in the studio again last night. put down vocals and redid some of my guitar. matt’s putting down his tracks and working on rough mixes today and tomorrow. here’s the track listing for ‘revenge & regret’:

nothing ever stays buried

what the first cro-magnon said to the last neanderthal

last breath

it must be nice to hope for the things you wish to want

hot pink & pillarbox red

hell holds no power over me because i can’t dream of heaven

we were going to do nine songs originally, but we dropped three. so for now the only way you can get ‘halo’ and ‘the earth turned slower’ is in mp3 form in our download section. ‘the earth turned slower’ is going to show up on the apple of discord jazz odyssey record and ‘i’m as perfect…’ (titled as ‘everything we know’) is available for purchase on the reinforcement records compilation from earlier in the year. you get a free copy if you order our ‘you were right’ lp or the upcoming ‘revenge & regret’ ep.

a ha ha ha: hipster bingo, courtesy of catbirdseat.

spent yesterday at gradwell studios in gloucester nj with matt ‘on board’ (get it?); recording the next record. it was super hot but we got a lot done. put down the basic tracks for all the songs, did some guitar overdubs, going in for vocals on monday and mixing a week from today at indre studios in philadelphia. the new record is going to make the last one look silly for sure.

we added a show for august 15 at ulana’s at 2nd and bainbridge with our friends girl upstairs and krissy burns. it’s also nelson’s birthday, so it will be a super good time.

played at doc watson’s thursday night and it was a good time. for the first time in a while, i genuinely enjoyed all of the bands playing. unsurprisingly, plain parade put together a similar yet diverse enough mix of music that made things super fun. they’ve got some really cool shows coming up so you should definitely check it out. the drummer from race for titles knocked a giant tv above my head with his drum throne and it almost fell on me. i think we played ok. every time i sang a really loud note the onstage lights dimmed. it would have been cool if the bulbs burst when i hit a super loud one. it would be like a staind video or something. poor nelson cut up his finger and we ended up using bathroom tissue and velcro as a makeshift bandage. he may or may not have lost his cell phone as well. at least he didn’t cut his cell phone and lose his finger.

the last time we played at doc watson’s in philadelphia was in the spring of 2000. we were booked with a grunge band, a blues band, a funk band and i almost spiked my guitar into the row of stoners in the front who kept yelling for ‘next band, maaan!’. it was demoralizing and all too indicative of the short-sighted booking that’s been killing the 21+ music scene in this city over the past few years. in the winter of 2002, plain parade booking took over at doc’s and started booking thursdays and fridays with the novel concept of putting on consistently well-booked shows with diverse yet compatible artists. in just over six months they’ve generated a buzz around a club that for a very long time - for the lack of a better phrase - blew chunks. if you’re near philadelphia and haven’t been to one of their shows, you should check out their website and plan to attend one soon, even if it isn’t our show this thursday (with race for titles, the red and the black & late night television). i think that was a plug. maybe it was half of one. i dunno.

i picked up the thorns album and it’s pretty lousy. if you want to hear a cool collaborative effort, try the twilight singers record. they have a new one coming out soon. if you want to hear a really well-written folk record with gorgeous harmonies (which is what the thorns record tries to do) buy ‘the creek drank the cradle’ from iron and wine. added a couple of new random pictures from the past few months, fixed some links. we go into the studio on wednesday (hopefully) to finish the new record.

nba live update: beat nelson tuesday night 118-113. the series is tied 1-1. next two games are on his home court. meanwhile, it looks like my internet connection is back up to full speed so i uploaded an mp3 from sunday night’s show. yep, that’s aaron interviewing our friend mark griffin in the beginning.

nothing ever stays buried (right-click to save)

good news as brooklyn’s the red and the black (self-starter foundation) and philadelphia’s late night television have been added to the july 24 show. it’s really shaping up to be a wonderful night of rock music.

hope you had a fun and safe holiday weekend. last night at the zen house in new brunswick turned out to be u.s. rail’s last show. they played a set of mostly new songs that sound really great. aaron broke a string and of course didn’t change it or switch guitars. i’d say that it was bittersweet but it wasn’t. it’s not like these people aren’t going to play together again in one form or another, as evidenced by cold blue stars. i’ll save any eulogies i may have written up for when their record eventually comes out. hopefully it’ll be soon.

i’m pretty sure that last night was the hottest basement show we’ve ever played. everyone was really nice and seemed to like our set. i think we played ok. we were all dead afterwards. nelson said his body temperature felt like it was 105. i went down to the corner store between bands to buy water and gatorade. as i was sucking my drink down i felt like that pixelated dude in the gatorade commercial turning from red to green with every gulp. thanks to andy and everyone at the zen house for having us.

that was our last show for a couple of weeks, thank god. we’ll be rehearsing for our plain parade show in philadelphia at the end of the month, finally finishing the new record at gradwell and rehearsing the set for nelson’s graduation party in august. so far, we’ve decided on playing “simply irresistable”. i’d like to play “can’t get enough of your love, baby”. nolan votes for “brick house” and i’m sure matt would want to play some cars tunes. leave your votes and/or suggestions via the comment thingy, the shoutbox, email or whatever.

after nelson beat me 147-137 in a spirited game of nba live 2003 - we were neck and neck until virtual nolan and virtual matt missed two easy buckets that led to a seven point swing - we went to collingswood nj to check out open mic night at the tree house, hosted by our friend ben garvey. usually open mics are an anathema to me but this was pretty cool. i played a song from the jazz odyssey catalog, then nelson and i did a cover of ida’s ‘little things’ (he was dan, i was liz). nelson closed out with two of his newer elocine songs. in general, it was a very talented group and i highly recommend checking it out on wednesday nights at 8:00. there’s a guy who gives out cash money for answering trivia questions (that are later broadcast on his radio show) correctly. i made two bucks for “nagasaki” and “1953″, the latter of which being completely incorrect.

reminder that we’re going to be playing a basement show with the incomparable u.s. rail, left behind, dead letter dept. and (i believe) the prizefight at the zen house in new brunswick, new jersey this sunday. it’s going to be hot as hell, temperature-wise and more importantly, musically. \m/