Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Here's what happened on our little tour with Zoe
A couple days after the first two shows with Zoe at the Red Devil, we got up in the early-ass morning and drove down to the Ford Amphitheater in L.A., had a sound check, did some random filming for LATV, played our set from 7:30 to 8. Unfortunately, the time printed on the tickets was 8, so we played to maybe 20 people in a super nice 1000+ capacity venue. Felt and sounded fuckin sweet on stage, but then had to skip the last two songs when rob broke an e string. doh. Then we went and stayed at Jamie and Jason's house, where they always treat us like the poor innocent street children we are.. they pimp us out with beds and showers and liquor and water and quiche and internet access and vegetables. They even dried our bath towels for us! Plus, across the way from their kitchen window it looked like their neighbor had hanged himself, but he was just drying a pair of pants, so there's that.
Then we checked in at Frankie's place and picked up Frankie and drove out to the deep burbs of Los Angeles: Moreno Valley. There was a sports bar that was starting these club nights, see, with loud DJ dance music, and swirly lights, and a band, see. And they did it once and it was pretty good, so they did it again and it was packed, so next they're ready to offer us a few hundred bucks to play there. So we go play this shit and only like 20 people show up, to dance to (all of) the smith's greatest hits, and to have a cigarette break outside when the band played. Luckily the club was honest enough to pay us our guarantee anyway, and we booked it back to Frankie's. Frankie showed us a really bizarrely funny short video he had written and produced. Then he showed us the alternate version, where he plays all but one of the roles himself. It was far fucking out, hehehehehe... The next day, Nachito noticed that there was a surveillance camera in a corner of the bathroom. But it wasn't real it was just a prop, which was a relief.
In addition to all this, Frankie had some shifty neighbors.
Anyway, Sunday was a day off and Cat had decided we were going to the beach. Which sounded like a nice thing, except with all our dawdling (long showers, breakfast, packing up, picking up this and that at the store) and with Frankie not really living anywhere near the beach, it was past 5pm by the time we got there. But we had a nice big meal of seafood appetizers, but then regretted all the fried food on the bumpy road back, some of us getting a little nauseous, everyone agreeing that we really had to get the alignment fixed tomorrow cause it makes the van rattle worse.
Monday morning we woke up in Odette's beautifully remodeled apartment with not much to do. So we went to get the alignment fixed. Other than that, we had already bought some food for breakfast and lunch, and there was no internet access, so it was time to lounge around Odette's and do some serious TV watching. There was a reality show with Hulk Hogan, there was the part of the Emmys where they stand around talking about what all the actresses are wearing, and lots of great cooking and small claims court shows. But we gave it all up to go play at the Echo, which is a pretty sweet little place. There were like 4 or 5 bands playing, and even on a monday night the place was packed. Unfortunately it didn't really fill up until after we played -- we got bumped to the first slot after the promoter discovered we had played at the Ford three days earlier. The logic being that we would be spreading our crowd too thin. In other words, the price we paid for our extra-early set on Friday was an extra-early set on Monday. There you go. But still, the most fun show of the trip so far.
We stayed with Sr and Sra Rana that night in their beautifully designed and immaculately kept house. We have some of the nicest goddamn friends! With nice houses! And then, a short drive away, his beautifully designed, immaculately kept recording and production studio! Hijo de la madre, we are seriously impressed. Also with his almost complete feature length film "The Cook", wherein a bunch of sorority girls sit around doing drugs and playing May Fire records, until they get systematically murdered. Good stuff people, good stuff. The May Fire gives it 10 thumbs up (two from Maria, who basically raised all of our gas money by selling fine May Fire products to oodles of satisfied customers).
Oh but we hadn't had oodles of people in the place since the Red Devil, but things got better at this point. So we're in San Diego now, getting settled in at Danny's sparse but effective apartment with a ridiculously tiny trash can (the May Fire has a lot of trash, ok?) and a pool right in the middle that nobody ever goes in, as far as we can tell. We bought a ratty blanket at the salvation army next door and stuffed it in the springs of the back seat of the van in a meager attempt to make it less bouncy. We got some good sleep, some reasonable food. We watched "Art School Confidential". Eventually we went to play at the beautiful San Diego House of Blues, again opening for Zoe, but this time just the two bands. And here Zoe's fans like to get there early and get a spot up front, so we had a captivated and receptive audience.. which of course is fuckin fantastic and a lot of fun, so we had fun. And we would have sold a whole ton of merchandise, except somebody pulled an alarm that made sirens and emergency lights come on, so the place cleared out real quick. Oh well, still a great time, and Zoe tore the place up as usual: rabid screaming fans, epic rock music, flashing lights and fog, girls jumping up and dancing on the stage, the whole package.
