Chain Letter Author

A Formal Apology To Jeff Tweedy

2010-03-17T11:33:00.001-07:00

I've been a lukewarm Wilco fan for many years. I owned Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, saw a bad ass live concert of theirs on PBS, sorta liked some of their older jams, didn't pay much attention to anything after that. Then I found out innovative guitar god Nels Cline joined the band around the time of A Ghost Is Born. I immediately got that record and fell in love with the guitar playing. It was border line psychotic in its frenetic delivery, transcendent really. It made me a Wilco fan. And all this time I've attributed this unlikely turn of events to the arrival of Nels Cline to the band. But I was wrong. Jeff Tweedy played all the guitar parts that I loved on that record. So credit where credit is due. Sorry, Mr. Tweedy, for doubting you. I repent. You are in fact a bad ass. Here's a video of my favorite.

New Music Tuesday: Summer Darling

2010-03-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

That's right. We weren't lying. We have a whole record of new music coming out July 6th on Origami Vinyl!! To prove it, we're posting "This Would Be The Time." Those of you who've been coming to shows will recognize it; it's been one of our favs for a while now. We're very excited to share this with you!!! Enjoy!

On It's All About Who You Know: Ben Harper, Origami Vinyl, and Fire Marshalls

2010-03-15T10:57:00.001-07:00

Before Friday night when Ben Harper performed an in store for a packed house at Origami Vinyl in Echo Park, I knew very little about him. I knew my stoner friends in college liked him, I knew my dad liked his "mellower stuff," and I knew he recently was part of Ringo Starr's backing band.

What I didn't know and what I found out is far more intriguing. Firstly, Ben Harper is a man of the people. Sean Stentz, co-operator of the store, related to me the story of Harper coming into the store and doing some shopping. Upon checkout he noticed that some musicians were setting up equipment in the Origami loft. He asked Stentz what was going on and Sean explained to him that they did in store performances. Harper enthusiastically asked if he could perform some time and how the place was right up his alley. He provided Stentz with personal contact information and within a week, he was back at Origami performing. Instead of entering through the back to perform, which would have made more sense logistically due to the sardine can that was Origami Vinyl on Friday night, Harper entered through the front door, high-fiving his fans and saying hello as if he were greeting members of a soccer team or old frat buddies. It was cool to witness.

The other thing I learned about Ben Harper is that the dude kinda fucking jams. He played a solid forty five minute set of passionate, bluesy rockers, filled with guitar solos and aggressive rhythms provided by a very accomplished bassist and drummer. He sang like his vocal chords were on fire and only the sound of his voice belted out at top volume could quench the flames. Finally, he appeared to be having the time of his life. Having never seen him before nor listened to his music, I was duly impressed by his performance and his overall jam. I even found out that all the merch he put on consignment at the store he requested to be paid out to him in store credit! Kudos Mr. Harper. You're a class act.

As you might imagine having Ben Harper perform in a space the size of Origami drew quite a crowd, including the fire marshall, who in no uncertain terms told Sean and Neil they were breaking the law and needed to shut the thing down immediately and they were to receive a fine. Then two curious things happened. The fire marshall got wind of who was performing and lamented that he wished he could have been there for the whole set. This followed an encounter with the building's owner and Neil's landlord, who knew the fire marshall. Suddenly everything was congenial. The store learned how to avoid trouble in the future by knowing which permits to apply for and the show got to end on its own accord. Sometimes, it really is about who you know!

New Music Thursday: Soft Crest

2010-03-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

Oh, Pablo J "Tearin' At My Heart Strings" Harper. You and your illustrious counterpart have created some gorgeous music. On one hand I agree with your categorization of "shoegaze" because Soft Crest invokes lush soundscapes and hushed vocals reminiscent of Slowdive and Cocteau Twins. But, my friend, "shoegaze" belies the certain playful joy that to me is evident in the music. Sure, it's rainy day music, but the kind of rainy day where the sun keeps poking through. It's like movie rain! Anyway, I've been enjoying this sunny weather, walking around Silver Lake listening to this song called "Beach Town" from Soft Crest's new EP Neon Chrome. It's a damn fine tune, perfect for a day like today. You can download the whole EP right now for free on their Facebook page. I highly suggest you do so.

100th Post: Todd and I Run For Water

2010-03-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

To celebrate Chain Letter Author's 100th post I'd like to announce the next charitable function Summer Darling will be involved with. On Sunday April 18th, Todd and I will be participating in the Live Earth Run For Water. It's basically where you run as far as you can go without any water before you pass out from dehydration. Your body is then donated to science.

Wait, no, that's not right. The Run For Water is a ceremonial expression of our concern for people who live in areas of the world where there is little to no access to clean, usable water and to raise awareness of the FACT NOT FICTION that with the expanding population, the changing climate, and the continual bastardization of the world's resources that water shortage will become the next major problem we will have to face. There are a number of interesting theories about this, but the one that strikes me as the most concerning is the likelihood that the wars of the future will be fought over water, not oil or land. At this very moment the western states are involved in a intense legal battle over the resources of the Colorado River. Just imagine what would happen if the Union dissolved...

Enough scare tactic bull shit. What can we do? Critics are right to some degree to malign events such as these. The argument is akin to saying it does no good to give a bum a dollar; it's not going to change the fact that he's a bum. While I disagree with this argument fundamentally, it does relate to charity events such as these. The Run, which is happening globally on the same day, will hopefully raise a decent amount of money to help developing nations gain access to water, but the real change needs to come in our lifestyle. Our lifestyle should begin to reflect more conservationism and less consumerism. It's a cause Todd and I believe in and we hope if you do too you will sign up to run. And if running is not your thing, we will be posting a page in the near future that will allow you to sponsor our asses as we run a brief 6K around downtown Los Angeles. The length of the run represents the average distance people have to walk to gain access to clean water daily in developing nations.

So happy 100th to Chain Letter. Your prize, Ben, is a hungover run around the shithole that is USC. At least it's for a good cause!

Bragging Rights

2010-03-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

I'm going to brag about my wife for a bit because she would never brag about herself. Last night her band Kissing Cousins opened for David Bazan and Headlights at Alex's Bar in Long Beach. On paper this was facilitated by Jeff Cloud at her label Velvet Blue, but in reality it was made possible by the fact that Heather is a gracious and hospitable and damn likable woman. Because Heather went out of her way at the Bazan house show in January to make all feel welcome and appreciated, which she did primarily for me, she in turn had a dream come true to open for Bazan a few weeks later. Furthermore, between then and now she had two members quit her band. Instead of being discouraged, she found two new members and they rehearsed their asses off to be ready for the show. Last night it all paid off for her. The Cousins played a great set--I knew Heather was nervous beforehand, but no one else would have. She played with confidence and balls. Yeah, I said it. My wife plays with balls. So here's to you, dear. Way to fucking bring it. Congrats on playing a great show.

I'm also going to take a brief moment to brag on my friends, even though they wouldn't hesitate to brag on themselves. They showed up in droves last night, from Los Angeles and Long Beach. They were supportive, cheering loudly and proudly for their Cousins, and they are always ready to have a great time. So thank you. Heather and I have the best friends in the world.

On Playing Afternoon Gigs: 826LA Benefit Recap

2010-03-08T09:59:00.000-08:00

When I was 19 a label paid for my band to go record in Oklahoma City. I learned things on that trip like how to massage an engineer's ego to avoid his coked-out rants, how to "not get artsy" with my drumming, and most importantly, that "rock don't happen before noon." And while our set at the Chickens In Love 826LA Benefit Show on Saturday began at 1:40pm, the old adage that rock don't happen early in the day rang true enough.

Having little experience on larger stages and having just played the ultra intimate Pehrspace last week, depending on a monitor mix without any kind of sound check was daunting to say the least. However, we still did what we do: we gave it our best and closed with our kids cover "Mexican Food." During the set I was consistently amused by how much self editing I had to do on the fly to avoid dropping the F bomb on a bunch of 8 year olds. Furthermore, our songs are pretty much all "adult content" and I felt self conscious singing about drugs and sex and loss pretty much throughout. We did receive some chuckles from those who know the lyrics at my alternate versions.

After us we enjoyed sets by the Pity Party and Submarines, but the true highlight for me was Thao Nguyen from the Get Down Stay Down. She brought it and sold it. Very impressive set. It's the kind of band I always wanna play with because her presence is so commanding. Hopefully we'll get to play with her and her whole band someday soon.

In case you missed the show or the live webcast (which apparently had 30,000 viewrs?!), here's us playing "Son."

Timeless: Better Than Best

2010-03-04T17:17:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here with S Foye after V Scully practice listening to vinyls, drinking PBR, and talking shit. He put on Daydream Nation. What a record that is! I told him I was never able to really get in to any other Sonic Youth records, but Daydream Nation was an exception.

As we discussed this opinion of mine we quickly realized why this was. Some would argue that it's their best record, but "best" is a very flimsy and inaccurate modifier. I would argue that Daydream Nation is their timeless record. It simultaneously works as an artifact of the time it was released and an album that sounds perfectly at home nearly 25 years later. Very few albums pull this off. With no false modesty intended, I doubt I will ever be in a band that makes a record of this caliber. But that's ok. I'm not discouraged by this. Often the pursuit of making such a record is what makes making records worthwhile. And who knows, maybe someday something I've done will be a timeless classic to someone else!

New Member Wednesday: Kim H Joins Kissing Cousins!

2010-03-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

As seems to be the trend so far this year in everyone's favorite all girl band Kissing Cousins, they have a new member (R.I.P. Kara and Melissa). Her name is Kim. Let's get to know her shall we?

1. Congrats on being a cousin! Growing up who was the extended family member you would have most likely smooched in the socially unacceptable way?

If I had to choose, I would have smooched my cousin, Josh. Let me do some family tree math. He was my grandfather's brother's daughter's son haha. So, I think that would make him my third cousin? Maybe it's because I grew up in a small town in TX, maybe it's because he loved Nirvana, or maybe it's just because he was a total babe! What can I say, our blood is good blood.

2. Contrary to most members of KC who learned to play their instruments specifically for the band, you've obviously played bass before. Tell us a bit about your other musical projects, current and past.

Well, in addition to playing bass for Kissing Cousins, I also play bass and sing back up vocals in Future Ghost. We have been playing for a little over a year now. We are currently a three piece (a.k.a. a Kim sandwich between two slices of Brandon.) For those of you who know us, you'll understand that delicious joke, and for those of you who don't - a little research never hurt anyone. Before taking up the bass, I played guitar for 10 years. I was in a couple of bands in Texas quite a while ago (Wisteria, The Keepsies, and Infinite Transmission Project), but had given it up until Brandon Tomas asked me to join Future Ghost. And THANK GOD! I can't imagine what it would be like not to play in a band; which of course is another reason I agreed to play with the Cousins. Not only am I a fan of the songs and adore the girls involved, but I love playing 100%.

3. I've noticed you smile a lot while performing. I thought musicians were supposed to be sad and tortured. What gives?

Spend a little more time with me and you'll notice I smile most of the time. Plus, I laugh at just about everything hahaha. See? I thought playing was supposed to be fun! Hence, the smiling. So, you better get used to seeing my grill. I rarely feel tortured when I'm playing; except during the summer at Downtown Rehearsal. When it's boiling hot, my bangs are stuck to my forehead, and I'm sweating in places I didn't know could sweat - that's when I feel tortured. Nothing a cold beer can't cure though, right?

4. I try to give everyone I interview a forum to do a little trash talking. If you feel like it, why don't you rant about someone or something without getting too specific. Trust me, you'll feel better.

I've never been one to gossip, but I'm getting better at it working for a company who doesn't necessarily value or acknowledge the hard work of its employees. Being taken advantage of and denied raises or promotion leaves no motivation to meet the head of company's expectations. Unfortunately, it's not in me to do poorly. I work hard no matter the circumstance, therefore I am often left feeling abused and unappreciated. Not to mention, I get paid dick-fifty for my efforts. Yeah yeah, poor me. Hahaha.

5. Everyone's dying to know, but are too polite to ask: do you and your boyfriend have any synchronized dance videos of the two of you? If so, I'd love to post it here...

Why is everyone so shy in asking this?! Of course we have a synchronized dance video of the two of us. We like to call it "The Horizontal Hustle." I'm just kidding. It's a shame that Tim and I do not have a synchronized dance video, however, I'd like to share a link for his band's (OK Go) new video for "This Too Shall Pass" that went live on Monday. It features an extensive Rube Goldberg project that was built over the last few months in a warehouse in Echo Park. Enjoy!

You can meet Kim live and in person at either of these upcoming Kissing Cousins Shows:

Monday March 8th @ Alex's Bar in Long Beach w/ David Bazan

Wednesday March 10th @ Silver Lake Lounge with Agent Ribbons

New Music Tuesday: Vanaprasta

2010-03-02T11:33:00.000-08:00

I've had a musical crush on these boys for a while, and finally we have their first release to listen to and obsess over. Forming The Shapes was released today on iTunes and the like. It's a three song teaser of what's the come, which rumor has it is a full length record called Healthy Geometry. Good names!! Where were you when I was trying to name the new Summer Darling record?

Come on out with us and celebrate the release of Forming The Shapes tomorrow at Spaceland! Vanaprasta, who are an unsinkable juggernaut of energy and expression live, will be packing the house so come early. I'm excited, you should be too.

Below I've posted the slow burner "Color Of Sin" which Heather tells me is the single from the EP. She's pretty good at pickin' 'em so enjoy!!

We Are Cool With Playing This For You: The Summer Darling Listening Party

2010-03-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

Last night we hosted a listening party for our new record at our place for a few of the people who so graciously donated their time and skills so that we could make the best record possible. It was a fantastically encouraging and warm spirited evening filled with laughter, scotch, hummus, and red bull?.

Before we got started, someone asked me if I was nervous. I asked them why would I be? Apparently, being in a room full of close friends and associates and sitting there while they listen to your music is a scary thing. Being a generally anxious dude, I must admit to feeling a little perplexed at why I wasn't bothered by this proposition. If anyone should be nervous, it's me!

I realized two things in that moment of reflection. One is that I am good at letting things go when it's time to let them go. I can be anxious all day before a show or the night before I get on a plane, but when the moment comes to step on stage or to walk into the cabin, I don't hesitate. In the same way, now that the record is done, I'm no longer playing the game in my head of what I could've or should've done differently. It's time to release it into the world and let other people appropriate it for themselves. And who better to start with than these friends and colleagues? We could release a pile of dog shit on them, and because they are our friends they would probably find something to like about it, even if it was just the shear audacity of us releasing a steaming pile of poo for a record.

Which brings me to my other realization. I must be proud of our record to not feel an ounce of self consciousness. I know we didn't make a shitty album. In fact we made quite a good one. We will be leaking a track soon on our various social networking sites, so you, my good reader, will not be far behind.

Summer Darling comes out on Origami Vinyl Tuesday July 6th.

You can catch us at the 826LA Benefit show this Saturday afternoon at the Echoplex. We have a limited 10 dollar donation ticket list if you go here and purchase before Saturday using the discount code "summerdarling10list". We play at 1pm.

Show Preview: LA Underground Presents: Silian Rail w/ Summer Darling, Powerdove, and Timonium Tonight!

2010-02-26T09:40:00.001-08:00

These kids from San Francisco remind me of a mix between Don Caballero and American Football, but with a ton of youthful energy. They have all the chops to be an exciting instrumental band, so I am really looking forward to playing with them tonight at Pehrspace. Judging by some You Tube footage I perused, it's going to be a dynamic show! We play at 10pm, Silian Rail follows us at 10:45pm.

Also performing: Powerdove 9pm Timonium 11:30pm

Pehrspace is located at 325 Glendale Blvd in Echo Park just past Pho Siam in a small strip mall. Shows are all ages, BYOB, with a 5 dollar cover. Hope to see you there!!!

When Should You Rename Your Band?

2010-02-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

I read an interesting article in this week's print issue of Brand X. For those who don't know what that is, it's the weekly culture mag that used to be Metromix until LA Times took it over and re-branded it, pun intended. Anywho, the article focused on local band The Afternoons and their decision to rename themselves Shadow Shadow Shade after discovering a Welsh band also called The Afternoons.

A couple years back, Summer Darling began receiving Myspace friend requests with odd messages attached saying they had heard us on NPR. To my knowledge, we had never been on NPR at that point, so I did some investigating and found out there was another band from California called The Summer Darlings. I wrote them an email to figure out what their intentions were. According to their response, The Summer Darlings are a transgender folk project that rarely plays shows and have little to no interest in being widely recognized on the national stage. I checked them out, they seemed legit in their claim, so I agreed with them to live and let live.

However, Steve Scott of the Afternoons/Shadow Shadow Shade brings up a good point in the article. The internet has made every band more than a national band; it's made us all international. So with the plethora of bands out there, some of whom are bound to share the same name, when do you decide it's time to change it? The Afternoons changed it because of conflicting Google search results. I decided to put this to the test today. I started with Myspace searches. If you search for Summer Darling, we are the only band that comes up, but if you search for The Summer Darlings, then they are the only band that comes up.

So I did a Google search. If you search Summer Darling on Google every hit with the exception of one that comes up is related to us. The one exception is this broad's Myspace page whose name appears to actually be Summer Darling. So I'm satisfied that we didn't change our name or make too huge a stink about The Summer Darlings. However Shadow Shadow Shade have a very valid point, too. The Welsh Afternoons must be on a similar trajectory to success as the US Afternoons, making it an even bigger imperative that someone needed to change. Two bands with the exact same name inherently causes confusion.

Heather's other band Kissing Cousins shares their name with a turntable downtempo dude named Chris from Ohio and a bluegrass 2 step group from England, so I did the Google search test with them. The results were far more mixed. Apparently there's a movie coming out called Kissing Cousins, plus a variety of wikipedia entries on cousins hooking up, a medical journal that says third cousins have the best likelihood of conception and fertility, and a number of image results with people with seventies hair doos kissing. Apparently the 1970s were the golden era of hooking up with your cousin. But the only band Kissing Cousins that came up was Heather's, and they came up second right behind the film.

I figured this confusion was due more to the nature of the words in the band name than the actual band name itself. So just for shits and giggles, I googled the band Spoon. I assumed with such a mundane one word name the results would be scattered as all hell. Nope. They were the only thing that came up!!! I'm not sure what all this quasi research means, other than to say that now more than ever, the uniqueness of your band name matters. Unless you're called Spoon.

You can Catch Shadow Shadow Shade at the Echo on Friday March 5th.

Something Out Of Everything

2010-02-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

I was speaking to someone recently about music. This person isn't a musician and they couldn't get their head around how a song takes shape. To them, writing a song was building something out of nothing. I tried to explain to them that it wasn't building something out of nothing. First of all, the something that inspires music is all around us, from our day to day experiences to the hundred million songs we've already heard in our lifetime. All of these things are the sparks that ignite the creative flame, the molecules that collide to cause the big bang of songwriting.

Second, sound is infinite. That's a theory that I heard once that I really liked. I don't know if it's true, and frankly, I don't care all that much. The theory goes that once a note is played, two divergent things happen. The sound vibration that we are hearing never disappears, much like the idea that energy is never created nor destroyed; the sound merely diminishes at an exponential rate infinitely. The other thing that happens is that a sound once made morphs into something new; the metaphysical thing that cannot be scientifically expressed. The sound becomes an idea that is reinterpreted by the ear that hears it.

Lastly, I read somewhere that the smallest known sub atomic particle looks like a sound wave, meaning that at the very core of everything is sound, or the evidence that sound was once there. I told me friend that it can be more accurately said that they couldn't understand how musicians build something out of everything. I was reminded of this conversation because last night Dan and I had a writing session at his place in Long Beach that didn't yield any specific results (i.e. no song was born). It made me smile when I thought that sometimes building something out of everything can be just as impossible as building something out of nothing.

You can catch us playing shit we've already built this Friday night at Pehrspace, 10pm. The show is All Ages and BYOB. Hope to see you all there!

How Will History Remember?

2010-02-22T09:23:00.001-08:00

Last night, Heather and I had a moving conversation with a couple who invited us over to dinner. Let it be known, first of all, that dining at someone's home, being a guest in their domain and sharing a meal, to me is the most sacred and special thing. The early church used to meet in homes and communion was a meal shared by the members. In the same way is having dinner with friends, sharing stories and opinions. Heather was funny last night to point out that when someone says something I don't agree with, I always respond, "You're more than welcome that have that opinion, but.." which roughly translates, "Your opinion is wrong." I thought that was funny.

I digress. The subject of New York came up and somehow we started talking about September 11th, 2001. The couple both were in Manhattan at the time the planes hit and the towers came down. They related fascinating and heartbreaking stories of that day and the days to come, the ghosts covered in ash streaming uptown from Wall Street, the volleys of phone calls between circles of friends to make sure everyone was alright, walking from pay phone to pay phone and realizing not a single one works anymore upon discovering you left your cell phone at work, smelling the stench of burnt rubber and metal Thursday night as the entire city flocked to downtown bars in a show of solidarity, taking a cab down a deserted fifth avenue and watching a line of police mopeds emerge from the smoke gray with soot, the empty triage centers set up outside the perimeter, waiting to treat survivors that never came.

