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