a cap/a mountain

its weird, i have been in this odd transitional mind set as far as where and what the band is doing at the moment,... when you throw the plans out the window and burn up a full year touring, you are def a different and new band by the end of that year then the band who started it all off, ----last january 6th, a tuesday night in bushwick at goodbye blue monday in the early cold of 2009. at the time we didn't even realize what our plans for the year would be and what we would achieve...we started it then and this past sunday in the east village of nyc, we ended at mercury lounge. 100 shows. a show within every 4 days. yeah, work.

i know that i learned more about really functioning in a serious band situation this past year then i have ever in my musical life yet,..and i have been playing in bands since 1994. --i have yet to come away from a year feeling so close to the work that i have done - so much like it defines me that i am sitting in recluse with a bush of weed and a lot of PAVEMENT and tons of thoughts of what exactly should be assigned to the clipboard of 2010, knowing full well to leave room on said board for the things that will come across our paths stemming from the work we have already done and continue to do.

i want to have a record, (a new full length, upwards of 12 to 14 songs) recorded and out ASAP.. but i am forgetting that if we are going to do this right, the reality of the new record being out anytime before the summer is slim..... in just thinking about the time needed to map all this material out that has been spilling over the sides for months now. - shit, we have been so crazy with just the touring aspect of this stuff that we have barely had a second to really sit with all this, and now that we have done the 100th show and 09 is officially over, it still almost feels like we need some time to let it sweat out and settle in.

but it would work very nicely for us to have the record ready for the summer and then do our cross country touring cycles from june thru sept and Europe in Oct... that could very well be how the year shapes up for us.....

the real truth of the moment is - we have a brand new live EP, just released in november of 09 and we have the 100 shows to use as another stack to add to the mountain. we are in some interesting shape. we also are going to have our work cut out for us with choosing which material we should use and focus on for the new record. we know we need to make a record that really defines what we are about so we can show all these mutherfukkers what we can do without any of their help or influence..but, we have a batch of songs that were already written and ready around the recording of Exile Baby, a few songs that we have no idea of how they did not wind up on Exile Baby and then we have another batch of songs that are entirely brand new and all really have to be considered for the record.

in reality, i only wish we were the position where a double record would help us. unfortunately, we are def not in that position, we know the next record needs to be a solid and blunt force representation of the best of what this band does, so a 25 songs double record won't be our approach - but we have the material to go that way if we wanted to. its gonna be tough. ha.

its so strange, its like a record has this whole proper life span cycle to it. --1st you have to write the songs. then you record them. then you mix and master. then art and other essentials... push it into the stream by whatever means possible and then go and perform.... and perform. ---we have been in the performance band mode for quite a bit - we can go and do a show (replete with 4 hour pre and post drive and load in up stairs or down through a basement) in our sleep right now, but having to go to the studio and write songs and have fun again is seeming foreign.

everything about being a musician can be so epic and so minor at the same time... its hard to keep yr head from exploding or yr ass from shaking out the race.

i think i might try to do a journal thing on the 100 shows from 09, to put out on our blog or something over the next few months... keep you posted, i should keep me posted too

the blowjob party and 57

....wow, 6 months pass since the last blog on here.... its almost as relevant as CMJ. - anyway, speaking of.... after showcasing "officially" for the last 3 years at CMJ (2006, 2007 & 2008) - they deemed us not worthy of a showcase this year... i guess our work ethic is a tad off par for the usual .... we just did our 89th show and are putting out a new LIVE record in NOV......oh well.

if you know us, or maybe if you've been around me personally - you might have heard the "CMJ-Stickering" story.... it involves a lot of alcohol and me and a late summer night last year and the lovely glass front doors of CMJ and a bunch of Cinema, Cinema stickers////i am sure who ever was the intern that morning who had to clean up my obnoxious mess..is prolly the showcase coordinator this year...

god bless, good luck...
my bad

i would be lying if i acted like i hadn't wanted to play the festival this year, so i guess it is relevant and i am being a jerk - i also know that its been non-stop touring and hard work over the last 6 months that has left me not attending to this blog - so i guess it is still relevant as well - and i know i am a jerk. but a winning one...

i do know i am blasting FOURTET right now and wondering why everyone isn't issued a copy of some of his stuff, along with their birth certificate... on the way in this place...

and a toke.
ok

we have our own awesome show this week - that we put together... as an "unofficial" cmj party for Bushwick Music Studio...its called THE BLOWJOB PARTY.. its pretty sick and has us still happy that we get to play a meaningful show this week amongst all the completely meaningless junk...

its at BMS (155 Waterbury street) on this friday 10/23 - 1st band is at 8pm... some kind of donation at the door - cheap beer and you can byob...