They were moving first hand accounts and I am so proud to have heard them. It got me thinking about history and how we recount past events. Earlier in the weekend I had watched the movie Hurt Locker and while its suspense thrilled and entertained, it left me feeling empty and sad, knowing this film is many peoples' reality, and will the history books ever really be able to relate that to future generations? I suppose it's always been this way. Growing up, reading about the Civil War or WWI or WWII, my history classes never gave me the sense of what it was actually like to experience those times and there was never any sense that there were lessons to be learned from these powerful events. Was that for my protection? Or is it because wars turn into dead history lifeless on a page, transformed into information to memorize that dooms us to keep repeating them?

Which finally lead me to the importance of art and interaction. I hope that we can continue to produce art in a fashion that promotes dialogue about the past and continue to hold events like 9/11 in a national consciousness that doesn't use such memories as buzz words for a political ideology and or a manipulative emotional transgression. There was so much beauty in our friends' recounting of those days, and so many life affirming, human moments that may have been forgotten if we hadn't chosen to allow ourselves to discuss them that it makes me sad for those of us who treat subjects like war as taboo.

Money Money Money Mah-nee!

2010-02-18T11:03:00.000-08:00

We played a game last night at Gingergrass where we listed off some songs we never wanted to hear again for the rest of our life. One of the ones we thought of was this money song, but we couldn't think of who it was by. No, not Pink Floyd, that song kicks ass. Was it ABBA?? Who knows. Anyway, it got me thinking about money and the value of it and the value of things that can't be weighed out monetarily.

For example, according to my business taxes, my bands spent 11,000$ in 2009. We made just under 5,500$. That would seem like a business in need of a new model. However, how do I appraise the dozens of shows we got to play up and down the west coast? How much is the feeling of holding a 180 gram vinyl of your band in your hand for the first time worth? How about drinking beers in a hotel room after a successful show? The memories created by that god awful drive between Palm Springs and Phoenix? The countless hours spent recording and rehearsing at our studio? My point is that my experiences in 2009 were way more valuable than my taxes say they were. Sure, I'd love for the money part to match up, too. But until then, I'm excited to lose my shirt again in 2010 for the sake of rock and roll!

I apologize in advance to Nick, my accountant.

Recording Update: V Scully

2010-02-17T09:51:00.000-08:00

S Foye and I had our official first practice for our Vicious Scully project last week. It went way better than I was anticipating, especially taking into account that S Foye and I have to basically relearn the parts to every song we wrote. In fact, that's the one major challenge of doing a project this way. Every other recording I've been a part of there was a band first, then a recording. The songs were already written before someone toggled the space bar.

But it was a blast going back to songs we wrote three, four months ago, and figuring out the parts. Sometimes, I found them a lot easier than I remembered, and at other times, S Foye and I cursed our former selves for making us do these finger gymnastics all over the fret boards of our instruments. Another challenge has been tuning. We didn't think to write down the tuning of each song, which would have been nice, as it seems each song is in some alternate tuning. Damn us!

As for the recording, we're proud to say it is 98% finished and S Foye has already begun mixing. We're really looking forward to sharing it with all of you, hopefully in the form of a grand ole listening party sometime in the next few months. Scully fans, stay tuned! In the meantime, you can catch the real V Scully as he broadcasts every Dodgers game this season. Spring training has already begun for pitchers and catchers! Life is about to have meaning again!!! Viva Los Doyers!

New Music Tuesday: Liturgy

2010-02-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

Woke up so sick today! With all the mucus in my throat and lungs, I could probably sing like the dude from this band called Liturgy. My buddy Stentzie got me into them. It's next level shit for me, because, under normal circumstances, I would never listen to black metal. But something is different about this band. The guitars are all about soaring anthemic melody, rather than bone crunching riff-a-tude, so common to the genre. Also, the way in which the vocals are mixed allow for the melody to take center stage. This song is called "Pagan Dawn" and it's a wild, exhilarating ride.

No More Words

2010-02-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

I was on-top-of-the-world-drunk last night. It's a great place to be; feeling socially invincible and just so so happy. For as great as I felt then, I felt the most profound sadness of my entire 30 years on this planet Saturday afternoon at Jon Glyer's memorial service. After an hour of it, I remember begging God and everything that's holy on this rock spinning through space to please let it end. If that makes me a bad person, than so be it; I just couldn't take anymore emotion. I cried harder and longer in those two hours than ever before in my life.

Shamefully, perhaps, on my part, I wasn't crying so much for Jon as I was for myself and those around me. There were so many heavy things said by his friends and family, so many life changing moments shared, so many avenues for my mind to travel down, all of which ended in heart break. I was broken hearted when I got dumped by my high school sweet heart, but that was a different kind. That one healed. The broken heart I experienced on Saturday is all encompassing, a drop of poison in my well. The more I think about anything, the sadder I am becoming.

What is this life? Am I to be a slave to my emotions forever? I don't know the answer to that question anymore than the other terrifying questions Jon's death has resurfaced inside me. On our drive back from the service, Heather and I were alternately holding hands and wiping residual tears from our sun bleached eyes, and "Let It Be" came on the radio. Now contrary to popular belief, Heather and I are not prone to singing aloud in the car. But in that moment, a moment where I couldn't take any more questions, and as cheesy as I knew it was, we belted along with ol' Paul, "There will be an answer, let it be."

Summer Darling Are Chickens In Love: Giving In An Age of Uncertainty

2010-02-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

Haiti taught me something about giving. I used to believe that people didn't give more to charitable organizations because of their hesitance of losing the actual money. I've definitely experienced that feeling after giving to a charity--am I going to have enough money this month for my expenses? It's certainly a challenge when it comes to giving, but after what I've witnessed in regards to Haiti, where millions of people have given to this cause and felt good and justified, I've had to rethink my reasoning. Perhaps people's aversion to giving is more than the money thing. Could it be as simple as a matter of convenience? With Haiti, giving became more accessible and easier than ever. Of course there were the scams to avoid, but it was the first time I'd heard of texting a number from your phone as a way to pledge a little cash. That's awesome.

Here's my point. We in Summer Darling are asking folks to pledge a little cash again for an equally worthy cause: 826LA's annual fundraiser. What is 826LA? It's an Echo Park based non-profit that provides kids 6-18 years old with tutorial, college prep, and arts education. We've witnessed their programs first hand, as Heather, along with our good friends Sean Stentz from Nico Stai, Eli from the Monolators and Ken from Hexham Heads, volunteered to help with their current project: helping kids write songs! These programs are especially important now as the Arts are under attack in todays public school system. 826LA is a place kids can not only receive free tutorial services to help them achieve academically, it also is a place that encourages kids to be creative, which is an invaluable skill to take into the real world. I don't have to remind you that the most successful people I know are highly creative, even if their chosen area of expertise isn't immediately "creative."

How can I help, you say? Easy. We recorded a jam whose lyrics were written by Sara, 12, ben, 10, and Natalie, 9. It's called "Mexican Food" and it totally kicks ass. 826LA has set up a site where you can vote for which kids song you think is the best by pledging a little cash. (We're pretty sure its ours, but there are a lot other great acts involved like Cold War Kids, Happy Hollows, Crystal Antlers, and Fiona Apple, to name a few.) As a sign of good faith we'll be posting our track on our Facebook/Myspace pages so you can check it out. If you're into it, make sure you hop on line and pledge some cash to a great cause. VOTE/PLEDGE HERE.

Now I know it's not as easy as a simple text message, but a couple of clicks should be a close second. We hope to raise a ton of money for this important organization. The voting/pledge drive culminates in a day long mini music fest at the Echoplex, Saturday March 6th. The line up is still being confirmed, but we'll definitely be there, so you should be too.

If you're prone to follow shit on twitter, here's some other informational stuff:

Twitter:
#chickensinlove twitter contest. each day the best CiL related tweet wins a CD from @epttm! Bawk 'n roll! #826LA http://tinyurl.com/yarksfk

@826LA
@epttm
#chickensinlove

Fan Spotlight: Chris K, Welcome To The Jungle

2010-02-11T09:29:00.001-08:00

I figured it was time to shed some light on some of the people that make playing music totally worth while. We're starting with a man who is not only my friend, he's also my driver on special occasions, my drinking buddy on other special occasions, and an all around man of the people. Faithful readership, meet Chris K.

CLA: I'm obsessed with you. Luckily, you're everywhere I go these days. What the hell is going on?

Chris K: Its actually no coincidence that I've been around so much lately. I've put in some self reflection time lately and come to be more appreciative of how fortunate I am to have such a great group of friends who I simply don't see enough. And with all the opportunities lately its been awesome to be around you and the old gang so much. In fact, I've been in your hood more in the past 2 weeks than I have in the prior 12 months! Its been awesome!

CLA: Aside from going to every show on earth, how else do you occupy your time?

Chris K: Well right now I'm eating tacos at a bar (at the bar to be more specific), listening to "Welcome to the Jungle" and watching TMZ with subtitles. some miami flavored dude is talking about gluteal implants. For real. Have you heard of this crap? "Hey 'member jennifer from algebra class? Dude I totally Ya ran into her at the social venue the other night! Really, how'd she look? Oh killer bro, she totally got a poop job!" So, in answer to your question, you know, stuff like that. And hanging with H of course.

CLA: It's 9pm. You've been working all day, and it was a doozy. Tell me what you pour yourself to drink and what you either put on to listen to or watch on TV.

Chris K: Crap. Is it 9 already? Ok now that work's done I need to work on some designs for furniture I hope to build this weekend. I could use some Jack on the rocks. Keep the mind limber and all. By this time at night I need something that doesn't have to be loud to be good. Last night it was Herbie Hancock. Mornings are for loud. I've started waking up to "Welcome to the Jungle" (I feel a theme developing) to get me going. If you were walking by on Broadway and heard my morning music you'd prob not know I was getting pumped to sit in an office alone for the next 6-12 hours.

CLA: This question is back by popular demand. I've found having a blog liberating, as it is a soapbox to sway the masses. Rant about one thing or person in your life, without getting too specific. Trust me, it feels Ah-mazing.

Chris K: This one is coming. Lots of drama lately. Gotta be careful how ranty I get :)

CLA: How's H doing? Send us the pic of him lounging in the ultra sweet recliner.

Chris K: H is the raddest! Funny you mentioned obsession earlier. Last time someone was obsessed with me they threatened Mr Hamilton (time before that the obsessor threatened to withhold my drycleaning but that's a story for next year's issue). And as you know, H might be considered by some to be a timid dude. But he's taken to a few of my lady friends (we're just friends no matter what heather says!) so I guess he's getting better! Much like college Chris I'm sure once he finds some hot bitch to cuddle with he'll get some confidence. And unfortunately that wasn't H in the eames lounge but here's one of him in my lounger. He makes me a better person. H is a good man. He's a good man.

Sometimes You Don't Get What You Wait For

2010-02-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

Ah, patience. It's been the overriding principle I've been trying to learn for, shit, man, feels like forever. I want to have patience right now, damnit. Turns out it's something you have to build. Like a taste for moldy cheese, a tongue for hot sauce, a stomach for gut burning scotch. I've been waiting on something for going on seven years now, and it looks like I'll be waiting a bit longer. But I can do it. I'm a patient man. It helps me to enjoy the moments of waiting. I took a run in the rain today. That was nice. In a second here I'm gonna close up shop and work on a song. Today feels like a song writing day. Maybe I'll post what comes out tomorrow?

Sunday Bloody Sunday: Surfers and Footballers

2010-02-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, I watched the Super Bowl this year for the first time in recent memory. It was quite fun actually. I was at a party where no one knew a damn thing about football; everyone was just enjoying the company and then occasionally, when the crowd would start cheering really loud, we'd all quiet down, rewind the Tivo a few seconds and catch what happened. I spend half time with my friend Matt setting up this American P Bass that we're using in the Past Haunts and Summer Darling so I missed most of the Who's underwhelming performance.

I suppose my only what-the-fuck? moment came today when I logged on to Myspace and there was this add saying, "Don't be out of the loop. You can watch all of the Super Bowl Commercials right here on Myspace." Are you kidding me? Is that what people are truly interested in, the fucking commercials? Thursday I got coffee at this local coffee shop and they had a sign right above the cash register that had an American Flag on it and big patriotic looking letters underneath that read "United We Spend." It made me laugh, but now I feel a little sick because as nuvo-marxist kitchy as that sign is, it's also true. If the best thing about a sporting event in which the heavily favored team loses to the underdog of all underdogs, whose win symbolizes the rebirth and resurgence of a city decimated by nature and forgotten by the rest of it's country, is the commercials, then we live in a land of fucked priorities. Shame on us.

I know the above paragraph slightly romanticizes both sides of the issue, so to help you have a good week, why don't you listen to this jam I've been enjoying lately. It's called "Swim" by a band called Surfer Blood. Trust me, you'll feel better. You may even want to go out a buy something...

Mexican Food: It's All We Want (Unless There's Todd's Muffins)

2010-02-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

In Summer Darling related news, we all got to be in the same room last night for the first time since getting our tattoos. LA Underground stopped by and filmed our rehearsal for an upcoming post. Todd brought blueberry ricotta muffins to celebrate the fact that we are finished with the new Summer Darling full length record that we have been working on for the last year! We are so proud of it and can't wait to share it with the world!!

We'll be leaking a song from it in a little while along with other juicy tid-bits like mixing and recording diaries, artwork, and lyrics, so stay tuned. 2010 is the year of the Darling!

Interview with Hexham Heads

2010-02-03T13:52:00.002-08:00

Name changes are a dubious thing. There are arguments to be made on both sides of the issue, especially for an established band. I've had a long time love-hate relationship with my band's name, and ultimately decided to keep it due to the gigantic hassle it would create. I mean, Radiohead is a dumb band name, albeit better than there first name, On A Friday, and it didn't slow them down any. But when I heard Shiloe was changing their name to the (way more bad ass) name Hexham Heads, I had to get the inside scoop. I got ahold of Ken and Melissa, formerly of Shiloe, and here's our conversation.

1. Obviously something has changed. Shiloe is now Hexham Heads. Walk me through your thought process. What was the impetus of this change and what does it symbolize for the future of your musical projects?

Melissa - Basically, we were just never that crazy about the name Shiloe. It never had any special meaning or a cool story behind it; it was just the best of the names we came up with back when the band first started playing shows. Everything else associated with the word is kind of tame (i.e., Brangelina's baby, the Neil Diamond song, the puppy books/movies, the Civil War battlefield) and we never felt like it was very indicative of our sound. When we both happened upon the story of the Hexham Heads, it seemed like it was a much better fit for the band. Also, the name Shiloe never inspired any particularly cool band logos, whereas the logo we have now for Hexham Heads is completely awesome. (Thanks to our friend Iona Lie for masterminding the logo!)

2. I heard a rumor you got the name from a ghost hunting book. Can you share a little insight into the context?

Melissa - This rad chick I know who plays the flute - her name is Kara, you may have met her? - gave me a book called 'An Illustrated History of the Haunted World' for my birthday. This book contained the story of the Hexham Heads, which are two ancient stone carvings of dubious origin which appear to have a werewolf that watches over them. While reading this story, I thought to myself, "Holy shit, now there's a band name." Later, Ken was flipping through the book, and said, "Should we change the band name to Hexham Heads?" It was a true mind meld, and HxH was born.

3. How important do you feel it is these days to present a unified aesthetic as a band?

Ken - I think the aesthetic is part of the experience. Think of the original Wolf Man movie with all the fog rolling around everywhere, it make it seem so much more mysterious. If the same movie took place on a sunny afternoon it just wouldn't be the same! The Beatles all dressed like they were in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club band when that album came out and it makes it seem like a whole other world. I like all that, I like Jack White's color schemes for his bands and how BRMC looks like a gang.

Melissa - I think we're learning that it's extremely important. People like to say that the music industry is dead. In my opinion, the music industry isn't dead at all - the labels are just selling the wrong things. If you have great songs and a compelling live show and you look a certain way, people will respond. Growing up in the 90s, I think a lot of us made the mistake of thinking that "image didn't matter" because of bands like Nirvana and the Pixies. The truth is that those bands had an image - an anti-image - and it was a very deliberate response to the butt-rock bands that were dominating the charts at that time. It's not like Kurt Cobain didn't put any thought into what he wore or the cover art he chose for his albums; on the contrary, he made very distinct choices, they were just choices that weren't in line with the mainstream musical standard. We want everything we create, from our songs to our merch to what we wear on stage, to reflect our interests and the general feel of the band.

4. Is there any Hexham Heads recording plans? We want a full length already damn it.

Melissa - Ken has so many new songs, but we still have to get together as a band and perfect them. A full-length is in the works, but we're not in any rush. We're taking our time. I think our main focus right now is on getting the name out there and playing some shows as Hexham Heads.

Ken - We're also still debating how to release.

5. Lastly, let's set the record straight. Is Melissa a Rush fan?

Melissa - Honestly, I have nothing for or against Rush either way! The only Rush song I can even identify is "Tom Sawyer," and I always fuck up the lyrics. "What you think about sobriety is what you think about society" - that's not actually in the song, is it? This is just a bad joke gone terribly awry. Ken likes to tell people I listen to Rush because it's like the big bass player cliche to worship at the alter of Geddy Lee. I don't, man. My bass heroes are the Kims (Deal and Gordon) and Simon Gallup of the Cure!

Hexham Heads perform this Friday, February 5th at Spaceland. 10pm.

The Mystery of Mastering Part 2

2010-02-02T11:59:00.000-08:00

I'm back at Engine Room Studios with S Foye, Neil, and Christian, our faithful mastering engineer, after our aborted attempt at mastering the record last week. S Foye and Christian got together last Thursday and devised a way to pull the kick up in certain parts of certain songs without compromising the integrity of the overall mix.

The results have been stunning. We just finished "This Would Be The Time," the album opener, and the four of us just sat gape-mouthed at how huge it sounds. Christian gave S Foye high praise for his mixes because the EQ is so consistent from song to song. Its the same compliment Jason Martin, who mastered our last EP, gave him. We're very honored and blessed to work with such an attentive producer and mixer.

We're also honored and blessed by the show Christian is putting on in his mastering suite. It's like the fucking Magic Castle in here. He's chosen a very aggressive approach to this master that accentuates the more angular parts of the songs without overpowering the slower moments. We've spent the better part of the last 45 minutes on "My Reminder," a song that encompasses both the heaviest part of the record and the quietest. I'm getting really excited to show this to the world!

On Fear and Death: Tattoos and Jon Glyer

2010-02-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

What a weekend! For those who don't already know this about me, I struggle with anxiety and a number of phobias. One of those phobias was finally put to rest Saturday afternoon. With my whole band, plus Chris and Nada, around me, I got my first tattoo. It was a special and terrifying moment, knowing that Heather, Dan, and Todd would be sitting in this same chair getting this same tattoo after me, feeling the bite of the needle, the blood rush to the head. I did ok even though that above picture would tell you otherwise. Once Eric at Gold Rush Tattoo began etching the design done by Suzanne Walsh into my skin and I knew what the pain was and how to define it and how to separate myself from it, my fear of tattoos melted away.

I realized that what I fear most, where most of my anxiety lies, is in the unknown. The minute I can comprehend something, categorize it, take it apart and reassemble it, it becomes the thing it always was before I experienced it. Which leads me to my greatest fear: death. Jon Glyer, my brother's best friend, and a long time family friend of mine, died tragically Friday. It really fucked me up, having to deal with my greatest anxieties and confront them. I am reminded of a lyric from "Fight Test" by Flaming Lips: "But I'm a man, not a boy and there are things you can't avoid. You have to face them, when you're not prepared to face them." That's what growing is, that's what changing is. Facing the things that terrify me and try to conquer them. In the case of a tattoo, I no longer have that fear. It dissipated with the pain into a dull ache I can recall whenever I want to like the memory of bad sunburn or bee sting.

As for death, there's not getting around that one. There's no understanding it. Once it happens to you, there's no more need to understand it. I realized that I have to be ok with not understanding it. In the same way that I've had to allow for the possibility that there is no God, I have to be ok with the unknown parts of this life and not let them rule me. I was losing sleep for two days, freaking out over something so trivial as a tattoo. That's irrational and stupid of me and keeps me from enjoying the here and now. Death is such a greater abyss of uncertainty and if I don't start accepting it, then I can't imagine what a wreck I'll be when my time comes. For now, I am so thankful for every moment I get to live this beautiful terrible transcendent thing called life.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Sarah, Jon's widow, and his parents, Nancy and Paul. You are all truly special people to me and Heather and Jon will be sorrowfully missed.

The Mystery Of Mastering

2010-01-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the mastering room at Engine Room Studios and having to come to terms with the fact that I don't know a damn thing about mastering. It makes it louder, right? It makes everything cohesive? But what exactly is happening? Christian, our mastering engineer, calls mastering "the black art." That sounds like something I could get on board with.

We just finished listening to Autolux's album Future Perfect as a reference point for our album. That got me excited, as the Autolux record is one of my favorite sounding records of the last decade. Now we're listening to our opening track, "This Would Be The Time" and Christian is playing the last minute and half over and over while tweaking all sorts of compression and EQ knobs. First he makes the record sound like we're listening to it through a line of string and a tin can. More knobs twist. Now the record sounds like it's underwater, with huge bass swoons and swells. Then he cuts the bass all together and the mids shine through like glaring sunlight through clouds on a hangover morning.

A rapid succession of clicks as if he is trying 15 different channels ensues, a slight pop like a needle skipping separating each one. A quick check on our reference. Silence. He switches some more knobs. He says he's having trouble matching the kick in our recording to the level of that in the Autolux. Perhaps Autolux is not the best reference?

