Monday, October 1, 2007

Canada Part Deux

We’ve had some exciting adventures on the road since our last recap. We finished up a great Canadian run with Dragonette, and flew out to California for an epic three-day, sold out tour with The Sounds and UTIOG. I’ll just dive right into the recap, yes?

QUEBEC CITY / OTTAWA

By far the most French city we visited, it was a beautiful place with a beautiful club, Le Dagobert. As Martina commented, it was what we all imagined strip clubs to look like before actually visiting one on our friends 18th birthday. All Mirrors, sparkles, poles, and track lighting. We met some lovely French-Canadiennes, learned a few useful phrases, and got a completely incomprehensible parking ticket. Great. Our Ottawa show at Zaphod’s was cool as well. We had our first helping of Poutine (fries with gobs of cheese and gravy) which knocked us out by the end of the evening. I finally finished the remaining uploads for our album edits, which was a tremendous pain in the ass and a tremendous weight lifted.

MONTREAL / TORONTO

Montreal was possibly our favorite stop in all of Canada. We played a cool, intimate show at the Campus club, did an interview, and than partied in town with our new friends. Nevermind that we had to sleep in a Walmart parking lot the night before, and that we were sick as dogs. The city more than made up for it, and our heavy dosing of Robitussin helped us through. Plus, the place is packed to the hilt with the most stunning women in the country. Nice!

Our return trip to Toronto was for a myspace secret show at the Mod Club, a huge space that evokes visions of the Bowery or Irving Plaza in NYC. Its fun to play on a huge stage with a disco ball and flashing lights. That particular area of the city has a London vibe, lots of pubs and cafes with well styled and attractive young professionals hustling about. Our Canadian booking agents later took us out for huge plates of nachos, which put us all to bed.

KINGSTON AND HOME

Our triumphant return to Kingston (only one week later) was amazing. We did the town, reconnected with some new friends, and had an opulent dinner on Dan’s brother in law’s tab. The Queen’s Grad club staff took great care of us, and the five of us squeezed on their tiny stage to rock out up close and personal. Tea, sushi, and open bar was provided. Lovely ladies and gentlemen were in attendance. The band gave a drunk and inappropriate interview which actually turned out to be pretty funny - http://youtube.com/watch?v=fWCxM40KSsw

We said our tearful goodbyes to Dragonette at about 2am and started driving back to Philly. It was great playing with them. Great musicians and people, who have grown to love the absurdity of life on the road. Not to mention a raunchy sailor's sense of humor that could even make us blush. Customs were cleared with no problem (we were only 20 minutes behind the Genesis tour bus) and we got back home at about 9am. This gave us about 20 hours to regroup and sleep before heading to Newark airport for our LA flight.

I’ll post details of our CA adventure shortly.

Matt

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Losing our Canadian Virginity

Dear all -

After a fun and low key mini tour of South Jersey, we're back on the road and it feels great. We're out for a total of seven dates in eastern Canada. These are our first shows in Canada and our first shows outside the US for that matter, upgrading our status from National Phenoms to International Megastars. Please update your address books accordingly.

We have two new additions to our travel entourage. Ryan Petrillo, the AC Slater to Dan Larkin's Zach Morris, is joining us onstage playing keys, guitar, and singing backing vox. This fattens up the live experience, and frees me up to work the mic solo on a few songs. Its really improved our show, but I feel naked without my keyboard and I'm still trying to figure out all the right moves. Give me a few weeks and I'll find that perfect balance between Freddie, Mick, and myself. We also have talented youth Mr. Jeffery Hiltner on as crew / merch man. He's been quite helpful, and can play practically every song every written on guitar from memory. Seriously.

Other news - the album has been delivered for mix. The revisions by remote process has gone on for quite some time now, and our list of portable studio setups now includes cities across American, canada, in the van, hotels, back rooms, parking lots, offices, and an abandoned restaurant. Everything is sounding sick sick sick, better than we could have imagined. The producers did an amazing job, and now its being sent out to one of our favorite mixers ever, Mark Endert (both Maroon 5 albums, The Fray, Liam and Me). Not too shabby.

So here's our Canada recap to date.

KINGSTON, ON - Queens College

We rocked a really cool show at Queens college with Metric and We Are Scientists, mostly for the incoming freshman class. We got luxury treatment and hospitality from the staff, with our rider reqests (diet cherry vanilla dr. Pepper, dentyne, beer, batteries) largely being met. It was our first show with Ryan onstage, and despite a little sloppyness from our nervous energy the crowd was into it and we had a great time. Kicked it with the Scientists and the student body, and went to bed early as we had all pulled all nighters the previous evening.

TORONTO VIRGIN FESTIVAL

The Virgin festival was quite an adventure. A huge, professional, no bullshit rock show with all the amenities. It was an event we all would have paid to attend as fans, and we got to play! V-Fest was held on Toronto island, so all of our gear and personnel had to be taken across on the VIP artist ferry. We played our set on the Budweiser side stage, but we had the same treatment (pretty much) as all the big bands. We watched bands all day, ate some nice food, drank free beer, and met some great people.

After the show we after partied with some of our new friends, even grabbing a few drinks with members of the Killers and Smashing Pumpkins. We're heading back to Toronto in a few days, and we're looking forward to reconnecting with everyone.

That's it for now. Enroute to Quebec city for our string of dates with Dragonette.

More updates soon.

Matt

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Warped Tour Dates in Florida

Dear all –

I’m writing this as we drive to Charlotte, NC to our fifth of six Warped Tour dates – Four in Florida, NC, and NJ. Mr. Dave Weisse is joining us us our tour manager / merch handler / procurer. Our GPS tells us, in her sexy British accent, that we’ll be arriving sometime around 5am. Load in for the show begins at 9am, so it appears we’ll be sleeping in the car tonight.