Next thing we know, we're at the house of blues again, but this one is somewhere in what might be described as a suburb of Disneyland's Magic Kingdom (tm). This HOB is not as cavernous as the other one, which puts it as just the right size to feel good and rock the goddamn motherfucking bitch-ass shit out. Which is what proceeded to happen. Which is a good thing, cause on the way home it keeps us from feeling sad that we wouldn't be seeing the White Stripes after all because they cancelled their tour because Meg has "acute anxiety", whatever that means.
Then we checked in at Frankie's place and picked up Frankie and drove out to the deep burbs of Los Angeles: Moreno Valley. There was a sports bar that was starting these club nights, see, with loud DJ dance music, and swirly lights, and a band, see. And they did it once and it was pretty good, so they did it again and it was packed, so next they're ready to offer us a few hundred bucks to play there. So we go play this shit and only like 20 people show up, to dance to (all of) the smith's greatest hits, and to have a cigarette break outside when the band played. Luckily the club was honest enough to pay us our guarantee anyway, and we booked it back to Frankie's. Frankie showed us a really bizarrely funny short video he had written and produced. Then he showed us the alternate version, where he plays all but one of the roles himself. It was far fucking out, hehehehehe... The next day, Nachito noticed that there was a surveillance camera in a corner of the bathroom. But it wasn't real it was just a prop, which was a relief.
In addition to all this, Frankie had some shifty neighbors.
Anyway, Sunday was a day off and Cat had decided we were going to the beach. Which sounded like a nice thing, except with all our dawdling (long showers, breakfast, packing up, picking up this and that at the store) and with Frankie not really living anywhere near the beach, it was past 5pm by the time we got there. But we had a nice big meal of seafood appetizers, but then regretted all the fried food on the bumpy road back, some of us getting a little nauseous, everyone agreeing that we really had to get the alignment fixed tomorrow cause it makes the van rattle worse.
Monday morning we woke up in Odette's beautifully remodeled apartment with not much to do. So we went to get the alignment fixed. Other than that, we had already bought some food for breakfast and lunch, and there was no internet access, so it was time to lounge around Odette's and do some serious TV watching. There was a reality show with Hulk Hogan, there was the part of the Emmys where they stand around talking about what all the actresses are wearing, and lots of great cooking and small claims court shows. But we gave it all up to go play at the Echo, which is a pretty sweet little place. There were like 4 or 5 bands playing, and even on a monday night the place was packed. Unfortunately it didn't really fill up until after we played -- we got bumped to the first slot after the promoter discovered we had played at the Ford three days earlier. The logic being that we would be spreading our crowd too thin. In other words, the price we paid for our extra-early set on Friday was an extra-early set on Monday. There you go. But still, the most fun show of the trip so far.
We stayed with Sr and Sra Rana that night in their beautifully designed and immaculately kept house. We have some of the nicest goddamn friends! With nice houses! And then, a short drive away, his beautifully designed, immaculately kept recording and production studio! Hijo de la madre, we are seriously impressed. Also with his almost complete feature length film "The Cook", wherein a bunch of sorority girls sit around doing drugs and playing May Fire records, until they get systematically murdered. Good stuff people, good stuff. The May Fire gives it 10 thumbs up (two from Maria, who basically raised all of our gas money by selling fine May Fire products to oodles of satisfied customers).
