Born Dead

City Center "Pumpkin Seeds"

photo by Amber at the Black Mass show last week.

This Year Halloween Fell On A Weekend

Happy haunted internet, wild buddies. Today here is a semi-spooky Micromix, for your pre-Devul's Night partynap (arsonap?) or just to zone out to while you watch the leaves fall like a strange rain.
Micro #2/Friday October 30, 2009/3:16PM/Chilly walk, Ypsilanti Michigan
1.Funkadellic "Can You Get To That?"
2.Misfits "Hybrid Moments"
3.Rough Bunnies "My Baby Is Dead"
4.His Name Is Alive "Knock Is Open Wide"
5.Spacemen 3 "Walkin' With Jesus" (Demo)
6.Joan Of Arc "God Bless America"
Total Running Time: 15min 26sec

Download here.

Radio Show, Take 2

Not being on tour is kinda jarring. Sleeping a functionable amount of hours, maintaining friendships and relationships healthily, being in the same place everyday long enough to feel at ease and develop patterns that work for one's life? Weird. I'm reacting severely to all of these things (see below) and hoping it will be remedied by playing on WCBN tonight, which isn't like touring, but at least is like performing in the night time in a strange place. We're making up for a scheduled jam which we missed many months ago, so I hope it's worth the weight. We play around 10pm eastern standard time, and you can tune in at www.wcbn.org for live feed.

they told me to tell you

The "Cops Don't Care" 7" is finally coming around and available for pre-order. I know back in the early spring I posted up a thing here about us having some copies, and also some copies of our 12" on Troubleman, but these things take time. M'Lady's has pressed up 600 copies of this jawn, 100 on green vinyl. We will have a few for sale at shows, but if you wanna get in on the ground floor, check out the M'Lady's website and hollar at them over heaahhhh.

One Beak

Our first big tour is complete. Something like 32 shows in six weeks, jumping around the U.S. (and one sweet Canada show) scoffing at geography and personal space alike. I speak for both Ryan and myself when I say it was a totally amazing experience and we owe massive thanks to all the people who set up shows, housed us, took us around, partied and/or chilled with us, came to any of the shows, picked up a t-shirt or some music, etc, etc on forever. We couldn't list all the amazing friends, new and old here, and it goes beyond lists. Thank you for supporting our art and our mission, everyone.

I walked around Ypsilanti for about four hours today. Just walking in the Midwestern autumn, freaking out, decompressing, refreaking and eventually just thoughtlessly taking it all in. Went by several houses I used to live in, and the semi-ghetto apartment complex my family lived in when I was in 2nd grade. I thought it would look smaller in scale than when I used to pray someone would throw away a refrigerator box so I could garbage-pick it and breakdance on it with the 6th graders down the block. It didn't look smaller though, it looked way more beautiful than I remembered it. A lot more like a nice place to live and be than my memory had ever made space for. I still don't know exactly what it means.

We're probably gonna start working on our 2nd record in the coming weeks. More on that as it becomes even remotely more clear, but now here's some more documentation of the last month and a half...

We stopped to see my friend Zach in the wilderness of Montana. It's some Brokeback Mountain shit up there!! Here is Ryan in one of the last photographs ever taken with his trusty blue hoodie (aka "Blue Guy"), which was lost forever after our Austin tx show. See you at the crossroads, blue hoodie...



Madison Wisconsin. I saw Burrell st. that morning in Milwaukee and thought I should take a photo, but did not. Stupid stupid stupid!!!

Robbie B set up a show for us at Family in L.A. (I posted the set in a previous entry) and did a solo set of awesome, loud pulsing shit as The Urxed. Rob, you rule so much!!

Our new friends Nudge (minus some PDX friends from before) also played the Family jam and were equally ruling. This was actually the 100th City Center show.

After the somewhat early show in L.A. on the Eastside, we scurried over to the Echo where VC was drumming for The Raincoats and got us in on his list. We made it just in time for the start of the show, which threw me into a highschool nostalgia fugue. I started sending text messages to anyone I still knew from when I was 17 and listened to Odyshape on repeat all day long. The Raincoats show, when combined with seeing all the sweet people at our show and an amaziiiiinnngggg Ethiopian meal before we played all equated to L.A. being one of the stronger strong points.