Warped is a lot of fun. Tons of people, bands, oddities, promotional giveaways, and sunstroke. For a band traveling in a van with no crew, however, the scheduling can be brutal. We’re playing the Hot Topic / Kevin Says Stage, a solar powered setup with a really nice sound system. Here’s how it works pretty much every day:

9:30 am – arrive at the venue, battle for a parking spot
10:00 am – carry your gear and merch a quarter mile across a field in the blazing sun, check in
10:30 am – find out what time you’re playing, modify posters, fliers, picket signs, and other promotional materials accordingly
12:00 pm – Work the crowd, pass out fliers, try to get people to come see you play. The lineup for the Hot Topic stage isn’t posted on the big board, so it requires some explaining.
1 – 5 pm – Sometime in this range, we play our set. It changes every day. Up until our set starts, we try to promote as much as possible. When we’re finished we’re soaked with sweat and smelling delicious.
6:00 pm – Grab some dinner. Catering is surprisingly good, varied, and balanced.
6:30 pm – Carry all our stuff back across the desert and pack up.
7:00pm – Hit the road to the next destination. If we can get there early enough, we often have a place to stay. Today it ain’t happening.

Not that we can really complain. We’re reaching a lot of new people, and getting to know some really good bands. The production managers are very helpful and accomidating. Some bands even show up without a show to play, just wandering around in the sun, promoting and trying to sell CDs. Those guys are warriors with a work ethic we could never touch.

The highlights so far:

- Playing next to the ocean with a cooling breeze as dolphins lazily swam by in St. Petersburg (sounds like an airbrushed t-shirt you get at some trashy boardwalk)
- Meeting the cast of the film Superbad up close and personal in Miami
- Checking out The Automatic (Automatic), K-os, and a few other cool acts on the tour
- Sleeping over at our friend Emily’s house
- Kicking it with The Box Social, The Urgency, and meeting an endless stream of crazy people
- Huddling under a tent with six other bands trying to protect our gear from a flash flood

Progress on the record is good, and you can expect some new tracks to be posted soon. We’re shopping for an album mixer with some exciting prospects in the lineup.

Updated celebrity encounters: Michael Cera, Bam and Missy Margera, Jonah Hill, “McLovin”, Michael Rappaport, Rupert Grint, Paramour, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, NFG, blah blah blah.

Night.
Matt

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Second tour ends, back home for a bit

After wrapping up our tour with We Are the Fury and Rookie of the Year, we’re back at home for a few weeks of home cooking and regular beds. Its nice, but we’re already itching to get back on the road. We do need this time to touch up the record, catch up on logistics, and get our van fixed. Its also nice to have some privacy and time apart. Everyone got along famously in close quarters, but we’re not dying to hang out with each other on our off days. Strange, but unsurprising. Here’s the recap!

LA to Kansas City, MO -

We had a nice lunch with the Thrive staff (with more hot women added to the roster daily), and then got our characteristic late start leaving the city. We had to haul ass across America (again) to make it to Kansas City in 48 hours, but that didn’t stop us from a Grand Canyon stop. We made it on time, played a really cool show opening for Kill Hannah, and then partied with our friends and their four dogs. You have to check out the photo of the dancing Spongebob guy in our photoblog. This guy apparently comes to every show in full regalia and dances. Oh, and he’s married and has a kid.

Cleveland -

Our first contact with Rookie of the Year and We Are The Fury. We’d played a few shows with Rookie in the past, but had never really got to know the guys. All three bands immediately got along, however, setting the scene for much debauchery. The first show was low key and fun, but the after party was completely absurd. We went to an abandoned house in the burbs (with no power or furniture) and had a wild party in pitch darkness. Everyone slept over and woke up in a funk. Brandon from Rookie woke up with a massive laceration on his eye from a drunken faux pas. Fun times!

Boston –

Rocked a show with no monitor speakers, ate spicy ethnic food, bought weapons at a military surplus store, and had a sleepover party with some of our good friends. Fake moustaches were drawn. An intense game of “Red Rover” spontaneously generated during our set. Strange.

Portland, ME –

Met some cool local opening bands and reunited with some of the Boston show crazies. The spoiled rotten Furies ate lobster. We had Subway. After drinking tequila with a wasted Texan, and watching a drunk girl punch her own car window out (her keys had been confiscated by the bartenders) the group split up. McKenzie and I ended up sleeping in the van in a parking lot to be woken up by the police, and the rest went to a hospitable fan’s house for a slumber party.

New York –

The whole tour played with The Higher for our first sold out show of the run. It was a great set for everyone, but things got pretty chaotic at the Knitting Factory. The room was too small for the show, and many people got turned away at the door. NYC is our favorite place though, and we stuck around late night to hang out with some friends.

Baltimore, MD

Our happy return to the Ottobar. A tremendous amount of attractive girls were in attendance, including our favorite heavy drinking soccer moms. We spent the next two days relaxing in luxury at the Leon household (Dan’s girlfriend’s parents). They fed us steaks, wine, and Trader Joe’s finery, and let us lounge around and watch terrible movies. Good times.

Virginia Beach, VA

So far Virginia Beach has always been a disaster for us. Last time we had car trouble and were so late we missed our set. This time we miscalculated drive time and got there so late that we almost missed our set. Larkin was still parking the car as we were setting up on stage. When we finally got going, the power onstage cut out, cutting down our set time by a few songs. The rest of the bands played without issues. At the end of the show, we briefly parked outside to load out. As everyone said their tearful goodbyes, the VA Beach bike cops rolled up and gave everyone a series of ridiculous tickets and a really hard time. The only place to load out was the “trolley only lane”, and we were fast and efficient. Then these guys show up and held everyone up there for at least a half an hour, blocking more trolley traffic than we ever would have. Way to capture the spirit of the law. Hopefully we’ll see everyone again soon under happier circumstances.

So now we have a few one off shows to keep us going. Philly, NYC, etc, then another mini tour. More updates soon. Check out the photoblog!

Matt

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Hauling Ass Across America

Internet access is sparse. Sleep is deficient. Hygiene – don’t even think about it.

After a sold out blowout at the El Rey in Los Angeles, our first national tour is officially over, and now we’re driving straight across the country to Cleveland, OH to pick up another mini-tour with We Are the Fury and Rookie of the Year.

