a bit more local press

so jim from North County times did a quick "favorites of the year" ..... in his favorite albums? Here's To Being Happy! and favorite songs? As Good As Gone (htbh's opener) .... read the whole thing here.

if you were me

if you were me, you'd be heading to Scolari's office on saturday. Secret Apollo and Joanie and the Secretaries. free. why wouldn't you go? you wouldn't.

also, rosey has a cool little list of a bunch of SD bands "top 5" local band list. check it out here

so i've got a bunch of new music recently (or music i should've owned before) that i bought or got for xmas ..... the list?

Rivers Cuomo - Alone: The home recordings of rivers cuomo
The National - Alligator
Dappled Cities - Granddance
Yo La Tengo - and then nothing turned itself inside-out
Jeff Mangum - Live at jittery joes
Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
Neutral Milk Hotel - Everything is
Arcade Fire - EP
Arcade Fire - Power Out (single)
Grizzly Bear - Horn of Plenty
Walkmen - Pussy Cats
MF Doom - Special Herbs box set vol. 0-9
Sigur Ros - Hvarf/Heim

how the hell am i suppose to absorb all this? damn! not that i'm complaining, quite the opposite, i'm ecstatic.... elated!

if you were me

if you were me (but not traveling to SF tomorrow) you would be either going to the Republic of Letters, Hotel St. George, Roman Spring show at the Tower Bar ... or .... the Secret Apollo, Writer, Joel P West show at The Whistlestop.

The Roman Spring and Republic of Letters are both great live acts, and i'm sure Hotel St. George is following in the footsteps of it's previous incantations (vinyl radio/a weeks worth) and will be good.

Secret Apollo is always fun, so is Writer. don't know who this Joel P West fellow is, but he's in good company.

i'm almost glad i'm not going to be in town, I would just be too torn. though, secret apollo is playing next week ..... so maybe that would entice you to go this week to tower bar. i dunno. i hate to choose. in short, go to one of these shows.

thank you for a great year!

as the year comes to an end, i just want to give thanks to all those who've supported us, helped us along, recorded us, did artwork for us , came to shows, clapped along to songs, let us recorded you clapping to songs, showed us parts of you normally covered by clothing, laughed with us, cried with us, let us win at arm wrestling, never arm wrestled us out of fear, let us believe you never arm wrestled us out of fear, our friends, our families, our significant others, our not so significant others, my mom, your mom, sixto, the writer's of "how i met your mother", the wonder years, swim party, secret apollo, beta lion, the frantic romantic, the defunct sinfonia antartica, the joaniemen, joanie and the secretaries (hah!), the ex-friends, our ex-friends, ray "$10 autograph" suen, anna troy and her boys (sorry for calling you guys her boys, but well, she's a rockin' lady), bart, rosey, the beatles, the beatless, the roman spring, republic of letters, loverlee, hot tv, the now defunct babyheisman, tom and sarah, kyle, anyone i missed (i'm sure there's at least one I did that's pissed. i'm sorry!!) and lastly .. all of my bandmates for a solid year. we played 36 shows this year, about 1 every 10 days. we'll see if we can up that number in '08. we also released 2 albums this year .... we'll ... okay maybe we won't try and make 3 albums next year .... but new songs are already in the works.

according to last count, matt had 5 new songs. i have 1 (poor me), but matt wants to resurrect some of my old one's: everybody wins, all with it, life of someone else's shoes, birds of manhattan, suzy and the summertime blues. will any of them reach the light of day? who knows. but they exist. maybe in some far distant future some random CD will come out, finding all the modlins table scrapings just for kicks. but i can guarantee you the next eric song will be "monday morning", a song i wrote when i had a band with tuomas. i heavily reworked the song in my head yesterday after listening to the libertines a bit too much, so be on the look out. but uh .. until then, enjoy all these new songs that you're just getting aquainted with. we're pretty proud of em.

see you in '08!

new songs from the new album

if you live anywhere else east of the west coast, then it is already monday morning when i am writing this, and if that is the case, then i am sorry. wait, i think that came out wrong... anyways... cd release shows were great success. ah, whistlestop, how we love thee. and then to top off the weekend, or kick off the week, whichever you prefer, The Modlins rocked a secret show for san diego's own Village Hat Shop's holiday party. what can we say besides the facts that the beer flowed like wine, the wine flowed like water, and the water was Perrier.

but yes, if you missed us this weekend, With Friends Like These has been unleashed, and if you still find yourself without a copy, swing by the myspace or the website, or come find us, in the year 2008! The Modlins are coming... ... to the Zombie Lounge, on january 8th, with dearest friends Secret Apollo, and new friends (and old friends of friends) from Las Vegas: Love Pentagon & Pan de sal. also, at the end of january, we make our triumphant return to the place that used to be our home away from our home away from home, the former Buster Daly's, now called U31, with the always excellent Anna Troy Band.

and in the mean time, here are two more songs from With Friends Like These : Why Did It Take So Long?, with not Eric, and not Matt, but me (Alex) taking the lead, and For The Good Of The Armor, featuring Eric's new-found harmonica skillz. with a z. word. happy mondayz.

los angeles, we're yours!

and we're off! loading up the mods van, new CDs in hand. new suits on our backs, and a whole new bag of tricks. we'll be road testing some of the new songs tonight at silverlake (read: working out the kinks). but expect an extra special set tomorrow, with a few extra songs, and .. we'll call it a "seasonally appropriate" cover. you'll see. as for tonight, silverlake won't know what hit it!

w00t!

if you didn't get the title .... you live under a rock. and aren't edumacated enough to read a dictionary.

so, i just got the box of albums. we'll have a limited supply for the CD release show in LA, so get there early to ensure you get a copy. but we'll be stocked for San Diego. Local press has started to come in today for the album. and boy, those critics sure are nice to us: here's links to the two articles

SignonSanDiego/Union Tribune Review
"The Modlins' status as one of San Diego's best-kept musical secrets may not last much longer." - George Varga


SD North County Times Review - A-
" 'She Won't Miss Me' is a near-perfect pop song: a melody that nestles into your ear like your hand into a pair of well-designed gloves" - Jim Trageser

and a nice shoutout for the release shows from SD City Beat

flyer for silverlake lounge, by kay lee

nope, the curse goes strong

well, in my last update. i thought the curse was over. i thought we'd turned a corner, seen the light at the end of the tunnel. well, it's a dark day in san diego my friends.

the cds were suppose to ship out friday (monday at the latest!) .... i couldn't get ahold of the guy yesterday, and just talked to him today (i should've warned him about the curse). apparently the curse took out their shrinkwrapping machine. the guy at the cd printing place said he spent the whole day calling people saying their orders would be shipping late (apparently, he never got to me) so what does that mean? well, the curse is mighty powerful. and i fear the last few legs of this wild ride. so, what can go wrong?

the CDs are now shipping today. one box is being shipped 2 day AM, which means it should arrive here thursday morning. the day of the LA release show, we'll have a limited number of copies of the CD in LA so get their early, and pick up one, or you might be CD-less for a bit. the rest of the order should arrive friday. the day of the actual release. of course, between shipping delays due to weather, truck malfunctions, misrouted items. it's destined to be a disaster.