Maybe a little too strong, because I stopped taking pictures for some reason after we got to Arizona. Not sure why, maybe because it turned more into a tour where we drove long hours and played shows every night at that point, rather than one where we kinda hung out all day eating food and buying books with friends. I did start recording our shows more at that point though, so here are a couple very different sets from the end of tour. This one is from Chapel Hill, where we drove all day from Lexington to play a really cracked-out but somehow deeply focused show. This was, by the end, pretty much our standard set of songs every night.

City Center at Nightlight, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. October 20, 2009
1.Killer Whale
2.Puppers
3.Thaw
4.Teardrop Children
5.Cookies
Total time: 30min 53sec

And this was the last show of the tour, in Cleveland Ohio. We played through a single input guitar amp, just our electronics and vocals. We'd been dazedly hanging around the gallery for about five hours before the show began, listening to an amazing reggae radio show called "Night Of The Living Dread" and talking about hardcore bands that have animals in them as the lead vocalists. There are more than you would expect!! The man screaming at the start of the tape is my friend Matt G. who I toured around the country with almost ten years ago.

City Center at Doubting Thomas Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio. October 23, 2009
1.Intro
2.If I Lose You
3.Poolside
4.Water Message
5.Teardrop Children
6.Dissolve
Total time: 16min 25sec

Champ

We made it through tour! More to come following decompression session, but for now....

still set

City Center at Family, Los Angeles, California. October 11, 2009
1.Puppers
2.Cloud Center
3.Killer Whale
Total time 17min 39sec

Juncture

Dear ____________,
Writing you from Oakland, about four weeks into our tour, still feeling like it's some kind of fanciful vacation with ocassional rumbling noise breakdowns. I saw the stuff you threw out the window on the 505. That was hillarious! Did I ever tell you about how I used to throw fruit in the yard at my old house in Ohio. I thought it was so funny for some reason. Got a book about DJs in Missoula and one that collects Huey Newtons' essays yesterday at ____ _______ in San Fran. I remember coming here on my first tour ever in 1996, it was so different and intense then. Probably still intense, I just feel it with different antennas. Maybe I was just more scared and all the night-times felt more dangerous at that point. Still thinking about _______ and trying to write thoughts down as they come to me. I can't find about half of the photos at all, but I wrote in pencil on the backs of these, little notes just so you know what they are. They're out of order but you probably get the idea. I saw the stack of pictures you left for me on the beach. I wasn't sure that was you. I hope this makes it in time for the party.
Lots of love,
__________


Chicago Bakery basement


Julian Lynch jammed with us in Madison, Wisconson

Vancouver, BC

We stayed here

Casa de Jaeo, Portland OR.
Came up with the idea of Irish Brewpub "Finnegan's Wake", then similarly themed bakery "Finnegan's Cake". Stretched it a little bit for gardening supply store "Finnegan's Rake" and then called it a day for Japanese restuarant and bar "Finnegan's Sake".

Cloaks


Donut doom

There Will Be Jams

Thanks to Chad from dubnarcotic.org for these awesome videos!

There Are Countless Formulas For Pressing Flowers

Tour is ruling so much, but we've had limited access to computers. Hanging in Urbana with the Polyvinyl Records crew, Adam was like "Dude, we'll put your tourdates on our website, no problem.." and they made this incredible thing. I have no idea how anything works. Please come to one of these shows and say hi, or check our myspace for updated shows, some of which we don't have full information about yet but things keep coming thru. Always on the way there!!