For the LA show, Under The Influence of Giants were back on the bill and the show was completely sold out. The El Rey was the largest and nicest venue on the tour with a capacity of about 800, a fresh remodeling job, and a top of the line sound system. It was a little disconcerting, actually. During this tour we got really comfortable rocking out those smaller clubs, and it was a little surreal to step out on that huge stage. The show was great though, and afterwards we said our goodbyes to Young Love, Play Radio Play, and UTIOG. We’d only been together for a month, but we saw those degenerates everyday. We’ll miss them terribly.

After the El Rey show, we played a second show at The Echo for our friend Heather Peggs’s birthday. We started late at 1:15, but we turned it into a wasted dance and make out party by last call. It ruled. After an unsuccessful attempt at taking the van and trailer through a drive through – horrible idea - we returned to our hotel at 4:30, thoroughly burned out but satisfied.

The label folk took us out to a nice lunch, gave us some energy drinks, and sent us on our way the next day. Getting out of LA was tough with all the Memorial Day traffic, but we made it to the Grand Canyon and got a hotel. The next day we did some responsible tourism, and then had a 24 hour straight drive to Kansas City. It sucked.

A quick recap of the latter half of the tour:

ATL / Florida –

We had a smashing good time in ATL, and met some of the finest people of our entire road experience. We’re still in regular contact with them via the internet. Florida however, was largely a bust. Without Play Radio Play or Young Love, we played for about 10 people at the 550 capacity Beta Bar in Tallahassee. The sound guy was great and gave us an epic light show, and we had a really nice time with the few audience members. Our Jacksonville show was cancelled due to wildfires and other factors, unfortunately we didn’t find out until we’d already driven there. We left Florida more broke than ever.

Texas –

Home turf for Young Love and PRP, the Dallas, Austin, and Houston shows were very satisfying - packed houses and great afterpartying. In Dallas we shared a venue with the Deftones, and everyone got to check out the show from backstage and meet everyone. Dallas seems like a nice place to live, and it was nice to explore a bit. In Houston we stayed at our very hospitable friends’ gorgeous mansion and had a relaxing day at the pool. In Austin we played a huge show at The Parish on 6th Street, then partied at the Beauty Bar with the Trail of Dead guys and Cedric from Mars Volta. Late night we tried to throw a 4am hotel pool party with the ladies and band members of Austin. This was naturally a bad idea. Though we kept it pretty quiet, it led to the ejection of every band member from the hotel by the police and an irate shirtless hotel owner.

AZ –

Another brutal 22 hour all night drive from Houston to Phoenix. Largely our own fault, for dawdling in luxury at our Houston mansion. The highlight of the drive was our stop at the border patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, TX, about an hour from El Paso. My brother is a border patrol agent who was working there at the time, and we were greeted with federally demure fanfare. Thank god no one set off the drug dogs with some residue from nights past – second hand, of course. It was an exciting day to stop there, as they had just intercepted 1.2 million dollars of weed coming across the border. It was sitting there in a huge pile of black duffel bags on the sidewalk, protected by the national guard. We took pictures in front of it as if it were the Eiffel Tower. The AZ show was fun too, and we met a troupe of lesbian bondage and fetish dancers. Wicked.

Vegas –

With all the Young Love party boys egging us on every night, we knew this was going to be bad news. Exploring the city during the day was nice. We had a 10 dollar steak dinner and I lost 50 bucks in blackjack. The show was an 21 + outdoor party at the Beauty Bar. Good drinks, fun people, real Vegas residents and not tourists. Where else can you rock out with Cirque du Soleil acrobats? The night ended at 6 am. Larkin had to sleep in the car because we were too passed out to open the hotel door. I left my camera at the black jack table at 5:30am, only to wake up, panic, and recover it four hours later from the same casino staff at 9:30. Feeling lucky, I lost another 40 bucks. We also met the band The Higher, who we’ll see again in NYC. On this night, Young Love showed up with an arsenal of cheap airsoft guns that would terrorize the rest of the tour, especially poor Eric.

California –

All the Cali shows ruled. In San Diego we played with two great locals – War Stories and The White Apple Tree – and the show was a great big dance party with lots of enthusiastic screamers. Loved it. Later we hung out on the beach with our high school friend Dave, then drove to Santa Barbara to crash with our friend Kevin.

San Francisco was a packed show at Bottom of the Hill, where we encountered many of our upwardly mobile professional friends in the most eastern of the west coast cities. Britt Daniel from Spoon showed up to see Young Love, and yet again we partied late into the evening with some fine ladies and gentlemen. However – I had never seen so many forward homeless dudes and prostitutes in one neighborhood in my entire life. We drove through the night to LA, and couldn’t check into our hotel until 2pm, only two hours before load in. I hadn’t slept, and took a little power nap. We had a double header that day.

The rest you know. More updates soon, and check out the photo blog for our pics. And we’re getting a wireless card for the van. Booyah.

Updated celebrity encounters: James Valentine from Maroon 5, Cedric from Mars Volta and At the Drive In, Jason and Conrad from Trail of Dead, Britt Daniel from Spoon