dj MR D will be spinning all night before, between and after the bands...

the bands go like this

8pm - renminbi
9pm - the tryptics
10pm - pet ghost project
11pm - spiral beach
12am - cinema, cinema
1am - tiger! shit! tiger! tiger!

also---

we have decided to define our year in 2009 of playing live - with a live EP - its called - "57" - and can referred to as "the 57 EP". it is being released via THE LUMIERE LABEL on tues 11/24/2009 and we will be having a release party in its honor on that evening at PUBLIC ASSEMBLY.

the EP clocks in at just over a half hour and features 5 tracks culled from our Thursday, JULY 17th 2009 show at SouthPaw in Brooklyn - which happened to be the 57th show of the year for us. 2 of the songs, ("Cycles" & "PhoneCall") are brand new and not available in any other recorded form. -----

57 ep (the Lumiere Label - ttl3 - 11/09)

1-DryDive - 7.25
2-I Don't Wanna Be Yr Boyfriend - 6.53
3-Cycles - 7.02
4-PhoneCall - 3.46
5-The Natural Rx - 8.28

it will be avail at all major and minor digital sites (itunes, emusic, etc) as well as some of the mom and pop shops in the ares we tour (that also carry EXILE BABY) and at our shows.

as you can see by the track time's - there isn't a single - but we will be making one of the songs available in early November as a free download through this website and we will be offering a deal for a free download of EXILE BABY with every new purchase of the 57 EP.

stay tuned.......

doing 100 shows in a year wasn't enough for a DIY band on their own to do - we had to release a record also, so we could feel productive.

isis unveiled!

i dunno, i've been hearing the term "psychedelic" used as a term to describe some aspects of my band lately. um, do NOT get me wrong....i love music that i guess is defined as "psychedelic".... its just that i never think of it in those terms... to me its more like "head" music. i guess its the same difference. i dunno. i mean, we def set out to make a HEADPHONES record with Exile Baby. all my favorite records, or..lemme rephrase that..many of the records that have affected me and my ears at the right times in my life, have been records that were recorded with the aim of a 3-D experience. not just volume and slabs of concrete, not just grey clouds and the metallic morning... but, DEPTH. deep like the shining, yo.

i'm the saviours son/with the holy veins.

its interesting, to say the least, when hearing other people's opinions of yr work. you know, as we all know.. that everyone has an asshole and an opinion. the thing is...you need to always know yrself and trust yrself so you don't let random opinions EVER influence you to change who you are or what you do. if you believe the great opinions then in plain matter of fact, in keeping order with trying to attain some sort of plausible code of honesty with which to base yr belief system and ethical ground work, then you must believe the HORRID opinions as well. so going into it - you know, or at least i know..for my own sanity..that its more or less meaningless.

take yr favorite band,...wait - bad example. ok, start again./ take a band you really dig or dug at one point. one you feel like made really good music at the beginning of their carear - just as a random, but sort of specific example. now, i'm not talking to the people out there who just decide to dislike a band once it grows into something bigger than the small band it was when you first discovered for yrself (believe me, after finding Kings Of Leon in 2003, when no one knew who they were and following them through their carear..through some fearless records that almost got them dropped from their label --and won them fans in the UK, not the USA and pushing them on every friend i had and anyone who would listen, like i was fukkin street-teaming that shit....and then seeing their potential realized 6 years later this past january on the stage at MSG with some friends of mine on the floor of the GARDEN..and watching them owning that historic building, but feeling a total disconnect from that band that i fell in love with................................... i know what its like to have yr feeling change about a band. it was so weird having my mind blown by this great band... but also seeing half an arena full of tween's with parents and mid-50s business men with their little adultery dates all pumping their fists along to "sex on fire" & "use somebody" the songs that have been pushed from the new record to top40 radio...albeit good songs, but lacking any of the DANGER that made this band great.... my feelings were forced to fade a bit. i will still buy KOL records and support them cause i know they are amazing. but its just different.)

anyway.....
that was not an insult...i just had KOL come on the random of my ipod...it just happened to be "four kicks"...and that song is amazing. so fukk me.
but fukk you 1st.

this is my blog dikk, i say what i want. that new record is good, but watered down and polished...... overcooked after being underfed.

what i was getting at, pre-sidebar.... was that if you take a band that yr familiar with and fond of, one that you have felt has changed directions or strayed a bit over the course of their carear... either into new "still-good" but just different heights, or have gotten just plain bad lows.... i can guarantee it was the infectious agent of the outside opinion that influenced them as only such agents can... to veer away from who they really were for reasons that weren't there or didn't exist within themselves previously.. but for ones that were created out of the wedlock of outside voices and the air around their ears.