our van could also break down. sinkholes could form under highways. the ocean could rise and turn the 5 freeway into a river. who knows the power the curse has.

but aren't you a bit curious now? come out thursday and friday to see the curse in action. taking down your friends and family, one at a time.

with love,
the modlins

have we turned a corner on the curse?

so yesterday i stopped off at Eric's place to pick up matt's and my amp. He was kind enough to take a look at them and fix mine (matt's was fine, might just be the jack on his guitar) .... So tomorrow will be my first practice with the newly revamped amp. heheh.

matt was well enough to practice on sunday, and my cough has dwindled to nearly nothing. hopefully we'll be all better in time for the release shows. ideally we wanted 2 weeks to practice as a full band. looks like we might get 2 practices as a full band. perfect.

but all seems well now. aside from our house being the coldest thing ever. i could see my breath this morning in my room. usually a bad sign. the walls are made of paper. perhaps cellophane. oh well ... thursday and friday are gonna be great.

matt's e-mail about the release shows and the curse

This Thursday and Friday!!! Why such short notice, you wonder? Because of... THE CURSE!!! What is The Curse, you may wonder? I'll depict in several vignettes.

Imagine it's the second week of mixing. All of the recording is done, and you are now fine tuning little volume changes on your new album. You press the play button on the computer and, suddenly, without warning, coming back to you from the speaker is is KSSCHSHHHSHSHSHS. Static. The program closes and the computer decides it no longer recognizes the hard-drive that contains YOUR ENTIRE ALBUM, making it's usefulness now of paperweight status.

Luckily, you've backed up your files on another drive so the album is fine. You mail it to the printer and go to Europe for ten days, content in the fact that you've got a couple days of buffer between the discs' delivery and your release shows. You direct all inquiries about your order to be directed to your band-mates as you will be out of the country. Upon your return, however, you see an email dated the day you left saying that there's a problem with the text titles on your disc and production has been stopped.

Thankfully, you get a hold of these jokers at the printing company in time to ensure the arrival of your disc on time, though without the luxury of a buffer. So, you and your band practice for the album release show and one -- two -- three amplifiers die over the course of a week.

You go to turn on your Pro-Tools unit, and it doesn't respond.

You go to send a band email about the shows, and seconds before you hit send, your house blows a breaker.

You write the email AGAIN and hit send, and the page won't load for minutes and minutes and finally, you have to force quit.

And finally, you find yourself at work attempting to hide from the Final Destination script-writers, sending the email four days before the shows.

Final tally(?): Shiva the Destructor -- 1 hard drive, 1 Pro Tools Digi002 Rack, 3 amps, 5 days buffer time, and 2 emails. The Modlins -- 1 new album, called With Friends Like These. Let's hope it was worth it. If not, all of you "friends" will be held directly accountable since we named it for you. If it works out, though, we'll take the credit. Though, we'll share it with some of our friends Swim Party and Joanie+Secretaries who are playing with us. Come on out and see if the curse should continue...



The Modlins are coming...



to



The Silverlake Lounge (Thursday, 12/13/07 10:30pm)



with



Swim Party (9:00pm)





and to





The Whistle Stop (Friday, 12/14/07 10:30pm)



with



Joanie+Secretaries (9:30pm)



and



With Friends Like These (our second album this year!!!)




If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, please reply to this e-mail with "unsubscribe" as the subject.



PS Both shows are 21+. The Silverlake Lounge has an $8 cover, but the Whistle Stop is free!!!

the curse is stronger than we realized

so apparently the curse doesn't just apply to technology. I just returned from texas and was hoping to hit the practice space hard with the boys. unfortunately, the curse had other ideas. most notably giving matt a sickness rendering him unconcious. or at least making him stick to the couch and feel horrible. but i swear he's only a day away from a full blown coma. or at least the start of bedsores.

so expect us to be looking for a replacement singer/guitarist. or waiting til matt feels better. whichever comes first. in the mean time, me and the other boys have been running through the new material in anticipation of the upcoming shows. it's gonna be awesome. no no, it's like if you took awesome and wrapped it in a blanket of greatness. nothing like a greatness blanket keeping the awesome all nice and warm.

in the meantime, amuse yourself with music from one of the bands playing our release shows. these guys are all most excellent. hand picked, locally and organically grown:

at Silverlake Lounge show:
Swim Party - http://www.swimpartymusic.com
The Fresas - http://www.myspace.com/thefresas
Eux Autres - http://www.euxautres.net/

at Whistlestop show:
Joanie + the Secretaries (or is it The Joaniemen?) - http://www.myspace.com/joaniemen

the new album is cursed

so i officially declare the new album cursed. after what seemed like the end of problems as the album had been mailed off and all necessary paperwork filled out. This is the last e-mail i sent out on Thursday, 11/15:

Hey Sam, The Proof Looks great. we approve! you can proceed with the printing. so assuming that the printing process starts tomorrow, given the 12-15 business days (minus thanksgiving) that should put us somewhere between Dec 4th-Dec7th. sounds great! I'll be out of town w/ no e-mail access from Nov 18th-Nov28th. but you can contact my bandmate Alex at the address attached if you have any questions/issues. thanks again, and let us know if you need anything else and when we should mail out the 2nd check (and for how much). -eric

a few days later we received this e-mail, Monday 11/19 ... title "Master Failed":

Eric, We ran into a snag with your audio master. It has failed and we cannot use it to replicate. My mastering guy sent me an e-mail detailing the reason:
"The CD-Text length field in the Size information block does not match the actual amount of data that is recorded. This error typically occurs when reading CD-Text from a CD. The CD-Text data is formatted into Packs, one of which describes the length of CD-Text information. This error occurs when the length specified does not match the actual length of the CD-Text data that is read by the CD-ROM drive. If we are to Fix, Please Provide what the CD-Text should be. Or we can Delete the CD-Text all together." Please advise as to what you would like us to do...........

Thankfully they sent this only to me, and since i was running around europe, i had little time to get to a computer. so i thankfully responded 11/26 (after using the computer in the lobby of the hostel). Why they chose not to contact Alex and continuously e-mailed me, i dunno. but basically printing has now been delayed a week and most likely it won't affect our deadline, but honestly. "Master Failed" what the heck?!

i'm fully expecting people's CD players to burst into flames upon the first listen. perhaps we'll do some promo "fire extinguisers with the first 10 copies" ... or maybe garlands of garlic to ward off whatever beasts come out of the subwoofers.

time to invest in disclaimer labels "if you die from listening to this cd, it's not our fault."