Matt

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Nashville Boxing After Dark

As is quite often the case, we have let a week expire without updating our blog. However, while we understand this can be frustrating for all those who are disappointed daily by our lack of content, one must admit that it is precisely our failure to supply new blogs that allows for the entries that do see the light of day to be packed to the brim with rock n’ roll hilarity and heartbreak. And I assure you, this past week suffers little in comparison to weeks past.
When last you heard from us, I believe Matt explained to you the unfortunate experience of attempting to sleep in our van in Tallahassee, only to barely catch a wink of sleep due to the intense humidity the lovely state of Florida gifted us. So, sweaty and sleepless, we emerged from our “beds” and prepared for the show, one which we looked forward to with great anticipation, for not only were Young Love and the Giants not on the bill, but Playradioplay had a show elsewhere that night, thereby bequeathing unto us the coveted headliner slot on the bill. Now, while this may normally be considered an honor and a privilege, having never played before in Tallahassee, we were uncertain as to how the show would turn out. And, as it happened, despite only playing for a crowd of 10-15 people (and this is perhaps an inflated exaggeration), we had a great time, sold a couple t-shirts, and ate KFC Bowls, an act which was categorically regretted almost immediately after. Go Seminoles.
Up and out, we make the move to Jacksonville, which, if you have been keeping up with your CNN, was not an uneventful drive thanks to the Florida wildfires which helped light our way on our midnight drive to the coast. And yet, it was all for naught, as we discovered soon after arriving at our destination that the show had been canceled. Flustered, we hopped back on the road and trekked it to Nashville, once again blazing through the Floridian fires, smoke clouds, and Wafflehouses. We have the pictures to prove it.
Hence forth it gets interesting, as it was in the great city of Nashville where Young Love joined back up on the tour. Fresh faced with freshly purchased t-shirts, the boys put on a great show, happy to be back on the road, and we were equally happy to have them back. Reunions and rock and roll aside, it was AFTER the show in the parking lot where the action really happened.
And away we go….
Upon exiting the club, it was brought to our attention that a nice young girl named Renee had unfortunately locked her keys in her car. Being the gentlemanly good Samaritans that we are, and not wanting to leave her stranded in the dark of the Nashville night, we decided to set up shop in the parking lot to wait for AAA to come unlock her car for her. It was this act of selflessness that served as the powder keg for the most ridiculous display of ridiculousness we had yet to encounter. In short, after we had been waiting only 5-10 minutes, two eager gentleman approached us, both about 30-35 years old, and both dressed moderately better than your average bum. We conversed with both a bit, and one of our two new friends wished to play us a song on one of my guitars. After much deliberating, I finally consented and allowed him to do so. Here is where the trouble starts. As he was playing (and he wasn’t half bad), his friend started accusing him of ripping off other songs, claiming that he had heard the song before on the radio. Not wanting to piss him off while holding my guitar, I berated his friend for being such a jake (which is Liam and Me speak for jerk), and collected my guitar before disaster struck. Yet, things didn’t end there, and the two started arguing again over the 33 cents that McKenzie had given them. Then it turned ugly. The singer of songs, now fed up with his critical companion, took a swing and cold clocked his opponent with a rock a had strategically had hidden in his back pocket. They then proceeded to brawl before our eyes, with articles of clothing flying off in every direction, including at one point a pair of trousers, temporarily leaving the undiscovered songster in quite the embarrassing predicament. Now, not wanting to see anyone get killed, O’Dowd and myself, both apparently blessed with a momentary surge of courage, as well as a complete lapse of common sense, ripped the street fighters apart from one another, forcing them to opposite ends of the lot as they now searched for planks of wood and rocks to throw at each other. With much force, and the help of a nice middle aged man who emerged from left field and convinced one of the two men to go with him in search of all the vices Nashville has to offer, we managed to diffuse the situation, hop in our van and hightail it out of there.
Needing a breather following this debacle, we swung into a gas station for a cup o’ coffee and perhaps a greasy meal. And, as fate would have it, upon our exit from the mini mart, the Krispy Kreme delivery man pulled up in his truck. Our magnificent merch man Mikey, never one to be shy, introduced himself and asked if the guy could help out a starving band on the road by bestowing upon us his good graces, which happened to be in this case delicious glazed doughnuts. In a surprise move, he consented and dropped into our eager hands 5 full boxes free of charge. We considered it monies owed by the gods of karma. Things are now squared.
In closing I realize this has been a long blog, and even though we have the entire state of Texas to discuss, I feel as if I should save it for later, and give y’all a rest. We will try and stay a tad more diligent, but to be honest, I don’t really see it happening. Time will tell.

-Dan

Saturday, May 12, 2007

UTIOG Tour - Detroit to Florida

Lately I feel like all of these entries are beginning with my standard apology – sorry for the infrequent updates. Things have been hectic but fun on tour. This is our first legitimate national touring experience, and god damn are we getting an education.

The northeastern dates were an absolute blast – Detroit, Lansing, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston, Philly. We were opening for Under the Influence of Giants and Young Love, with occasional appearances by Play Radio Play who we joined up with later full time. Not the most gargantuan shows we’ve ever played, but great venues and great audiences of music lovers. We’re meeting lots of people and getting out in some cities that we’ve never seen.

The bands are great, and sonically right up our alley. It’s the next level of professionalism and killer stage shows. I enjoyed rocking out every night to Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love. And they like to party. It can be tough keeping up with their tour bus with our zigzag tour routing, they drive through the night and we do our best to keep up but we made it work and still had time to bond.

Then things got complicated.

After an awesome Boston show, the Giants had to pull off the tour for an undetermined amount of time due to a family emergency, and Young Love had to do the same. That left only us and Play Radio Play for the rest of the tour.

We had a few days off in Philly to take care of some business, which was nice. I caught up on some backing vocals, and we traded in our Ford Expedition and trailer for a sweet new van. Despite the lack of headliners, our Philly show was amazing. We were so thrilled by the great turnout and want to thank everyone for schlepping out to the North Star to rock out with us. We had such a great time, and played our first real, unplanned encore. We were completely unprepared, but it made us feel like rockstars. Thanks again to everyone from Philly / NJ / DE for making it out! We’ll remember it forever.

The next day, our van wasn’t ready until 3pm and we had to leave for Boston late. Leaving with the trailer, we realized the van didn’t have the proper hitch height and had to turn back, reacquire the Expedition, reattach the trailer, and run like hell for Boston. We barely made it, but the show was great. We saw a bunch of our D.C. friends and got loaded with some hot moms in the parking lot. We didn’t make the Virginia Beach show, unfortunately, because corrective work on the van took too long. We made it to the venue on time to play, but the club didn’t want to have us load in late despite PRP’s accommodating offer to let us share all their stuff. Oh well.

In the Southeast, we’re driving a lot, and sleeping little. But the crowds have been awesome. Charlotte and the ATL were amazing shows where we met many fine Americans. Play Radio Play cleans up around there, and put on a great show.

So now we’re in Florida by ourselves, as PRP are at the Cornerstone festival. Mikey Hynes is keeping us in very high spirits. Its tough finding space and privacy to do the backing vocals, but here and there we’re able to set up in weird places – our new friend Aaron’s bedroom, our van in a parking lot, 20 minutes in a hotel room. Trying to save money, we tried sleeping in the car today between 7am and noon in Florida heat. It was generally unsatisfying. And sticky. If we do that we’ll have to do it at night.

So there’s the update. We’ll try to be on top of it in the future.

