Thanks to our friends at Cannondale Bikes, Bellwether, Flip Video, BumbleBar and Chipotle for helping make the ZEB tour a reality! Also, at every reading locations, enter to win a brand new Cannondale Bicycle with all proceeds going to the Pablove Foundation.

Catch James Kaelan on the following dates:

Jul-2 Los Angeles, CA: [Skylight Books, 7pm]
Jul-3 Oxnard, CA: camping @ Join the Farm
Jul-4 Carpenteria, CA: camping @ Shepard Farms
Jul-5 Santa Barbara, CA: [loc/event - tba]
Jul-7 Santa Maria, CA: camping @ Blosser Urban Garden
Jul-8 San Luis Obispo, CA: [Barnes & Nobles]
Jul-13 Santa Cruz, CA: [loc/event - tba]
Jul-16 San Francisco, CA: [Green Apple Books]
Jul-18 Napa, CA: [loc/event - tba]
Jul-19 Davis, CA: [loc/event - tba]
Jul-20 Sacramento, CA: [Pangaea Cafe & Pub w/ after-party at the Flame Club]
Jul-21 Marysville, CA: camping @ Godfrey Family Farms
Jul-22 Chico, CA: [Lyon's Books]
Jul-23 Marysville, CA: camping @ Kitchel Family Organics
Aug-2 Tiller, OR: camping @ Perma Organic Farm
Aug-6 Lebanon, OR: camping @ The Mushroomery
Aug-7 Salem, OR: camping @ Minto Island Growers
Aug-8 Portland, OR: [Powell's Books, 4pm]
Aug-10 Colama, WA: camping @ R & C Ranch
Aug-12 Olympia, WA: [loc/event - tba]
Aug-13 Puyallup, WA: camping @ Mother Earth Farm
Aug-14 Seattle, WA: [Ravenna Third Place Books - tba]
Aug-17 Arlington, WA: camping @ Garden Treasures
Aug-18 Vancouver, BC: [loc/event - tba]

The Sundance Channel co-production nominated for Best Documentary at Hawaii International Film Festival

Click to watch the Rio Breaks trailer

“Gentle, touching and gorgeously lensed, Rio Breaks meshes a heartfelt hymn to surf-love with a harsh tale of slum survival. It’s a beautifully bittersweet vision of growing pains on the rough side of Rio, intimately unpeeling favela life’s poverty, violence and angst while still shining with the fragile hopes and joys of childhood.” — Jonathan Crocker, Little White Lies Magazine

Set against the volatile and dangerous world of the favelas, Rio Breaks tells the story of two surf-obsessed friends, 13-year-old Fabio and 12-year-old Naamã. The pair live in Rio de Janeiro’s Favela do Pavão, which is controlled by one of the city’s most dangerous drug gangs. However, their attention is focused on the waves of Arpoador Beach and on a coming surfing event that may help them become professionals and escape the world of gangs. Nominated for Best Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival and winner of the Special Jury Mention at the San Sebastian Surfilm Festibal, this Sundance Channel co-production by Director Justin Mitchell (Death Cab for Cutie: Drive Well, Sleep Carefully, Jenny Lewis: Welcome to Van Nuys, Ted Leo: Dirty Old Town & Songs for Cassavetes) and Writer Vince Medeiros (Surfing & Huck Magazine) is an inspired and hugely original documentary that takes the surf film genre into never-before-seen territory.

As a result of Rio Breaks‘ screening on Brazilian television, Naamã’s dream came true when he went surfing with multiple world surfing champion Kelly Slater in Hawaii.

Rio Breaks will be available on DVD and as a digital download from the Factory 25 website beginning August 31st (pre-order now available).

Common Prayer is a Brooklyn, NY based group fronted by songwriter/principal heretic Jason Sebastian Russo seeing the release of their debut album, There Is A Mountain June 1st (digital)/July 19th (UK physical). The band has signed to Big Potato Records in the UK, a label founded in part by Neil Halstead, with plans for a late 2010 European jaunt.

In the album’s eleven elaborately cinematic outsider-pop tracks, violin innuendos and organ riffs tangle with scrap metal samples and found sounds. While thoughtful and often somber in theme, Russo’s songs are playfully bizarre, informed by extensive field research in the life of the heartbroken, reckless, romantic and mentally ill from a reflective and victorious post-everything perspective.

Download “Us vs. Them” off There Is A Mountain by clicking HERE.