Happy Friday the 13th

(photo taken from SD:Dialed In Rosie's recap of Modlins + Exfriends @ Whistlestop, friday the 13th of April, 2k7)

and now, another poster to scare you. and by scare, i mean please.



yippee cay ay yay! Friday the 20th of February, 2009!

beta lion makes me feel lazy, and then

all we've ever done to promote shows is make posters, and tell people about it, and hold hostage the things they love so they are forced to come to shows. but never have we made a promo video youtube awesome power rangers white ranger spectacular spectacular. you win this round, beta lion. Back II Cool, 4th & B (San Diego), Sept. 20th, 2008, $10 or free if you donate a backpack.

and on a completely unrelated note, i was listening to music at lala.com and stumbled upon this Shine album by Estelle, and just wanted to point out that its funny that she decided through in a few lines covering The Exfriends' "Hey Maria". or something.



if only i had an exfriends Hey Maria video to put up here as well... oh well... see you tonight at the Belly Up?

3 SDMA nominated BEST POP ALBUMS!!! ONE NIGHT ONLY!!!

if ATP can have their "don't look back" series, well ... san diego can do one for SDMA nominated albums. expect this to be an unforgettable night.

SDMA nod, album number three ...

what a great weekend .... on saturday the nominees for the 2008 San Diego Music Awards were announced, and the "little-engine-that-could" album "With Friends Like These" was nominated for Best Pop Album. Two for Two! if you forgot, "Here's To Being Happy" (our first album) was nominated for Best Pop Album in 2007 (side note: though both came out in 2007, HTBH came out in early 07 and WFLT came out in late 07 so they were in different groups. cut off each award group is the end of june)

We're really honored to be choosen and even more honored considering the competition (i mean, Exfriends "Joy of Life" and Joanie's "On a String" sheesh ... stiff competition) the complete list can be found at Street. congrats also to Swim Party for "best Alternative album." ... they've got some damn tough competition too.

so, how does a band celebrate releasing two albums last year, both being nominated for SDMAs in their respective years? with our first recording session for the as-yet-untitled follow-up to WFLT (aka Album #3). our dear friend and sound engineer for our last album, Deborah Reeves, came over to house for a more "D.I.Y." approach to everything. we ran through 4 new songs which may or may not make the final cut. it was a fun and long day filled with plenty of music, friends, bbqing and beer. i would include a few pictures, but blogger is being difficult, so looks like they'll have to wait.

instead, i'll remind you that if you haven't already picked up a copy of "With Friends Like These" you can do so by following the "buy now" link on our website: http://www.themodlins.com/ or at M-Theory Records in Mission Hills, Music Trader in PB, or Off The Record in North Park.

here's a link to the official SDMA site, you know, just cause: http://www.sandiegomusicawards.com/



UPDATE!! here's those pictures i was talking about:

with weeks like these

sd: dialed in has the massive listings for this week, but since matt called me yesterday as i was in the frozen aisle of vons (ben n jerry's Neopolitan Dynamite is like Half Baked 2.awesome), i figured i'd post the ones i had picked out, and make the claim that this is a highly Modlin-recommended week.

wed 7/9 : Exfriends CD Release @ the Belly Up w/ Escalera, Stripes and Lines
thur 7/10 : by now you should be able to be in two places at once (sidenote, not sure if that sounds more like an album name, or a shoegaze-y band) : Sayvinyl / Swedish Models (cd release) / sideproject from Apes of Wrath @ the Beauty Bar, and Calico Horse / Silverbird / Japanese Sunday / The Focus Group - fundraiser for Demetrius Antuna @ the Casbah
fri 7/11 : Vision of a Dying World / Scarlet Symphony / Thin Man @ casbah
sat 7/12 : maybe not 4 out of 4 modlin recommended, but hey, i'll be there: Stay Classy tailgate gets you into the padres game as well. gotta do what you gotta do.
sun 7/13 : Red Pony Clock / The Donkeys / Shearwater @ the casbah
mon 7/14 : Joanie Mendenhall CD Release anti monday league + The Fascination, The Feeling's Mutual, The Valley Arena @ the casbah
tues 7/15 : The Modlins @ Cafe La Maze . word.
wed 7/16 : Frantic Romantic + more @ u31 ?

grand total : 8 days, 8 concerts. as eric said last practice, maybe we can just get some sort of week-long pass for the casbah...

SD Album Release Shows acomin' ...

albums are like babies to musicians ... one passionate night of writing and there's no turning back, a few weeks thinking about what you've done, fear of things going wrong, the hard work, preparing for it's arrival ...

i don't have a baby, so it's probably nothing like it, but it's as close as i can get right now (kinda like passing a kidney stone is the closest i could come to giving birth) ... but it's an important time for us. and we want to share what we've done with everyone.

there's been quite a few albums i've been anticipating, and it appears they're all gonna get dropped on our collective laps in a whirlwind of release shows. ready?