Oh but we hadn't had oodles of people in the place since the Red Devil, but things got better at this point. So we're in San Diego now, getting settled in at Danny's sparse but effective apartment with a ridiculously tiny trash can (the May Fire has a lot of trash, ok?) and a pool right in the middle that nobody ever goes in, as far as we can tell. We bought a ratty blanket at the salvation army next door and stuffed it in the springs of the back seat of the van in a meager attempt to make it less bouncy. We got some good sleep, some reasonable food. We watched "Art School Confidential". Eventually we went to play at the beautiful San Diego House of Blues, again opening for Zoe, but this time just the two bands. And here Zoe's fans like to get there early and get a spot up front, so we had a captivated and receptive audience.. which of course is fuckin fantastic and a lot of fun, so we had fun. And we would have sold a whole ton of merchandise, except somebody pulled an alarm that made sirens and emergency lights come on, so the place cleared out real quick. Oh well, still a great time, and Zoe tore the place up as usual: rabid screaming fans, epic rock music, flashing lights and fog, girls jumping up and dancing on the stage, the whole package.
Next thing we know, we're at the house of blues again, but this one is somewhere in what might be described as a suburb of Disneyland's Magic Kingdom (tm). This HOB is not as cavernous as the other one, which puts it as just the right size to feel good and rock the goddamn motherfucking bitch-ass shit out. Which is what proceeded to happen. Which is a good thing, cause on the way home it keeps us from feeling sad that we wouldn't be seeing the White Stripes after all because they cancelled their tour because Meg has "acute anxiety", whatever that means.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Monday, July 9, 2007
ringer
Today's Spanish lesson from Catty Tasso of the May Fire:
Translation: "This is very boring. This the second day, driving to... Seattle."
Damn that's a lot of driving. Luckily, El Pipe loves to drive. So he drives almost the whole trip. The rest of us pass the time by staring out the window, making ipod playlists, arguing about how many songs each person gets to put at a time, listening to the mixes for the next EP we're hoping to release Aug 22, and insisting to each other that we should practice our vocal parts, but not really practicing our vocal parts.
We carried some cold cuts in a cooler to cut down on costs, but we also ate at Shari's, where the menu is twenty pages long with lots of colorful pictures of the food, and they have not only a three-sliders-and-three-weiners plate, but a chicken salad with potstickers covered in sweet chili sauce. We ate at Penny's and watched the 3rd shift cook pour big gobs of yellow buttery mix on the hashbrowns and fry it up. We tried to eat at a Sushi place recommended by the door guy at the Comet, but the wait was too long, so we ate at the thai place a couple doors where the soup was killer and the waiter (owner?) was EXCEEDINGLY nice and tried to give us free dessert.. we felt kind of bad not taking him up on it. They also had far-out bathroom sinks. You turned it on by pulling or pushing an upright lever, like a joystick, and the water spills out of a tilted glass saucer sort of thing. Fancy.
The Comet show was fun. People came. We played rock and roll music.
Saturday was the party day. Only 3 hours of driving, hanging out with Michael, friend and sound engineer for kooken & hoomen, at his house with lovely wife, child, and vegetable garden. Gave us beds. Got us high. Barbequed steaks. Hooked up the 4-player football (soccer) on the wall projector. Made us fucking pancakes! Luxury.
The Tonic show was fun. People came. We played rock and roll music. This band Sleepless Me, that was sort of tacked onto the beginning of the bill surprised us by being good. And of course our friends X's for I's were good. Good and crazy. They had a bucket of donuts with them.
Sunday was a nice long day of driving. 10 hours. Oh wait, more like 12 hours cause of a huge traffic jam near Lake Shasta. We took a detour. I don't think it saved us much time, but at least we were moving. We like to be moving.
Translation: "This is very boring. This the second day, driving to... Seattle."
Damn that's a lot of driving. Luckily, El Pipe loves to drive. So he drives almost the whole trip. The rest of us pass the time by staring out the window, making ipod playlists, arguing about how many songs each person gets to put at a time, listening to the mixes for the next EP we're hoping to release Aug 22, and insisting to each other that we should practice our vocal parts, but not really practicing our vocal parts.
