5.5 years later...

thanks again to everyone who came out to the Whistle Stop Bar on friday night. to all our friends and family who drove in from Orange County, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Arizona, and beyond. to Swim Party for setting the stage. to DJ Claire for keeping the dance party going. to Sam, Scott, and the rest of the Whistle Stop for having us one more time. to Rosey, Natalie, My, and any other blogger and friend we forgot.

on May 15th, 2005, we four Modlins played our first show together at The Whistle Stop bar. i (alex) had never even been to South Park before that, despite living in SD for 3.5 years prior. here are a few photos from that first show...









and here's a few from our Farewell. also one more shoutout to everyone who joined us at the end for All You Need Is Love...







Farewell Show photos by Alex Sibbald

Farewell Show - This Friday!

To all our faithful friends and fans,

The time has come for the last gasp, the final hurrah, the closing scene! We'll be playing our Farewell Show this Friday Night, August 20th at the Whistle Stop Bar in South Park (fb event here). Kicking the night off is Swim Party, our dear friend band who will be playing a special set full of covers and lo-fi versions of their own songs. DJ Claire will also be there to spin some sweet tunes. The show is Free (I know, ridiculous right!?) and starts at 9pm. Expect tons of songs spanning our entire catalogue and a few surprise guests. Come say "goodbye" ... We hope to see you there.

The Modlins are Coming ....

to

The Whistle Stop Bar

2236 Fern St. San Diego, Ca 92104

Friday, August 20th @ 9pm

with

Swim Party and DJ Claire


p.s. and Tom, yes we WILL be playing that one song off the Andrew EP.

tomorrow @ the Che Cafe : Swim Party + Writer

you know how time flies? we Modlins first played with our friends in Swim Party at Buster Daly's (now known as U-31 for all youngin's) on November 19th, 2005, and have had the honor of rocking stages with them quite a few times since then, including the cd release party for our first full-length Here's To Being Happy, and LA release show for the followup With Friends Like These. and Writer was kind enough to join us for our most recent Where Does It End? cd release show. now tomorrow night, the two of them join forces to rock the Che Cafe, all ages style. will we see any repeats from their split 7" release show? we can only hope! its a good thing Modlins only practice on tuesdays and thursdays...

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:

albums now available on Itunes!!!

so we finally got hip to what you want .... and have made both "Here's To Being Happy" and "With Friends Like These" available on Itunes. apparently, itunes is kinda popular .... so we thought we'd get on the bandwagon (no pun intended). pick up single songs, or the whole collection!!! tell your friends, they'd like to know.

with februaries like these...

and while we are talking collanders and calendars, here's, as best as i can pull together right now, a list of modlins-recommended shows for the month of february. with friends like these, i'll only have to figure out what to do with 15 of the next 26 days, because almost half of this month is already filling up with rock. here's what i got, here's to being happy, let me know if i missed anything.

wed 2/6 - joanie + secretaries / the fascination / emery byrd @ u31 (free)
thu 2/7 - the vision of a dying world / the paddle boat @ tnt mcasd (free-ish)
fri 2/8 - transfer's cd release @ the casbah, with apes of wrath / holy rolling empire / the sea of cortez ($12)
mon 2/11 - swim party / talkdemonic / a.m. vibe / f.u.z.z. @ casbah anti-monday league ($7)
wed 2/13 - hot hot heat / louis xiv / editors @ hob ($25)
wed 2/20 - red feathers / the paddle boat / the sessions @ u31 ($5)
fri 2/22 - swim party / silverbird @ the whistlestop (free)
sat 2/23 - secret apollo / drowning men / more tba @ tower bar (free? $3? $5?)
sun 2/24 - frantic romantic / get your death on / war stories / inigo @ casbah fm 94/9 tim pyles sunday night (free)
mon 2/25 - red pony clock / old man hands / bad weather california @ the che ($5)
fri 2/29 - the modlins / syndicate / repeater @ the ken club (free!)

11 shows, 34 bands, $54ish in cover charges, ~ 214 miles of driving round trips from my apartment to the venues @ 24mpg @ $3 / gallon = $26.75 in gas, assuming i can hold myself to $10/night at each place = $190.75

renaming february 2008 februaROCK = priceless.

ok in hindsight maybe i could do better than "februaROCK," but you get the idea...

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!

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.