See you soon,
Matt

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Recording Ends - Tour Begins

Dear all:

Recording is unofficially over, and thus begins the tour blog. I had a grueling week of vocals with mixer Christopher James, getting through all the leads and the vast majority of backing vocals. Everything sounds great, and without the rest of the band I was able to eat at Taco Bell every single night. Delicious. However, we completely ran out of time without finishing six backing vocal tracks. Not wanting to cancel or delay the tour, I will do backing vocals for the remaining tracks on my own in Philly.

In my downtime I had some nice lunches with Peter Torres and manager John Davis. Our friend Jeremy Levy was in town on business and pleasure, and I got to hang out with him on occasion as well. It was during this time that I was pulled over for the worst traffic stop clusterfuck of all time:

1: I pulled into the wrong driveway of a hotel by accident. In attempting to back out of the driveway and onto the street, I was stopped for making an illegal U-Turn (which I wasn’t actually doing)

2: Our rental car had two of three brake lights out, which I am theoretically liable for.

3: I was not carrying my insurance card as again, I was in a rental car. Apparently this does not matter to the state of California.

All told this may add up to $500 + dollars in fines and points on my license. Hopefully the judge will be understanding at my court date.

I also missed Dan Brown’s bachelor party in Vegas, which was disappointing. Rumor has it there was wall to wall gambling and drinking with very little sleep.

But all inconvenience aside, we started our tour on Saturday, which is fucking awesome. I left the studio at 1:30 am Saturday morning, packed my bags, and was picked up to go to LAX at 4am. McKenzie and I met up at the Detroit airport and cabbed it to the venue there. Larkin and Briks, having spent the week at home preparing and gathering supplies for the tour, had driven from Philly the night before.

Its great to be playing live again. We’re on tour with Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love, two IDJ bands who are right up are alley stylistically. Later we’ll be joined by PlayRadioPlay! from Philly back to LA.

I’ll give you a more complete update on the first leg of the tour after the Philly show…

See you soon.

Matt

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Days 29 - 40 - The Home Stretch

Dear all –

Once again I apologize for the tremendous lag in our blog postings. I promise that in the future I’ll be more on top of the ball. Things have gotten a little crazy and busy. Maybe a lot crazy and busy. I’ll boil down some of the recent happenings:

April 18th: We played our first show in a month, and our first official non-showcase LA gig at the Viper Room, the Sunset Strip’s famous decadent rock club. It felt great to play live again, despite our studio rustiness. The label types, producers, and booking agents all showed up in addition to many strangers, all of which had very nice things to say. It was also nice to drink again. We drank many tequila shots, which I hereby christen the Liam and Me party drink of choice. This should come as no surprise to most of you.

April 20th: We’re hardcore into the vocals, and a bit behind schedule. Jeff and Matt have gone above and beyond the call of production duty, investing time and energy to the point where it’s encroaching on upcoming projects. Thanks to flexibility and improvisation, we have an extra week of studio time where I’ll do vocals with Christopher James in his studio space, freeing up Matt and Jeff to play catch up and do some edits. Mr. James is our mixing engineer, who also did the Hellogoodbye record, was Self’s keyboard player, and has a long and rich pop /rock /R&B pedigree, including a little platinum on the wall.

April 21st: Today is my birthday. This morning I drove the rest of the band to the airport. Larkin and Briks are returning to Philly to prepare for our tour, and McKenzie has his grandfather’s funeral. After dropping the rest of the band off, I returned to our now empty hostel suite to enjoy some rare privacy. It was great. I lounged around all day, read books and drank coffee. Later that evening I saw my friend Sam’s band The Jackal Headed Front play, which I’d been looking forward to for about three years. It was a great time with lots of prog production trickery. Then I had some Whiskey drinks. Delish.

April 23d: Started vocals in Chris James’s place. It’s a great studio that used to belong to a film scorer. Huge SSL board, great outboard gear, a custom designed space with sexy dimmers, and a massive screen for projecting films, TV, or protools sessions. It was slightly unusual adjusting from Jeff’s production style to Chris’s, but were tearing through at record pace and getting some good shit done.

April 26: The producers and managers (John Davis, Jeff Surnow, Gary Richards, Matt, Jeff, Chris) all got together to listen to the tracks and talk strategy. I was forbidden from attending (they didn’t want to have to coddle sensitive artist types). Apparently everyone was extremely excited about the material, and we’re going to have a finished product by June 1st. Excoiting stuff. Had lunch with Davis, Jeremy Levy arrived in town to hang out before our friend Dan’s bachelor party.

There is much work to do and a relatively short time in which to do it, but everyone should expect a great record with fabulous sounding tracks.

Updated celebrity encounters: Shirley Manson, Alain Whyte, and that guy from that one movie you know, yeah, that one.

More updates soon. I’ll see you on the road…

Matt

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Days 23 - 28 - Vocals / Piano / Guitar

Sorry for the infrequent updates. We're coming down to the wire, having finished out the guitars, adding the last few instrumental flourishes and ripping into the vocals and piano. We've been split up into two different studios all week, which has proven to be very effective.

Jeff and I are in the main studio working on synths, vocals, piano, rhodes, and assorted other stuff. Matt has Dan, Jon, and McKenzie in his fabulous home studio working on all manner of guitar craziness and elaborate percussion arrangements on certain tracks. We're operating at maximum efficiency.

The good news is, pretty much all the instrumentals are finished and sounding fantastic. The sound is rocking and powerful with an extremely diverse array of tones and dynamics. The guitar arrangements drive with synths and pianos filling in the gaps. A&R Peter Torres stopped by on Friday and seemed very happy with the sound of even the raw tracks.

The bad news is we have about a week to knock out vocals for 11 tracks, and under the studio microscope the quality of my voice can be hit or miss. I had a great day on Thursday and knocked the hell out of "Pretty Black Dress". Friday things weren't feeling quite as magical vocally, but we did git done the bulk of piano work.

This weekend our good friend and fabulous guitar player Aaron Kipnis flew out to LA specifically to play one glorious guitar solo on the record. I have yet to hear it, but apparently it rules so hard that no one will shut up. I can't wait.