We carried some cold cuts in a cooler to cut down on costs, but we also ate at Shari's, where the menu is twenty pages long with lots of colorful pictures of the food, and they have not only a three-sliders-and-three-weiners plate, but a chicken salad with potstickers covered in sweet chili sauce. We ate at Penny's and watched the 3rd shift cook pour big gobs of yellow buttery mix on the hashbrowns and fry it up. We tried to eat at a Sushi place recommended by the door guy at the Comet, but the wait was too long, so we ate at the thai place a couple doors where the soup was killer and the waiter (owner?) was EXCEEDINGLY nice and tried to give us free dessert.. we felt kind of bad not taking him up on it. They also had far-out bathroom sinks. You turned it on by pulling or pushing an upright lever, like a joystick, and the water spills out of a tilted glass saucer sort of thing. Fancy.
The Comet show was fun. People came. We played rock and roll music.
Saturday was the party day. Only 3 hours of driving, hanging out with Michael, friend and sound engineer for kooken & hoomen, at his house with lovely wife, child, and vegetable garden. Gave us beds. Got us high. Barbequed steaks. Hooked up the 4-player football (soccer) on the wall projector. Made us fucking pancakes! Luxury.
The Tonic show was fun. People came. We played rock and roll music. This band Sleepless Me, that was sort of tacked onto the beginning of the bill surprised us by being good. And of course our friends X's for I's were good. Good and crazy. They had a bucket of donuts with them.
Sunday was a nice long day of driving. 10 hours. Oh wait, more like 12 hours cause of a huge traffic jam near Lake Shasta. We took a detour. I don't think it saved us much time, but at least we were moving. We like to be moving.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
the van, and crazy frontwomen
First trip in the new van, down to L.A. to play at Pehrspace, a tiny little art gallery kind of place, that also has rock shows and whatnot. The van performed very well with its brand new shocks, and we had a good ol' time listing all the extra additions we needed to make to it, which included but were not limited to: an extra window, a plug-in cooler, a table upon which to place a laptop and watch movies, a plasma bigscreen to more comfortably watch movies, a sauna...
Anyway, the one luxury item we agreed upon as a must have was a better stereo. The van had come with only a radio, and anyone that's tried to use an iTrip anywhere near a city with a population above 5000 knows that the iTrip is basically a useless piece of crap. Pipe was so pissed he actually stopped at Best Buy on the way down, but we didn't want to wait 2 hrs to get it installed, and end up rolling into L.A. at 2 or 3 am. So it was the first order of business the next day. The nice boys at the Circuit City on Sunset also installed some extra speakers under the back seat. They also pointed out the nail in our rear right tire. Ohh, that's why it's going flat.
So within a couple hours we've spent another $750 on the van. Ouch. But at least we're big pimpin' now with the stereo and new heavy duty rear tires.
And since we're talking about the van costs, let's just break it all down for a minute:
Total so far: more than $10K. Yeah, we're in deep now.
And that's not counting gas, which, at around 15mi/gallon, is running about $150 for a trip to L.A. and back.
Luckily, we are making money by playing rock music. Last night, for example, we earned $84. Which, you know, buys us enough gas to go crawling home to our day jobs.
Oh but what a time we had at this show! It was a BYOB kind of thing, since it's not a bar, so there we were mixing jim beam and cokes out the side of our new van, which took up a good third of the Pehrspace parking lot, and wondering if the drummer for the first band, Peel, is ever going to show up. Their singer has arrived, in red trench coat and apparently not much else, and has begun hugging, complimenting, and flirting with every boy and man -- and some of the women -- in her path. My goodness!
And that was before she got on the stage. The drummer finally did show up, about 30 minutes after they were scheduled to start (yay) and Peel got the ball rolling. After one song the red trenchcoat is unbuttoned, and by the third song the trenchcoat is off and we're all grappling to comprehend the reality that Peel's frontwoman is writhing on the ground while she sings, in a sexy bra-and-stockings getup, a la Fredericks of Hollywood. In the words of Mayor Quimby, That was unexpected.
Anyway, band #2 was the trio Divisible, fronted by the lovely and fully-clothed Shola, who sometimes played guitar through a fairly impressive setup of pedals and amps, and sometimes just sang, leaving the bass and drums to manage on their own, which they did quite well. They had a very nice Bison painted on the kick drum, which turned out to match the artwork on their very nice cd. Shola later told Cat that they are all planning to move into a $100/month garage together so they can start touring more. Or something like that.
