at festivals like Laguna Seca Daze and the HORDE tour. Their third album Shootout was recorded in early 1996 and released in October of that year. American Records failed to promote the album and eventually dropped the band from their roster. Changes and later days Their music shifted direction around 1997, with shorter, radio-friendly songs, instead of longer multiple sectioned songs. They started to get into basic country-style songwriting, but it didn't fit with drummer Mike Wofchuck's style, so they replaced him with John Hofer, formerly of The Freewheelers. In 1996, the band members moved out of the Chestnut Street house in Chico, to the San Francisco Bay Area, where they are currently based. They recorded the stripped-down Later Days album and self-released it in May 1998. They continued playing frequently, focusing mostly on California cities, with occasional jaunts to Utah or the Pacific Northwest. They self-recorded another album, the more pop-oriented Green Hills of Earth. Indie label Future Farmer liked the album and released it, but, again, the album did not promote the band to their desired popularity. Bassist Isaac Parsons left the band in March 2002, to spend more time with his son. He was replaced by Paul Hoaglin (co-producer of Back To The Grotto and Part Timer Goes Full). In September 2002, Greg Loiacono, lead guitarist, decided he too needed a break, and the band went on indefinite hiatus after two shows at Slim's in San Francisco in February 2003. Hiatus During the hiatus, Tim Bluhm was the most active musically. He enlisted the Southern California band Five Foot Tuesday as backup, but played to smaller audiences. Greg also formed a band, the Sensations. Also in 2004 two documentaries about the Mother Hips were completed, Patrick Murphree's Stories We Could Tell, a detailing of the history of the Mother Hips, told by the Hips themselves, friends, and family, and Bill DeBlonk's This is the Sound, a compilation of footage from the band's entire career. (A third movie followed in 2006, Dave Schwartz's chronicle of a 2003 Santa Cruz show, Beauty Rock.) Reunion and present day Toward the end of 2004 the Mother Hips reunited and started playing shows again. They recorded an EP, Red Tandy, followed by a full-length album, Kiss the Crystal Flake, released in April 2007. The song "Time We Had" from the album was in November 2007 featured in the music video game Rock