people telling them it didn't "fit" or "have a single" or that there was "more $" to be had with different haircuts and toned down personality... the people that want you to be yrself the least are the ones that these bands probably listened to. these bands are probably richer than god or yr mama or both combined. these bands are like corporations. these bands also might have gone straight in the toilet and the drummer is back working at the meineke shop on cortelyou road again... either way...they didn't stick to their guns...i guess.

my boots are in the mud... & BOTH of my guns are drawn.

i am glad i am in this band because this band does what it wants. part in parcel of..and example/evidence of the previous statement is that we made our record with the aim of a 3-D listening experience and that of following a story line with peaks and chasms and plot points and dramatic arcs. we made this record in 2 days of recording and 1 day of mixing. marathon sessions. we made this record without the help of ANY computers. that's right. and every cynic musichead, engineer, or douche who think they know something is saying right now "dude, why in these times..would you EVER do that?"....

simple. because we could.

when you raise an open hand, in this place without a wall...the words just fall

come on now, tell me a story...

the floor in my apartment is like a sheet of ice beneath my feet. i have my old "OG" ipod spinning thru the half-light of late nite on shuffle, this bitch is a CRIP>>>>>>>>>>>....S.D.R.E. is making my toes get warm again.

it's more fun to keep this blog almost "out of" real time,...like - i thought i would start it to relate news about cinema in more of an off-the cuff manner, with a tongue and a cheek and a slap on the back and a cough and a ball grab and the like...but i find more and more to do the 'catch-up'.. 'show based'..-- blog things (mini-reviews of how we destroyed the walls the nite before out on tour or home in the bk or the nyceasy)....on myspace and thats linked to facebook and they are all tuned into spacebook and fat city and mid-control of central america who partners with mind-control of southeast detroit and hitmakers 2018 and todd worrell and papa john creech and the food network,.. so why bother wasting letters here about the same and the same when i can just go and be and do and go and be and be and be...

NEIL YoUNG's "After The GoldRush" just came bleeding from the wound in the side of my CRIP..... oh, she nasty. dag nasty.

floor is still kinda cold.....

christ, i love myself...... no, re-phrase that, that's not true...no, no -- i make myself laugh!...-that's it,.... i like to hang out with..myself... that's more like it.

"i was hoping for replacement when the sun burst through the sky" - neil

so, back during tour in january, at the saint in NJ... we had a particularly powerful evening....the show is commited to digital memory in the form of a dvd that we want to figure out how to post as a free download or something on our site..as soon as we can figure out how to get lights and electricty turned back on in our apartment (this computer is running on the cinema back-up generator, the rest of the ship has sunk and we are drowning..and still we smile a country mile, you can't steal it from our face you fukker! never)......

alright back to story...

mid-set, we are really leaning on "Altamont"... like just pedal down to the floor-board...........and its a real moment. we boil that bitch all the way up past-fever and then it just explodes like a fire-work and trickels down in a blast of Nirvana...which is just shimmering and white.... so, we achieved all that whilst i banged away on 5 of the 6 strings intended to make up a full functioning normal set up electric guitar, as i had popped my D-string during the 1st verse of the song/////so, we grind into a brutal -start and stop- ending for ALTA and i arrange my SG (the guitar at the center of so much of my playing, at the center of this story and the SOLE GUITAR used to record EXILE BABY) [that's right assholes, i got all that sound out of one guitar! the same guitar for the whole record and overdubs! how you like me now?].... i set the SG against my amp to feedback after we finish ALTA and to fill the air and space created now by the fact that i have to grab my STRAT and whip it on and set it up for battle.

once the STRAT is on, i do something that i invented on the fly on stage last year at pianos one nite during the same situation... it's this thing where i play the guitar plugged in and feedbacking back with the guitar that i just strapped on my back... i call it "guitar's necking"............

my floor is cold but its not my face that rests on it any longer and my feet are made for endurance.

...................so, the sounds emitted are exactly what i want, like a narcotic that helps to further immerse me in the bliss that i find on stage... so as i transition out of that to unplugging the SG and plugging in on the STRAT.... to ensure a seamless and cool looking movement... i just drop the SG as if it was a man standing with noose round his neck and the floor beneath being pulled.... it fell rubber legged but died hard and the STRAT took the spot light for the rest of the show (if you coulndnt tell, i love my guitars)

we finish the gig and the nite is one of the better ones in cinema history (the set list is up on oneof our myspace blogs..) next night we are in Virginia for the next gig and we get to the venue and i take out my guitars to re-string them and voila! no tuning peg where the D tuning peg should be! i of course thought that i could try to fix it quickly with a pair of plyers and will power. that shit was wrong.