UPDATE: apparently the album made it through their last checks and all is well now. they'll be providing an update to me when the printing is completed. phew!

new songs?

i'm not sure if this will work, but Mark Murphy, who put together the whole GREEN Exhibition @ the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, asked me if i knew how to embed or post music in blogger links, and i've never done it before, so i figured i'd figure it out here, for your (my) listening pleasure. if you didn't make it to Santa Monica last saturday, we had a blast, and the exhibit was most excellent - highly recommended if you are up in that area. which was an impressive area - parking lot at the end of a shady-looking alley, surrounded by about a dozen galleries, with lots of complimentary beer and wine, at least on opening saturday night. anyways, i digress... let's try this embedded flash player thing out! ... and i'm not sure how the powers that be feel about free things, but eric is on a whole other continent right now (he went to Europe without the rest of us Modlins...) soooo if you want, you can right-click the title below and Save As... to get yourself the mp3:

The Modlins - You Said


i think i like the look of that a bit more than if it was just the standard quicktime embed. maybe?

The Modlins - She Won't Miss Me


i guess i could just put the whole ms player up, but that sort of defeats the point, i think. but on that note, i did see that apparently we can have 6 songs up on our page now, so i'll talk to the other 2/4s of the modlins at practice in 2.5 hours, and maybe just maybe throw another new one up there tonight tonight.

calm before the storm

after this saturday, it's gonna be pretty quiet around the modlins practice space and the blog. i'm going out of town on sunday, and won't be back in town until Dec 5th. *single tear. so don't expect much updating. but to hold you over check out our shout out in the new CityBeat's "notes from the smoking patio". (thanks Rosey!)

oh, and here's the piece that patrick did that would in turn become the cover of our album (damn that guy is talented):

GREEN Exhibition - this saturday (last nov show)

so we're playing one more show before our CD release. it's up in santa monica at this gallery, exhibit details (and lots of amazing pictures) can be found here:

http://murphydesign1.blogspot.com/

the location:

Robert Berman Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue / C2 / Santa Monica / CA / 90404
310.315.1937 / http://www.robertbermangallery.com/

and here's the "press release":

Over 40 artists were invited to participate in the upcoming exhibition GREEN, curated by publisher/designer Mark Murphy.Green will feature original paintings, (24" x 24" and 24" x 36") that look to explore human interaction with nature. Green will be take place at the Robert Berman Gallery, in Santa Monica at Bergamond Station, gallery C2 on November 17th featuring traveling artists, inspired artworks, and the music of the Modlins. “The art work is amazing.”Check out www.robertbermangallery.com or www.murphydesign.com for more information and gallery show times : Green will be on display until December 22 :

the modlins and technology don't mix

well, as if we couldn't have any other problems, we did. as of 5:45pm friday, my protools Digi002 unit is dead! not sure what happeend, but it turns on and is unresponsive. the mute button lights up, nothing else. so let's see, this recording project has killed a hard drive and a protools unit. great.

but we did the FINAL mastering session on sunday with kyle, which was comical because the last thing that separated us and the CD was hitting "eject" on his laptop. we got the rainbow pinwheel of death. to the point that we actually had to force quit the application and restart his computer just to eject the CD. figures that it even something so simple would be laden with problems for us. but i mailed the CD and artwork off yesterday. overnighted. so they should be getting it today and they'll get started with the printing. as i updated on friday, two new songs are up on myspace now. i'll try to get them up here soon too so you all can listen (for those with myspace blocked at work like me)

our usual band practice resumes today. and we'll start brainstorming ideas of promotion and preparation for the album release show.

we'd love to hear your feed back. how do you like the new songs? ideas for the CD release? things you'd like to see the modlins do (cartwheels?) ... music video ideas? maybe that was one too many requests to put into a post.

2 new songs

hey everyone, check out our myspace .... 2 new songs posted. You Said and She Won't Miss Me. hope you like 'em. have a good weekend.

okay, maybe one more day

well last night was like putting all the gift wrapping paper on, but having to wait another day to put the bow on.

due to a mix-up in who was bringing beer, we ended up with a 12 pack of PBR, 6 pack of Ballast Point Big Eye IPA, and a 6 pack of Pizzaport Sharkbite. a guaranteed win! we ended up going through all the songs, doig the final bounces. watching kyle work his EQ magic. but unfortunately there wasn't quite enough time to do the final mastering to even out the levels and get the times between the songs right. but, other than that, we've got the finished songs. just wanna put that last bow on it. but that means we have a few days to sit, let all the songs soak in. assess the order.

so real Real soon we'll have a song up. but since we can still make some changes (and i have a few minor ones) we don't want to post something that might not be the final. so ... a few more days. but stick through it. it's gonna be worth it.

.... but last night we worked nearly til midnight, had to come home and then burn CDs for the gang. so it ended up being too late to go to the SD Dialed In show. I hope it went well (is there any doubt? of course not), i'll be waiting for Rosey to post her review of her show so i can see the party i missed. but there will be others. We saw Jason yesterday and we were talking about the show how we both wanted to go but had plans that night and we said "well, not a huge thing, since we did see a nearly same line-up a month ago at zombie lounge" (sub in Pocket Utopia for Henry Clay People) but still would've been fun. hope you all made it out to that show.

and we're still polishing up artwork and stuff, so it'll be a bit before we get a copy of the cover for your viewing pleasure.

but yes, expect in the next few days, week or so, 1) Cover Art, 2) a song or two to indulge in 3) pre-order ability for the new album. stay mod and have a safe weekend.

one more day

so last night was a busy night. we all met up at the house, started discussing the tracklist, showed some footage of my friend gen's film .. specifically scene's of us playing live or the characters talking about "going to the modlins show" ... hah!

then jetted over to kyle's place to listen to snippets of some of the more polished mixes he had worked on. i dunno if it was just his headphones, or what he had did, but it sounded amazing. bad night's sleep is gonna be a gem, esp. a gem as the closer.

the closer? why yes .... after much discussion we've settled on the tracklist, unless there's some cold feet by one of us, expect the tracklist to look much like this:

The Modlins - With Friends Like These
1. Her Political Heart
2. She Won't Miss Me
3. Full Moon
4. With Friends Like These
5. Why Did It Take So Long?
6. For The Good Of The Armor
7. Oh--OKay
8. You Said
9. Warm Up (Or Say Goodbye)
10. Not Everybody
11. We're Not Quite Through
12. I Could Have Died
13. It's Up To Me
14. Bad Night's Sleep

there's still some discussion on the cover art, so we'll get that to you (yes you) as soon as we can. as for tonight. Tonight! is the mastering session. we're meeting up at kyle's at 6pm and going til it's done. which means that there's a chance we may miss the SD Dialed In Blogaversary at The Ken Club. But that means you all should go (since we can't go, and you can't come with us. we'd like to take you, but there's no more room in the car, so sorry. what you have a bus pass? still no. my you're persistent...) Swim Party, Writer and Pocket Utopia. an awesome night of music. Pocket Utopia is a friend of mine's (mike) band. i haven't heard them yet, just read rosey' review relating him a bit to bright eyes, but if his music is as good as he is as a person, you're in for a treat. and also, why did that have to come out like a saturday afternoon noon special cheesy moment. "good as he is as a person' who am i? someone who speaks the truth my friends. and with that, know that writer is a band worth checking out. we saw them at the zombie lounge with swim party a couple weeks back and they were most excellent. i hadn't heard of them before and i'm not sure why. they rocked. so do yourself a favor and check em out. swim party? yeah, they're good i guess. if you're into that whole awesome music thing. personally, i'm not. why do you think i'm in the modlins? (oooo dig!)