We listen to Built To Spill. Still no match. Christian is of the opinion that we need to bring the kick up in the mixes. It's a sobering statement, one whose implication could throw a serious monkey wrench in this whole business. Going backwards to the mixing stage is the last thing in the world I want to do, but listening to other recordings, Christian has a valid point. In order to make the record sound as big as possible, the man needs more kick.

Oh, the mysteries of mastering, if only you'd remained as such.

Summer Darling CA Mini Tour Diary Day 4: Vanaprasta, By Sunlight, & Shiloe.

2010-01-27T12:26:00.000-08:00

We were very honored last night to be able to play with 3 bands who we respect as musicians and as people (with the possible exception of a certain female Rush-loving shit talking bassist) and end our 4 days of rock and roll with a joyous celebration.

Vanaprasta was the first band on the bill and one of the things I immediately respected about them was the amount of hard promotional work they must have done to get a great crowd out early. There seems to be an unwritten understanding of excusable malaise if you are either the midnight or nine o'clock slot in LA. This is not always the case, as bands like Vanaprasta and Shiloe reminded everyone last night, but this unspoken attitude says that if you're not the headliner, you don't have to promote as hard. I'm sure we've been guilty of that in the past, so last night's kick in the pants will not be soon forgotten.

Besides owning the show crowd-wise, let's take a minute to recognize how good a band Vanaprasta is. Vanaprasta is stoney without being boring, enigmatic without being preachy, and rock and roll without the pretension. I see them raising the bar of the local scene this year.

By Sunlight is from Seattle and what I like about them is they seem to be doing something similar to what we're doing: borrowing from 90s indie rock and reinterpreting it for today. I love their meter changes and the way their set is one continuous jam. I've always been impressed by their work ethic and professionalism. Somebody sign this band, for Chrissake.

Long time readers of this blog need no introduction to one of my favorite bands, Shiloe. They are the loudest fucking band in Silver Lake, which makes me very very jealous. Last night was no exception as they tore through their set in blazing fashion. Melissa, you need to buy a 2 x 15 cab. It rumbled my soul in a good way. Dan is a freight train of a drummer and Ken's guitar playing seems to expand and contract at the same time creating an effect that is at once ethereal and precise. I imagine them as the perfect link between shoegaze and no wave.

Did you miss us? Here's a video of questionable quality:

Our thanks to the bands we played with over the last few days and the venues that welcomed us. Most importantly we sincerely appreciate all of you who came out to see us play. A special shout out goes to our Long Beach friends who surprised us by coming out last night. Thank you all very much. Love, SD

Summer Darling CA Mini Tour Diary Day 2 & 3

2010-01-26T11:59:00.001-08:00

Sunday was one of those long days, a day where each section seemed elongated and stretched out like silly putty. It gets thinner and thinner and holes begin to form and the light shines through and then finally when just a few strands remain connected, time gets wadded back up into a ball only to be pulled apart again. The morning seemed to take forever, waiting on us all to get our shit together and packed into our Volvo 240 wagon. We were blessed enough to be borrowing gear from Highway Patrol allowing us to all go in one car.

The drive seemed to take forever, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. The grapevine was covered in sunshine and snow, the hills refracting light like gigantic prisms. People were lined up on the empty frontage roads, parking wherever their cars would fit and flocking out into the white fields with makeshift cardboard sleds and thermoses of Campbell's and coffee. From the mountains the 5 empties out into a wide flat valley emerald in color from our weeks of rain. When we stopped for gas we received scary news: Josh, the lead singer and guitarist for Highway Patrol, was sick with a high fever and they were on the verge of regrettably canceling their performance.

Now Josh is a subject of a whole other blog that I'm planning for February as part of my Heywood musical history month series, but the long and short of it is he's my best friend and I've never had the pleasure of playing with his band and for a while I was very saddened by this news. However, it all worked out and judging by the below photo, he seemed well enough to rock the hell out of Hotel Utah.

I guess that's the funny thing about playing shows, especially when you're on the road. The whole day revolves around 1 hour of activity and no matter what you do, the day feels long but the show is over before you know it. Hotel Utah was no exception. My parents and Aunt and Uncle were there as well as my best high school and college buddies, so add that to roaring, incendiary sets by us, Highway Patrol, and Reduced To Ruin and you have a show that is over in a blink of an eye or a swig of warm rider beer.

The evening continued with an after party at Josh's home across the bay, and we stayed up way way way way past our bedtime discussing sordid stories from our past love lives and drinking ourselves blind.

Monday was another road day in order to get back in town to finish the recording of our 826LA song, "Mexican Food." Unbeknownst to them, we crashed Matt and JQs pad and did the vocals in their little studio since S Foye was house sitting. We'll owe them some mexican food when they return from South Africa. The vocal recording went smoothly, if not a little crankity. Todd and Heather really fleshed out my main line, adding a lushness the previous versions lacked, so for that I am excited. The song reminds me a bit of early Helmet and Sonic Youth mixed with a really over the top chorus sung in rounds. I can't wait to share it with everyone.

Tonight we finish our adventure at Spaceland, so please come hang out with us and celebrate the conclusion of 96 hours of Summer Darling.

Summer Darling CA Mini Tour Diary Day 1

2010-01-25T18:52:00.000-08:00

Saturday Jan 23rd, 2010.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. With a full day of recording ahead of us, we chose Nick’s on North Spring Street. Todd, S Foye and I go over the incidentals of the upcoming session as well as the surprising fact that Florida is chalk full of bald eagles and jaguars.

After we head over to Bedrock Studios in Echo Park where KamranV, who runs Spaceland Recordings, has just opened a brand new recording space and Summer Darling is to be the inaugural session. The best part: it’s all for charity! Bedrock has donated the room and their gear to us for the day so that we can track “Mexican Food,” our song for the upcoming 826LA Benefit Compilation, proving that we too, are not above some charity from time to time.

The room is spacious with a Moroccan flair, reminding us of NRG in the valley. All sorts of toys are ours to use and abuse along with very expensive mics and pres and an HD Pro Tools rig. Todd picks out a DW drumkit while I fool around with my new distortion pedal, the Holy Fire by Creation Audio Labs. It takes a while to debug the system, but Kamran, S Foye, and Tim, the assistant engineer, take it all in stride. The biggest challenge stems from the fact that there stands a gi-normous radio tower pumping Echo Park and Silver Lake with Christian Mexican Radio across the street from Bedrock. So occasionally the amps, guitars, pedals, or mics pick up the signal, proliferating some Dios y Jesus all over the track.

Once we sort through these types of issues, Todd is ready to track. We had done the scratch vocals and guitar to a click track the day before. Upon hearing it in his headphones and playing along, Todd felt the first half of the song was too slow. We bumped the section up about 15BPM and left the back section at the original tempo. Because of the song’s structure, the ploy works remarkably well. With a few minor overdubs, Todd finishes and I head in to do my part. Playing out of my own rig (63 Fender Bandmaster, Wren And Cuff Fuck Off Boost Pedal, and the Holy Fire pedal), the recording goes smoothly enough, and the torch is passed to Dan.

Dan plays through a 15 watt Gibson Les Paul Junior, but soon discards it as the tone isn’t what he was looking for. He fools around with a solid state Fender Twin before ultimately deciding on a Fender Tone Master head and a 4 X 10 Marshal cabinet. Meanwhile Heather has been fooling around with an Ampeg flip top tube bass amp. Originally we think the tone sounds like garbage because of the amp, before realizing, nope, it’s our janky ass bass guitar that was shitting out sour tone. Kamran raids the vaults of his studio and returns with a Gibson Thunderbird bass, which we throw straight through S Foye’s tube preamp. Both Dan and Heather’s parts combine to give the song serious balls. We ran out of time to do vocals, since we had to get to our show in Long Beach at the Basement.

The Basement is real cool club. We’d never played there, but it has a decent sound system headed up by Brian Smith, the ubiquitous Long Beach sound man. Swear to god, this guys has done sound at nearly every one of our recent Long Beach shows no matter where we’ve played. The gig went swimmingly, we were surrounded by friends and well-wishers, the DJ was actually playing awesome music in between songs, and there was plenty of laughter. Heather and I spent our three am drive home from the show reflecting on how much we love our life. The feeling after a good show is one of triumphant euphoria and easily outweighs the feeling after a bad show. The trick is to remember that fact when you’ve just played a bad show, but it’s a trick I’m starting to get better at!

Credit Where Credit's Due

2010-01-22T10:47:00.001-08:00

Today I'm working on the credits to the Summer Darling record and noticing that while some things are easily annotated--for example the record was produced by S Foye--other things aren't so obvious. So I'm going to take a brief moment to credit the vagueries that were instrumental in the making of this record.

Matthew Beighley and Jacqueline Santillan get credit for allowing us to invade their house, tune their piano, and bang away on it until we frightened their cat and disrupted their neighbors.

Kenn Shane gets credit for filling in on drums for us while Todd was in Portland. If our live set throughout the first half of 2009 was awesome, it was because of him.

Loop Haro gets credit for being around during the four years it took us to write some of these jams, and for being there during all the aborted recordings of them. He also gets credit for giving me coffee and tums on an empty stomach the morning of one such recording that caused me to shit myself then puke in the alley behind the restaurant at which we were breakfasting. It was a hangover, dude, not heartburn.

Dave Colvin gets credit for tracking a bunch of stuff that didn't get used. I still fear Black Jesus FBI.

If our guitars sound shit-kickingly bad ass on this recording, while due in part to S Foye's magical production, we must also recognize Matthew Holl who runs Wren And Cuff Pedals. His kind donation of prototypes over the past couple of years is our sound, not to mention the custom telecaster I play, which he made.

Ryan Callis gets credit for creating a lot of art that inspired the aesthetic vision of Summer Darling. Even though his designs were not used in the final version of our new record, his work is invaluable to what we do.

Nico Stai gets credit for letting us borrow his amp whenever we wanted to without really asking in order to record blazing guitar parts. He also gets credit for being the first person in Los Angeles to think we were a real band. He also recorded a version of a song that didn't make the record. Sorry, mate, I sound too damn happy on it.

Coors Light gets credit for being so easily drinkable. It can loosen one up without turning all your playing to shit. At least, we hope so.

Remember these fine folks when you read the "official" credits of the record, for their vision and support helped us out a bundle. Thanks everyone!

Th Pressure Of A Full Plate

2010-01-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

I must admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Heather and I were in Madison, WI until last monday night and then her mom came to visit Wednesday and left yesterday. Today we begin a whirlwind weekend of amazing Summer Darling activities. We have rehearsal and pre-production for the 826LA benefit recording tonight. The recording begins Saturday. Saturday night we play Long Beach. Sunday night finds us in San Francisco. Monday night we're back in the studio. Tuesday night we're at Spaceland. And then Kissing Cousins play Wednesday night at Echo Curio. Finally, on Thursday the 28th, we head into the studio to master the new record! And all the while we'll be working shifts at our day jobs whenever we can squeeze them in!

I suppose there's no real point to this post other than to say I'm excited to be so active playing music, but I could also use a day off. We hope to see you all at one or more of these events in the next couple of days. Be well!

The Power of Personality: Light FM

2010-01-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

So much goes into being a successful band. One important thing I've learned that contributes to success and all around bad-assery, I learned from people like Josiah from Light FM. I've seen Light FM a handful of times. They have the hard-to-come-by ability to combine massive guitars and hooky melodies. But I probably would not have seen them the amount of times I have if not for Josiah.

Josiah is a gracious, humble, and generous human being who I respect. I've seen his enigmatic charm put smiles on nearly every face he runs into at a show, and that is an invaluable gift. People want Light FM to be successful because they want Josiah and the other lovely members of his band to be successful. And that is something all of us in bands should take to heart. Here's to not being giant dicks in 2010.

You can help Light FM conquer the masses this year by voting for them as the best emerging band in Los Angeles at Deli Magazine here.

You can catch them live:

Feb 4th @ Tokyo Garden in Fresno

Feb 8th @ Spaceland

New Member Tuesday: Amanda P Joins Kissing Cousins!

2010-01-19T10:24:00.000-08:00

The departure of Kara from Kissing Cousins last month left a vacancy that needed to be filled. While Heather considered finding another flutist, she instead decided to use this change as an opportunity to shift the band's direction into new territory. Enter Amanda. She plays guitar and sings, adding a whole new level of bombast and swagger to the all girl group. Chain Letter conducted a brief introductory interview with Amanda to better get to know the newest member of Kissing Cousins.

CLA: Congrats on being a Cousin! Which current member of Kissing Cousins do you think you'll kiss first?

Amanda: Thanks! Probably all of them at once. That’s how it works right? Yaaaay!

CLA: Girls in rock music have a long history of out-there fashion sense. What accessory or clothing item do you have that you never get to wear that you're excited about pulling out for a show?

Amanda: Oh probably some sort of wrist bling. I’m not sure what yet, buuuuut it’s going to be awesome. If it’s sharp we might have a ‘danger zone’ marked off for safety.

CLA: Melissa (KC bassist) is a huge Rush fan. Name a band or artist that you like or that influenced you that may surprise us and tell us why on earth you could possibly like them.

Amanda: Jesus & Mary Chain – they really have the best combination of noise and sweetness. I love how they mix ghost-like sound with feedback & distortion.

CLA: Having a blog, I find it very gratifying to be able to have a forum to talk shit. Say something mean about someone without using their name. Trust me, you'll feel better.

Amanda: This person is not worth talking about too much since their very existence is questionable. They are known for their tendency to eat butts & talk about so-and-so all day. On most occasions you can find him/her swimming in the gutter, looking for snacks. Most of the time, however, he/she is rolls around on the pavement trying to scrub off the ugliness that is his/her soul. :)

CLA: Multiple Choice Section:

a. Cats or Dogs? A: Dogs are best friends. Loyal & so sweet. Cats are dirty & will eat your face. I have 2 just in case I need to throw them in the face of some enemy (like unnamed person of question #4).

b. Bloody Marys or Mimosas? A: Bloody Marys (until last Sunday)

c. Heart or Blondie? A: Blondie - She’s got more sass, pop, and looks bad ass :)

d. TV or film? A: Aaaaa. Film probably.

Kissing Cousins perform Saturday January 23rd @ The Basement in Long Beach

Birth Of A Nickname + David Bazan Show + Summer Darling CA Mini Tour Announced

2010-01-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

All the boys who have ever been in Summer Darling have the same nickname: Manny. We're all Manny. It can be confounding hanging out with a group of us because we all call each other Manny. Someone how through inflection and subject matter, we can tell which Manny is being addressed. This actually started in my old band ten years ago. We were on our way to play this festival outside of Portland and this dude tagged along that kept inexplicably calling us all Manny. Roadtrips lend themselves to this sort of perpetuating nomenclature so Manny stuck.

This weekend I witnessed the birth of a new nickname. Saturday night my friend was crowned "Muffin Top." I suppose I could go through the specifics of how and why this nickname came about, but I prefer to let you use your imagination. Now this nickname probably would've died out if this same group of friends hadn't hung out again the very next night at our David Bazan house show. In fact, the lucky recipient of this nickname involved himself in a bit of self-aware myth making by wearing a cummerbund to the show. This resulted in a spirited discussion, much akin to a democratic roundtable, about whether the nickname should include this new twist in the tale. The consensus: this gentleman will now be known as Cummermuffin. As a nickname it's a bit bulky off the tongue, so good news, sir, I give this nickname a week before you go back to being plain ol' Chris.

Below I've posted two selections from last night's show. If you were there, then I don't need to reiterate, but for those who weren't I'll just say it's a unique and special experience, and if you are a Bazan fan it is absolutely worth your time and effort to check one of these shows out. He mentioned he'll be doing more of them later this year, so you'll have your chance. In the meantime you can catch Bazan with a full band live at Alex's in Long Beach on March 8th.

Summer Darling CA Mini Tour Dates

We are playing a few shows this upcoming weekend and we would love to see you all in person. We get to hang out so infrequently these days with our crazy lifestyles, so make it a point to come out to one of these shows and connect with some friends, share some laughs and some beers and enjoy some great music. Each show features a lineup handpicked by us and we will be road-testing selections from our new record which is set for a tentative release date of end of June/early July on Origami Vinyl.

Saturday Jan 23rd @ Basement, Long Beach, CA w/ TWO GUNS and KISSING COUSINS

Sunday Jan 24th @ Hotel Utah, San Francisco, CA w/ HIGHWAY PATROL and REDUCED TO RUIN

Tuesday Jan 26th @ Spaceland, Los Angeles, CA w/ SHILOE, BY SUNLIGHT, and VANAPRASTA

The Crew Have Killed The Captain (But They Still Can Hear His Voice): David Bazan Week Pt. 5

2010-01-15T08:39:00.000-08:00

My first spiritual derailment of 2009 came early in the year when the pastor of my church was promoted within his denomination, meaning he was leaving my church. These last 6 years I had continued to listen to the weekly sermons by downloading them from the internet. Although I had no interest to return to an actual church, I enjoyed the sermons, as the pastor had a very practical approach to religion. He specialized in communicating how to live like a Christian in the modern world in a pragmatic and useful way, instead of the many sermons I've heard over the years that are full of dogma, empty theology, and Christian hyperbole. I began to download the new pastor's sermons, but quickly realized, to my disappointment, that these sermons didn't speak to me like the old pastor's. They were messages written by life-long Christians for life-long Christians, filled with nice stories with very little applicable value to the critical thinker.

By the time David Bazan released his first proper solo LP, Curse Your Branches, in September I was already filled with doubt over my spirituality. I began to wonder if my religion was based on one man's understanding of it, and without his understanding, did I really have any of my own? I liken the process of doubt to a tiny hole in a sack filled with grain, or a glass of water left out in the sun; it may take a while and you may not notice it, but eventually the grain and water disappears and you are left with nothing. Each question resulted in five more, and before I knew it was inundated with the sinking feeling that my religion made zero sense.

Curse Your Branches has been described as Bazan's divorce from Christianity, and while that may be over-dramatized, a cursory listen to the lyrics suggests a man who has serious, unresolved doubts of his faith. Below I posted an a brief interview spliced with a live performance I found on the web that seems to sum up the record from Bazan's view better than I ever could:

For me Curse Your Branches solidified my feeling that I am completely alone. I had lost two men who at various times in my life had been spiritual, creative, and moral guides. And while I am still coming to my own conclusions about God and Christianity, one thing is absolutely clear: the journey to discover or abandon God is a solitary one. I am involved currently with some deep discussions with an old band mate of mine who is now a pastor, and boy! it's been insightful and stimulating. I am beginning to feel the value of the process, the excitement in the search, the beauty of not truly knowing. Where for the previous nine months I have felt panicked by my identity-changing doubts and saddened by my loss of security, today I feel hopeful, not so much that there is a specific answer out there that will satisfy this question (because I don't believe there is one), but that the question faith is something that is always changing, like a living organism. In the same way that Science sees its understanding of the world as something always growing, morphing, becoming something new with the capacity to surprise and delight the dedicated follower, so too should our understanding of faith.

David Bazan plays our house show Sunday, January 17th. As this show is sold out, I will try to post something helpfully expository on Monday.

You can catch Bazan with a full band Monday, March 8th at Alex's Bar in Long Beach.

Descent Into Revival: David Bazan Week Pt. 4

2010-01-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

Sometime around the release of Control someone began to anonymously send me sermons on CD from my old pastor, Ron Pinkston. It wasn't until nearly a year later in April of 2003 that I listened to one. I was struck by the title: "The Bridge Over The Church." After my three years of leftist zealotry (that included me registering to vote as a member of the Socialist Party, which didn't change until I realized I could not vote in primaries), I began to be troubled by a sneaking suspicion that my problem with God was not so much metaphysical as it was a personal resentment towards His followers. If the Church was God's representative and the Church had done nothing but let me down, what does that say about God? (Editorial side note: There exists in my mind a long litany of transgressions my family and I suffered at the hands of the Church in the name of God, but in order to stay on topic I'll direct the interested reader to revisit Summer Darling's previous 2 EPs which were almost exclusively about those experiences in some form or another.)

The long and short of it was this: when I listened to this sermon in which the pastor was critical of the modern Church's pension towards corporatization and ashamed and apologetic of the many ills the Church committed over the centuries and remorseful for the current state of people's church experiences, I felt revived. I was released from the burden of feeling like I had to agree with the Church in order to believe in God. Over the next five years I would work through and forgive my past issues with the Church and the specific people who had damaged my faith. It was a liberating time, and a painful time, as I had to re-examine the whole of my belief system and somehow integrate my liberal political feelings with my spiritual convictions. I was able to do this.

Meanwhile David Bazan seemed headed in the opposite direction. Pedro the Lion's last LP, Achilles Heel, does its part to walk the same line I lived, balancing faith with secularism, but I remember hearing an advance copy of the record sitting outside a recording studio in March of 2004 with my band-mate, Loop, and feeling sort of disinterested in the songs. I've gone back and revisited the album many times, but the simple fact is that the songs don't speak to me like previous Bazan releases. My obsession with Pedro The Lion faded just like the band. I enjoyed Bazan's 2006 electronic side project Headphones as more proof that no matter the subject matter, Bazan could write the hell out of song (see below) but I stopped wondering what kind of social or metaphysical statement, if any, was being made. (I've since had the conviction that the ascribed meaning I gave to old Pedro jams was my own and that the things I was sure Bazan was saying was very much my own experiences being recycled and reinterpreted through his music. It's actually a beautiful thing about music, see my post on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 for more on this subject.)

