Thursday, November 8, 2007

Mercury Lounge show review...

From a blog called vLES:

"Being relatively new to this crazy city, I thought it would take months, maybe years to see a local, up-and-coming band tear up the stage and light it on fire.

Especially the way these guys did recently at the Mercury Lounge. For a band that has only been around less than a couple of years, they absolutely smoked it.

I had no idea who was headlining the triple bill the other night, but after getting a load of these guys and their killer tunes, infectious energy, and amazing live performance, I just assumed that these guys were it. I was all like, "I'm out. Seriously, take me to JFK, I'm flying home to Melbourne; I'm happy", before friends calmed me down, took my passport, and torched it before I could bail. That sure sucked, but for this show, it was worth it.

These guys have a kind of Bloc Party/Strokes thing going on and their new album is packed full of "life kicks ass, so let's jump around for no reason" goodness. Named after the method of creating art that relies on nonstop vigorous activity, they've got it all before them and me thinks they're even closer to hitting the big-time than Oprah is to her next breakdown. Get jumpin' for more..." --Dave Martin

Check out the site, vLES

Recap 11-8-07

A quick recap of goings on.

Last few weeks have been a blur for us. Some NYC shows: Annex with this Icelandic band Jakobinarina, who will be big it's just a matter of time. They could be Tokyo Police of '08. CMJ at Europa: Solid show, cool space but the highlight was the statuesque Polish bartender. Mercury Lounge with Figurines and Dappled Cities was definitely the highlight. It was our second Mercury show in the last few months and it's always so great to play there as you can hear EVERYTHING on stage, the sound guys are actually cool to you, and you get to play with bands you genuinely respect.

After that we headed down to Baltimore and played the Automat!c dance party at Ottobar, which is sort of like if Southpaw and Don Hill's had a baby. It's got that really worn in divey feel but still it's big and epic feeling. Huge stage, good lights and sound, Joe's parents came out. It was, as always, great to play to a random crowd who has never heard you before. You have to work to win their love, which makes us raise our game, which makes the whole thing better. Afterwards we stayed to dance to new wave till last call, ate an insanely good 3am breakfast with Gorode who was down there anyway, at this place called Paper Moon. Peter Bogdonovich rules but who knew he could make pancakes. Either we were drunk and hungry or the food really did take a long time, but the waiter with all the tatoos on his head was pretty polite so we couldn't be too angry. Crashed in a hotel somewhere downtown then got up early because of the time change and drove back to NYC.

Last night we played what should be our last NYC show for a while, doing a gig at GalleryBar on Orchard St. for this cool line of t-shirts from KiserNy.com. Very cool stuff and a great group of people running the whole operation. When we got there there was this diminutive chick hanging out with a DJ running through some tunes and it was like, woah, it's Tippy. She's this crazy hip hop girl we know from around who writes her own beats and has this sort of electro-rap thing which is really fucking good. I guess she was rehearsing there. Random. The crowd was also far from our regular crowd so same deal there.

That's about it. We're going into hibernation mode now so last post for a while.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Mercury 2nite

This was a great night. We really felt like we were humming on all cylinders tonight. Great Great. Dappled Cities really blew us the fuck away, as did Figurines.

So Friday is off and reserved for recovery and massive sleep quantities, then Saturday it's a drive to Ottobar in Baltimore. I went there about a year ago when I was randomly in Baltimore and went to see Agent Orange, this old school hardocore band, but they never showed up because their van broke down or some such nonsense. So here's to hoping our van does not break down.

If you're in Baltimore, you know where the party iz at.

-T