album title: with friends like these

that's right. i'm sure we've dropped hints about it (ahem, blog title), probably even explicitly said it (hello! blog title). but as far as i'm aware, there's been no official announcement. so to make it official, here it is.

the modlins 2nd album will be titled: with friends like these

kill me with a brick!!! 5:30am?

so i got into work not too long ago, after our latest night (or earliest morning) to date. matt and I had to get everything finished up (all of the fixes al shot us over yesterday, mixing the last few songs, bounces, write up where everything is for kyle, etc. etc.) .... and sadly, that took til 5:30am.

what really sucked was this was also the last night our friend Nafi was in town for the Neuroscience conference. he had been visiting for the last 4 days and we hadn't been able to spend as much time hanging out as we would have liked. thanks a lot album. but thankfully he's a cool guy, and since i have to go to houston for a work trip in early dec, i might try and meet up with him them. but i digress...

the album is so close to do it's in the "sunny side up" stage. basically, some people like it this way. it's not flipped "over easy", or cooked extra long .... it's basically, edible at this point. butyou know, we're a .... hrmm ... actually this example makes no sense. let's just say the album is mixed, but it still has a few things left to make it uberfantastico. so kyle's eq'ing today. the boys are meeting up tonight to make sure we're all good with all the levels. we master tomorrow. i sleep indefinitely after that.

hopefully a good night's sleep. last night was a bad one.

choosing a tracklist

as the songs have pretty much taken full shape, we're left to ponder one of the final questions. so what's the track list?

well, this album isn't some great concept album (unless you want to consider girls a concept .... oddly philosophical, eh?) so we don't have "death march vol.1" as the opener with the other 7 volumes to follow. instead, as i sit here and listen to the tracks and try to make sense of the madness, i can't help but thinking of high fidelity (probably my favorite movie of all time ... well at last up there with Eternal Sunshine and Science of Sleep, that Michel Gondry is a genious ..., and high fidelity is one of the few movies that does the book justice, in my humble opinion) ... anyway, the perfect mix tape. you gotta start strong, the take it up a notch, but you don't want to blow your wattage too early ..... is it wattage of voltage, or something else. load? ... regardless, if you've ever made a mix tape for a friend, or a boy or girl, you know the stress. imagine if that boy or girl was every fan or friend who ever wanted to hear your music and you'd have a sense of the quandary we're in.

i'm often kicking around track lists long before we even have the songs written so needless to say this one's been on my mind for awhile. the last few days are the most exciting, becuase you start to say "hey wait a second, that song is awesome, maybe it should be the opener ... oh this song should definitely follow this one." ... i dunno, i get a thrill out of it. like a puzzle. with no real right answer, just one that in your gut you go "yup, solved it" ....

.... so i just hope we solve it before it gets printed next week.

so close, so tired

So matt and I have been up til about 4ish both last night and the night before. Good idea, releasing lots of music. bad idea, deciding that you need to resing an entire song because the "best take" wasn't good enough. but, all's well that ends well. Her Political Heart got the special treatment last night, and it shows. tonight's gonna be another doosie. final mixes of 3 more, and a couple shorties.

we also met up after work at al's place to go over album art. He's spearheading the layout with all artwork contributions by our dear friend patrick.

since my posts are normally pretty boring, lots of text, and i know we're visual folks. here's a couple shots. of matt and i recording short songs and working on music for our friend gen's film.

















heh, my zvex pedal shirt. i got it free when they accidentally sent me 2 ooh-wah IIs and i sent one back. stupid honesty.


















matt preps the mics for some acoustic guitar.

four days to go and a weekend to rest (hopefully)

well, the frantic schedule is (hopefully) coming to an end. we spent approx 16 hours (no joke, 9:30am-2am) on saturday mostly mixing, picking a few takes, cleaning up tracks. yesterday, more of the same. i think matt worked about 13 hours, most of the time alone was spent cleaning up the sessions, deleting out muted things, making sure there were not "pops", fading parts in and out. you know, the boring stuff (snoozefest!)

but the secret apollo/swim party/drowning men show was excellent! glad we able to catch that one. if you missed it, well, i feel sorry for you. and all those around you. mostly for those around you. cause you, you're already a loser, but the people near you are like "aww man, i gotta be near these people ... they didn't go to the show, did you hear?" ... it's just sad. ...... at this point, i'm not sure what i'm talking about, so i'll digress.

okay, so today and tomorrow, more of the same. mix like madmen, and burn out like heroes. tuesday night, we're all meeting up to go over the art work. wednesday, kyle does his extra special "kyle mixing" which is basically like putting all the songs through the "awesome machine" ... so that'll be fun. we'll check all the levels one last time, thursday meet up with K-dog (i opted not to use K-Tom, but perhaps i should just call him kyle thompson) .... he's mastering it that night .. and viola!!! the album is done. or is it? well, hopefully. if not, we've got the next 3 days to make sure it is right. after that, sending off the music to be printed on monday with the grand hopes that it all should be returned to us just before the release show.

some would say we are mad. those people would be right. but you know what? how many bands do you know release 2 albums a year? (aside from Ryan Adams and all artists from the 50s and early 60s) not many eh? yeah. so keep your opinions to yourself. cause you're getting new music just in time for xmas.

in the words of one of my dear friends, cuong nguyen (takin' out of context, but it applies regardless) "are you kidding me? no one's gonna say 'hey, turn that good music down'" ... perhaps it's a bit out of context, if you get it, good. if you don't, well come to our release show and i'll explain to you fully the circumstances that lead to the quote.

oh, and most likely we'll have some songs for you in the VERY near future. so keep looking here (and our myspace page) as those will be the first to debut our new songs.

tonight! tower bar!

hey all, if you don't already have plans, you should head out to the tower bar. it's adam from secret apollo's bday, they're playing a show along with swim party and the drowning men. alex, stoph and renee will be there for sure. hopefully the rest of us will be able to make it out as well, depending on the progress in the earlier part of the night. this is gonna be one helluva show!

DISASTER STRIKES!!! (but the mods are ready)

So remember how i was telling you about that great deal on an external hard drive? So in case something bad happens we would have our album in two spots? something bad happened.

last night, after a few hours of cleaning up Full Moon, our old workhorse (the hard drive that contained the masters of Here's To Being Happy, and the one we were using for this album) died . He, like so many others, died before his time. Deb is takin' it to her studio, they've got something that may potentially make it salvageable, but we learned a valuable lesson.

1) save your work often
2) always have a backup, in case something bad happens

we started this album back in ... july? august? something like that. and if we would have lost it, well, i don't think anyone would've wanted to rerecord everything. would've been a sad. our friends in the band Spanish Archer (now The Parklights) had recorded this song called "Counting Converse" years ago and apparently had an awesome version of it. it got lost. they had to rerecord it. and apparently, they say it just wasn't the same, but they couldn't capture the energy on the original recording. so sad.