Date	Location	Venue	Other Artists	Tickets
09/23/09 - Wed	Chicago, IL	The Bakery
09/24/09 - Thu	Milwaukee, WI	810 Gallery
09/25/09 - Fri	Madison, WI	Memorial Union Terrace	Peaking Lights
10/01/09 - Thu	Vancouver, Canada	Little Mountain Studios	Tigerhead, Haunted Beard
10/02/09 - Fri	Portland, OR	Greymalkin Experimental Living Center	Calvin Johnson, White Rainbow
10/03/09 - Sat	Olympia, WA	The Northern	Calvin Johnson
10/06/09 - Tue	Portland, OR	Valentine's	Dreamdate
10/08/09 - Thu	San Francisco, CA	The Lab	Ben Bracken, Lovechains
10/12/09 - Mon	Phoenix, AZ	Trunkspace	Kane & Able, The Young Friends, Swimming in Venice
10/15/09 - Thu	Austin, TX	Baby Blue Studios	(((Sunset))), Silent Land Time Machine
10/18/09 - Sun	St. Louis, MO	The Firebird
10/19/09 - Mon	Lexington, KY	Hip Hop Gallery	Idiot Glee, Sunset
10/20/09 - Tue	Chapel Hill, NC	Nightlight	Sunset
10/21/09 - Wed	Bloomington, IN	Rachel's Cafe
10/22/09 - Thu	North Manchester, IN	The Firehouse
10/23/09 - Fri	Cleveland, OH	Doubting Thomas Gallery	Pimlo, Falling Rock
10/24/09 - Sat	New Detroit, MI	UFO Factory	F*ke Blood, Keep on Trash DJs

McVickars

First week of tour went amazing. Five to go. Very limited internet access has meant less updates, and less communication than usual, but in a sporadic styleee, all is well and all things rage on. Listening to lots of weird nostalgia radar jams in the car and sleeping in strange places, stopping for gas or food in the strangest ones possible. Here's some photographic evidence. The rest of our show info will go up tomorrow or the next day, or there's always more info on our myspace. Hope everyone is doing great and if applicable, hope to see you soon.

Nick getting the wine he so desperately needs.

Desolation Wilderness in the computer age.


The future.

Ryan in his natural habitat.

...and Fred in his.

Rulers.

Played with Animal Hospital in Boston. Stunning!

Hanson Records in Oberlin. Appointment only.


Wisdom Tooth

Pimlo

After the show in Oberlin I went to another party where they were burning crayons on the coffee table. They into some next level shit out there.

Went with Aaron & Erika and their son Leo to the annual "Doggy Do" hound parade in Oberlin. It was pretty intense!

I miss the comfort in being sad/ Hang out on clouds

Time To Go!

"Dinosaur Games" from our last practice before tour. Getting in the car now. See you out there!!!!

Jumpin

We leave for tour tomorrow morning! Holy hell.








(stunned pause...)






Ok. Thanks a million and a half to everyone who got in touch about hooking up shows last week. It was more helpful than you could imagine! Our tour is now mostly booked, with no serious holes or problematic stretches, just a few spots where shows are still getting worked out, down to the wire style. We spent most of yesterday screening t-shirts and most of the week practicing, and it's insane to feel like this thing is already here. SO EXCITED!!!

I posted up the first week of shows below, which are mostly midwest and east coast. If you can make any of them, you really should! If you read this blog, you probably know either me or Ryan and it would most likely be good to see you!!! (That or you could be some hateful, obsessed creeper, plotting horrible things and bad times.. But you should come out to the shows in that case, too. You could probably use a loving hug or some more enriching social exchanges..) If you're wondering about the other five weeks, or parts not listed below, a lot of the shows are up on our myspace and all of them will be soon. See you very very soon in the weird ass world!



City Center Fall Tour Week One:
Fri Sept 11: Europe Gyro, Kent Ohio
w/ Fulltime Ghost and maybe one more.
107 S Depeyster St, Kent, OH 44240. Show starts at 10pm, $3.00 Donation.

Sat Sept 12: Tank Space, New York City.
Resonator Mixed Tape Party
w/ Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun, & Shigeto.
354 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036. 7:30pm, $10.00.

Sun Sept 13: Cake Shop, New York City.
w/ Desolation Wilderness, The Intelligence, German Measles.
152 Ludlow St, New York, NY. 8:00pm, $10.00. We play at 9:00.

