Summer Again

The Deli mag just published an interview we did this summer before our tour. It dates us a little bit when we start talking about all the mainstream hip-hop radio jams that were blowing our minds at the moment, but such is time. The whole thing can be read here.

Also: The new Joanna Newsom song is ruling my winter moments like no other. It makes me wonder what kind of weight a songwriter so widely adored must feel at all times. Does she know exactly how many people have fallen in love to the back drop of her songs? Or that some people certainly can't cry without help from them? Or that there's endless, literally endless threads of inspiration coming from the seeds those songs keep planting? I wonder, if you were in those shoes if you'd even have a way to think about it.

New Dance Show

The New Dance show was a live-party/dance/variety show on a local Detroit network from around 1988 to 1995. It was kinda like a low-budget Soul Train, but way more hood, way more intense and way more Midwest. I would see it after school almost every day when I was in elementary school. I'm finding more and more clips online of this show, and another pre-New Dance Show jam called The Scene, which ran in Detroit for 12 years before NDS. The one episode that stands out strongly in my mind is when the entire audience/dancers/party was a group of inner city boy scouts and girl scouts, all ages 8-13 or so. I wasn't old enough to understand the various levels of awkwardness, confusion and misunderstanding afoot there, but part of me still knew it was fucked up. Haven't been able to find clips of that anywhere.

For The Ages

What the flyer for tomorrow's show doesn't tell you is that we've combined forces with some friend's canceled show and now it's a sick monster jam!! The entire program for Lillyfest, an all ages early show at Ann Arbor teen center The Neutral Zone is:
Us (delay pedals)
Secret Twins (flying V)
Blood Necklace (actual blood)
Ultrasounds (molten wood)
The White Ravens (boiled hemlock)
Sault Ste. Marie (orange amp stamps)

It will rule! Show starts at 7pm and is over by 11. If you need any more info, just comment here or email us. This will be our first show of the new year, with lots more on the horizon!

Bonker-rhythms

Speaking of remixes, out of the blue my old frien Christian sent me this sick as hell remix of the last song on my recent solo jawn "Night Times". His band is called Coyote Clean Up and this dub of an otherwise droney jam takes it to someplace I sincerely could have never imagined. IT ALSO RULES!!! Check out a free album of theirs, up for download right here. Thanks Christian!! Now publish that thing I wrote for your zine about Joy Division in 1998!

Fred Thomas "Night Time VII (CCU DUB) (she doesn't like Dan Evans mix!)"

New Remix: Daytime Television "New YYYear"

Our friend Jon Lockhart's recently been cultivating new sounds under the name Daytime Television. Super rumbly, sometimes blown-out, part spiritual, part dead-to-the-world jams that go so many places. I worked on a remix of one of his songs between the hours of 8:30am and 10:45am this morning, and the strange fog rising off the snow, the Christmas tree abandoned in my front yard and the 18 oz of whole cashews burrowing in my stomach like newborn baby boars resulted in this song. There's gonna be a live band, potentially with more members soon, and maybe a tour to follow. Stay tuned to the DT Blog, where other new jams and remixes go up at an alarming rate.

Daytime Television "New YYYear (City Center Remix)"

New Obsession: This One Song by Bat For Lashes

Around the time when TLC's "No Scrubs" came out, maybe some of you were just being born, maybe some of you remember the era... There were a ton of answer songs ("No Pigeons", "No Rats", etc.) but more than anything, the song was on the radio about 16 times an hour. I remember being at Warn's house and kind of stumbling onto the chords for it on an acoustic guitar. He said "Just don't. You're figuring out the chords, and then you're gonna look on the internet for the lyrics and then you're doing a cover of it at your shows and it's just not worth it." Eleven years later, I wonder where I would have been had I done the emo-Americana (Eormicana?) rendition of "No Scrubs" when the iron was hot.

I might be relatively late to the party with my love for this song, but man, what a killer. In an weird way. I feel like so much widely popular music of the day is really boring, but not in a completely awful way. More so, one where repetition and reference have become tools of songcraft more than detractors from it. This Bat For Lashes song, easily a year or two old, is such an incredible faux-Kate Bush song about nothing (seriously, it's basically a fake love song to the protagonist from The Karate Kid movies) with one part and only slight dynamic variables throughout. Somehow, the boringness and blitheness of it is part of some bigger picture that's kept the song on repeat for me for the last two weeks and made me spend a few hours today recording a janky cover. Not quite "No Scrubs", but a boy can dream.

City Center "Daniel" (Bat For Lashes cover)

Last Time Caller

Thanks to everyone who has been so enthusiastic about the Spring Street package deal. In the first seven days we've gotten interest for most of the 50 available slots, but we still have ten or so slots left, so if you're interested in this deal, please get in touch soon. The deal will only be available for the next three days, but we'll have copies of both the 12" and new 7" for sale until they're gone, or at shows, etc. You can order via paypal buttons here.