I even gave little afterthought to meeting Bazan for the first time in the spring of 2006 at a festival Kissing Cousins and Map were playing. He seemed funny and charismatic and drunk off his ass, but as those of you who know me know, I am certainly capable of imbibing on a regular basis past the reasonable amount of alcoholic consumption, so I wasn't in any mindset to judge the dude later that night when the poor guy needed to be basically carried to his hotel room. Having read some interviews recently about that time in his life, Bazan admits to having a tough stretch where he sort of lost the plot. But for me it was relatively smooth sailing. My tough time was right around corner.

On Anger And Politicization: David Bazan Week Pt. 3

2010-01-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

In the 2 years between the release of Winners Never Quit and Control, Pedro The Lion's seminal 2002 LP, I became politicized. Looking back now I realize that I needed to believe passionately in something, and since my religion no longer inspired me, I grasped onto leftist idealism and socialist philosophy. When I began listening to Control, I discovered a reflective outlet for my own anger and frustration towards my conservative Christian upbringing and current government.

Control was a relentless criticism of puritan morality and commercialism in the form of a story that follows a corporate executive through unseemly affairs that ultimately end in his murder by his estranged wife. It's a bizarre love story that ends in tragedy, and along the way no character is spared, from the lover that promises his fiancee "I would never divorce you without a good reason," to the unfaithful husband calling down rapture, complete with Jesus and his angles, at the moment of the his orgasm with his mistress, to the wife obsessed with getting her face on "the cover of a magazine," to the children contemptuous and undisciplined, to finally, the priest at the funeral who proclaims, "We're all going to die. It could twenty years, it could be tonight. Lately I have been wondering why we go through so much trouble to prolong the pain of being alive." The record ends with the narrator's disparaging conclusion: "Wouldn't it be so wonderful if everything was meaningless? But everything is so meaningful and most everything turns to shit."

The record gave a name to everything I was feeling at the time. I had been made irrelevant by my religion, a belief structure that supported the very policies I was against. My reading and the lectures I was attending reflected the record's scathing criticism of consumerism, corporate greed, and harmful environmental policy. And while Control stops short of being a cry to arms against the conservative ethos that was "evil" in the context of the record, the implications were clear to anyone that was listening. Bazan was onto something wholly other than his own upbringing in the Christian church. Control was the tipping point not only for Bazan, but one that inspired and incited me. Little did I know at the time Bazan and I were about to go in two divergent directions.

How Good Is Good Enough? David Bazan Week Pt 2

2010-01-12T10:31:00.000-08:00

By the time of Pedro the Lion's second full length album Winners Never Quit in 2000, much had changed for me. I had become a secularist, a closet believer. I had taken a variety of classes at university on the philosophy of religion and more specified classes on Existentialists from Kant to Camus, plus others on Neitzsche, Heideger, and Hegel, among others. Needless to say I was heavily ensconced in my own head. Knowledge of God was just that, knowledge, without any kind of experience. By this time my religion was all but dead, even though I still thought of myself as a believer.

I was also becoming heavily interested in creative writing. I had officially changed my major to reflect an emphasis in creative writing (UCI did not offer a creative writing program at the undergraduate level) and was fascinated by short story writers like Flannery O'Connor and Ernest Hemingway. So when I got ahold of Winners I was stunned with excitement at how narrative the album felt. It read like a short story set to music. Until this moment I had assumed that in most songwriting the "I" of the narrator was synonymous with the songwriter. (From then on my own songwriting was forever altered to reflect this. Most if not all my songwriting tends to be allegorical where the I of the song is not me, Ben Heywood.)

Winners follows the narrative arc of 2 brothers, each sharing first person accounts of the story line depending on the song. I interpreted the album to be an examination of good and evil in terms of the blurry line between modern morality and immorality. One brother is "good" in the eyes of society; he is a politician and a Christian fighting for what he believes is right, yet is capable of cheating and lying to get his way. The other brother is the proverbial fuck up, a drunk who amounts to nothing, but has a stronger sense of morality than his successful brother. The story ends with the "good" brother murdering his wife and then committing suicide while the "evil" brother has ended up in prison. The only overt mention of God comes in the second to last track "Bad Things To Such Good People" where the "evil" brother reflects on the irony of seeing his father down on his knees "crying out to Jesus, 'But Lord I've always done what's right.' " His one "good" son was now dead and gone. The song ends with the refrain "And all the while, the good Lord smiled, and looked the other way."

I took the implication of the album to be connected to the Deist tradition that believes there is a God, but that He is wholly disinterested in human life, a dispassionate creator unconcerned with man's daily struggles. I immediately rejected that conclusion, even if it wasn't the conclusion meant to come from listening to the record. I continued to reason, to this day, in fact, that there was no point in believing in a God like that, and since at the time I knew or felt no other God, I essentially stopped thinking about the question all together.

I Still Have Never Seen You: David Bazan Week Part One

2010-01-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

I’m currently 31,000 feet in the air experiencing some mild turbulence and trying to write a blog that can adequately explain why after 30 years I’m no longer sure I believe in the existence of God. To be fair, if I had to make a choice at this very moment, I would say I believe there is a God. An atheist friend of mine and I were having a discussion about this very topic recently and his assertion was that the burden of proof falls on the believer to make the case for God. I opened my mouth to start making that case, but nothing came out. What happened to me?

From 1997 to 2004 David Bazan fronted a band called Pedro the Lion. Bazan has long been associated with the Christain faith, having released his first record on Christian label Tooth & Nail, and done extensive touring of churches and Christian festivals before transitioning into playing bars and clubs as he began to release records for Jade Tree and, most recently, Barsuk.

Upon the release of Pedro the Lion’s Whole EP in 97, I was just finishing high school. I was raised in the Christian church and my parents were pastors the majority of my life. I was your average teenage believer, meaning I believed what I did because I had very few reasons to question it. Sure I had a girlfriend break up with me because “God told her to” and I had a very close friend die in a car accident, but because I was rooted in the same belief system I had been in all my life, these circumstances seemed more like annoyances to my faith rather than deal-breakers. I remember thinking about them and not being able to come to a viable conclusion, so instead of forcing the issue, I just stopped thinking about them.

I started listening to Pedro the Lion that fall during my freshman year of college. I immediately identified with songs like “Nothing” and “Almost There” because of their fresh narrative structure. Bazan had a way of using irony and metaphor that I had never heard before from a “Christian” arstist. To say the songs challenged me to start thinking differently would be to ascribe a fictional importance to them; my questioning was coming from a different source. By the time I saw Pedro the Lion for the first time in 1998, being outside my belief structure, specifically the church I grew up in, already had me exploring the heretic nature of modern philosophy and trying to figure out why I no longer felt anything when I went to church.

It’s then that I heard Pedro the Lion’s It’s Hard To Find A Friend LP and a song called “The Secret of the Easy Yoke.” This song, whose lyrics are quite literally about the narrator's struggle to experience God within the structure of the corporate mega-church, rang true to me. I interpreted the song as a comforting lullaby for the disenfranchised church go-er who still believed in God--and that’s precisely who I was at that time. I felt encouraged, reasoning that I might be able to think critically about the world around me and the religion I grew up in while still holding fast to my belief in God.

This Weeks Chain Letter Happenings

2010-01-11T06:35:00.000-08:00

Hey all! I'll be posting later today after I get off the plane, but here's some shows you should check out this week:

Wednesday Jan 13th the Robotanists @ Spaceland

Thursday Jan 14th TS & the Past Haunts @ Echo (unconfirmed)

Friday Jan 15th Modern Time Machines @ Pehrspace

cheers

Video from Madison. WI

2010-01-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

Chain Letter will return tomorrow with David Bazan Week in anticipation of his house show we are hosting Sunday January 17th. I will be tracking 2 trajectories of spirituality as it relates to Bazan's music.

Winter Wonderland

2010-01-08T07:23:00.000-08:00

Turns out landing in the snow is not nearly as scary as I imagined it was! Heather and I spent the entire day yesterday traveling from Los Angeles to Madison, WI, and the final, heavily delayed landing in Milwaukee was the least interesting part. My highlight was driving west on highway 94 in a snowstorm at night when the windshield wiper of our car went flying off the windshield. With no exit for miles and the wiper hanging like a dead limb off the side of the car we debated whether or not it was a good idea to have Heather hold the wheel from the passenger seat so the driver, my good friend Josh, could unbuckle his seat belt and reach his entire body out the window into the flurry and attempt to put the wiper back into place. This plan, while not completely carried out, did not work. Luckily we were traveling behind a snow plow that was salting the road keeping us in traction and visibility until we could pull off the freeway and fix the problem.

Madison in a snow storm is absolutely gorgeous. We had dinner and beers at a local pizza joint that we walked to from our hosts', Josh and Jessica's fantastic house. It's been fifteen some odd years since I've been in the snow and I sorta forgot how wet it was. It looks so fluffy until your drunk wife makes powdery snow balls and hurls them at you. Then you get wet and cold. So fun, though!

In the only music related news of the day, I received a phone call from Travis as we deplaned in Milwaukee telling us that the Past Haunts have a gig next Thursday night at the Echo. I'll keep everyone posted on this and our adventures in the winter wonderland that is Madison,WI.

Ps I just checked the outside temperature. 9 degrees.

High Anxiety

2010-01-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

I'm getting on a plane tomorrow. This is a very normal thing for many people, but to me it takes some self-conquering. By that, I mean, if I allowed myself to be a slave to my anxieties I would never, never, get on an airplane. Never. But I fly all the time because I am able to rationalize my way into the cabin.

If you are freaked out by flying here's a couple of things that make me feel better:

A planes wings can safely bend something like 15 feet in either direction.

Flying is all physics. It works. Crashes are mostly due to human error and in 99 percent of cases, there were seven consecutive human errors that lead to disaster.

It's a lesson in control, or lackthereof. Driving a car, walking around on the ground, these things give me the illusion of control. Without sounding overly dramatic, life is by definition out of my control and can be taken from me at any moment no matter what I do. Sure, there are certain laws and principles of living that increase my chances of staying alive. Never getting in car would increase my chances of living far greater than never getting in an airplane.

So flying in a plane is actually a freeing experience because it allows me to acknowledge the fact that I'm not in control and let go.

I am always a happier person when I let go.

If none of these things work tomorrow, Heather is under strict orders to heavily medicate me.

New Music Tuesday: Kissing Cousins and Summer Darling Team Up With 826LA

2010-01-05T10:32:00.001-08:00

Recently, Heather was invited along with other local songwriters to participate at an 826LA function in Echo Park where she was teamed up with three neighborhood kids and a fellow volunteer to help the kids write a song. Below is a performance of their song "So Sleepy (The Bells)." Pretty priceless stuff.

As it happens, this was only phase one of the kids songwriting extravaganza. 826LA has teamed up with Origami to ask bands to record the songs the kids wrote for a charity record and concert. The record will be a Vinyl/Digital release with the vinyl being limited to a 500 count pressing. Confirmed participants include Cold War Kids, Fiona Apple, Zooey Deschanel, and now, Summer Darling! That's right. We spent the better part of 4 hours last night working on our adaptation of a song called "Mexican Food." As you can imagine by the below video, it was certainly an entertaining challenge, but we're pretty sure we got a kick ass song out of it. Look forward to a Summer Darling song like you've never heard us released on this amazing compilation where all proceeds go to benefit 826LA sometime later this year!

Goals: 42% Less Scary Than Dreams

2010-01-04T10:13:00.000-08:00

This year I said good-bye to resolutions. Not that it was difficult; I've never given New Years Resolutions much thought. Picking an arbitrary date and deciding to change an aspect of my life is something I've been relatively successful at (I quit smoking 864 days ago, to name one) so I've never felt the need to make resolutions.

However, a conversation I had with Todd on our way home from Christmas merry-making convinced me that setting goals is an important step to achieving success. This conversation coincides with a book I'm reading on success, and while I've always been a skeptic of recipes for succeeding--and still am as I tend to believe each person's path to success is different--I have to admit there's value in setting goals.

Goals are like dreams you have just prior to waking; often times they are clearer and more defined than the countless dreams we experience during our deepest sleep. Dreams seem unattainable at times. Sure, I'd love to be signed to Sub Pop but I have no clue on how to get there. Goals are merely speculations, ideas that if actualized may lead us closer to that unobtainable dream.

So in the spirit of accountability, I've decided to publish the goals Summer Darling have set for ourselves in 20Penn. It's a bit scary. I hope to re-read this post next January and discover we've accomplished all of them, but it's certainly possible that we may not get them all in.

Summer Darling's Goals:

1. Put out the record. We've all signed off on the mixes, the art is nearly done, and mastering is scheduled for the end of the month, so this one seems like a no brainer. Except that we've been writing and making this record for the better part of 4 years. I've learned patience the hard way and I refuse to take this goal lightly until I'm listening to the record on my record player.

2. Play more shows that are all ages and play more shows outside of Los Angeles. Don't get me wrong--I am so excited to play Spaceland this month. I couldn't believe it when I realized this, but it will be the first time Summer Darling has ever headlined Spaceland. However, we feel like it's time to expand our audience. We want to get the kids into this. We want to get the kids in other cities into this. We gotta escape from Los Angeles!

3. Music Video. We need to make a video for our new record. This goal is probably the most intimidating for me, since I know little to nothing about getting this done.

4. Vocals. We need to learn how to sing live. It's fine to coast on passion now and again, but the vocals on the record are very intricate and we want to try and recreate them for shows.

5. Write and record new material in a concise fashion. No more 5 years between records. We've talked about trying to write and record at least another Ep's worth of material this year, if not start on another full length.

There we have it. The 5 goals for Summer Darling. If anyone feels compelled, post some of your own goals in the comment section. Feel free to do it anonymously. You'll at least have a record of them. Accountability is key! Let's make this a good year!

Be part of the collective this week: Chain Letter happenings

Kissing Cousins and Twilight Sleep @ Pershing Square Ice Rink Wednesday January 6th. The show starts at 7:30. Free.

Live Video of "Flipside" by Death House Chaplain

2009-12-31T18:07:00.000-08:00

If you missed the show on Tuesday night, you missed a real barn burner! Here's a video of the song "Flipside" so you can pretend you were there!

Albums of the Year 2009

2009-12-30T09:28:00.000-08:00

10. Worker Bee Tangler I love a record that's moody, and this bay area quartet has released a moody masterpiece. At times confounding, the hooks peek out from behind reverb-ed, plucked guitars and barren soundscapes. All the while we are lead through a lyrical nightmare that's at once fucked-up fairy tale and inner examination by Evan's smooth baritone. I think ultimately Worker Bee has a better record in them, but Tangler is a fantastic debut.

9. Akron/Family Set 'em Wild, Set 'em Free The way in which this record opens with the mesmerizing track "Everyone Is Guilty" to the short, sweet closer "Last Year," Akron/Family continually surprises in all the right ways. There may be a bit more freak folk, Animal Collective-ness than I usually prefer, but they tend to do it in a manner that combines those influences with old fashion rock and roll and sometimes a noisy freak out.

8. Richard Swift The Atlantic Ocean Grossly under-appreciated, Swift released a record every bit as good (if not better) than his previous two efforts. Sure, I have a soft spot for the guy, he sang at my wedding and played on my records, but hell, I've never liked 70s pop as much as when Swift does it. This album is packed from start to finish with tasteful, warm jams. And what Swift sometimes lacks in electricity he makes up for in swagger.

7. Black Mountain In The Future While it may be all the rage to sound like you are from another time, Black Mountain sound like they're from another rock dimension. The riffs sound as fresh and vital as they did when Led Zep was copping them off old Delta Blues artists, and the male female vocal delivery works especially well for them. The air-drums and air-guitar I am guilty of when I listen to this record should be enough to properly shame me, but I keep dropping the needle over and over. Let the judgers be damned!

6. Sunny Day Real Estate LP2 Reissue A record that was first released in 1995 is every bit as good today. This is my second favorite record of all time, hugely influential on my musical taste and playing. This remastered version includes some awesome bonus material that was previously somewhat difficult to find, plus very informative liner notes about the making of the record. The band was breaking up at the time of this recording and you can hear it in the way the songs disjointedly fall together before blowing apart. Jeremy Egnik's voice is a powerful instrument while the bass playing by Nate Mendel carries the melodies of the songs. A tour de force.

5. Brand New Daisy Brand New is certainly a guilty pleasure, but why should they be? Their newest record sounds ferocious, thanks to a searing mix by D Sardy. Sure, their lyrical content and delivery is soaked in sad sack emo self deprecation, but everyone needs to be reminded what it feels like to be 16 every now and again. Brand New just happen to do that better than anyone else out there.

4. Timber Timbre S/T Man, this guys has a strange and hypnotic way of putting together a folk song. His voice sounds like Randy Newman on cough syrup, his imagery recalls backwoods spirituals and his vibe is all muted organs, drums, and the occasional choir backing him up. This was the biggest surprise album of the year.

3. David Bazan Curse Your Branches Until this release, I was all but sure David Bazan's best records were behind him. An introspective turn in his lyrics and a mastery of melody has shown me I was absolutely wrong. Time will tell whether this album is his best ever, but for my money this year it didn't get much better. As a listener the album is at once painfully voyeuristic and heartbreakingly hopeful. It's a journey worth taking again and again.

2. Grizzly Bear Veckatimest The best parts of the Beach Boys and the best parts of symphonic bedroom pop, Grizzly Bear made a streamlined version of 2006's Yellow House. It's their first record written ad recorded like a band and the results are dazzling. Both singers brought intricate and addicting songs to the table, while producer Chris Bear gets all the right performances out of them. Grizzly Bear has the unique ability to travel in a variety of sonic trajectories simultaneously while remaining a cohesive unit. A triumphant statement from an important band.

1. Kissing Cousins Pillar of Salt Some may cry foul, but this is still my favorite record of 2009. POS sounds like a demon horde putting on choir robes and singing break up songs disguised as nursery rhymes accompanied by Black Sabbath. It sounds like cocaine without the price tag, like whiskey without the hangover, like pot without the munchies. POS is a desperate, haunting record, filled with yearning and invocation. If you don't own this on vinyl and you consider yourself a fan of music, shame on you. It's timeless; it sounds hyper modern and lo fi 60s without really sounding like either. The bass playing by Sean Stentz and the vocal performances by Heather and Kara stun me with their urgency. Produced by Richard Swift and recorded live directly to 8 track tape in two days this album is an instant classic.

Chain Letter Author's Jams We Enjoyed In 2009

2009-12-29T07:40:00.000-08:00

I've compiled some jams that at one time or another Heather and I were really into this year. Ultimately they are all from albums where I only choose to listen to this particular song and maybe a couple of others. The albums aren't bad, per se, but they didn't make the year end best of list I'll be posting tomorrow. I've chosen to omit songs that are from my favorite albums of the year to inspire a bit more variety on each list.

"Out On A Limb" -- Faunts from the album Feel. Love. Thinking. Of. This is a song that I wish I wrote, that I could write. The interlocking guitar interplay combined with the forward momentum of the rhythm section (even though I'm pretty sure it's a drum machine) make this song sound as if it is always rolling over on itself. The title track to this record is also insanely catchy.

"Spaceships" -- Tweak Bird from Reservations. I had a hot minute with this band and this is the song I still return to. A slow, dirge-y 6/8 time signature filled with monster riffs and mouse vocals.

"Future Primative" -- Papercuts from You Can Have What You Want. This song is all about the opening muted bass line and the musical chorus hook that stays in my head for weeks at a time.

"Blood Bank" -- Bon Iver from the Blood Bank EP. Bon Iver followed up my favorite album of 2008 with this single. It embodies everything I love about this band. Simple, haunting and beautifully melancholy.

"Die Slow" -- Health from Get Color. It was difficult for me to put this song on today's list because the album is one of my favorite albums of 2009. But this song was the reason I love the record. I am addicted to this jam. It's probably my favorite song of the year.

"Rolling Sea" -- Vetiver from Tight Knit. I bought this record on the strength of it's opening song. A gorgeous melody played on acoustic guitar with lyrics that make me instantly nostalgic for a past I never had.

"God Damn Best" -- French Miami S/T. Wow. We played with this band once this year and they absolutely burnt the place down. Ultimately this album tends to be a bit monochromatic, but this bombastic tune is unstoppable.

"Fathom" -- Russian Circles from Geneva. Good god did this song inspire some instrumental post rock! From the opening sounds of a demon orchestra tuning up to the punishing melody hook that continues to return before breaking apart into a number of fascinating tangents, this song has it all for the Explosions/Mogwai/Jesu fan.

The Collective Weekly Show + News Update

2009-12-28T16:07:00.000-08:00

Mondays in the new year I will be updating you on the weekly happenings of the Chain Letter family in addition to my daily post. Tomorrow I will discuss my favorite songs of 2009, followed by my favorite albums of 2009 on Wednesday. We will return to our regular posting schedule Monday January 4th.

Tomorrow, Tuesday December 29th: Death House Chaplain 9pm & Shirley Rolls 11pm @ Spaceland 5$ 1717 Silver Lake Blvd 90026.

Wednesday December 30th: Yikes! A Lion! @ Old Towne Pub Pasadena 9pm

Thursday December 31st (New Years Eve): The Monolators w/ Aushua Le Switch & Henry Clay People @ Spaceland. 10$ advance 12$ door

Wednesday January 6th: Kissing Cousins and Twilight Sleep @ Pershing Square for Spaceland on Ice 8pm FREE!