The good ol' May Fire ended up taking the stage around 11:45, also fully clothed, and somewhat drunk, in front of a thinning but enthusiastic crowd. It was a loud, dirty 30 minutes of intense May Fire insanity. It's what we spend all that time and money for, to create those 30 minutes of whatever the fuck it is.
Anyway, the one luxury item we agreed upon as a must have was a better stereo. The van had come with only a radio, and anyone that's tried to use an iTrip anywhere near a city with a population above 5000 knows that the iTrip is basically a useless piece of crap. Pipe was so pissed he actually stopped at Best Buy on the way down, but we didn't want to wait 2 hrs to get it installed, and end up rolling into L.A. at 2 or 3 am. So it was the first order of business the next day. The nice boys at the Circuit City on Sunset also installed some extra speakers under the back seat. They also pointed out the nail in our rear right tire. Ohh, that's why it's going flat.
So within a couple hours we've spent another $750 on the van. Ouch. But at least we're big pimpin' now with the stereo and new heavy duty rear tires.
And since we're talking about the van costs, let's just break it all down for a minute:
- van: $7000 from Caspian Cars in Redwood City
- taxes, registration, etc bullshit: about $1000
- pre-purchase inspection: $100 from Precision Auto in Redwood City
- bench seat: $50 from a guy in Novato named Rick
- installation of seat, security grills, window tinting: $850 from Custom Auto in Oakland
- four new shocks: $350 from Express Auto in Oakland
- new stereo, speakers: $450 from Circuit City in L.A. (this was kind of a shocker.. we got the cheapest stuff but they nickle and dime you to death with charges for extra installation brackets and shit)
- two new rear tires: $300 from Discount Tire in L.A.
Total so far: more than $10K. Yeah, we're in deep now.
And that's not counting gas, which, at around 15mi/gallon, is running about $150 for a trip to L.A. and back.
Luckily, we are making money by playing rock music. Last night, for example, we earned $84. Which, you know, buys us enough gas to go crawling home to our day jobs.
Oh but what a time we had at this show! It was a BYOB kind of thing, since it's not a bar, so there we were mixing jim beam and cokes out the side of our new van, which took up a good third of the Pehrspace parking lot, and wondering if the drummer for the first band, Peel, is ever going to show up. Their singer has arrived, in red trench coat and apparently not much else, and has begun hugging, complimenting, and flirting with every boy and man -- and some of the women -- in her path. My goodness!
And that was before she got on the stage. The drummer finally did show up, about 30 minutes after they were scheduled to start (yay) and Peel got the ball rolling. After one song the red trenchcoat is unbuttoned, and by the third song the trenchcoat is off and we're all grappling to comprehend the reality that Peel's frontwoman is writhing on the ground while she sings, in a sexy bra-and-stockings getup, a la Fredericks of Hollywood. In the words of Mayor Quimby, That was unexpected.
Anyway, band #2 was the trio Divisible, fronted by the lovely and fully-clothed Shola, who sometimes played guitar through a fairly impressive setup of pedals and amps, and sometimes just sang, leaving the bass and drums to manage on their own, which they did quite well. They had a very nice Bison painted on the kick drum, which turned out to match the artwork on their very nice cd. Shola later told Cat that they are all planning to move into a $100/month garage together so they can start touring more. Or something like that.
The good ol' May Fire ended up taking the stage around 11:45, also fully clothed, and somewhat drunk, in front of a thinning but enthusiastic crowd. It was a loud, dirty 30 minutes of intense May Fire insanity. It's what we spend all that time and money for, to create those 30 minutes of whatever the fuck it is.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Where we're from
We often get asked "Where are you guys from?" This could mean a lot of things. Do they mean where we live? As in, where is this touring band from? This is especially confusing when we play in San Francisco. Maybe they think we're on tour from somewhere else, so we should say "we're actually from here." Or maybe they know we're from here but want to know where specifically we live, so we should say "we're from Albany", which is weird because Rob lives in Oakland, and actually Nachito lives in Berkeley now. And besides when you say "Albany" people often think you're talking about New York.
Of course, often it's a completely different story, and what happened is they noticed the accents and the spanish, and want to know what country we're from. But we're from different countries, so we always end up having to explain the whole thing. "well, cat's from chile, those guys are from colombia, and that guy's from connecticut." You always get the connecticut part thrown in, even though it doesn't really apply to the original question (which was really "why are you speaking spanish?") And sometimes when Cat's a little drunk she gets connecticut confused with iowa. But Rob understands.