Otherwise we've been workaholics, keeping our social lives responsibly low key. On Friday night we kicked it in the home of producer Jeff Turzo. We drank beer and wine, and Jeff was inspired to make everyone gourmet cheesesteaks at 1am, after someone made an offhand comment about Pat's and Geno's. Also, we learned that Jeff has not one but two hot wives. Who would have thought that the more demure producer maintains a harem? Later Larkin and I attended an after hours speakeasy in Silver Lake replete with secret password and attractive Japanese servers.

The rest of the weekend was spent quietly entertaining Mr. Kipnis, consisting largely of LA-only fast food joints, drugs, sex, rock and roll. He leaves tomorrow morning full of In n' Out Burger and happy memories.

Back in the fracas tomorrow morning. Wish us luck...

Matt

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Day 21-22 - Easter Eggs, or lack thereof.

For those who have been keeping tabs on our blog, you are no stranger to the frustrations we have been facing in the studio. That said, in an attempt to blow off some steam by accompanying our producer Jeff to the sold out HelloGoodbye show, we may have made a grave mistake. Filled with screaming, hysterically adoring fans, both on stage and off, HelloGoodbye put on a hell of a show, complete with Beastie Boy Cover songs and Confetti streamers shot into the sea of open armed young girls. Seeing all of this, the excitement and the rock, the show accomplished two things. First, it instilled unto each of us an intense desire to hit the road and get on our own tour, and second, it forced upon us the realization that 2-3 weeks of intense recording still stand in the way of our doing so. For now then, we must resign such desires and focus on the task at hand…but maybe we will go to the beach first.
Moving on to business in the studio, I have been given a vacation of sorts, and Matt has been thrown into the hot seat as we begin the recording of synths and keyboards. Now, while I do admit that it was nice to get a little time off from recording, I came to the realization this past Saturday that things can get a little slow in the recording studio when you aren’t the one actually recording. To enlighten you as to the happenings of the day, I watched McKenzie take on Star Destroyers and help the Rebel cause via Star Wars for Playstation 2, listened to Jon programming his beats on his laptop, and I incessantly surfed the web for hours, while occasionally practicing guitar in my little corner of the studio. However, whatever lack of excitement there may have been in the lounging areas of the studio, the work Matt completed on Saturday, as well as the potential the recordings all have in general, more than make up for it. It is finally getting to the point where we can really see the songs nearing completion, especially now, as Matt plans on starting vocals tomorrow.
And, while I have enjoyed my time off, I must admit that I am excited for tomorrow as well, for as Matt and Jon remain in the studio to continue working on Keyboards and vocals, McKenzie and I will head to Matt M.’s house to (hopefully)finish up the remaining guitar work. Hopefully this splitting of the group will catch us up on any lost time, and with any luck we may even be able to soon say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel…maybe. We will of course keep you posted.
In closing, we want to wish all of you a very Happy Easter, and pray that you all had fantastic breakfasts/brunches. If not, remember that we all had a single bagel apiece, so, barring a few exceptions, you probably all fared a little better than the lot of us.

Cheers,
Dan

Friday, April 6, 2007

Day 17 - 20 - Holdups Galore

Sure, we have a lot of ambitious guitar arrangements. But for reasons mostly beyond our control, this shit is taking forever as we enter our second week of goddamned guitar tracking. The primary issue is tuning. We're forced to go back and painstakingly retrack parts chord by chord because frets are simply not staying in tune for sections played high up on the neck of the guitar. Its just barely, barely off, but enough for the discriminating listener to hear the twang.

Matt M and Jeff remain patient, focused, and positive as we work through this stuff, but we band members are going mildly nuts. Matt Mahaffey brought in a flat screen TV, PS2, and collection of bizarre games and DVDs which has dulled the pain - McKenzie and I are in the midst of our second conquest of the Star Wars universe in Battlefronts I.

We had Thursday and Friday off. Thursday Jeff had some things to finish up and editing to catch up on. Friday we were kicked out of our studio by Donna Summer. Diva! Would have been nice to meet her though.

Briks, Larkin, and McKenzie had been talking about a visit to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, an LA only chain, for months. We finally went for lunch on Thursday. It was a delicious and strange combination, leaving us with that warm, greasy feeling on the inside. Seeing we were close to the Hollywood sign and seized by an adventurous need to work off some fried chicken, we hiked a trail that led right around the back of it. Seeing as the sign is covered with an array of cameras and motion sensors, we chickened out of climbing over the fence and down the rock wall to touch it. But we did manage to peg the letter H with a rock. Take that, I guess.

Tonight we're heading to the Hellogoodbye show with Jeff, and tomorrow we're back to work on Synths and Vocals. Tour dates are filling in rapidly! Check out our myspace for details.

Updated celebrity encounters: Tommy "Tiny" Lister - http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001474/

Matt

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Day 14, 15, 16 - Back on Track

We had a relatively relaxing weekend again, with two days off for Jeff to continue work on the tracks. Nothing too outrageous this time around, but we keep finding more and more old friends and random acquaintances through small degrees of separation.

Friday night our friend Kevin Welding came to visit - he's getting his doctorate in economics and California girls at UC Santa Barbara. We boozed and rode golf carts on the Paramount studio lot with my friend Wes from school, and later attended a formal cocktail affair with some other ex-Philadelphians, horribly under-dressed of course. Saturday we were invited to a BBQ with other east coast transplants, some smart and insane Princeton kids working mostly in entertainment. Jon ran into a high school classmate who just happens to be writing with our friend from home. Later in the evening I just happened to bump into my ex-College roomie at a diner at 3am.
Peter Torres and his lady took us out for all you can eat Korean BBQ on Sunday and we closed the place down. Our hostel friend Alad won his film festival. Good times.

We're now back in the studio on the guitars, moving along nicely. At this point, half of the tracks are ready for keys and vox with the remaining songs about 60-80% knocked out. Its all still a bit disorienting, but there's light at the end of the tunnel. The quality of the sound is light years beyond our previous efforts, and the record is really starting to take shape. Exciting stuff. Exciting, maddening stuff.

Production note - some fret on any guitar will always be the slightest bit out of tune and it will fuck your shit up.