The Lie of Christmas

2009-12-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

I was on the phone today with a friend of mine discussing a very difficult, conflicting issue and I got to thinking, does anyone truly think Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year? It seems the holidays, while bringing out the best on the surface--lights, decorations, presents, fatty delicious foods--also cultivate a culture of depression, guilt and loneliness.

This makes me incredibly sad. I was blessed to grow up in a high functioning home with many holiday traditions championed by my grandparents. As a kid, it seemed unfathomable to be depressed around Christmas. But as I got older and met people like my friend who's parents past away at a young age, I learned that the holidays are the time of year when old wounds surface most.

I wish there were a formula I could post or a recipe for wellness I could pass on to my friends that are hurting in this season. It breaks my heart to know you're missing a loved one who passed away this year, or feeling the sting of loneliness upon being separated from a spouse or a long time friend, or experiencing the crushing weight of failure in some aspect of your life. It's going to have to be enough to write that you are all in our thoughts and we wish you a fullness and wholeness unmatched by previous holiday seasons. From all of us at Chain Letter Collective, happy holidays. We love you. We'll see you on the other side.

New Music Tuesday: Whispering Pines

2009-12-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

Have you ever known someone from around? You can't remember specifically how or when you met them? I've known Joe Zabeilski from around for a couple of years now. We both travel on foot in and around our neighborhood, we see each other at my restaurant where I serve him copious amounts of iced green tea, and every now and again I'll run into him at Red Lion. Couple days ago he shows up at Gingergrass and tells me his band Whispering Pines have finished their record and he has a copy for me.

This is the culmination of a conversation 10 months in the works. Every time I see him he gives me a status update on his record, so to finally have the record in my hands feels like some sort of accomplishment. To call Whispering Pines roots music is the simple, derivative comparison. Instead I like to think of them as a band stepping out of a time machine into another era in which their music is as relevant and enjoyable as the time from which they traveled. This kind of americana can be found in parts in all sorts of LA bands like Welldiggers Banquet and the Parson Red Heads as well as national acts like Fleet Foxes. But what Whispering Pines do a bit differently is embody their influences to the point where they become indistinguishable from them.

Some would argue that this is a bad thing and that I am criticizing Whispering Pines. Not so. In their case, it's a compliment. One just has to listen to "Family Tree," the opening and title track on their new record (which I've posted below) to realize sometimes it just feels right to do something so well, even if that thing has been done so well by others for a long time.

You can buy Whispering Pine's record Family Tree at Amoeba and catch them live January 25th at the Bootleg Theatre.

Hangovers. They are all day events.

2009-12-21T16:45:00.000-08:00

This is the first time I've been able to look at my computer screen without a searing blinding pain exploding out from behind my eye sockets. I was done in by one thunderous hour last night. I was on my couch finishing a glass of red wine when Heather brought me in a vodka soda. While I was finishing the vodka soda, our friends Dave and Alexis dropped by with presents and a bottle of champagne. Which we drank. Then I opened my present, which was a bottle of whiskey. I went in to the kitchen to get glasses for Dave and I and, for some reason, decided I wanted to drink a beer along with the whiskey. So at one time in front of me I had a glass of champagne, a vodka soda, a whiskey, a glass of red wine, and a PBR. Within the hour every glass was drained, every can empty, and all I got to show for it is this all day hangover event. Good thing I'm going to 2 more Christmas parties tonight.

Now That It's Done The Work Begins

2009-12-18T10:30:00.000-08:00

With the record finished, the real work begins. I'm talking about song order. I know in this day and age the format of a complete record meant to be listened to from start to finish is an archaic concept. Fuck that. Every record I've made, I've put an intense amount of consideration into the song order. I'm sure this is a product of being born in the mix tape age. There's a great scene in the book "High Fidelity" where the protagonist has a lengthy soliloquy on how to properly and effectively construct a mix tape, so I won't try and recreate that here.

However, the point remains that for us in Summer Darling song order matters a ton. One of my favorite memories of being in this band was way back in 2004. We were on our way to play a show in Chico, CA at a little coffee shop called Moxie's. For the entire car ride Dan, Heather and I played different song orders for each other, argued our cases good-spiritedly, and after much deliberation came to a consensus.

This time it's a bit more crowded in the car. Not only do we have a fourth member in our band now, we also have a producer and a label weighing in. (*Author's note: We also had a producer for our first record who had two very strong ideas about song order and selection, which I ignored. To this day I regret that I did, because I think his ideas would have made the album better.) I already have my order picked out, but I wonder how much I'm going to have to fight to get it on the record that way? Or will someone come up with an idea that works perfectly that I never would have thought? We shall see. The battle begins tomorrow when I show Neil Schield from Origami Vinyl the mixes for the first time. . .

Ghosts of Christmas Past

2009-12-17T10:15:00.000-08:00

Last night at the Origami release party for the Lilofee 7" I ran into an old acquaintance named Ronnie. Ronnie and I go way back; we worked together at a coffee shop in Orange County nine years ago. At the time he was in a band called The Pressure. I had another friend that worked at the coffee shop that I knew from playing in bands. His name was Allen. He was in a local band called Mayday when I was in a band called Remember August. We played a few shows together and always got along swimmingly. After Ronnie's and Allen's bands broke up they started a band called Your Enemies Friends. Your Enemies Friends went on to release a couple records and tour the world while the bands I was in at the time slowly dissolved. For years I desperately wanted to be the drummer for that band because I thought that was going to be my only shot at playing in a real band.

It was interesting running into Ronnie on the streets of Echo Park. It's not the first time I've seen him since our coffee shop days, but enough time has passed to be able to accurately reflect on old times, which we did briefly. He's in a new band called Seaspin and Allen is in a band with his old bandmates from Mayday, but Ronnie couldn't remember what they were called. I'm not exactly sure how it makes me feel to know what kind of concentric circles this band life makes, though I'm pretty sure that if I end up where I started after some kind of wild ride with this life, I'll be grateful and think it was all worth it.

Have We Arrived At The End?

2009-12-16T09:52:00.000-08:00

In a few minutes I am scheduled to head into the studio and sign off on the final mixes of the Summer Darling record. What a grand undertaking this has been! As I think back on the 4 years of writing and rehearsing, the six months of tracking and the six months of mixing I feel two conflicting emotions.

First comes a giant wave of satisfaction mixed with relief, and maybe a little pride tossed in there as well. While we have four other past releases, the record we are finishing feels like the definitive statement the band was meant to make. It's just taken us eight years and a couple hundred shows to make it. It makes me excited for the future, expectant, hopeful.

The other feeling is an intense dread, the fear of someone being in your house when you arrive home from a long journey, the unease of uncertainty. For the last fourteen months, I knew what my goal was: finish the record. But now that it's done, what's next?

Recently I was speaking over beers to S Foye, the producer of the record, about general life equations, laughing at the circumstances of our extreme rootlessness; we own next to nothing, have no kids, etc, and how different that makes us from a lot of our friends we grew up with. We came to the realization that uncertainty in life produces a hunger that allows for new experience and a unique hope. Because we are still unsettled in this path we're on, we get opportunities to experience things that people who find themselves settled into careers and families and responsibilities don't. It was an exhilarating conclusion. The uncertainty rotting my guts and waking me up at five in the morning (much like it did this very a.m.) was actually a good thing, a product of my willingness to strive for better and different things for me and my band-family. It's a terrible, awesome feeling, and one that I hope we all get to experience soon.

This is what I was listening to while writing today. The song is called "I Get Low" by Timber Timbre.

New Music Tuesday: TS And The Past Haunts

2009-12-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

TS And The Past Haunts is Travis Shettel's new project. You may remember Travis' previous band, Piebald, or you may have seen him rocking the keys with The Duke Spirit, but the Past Haunts is a whole new direction for him. The jams showcase a mature yet playful approach to songwriting, the music is built upon piano and organ as much as it is guitars, and the performances by Travis and the members of The Duke Spirit, who served as his backing band during the recording of the album, are spontaneous and thrilling. It's the happiest blues record of all time with gritty barroom solos, whisky soaked choral arrangements, and sad sack singalong piano ballads.

Currently there's no official release date for this record, but while Travis finds the right venue through which to put this album in our grubby little hands, we can enjoy a jam or two right here on Chain Letter. Heather and I have been doing our best over the last couple months to fill in the Duke's shoes at live shows. It's made it quite difficult to pick a favorite, not only because I have a personal attachment to so many of them, but because, frankly, they are all so fucking good. They're the kind of songs to get stoned to and cruise around in nature, or to toss on the ol' vinyl player and have a few beers with some friends, or play on the jukebox of your favorite neighborhood bar at closing time. They already remind me of good times, so I suppose it's only fitting to post the song "Good Times" to introduce TS And The Past Haunts to you. Plus it's a festive time of year. So crack open a cold one, light a spliff, or just sip on some nonfat, non-alcoholic egg nog, listen to the jam and remind yourself of the good times. Or be like Travis and create some new ones!

Everything In Titles

2009-12-14T09:28:00.000-08:00

I love naming things. In college I was fascinated with etymology. My favorite Bible myth is the one about the tower of Babel, an allegorical story about the creation of different languages that occurred when man tried to build a structure to god. I found numerology fascinating and was transfixed by the idea that Adam, the first human, spoke a perfect language that transcends the sign/signifier relationship of modern language. And now my obsession lies in naming songs and albums.

With the help of the rest of the band, I've been trying to name the Summer Darling record for the better part of a year. I usually like to allow for a long period of time to name things. This gives me the optimum amount of chances to either stumble across something that sounds cool and relates to the jams (like our 2008 EP Health of Others which I saw on a sanitation sign in my work bathroom), ask the right person what they would name the record (my friend Jim Poulos named Summer Darling's first full length I Know You, I Never Knew You), or pull a critical line from the songs themselves like we did for Good Feeling.

But this record has been impossible to name. When I first wrote many of the songs for the album, the idea for the title, or theme, if you will, was "Bear Your Brother's Burden." This soon morphed into "Share Your Brother's Burden" as the previous title felt clunky. But this title likewise became clumsy and archaic, so I shortened it to "Brother's Burden." After a bit of time "Brother's Burden" seemed completely unrelated to the jams. I couldn't for the life of me remember what specific burden had anything to do with the themes of the songs. From this point on it's been a downward spiral of wild ideas ranging from simple one word titles like "Apprentice" and "Zealotry" to long esoteric excursions like "Let's Build It Back Up So We Can Tear It All Down Again" and "Beautiful With Broken Teeth." There was "Dead Letters" that turned into "Dead Letters to Lost Lovers" after the first one felt too metal. Other quickly scrapped ideas included "Throw Off What Hinders You," "Unconversion," "Drunk On Living Water," and "Nothing To Go Back Home To." I've tried copping song titles, but that always ends up feeling lazy. And then there's the temptation of the grandest, simplest option of all: the self titled record.

I've come out the other side of these examples at a complete loss. The record is done and I have no idea what the fuck we're going to call it. Anything I come up with now feels forced. My favorite thing has turned into a total mind screw.

I wish I was in better HEALTH.

2009-12-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

On Monday I tweaked something in my back. No big deal, just felt a little twinge. Whatever that was has mutated and malignantly attacked the whole of my upper back, shoulders, and neck. I've had trouble sleeping and I'm in pain every moment of the day. I canceled yesterday's two rehearsals, played hookie on my blog, and skipped out on work. I've been given sage advice from friends and family, pills from even better friends and family, and I'm off to get a massage here shortly.

I started thinking about what could have caused this unfortunate downturn and I have come to the conclusion that it is most definitely stress related. The reason I am stressed out is a whole other subject that I plan to spend a week writing about in the new year, so for now we'll just marvel at how the body can physically manifest such mental struggle.

When I think of health and stress, the most suitable musical embodiment of these is the band Health. They are a local LA band that has a very unique approach to rock and roll. Below is a track from their most recent record Get Color. The jam is called "Die Slow" and although its certainly the poppiest of their songs, you'll still get the idea of what the knots in my back feel like.

Be thankful we've got our H/health.

Future Ghost: Staying Positive in Tough Situations

2009-12-09T10:29:00.001-08:00

When Loop left Summer Darling in the summer of 2008 I must admit to moments of panic. Irrational as it was, I began to think everything was unraveling, that we'd never play another show, that we'd have to start all over. If only I'd been able to learn a lesson from my friends in Future Ghost! When one of their members left this year, Brandon Tomas was duly disappointed, but when speaking to me about it in the aisles of Trader Joe's, he was resolute in his positivity. He seemed absolutely intent on making the best of a difficult situation.

Did they ever. Below I've posted my favorite track from their upcoming EP. The song, entitled "Like It Or Not," is direct in its hook and bombastic in its delivery. They are a fantastic sounding three piece and all around kick ass people. Make sure you check them out live in the coming months, as I am predicting a break out year for these noise poppers.

New Demo Tuesday

2009-12-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

I'm late to head into the studio today so my grand plans of posting another video Dan and I did will have to wait until next week. But in other news, I've been writing like a madman lately, which is a 180 degree turn from the last 10 months where I wrote precisely one song. Yup, just one. I didn't have writer's block; you have to be trying to write to have that. I just wasn't inspired to write for nearly a whole year. But now with the Summer Darling record finished and coming out 2010, I've been working on new Summer Darling songs, new Vicious Scully songs, and now a mystery third project. There's a back story to this song that I will share in the future, but for now enjoy this bedroom demo I did for a song that I have no idea where it will end up. It has no name, but I've been calling it "Border Town" for my own records.

Hey, Hey, My, My. Rock and Roll Is About to Die.

2009-12-07T07:50:00.000-08:00

I spent some time this weekend watching parts of the 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert. While this sucker clocked in at over 4 hours and featured performances by countless rock and roll "legends," some of who still play like they mean it, I couldn't help but notice the median age of the performers on stage to be roughly 61. It got me thinking seriously about rock and roll as the institution the Boomers built and judging by this drawn out HBO special, Rock and Roll is gonna die.

Our evening started with a rousing yet empty speech by Tom Hanks filled with hundred dollar metaphors for five cent sentiments. Who better to kick off the night than a man precisely representative of Rock and Roll's modern demographic: upper middle-aged, chubby, successful white people clinging on to some rebellious and stubborn ideal that exists only in their memory and on corporate classic rock stations, reminding them that "Rock and Roll changed the world" but neglecting the fact that after these people changed the world they it unchanged again. The same generation that heralded peace and free love is the generation controlling America's modern war machine and denying tax paying citizens the ultimate expression of love, the civil right to marry. So sorry, Tom, if I didn't get swept up in the emotion of the moment.

Judging by the night's performers, of whom the youngest was a rock band so terrified of change they sued an internet company for allowing kids to download their music for free, Rock and Roll is dying. We had the plump CEO versions of our former rock stars like Crosby, Stills, and Nash and the death-on-a-stick mockups like Jeff Beck and Mick Jagger. The only ones who still had the gleam of life without the stink of surgery or lackadaisical record sales was the Boss and Bono. Dudes still look good.

While it's amusing to poke fun at these aging performers' appearance, it is hard to ignore the fact that this event celebrated a generation of rock and rollers that has completely lost its relevance and unless they start bringing new acts into the fold these concerts are gonna get shorter and shorter as these codgers with guitars start croaking. Thinking conservatively, there's plenty of performers in their late 30s and 40s making relevant and challenging rock music. Instead of rolling out Jerry Lee Lewis, whose hands miraculously could still tinkle the ivories but whose face looked like an inexpressive mask, why not invite Sonic Youth or Radiohead or Wilco or, dare I say it, whatever politically radical, sonically polite yawn band Tom Morello is playing in these days, to warm up the stage. Then honor the relics with lifetime achievement awards and whatever the yuppie rock equivalent of a gold watch is. And better yet, why not introduce the grandfathers of rock to some things the kids are actually listening to these days? God forbid a band like Health or No Age share the stage with James Taylor. Grizzly Bear opened for Paul Simon before why not hook it up again for a national audience? Instead we get James Hatfield and Ozzie Osbourne.

I predict a more disheartening end for this age of Rock and Roll. While in the 60s and 70s record sales and talented bands had a positive correlation, one only has to watch the sad joke that is the Grammy's to know that popular music today is dominated by marketing strategies rather than true musicianship. While it could be argued that this is more of a criticism of today's music consumer (and by all means the modern casual music listener is at a serious disadvantage), I still believe that the musicians actually carrying on the mantle of rock and roll are usually not the ones atop the Billboard charts. I'm afraid the fathers of this movement are more apt to pass the torch to the Linkin Parks and John Mayers than they are to the Deerhunters and Elloitt Smiths, and when that happens, their rock and roll will be truly dead. Until then I can't wait for the 3oth Anniversary special destined to feature a Beatles reunion where Brian Wilson and Jimmy Buffet play the parts of John Lennon and George Harrison via Rock Band while Ringo drums in a wheel chair and Paul McCartney accompanies them via satellite from a plastic surgery recovery ward. Rock on.

Dedication: Correatown

2009-12-04T11:58:00.001-08:00

All this week I've unintentionally spotlighted some characteristics in myself and other people who play in bands and how those characteristics contribute to living an artistic lifestyle. Last night, Death House Chaplain played a show at a tiny little British pub in Redlands, CA with Map and Correatown and I relearned one of the most important attributes necessary for success in any field: dedication to one's craft. It's so simple, yet I rarely think about it.

In talking to Angela Correa before the show I found out that a mere 28 hours earlier she had flown in from Europe. She's spent the last month touring our neighbors across the sea, getting on average 4 hours of sleep per night. If it were me, the last thing I'd want to do upon returning home jet lagged within an inch of my life would be to play a small show in the middle of nowhere to a half empty bar. But when I asked Angela about it, she merely replied, "I know, I'm crazy, I just like to play shows. I guess I was on a high from playing every night and didn't want it to end when I came back to LA."

A further examination of the issue revealed that she was indeed human and tired as hell, but she took the stage like a champ, fought through some technical difficulties and played a damn good show. I've always believed that a show is worth playing as long as I can affect one person's life that night. Sometimes that occurs completely independent from the actual music, maybe just in talking with someone you meet along the way. Last night the show was worth it because I was that person affected. I'm not saying no one else got anything out of it, but driving home I felt that the show was a little reminder just for me to stay dedicated. Thanks Map! Thanks Correatown!

Origami Vinyl Presents Lilofee on Vinyl!

2009-12-03T10:24:00.000-08:00

I'm very excited to announce, if you possibly haven't heard yet, that Origami, the Echo Park based digital record label and vinyl store (and home to Summer Darling), has made the leap into pressing vinyl. This is huge. This is huger than huge. It's been a shared dream for all of us in our little circle of friends, especially Neil Schield, the owner of Origami, to put out vinyl for a very long time. In fact just a short while ago, Neil and I were sitting on his porch overlooking Echo Park Blvd sharing a couple of beers when Neil expressed his interest in opening his own record store out of the storefront just across the street. Obviously the final manifestation of Origami Vinyl on Sunset in Echo Park is the mightiest of all fantasies realized, but the dream certainly started small and has outgrown many of our wildest expectations.

It's only fitting then that San Francisco based electro-pop group Lilofee be the first release on Origami Vinyl. The band's songs suggest dreamy summer days, driving in cars along the ocean, singing along with your best friends or a future one night stand, buzzed and dancing in the sun, in a club, on a porch, barefoot in the sand. There's a certain darkness lurking behind the delivery of the songs, an admission that good times end, but it's this knowledge that makes the other moments more palpable. The band is a long time member of the Origami family, a nod to Neil's own San Francisco days.

The vinyl, released in conjunction with Future Sounds, is a 7" inch featuring "Runaway" b/w "In Flight" and is a limited pressing of 500 on clear vinyl. I've posted the track "Runaway" to tempt your buying buds, so please, go out and support Origami Vinyl and Lilofee by picking up this guaranteed collectable. And what better time to do this than at the release party/release show at Origami Vinyl and the Echo, December 16?!

Time to be Inspired: Happy Hollows + Twilight Sleep @ Spaceland

2009-12-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

The Happy Hollows are everywhere I look these days. From a residency at Spaceland to countless blog Best of 09 lists to a very positive Pitchfork review, this Los Angeles 3 piece seems poised to break through. I remember talking with my friend Brian a couple of years ago about this band and he seemed sure then that they were the real deal. I went to Spaceland on Monday night to check them out. I had seen them play a year and a half ago at Summer Camp but have no real memory of it (thanks Colt 45). Furthermore Heather had downloaded their record from eMusic recently but I can admit to only a cursory listen.

The show the Happy Hollows put on Monday night was jubilant, joyful, hyper active and loud as hell. Their sincerity and energy was down right infectous and I left feeling very inspired and in a weird, can't-explain-it sort of way, proud of them. Like they were my kids and I had just witnessed them winning a battle of the bands. I know, sounds bazar. When I started thinking about it today, though, it made perfect sense. The Happy Hollows are a band that lets people in; they're not so much performing for the audience as they are interacting with them. At that is their appeal. I've seen one show and I believe they can conquer the world. There's a lesson in that for me and the bands I play in to be more, what's the word, TRIUMPHANT! on stage. And good lord, these kids took it all in stride. Having just killed it, they responded with grace and humility. Real cool.

I was pleased to be able to witness Twilight Sleep's first show with their new line-up. It had all the classic first show jitter-ness, nervous lovers making out for the first time, moments of confidence colliding with seconds of awkwardness. But the minute they started the first jam, I thought to myself, wow they sound better in this minute than they've ever sounded before. I have great expectations for them and am excited to see them develop into a affecting live act.