Anyway, the point is, here's a handy map to help you understand where the May Fire is from:
I know it looks like the dot is next to Argentina, but really it's in Chile, which is sort of a thin country.
Of course, often it's a completely different story, and what happened is they noticed the accents and the spanish, and want to know what country we're from. But we're from different countries, so we always end up having to explain the whole thing. "well, cat's from chile, those guys are from colombia, and that guy's from connecticut." You always get the connecticut part thrown in, even though it doesn't really apply to the original question (which was really "why are you speaking spanish?") And sometimes when Cat's a little drunk she gets connecticut confused with iowa. But Rob understands.
Anyway, the point is, here's a handy map to help you understand where the May Fire is from:
I know it looks like the dot is next to Argentina, but really it's in Chile, which is sort of a thin country.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
to san diego
Well goddamn, we're on the road again, briefly. Friday night we play the Beauty Bar in San Diego, Saturday in L.A. at "Cigarettes & Alcohol"... in their new Chinatown location. Just before jumping in the cars, we watched the first draft of a live "shot me down" video Maria put together for us. It's over a mixed soundboard recording from Bottom of the Hill, and combines footage from the same Bottom of the Hill show with a show at the Silverlake Lounge in L.A. It all pretty much blends together and looks like the same show, except rob's shirt keeps switching back and forth between dark blue and light blue. Looks pretty slick so far though. Maria knows what she's doing.
The Plastic Army e.p. is damn near out.. it's all showing up in the mail piecemeal. First the sleeves, then the discs, and now we're just waiting for the tray inserts, which got mailed later for some reason, even though they were printed in the same order as the sleeves. Whatever. It's gonna be nice, but shit, our heads are already in the second e.p. now.. and the third. That's our little project for ourselves. Three e.p's. Then it'll be time for a full length. Or a tour. Or something.
But back to the cars. It's Pipe, Rob, and Cat in this car, and it is stuffed completely full. The reality has been sinking in as of late that we need to start laying down the bucks for a van. It's gonna hurt, but there's no way around it the more we start traveling. When it comes down to it, the biggest obstacle to this band's success is the cost of transportation. Making music is one thing.. bringing it to people is a whole other bucket of chips.
Here's my view for the 8 hour ride to San Diego:
The Plastic Army e.p. is damn near out.. it's all showing up in the mail piecemeal. First the sleeves, then the discs, and now we're just waiting for the tray inserts, which got mailed later for some reason, even though they were printed in the same order as the sleeves. Whatever. It's gonna be nice, but shit, our heads are already in the second e.p. now.. and the third. That's our little project for ourselves. Three e.p's. Then it'll be time for a full length. Or a tour. Or something.
But back to the cars. It's Pipe, Rob, and Cat in this car, and it is stuffed completely full. The reality has been sinking in as of late that we need to start laying down the bucks for a van. It's gonna hurt, but there's no way around it the more we start traveling. When it comes down to it, the biggest obstacle to this band's success is the cost of transportation. Making music is one thing.. bringing it to people is a whole other bucket of chips.
Here's my view for the 8 hour ride to San Diego:
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Recording makes you crazy
The first e.p. gets mastered tomorrow, and already we've started recording tracks for the next one. And here's an example of how recording makes you crazy.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Oakland, SF, LA
So many shows! We've got 'em lined up every weekend for the next month. This Friday 1/26 at the Uptown in Oakland, a really really nice little spot, but unfortunately not very well known. We wrote to the East Bay Express music staff to try to get them to come out, not only to promote ourselves, but also the Uptown deserves more credibility than it gets, I think (maybe I should reserve judgment until we've actually played there?) Anyway, it's with The Look, who just took second place in a statewide battle of the bands, and seem to have a great following in the bay area, so hopefully we can get people to come recognize this spot. Plenty of parking! Let's hear you say that about your typical venue.