Updated celebrity encounters: Maggie Gyllenhaal, that dude who plays Lloyd on Entourage.

Matt

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Day 11, 12, 13 - Guitar Tedium

After Tuesday’s session wrapped, we had a great sounding foundation of drums and bass that Jeff immediately set to editing. With each pass, the sounds get better and the performances are tweaked to precision.

We moved immediately onto guitars, with Matt Mahaffey taking the helm. Clashes over the guitar work sparked our first true creative conflicts.

Conflict #1 – For efficiency’s sake, we’re getting a good guitar tone up first, and then moving through the songs trying to think of which parts should utilize the selected tone. This is theoretically faster than doing one song at a time, as it reduces hours of transition time it takes to move from one sound to another. However, this causes a tendency to force a sound that doesn’t fit the part, and creates a general sense of chaos and uncertainty in the workflow.

Conflict #2 – Dirty or polished? Those freak nasty guitar sounds can be really effective, but how much is too much? I’m going after a more modern, dare I say radio friendly sound, where the rest of the band (and the producers) prefer vintage grit and some messiness. Is my perfectionist nitpicking counterproductive?

Conflict #3 – Are we trying to recreate our old demos with superb production, or are we trying to break out of the box and freak out? We have some really good arrangements down in our home recordings – is it worth changing them? Matt and Jeff have come up with some excellent new parts, but we’re also asking them to painstakingly recreate accidental nuances from our old demos. We’d like to trim the fat out of our traditionally complicated guitar parts, but find ourselves adding more and more stuff.

And so on. We’re trying to make decisions definitively as we go, to avoid having to fix too much in the mix. This is why I fucking hate the recording process – we’re under pressure to create the definitive version of these songs for all eternity that will make or break our music careers. I want every note to be perfect. I love high production value music and the creative process, but in the studio I turn into a little gremlin that smirks and second-guesses everything.

We do get to have some fun though. Creative epiphanies abound, and on Friday we got to rock some simple stadium guitars in the big room to create the “A&R wall of rock”, as heard in Hinder and All American Rejects songs.

We have this weekend off, and are about to head to a BBQ in Studio City. Surely some Mexican beer and hotdogs will get our heads back in the game.

More updates and photos soon.

Matt

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Day 9 and 10 – Bass in yo’ face

In terms of musicianship, the rhythm section definitively rules over myself and Larkin. Big time. McKenzie tore through all of his bass tracks in two days, and everything sounds great. We used a punchy old school Fender P-Bass (borrowed from Dreamgirls oscar-nominee Scott Cutler) and a smoother Jazz bass (borrowed from Cold War Kids producer Kevin Augunas) through an Ampeg head. Sick of name drops yet?

We’ve moved from the big room into smaller room to do most of the remaining tracking, but we’ll still use the big room for some theatrical moments – stadium guitars, strings, tambourines and vibes.

We’ll get some more tracking photos up on the photoblog soon. Did you notice that we have a photoblog by the way? Click the link under the title of this blog to see our misadventures illustrated.

Our nightlife also proceeds largely unchecked. We’re surrounded by colorful internationals at our “hotel” who love to play drinking games and tell some of the most outrageous stories we’ve ever heard (I got shot by a sniper and lived, I took out a machine gun wielding assailant, the trees speak to me, and when I tell them I love them they understand). On Tuesday Briks and I went on a tour de local bars and met some West Hollywood denizens, and on Monday I attended a fashionable birthday party with some new friends.

Tomorrow we start on guitars. This means bickering over nuances, tears, and the f-word will occur in abundance. Check in later for more salacious dirt.

Updated celebrity encounters: Nick Stahl, Jesse Camp, The Living Things, Jeffree Starr (?)

Matt

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Day Seven and Eight - Miller Time

So the drums are done, and Matt and Jeff took the weekend to edit tracks, spend some QT with their families, and fix a few noisy channels at the studio. This left Liam and Me off the leash for a long weekend to pursue our true passion – drugs and partying.

LA is a mythical land of excess and historic celebrity overdoses, and who are we to fight it? We got a giant pile of weed, giant pile of coke, giant pile of meth, giant pile of assorted barbiturates, added a fifth of Jameson and some heavy cream as a base, hit puree, and hit the town.

On Friday night Briks and I went to the Roosevelt in Hollywood with some friends where we bought $13 drinks and talked to hip strangers. Later the band united with some Philadelphia ex-pats at a laid-back house party at the Baron’s house in the Hollywood Hills. In bed promptly at 6am.

On Saturday we hung out at producer Matt Mahaffey’s house/studio in Sherman Oaks. He has a great space with some awesome gear, tasteful Balinese décor, and two spoiled Dalmatians. We ordered BBQ, watched Star Wars and some of Matt’s live performance DVDs (solo and with Beck), and had a good bonding experience. Geeking out on bootleg original session files from some of our favorite classic albums was probably the highlight of the weekend. From there we went to an Agency Group party in Silver Lake and met some fine Americans and rock and roll types. It took us back to SXSW. In bed promptly at 3:30am.

Updated celebrity encounters: Eva Longoria, Kelly Osbourne, Amy Winehouse, guitarist from Jet, Josh Frankfort.

Tomorrow we get back into the studio for bass tracking. McKenzie’s time to shine.

Matt

Friday, March 23, 2007

Days Five and Six - Hostile in the Hostel

Good Morning,

It is my distinct pleasure to announce that yesterday, at approximately 10:00 PM, Jon finished tracking drums. After 4 grueling 12-hour days trapped within a cave like room filled with a sea of microphones criss-crossing in varying directions, he triumphantly emerged, and will now be taking a much deserved vacation from the studio's hot seat. So, with this first step complete, and our producers working feverishly on perfecting the drums tracks before moving on to bass, we have all been givin the day off for some R&R. And, aside from a planned trip to Thrive's office to check in, as well as a lunch date with our booking agent, the four of us are face to face with a vacant day, filled with possibiity and potential.

Currently, while the others are getting ready for lunch, I find myself seated in the main room of the Hostel, watching other Hostel residents watching the movie Hostel, which, admittedly, is somewhat disturbing. And so we are off to enjoy the city, keeping our eyes peeled for movie stars and important-esque people at all times. Hope all is well with everyone.