And thanks also to Impose Magazine for this radical write-up about most of the new projects we've been working on this year so far.

Above is a photo of the "Feel Better" cassette, all 50 copies of which are fully duplicated and ready to go. Below are some photos of what I made for dinner the last few nights:

Tuesday night was Madras Sambar on a bed of rice with red lentils on the side. Totally great, but nothing too out-there, just some standard faux-Indian shiz.

Monday night??? Oh damn. Steamed-then-baked green peppers stuffed with fried rice, the fried rice cooked up with cherry tomatoes, actual dried Michigan cherries instead of raisins, fresh basil, onions, garlic, a mesh of spices and then served with garlic focaccia bread. KILLER DINNER!!!

New Work: Spring Street

Spring Street is a steep North-South running street on the westside of Ann Arbor, Michigan. At the very top is Hunt Park, a hilly spot with a playground, tennis courts and a community garden. It's the highest point in the city, and though the trees of the park obscure the skyline to some extent, it's a different view for sure. This summer I lived on Fountain, a couple streets over and spent a lot of time walking the 3/4 of a mile downhill on Spring, or back up, or pausing at the park.

UPDATE: All of these packages have been spoken for and are now actually shipped out and probably in their new owner's hands. Thanks so much to everyone who ordered from us and to everybody who's been so amazingly supportive. Hope you like the music!

The records pictured above are our new 12" on Quite Scientific Records. It's called "Spring St.", and is composed of 4 songs we recorded this summer. The records are clear, one-sided vinyl with a two color silkscreen that I designed screened onto the non-playable side so that it comes through as you play the record. After a little break in releases, we suddenly had a few things coming out, so rather than just announce the new records with links where to get them, we came up with this mega-deal;

Available to the first 50 people who respond, a package with the Spring Street 12" (limited to 500 copies), the Cops Don't Care 7" on green wax (limited to 100 copies, the rest are on black vinyl), the "Feel Better" cassette (a 60min tape of gnarled out delay frost, exclusive to this offer and limited to 50 copies) and a new limited City Center shirt, also exclusive to this offer and limited to 50. The package costs $40 postage paid in the U.S. and $60 overseas. Because the shirts are limited, we're taking orders and getting people's sizes first before we have them made, so please include your t-shirt size for a typical Amer. Apparel style shirt. The design isn't scanned or visible yet, but I made it and it's a nice idea, I think it will look really good on a shirt.

I know a few people have already gotten the Cop's Don't Care 7", so if you wanted to get just the 12", that's fine too. Just email us at citycenternyc@gmail.com or leave a comment and we'll sort out the details. Or if you had any other questions or concerns. Otherwise, we'll be accepting orders for the next ten days, or until the first 50 spots are taken. This is the super-ambitious idea I mentioned a few times in previous posts. We're both really excited about all of these new releases, as musical endeavors and as art objects as well. In the present state of commerce, economy and the way music is listened to, I think it's going to be more and more important to meld the two. Thanks so much for your continued support and please get in touch if you have any questions.

New Record: "Night Times"

I haven't been playing solo for most of last year cause me and Ryan have been concentrating on City Center so much, but over the course of 2009 I was working on this new collection of solo songs called "Night Times". I finished it just before the new year, and here it is. I played almost everything, except my friend Jacob Danziger plays violin on one song, there's a sample of Leah Paul playing flute somewhere in there and some source audio of a very young Amber Fellows chatting with her friends on the last song. Some songs have shown up on this blog in different forms, or the same forms, but most are pretty new. I hope you enjoy it in the context of a record, or in any context. If anyone is interested in getting a CDR with artwork and a lyrics, I made some of those as well. If you want one just email me or post a comment here with your email and I will get in touch with you.

Fred Thomas

"Night Times"

1.Night Time

2.Night Time II

3.Anything

4.Skeletons Join Hands

5.Like The Phantoms

6.Obvious

7.Civilized Fog

8.Night Time IV

9.People Don't Die

10.Faultless

11.Pumpkin Seeds

12.Night Time III

13.I Want To Die In Your Face

14.Her Hands Were Holograms

15.Night Time VII

Total Running Time: 36min 36sec

Download the entire record here. Thanks a lot for listening!

New Year: 2010

Amazing to be alive, completely. Steven was walking with me down the street yesterday and said "Have you ever had ecstasy? And not even the drug?" I knew exactly what he was getting at, in a non sexual, chemical or even rock n' rollual way. I've been feeling so excited lately about the semi-arbitrary promise of a brand new time, even if it's just a marker of time. The promise seems important, and the idea that a decade quietly tipped it's hat and tried to walk out the room before anyone noticed the mess it made is insanely exciting to me. I see friends when I open the door and I think about shared things that made us laugh together and the laughter together is bigger than anything I've felt alone before. The imprint it leaves shakes off ecstasy when the laughter rattles. I guess there's not a lot left besides information and the moments we share, and sometimes the two are at odds. But moving when possible towards the joy, I accept it all and love the new times.