Mon Sept 14: Death by Audio, Brooklyn New York.
THE MAZE w/ Calvin Johnson, Arrington Dionyso, Desolation Wilderness & Regattas.
49 South 2nd St. between Kent & Wythe. 9:00pm, $7.00. ALL AGES.
This is part of a series of shows called "You Are Here" aka "The Maze". A three-week festival of performances taking place in a sculptural maze designed and installed within the Death By Audio show space. There is no prescribed order, start time or end time, duration, location of performance, relation of audience to performers, and so on. All of the participating artists have been asked to create something site-specific since the performances will, in fact, take place within the maze. With the K Records crew working together, I imagine this night will be completely amazing and full of weird ideas!

Wed September 16: Open Space Gallery, Baltimore Maryland.
w/ Lesser Gonzales Alvarez, Soft Cat & daytime.
2720 Sisson St. Baltimore, MD 21211. 8:00pm, $5.00. ALL AGES

(thanks for the flyer pic Michelle!)

Thur Sept 17: Coconut Grove, Jamaica Plain/Boston

w/ Animal Hospital

396 Centre St. in Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. 7pm, over by 9pm. $5.00. ALL AGES

contact terminalryan@gmail.com for more info.

Fri Sept 18: 123 South Professor St, Oberlan Ohio.

w/ Wisdom Tooth
HOUSE SHOW! ALL AGES! FREE! OBERLAN!

Sat Sept 19:TBA Ann Arbor, Michigan.
w/ Our Brother The Native & Blood Necklace.
House show coming together at undisclosed house. More information as it materializes.

Calling All Kids

Hey! Surprise! We've been working on booking a mammoth North American tour for the majority of the summer and it starts in less than two weeks!!! We're beyond stoked to play out and get to so many places for the first time ever, but like a lot of self-booked tours for new bands that not many people know about, it's got a lot of holes in it, and a ton of stuff that's working out very last minute. We're sending out the call to anyone who's interested and willing to work with us on a show to get in touch! Posted below are tentative dates, with specific areas we need help with shows in bold red letters. Haha.. All the TBAs (and there are a lot) are shows that are getting worked out right now. Swear!!! A revised list will post up before we leave, but if you can help us in any way, that would rule!!! Any alternative ideas to the routing we have here, etc is totally appreciated. Leave a comment with contact info or just hit us up at citycenternyc@gmail.com. Thank you so much! See you on the road...

City Center Fall Tour 2009
Thurs Sept 10: TBA.
Fri Sept 11: Europe Gyro, Kent Ohio. Not sure if any other bands are playing.
Sat Sept 12: Tank Space, New York City. w/ Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun, Shigeto.
Sun Sept 13: Cake Shop, New York City. w/ Desolation Wilderness, The Intelligence.
Mon Sept 14: Death by Audio, Brooklyn New York. w/ Calvin Johnson, Arrington, Desolation Wilderness, more?
Tues Sept 15: BROOKLYN SHOW HELP
Wed Sept 16: BALTIMORE SHOW HELP
Thur Sept 17: PHILADELPHIA SHOW HELP
Fri Sept 18: TBA New York City.
Sat Sept 19:TBA Michigan.
Mon Sept 21: CHICAGO/IOWA CITY SHOW HELP
Tues Sept 22: CHICAGO/IOWA CITY SHOW HELP
Wed Sept 23: CHICAGO SHOW HELP
Thur Sept 24: 810 Gallery Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Fri Sept 25: The Terrace, Madison, Wisconsin.
Sat Sept 26: ST PAUL/MINNESOTA SHOW HELP
Wed Sept 30: TBA Seattle/Vancouver.
Thurs Oct 1: TBA Seattle/Vancouver.
Fri Oct 2: House Show, Portland Oregon. w/ Calvin Johnson, White Rainbow.
Sat Oct 3: Northern, Olympia Washington.
Mon Oct 5:NORTHERN CALIFORNIA HELP
Tues Oct 6:MIDDLE CALIFORNIA/OAKLAND HELP
Wed Oct 7:OAKLAND/SF HELP
Fri Oct 9: TBA Los Angeles, California.
Sat Oct 10: TBA Claremont California.
Mon Oct 12: TBA Phoenix Arizona.
Tues Oct 13: TBA Tuscon Arizona.
Thurs Oct 15: House Show, Austin Texas.
Fri Oct 16: HOUSTON/DENTON/DALLAS SHOW HELP
Sat Oct 17: ANYWHERE BETWEEN TEXAS AND ST. LOUIS SHOW HELP
Sun Oct 18: Firebird, St Louis Missouri. w/ our boy Travis (not sure of his band name.)
Mon Oct 19: LEXINGTON/LOUISVILLE KENTUCKY SHOW HELP
Tues Oct 20: Nightlight, Chapel Hill North Carolina.
Wed Oct 21: Rachel's, Bloomington Indiana.
Thurs Oct 22:Firehouse, North Manchester Indiana.
Fri Oct 23: Doubting Thomas Gallery, Cleavland Ohio.
Sat Oct 24: TBA Detroit Michigan.