Here's the song "Faces" from the Happy Hollows new record, Spells. The Happy Hollows are playing a couple of shows in January and if you haven't already, I recommend you check them out.

New Music Tuesday: Shiloe

2009-12-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

I've been following Shiloe for over two years and have watched them develop into a dynamic band who plays twisted no wave goth pop songs. Their new single "By The Daggers In Your Eyes" is a perfect example of their MO: jagged guitars, bombastic rhythms, and Ken Ramos' sing speak delivery. It's hot shit, people.

If you're like me and would like to hear "By The Daggers In Your Eyes" over and over, help them infiltrate the masses by requesting it on KROQ here. The bands are listed alphabetically; just scroll down and click on their jam. Sometimes KROQ lists their previous single "Gone" also, so I've been voting for both!

You can catch Shiloe live Saturday, December 12 at the Troubadour supporting Mellowdrone.

"By The Daggers In Your Eyes" by Shiloe

Motivation & Relaxation + Link to Live WTF show at the Echoplex

2009-11-30T09:08:00.000-08:00

I took a walk around the Griffith Observatory on an insanely clear day this past weekend with my Dad and my brother where we had a lengthy discussion about motivation and relaxation. The conversation started with by brother relating a similar dialogue he'd had with someone at the airport during his layover. When the man asked my brother what he did for a living, that was easy; I'm a personal wealth banker, he replied. However, when he asked my brother what he did for fun, my brother admitted to being stumped.

"How sad," he would tell my father and I, "that I don't have anything to do for fun. I go to work and to the gym, watch the occasional baseball game or movie with my wife but I don't have a specific outlet to relax."

Our discussion then turned towards the question of what specifically motivated us, and I must admit to being stunned by their answers. Both my father and brother claimed that making money was their primary motivation in life. When I think about it objectively I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; I mean, after all, my father is a real estate agent and my brother is a banker who sells financial investment packages to the wealthy. Both of these occupations are intrinsically built on making money through salesmanship.

So perhaps more surprising than my family's motivation to me was my motivation to my dad and my brother. I told them my motivation and my mode of relaxation were all tied up in the same things--being creative, making music, and traveling. It got us wondering whether or not it is necessary as an artist to not care about making money. It's an interesting question that I plan to explore in future conversations with other artists and hopefully post some results.

A brief disclaimer: when I say I don't care about money, the proof is in the pudding. I work as a waiter and my wife and I's combined income is less than 60 grand a year. I used to think that was so much money! Anyone living in LA, NYC, or SF knows that's not the case, especially if you are in a band, as we tend to spend between 5 and 10 grand a year on music related expenses. However, even though money is not a predominate motivating factor in my decision making, I do not dislike money and I do recognize that I need to make some money in order to live in 2009 American society. The crux of the situation is knowing that if someone offered me an opportunity to make twice the amount of money I currently make to work in an office or manage a restaurant, I'd turn them down. But if someone offered me a ton on money to write a jingle for Jack In the Box, I'd have a far tougher decision to make. Man, talking about money just feels icky, but it shouldn't. We all have to deal with it, we should be able to discuss it freely.

Lastly, in a completely unrelated topic, I came across a link that enables the savvy internet surfer listening access to a live show that Wait.Think.Fast. performed at the Echoplex on Saturday November 28th. It sounds pretty good and it is packed with new jams from their upcoming record. You can check it out here. Just click on the Travel Tips for Aztlan show midway down the page. The WTF show is about 30 minutes into the podcast.

Thanksgetting: The System Is Rigged Against You

2009-11-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

I'm aware of how over-the-top the title of this post sounds, and while there is a certain amount of melodramatic affectation involved, I am a bit concerned for all of us. Contrary to what many people believe, we are not a Christian nation, we are a Consumer nation. Our national brand of capitalism has ingrained this philosophy into all walks of American life: the more you have, the happier you are.

When stated that frankly, I would hope most people would cry "bullshit" to our national credo, but whether we're aware of it or not, we still seem to operate as if the above statement were true. Especially after our latest economic downturn it seems blatantly obvious that greed is god here--for goodness sake, we've taken a holiday founded on a principle of giving thanks and turned it into a day that excuses gluttony and personifies consumerism. And let's not forget that the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year; that's not an accident.

Ok, Ben, what the hell is this commie crap all about?

I want to be content. Not happy, but content. Happiness depends largely on outside circumstances, but contentment is something that comes from within. However the system I'm living in is rigged to prevent me from being content if I live by its confines. But if I can be content without continually needing more than what I already have, then the system begins to crumble. In this new system, getting more becomes a blessing instead of an impulse that once fulfilled leaves us empty.

Therefore, this year I am going to truly celebrate thanksgiving by being thankful. I find it difficult to be depressed if I am thinking of others, and I've found it very difficult to feel dissatisfied when I am thankful for all the things I've been blessed with, materially, yes, but more so, relationally. I am thankful for my wife and my family and I am blessed beyond words for all the friends that I share this adventure with. Thanks to you for reading, thanks for coming to shows, thanks for listening to the records. I know it can feel self serving from time to time because music gives us pleasure, but know that everyone who's a part of the Chain Letter Collective, Summer Darling, Kissing Cousins, Death House Chaplain, Past Haunts, and Vicious Scully is very grateful for your time and thoughts.

Have a fulfilling Thanksgiving. If you can't think of anything to be thankful for, give me a call, because I am thankful for you.

Chain Letter will resume Monday, November 30th.

New Music Tuesday: Summer Darling

2009-11-23T22:20:00.000-08:00

Dan and I got together last night at his place and had some fun recording alternate versions of some of the songs on the new record. It especially makes us laugh that we are releasing alternate versions before the "real" versions! This jam is called "The One Who Loves You." and it's the first Summer Darling song in eight years to feature a banjo! S Foye is putting the finishing touches this week on the mixes and we expect to have it ready for mastering next week, which means our long wait is nearing an end! So many other exciting things happening in camp SD, but I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. For now enjoy this video.

The Terrapin at Silver Factory Studios

2009-11-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

I met Rufo, the drummer of the Terrapin, about two years ago, but I honestly can't remember the precise circumstances surrounding our meeting. I do remember hanging out with him at KXLU with Sean from the Voyeurs when Summer Darling played on air and I do remember playing with the Terrapin at Que Sera in Long Beach pretty early on in our relationship. On Friday night, Death House Chaplain had the pleasure of opening for them at Silver Factory Studios. I enjoy the laid back house party vibe of Silver Factory. Many thanks go out to Rocco and Danny for providing such a comfortable fun setting for rock and roll shows. The sound keeps getting better and better there as well. (Just as I was about to post I heard that Silver Factory was shut down by the Los Angeles Police Department Saturday night but hopefully they will be up and running again soon.)

While this post definitely recognizes the swift progression the Terrapin continue to make towards being a very exciting noise pop group, the focus is actually on their affable, kind spirited drummer. Anyone who's been in the east side scene the last two years probably has met Rufo knowingly or unknowingly. The guy oozes friendly positivity. At a show a few months back I was down in the dumps about something or other and over all just discouraged about music and bands in general. Rufo allowed me to pile my bull shit on him, and then gently reminded me why we do this in the first place: because we love it and nothing else means as much to us or the people around us. It wasn't that I forgot these things, but I needed someone outside of myself to confirm them.

Often I find that all we need when we're confused or depresesd is to know one other person who's struggling with the same issues that can reaffirm our convictions. Growing up in the Christian church there was much hoopla made of the importance of going every Sunday. I haven't been to church in many years, but now I recognize the importance of having a support group of like minded people to lean on when you're struggling. I'm proud to be a part of Rufo's church and I hope he's a proud member of the church of Summer Darling as well.

Conclusions on Sobriety

2009-11-21T10:15:00.001-08:00

My month long trek across the barren desert that is sobriety comes to a close on Monday. On a run around the Silver Lake reservoir today I reflected on what's different, what's the same, and some tips for next time.

What's Different Drinking definitely contributed to a low lying complacency I had towards my goals. This last month I've played more music, wrote more songs, and practiced my playing more than any other time in recent memory, all while Summer Darling has been on hiatus! Alcohol is not a bad thing for me intrinsically, but I discovered when I use alcohol as a replacement for what really gets me off I become listless and uncreative. I certainly believe there's room to enjoy alcohol while playing music, but my days of drinking all afternoon without picking up the guitar are over.

What's the Same I've enjoyed all the shows I've played and attended and the music I've made this past month sober as much as when I'm drinking. I wasn't what to expect from being a sober musician because I suspected that part of me played music as an excuse to be a mild drunk. There's a certain temptation to continue the "lifestyle" because it affords specific freedoms, one being drinking at all times without that much guilt. Had wanting to be a musician just been an excuse for me to live like I was 21 for the rest of my life? Happily the answer to that question is no. If I was given the choice to either be able to play music in some capacity for the rest of my life without alcohol or to have an infinite supply of free alcohol but no musical outlet I know now what choice I'd make--and it would be an easy one. I'd sure miss those brown Kentucky liquors, but I'd thrive no less. With or without booze, playing music is everything.

Next Time There are some side effects to ditching the brewskies cold turkey that I want to recall for the next time I afford myself a month long bout with clarity.
1. No sauce makes you testy and this can compromise your close relationships. Man, I snapped at my wife about everything that first week, but unintentionally so. I was under a constant cloud of annoyance, the feeling that something inside was off and had tainted the world around me. It's important to be aware that this feeling is natural and it does no good to express your frustration by being a shit head to those close to you.
2. There's a unique thirst that comes from drinking on a regular basis. The only non alcoholic beverage that works to semi-quench the thirst is sparkling water. I recommend Waiwera from New Zealand. Delicious! Contrary to what I suspected, non alcoholic beer is not all that good for this. While beer is tasty, most non alcoholic beers come across flat and lifeless to the pallet, plus you get all the calories and none of the get up and go.
3. Speaking of calories, this brings me to number three: I am hungry all the time. My normal routine has me eating only one real meal a day, usually in the afternoon or early evening. When you're off the sauce this ain't gonna cut it. My challenge was to not binge on Chubby Hubby Ice Cream or cookies from my work every night. Heather can attest to how often I failed this challenge.
4. Depression. I was surprised that I could feel every bit as hopeless and lost sober as when I was drinking. Those feelings, I've learned, are inherent to the human condition and a necessary by product of thinking critically about the world around you. As long as I chose not to let these feelings define my reality I am able to embrace them for their ability to inspire creativity and keep me humble.

I go back and forth on whether I am excited to start drinking again. I'm concerned I won't be able to keep it under control. I'm afraid I'll be re-enslaved. I'm nervous about feeling that first buzz. But then I remember the way beer tickles the nose after a long pull, the way Bourbon warms you from the inside, the smell of a luscious red wine as you breath in and sip simultaneously. I have my hunch; I'll let you know.

Catching Up with Tracy from Twilight Sleep

2009-11-19T10:46:00.001-08:00

Heather and I got the opportunity Tuesday to drop in on Twilight Sleep as they record new material in an ultra plush, brand new studio in Silver Lake. I'd love to say more about the details of the studio but we were sworn to secrecy! Anyway, after a long hiatus spent writing and recording new material and assembling a new band, we were pleased to hear Tracy and Company are going to start playing shows again! Twilight Sleep's new line up features Davey Latter on drums, who also plays for Everest, Nicole Gehweiler on guitar, who also plays guitar for The Comas, and Nicole Fiorentino on bass, who also plays in Light FM, and of course our dear Tracy Marcellino heading things up with her spectacular other-worldly vocals and synth lines.

While a January show is planned with Kissing Cousins, you can catch Twilight Sleep before then at Spaceland Nov 30th supporting the Happy Hollows residency.

Here's the song "Don't Fire Your Guns" from their last EP Race to the Bottom of the Sea. Expect new amazing jams early next year!

We Can't Both be Right, Can We? The Chain Letter Mission Statement

2009-11-18T12:02:00.000-08:00

Recently I got into a discussion with a band mate over a post I did on this blog. While the details of the argument are somewhat irrelevant, we were able to boil it all down to this question: Who do I represent when I write this blog? My friend was of the opinion that whatever band I am writing about, if I am in that band, then what I write must be interpreted as representative of that band. To use a elementary analogy, if I write in my blog that Summer Darling played a show at a bar and that the show sucked, this can be construed as the opinion of Summer Darling.

Is my friend right? Well, yes. His opinion is correct because as a member of a band my opinion makes up a portion of the opinion of the band as a whole. However, the things I say and do, especially things not advertised or presented as the official opinion or stance of the band (i.e. thoughts and feelings expressed on my personal blog), must at best be recognized and scrutinized as only part of a band's opinion but not the whole opinion. This of course would be a hard sell if I were the only member of the band, but luckily in all the bands I'm in I share the experience with other people, so to equate my opinion to the opinion of the band's as a whole disregards the opinions of the other band members.

Do my personal thoughts and feelings influence those of my bands? Absolutely. But let's allow room for opinions to be expressed that may not be in the best interest of the bands, because after all, that's what this blog is about. I want to share with you the good and bad that happens before and after a show or during the making of a record. It's dishonest and not in the spirit of this blog to follow the old adage "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I find it fascinating and edifying when other people in bands share their discouraging moments and disparaging thoughts and what venues suck and what booker is an asshole and what band just plain ruins their day just as much as I savor and enjoy those same peoples' triumphs, positive tips on where to play, who to play with, and how in the hell we can possibly continue to do this without giving up. Let's make a commitment then to really examine and think critically about what happens around us, and let's realize that I'm not always going to say things that will make everybody happy. I do pledge to avoid intentional shit talking but because this is inherently subjective, I can't guarantee what I write won't sometimes be interpreted as such by others. If you have to stop listening to my band or stop booking my band because of something I write on Chain Letter, that is certainly your prerogative and I will respect that decision as much as I wish it to be recognized that some separation exists between my opinions and that of the bands I'm in. It may be wishful thinking, but I'd like to believe as it pertains to this discussion that we can both be right.

New Music Tuesday: Vicious Scully

2009-11-17T12:16:00.001-08:00

Sean Foye and I have begun a new recording project dedicated to Vin Scully, the color man for the Los Angeles Dodgers. This year, Sean and I watched over 140 games together. This project will be our musical interpretation of the 2009 season as seen through the eyes of the greatest baseball announcer of all time. The first song we came up with is called "Deuces Wild" (rough mix version below) and hopefully there will be plenty more to come. In the works already are "Nmbr Sexy," "My Bison," "Wherever You May Be," and "Fuck Victorino." As the songs are finished we will post them for you to listen to and then collect them all at one convenient location for download. No official band name yet, but for now Vicious Scully will do. Happy Tuesday!

Telegraph Canyon Wins the Award for Most Ingenious Band in the World

2009-11-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

On Friday night Kissing Cousins played a show in Riverside, California with the band Telegraph Canyon from Forth Worth, Texas and they are the most ingenious band in the world. A quick note about Riverside if you haven't been there: people get wasted and they get wasted early. Upon finishing their set a herd of drunk frat boy wanna-bes bombarded the Cousins with this phrase over and over: if you wanna make it in rock and roll you need to learn the first rule of rock and roll--don't have boyfriends. Class acts these dudes. To be fair to Riverside this kind of behavior is evident in bars and clubs all across America, but seemed more apparent on this night due to the continual close proximity these boys held to the stage.

Earlier in the evening we pulled up to the venue at the same time as Telegraph Canyon. They travel in a giant Four Winds motor home, which is reason one why they are the most ingenious band in the world. They have no need to procure hotel rooms, driving around a foreign city drunk at 2 am searching for a place to stay. They are always at home. Genius.

They then proceeded to fit a full size Hammond B3 organ, a full cabinet sized Leslie speaker, a 6 piece drum set, two guitar amps, a bass amp, a separate kick drum, no less than 8 guitars plus a banjo and a mandolin, and six people including a violin player onto a stage that could not have been more than 15x15 feet! To top it off, they sounded incredible. To pull off this life size Rubik's Cube and make it sound good are reasons two and three why they are the most ingenious band in the world.

Lastly, they are nice. Oh god how many bands have we all come across over the years that may not necessarily be flat out assholes but are either pretentious or self deprecating, awkward socially or smelly, overly gracious or completely self serving? They were normal, they were nice, they were good but didn't stick it to you. They sold vinyl. All huge pluses. So next time they come through think about checking them out. Here's a sample of the music from their album The Tide and the Current out now on Velvet Blue Music. The song is called "Into the Woods" and is in parts beautiful, sorrowful, stirring and finally joyful.

Fiction Fridays

2009-11-13T12:38:00.000-08:00

On Fridays I present excerpts, in order, from a collection of stories I've written entitled Central, Remote. As it is serial I hope you can come back every week and pick up where we all left off.

BB arrived before them. A flat hot breeze trickled in from the west bringing with it the smell of cow manure and blood. It was a smell most found repugnant, but BB had lived her whole life a mile from Dickie’s and to her it recalled many summer afternoons past. She enjoyed a child’s momentary flirtation with nostalgia, even though she knew where the train of thought would bring her. She’d spent the better part of two summers coming to this spot, a forgot wooden lean-to that at one time held tools and extra feed for the old farmhouse that was torn down to accommodate the new set of rails Dickie’s required to ship in and out the goods of the day.

She’d taken to smoking cigarettes with Willy and George Jr. last summer. George had discovered his father’s cartons of Pall Mall filters in the bottom of George Sr.’s sock drawer. Each morning his father would grab a soft pack along with his daily choice of thick white athletics. George bragged to BB how he learned to time his thefts on the days when there were less than eight packs left but more than four. Never been caught once, never will, he’d said.

A month went by and BB became quite accustomed to their afternoon smoke. Willy would bring a juice box or a beer if he could score it from his older brother and BB would bring some sort of snack, a trio of Gala apples, a packet of trail mix, or a box of candies stolen from her Grandmother’s crystal bowl put out whenever entertaining company. The three would lounge on old wooden crates ducking the sun slicing through the slits in the wood, sip on their beverage, and share drags of the cigarette in between mouthfuls of chocolate or tart oranges.

One day, to the surprise of all, George Sr. showed up to their afternoon soiree. Upon seeing the truck pull up in the gravel, George Jr. cursed and grabbed the cigarette out of Willy’s mouth. The cherry popped off and landed in his lap burning a small hole through Willy’s Dungarees. Willy swore and George swore and BB sat stock-still and wide eyed and they all heard the work boots approach their fort and George Sr. call out, Junoir!

Obviously caught but unsure of the gravity of the situation, Junior hesitated in responding to his father’s call. Junior, gimme a smoke!

BB’s heart sank as she immediately projected the inevitable string of events that would lead to sitting in her bedroom waiting for Daddy to come upstairs and whoop her with the belt upon discovering his daughter was a smoker.

I don’t have any of yer smokes, sir!

Junior, if I have to open up the door I will take your entire pack, or you can just man up. open it yerself, and perhaps I’ll only take a couple.

Junior paused and looked at his compatriots. Willy shook his head. BB was sure it was a trick to get them to admit they were smoking. She wasn’t accustomed to lying but knew how to convince herself of a half-truth well enough to escape the consequences of previous misdemeanors. But Junior was something of a stubborn little shit (another of her father’s favorite phrases) and he stood up, squeezed the soft pack open and removed three of the six cigarettes left in the pack, opened the door and presented to them to George Sr.

George took the cigarettes from the boy, put one behind each ear and methodically placed the last one in his month, reached into his shirt pocket and removed the nickel plated liter with the emblem of a 18 wheeler on it and lit it. Well? He said.

Well what, sir?

You’re welcome.

Thank you, sir.

Don’t let me catch you corrupting little miss Boughlugsby again with this filth.

Yessir.

And you figure a way to buy your own damn smokes from now on, you hear?

Yessir.

And that was the end of BB’s adolescent smoking career. George Jr. later told them as it happened that day his father’s delivery route had taken him by Dickies and, having been delayed through lunch earlier, he had been unable to return home to procure a second pack of cigarettes. Apparently their secret clubhouse was well known to George Sr., who, to BB, seemed to know just as much about the town and it’s people as the sherriff and the preacher.

2009-11-12T10:28:00.000-08:00

One quick correction before we begin today. In the post about Laura Ann's benefit show I erroneous attributed the drumset signed by Jimmy Chamberlain as having belonged to and having been donated by Billy Corgan. The set was in fact Laura Ann's, but it was used on the Gish sessions, and it may have belonged to JC at one point in time. I will contact Laura and figure out the specifics. My thanks to the reader who pointed this out to me.

Today's post will run next week as I have just learned that a member of my extended family passed away in a car accident this morning. His name is Richard and he is married to Beth, my wife's cousin. I have happy memories of Richard sitting around Heather's Grandmother's table playing Rook. He and I beat the pants off of his wife, Beth, and Heather's uncle, Reggie. While it may have been just another game to the three of them, that day held a very special significance for me. Winning that game was fun, but the interaction I shared with Heather's family members that day symbolized my acceptance into their clan. Ever since that moment I know I am accepted, loved and respected as family and there is nothing greater than that.

In a world where I often forget that relationships are the most valuable and important thing in our lives, Richard, Beth, Uncle Reggie and Heather's whole family are a beautiful example of well placed priorities. I am deeply grieved at the loss of Richard and I am saddened to the point of speechlessness when I think of Beth and their two children, Seth and Brianna. Please keep these people in your thoughts and prayers and try to connect with someone today you may have lost touch with in observance of this terrible tragedy.

