Monday, April 19, 2010

Don't know you think you play it, think you know you play it

Ha! I thought this blog just updated itself whenever something new happened with us. I feel like a real chucklehead. I'll be sure to manually update it more often maybe hopefully.

The gods have smiled upon you children. Your 'Fuzzy Dreams' has arrived, and it is so here. We received the real life copies of our first full-length, in the flesh and everything, today. Get them while they're hot at our upcoming shows! DIG!!

Friday, April 23
Gabe's Oasis, Iowa City, IA
w/The Sound Thoughts, Final Alibi, Midwest Trendkill

Saturday, April 24
Otto's Niteclub, DeKalb, IL
w/ Local H

AND the Big Kahuna of pants-wetting rock shows,

Friday, April 30
Schuba's, Chicago, IL
CD RELEASE!! w/ Kid You'll Move Mountains, polarOPPOSITEbear and Inspector Owl

Hoo Nancy. Not sure if your friends and neighbors have told you, but you get a heaping side of macaroni and cheese for FREE.99 if you order your tix in advance through Schuba's. It makes Kraft taste like a dump. Really!

If you're interested in reading nice things that people have said about us, or are interested in semi-coherent musings on our history/likes/daydreams you can check out some of these links:




Also, feel free to request 'Design Yourself a Heart' on 93 XRT's Local Anesthetic. They were kind enough to play it this past weekend. See you soon lovelies.

The band!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Sock Monkey Sound Interview


Have you seen the Rock Men who safely guard the Rock River? The wooden Loch Ness monster majestically poking its head above the waves of the Rock River near the Auburn St./Spring Creek Rd. bridge? Feasted upon layers and layers of shredded beef at the Fire Station-themed Beef-a-Roo? Browsed through the used CD selection at the now-defunct Media Play?? Then you, beloved soul, are a Rockford, Illinois elite. I raise a glass of Carlyle Vanilla Stout to you.

However, you need not hail from Rockford to enjoy the interview/live performances we recorded our city's own Sock Monkey Sound Podcast. There is some wonderful silliness going on over there and Geronimo! applauds all those involved (Chip Copeland, Brandon Lutmer, Patrick Delehanty, Mark Gustafson) for giving all us Rocktown-inites another reason to swell with pride. Outta the way Panino's! Listen to our "interview" right here .

I should probably make a post about the awesome shows we have lined up, and the fact that our album is practically finished, but I'm saving that for later. As always, stay tuned ya chuckleheads.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Design Yourself a Fart

So we made it back in one piece from tour. All in all, it was a giant big ball of success and fun. Can't say enough about how fun it was to play shows with our pals in polarOPPOSITEbear in Wichita and Lawrence. Any band swinging through Iowa should definitely check out Ames Progressive where the kids are cool and the surrounding bars have ridiculously cheap beer and free food. Oh yeah, we also found a kitten in Texas on the side of the highway and took him along with us. He is biting the side of my computer as I type this. His name is Mowgli.

While on our way to Wichita, we stopped through Stillwater, Oklahoma. We talked to Nathan Poppe, who tapes bands live or in their practice spaces and posts them to his blog. Since we weren't playing live and only had a couple of hours, he suggested we just set up in his apartment and play a song really quick before someone complained about the noise. We loaded our gear into his place, set up, Matt deadened his drums with shirts and socks and we did one take through 'Design Yourself a Heart.' We then loaded out and played a show in Wichita. It was a total blast. Check out the result below, the sound is all from one small handheld camera,and I was shouting to try and cut through the mix.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Curl Up and Dye



Here's a video of us playing "Breed" by this band Nirvana. Our new friend Goose shot the footage in Little Rock, Arkansas at Pizza D'Action. They gave us free beer and pizza and were total sweethearts. Matt won a ping pong match against a guy named Lance. I leaned back on a table on fell on my ass during the end of a song. Goose let us stay two nights at his unbelievable semi-mansion with about 3,000 TV channels and a dog named Mabel who Matt thought looked like a warthog. The night before we also played in Little Rock at a totally rad venue called Vino's Brewpub. The kids that came out were really excited to hear music and the show was a real blast. After we went to a bar called Speakeasy with a woman named Monet. There was a jazz piano player sounding amazing and they played a jazz rendition of 'Everything in Its Right Place.'

