootleg #1 but bootleg #2 is growing near!  Bootleg #2 will debut 8 new Clintons songs that stand a really good chance of making it onto the next record.  Of course it all depends on the feedback we get from you guys.  I expect #2 to be out sometime in late July or early August.  Of course that's quite a bit later than my first estimate of early June but I've decided to spruce things up quite a bit from #1 so it should be worth the wait.

John, Andrew and I went for a run when we got up.  As we all hit the pavement Andrew decided to take off his shirt.  After all, it was about 80 degrees.  John quickly followed suit and I thought "what the hell, three shirtless dudes running down main street looks about as straight as Richard Simmons but we're in BFE so who cares".  It wouldn't have been that bad but John was wearing his signature, late 80's style, jean shorts.  Who wears those?  My god.

So as we get a few blocks into our run I begin mocking what the typical gun toting, ford truck driving, Minnesotan hick might yell at us as he's driving by.  Sort of in the spirit of Deuce Bigelow's "keep it in the circus!!!", "freak!!",  "that's a huuuuuge bitch!".  But mine was, "faaaags", "homos!!" and stuff like that.  It was fun laughing at the thought of us running down main street looking like this and having dudes driving by with their loud glass packs yelling these sorts of things.  Well, about a block after I began this hilarious banter to make my bros laugh, a dude in about a '91 Ford Ranger drove by, rolled his window down and yelled, "Faaaaags!!".  I about shit myself I was laughing so hard.

Tonight was our first show at Floyd's Bar in Victoria.  It was about 45 minutes away from Hutchinson so the drive was a walk in the park.  It was an outdoor show.  I felt like I was in Margaritaville if that tells you anything about this place.  Pretty cool vibe.  There were a raft of bikers there.  All with thirty thousand dollar custom choppers and Harleys.  The place was packed and we saw a lot of familiar faces.  We were done playing by 12am Central time.  We partied for an hour before tearing down and still got home by 2am!  How cool is that? (very)

Day 1 of the Clintons' maiden voyage into Minnesota. We left Bozeman at 5:30am this morning and began our trek east towards Hutchinson, MN. Compared to the West Coast swing last week it was an absolute dream of a trip. Just a hair under 18 hours on the road but it flew by. Josh took the first shift then I drove for about six hours and then he took us on in. We're now in Hutch and everyone is heading off to bed (1:06am). We had some drinks and laughs out on the Keehr porch. Linda (Josh's mom) was talking about how we should go to the chicken fry at Trobec's Bar in St. Stephen on Tuesday but what I heard was, "chicken fight" instead of "chicken fry". There was a laugh at my expense on that one. Shit, it's Minnesota, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to have someone suggest we play an acoustic set at a chicken fight. They have meat raffles here for Christ's sake! Tomorrow night we play our first show at Floyd's Bar in Victoria. I have no idea what to expect. Talk to you then.

The last trip was bitter sweet. Every show was totally bitchen and exceeded all expectations (even Spokane). Portland was the highlight as we ended the tour at the Bitter End in front of hundreds of fuckin jacked up Clintons fans. This is significant because Portland has always been a thorn in our sides because we could never find a venue that work for us and even then we couldn't buy a crowd. So thanks to Portland for abiding hard! I've already confirmed a return show at the Bitter End on July 29th! It seems the venue was glad to have us back since we packed their club on a shitn SUNDAY NIGHT! So that was the "sweet". As we ended the second night of the tour in Spokane, John's amp quit working and I started to get sick. By the next night (the High Dive in Seattle) it was all I could do to get out of bed and play a show. I did my best to step on stage and put in 110% despite my pure misery. It only got worse for me though. I spent the next two days sleeping until the show time rolled around. The whole think was like a dream. Even the part where John got hit by a drunk driver in Seattle. That sucked. I still have huge tonsils and I'm tired all the time but I will abide like no other in Minnesota no matter how I feel. We're all really looking forward to the maiden voyage! I'll try to get pics this time. I'm disappointed that I didn't get any on the last trip.