So, to be safe, we ceased work after this little episode, and resigned ourselves to non-album activities. I'm picking up ANOTHER hard drive today so we have a back up (some people would say "but modlins, you've got a brand new hard drive, it'll be fine" to these people i say "you like to live dangerously, don't you? you probably go off and ride motorcycles into dragons mouths, all while shooting up Drano?")

more posts to follow today (progress made, a review/comments on the Kevin Drew show in LA) but yeah, phew. we're still on to have an album. we can now breathe a sigh of relief. for now.

excitement runs high!

well, we're getting pretty giddy over here at the modlins camp. last night i went to Fry's to pick up a new external hard drive (currently the 3 sessions for our album takes up about 75 Gb) and we had no back up of it. so, out of fear the hard drive would crash rendering the album unsalvageable and causing matt and i to go into a bloodlust rampage, we picked up an additional external hard drive.

if you're in the market for one, Fry's has a 320 Gb, Maxtor one for $99.99. it's pretty sweet looking, has both firewire and "hi-speed" USB.

... and while i was down there, matt had told me he was getting me Guitar Hero 3 for my bday last month, but it just wasn't out, so since i was down there i could go pick it up. and i did. and thankfully backing up the files took a little over and hour. enough time to eat dinner, take a shower, and get in a couple games of guitar hero. yeeehaaaaah! My name is Jonas and Cherub Rock!

but yeah, another long night. we were up til just after 2pm, organizing, picking takes (yeah, we're still doing that), getting levels right. it's exhausting. stoph stopped by to pick up some intial mixes and he's diggin' in. so far, on my CD of initial burns today I have:

Bad Night's Sleep
For The Good of The Armor
For The Good of The Armor (alternate arrangement w/ different back up vocal pattern)
Her Political Heart
She Won't Miss Me
Warm Up (Or Say Goodbye) (new recording!!)
We're Not Quite Through
We're Not Quite Through (alternate arrangement w/ piano and more handclaps)
and Intro to another song
With Friends Like These
You Said

it's been very exciting to start listening to the new songs finally come to a near completed state. I won't really be working on the album tonight as i'm 1) driving up with dee to LA to catch kevin drew and the "broken social scene presents spirit if ..." tour and 2) i have to run a conversion this week for a client. tomorrow's gonna be a busy day. probably no halloween festivities for me and if i get done with work at a reasonable hour tomorrow, more working on the album. surprise, surprise.

a preemptive thanks to Patrick Hruby

though the whole cover art/layout has yet to be completed, before i forget i want to say thanks to patrick hruby, yet again, for letting us use his artwork to (most likely) grace the cover of our album. if you guys aren't familiar with his work, you should check it out here: http://patariku.deviantart.com/

he's an amazing artist based out of los angeles and a really good friend of ours. if you're in LA (and i think arizona too!) his artwork is on display in a few galleries. He also has some prints for sale online, i believe. lovely lovely stuff ..... he did this one that you might be familiar with:

this album may kill us

time for another "look what we did/why do we do this to ourselves?" comment.

Friday night would've been a great night for music. a few good shows around town, we really wanted to head out the Ken to catch Red Feathers and Vision of a Dying World, but alas, the album is like an evil girlfriend that demands all of your time. but you love her so much, you don't mind it. though you may be further distancing yourself from your friends, but right now the love is too new, and the possibilities seem endless, so you are hopefully and maybe further down the line you'll find time for both of them.

in short, we didn't make it to the Ken. we instead went to Kyle's place to do the initial mix session. it was VERY initial as we realized we were giving him an audio mess that he instructed us properly how to clean up. thanks kyle! so yeah, then we went home and beat ourselves up in a closet for the rest of the night. saturday was more music. i demo'd two new instrumentals for gen's film (maddie said) and when matt got off work at 4 we worked 'til 8:30. some friends of ours were down to hang out, dress up and karaoke (a couple are leaving to go work in costa rica with sea turtles. jealous?). sunday, resisted the urge to go out and buy guitar hero 3, and matt and i worked on the album til 1:30am. yes, in the morning. BUT!!!! .... we now have listenable versions of 5 songs. i haven't told the boys yet, but stoph and al should be getting some CDs to listen to today, to assess the arrangements and such. the levels are all a bit off, but that will come later.

.... so what does this mean? well for starters, that we missed Anna Troy last night (insert sad face here). we'll probably be missing Swim Party at the casbah tonight (sorry guys!). hopefully we can catch the Secret Apollo/Swim Party/Drowning Men show at the tower bar on friday, as long as we have a productive week. it means, we have many more songs to get to a listenable state.... but it also means that there should be a new song or two debuting in a week or two. excited? i guess the nice thing about being an unsigned, "recording at home (sorta)" band is there's pretty much zero time between the song being done, and the sweet tune hitting your ears.

lastly, i know i promised pictures but, well, you're a forgiving bunch so you won't mind a few more days of just text eh? ...... thanks, i knew you'd understand.

another late night and a busy weekend ahead

last night was a bit of a doozie (sp?). i got back from work at 5:45, al pulled up, we ran through a few more patches he had to fill in. wrapped that up around 7:15. then matt and i hit it hard, filling in any spots where we'd missed vocals, retrying a few new parts. all in all, we worked with almost no stop (minus a 20 min break to make and eat dinner) til 1am.

foolishly, we followed it up with an episode of six feet under (only a few episodes remaining in the last season for us, exciting, but sad).

but the songs are sounding great, it was exciting to hear all the vocal parts and percussion on songs like "she won't miss me" or "with friends like these" ... they're really coming together.

today, we're meeting up with Kyle Thompson after work. he recorded our last album, and he'll be helping us again to do some initial mixing (we'll also be bringing him in at the end to master and make sense of the audio mess we've made).

the forecast for this weekend: Mixing and more take picking. with a slight chance of resings. she's gonna be a busy one. more pics of us messing around in our "recording quarters" to follow this weekend.

san diego fires

as i'm sure most of you know, the san diego fires have been the number one priority, and on everyone's mind this week. our work office has been closed (and probably will reopen at the earliest on thursday). schools across san diego county are closed for the week. the estimated count of evacuees is up to 500k. in mission hills, we've remained mostly unaffected. friends and familes have come over to hang out, or seek refuge for awhile. our friend dan is currently storing all his musical equipment at our place (makes our living room look like a recording studio now ... i guess with his and our stuff, it basically is, well, since we are recording, both up and downstairs). there's not much more i can say on the matter except that i hope everyone is being safe, and all works out in the end.

i've been having to work from home most of the time, keeping up on the news, a friend of kevin's came by to pick up donations to drop off at qualcomm yesterday, so we went to the store about bought 4 cases of water, 2 8packs of gatorade, 2 24packs of chips, Kool aid "bursts" and some soup to take down for kevin, deb, dee and I. hope everyone else is doing okay.

