These songs were recorded on cassette tape in rest stops, parks, living rooms, venues, and on top of the van, during a two month tour in the summer of 2008

family tree was david van patten, kevin klein and lexi lee. with special appearances by tiffany davy, adriana riviera and danny moore.

All songs written by Family Tree except:
"True Love" by Daniel Johnston
"Jorge Regula" by Moldy Peaches
"Hello My Name Is Simon" by Saturday Night Live

special thanks to warren woodward for digitizing more than 6 hours of material. which he has yet to be paid for.

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This summer marks the 10 year anniversary of the cross country tour/adventure of the freak folk band “family tree.” In case you don’t remember, The 2008 era was completely drenched in freak folk, twee, and country. We were very inspired by the music of the time but I believe we reached deeper to a strong sense of originality. Some of our songs were influenced by folky Beatle and Elliott Smith tunes, others by the old timey Woody Guthrie era, others by children’s twee songs, and others kinda punk. I still believe that Mumford & Sons ruined folk. Fuck them forever!

Anyways, Kevin Klein, Lexi Lee (June Cream), and myself, Dave Van Patten, were all prolific songwriters, so the chemistry and collaboration between the three of us was something I have never experienced in any other band. I feel like it was a magical mix that just comes once at a lucky time in life. When we hit the road in June the summer of 2008 we obviously had more than enough material for a couple set lists, but throughout the trip our chemistry exploded and we wrote dozens of new songs, many times on the spot and completely improvised. As we embarked on the journey, Lexi brought her suitcase full of tapes and to our unexpected fortune the radio and tape player broke within the first half an hour! I believe this forced silence allowed our brains to connect more with the creative song writing part, rather than being constantly entertained by new tape mixes.
We brought a couple of friends along through the first part of the trip, Tiffany Davy, and Adriana Rivera, who departed from us in Georgia. Our venture through the south provided a bulk of sarcastic inspiration, leading us to write satirical songs about the south in the George W. Bush era., “These colors don’t run” is one of my favorites. We wrote other songs about being down and out on the road, sleeping on people’s floors, and eating raw oats every day. We were on such a tight budget that sometimes we'd stop in Whole Foods and just eat every sample we could find. We left for the trip with a bunch of gigs booked, and a bunch of open ended question marks. In some towns we’d pull up and approach the local bar and end up playing on the spot. We played at the Marfa, TX radio station, dozens of house shows, and even got busted by the cops in New York for drinking 40s on the street while singing “swing low Sweet chariot.” One time I randomly ran into an old friend of mine in the bathroom of a café in Olympia. Crazy shit like that just seemed to happen every single day on this trip. It was an idealistic summer and every town we went to was filled with other touring freak folks, including the hub in Anacortes where we got to play with Lake and all the K records people. Some of the time we crashed on peoples couches, sometimes slept in the van, sometimes on top of the van, and sometimes out in the fields. On the Oregon coast we slept on the beach a few nights. In Asheville, we stayed with a weird Amish cult for two nights and they gave us a bunch of yerba maté. Another night I slept in the stable of a barn in Massachusetts, where I picked up my friend Daniel Moore, who joined us for the second half of the trip. In New Orleans it was too hot to sleep in the van, so I sifted through the city at night, climbed onto a random church rooftop, threw down some cardboard and slept for the night. This was one of the freest times of my life and most idealistic, and the soul showed through the music. By the end of the two months of living out of the van we couldn’t stop laughing about how many scattered oats, bits of honey and peanut butter chunks were caked on everything. One time Lexi was walking around and realized she had honey on her elbow.....! When we finally returned home to Long Beach, the house on 5th and Rose was so packed, people had to watch from outside through the windows. That was probably our best show ever, and also our last. Kevin left for Germany shortly after and fell in love, causing him to stay. Lexi and I had disputes over the band van which I caused to get towed because of parking tickets. And eventually we all just moved on. And actually… We did play one more reunion show at Que Sera in 2009, but that kinda doesn’t count.
These recordings we’re done on a shitty 4 track, and sometimes a voice recording tape player I bought at Rite Aid. Some of the songs are live recordings and some of them are recorded at our friends house in Portland. Some of them recorded in the van. Together, the recordings have an authentic sketchbook feel that resonated at the time and hopefully still now. Thank you for reading and enjoy!