EXTRA CREDIT

Eleven days ago, my brother went to Japan for the first time in his life. This is a huge deal for him, because he is a Japanese Studies major at his school, and he has always been fascinated to the point of obsession with Japanese Culture. He also loves Japanese hardcore music, which I won't even pretend to talk about. He's kind enough to be constantly giving me records and CDs, but for some reason it's lost on me.

Anyway, today I was thinking about what his trip must be like, and I made this song that's kind of about it. One of the lines is "I've got a brother in the future" because he told me that Japan is like 11 or 12 hours ahead of us, so I keep telling people that he's in the future. I'm pretty sure everyone is sick of the joke, but come on - dude is living a time that hasn't even happened for us yet!! BUT IT HAS!!! OR IT IS?!?!

Hope the future rules, Zach.

City Center "Grasslands"

microglisten

We recently did an interview for a blog called Porch Of The Mystics, a really rad blog with interesting posts about music and culture leaning more towards the psychedelic end of the spectrum. One thing the blog does which I thought was a really great idea is post up a little mini-mix every Friday, just a few songs to capture a mood or a feel for that moment. I definitely started the summer strong posting up long, clunky mixes, but maybe the bite-size idea is easier to digest and take in overall? I loved the idea, so as with any idea that someone else has that I think is good, I appropriated it. Here's a miniature mix of a few songs from today to soak up the soft rain that's falling as the summer begins it's fade. Thanks P.O.T.M.!!!

Micro#1/Monday August 17/4:30pm, all the parks in Ann Arbor, Michigan
1.Mamas & Papas "No Salt On Her Tail"
2.Woods "To Clean"
3.The RFD "He Is Coming"
4.Lazy Smoke "Sarah Saturday" (Demo)
5.Eduardo Mateo "Tras De Ti"
6.The Hollies "Hey Carrie-Anne"
Total Running Time: 18min 8sec

Download here.

Pure Tones (Tonal Purity)

When I was in 4th grade how old was I then? Seven, eight, nine?
Pre-teen/pre-sex/pre-id/pre-most stuff priorities were different than they would be even a couple years later. By thirteen and fourteen the kids on the bus to freshman year of High School were already doin' it, smoking a pack a day, well over drinking Mad Dog 20/20 and talking about inhaling freon from their dad's heating and cooling business. I was always too scared for any of the above, or even to just buy the Metallica shirt and the British Knights and smoke the Marlboro reds like any self-respecting burnout peer of mine was doing. Months signified insurmountable change at those ages, and I guess at every age depending on some variables. At nine, before the maelstrom, the most important thing was getting permission to spend the night at each other's houses, and giddy terror over whatever horror movie was coming up and if we'd get to see it and if it was real or not, and always the radio on to some weird top 40 or late-night Quiet Storm R&B Detroit station, feeling time evaporate completely and not sure if I'd fallen asleep or just sat in the beanbag chair in still contemplation all night, mesmerized by the newness of everything and the soft MIDI keyboard tones that filled the basement.

Oppressive Heat

Our band equivalent of a significant other Silk Flowers are out now on tour, Chicago today and the west coast/northwest in the coming days. If you are in earshot of my voice and these venues, go see them play, they rule!!! Check out their blog here for more info.