on a lighter note, we've had a busy weekend. won't go into the nitty gritty too much as to what all was record and which songs, but we've been chugging away. we also took a break on saturday night to check out Scolari's office, hosting an excellent line-up. The Shrines played first, and though we missed them, we heard good things from the crowd and look forward to catching them next time around. we caught the minor canon, larger horned pop outfit from LA. matt talked to them for a bit. next up, secret apollo who tore it up with a great set through the classics. lastly, beta lion had a rough start (i blame myself for the power brick i let opie borrow) but they overcame that and finished off the night extremely strong. all in all, a great night. beta lion and secret apollo never fail to disappoint so if you haven't had a chance to check either of these bands out, well ... time to right that wrong.

this week holds a bunch of work as we have to give the rough mixes to kyle so he can do an initial mixing pass on friday, so matt and i are gonn have to pull some "MIA" time to accomplish this. i think we'll also be getting Al back over here for some more vocals.

and if that all wasn't enough, i've been working on the soundtrack to my friend gen's film "maddie said" .... i made 2 songs (1 of which i was told would work quite well for a particular scene, perhaps i'll post the song) ... and last night, kerrie, dan and kevin (all formerly of sinfonia antartica) were playing around working on some stuff for the film. i think dan and kevin recorded a few things today ... we'll see how they came out ..... though this is a modlins blog, so perhaps i should keep to that, but when you're recording this much stuff, it's hard not to go "hey mom look what i did" ...

my room's a mess .. and i still have a bit of work to do today, so i'll end this post now. just letting you all know the fire hasn't got to us, and the album is still on schedule ....

time to buckle down

thanks again everyone for coming out. fans and friends alike, it was good to see you for our last show for awhile. always good to see the swim party and secret apollo kids. and nice anna and bart stopped by as well. so thanks again. and if you haven't been to the brass rail (last night was my first time) ... it's an ... interesting venue. the stage set up has this tier kinda thing. stoph was off to one side. matt, al and i were in a line facing out. hopefully someone took pictures of the show, so we can post something up. but yeah, it's kind of a cool place. perhaps if they got a bigger/better stage set up it might be more suited for live bands. but we still had a good time.

but now it's time to buckle down. aside from an art gallery show in long beach in november, we've got a clean slate until the CD release show, which we're about 98% sure will be dec 14th at the whistlestop.

i've got the night off tonight, but matt's probably gonna be wading through some tracks while i'm out being irresponsible. the weekend holds many hours of take picking and harmony singing. we're hoping to have everything laid out for mixing by the middle/end of next week.

so the next time you're sitting on your couch doing nothing, or out at a bar livin' it up, just think ... "those poor modlin kids are meticulously crafting a delicious new LP for me" ... cuase that's what we're doing. for you. cause we're nice like that. really.

clap your hands say record?

we just didn't get enough with our last studio session, so we're going back. and we're were bring some friends like ... these? i dunno it's early. i've had my coffee but it's doing nothing.

anyway, we're gonna pop in briefly to record some claps with a few friends. then, off to get some grub at Devine Pastabilities (Torpasta!) .... if you've never been, do yourself a favor and head down there. not only are torpastas the tastiest pasta meal ever, but Damien is the nicest guy you'll ever meet. check it out here. i highly recommend the Eggplant Parmesan or the Veggie Meatball (close runner up is the Dayna's Vegan Special ... mmm garlic!)

after that, off to the casbah for Two Gallants and Blitzen Trapper. should be a most excellent night.

sinfonia antartica breaks up!

sad news, just heard that sinfonia antartica is breaking up. this will be their last show together (the one on thursday w/ us). they will also have free burned copies of their EP they were working on. come out, support, and wish them well in future musical endeavors.

the long overdue studio pictures

check our website for the complete set of pics. but here's a couple highlights.


where the magic happened

grandmaster al


learning the new dance steps "1 and 2 and 3 and 4!"








matt hides behind a giant microphone
































stoph in his cubby

a good night's sleep

yesssssssss! last night (i, alex) left the killian-sheridan abode at 11:15pm after finally completing, fingers crossed, the last session of my vocal takes for the album! ate some Chipotle (burrito-bowl with rice, black beans, steak, mild tomato salsa, medium corn salsa, sour cream, cheese, and lettuce), drank a little scotch, and laid down/retouched vocals/backups for pretty much every song on the album, except for a couple songs which, in retrospect, probably means i'll have to go back sometime...


still life: Bad Night's Sleep lyrics, scotch, water, Daniel EP og artwork in bg

but its not too bad if i have to go back, because while i was hard at work, eric was hardly working, going to the store to get ice cream cones, and he came back with Blue Moon's winter beer, Full Moon!



so i'm thinking we'll probably need to get them to use our own Full Moon in all kinds of commercials, get them to sponsor our CD Release Party, and get free beer for life. seems reasonable, right?

ooh, also i just updated the 'space with our two December shows, which just might well turn into the Pre-Release, and Actual Release, for With Friends Like These. pretty exciting!

what a weekend!

so last we left our fearless heros they were holed up in the studio thursday night. Well, it's official. WE ARE DONE ... with the instrument tracks. we're excited, i think they came out better than expected. matt and i then spent a good 5-6 hours on saturday (nothing like singing in the upstairs hallway at midnight) doing vocals for these last songs. sunday was more take picking, and stoph came over to lay down some percussion ideas (shakers, some tambourine, you know .. the good stuff)

schedule for this week?

monday: Al's coming over today to put down the last of his vocal tracks.
tuesday: a practice, little band meeting to prepare for all the albumy details.
wednesday: ... some hand claps and what not .... party times. but we're taking that night off to hit up the Two Gallants/Blitzen Trapper show.
thursday: ya'll should come out to The Brass Rail for us, Sinfonia Antartica and Frantic Romantic. shows gonna be CRAZY good times.

barely a free moment. but .... on the plus side, we've managed to tenatively secure some dates for the cd release .... what's that? did you say Dates? why yes i did ... there will be a pre-release show up in LA the night before the official Release show down in SD (for all those people who complain it's too far to drive to SD, well, we'll do the driving for you, except with our car.. to your city.. not your car to our city, cause well, that's physically impossible, well it's possible, but it would require us to come up to your city, and do it for all of you, you the whinners, which is a lot of you, no i'm not being insulting, just calling em as i see 'em ... oh come on now .. it's okay ... we still love you ..... cheer up. there, don't you feel better .... now where was I .... ah yes ...). so 2 release dates! 2 chances to catch all the new songs. it's gonna be EXCITING. expect the release to be mid-dec, most likely Dec 13th/14th (don't quote me on that) ... and we've got some exciting people to be playing with as well. oh it's all so exciting. i can barely contain myself.

photos and more concrete album release details as they present themselves.

'til then. heads to the grindstone?, and eyes on the road. we've got work to do

and so it is ...