-Dan

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Days Three and Four - Drum Tracking

After four days in sunny California, where the hell is our sun? Rainy, cold, we might as well be in Philadelphia – no offense.

We’re moving along with the drum tracking, changing up the sound a little bit for each song. Mostly we’re switching out the snare drums – Matt and Jeff have a collection of snares with different sounds and names to match, i.e., the Strokes Snare, the Don Henley Snare, The Beat It Snare. These names change as necessary to suit different studio personalities.

Briks is doing an excellent job pounding out the tracks, with only the mildest use of the big red studio magic button. However, we’ve run into annoying, mood killing setbacks every day. Yesterday our Avocet studio controller blew out for reasons unknown, and today a snare head broke mid song (warranting a trip to Chad Sexton’s Drum World – yes that Chad Sexton from 311). Then some A&R suits from Epic, like totally showed up for like, two hours, and, like, harshed our vibe, dude. Later our A&R from Thrive showed up with pizza, red bull, and beer, and that was cool.

Everything seems to be clicking nicely with the producers, and already ideas are being thrown around for how to improve upon and modify the tracks. We catch them humming the melodies and bass lines all the time, which is encouraging. Chris the engineer called in from the east coast where he’s working on Ben Stiller’s next movie “just to check in”. Its nice to know that everyone’s getting fired up about the record.

In other news, we may be going on a great tour immediately after recording is finished. Details soon. Also, we’re listening to lots of hip hop in the car. Also my dog, that I’ve had since I was nine, died yesterday at 16 years old. He lived a long and full dog life, but this is proving to be more upsetting than I had imagined.

Matt

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Day Two – Drum Sounds

After picking up our rental car and grabbing a quick breakfast in West Hollywood, we headed to Burbank to see the studio and meet the producers for the first time. Production duo Wired All Wrong - Jeff Turzo (God Lives Underwater) and Matt Mahaffey (Self) - are doing the record, having most recently produced Hellogoodbye’s Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!, a great sounding record currently burning up the charts. We were all excited and I was quite a bit nervous – though they had our demos and a list of our favorite recordings, I had only briefly spoken to Jeff a couple of times on the phone. We weren’t entirely sure what to expect.

Any trepidation I had was alleviated when we arrived at 2pm. The studio is large and gorgeous, with tons of great vintage and modern gear and a relaxed creative vibe. We have access to classic guitars, basses, and synths, a Steinway piano, preamps and consoles, everything we need. Jeff and Matt are friendly, cool, and super competent, and we got along with them immediately. Chris the engineer and Lee the intern were also on hand to help out. Spinal Tap-esque fake British accents peppered the conversation as abstract music descriptors were thrown about.

The task for our first studio day was to get a good drum sound and run through all the songs live for some light pre-production. Most of our day was spent lounging around being useless will Chris and Jeff lovingly positioned microphones and sound barricades in countless configurations until the drums sounded sufficiently “magical”. It was great to see so much care and diligence being but into the process – several complicated setups were built and later dismantled. There were some technical issues to work out in the studio, but we eventually got through it all with a tight, powerful, and rich disco drum sound that we can turn into whatever we want in post.

Sample dialogue: “I'm not vibing that sweet magical punch. Why don’t we throw up some 4410s up top and place Matt’s 67 and the sub near the Ludwig, try the Matt’s Eagles snare with Jeff’s wallet taped down. Yeah, channel 1’s tweaky and the 480Q-10s are honking kinda bad, lets re-route and try some mid range scooped compression and I can sweeten the Toms with some shammalamma ding dong hooka jook nada surf N87 Bs.” Jigga what?

Finally, at 9:30pm, the band set up in separate compartments to record all 14 tracks live. My voice was totally shot, but we got through it. Jeff and Matt gave us some great feedback, and everyone seemed to get excited about the prospects for the material and making this record white shit hot. A&R Peter Torres was there the entire day helping out, and label owner Ricardo stopped in later during the live tracking. He was so excited by our progress that he doubled our production budget. Yeah right!

Matt

Monday, March 19, 2007

Day One - SXSW to LA

Dear all:

In an unprecedented attempt at web diligence, Liam and Me will try to keep a studio journal in order to keep everyone updated on our progress / setbacks / victories / defeats. We will be as honest as possible to give you an accurate perspective of our creepy lives.

Having just returned from dinner with our A&R, Briks and I are currently sitting in the “lobby” of our “hotel” in LA. Its actually more like a youth hostel with private suites, but it’s a pretty nice setup. Good location in West Hollywood, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a TV that doesn’t work, bunk beds. Ballin. We are surrounded by good-looking collegiate backpackers from Britain and her former colonies. We are completely exhausted and looking forward to a full night’s sleep.

From March 14 until today, we were in Austin, Texas for the SXSW music conference. This year’s was apparently the biggest one yet, with 25,000 crazy people descending on the city for 4 days of showcases, parties, drinking, eating, and deal making. It’s fun to the point of brutality. Widespread indulgence and alcoholism probably shaves a few weeks off your life. Well worth it. Liam and Me played a few great shows – Purevolume’s nightly party shortly after we arrived, an afternoon showcase for Burnlounge on Saturday, and a super hot set at the Viper Room later that night. We also did our first ever videotaped interviews for Havok TV and Stim TV, filled our rented minivan with 14 people, received and gave lots of free schwag, got kicked out of a hotel room, and enjoyed the finer things in life with the staff of High Times magazine. Our Emmy nominated friend Glenn Anderson videotaped much of the madness, which we will share with you soon.

Great bands we saw: Buzzcocks reunion, Kings of Leon, Lynden, New London Fire, Stock Market Crash, Young Love, Junior Senior, Zack Hexum.

Fabulous celebrity encounters: Perry Farrel, James Iha, Wayne Coyne, Breckin Meyer, the cast of Human Giant, that chick who plays “Maybe” in Arrested Development, Albert Hammond Jr.

This morning on two hours of sleep, we left Austin TX at 9:30am, picked up our manager, and drove 3 hours to Houston, and flew to LA. Tomorrow we meet our producers and see the studio for the first time, and maybe start tracking the drums.

Matt