July 9th, The Belly Up - Matt Curreri and The Exfriends - "Joy of Life"
July 14th, Casbah - Joanie Mendenhall - "On a String"
July 25th, Whistlestop - Swim Party - "Pixie Dust on the Blood Range"
Aug 1st, Whistlestop - Secret Apollo - ... i dunno what it's titled, but it'll be good, promise

damn. and i know the guys in Writer are putting the finishing touches on their new one, and i hear The Donkeys have an album in the works as well .... so i'm really glad we don't have all that to compete with. and thank you to all of them for coordinating so we could actually catch each show. that makes it easier.

If You Were Me (and not going on tour)

.... you'd have a pretty sweet line-up of show coming up. here's the breakdown (and extensive rambling since today is basically my friday) ....

Thursday, April 3rd:

if you were me, you would for sure hit up TNT at the MOCA in downtown. Exfriends are playing with F.U.Z.Z. and Longstay. according to the ex-friends mailinglist, they play from 9-10pm. after that, you'd better haul ass over to the beauty bar to catch Frantic Romantic, The May Fire and Fascination .... though now that you're thinking about it, last time the first band started at 9:30 (sorry Joanie! we started at 10 ... i didn't know!) so maybe this plan will be a failure. well, if you were me, you'd maybe have to skip the exfriends cause you already caught them last wednesday at the Ken, and you haven't seen frantic romantic in awhile (esp since their Alibi show got cancelled, and you're bummed about it). Anna Troy is also playing the Ken thursday, but you just saw her at the Casbah on sunday, so you can skip this one. bummer also, red pony clock is playing chasers and you haven't seen them in awhile .... geez. okay, thursday just sounds exhausting, so much good stuff.

but if you are me, you'll be playing The Beauty Bar in Vegas with The Roman Spring and Action Cat, you'll be up second. you will drink lots. there will be dancing.

Friday, April 4th:

holy! if you were me, you would be pissed that they didn't just add (The) Swim Party and The Henry Clay People to the "THE FEST" at the casbah. Casbah does it up again with The Sess, The Muslims, (the?) Vision of a dying world, (the?) red feathers, (the?) fantastic magic. so yeah, Ken Club's got a small but super sweet line up, Casbah brings the heat. You haven't seen the Sess or fantastic magic, and it's been awhile since you saw vision of a dying world. and you saw swim party last friday, but you really liked Henry Clay when they played Zombie Lounge a couple months ago. so again, you hate everyone. you'd probably learn how to split yourself in two, and send your doppelganger to one of the shows. (you also probably know at least one person who is strongly considering going to Viejas Dreamcatcher for Bret Michaels "Rock Of Love". and not in an ironic way).

but if you are me, you'll be playing at The Ruby Room in Phoenix with Sister Cities (who apparently are the next best thing since sliced bagels), The Former Young Americans and, of course, The Roman Spring. you are are also pretty happy the high is suppose to be 85 degrees as opposed to 105 the last time you played there.

Saturday, April 5th:

if you were me, you'd probably be tired from the work week. you'd do some laundry, maybe hit up Torpasta. Then you'd probably head to the casbah for a pretty sweet "out of towner" night. The Little Ones (from LA) are playing and ever since you were called a "Retro Rock version of The Little Ones" in Performer Magazine you've been meaning to check them out live. you've also heard good things about Ra Ra Riot and The Morning Benders, so you figure "yeah .... that sounds good." Echo Revolution is also playing the Beauty Bar that night for their CD release, so you thought about hitting that up, but since you caught them at the casbah for the Staring at the Sun CD release, you've had your fill for now.

... but if you are me, you just crossed into uncharted modlin terriority, and you're gearing up to play your first New Mexico show at The Tiki Lounge with Lousy Robot and Cherry Tempo. oh yeah, and THE ROMAN SPRING.

Sunday, April 6th:

YES!! boy are you happy. if you were me, you'd be loading up on some Stone Beers and heading to The Habitat to check out Dave Williams and Trash Can Fires. you love The Habitat, yes you do. and Roy, that guy's alright! afterwards, you've thankfully worked out the schedules and somehow managed to find away to catch everyone at the Zombie Lounge (including Writer and Joel P West) and everyone at the Ken (including Roxy Jones). you're pretty proud of yourself. look at you, so smug. you act like your shit don't stink. and it don't!

but if you are me, you'll be playing your last show of the tour at The Hut with Tucson locals Ultramaroon. did i mention Roman Spring will be playing too? Heck Yeah!

and if you are me, this will be your road map:

you also are wondering if this whole "if you were/if you are" thing makes any sense. you're sorta realizing it doesn't .... but you don't care either way, you're gonna keep doing it.

you also don't understand the concept of "labels for a post" and went ape shit.

you shouldn't quit your day job.