Map: A Link To The Past

2009-11-11T09:56:00.000-08:00

Checking my electronic mail this morning I received correspondence from my friend Loop. He wrote a rather heartfelt and well worded soliloquy about drinking Tangueray at his office and how it reminded him of our tour of 2004. In 2004 Loop, Heather and I, along with playing in Summer Darling, also played with Josh Dooley in the band Map. The Tangueray tour was one we did in the midwest where we were forced out of broke-ness to steal Loop's roommate's bottle of Tangueray and drink that every night at the hotels, usually mixed with Sprite or Squirt.

The great thing about this tour and all the tours we went on with Map was my ability at the time to realize how special they were in the moment. Often times I am guilty of looking back on times of my life and saying "Boy I was sure happy then, but I am only realizing it now." The Map tours were different. I knew how happy I was as they were happening, even though at times they were immensely difficult and disheartening (i.e. burned down hotels, band members arrested, no people at the shows, a week in Peoria, IL wtf?).

There are many memories I'd love to share and perhaps more will come to light as the days of this blog continue to unfold like the endless Texas back roads we thought were shortcuts or the ubiquitous songs of Johnny Cash, which every bar across America played in tribute the summer of 2003. For now maybe we can share a story or two on Friday night when Kissing Cousins play with Map at the Royal Falconer in Riverside. You can have a beer and I'll have a Tangueray and soda minus the Tangueray and I'll tell you about the time Jason Martin from Starflyer 59 peed on a venue right next to the Green Room door.

Here's the single from Map's new instrumental album Speechless. It's called "Avalon."

Touch Me Judge

2009-11-10T10:12:00.000-08:00

Everybody is in a band now days. A few reasons for this are immediately obvious to me; the first being how easy it is with digital technology to record songs, burn CDs or email Mp3s, make a website and get your music heard. But this only accounts for some of the proliferation of bands surrounding me. Yes, I attribute some of this to the fact that I live in Los Angeles where if you're not an actor or an artist along with whatever your day job is then what are you still doing here? Perhaps the explosion of people in bands has to do with the glorification of the mythical band lifestyle presented to the masses by dumb ass television shows and ad campaigns. But what else?

My other band Death House Chaplain recently played a warehouse party hosted by Ambiguous Skate Clothing Company. If you were to check out their website and click on the concert series link you would happen upon an array of photos displaying this very idea that being in a band is cool, that there are young chicks everywhere at your shows, free beer, and other hip looking people crowding around you, partying it up and celebrating the sex drugs and rock and roll culture. (Ironically other members of Summer Darling can be found in the giant party scene photos looking hip and drunk.)

Then you get to the photo of Death House Chaplain:

Not too cool. The other couple in the picture owns Ambiguous and wanted us to pose with them. What I find amusing about this photo is that it's one of the few photos that accurately expresses what being in a band is really like most of the time. My face is goofy and I'm soaked in sweat, awkwardly hugging Paul because I didn't know what else to do. Paul's face holds in it all the embarrassment of a photo op post show with people you don't know. Matt somehow looks pregnant and I look like I am feeling the baby kick.

Furthermore, while accurately depict that there were a ton of people at the show, the reality of the show was this: we played to thirteen half interested people and three friends while everyone else migrated outside to drink free PBR. Our set time got changed on us last minute, there was no gas money, and for all intents and purposes nothing good came from the performance at all.

But to us in Death House Chaplain, it was a good show. We got to play music and we felt we played well. And in this simple statement lies the best reason why there are so many bands. Playing music in and of itself is worth while. It can make you feel wonderful or it can make you feel miserable, but it always makes you feel.

And who am I kidding, being a musician is cool as hell.

Laura Ann's Benefit Show: Backwards Clock Society Featuring Billy Corgan, Kissing Cousins & More

2009-11-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

Sunday night at the Echoplex I was witness to a perspective changing event. In the past I've been skeptical of human nature, the first to argue against any inherent "goodness" that might be inside all of us. I tend to believe people to be no greater than the sum of their selfish biological urges, enslaved by envy and greed in a way divorced from ethics or morality; it just simply is the product of the human animal. That's Laura Ann in the above picture. Her, Billy Corgan, and Josiah Mazzaschi would teach me a lesson on human nature.

A couple of months ago my friend and co-worker Laura Ann was in a serious motorcycle accident that nearly claimed Laura's foot below the ankle. After a number of surgeries and with plenty more rehab ahead of her, Laura Ann has been left out of work and wheelchair bound for the forseeable future:

Strapped for cash and buried in medical debt, Laura Ann's good friend Josiah decided to do something about it in the way of throwing her a benefit show at the local club Spaceland. His band Light FM had just finished a residency there and he knew a number of other acts connected to Laura Ann that would be willing to donate their time to make it an awesome show. Through his perseverance and big picture thinking, Josiah was able to get the show moved to a much larger venue, secure amazing raffle prizes from a variety of local businesses and book Laura Ann's long time friend, Billy Corgan, to headline the show.

I must also admit I have also been skeptical of benefit shows in the past, even though Summer Darling has played their fair share of them. But people showed up in droves and supported the cause last night. By my count at least 350 people paid the cover, bought raffle tickets, bought merch from the bands (all proceeds going to Laura), and ate BBQ (also donated by the delicious Pasadena Pig Shack, or something like that).

The bands didn't disappoint. I of course caught the Kissing Cousins set, who despite being a bit nervous to play a large stage that would soon be occupied by one of Heather's musical heros, stomped out some viciously conceived rock and roll.

I happened to catch some of the Pity Party's set and Light FM. The Pity Party played a stonier, darker set than I've seen before while Light FM masterfully cruised through their catchy power pop songs. The stage was then relinquished to Mr. Corgan and the Backwards Clock Society.

Some of the songs were downright hooky, some of the songs were soaked in delay, but all of the songs featured Billy Corgan fucking melting faces with his guitar. The solo is a tired worn tool of the modern rock song, except when the artist is able to breathe a fiery new life into it. Corgan played each solo with a mix of impassioned gestures and wicked nonchalance, even looking up from time to time to smirk at the audience as if to say, "Yeah, I just pulled that off and I made it look fucking easy." His on-stage demeanor was one of solidarity and respect for Laura Ann, the audience and the cause. He said some very nice things about Laura and seemed genuinely proud to be a part of the function. We later learned that Corgan donated the bass and drumset used on the Gish sessions to be auctioned off on Ebay with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Laura. That's classy.

The night ended with a tearful thank you from Laura Ann, who somehow managed to get herself in her wheelchair up on stage with the help of Josiah and Corgan. The night forced me to reevaluate my perception of human nature and more specifically, benefit shows. I am proud to have been a small part of a truly successful and inspiring evening and woke up this morning knowing that a huge difference was made in Laura's life.

Fiction Fridays

2009-11-06T10:29:00.000-08:00

On Fridays I present excerpts, in order, from a collection of stories I've written entitled Central, Remote. As it is serial I hope you can come back every week and pick up where we all left off.

Downtown Poplar St appeared deceptively vacant at two in the afternoon. As he rode, Willy often imagined his town being struck by a rapture-like occurrence of biblical proportions. Cars lined up on each side of the road but not a one moving. Shop lights that read “Open” “Sale” or “TV Repair” burned neon peach but no front doors opening. The steady historical rhythm of the green yellow red of their only traffic signal beat on like the heart of a coma patient. Occasionally a woman carrying a bag of groceries or a man hauling garden tools from a flat bed truck would break the spell of Willy’s fictional solitude, but today there was nobody about. Willy felt as if he were riding through the thin atmosphere of some distant hot planet. The air was heat vapor that dried up his lungs and slapped him on both cheeks like two simultaneous handclaps.

Up ahead was Hal’s Drug Store that held inside it the Post Office and the Notary Public. Willy turned his bike towards the entrance ignoring the red light as he coasted through the middle of the empty intersection. George Jr. pulled up next to him and they both propped their bikes against the glass of the storefront that was decorated in advertisements for the weekly specials.

I’m thirsty, Willy said. I’m gonna go in get a pop.

Where’d you get money for that?

My mom.

George just humphed in response. I’m gonna go around back and check something out.

George strolled to the narrow opening between the brick building of Hal’s and the adobe-like stucco of the video rental store. It was cooler by degrees in the shady alley slit and George made sure to walk deep into the indenture before he removed and examined the pistol. It was heavy and squat with nickel plating and a worn leather grip. There was a small insignia above the grip but it was smudged with grime; he couldn’t make it out. Perhaps it was a dragon or a motorcycle gang sign. George imagined for a moment that he’d stolen a weapon of Arthurian significance and he was now the leader of some secretive and dangerous commando force. He knew enough about guns from his father to make sure the safety was engaged before examining it further. He flipped the cylinder release latch and was impressed how easily the five bullet housing popped out. The thrill of holding a lit firecracker trilled up his stomach and into his throat as he discovered the gun was loaded with two bullets. He replaced the cylinder and held up the gun and aimed it at the back wall of the alley.

George! What are you doin back there?

Nothin. George put the gun back in pack and returned to Willy and the bikes. Let’s get the fuck outta here.

Interview with Matthew "Biggles" Beighley of Wait.Think.Fast.

2009-11-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

Turns out, I'm the asshole. I sent Matthew a snippy hey-where's-my-interview-answers email yesterday only to have him respond that he couldn't get to it because THEIR VAN GOT STOLEN. I'm still waiting to hear what gear if any was lost with the van, so we will definitely keep everyone posted. But being the good sport that he is, the ever amusing Mr. Biggles was kind enough to fill us in on the last week of his life with Wait.Think.Fast:

CLA: Where have you been and what on earth were you doing there?

MB: Tucson, AZ / Wavelab Studios / The honorable Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Neko Case , Iron & Wine) presiding over the next Wait. Think. Fast. record.

CLA: Tell us a little about the producer.

MB: Lets see. Craig Schumacher is our talented and spirited producer. Within 5 minutes of meeting him we were sipping on Tres Generaciones and discussing the image of a vagabond ejaculating on a box of kittens as a possible record cover. We knew we were going to be best friends.

CLA: Talk about the process of recording. PIck one song and walk us through it briefly.

MB: Craig likes bands to track live, which we love too. So when we recorded our new song "Covina Parque," it was essentially us playing live, like at a show. + Wavelab Studios is packed with beautiful old instruments. So when overdub time came, Craig was pulling vintage old F-hole guitars off the wall and handing them to me and saying: "play this". His ideas were always inspiring. The final overdub for "Covina Parque" came from Jacob Valenzuela from Calexico- he played trumpet on the track and just completely blew us away. He's a great guy.

CLA: True or False section: Tucson is a shit hole.

MB: FALSE- Tucson is rad! Cool kids and great places to eat. We strolled "The Avenue" for Halloween- everyone was spilling out into the streets and going crazy. I love the spirit of that desert town. + lots of artists. We were lucky to meet the guys from Calexico and Giant Sand and actually get a private show from them in Wavelab one morning. So fucking rad. We were speechless.

CLA: You are in a side project called Fuck Fuck Cobra.

MB: TRUE- Fuck Fuck Cobras will soon reign supreme. Ben Heywood (drummer) slays any instrument he decides he wants to slay.

CLA: You are also in a side project dubbed Fuck Fuck Moo Moo.

MB: TRUE - Fuck Fuck Moo Moo will soon record a new gem : "Have You Seen My Country? (Support Our Troops)". It's fucking AWFUL. Should rake in a cool 7 or 8 million in sales.

CLA: You can draw.

MB: TRUE - I think I can draw. People who went to "art" school and have "talent" might disagree. Editor's Note: I have a "drawing" done by Matt hanging on my fridge. It depicts fighter jets bombing NYC with a hailstorm of black kittens. Let your imagination run wild with that one.

CLA: You're my favorite member of Wait.Think.Fast.

MB: TRUE - I am indeed your favorite member of Wait. Think. Fast.! Polo's a close second. He spent the entire week at Wavelab imitating Aaron Neville impersonating Richard Nixon. Guess you had to be there.

I am told by the band they will be returning to Wavelab to record vocals and mix sometime soon, so look for an early 2010 release.

The Link Between Worker Bee & Sobriety

2009-11-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

I've been involved in a number of discussions over the years in defense of music as a higher art form. To this day my argument remains grounded in music's ability to be deterritorialized by the listener. Literary critics Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari wrote about the deterritorialization of a major language when that language is used by a minority within a culture. The act of a minority using that major language instead of the author's native tongue ultimately subverts the major language. It's a process of empowering a minor cannon within a larger a majority that would seek to marginalize the significance of minority writing. While I am oversimplifying their argument, these brainy professors pick apart the works of Franz Kafka, who wrote in German despite being born a Czech Jew, in their fascinating book Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. As it pertains to my discussion, the major language is the song as it is created by the musician and the "Kafka" within the culture of the song is each individual listener.

Music has the unique ability to be claimed, owned and reinterpreted in a manner that is truthful and legitimate by the audience, so much so that the song obtains a new territory that is at least equal in validity (if not more so) to the original idea presented by the musician. Everyone has an example of this if they think about their favorite songs for a moment; more often than not a song becomes tied in with a specific memory or feeling and thus takes on a new meaning for the listener.

I've been listening to Worker Bee's new record Tangler quite a bit since we played together last Friday night. I've also been doing a lot of sober living (day nine!). I've begun to realize that months from now when I listen to the Worker Bee record I will be reminded of the thoughts and feelings I've been experiencing during my month long trek into the wilderness of sobriety in the same way that when I listen to Blonde Redhead's Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons I am transported back into Heather's mom's Chrysler Seabring driving in the dead of winter through the country roads between Nashville and Heather's Grandmother's house in Nauvoo, Alabama. Or how when I hear Jimmy Eat World's album Clarity I think of the Glass House in Pamona and the way 2nd street looks so empty under street lights and how my college roommate had a dream that we were performing the song "On A Sunday" in front of a stadium full of people.

None of the authors of these songs is aware that their songs now mean something completely different to me than they meant to them and that ultimately as the listener the meaning and the memories tied to the song make the song greater. I'd even argue that a song as a work of art is incomplete until it is shared, until it is reterritorialized by the listener and made into something new and other. So in this grand tradition I offer you the track "Cold Rat" by Worker Bee to listen to and create your own meaning and memory.

New Music Tuesdays: Wait.Think.Fast.

2009-11-03T10:12:00.000-08:00

As I write this, my good friends in Wait.Think.Fast. are in the lovely desert city of Tuscon, Arizona recording a full length record. I did an interview with songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Matthew Beighley that I'll post later this week or next. But for now let's enjoy this video they recorded for their new song "Trouble."

Dan and I spend much of last night holed up alone in our rehearsal space. With Heather under the weather and Todd back east, Dan and I took the time to discuss album and song titles and work out an arrangement for one of my personal favorite tracks on the new record called "At The Edge of the Earth." While we did shoot some footage of us performing this song, ultimately nothing we shot turned out all that well so we'll revisit it at a later date.

What we did accomplish was naming a few of the songs. Usually Summer Darling songs will have numerous names through out their life span. Their first name often refers to a prominent word in a song--"Blazing Fire" is always referred to by the band as "Cheated"--or an action--"The Reminder," a song on the new record, is referred to as "Tabletop" because of the motion Dan made with his guitar in order to originally be able to play the part. Final track names typically get added once the song is done, recorded, and ready to be shipped out to the masses. It was great to be able to bounce ideas for song names back and forth with Dan and we came up with a couple of winners.

The album title remains an illusive specter existing in the nether-regions of someone's unconscious waiting to be summoned. We've gone through roughly three titles that we all agreed would be the one, but sooner or later I get bored or unsatisfied with them. Dan helped me at least come to the conclusion that I'm trying too hard to think of a grandiose title. His point, which was well taken, was that the songs themselves already demand to be taken seriously and an overwrought title would actually detract from their impact. So the search continues, but I got a couple of ideas that I can't wait to get sick of. . .

Kissing Cousins / Past Haunts / Future Ghost / Worker Bee @ Silver Factoryhehe

2009-11-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

What a night friday was! While Heather and I spent all day collecting the necessary decorations for the Kissing Cousins' second annual Halloween show I sensed a minor feeling of anxiety. Often times it's tough to get people out to the Silver Factory especially when the show is guaranteed to go late. Luckily my anxiety as usual was baseless. Probably induced by five days off the sauce! A brief recap of the evening has the Past Haunts opening the show.

The Past Haunts is Travis from Piebald / The Duke Spirit's new project that features Heather and I in the backing band roll. The crowd reaction suggested that we stole the show.

Next was our out of town band, Worker Bee. These poor guys had their tour van break down outside of the venue right before the show. Add that to some sound difficulties and a lesser band would have gave a lackluster performance. But these kids did just the opposite. Their set was moody and infectious as is their new full length record Tangler.

The Cousins headlined and treated us to two Halloween-esque covers. All dressed as witches and the bar serving witches' brew it was only fitting to open with "Witchy Woman" and end the set with "Devil Inside." I've had the pleasure of watching these ladies evolve from a one off novelty act to a thunderously evil live act. Their new record Pillar of Salt should make quite a few top ten lists this year.

The night was capped by the newly minted three piece Future Ghost. They are another band that I've followed from their first show and I am happy to report they work better as a three piece than a four piece. Having one guitarist allows Brandon's riffs the atmospheric space to be gigantic while Kim's bass lines are now clear and driving behind Brandon Hardy's pulverizing drum playing.

The adventure continued after the show as we made trips in our volvo back and forth to our rehearsal space where we stored Worker Bee's equipment until they got their van fixed. Thankfully it was in need of only minor repairs and they were safely on their way on Saturday.

Fiction Fridays

2009-10-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

On Fridays I present excerpts, in order, from a collection of stories I've written entitled Central, Remote. As it is serial I hope you can come back every week and pick up where we all left off.

BB Gun

Part Two.

Beatrice rode her Schwinn Cruiser along 2^nd street content with her pedalic rhythm: one two three four cycles on the pedal, one two three four seconds of coasting, the chain clicking like fishing line drawn through a caster. It was the same route everyday, the same pattern of exertion and release, bringing dinner to old Juniper Helms in the midday scourge. This outing was typically executed after school except that it was early August—the dog days—her father called them. She’d been told by George Junior that the Eskimos had a million words for snow right before he’d tried to plant one on her, so it made sense that her town would have a million words for heat.

Flicking the kickstand down with a casual ease, she parked the bicycle in the driveway of the forties style craftsman. The house was a cracked frosting white with blue trim painted to look like shutters around the windows. BB liked to call it the cupcake house in her mind. She imagined the pale wood that peeked through the faded paint as moist yellow cake underneath icing.

In March just after Easter her Baptist girls group had drawn names out of a converted coffee tin turned pencil holder. She’d drawn Miss Howser out on Dry Creek Lane, but her mother had told her that was much too far to bike and she didn’t want the added responsibility of carting her out there 5 days a week, and for god’s sake can’t the church group just memorize a bible verse or two instead of adding another extra curricular activity to her already unruly social calendar? BB thought briefly about giving the whole thing up but Janette’s mom phoned Miss Calloway, the old preacher’s daughter who ran the outreach, with a similar complaint. So in the end she was given Mr. Juniper Helms four blocks away on 2^nd street and Janette got Miss Howser and their moms were able to continue their afternoons at the hair salon.

Despite its pastry like appearance in daylight, Old Juniper’s house was a fixture of pre-teen conspiracy. Although he regularly sat on his porch reading the paper spitting chaw saliva into a plastic cup with a Fresno State Bulldog emblem, the mythology developed that he couldn’t leave his house. The children speculated that Old Juniper suffered house arrest for some unspeakable crime, the murder of his wife or cannibalism, resulting in quite a few dares in BB’s time concluding with “or you have to do such and such at creepy old Juniper’s place.” BB didn’t put too much stock into the whole mumbo jumbo; she saw old Juniper occasionally through the open curtains of his living room doing what she imagined most old people did who lived alone: watching television, reading the paper or periodical, sometimes a cat in the lap, sometimes a beer in the hand. She was a practical girl, well mannered when it mattered, indifferently scholastic, with black hair pulled into a pony-tail high atop her head that exploded into a bouquet of curls. Her smile was loaded with braces and her blue eyes held a respect for harmless mischief. In truth it was her discretion in playmates that lead her to trouble rather than an innate desire for such unscrupulous activity. But such was the magic of the town in summer time, fathers farming or shop-keeping until the four o’clock happy hour at Salida Club, mothers escaping the infernal heat of the home in gossip parlors and Walmarts, and kids told to play outside without any further direction as to the play’s constructiveness.

Today was no different. As was her routine, BB rang the doorbell, heard its four part chime somewhere off in the hallways of the Juniper’s house, waved at no one in particular through the window, and left the industrial cardboard meal container on the mat that read “God Gave Me This.” Hopping back on her bike she returned down 2^nd heading for Poplar St. and from Poplar to 4^th, which lead past Dickie’s Slaughterhouse to the old lean-to by the railroad tracks just outside town where George, Willy and her spent the majority of their summer afternoons.

The New Record One Year Recording Anniversary

2009-10-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

In the last week October of 2008, we began recording what we thought would be our final EP in the series of 3 that we planned to release that year. However, in my mind there was a song that I wasn't too happy with on our previous EP Good Feeling, and wanted to redo it. Unbeknownst to me, both Todd and Dan felt the same way about a couple of other tracks. When we went into emitter studios to record drums that day we all expressed our desire that if we had the time, maybe we could lay down the drums for this song all quick like, and then maybe this song, and of course let's not forget that song.