... that our final session in the studio has come and gone. between the many cans of coke and pabst, the half eaten box of hot n' spicy cheez-its, and the busted amp fiasco, we've laid down the final tracks and are happy (er, content) with them. we'll probably all get together to pick the best takes this weekend hopefully, start laying some vocals down and see if we can't peicemeal something together here.

i also felt a bit ridiculous stooping to paparazzi levels with the camera, but i got a few shots of the studio and us playing around. to be posted soon.

off to the studio

quick post before i jet. we're all meeting at the studio at 6ish ... finally! quite excited. wish us luck. hopefully we'll have good things to report in the next few days.

last week, this week

last week was a blast! thanks again to roxy jones for inviting us out for their CD release (and if you haven't already pick up a copy of their new CD "wasn't tomorrow horrible?", pick one up! out now!) thanks to squiddo for the support that night.

and thanks to everyone who came out for the gig show (you know who you are). Hot TV was simply amazing, and Sons and Lovers provided the perfect night cap. if you guys haven't already, go to the gig's website and click the Watch Now icon, you can stream the whole show.

as for this week ..... well, it's already begun. after practice last night, matt and I spent 2 hours picking through more vocal takes of "you said" and "she won't miss me" ... as tedious as it was, i think those two songs might be nearing a finished state. madness, i know.

and .... argh mayhem, we got bumped from our timeslot yesterday, so our NEW AND IMPROVED recording date is this thursday (tomorrow). hopefully this one will stick and we'll have some pictures of the studio to share with ya'll.

in other music news, tonight from 6-8pm at the whistlestop, Secret Apollo is gonna be screening some of their new music videos, and some old ones. it's free and should be a good time.

and sunday, be sure to make it out to the zombie lounge for swim party and the henry clay people. should be an amazing show. we know swim party will tear through their set (hopefully throw in a couple new songs, as i hear they're deep into their next recording at the moment) and henry clay are one of those LA buzz bands we catch wind of. don't miss it!

this sunday, don't forget

flyer by kay lee

broken record?

okay, i'm sure these posts are beginning to sound like a broken record (which is ironic since it's actually completing a record that we're talking about, is that irony?) .... but mr. alex came over again last night, a few more takes of a few more songs. we're the tortoise here ... but we'll win in the end.

practice tonight in prepartion for this weekends up coming shows, but afterwards, matt and i will be back at the computer hitting the takes hard to find the best ones.

as for our last recording date ..... OCTOBER NINTH! ... that's right, the modlins take to the studio one last time to finish off the last of the instrument tracks, officially 3 more to do, unofficially 5 more, whatever that means.

and what are these last 3 songs called you might ask (you meaning .. um, the text window, since i'm sure there are zero readers of this blog):

- her political heart
- bad night's sleep
- for the good of the armor

the next couple weeks will prove to be interesting, and our progress will ulitimately make or break our december release (yes we realize that we're attempting to cram a lot into a little bit of time, but you know what, we're here to make lots of music, not spend years on one album, we'll get to that stage in life at some point) we're doing the instruments live, we're having fun with it, trying not to over think it, so hopefully you won't either. you, the text window, who's stuck with me through this entire post, and who's been there for me for many posts before, and many posts to come. you understand me, you know my strengths, my weaknesses, my loves, my unloves .... your tolerance is high, patience consistent ... unconditional. we should run away together. tell no one ..... i have friends in new mexico. no one will find us. we can live up in the ......

what was this post about again?

phew .... who needs a nap?

so we've been brainstorming how we're going to get this all done. we want to have the album out by the end of the year (clean slate, fresh start for '08) so we're frantically working on the album. matt and i did more vocaling on monday and mr. smith will be swinging by to put his sweet pipes to tape today. we're also working on securing a venue with some local favorites we've either enjoyed or been meaning to be playing with. all in all, things are good in the modlins camp. we just played the tower bar with anna troy, which was a blast, and an acoustic set for loverlee's CD release which went really well. check out loverlee's new CD "musical chairs", it's pop goodness.

this weekend is another busy weekend, saturday evening our friend Emma Goo is having a solo art show down at the magpie boutique/gallery in south park (across from the whistlestop) from 6-10pm. That evening we'll be playing at The Ken Club for Roxy Jones' CD release show. should be a hoot. with squiddo to close out the night. then, the following day heading up to LA for a show with compilation-mates "sons and lovers" at the gig. Hot TV to support. check it.

alex slays the monday night mic

alex came over last night for a 2 hour vocal session. just laying down some initial backup vocal tracks to "it's up to me", "she won't miss me", "you said" and some leads on "why did it take so long?" ..... red stripes were had. tunes were sung. rice cooker was cooking.

okay, the rice cooker isn't part of it. but still very important.

band practice this afternoon in preparation for our anna troy/tower bar show, and acoustic practice for our Sunday show in LA (loverlee's CD release show).

it's gonna be a busy week, today or tomorrow matt and I are going to be going back through Alex's vocal takes, picking through and finding what's good, and what might need redoing.

and it's definitely official, Oct 9th will be our last session at the studio. pics to be available at that time.

and if you've never seen six feet under, i highly recommend hitting up the library and watching the entire series. we just finished season four (of five). it's a show that, as matt put it, isn't just an escapism show where you like being with the characters, but rather a show that's engaging, and you feel apart of, and like you're learning from the characters. you can sympathize with their situations, and as good or bad as the situations get, it's believable in the way they pan out and how the characters handle them. i only have good things to say, and if you ask nicely and put it on your christmas list, i'm sure santa will be happy to oblige.

we are liars, can we make it up to you on thursday?

so we may have told a small white lie when we said the last session was going to be on friday. cause, well, that wasn't true. we meant oct 9th. honest, we just ... well, sometimes get numbers and months crossed in our heads. so yeah, oct 9th, expect the boys and the studio to reunite for one last fling before the bitter cold of winter sets in.

however, we did have a glorious time working on vocals and picking vocal takes this weekend. matt and i spent about 3 hours on saturday and 3 hours on sunday laying down some sweet vocals ... hrmmm perhaps i should attempt to take pictures of all of this. i'm a horrible historian.

the infamous alex will be gracing the vocal stage (aka, the hallway upstairs in our house) to laydown some harmonies ... and one, soon to be glorious, lead part on "why did it take so long?"

in other news, we'll be playing the tower bar in city heights for the first time, playing with anna troy (and bart) for the first time. except this to be a night to remember. assuming you aren't already going to The National/St. Vincent, or Dan Deacon/Girl Talk, or !!! or .... well, staying home. or washing your hair. don't lie. everyone knows you don't wash it. you dirty kids.

3 part harmonies, 4 star reviews

after pratice on tuesday, al, matt and I stuck around a bit longer to start running through the vocal harmonies for a batch of new songs that'll be on the next album. "bad night's sleep", which relies heavily on a well crafted 3 part harmony (courtesty of mr. sheridan), was sounding surprisingly good for our first run through. we also began working out back up vocals for "we're not quite through." matt and I will probably be attempting another vocal recording session later this weekend, laying em down, gettin'er dun.

i also just received a harmonica (in B) from dee for my birthday (which will go nicely with the 7 harmonica cheapo set i bought that didn't have a B). In theory, i'll be making my harmonica debut on an upcoming track on the album. we'll see how that pans out. Sure we could've changed the key of the song and made it fit in with one of the 7 harmonicas I already had (A or C were included) but the songs in B and, dammit, she's gonna stay in B.