Last night we played in Fort Worth, Texas at a really well-run D.I.Y. space called 1919 Hemphill. We played to another bunch of kids that were all excited to see music and hang out. It's really refreshing to go around the country and find these little pockets where kids are setting up shows, helping out bands and getting people out to support music. The bands we played with were INCREDIBLE. Big Fiction was a cross between The Jesus Lizard and Refused and the drummer rocked so brutally he went and puked on a skate ramp immediately after they finished. Decades played last and had one of the most energetic frontmen we've ever witnessed. When not writhing on the ground screaming into the microphone, he was running around the audience yelling his guts out and doing front flips onto the concrete. Please check out both bands because on top of putting everything they have into their music they are completely awesome duders.

We saw the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington today and it looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Seriously, big-as-hell. We're in Denton, Texas right now hanging out in a coffee shop waiting to play another show with free pizza at the Hot Box. One week left until we get back to lovely and frigid real life!!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Don't mind if I Duplex

Sitting in Louisville, KY. It's almost midnight here and the boys and I are leafing through a crazy book collection (Radical Dude, The Secret Life of Teens, 500 Best Metal Albums of All Time) and drinking Kentucky Tavern whiskey. Played a show earlier tonight with a couple of bands in a living room type area with only space heaters. The heat in the place is broken, and the main room with a stage and lots of space feels like a garage. The pipes are frozen so the bathroom doesn't work, and the closest bathroom nearby is a Dizzy Whizz fast food restaurant where you have to get a key and go outside somewhere where the bathroom is. Matt just found out someone left Dizzy Whizz french fries under a chair and is looking for a microwave. Tour is good, people.

Played last night at Casa Cantina where they gave us a free 30-pack of PBR. We played last out of 3 for some reason. After the local bands no one stuck around, but by the end of the set a bunch of drunk people were up front and having a good time, so it ended up being a lot of fun. Running out of free CDs faster than we thought. Stood in line for 15 or 20 minutes at Big Mama's Burritos and it was glorious. I made the mistake of trying to replicate an Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode and put my burrito in my top coat pocket and eat it without my hands. Refried beans are difficult to wash off.

DeKalb was amazing as usual. Good friends, played some Lady Gaga and Nirvana and watched a folk band take an hour and a half to set up, play and tear down. Next stop is Knoxville, TN where we'll meet with our pal Karl Shuster (sp?) for some Pilot Light action. Oh yeah, Matt won a romance novel at the show last night! There were two really pretty people in a super intense embrace on the front.

Monday, January 4, 2010

We will be in you soon, the south.

It's almost here Internet friends. It's almost here. Our butts are tingling with excitement to hit the road in a few days on our winter tour, "Crappy Songs for Jerks Tour 2010." See above for the lovely poster design done by our lovely friend, Austen Huth. Look out for this one, she's taking the design world by storm with her unique style and impeccable ability to quote The Simpsons.

The tour starts Jan. 7 in that sweet den of vanities, the 7th St. Space in DeKalb. Check out the dates!

Jan. 7 7th St. Space DeKalb, Illinois
Jan. 8 Casa Cantina Athens, Ohio
Jan. 9 Brick House Louisville, Kentucky
Jan. 10 Pilot Light Knoxville, Tennessee
Jan. 11 Tasty World Athens, Georgia
Jan. 12 Off
Jan. 13 Vino's Brewpub Little Rock, Arkansas
Jan. 14 Pizza D'Action Little Rock, Arkansas
Jan. 15 1919 Hemphill Fort Worth, Texas
Jan. 16 Hot Box, Denton, Texas
Jan. 17 Bash Riprock's Lubbock, Texas
Jan. 18 Soundpony Tulsa, Oklahoma
Jan. 19 Rock Island Live Wichita, Kansas
Jan. 20 Replay Lounge Lawrence, Kansas
Jan. 21 Bourbon Theater Lincoln, Nebraska
Jan. 22 Ames Progressive Ames, Iowa
Jan. 23 CJ's Lounge Rockford, Illinois

We've had a couple of nice write-ups in some blogs. Check this one out from Fort Worth:
We will have specially handmade tour EPs to give away for free featuring 3 songs from our upcoming full-length, "Fuzzy Dreams." Also new shirts, covers songs and other crazy gizmos and shake-em-ups! LET'S DO THIS AMERICA!!!!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Listen to an upcoming track!

We've been hard at work lo these past few months working on ten songs for our upcoming full-length album, Fuzzy Dreams. We'd like to whet an appetite or two by giving you a preview of our work with the one and only Joshua Miller, who mixed and helped record all of the tracks with so much sexiness and love.

We won't have the album done by the time we go on tour in January, but we are putting together a tour EP to hand out. This track, "Thunderbattles," will be on said EP.

Please do not listen to it on your laptop. Music can't be enjoyed that way.