Then the following Thursday 2/1 at Grant & Green in San Francisco, in the North Beach area. This is kind of a sneaky little gig that we don't know much about, and we're not sure how much of our SF fanbase is gonna hit this one, cause mostly there's more interest in our Bottom of the Hill show (also with The Look!) two weeks later, on Saturday 2/17. A Saturday at Bottom of the Hill... does life get any better for a young rock band in San Francisco?
But wait, we skipped a week! Have no fear, we head down to Los Angeles on Weds 2/7 to play at the Silverlake Lounge. We've played L.A. a handful of times, but this is our first shot at the Silverlake Lounge, which should be cool. Plus we've got a small list of big shot managers and such (did we mention that TMF is currently in the market for a manager?) coming to check us out there, so we're really trying to pack this one in and make it fuckin' awesome... oh wait, that's what we do with all our shows. Except maybe the Grant & Green thing.. but that's North Beach, practically a different country.
Then the following Thursday 2/1 at Grant & Green in San Francisco, in the North Beach area. This is kind of a sneaky little gig that we don't know much about, and we're not sure how much of our SF fanbase is gonna hit this one, cause mostly there's more interest in our Bottom of the Hill show (also with The Look!) two weeks later, on Saturday 2/17. A Saturday at Bottom of the Hill... does life get any better for a young rock band in San Francisco?
But wait, we skipped a week! Have no fear, we head down to Los Angeles on Weds 2/7 to play at the Silverlake Lounge. We've played L.A. a handful of times, but this is our first shot at the Silverlake Lounge, which should be cool. Plus we've got a small list of big shot managers and such (did we mention that TMF is currently in the market for a manager?) coming to check us out there, so we're really trying to pack this one in and make it fuckin' awesome... oh wait, that's what we do with all our shows. Except maybe the Grant & Green thing.. but that's North Beach, practically a different country.
Monday, January 22, 2007
E.P. in the works
Here's something else that's happening. The May Fire is always recording new tracks when we can, and we're getting ready to put a new E.P. out. Since real label support is slow-moving and fraught with complication and peril, this will be another self-produced product from Rock Whores Studios! At the moment, it's looking like a five track release, and we may slap on a couple remixes that others have made from Right and Wrong. The mixing phase will be complete right about.... now, and we're currently researching deals for mastering and replication. Should be popping up on our merch counter at shows soon.
Welcome to the TMF blog, asswipe
Hey look, the May Fire has a blog. Isn't that fantastic? Finally, a place to put all the crap that doesn't fit anywhere else. Why does this stuff need to be posted to the internet? Is it because all our screaming fans are dying to see videos of us brushing our teeth in the alley behind Motel 6? Hell no! It's because the music business is hard as shit, and you can never do enough promotion, and this is just another way of getting MORE STUFF ABOUT US out there. Us, us, us. The May Fire, The May Fire, The May Fire. Rock, rock, rock, roll, roll, roll.
So let's talk about what's going on. A couple weeks ago we played a raucous show at the Stork Club in Oakland. Anyone who knows anything about Oakland knows that that place is just plain nuts. They got barbie dolls lined up over the bar, and a huge P.A. system in a tiny little room. You set up your guitar amp, which only has to be at 2 or 3 to fill the room loudly, and they stick a mic in front of it and send it through the P.A. Outta control! They mic the drums, the bass, everything. When we played there last year the sound guy said "oh yeah, this is a full service dive bar." They all have a great attitude about it, which is huge, but they rig it all up so loudly that you're basically generating this enormous wall of soupy insanity... like outfitting a school drinking fountain with a fire hose. Luckily, by the time you get onstage, everyone's good and hammered (the stork pours good drinks) to the point that they actually enjoy standing right in front of us and getting blasted.
Here's some pics from that night, courtesy of radcliffe photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/radcliffephotos/sets/72157594469821851/
Speaking of late set times, something that a lot of music fans don't realize is that at the local level, "headlining" is often not a good thing. The general assumption with any music show is that the headliner is the best (or at least, most popular) act on the bill, and will therefore draw the most people. It's assumed that these people will leave after they see their band play, so naturally the headliners play last. Which is all well and good if you're, say, Radiohead, and playing last means starting around 9pm. But in your average local bar, the first band doesn't get going until 9 at the earliest, so your headliners are often going on around midnight, which cuts out a good deal of audience. Sure, die-hard fans stay up, but as a general rule, people get tired at night.