.... the final studio recording session is scheduled for friday, sept 21st. hopefully this time one of us will bring a camera so we can post some pics of us galavanting around the studio.

and lastly, be sure to pick up a copy of SD Music Matters magazine (they're sprinkled around in CD stores, coffeehouses, etc.) as Bart Mendoza gave "Here's To Being Happy" a very flattering review and paired it with a 4 star rating. thanks bart!

day one: vocals

sorry for the delays on posting. we've been busy (and i've been to erie, pennsylvania twice now)

yesterday we started laying down the first set of vocal tracks. unfortunately my mac mini didn't quite have enough juice to keep up as it kept getting tired and quitting on us. a stop to fry's (and double the RAM) should put a stop to that.

"you said" got the vocal treatment from matt and myself, matt also put down some vox for "we're not quite though" and "she won't miss me" .... "with friends like these" seemed to be a bit more elusive ... and might require some T.L.C. .... more on this as it unfolds.

in other news, our podcast interview with pirate pods just was posted, so be sure to check out the band rambling through another interview (http://www.piratepods.com/)

that's all for now, we should be going back to the studio in a couple weeks to finish up the instrument tracks, and the gang will hopefully be making some headway on the vocals. perhaps we'll even post a demo or two for you guys.

until then....

don't look back, here's to being happy

after a busy weekend, we're back in san diego ready to grace the stage of the casbah once again. this time for the extra special poor man's "don't look back" ... HERE'S TO BEING HAPPY (if you aren't familiar with the don't look back series, google it... and ATP). we'll be playing our SDMA nominated album in it's entirety, so get there early for fuusa and echo revolution, and stay for what will most likely be one of our most memorable shows of the summer.

as for a weekend review, let's just say it was tiring, but fun as hell. che cafe was great. beauty bar was awesome. the dios guys' are super nice (inspite of the sound issues we and they had with onstage monitors and the door to the inside DJs). the van was a trooper - broke down 75 miles outside of vegas on the way to the beauty bar, but sucked it up to finish the whole trip (though driving in 115 degree weather with the heater blasting in your face isn't the most fun) At least we now have earned our band merit badge for "broken down tour van". let's hope we don't earn our "gear stolen" merit badge anytime soon.

we should have another post on recording stuff in the coming weeks. we're still caught up in all these shows.

keepin on keepin on

might as well post these here: fliers (flyers?) for tonight @ the che, with sinfonia antartica, the airlines, the roman spring, and music in between bands provided by the dj skills of the roman spring fellas (and us playing at least a couple songs that we recorded last weekend), tomorrow @ the beauty bar in las vegas with dios malos, the vulcan freedom fighters, the wildbirds, and djs the rawkerz (if there is anything left of the bb after last night's swedish models / fifty on their heels / atoms / new mothers), and tuesday at the casbah with echo revolution and the fuusa. tuesday was eric's idea - in honor of HTBH's nomination for Best Pop Album @ the 2k7 sdma, we're going to perform the album in its entirety. every track, including the lesser-played tracks like the prude & the stubborn, which we haven't played in san diego since we hit the zombie lounge with roxy jones at the end of may, and allison says, last played at scolari's office with secret apollo a few weeks before that even. we had originally intended to play allison says last week at the ken club, but things just got crazy, aka we were running late and played 9 songs instead of 11, aka my roommate made his triumphant return from a weekend in san jose and shots (of tequilla) were fired. anyways, here's some flyers (fliers?), i think.

2007 san diego music awards nominee - best pop album

and in other non-album two related news ..... here's to being happy (our last/first/only album) was nominated for a san diego music award (sdma) ... you can't vote on it, as it's in the acadamy section, but you can show your support by um ... coming to our shows, harassing the voting committee and ... wait, don't do the second one.

we're really excited, and feel honored to be nominated. if you haven't already picked up a copy of the now 2007 sdma nominated album, swing by m-theory records in mission hills or order one from our website. thanks everyone for the continued support.

round two (recording and vegas)

well ... it's was round two of recording last saturday. at the ass crack of dawn (9am) we loaded up, set up, rocked up, filled up (on some delicious mex-food at Lolitas), and wrapped up recording around 7pm. 5 more instrument takes done. we laid down the basic tracks (guitar/bass/drums) for ..... "why did it take so long?", "full moon", "not everybody", "it's up to me" and a beefed up version of "warm up (or say goodbye)" ... since all these instruments are being done live in the same room, the feel has just been amazing. it feels less like a recording session and more just a live performance set to (digital) tape.

with the remaining minutes we ran through some of the songs for our next round of recording (slated for sometime at the end of august) and then launched into some of our favorite covers (femme fatale, something to look forward to, being with you, too much monkey business ...... we even did a quick jam of Sweet Jane ... which probably will never see the light of day). then headed over to Scolari's to catch The Frantic Romantic blow our minds, and Secret Apollo continue to rock the house. a great saturday indeed.

sadly, i'm now in erie, PA and will be missing out on much of the weeks great music (the 88 at the casbah, red walls at casbah, um .... probably whoever else is playing the casbah) but i'll be back 11am friday morning, just in time for a run through before our set at the che. poor bailey had to cancel due to some unfortunate circumstances, but our friends Sinfonia Antartica graciously have joined the bill. in addition, it'll be round two in vegas. no word yet on who will accompany us at the beauty bar, but we're playing with Dios Malos. does it really matter?

Che Cafe - Friday, Aug 10th (8:30pm)
sinfonia antartica > the airlines > the modlins > the roman spring

Beauty Bar (in Las Vegas) - Saturday Aug 11th (9:00pm?)
.... um. us and dios malos.

decent takes & silver lakes

so matt and i took a listen last night to the first round of songs. The instrument tracks sound pretty darn good so I think we're well on our way. next round of recording set for 8/4.

also, we just set up another show at the silverlake lounge in Los angeles Aug. 21st. We'll be playing with a new band, Hot TV, featuring Mark Bertuldo (the guy who did the orchestral parts on "for goodness' sake" on our last album). It's his new band, and it'll be their first show, should be awesome. more bands TBA.

and in case you hadn't noticed, despite our recording this whole month, it hasn't detered us from booking the crap out of every venue and band we can get our hands on. the breakdown of shows (thus far):

7/27 - Whistlestop w/ old man hands and red feathers
8/2 - Ken Club w/ the boyish charms, slings and the bears
8/10 - Che Cafe w/ roman spring, the airlines and poor bailey
8/11 - Beauty Bar (Las Vegas) w/ dios malos and poor bailey
8/14 - Casbah w/ echo revolution and fuusa
8/21 - Silverlake Lounge w/ hot tv and ....
8/23 - Cal State San Marcos (11:30 lunchtime show)
8/25 - Lestat's w/ the joanie-men

the first night

the boys and i are back in the studio, breaking ground on the next album. we laid down instrument tracks for ... eh, roughly 5 songs. we also did one take of another, but i think it's gonna see the cutting room floor (or more specifically the digital recycle bin). But much head way was made. Our friend deborah's hooking us up with some time at the studio she works at. the studio we were at til just past 2am last night. but yes, it has begun.

the first songs out of the gate: you said, we're not quite through, with friends like these, she won't miss me, full moon. tonight we'll listen to the initial cuts, see if there's anything worth salvaging.