What ended up transpiring that fall afternoon, a mere 5 days before Todd would move to Portland, making this a one shot affair-whatever-doesn't-get-done-doesn't-make -the-record sort of recording day, was pure magic. Todd banged out all six new tracks as well as the three tracks we were re-imagining in less than eight hours (the tenth song on the new album does not have drums). It was inspiring to watch and as we close out the mixes for this still untitled record, I find it encouraging to remember where these recordings started and how excited I am to be near completion of the record we've been trying to make for the last 12 months.

Sobriety Journal Entry 1: Romanticizing your ex-lover

This is day four of my month long trek into the barren wilderness that is sobriety. I was talking shop with my buddy who's been sober the last fifteen years about the bazaar alcohol fantasies I've been having and I thought I'd share the one recurring fantasy he suffers from only because I was impressed by its specificity. He fantasizes about reaching into a tall cupboard and removing a heavy rocks glass. The glass has a weighted bottom that is square in dimension, but whose mouth and tumbler are round. He then cracks ice from the ice tray that he has made by freezing Smart Water (the electrolites are cleansing, man) and puts two Smart Water cubes in the glass. He completes this ritual by adding two fingers of a certain brown American liquor. Damn, I kidded him, you need to get to a meeting because your fantasy kicks my fantasy's ass.

The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra Does Fleetwood Mac

2009-10-28T11:07:00.000-07:00

Late last night Heather and I made it out after work to the Otik Records Costume Bash at the Echo. While we were unable to witness the Voyeurs performing as CCR or the Monolators performing as ABBA, we did have the pleasure of catching The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra performing as Fleetwood Mac. I like a band that makes me want to play music. In this instance while watching FTO tear through such hits like "Rhiannon" and "Tell Me Lies" Heather and I got excited about what band we'd want to masquerade as. Heather thought the Cousins could go as The Bangles. I thought Summer Darling could do a mean Pixies. A good show produces that sort of reaction. It inspires those who play to go out and keep playing and it inspires those who listen to go out and keep listening. So my thanks to FTO for keeping some inspiration alive last night.

You can catch FTO at the Gibson Amphitheater on November 3rd with Silversun Pickups.

New Music Tuesdays: Death House Chaplain

2009-10-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not at all surprised when I tell people I'm in another band besides Summer Darling and they respond that they had no idea. Actually, I'm in two, both of which I play drums. Today I am spotlighting Death House Chaplain.

I have been in Death House Chaplain three different times over a period of seven years, most of those years playing bass. The chance to play drums came around in late 2007/early 2008. We put a record out in 08 entitled Of Asthma and we're now at work on a new record to be completed early next year. So that you can get a sense of that band, I'm sharing a Mp3 of a brand new song called "Dot the Eyes." Paul Harper, the bassist, and I recorded the bass and drums live directly to eight track cassette. Matthew Holl, the guitarist/vocalist, later added guitar on the eight track and then dumped the session as one stereo track into Pro Tools and added his vocals. The guitar work reminds me of one of my favorite bands, US Maple, and I am really impressed with tones we got out of the eight track.

Death House Chaplain plays live Fri Nov 6th at The Ambiguous Warehouse Skatepark in Santa Ana. 9pm All ages Free Show, Free Beer for 21+
3123 Macarther Blvd., Santa Ana, California 92704

This Just In--The Grass Is Officially Greener.

2009-10-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am watching Evan, Brett, and Sam play some gorgeous tunes in a plush rehearsal space when it hits me. Bedrock Studios in Echo Park is better than Downtown Rehearsal. This is not a subjective evaluation, the grass is officially greener.

Heather and I spent our Sunday afternoon hanging out with friends, eating brautwerst and drinking microbrew at the expense of our gracious host, Bedrock Studios. We got a tour of emitter studios where engineer/producer Chris Haynes works with the biggest monitors I've ever seen! (Chris recorded the drums for our upcoming record at his old space at DTR 1.) We got lost for twenty minutes while we peeked our heads into various rehearsal spaces, some of which, like our friends Andrew's and Tony's space, have little isolation rooms connected to the main space. We bumped into LA Record's work space, ...IsGood Radio's broadcast area, even a Gibson show room? This place has it all, and I heard a rumor that they're PUTTING IN A PIZZA AND BEER PLACE!

Logically, Summer Darling should rehearse here. Downtown Rehearsal is one notch above those condemned hotels you see in the rougher districts of downtown. But we won't move. We can't. For the last five years, we've spent every monday night--and many other nights as well--in that dank dark shit hole and it's been some of the best, most creative times of my life. Plus we just cleaned our space for the first time since 2006. Bedrock most certainly does rehearsal studios better, but I can't trade what I got. For anyone looking for a new space, though, I highly recommend Bedrock.

Fiction Fridays

2009-10-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

On Fridays I present excerpts, in order, from a collection of stories I've written entitled Central, Remote. As it is serial I hope you can come back every week and pick up where we all left off.

BB Gun

Part One.

The hills orange in the mid day heat crested like Bering Straight waves into deep dales where hid patches of green and the occasional cow drinking irrigation water from the washes in the valley. In one such valley a burnt-out pick up truck speckled white with a strange decaying rust lay long ruined by a violent car fire. Its blackened frame housed a bum’s variety of glass bottles with the scant well-water traces of alcohol trapped in their grooved bottoms. Abandoned garments of cloth covered fried vinyl seats torn and opened like scabs over new wounds. A man sat propped against the Chevy so naturally he seemed part of the landscape, his back against the frame of the passenger door, legs splayed, his boots sticking straight out into the encroaching rays making them appear as to have been suede in two variant tints of tan, hot white and sandy shade. An arm cradled a plastic container of gin while the hands rested intertwined on his swollen belly. George Jr. watched for several long seconds from behind a nearby oak tree. The man was either dead drunk or just dead.

C’mon, he said to his companion. I want to see if he left any in that bottle.

Willy shook his head.

Fine, but I ain’t sharin.

George Jr. swept the hair from his eyes and left the other boy behind, traipsing through the knee-high chaff. After five or six steps he heard Willy begin to follow. Grab a stick or something, he said to him.

Willy paused, leaned over and kicked around the brush with his foot until he found a fallen branch. It was gnarled and tough in his hand. Satisfied he continued towards the body. George Jr. was already standing next to it, motionless, arms resting at his sides, sneakers wearing the dust of the day. Willy had the distinct impression that George had been struck immobile by some alien affectation wafting off the body but as he came closer to investigate, George stuck out his arm palm up and out, signaling stop in one quick burst as if blocking an unseen attacker. He then pointed to the earth just next to the man. Willy had to take two more steps and squint through the cresting light to see a small pistol with the walnut bulge of a seven-chamber nestled underneath the drunk’s left forearm.

Holy shit.

Shut up! George said without sound. He smiled and it made Willy nervous.

George. Let’s go.

George put a finger perpendicular to his lips.

Willy gripped the branch tightly like a bat and held it in front of him.

George lifted his left leg so that he stood straddling the prostrated man. He bent and reached, paused and watched the man’s chest rise and stutter back, rise and stutter back. He smelled the fecund rank of the man’s odor and the stale liquor on his uneven breathe. He gripped the neck of the bottle just beneath the cap with his middle and forefinger the way his father removed longnecks from a six-pack and tugged. The bottle didn’t budge.

Willy shifted his weight from one leg to the other. C’mon.

Pipe down. He’s done drunk hisself out.

Willy readied his branch and took one defensive step back.

George turned his head and mouthed, Quiet, and began once again at the gin, this time with more force. It slid out like a sigh from its flannel holster. When he saw the two fingers of liquid left in the bottle George felt such a surge of adrenaline he nearly laughed.

Willy said, Great. Let’s go.

Pivoting at his torso and still very much an arc over the ravine that was the passed out man George said, Catch, giggled and tossed the plastic bottle at Willy. It was like trying to catch a water balloon with his hands full. Willy dropped the branch and the bottle, which landed with a hollow melon thud in the dirt.

At the sound the man suddenly shifted, heaving his bulk to the right. George bunny hopped to avoid the crossing legs. And froze. The man didn’t move again.

Jesus, George. Willy snatched up the gin and began to back pedal. There was no doubt in his mind that George would follow but like an act of God stunning and awesome George just stood there. Jesus, George, C’mon.

For another moment George stood still. The man wasn’t moving and the gun lay revealed in the indented weeds. With the decisiveness of an involuntary reaction George grabbed the firearm. Although he’d never admit it, in the end there was really nothing to it. The gun was simply in his hand and then he was huddled behind the oak tree, adrenaline a heartbeat in his neck, watching Willy wide eyed offering the gin to him like a pagan effigy.

Everybody Loves a Winner

2009-10-22T10:32:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid my dad, my brother and I watched a lot of sporting events together, mostly baseball, but also football, tennis and the olympics. After every big game as the TV cameras predictably panned to illuminate the radiant faces of the victors and the jubilant hysterical crowd cheering them on, my dad always said the same thing: "Everybody loves a winner." At first I equated this phrase as kin to a coping mechanism as we were fans of some awful home teams in San Diego in the eighties. But when we moved to San Francisco and became Giants and 49ers fans, teams that actually won big games, I was shocked and somewhat disheartened to hear my dad say the same thing after they won a big game. It immediately took the wind out of my sails, the emotion produced by the win trivialized as pedestrian and unremarkable.

I was unable to watch last night's baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers in which the Dodgers suffered a crushing, convincing defeat at the hands of the Phillies at Citizen's Bank Park in Philadelphia. I Tivo-ed the damn thing, but before I could watch it my ignorance was spoiled by a careless mistake on-line in which I saw a picture of the entire Phillies team hugging and celebrating on the mound. In one moment I experienced the physical reaction of a ten year old whose team has just lost a little league game; my heart sank and the world seemed like a cruel hopeless place.

But interestingly enough what I didn't think was "Everybody loves a winner." Instead I reflected on the one hundred and thirty some odd games I watched this year and how many great moments there were to be witnessed: comeback wins of every glorious type, nail-biting ninth inning saves, mind boggling defensive plays, and of course the melodious voice of the Dodgers color man, Vin Scully, calling every play and scrutinizing every player . This year was a fantastic year for baseball in Los Angeles and I am proud of our team. Not everyone loves a winner, I discovered, because I love the Los Angeles Dodgers.

I'm not sure how this is next bit is relevant, but it popped in my head the moment I watched the ending of the game in real time. There's a scene in the movie Life Aquatic near the conclusion of the film in which Bill Murray sits alone on the curbside outside of a giant auditorium. Inside his contemporaries are viewing his latest deep sea documentary. When the film is finished the audience erupts into uproarious applause. The applause is so deafening that we hear it very clearly as the camera slowly pans in on Bill Murray's sad, sardonic face. And then it hits us, that instead of being inside to accept this glorious appraisal of his work, he is more alone than ever, ostracized from his accomplishments by their thunderous approval. And I wept for him and for myself, knowing how difficult even the most joyous of times can be and our eternal inability to properly honor them.

Ping Pong for Charity

2009-10-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

Back in October of 2006, Summer Darling played a benefit show for the charity Invisible Children at the Alpha Gamma Omega house just off the USC campus. While we are the first ones to play for a great cause, the real reason we agreed that night was far more serious: Ping Pong.

Dan and I had been in a shit-talking ping pong battle since 2003 when we were rehearsing one night and the subject of ping pong came up. Dan nonchalantly said, "I'd destroy you at the ping pong table." To which I responded, "No way, man, I'd annihilate you. You wouldn't stand a snow ball's chance in hell." And so it began that any time the subject of ping pong came up, Dan and I would launch into our familiar repertiore. It became almost a party trick performed by Heather and Loop, as in, "Hey let's get this place jumping by inciting a mini word-war between Dan and Ben." Finally in Fresno in 2004 we happened to play a venue with a ping pong table. We battled a best of seven match in which I proved victorious, but the legend grew that I had somehow got lucky or cheated Dan out of a win. I denied these speculations and called them exactly what they were: cheap shots from a sore loser.

Two years late, we would settle the score. After playing our set, Dan, Heather, Loop, and I adjourned to the fraternity house's game patio and we battled again!

It was a fierce match!

Until finally it was over, and I, once again victorious, consoled the loser.

Now to be fair I will mention that this past fourth of July, Dan beat the pants off me in Palm Springs, but I will forever cry "Dehydration!" and "Drunkeness!" as the reasons for my defeat. History is written by winners, I don't see Dan with a blog anywhere. . .

New Music Tuesday

2009-10-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

Ah, Tuesday, the best day of the week for music lovers! After listening to near-final mixes last night with producer S Foye and making a few precious last minute tweaks, we decided to let you all in on a new Summer Darling jam by performing the song live for the blog. The song is called "The Author" and it will be on the new record.

Why Can't I Just Be Happy For You?

2009-10-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

In 1995 I got into a band called Sunny Day Real Estate, and while they are currently trying to revive their glory days, in the mid nineties they were tops for me. Sunny Day's records were released by seminal Seattle label Sup Pop and ever since then my dream has been to be in a band signed to Sub Pop. In my younger years I would mail copies of my band's records to the address on their mailing list, I would want to listen to anything they put out. And for a good five years after Sunny Day they put out their share of crap. Although my interest in Sub Pop waned I still thought of their label as the place to be.

Fifteen years later, I unabashedly hold on to this link to my teenage years. I love Sub Pop, I love the bands on Sub Pop, I can't help it, they're all just so cool!!! And yes, I still dream of being in a band on Sub Pop. So when I heard local band Avi Buffalo was recently signed by Sub Pop I found myself instantly jealous. Now I consider myself a pretty rational guy; I've never heard Avi Buffalo's music, I don't know them as people; I shouldn't care one way or another that Sub Pop signed them. In fact, if anything, I should be happy for them! But why wasn't I?

After thinking about this question all weekend, the answer that I've come up with is undoubtedly embarrassing and a bit indicative of a deeper problem. All this time I've thought of myself as a guy who supports local music. I mean, shit, I've been playing in local bands in southern California for twelve years now. I am a local musician who shares the same hopes and dreams with hundreds of other fantastic warm hearted like minded individuals. And as friends and acquaintances have succeeded around me I tricked myself into thinking I was happy for them, when the truth was that I always felt that stab of envy. I've basically been disingenuous to a ton of people I've called friends and contemporaries because of this one fucked-up thought (and here-in lies the answer to the above question): If I am honest with myself I feel that Summer Darling deserves all the good things that happen to bands more than my friends' bands.

This realization has sent me into a minor tail spin. Not only is this thinking flat out wrong, it's highly counter productive and damaging to any sense of community I have always thought of myself as supporting. Why is it wrong? First, I don't believe any one really deserves anything. Any success, however much it may be viewed by others as "well deserved" is just that, a subjective opinion. Everyone has different versions of success, and I wouldn't doubt that some people I thought of as successful may not think that way about themselves. This constant game of comparison and the resulting feeling of entitlement gets in the way. I don't want to be a slave to my own subjective opinions, I want to be the person who is generally happy for those who have the opportunity to be successful, especially since I want people to be happy for me when I am given that opportunity. At the risk of turning this into my own personal indie rock after school special, I am determined to undo this poisonous way of thinking that I have been ensconced in the past decade.

So let me be one of the first to honestly and sincerely congratulate Avi Buffalo on their upcoming opportunity and cheers to all my friends who are still fighting the good fight. I really do wish you all the success I believe you deserve and may we have the courage to continue following our teenage dreams.

Fiction Fridays

2009-10-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

On Fridays I will be presenting excerpts, in order, from a collection of stories I've written entitled Central, Remote. As it will be serial I hope you can come back every week and pick up where we all left off.

Central, Remote

The Reminder.

The young man stood and took a long look at the land, the difficulty of it. Knotted cherry trees lay to the east shrouding the two-lane highway; before that a concrete irrigation duct splitting two sides of caked dry earth, paths to fishing holes and forts made from splintered lumber and leftover produce crates. To the west behind the house of whose porch he occupied lay an infinity of weeds, golden in the heat and worthless. He peeled the sweat from his neck balling up in his fingertips a gnat or a fly and removed the soft cigarette pack from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. He lit the Marlboro with a steel-plated lighter, although he mused it might have just lit itself in the mid-morning scorch. His throat opened arid against the invading smoke. After some minutes his moustache felt wet against his forefinger as he held the cigarette to his lips. In his other hand he absently flicked the stiff edge of a photograph with his thumb. There appeared a moment when he nearly tapped the crown of ash on the picture but seemed to think better of it. Instead he allowed the cigarette cinders to collect in the dairy dust of the gray boarded porch.

The tractor plow hibernated in the fields to the north, rust entangling its limbs like kudzu or ant trails. He’d spent the night sitting in the shell cab with a bottle of Early Times and a tall boy, the picture right where he’d taped it some odd years prior, to the left of the steering mechanism next to his father’s makeshift cup holder. A curious thing is a forgotten memory rediscovered. His head pitched to the right as he waited for eyes blurred by alcohol and sky-gazing to focus. There was no reason it would have moved; still, it caught him off guard. The Polaroid picture. One edge curling apart from the clear tape. As he remained in the cab drinking he didn’t try to ignore it. He would occasionally look down at it in a sentry-like fashion, as if the photo were a dormant spider or a slumbering ghost.

Later stumbling drunk through the house he felt like he was looking for something without a name. In the kitchen there were yellow Post-It notes littering the room like polka dots, with direct yet vague imperatives like “Paint” or “Scrub” written on them in neat block lettering. He bent at the waist to pick one off the sink plumbing and came back up too quickly. With the blood surge sugaring his head he crashed unmanned marionette-like to the linoleum, still checkered forties yellow and sea foam. The room spun slowly until he closed his eyes and righted his body against cabinets nailed shut to keep out the prying hands of drifters. He looked about the room and had the feeling of gazing upon a lost lover instantly familiar but wholly changed. The distant vacancy of it brought tears to his eyes, which he repelled with a snort and a stretch of his jaw.

He took the picture from his front pocket and spent a drunk’s minute scratching the remaining vestiges of tape from its white frame. He closed his eyes again; he didn’t need them to know what the picture captured. Dizzying brightness. The teeth of a wide childsmile, sky so pale blue it’s nearly nothing, a thousand shards of sun skipping on the water. His mother held their hands, his brother to the right, he to the left. Her left arm appeared pulled, nearly hyper-extended by his grasp. There was something just out of his reach on the rutted dock. His caramel apple had slipped off its tongue depressor and fallen victim to a yellow wasp. To her other side his brother, slightly smaller, fit underneath her right arm using it as a canopy from the heat, smelling her linen and the lotion of her tan bare legs. Of the three he’s the only one looking forward with an expression of quizzical understanding. It’s a simple look, a philosopher’s envy. His father took the picture.

The tears welled up again and for no other reason than the complete absence of anything else the young man had begun to sing the hymn his mother wrote until he’d inexplicably forgot the tune of the refrain and trailed off into the hummed engine silence of the last few stragglers headed home to violent beds from the highway beyond the orchard.

He put out the cigarette and placed the picture back in his jeans pocket. He had tried last night to make sense of it, to name the emotion the picture evoked, but he was foully soused and unable to stop the slow rotation of the world around him. But now, head full of ache and clarity, he defined the feeling as the memory of the bee sting he suffered during the moments the photograph developed and later the strawberry welt and the small chip of distrust impressed upon him. His mother remained a figure stenciled into the backdrop of his memory dead before he was eight while his brother he imagined perpetually sheltered, maybe holed up somewhere a few miles away in the town they grew up in.

Born Again and Again and Again

2009-10-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it can take years to get a song right. Back 2005 we began messing around at rehearsal with a song I'd been working on. It had a relatively complicated riff and dan and I struggled with how we were going to come up with a second guitar part. After two or three attempts at different rehearsals that went nowhere, the song was abandoned. What usually happens is we start work on another song and if that one goes well it's completely normal for us to never work on that aborted idea ever again.

In this case I didn't forget the idea. A few months later I demo'd the song at home under the title "Bad Blood." In order to make the main guitar riff more unique I split it into two parts and hard panned them in the mix so that it would sound like two battling lines. Here's a listen:

I emailed the song to Dan, who liked the idea of the two intersecting parts, and began writing his own call and response guitar part.

In July of 2007 we went in to record our EP Good Feeling with producer Frank Lenz. Due to contributing factors like being devestatingly hungover from Dan's birthday the night before and a catastrophic computer crash, the sessions were scrapped. We tried again in the winter of 2007/08 to better results and the song was renamed "Born Again." However these sessions were marred by lackadaisical performances and production, mainly on my part. I wasn't happy with some of the tones, nor was I happy with my vocal takes. Nevertheless the EP was due and we didn't have the time or resources to re-record it, so the song came out on Good Feeling in June of 2008. Here's the second version:

When we went to begin recording our full length in October of 2008, I brought the idea up that maybe we should redo a couple of the songs from Good Feeling that we were never happy with, one of them being "Born Again." The stories from these marathon sessions that have lasted nearly a year will undoubtedly come to light in later posts, but for now I'd like to share the lastest version of "Born Again." It's the way we've always heard it, and we accomplished it by spending hours getting tones, recording much of the guitars live, Dan and I head to head in our sweaty studio, and with the magic touch of producer/mixer Sean Foye. Hope you enjoy! PS Turn it up! This shit ain't mastered yet.