So really the best timeslot is the second-to-last set, around 11 or so. Everyone that's gonna come has showed up, and not too many people have headed out yet. So local bands end up playing this funny game with each other where they try to convince each other that "you're so much bigger than us, you should definitely headline", and the other band replies "are you kidding? we only drew like 5 people to our last show, you guys are the obvious headliners." And then you both turn around and tell the next club that you can totally draw 150+ people. It's not so much lies and backstabbing as... okay it is lies and backstabbing, but everyone has to do it, so it all balances out. Maybe.
For another example, last Friday we played at Kimo's in San Francisco with Shiloe and the Dont's. Kimo's is like the Stork Club West. Crappy lookin' little hole, but fill it with people and booze and you've got a good time. And I'll give Kimo's this: they understand the limits of their own sound system, and don't overdo it by mic'ing everything. Which is nice. But here's what's not nice: a week before the show (we had this booked two months in advance) someone at Kimo's suddenly decides, for reasons still unclear to us, to throw a 4th band in, in the 2nd slot. Which inevitably causes a certain amount of chaos and difficulty as everything gets reshuffled and the bands end up competing with each other all the more for good set times. And in the end it came down to The May Fire and Shiloe duking it out, which is really too bad cause we're both good and we're both in the same boat, pretty much. But that's how it is.
So let's talk about what's going on. A couple weeks ago we played a raucous show at the Stork Club in Oakland. Anyone who knows anything about Oakland knows that that place is just plain nuts. They got barbie dolls lined up over the bar, and a huge P.A. system in a tiny little room. You set up your guitar amp, which only has to be at 2 or 3 to fill the room loudly, and they stick a mic in front of it and send it through the P.A. Outta control! They mic the drums, the bass, everything. When we played there last year the sound guy said "oh yeah, this is a full service dive bar." They all have a great attitude about it, which is huge, but they rig it all up so loudly that you're basically generating this enormous wall of soupy insanity... like outfitting a school drinking fountain with a fire hose. Luckily, by the time you get onstage, everyone's good and hammered (the stork pours good drinks) to the point that they actually enjoy standing right in front of us and getting blasted.
Here's some pics from that night, courtesy of radcliffe photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/radcliffephotos/sets/72157594469821851/
Speaking of late set times, something that a lot of music fans don't realize is that at the local level, "headlining" is often not a good thing. The general assumption with any music show is that the headliner is the best (or at least, most popular) act on the bill, and will therefore draw the most people. It's assumed that these people will leave after they see their band play, so naturally the headliners play last. Which is all well and good if you're, say, Radiohead, and playing last means starting around 9pm. But in your average local bar, the first band doesn't get going until 9 at the earliest, so your headliners are often going on around midnight, which cuts out a good deal of audience. Sure, die-hard fans stay up, but as a general rule, people get tired at night.
So really the best timeslot is the second-to-last set, around 11 or so. Everyone that's gonna come has showed up, and not too many people have headed out yet. So local bands end up playing this funny game with each other where they try to convince each other that "you're so much bigger than us, you should definitely headline", and the other band replies "are you kidding? we only drew like 5 people to our last show, you guys are the obvious headliners." And then you both turn around and tell the next club that you can totally draw 150+ people. It's not so much lies and backstabbing as... okay it is lies and backstabbing, but everyone has to do it, so it all balances out. Maybe.
For another example, last Friday we played at Kimo's in San Francisco with Shiloe and the Dont's. Kimo's is like the Stork Club West. Crappy lookin' little hole, but fill it with people and booze and you've got a good time. And I'll give Kimo's this: they understand the limits of their own sound system, and don't overdo it by mic'ing everything. Which is nice. But here's what's not nice: a week before the show (we had this booked two months in advance) someone at Kimo's suddenly decides, for reasons still unclear to us, to throw a 4th band in, in the 2nd slot. Which inevitably causes a certain amount of chaos and difficulty as everything gets reshuffled and the bands end up competing with each other all the more for good set times. And in the end it came down to The May Fire and Shiloe duking it out, which is really too bad cause we're both good and we're both in the same boat, pretty much. But that's how it is.
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