thank goodness the dude who runs our label, a lovely fellow named gary g, turned to me in the midst of my panic stricken discovery and offered me his beautiful GOLD american STRAT until further notice right there on the spot, mid-tour.... that's why you have relationships with certain people in this game, for instances just as those....

needless to say, i have made that GOLD STRAT into the EV STRAT....

but, i pine for my SG, Father of Exile.

my feet are warm because no one is like me.

i think we're going crazy...things don't even phase me

Beck is the shit.

fukkin freezing sunday morning in brooklyn...coming on the back heels of a shining weekend...speaking of heels, i destroyed my left heel a few shows ago..it was november19 at fontana's and during "UFO" (which is a new song that we absolutey love to play, it makes us both so happy...like we are juggling with thunder...dude, this riff is like iommi/morello-ville and paul literally has sex with his kit,...)......so, the coda of said musical composition is intrinsically based upon a tempo shift and vibe change of the chordal tones... you see, we bring it to a fever pitch that graduates up with a fast forward 3 note punk riff and paul running straight away in the pocket...i use my octave pedal on this one so i am pounding up high on the neck (the A string at the 12th fret is my starting position) running between A, C, & D (a combo that just likes to work together, ask any player) but the depth of the sound translates itself to a dual boom...a low and a high... ---so, we are running forward at full speed and then when you don't expect shit (which is where we like to live in songs, in the shadow that you don't see and the caller you least expect)....paul fans the tempo out into a swing..a fukkin ROKK swing... and i drop down to the middle of the neck and just SQUEEZE a groove out...

that groove is the reason why my heel is FUCT, currently...

the fun involved in the process that we must undertake to produce the stuff of which i spoke in the last paragraph is the reason why my heel is FUCT, right now...

the air in the room that we suck up with this beast that we call "UFO" is the reason why my heel is FUCT, and i don't mind...cause its worth a limp.

& of course i won't go to the doctor...instead of giving me some medicine for my pain, which would be lovely and correct, at least in my opine,..lots of medicine, tons, mountains..,...he would just send me to a foot doctor (podiatrist, whatever) who is gonna x-ray it, see i chipped something and cast/wrap me up... and that would slow me down. and i don't do slow.

Beck is amazing.

so the reason that this is such a shining weekend was our return home to brooklyn gig on friday evening at an amazing awesome outta sight divine new supercool warholian interesting space that i uncovered in bushwick called VANISHING POINT on meserole street. if you weren't at our gig on friday nite or if you haven't been to this place or you haven't heard of it...do me a favor, do yrself a favor... go there tonite or tomorrow or i guess, you really should check the show calender cause its a loft space that has no sign out front and it makes all the "name" venues that we all scurry around like rats to shit to please with head counts and vests eat CRAP. VPoint is the bomb. we exploded like bombs, "Bombs & Beautiful Skylines" is actually one of the 1st songs the new c,c wrote in jan and it was the closer of the 1st few gigs if the year, it since has sat on the bench, but it just came to mind,...anyway, yeah, we exploded and the whole evening was sweet.

you see, i booked it out... i am so invloved with all things cinema that booking for the band is a function that works for me as simple as a sneeze... natural, identical, automatic..... i just got tired of playing on whatever bill will be thrown our way...i mean, we still play them, no matter what because we never turn down a show, no matter where or when, we just couldnt live with ourselves if we did.... but i take the opportunity nowadays when i can to curate an evening at a place... did it in june at don pedro's at king khan and the bbq show wound up closing out the night and teen fun was so much teen fun and movie were way cool, did it this past april at matchless and had fun with black taxi and their crazy shit..and big bang tv and the izzy's....

so, in the midst of doing a small new england tour over everyone else's holiday weekend i decided to undertake the task of putting together a great show at VP... and shit man, i am not a "say-er" i'm a "do-er" and i pulled it off.

we had chocopine open the night... they were recco'd to me by ryan from the muggs who also is a DJ ..DJ Humdrumboy... who spun at the affair and who's taste is impeccable.... good job humdrum,... so chocopine are a TIGHT 3 piece who play such a cool and refreshing color of music...and such kind dudes,....good stuff...

then we had pow wow!, who we played with at matchless a few weeks ago (the night after i destroyed my heel! haha...11/20)..and they are just the most fukkin fun band... i love these guys... 2 dudes who totally go for it... again, refreshing to find people doing inventive and cool new things... and with such sincerity... great stuff...

and we had the new york howl... the mighty howl! to close the show with they're time warp fuzzed out toked up shit... so much fun to watch another good band after you finish... a wild night at goodbyeblue monday with us and them is going to be happening very soon... i can just feel it..

we played 3rd...and we played like it was the last show we would ever do... thats kinda become the theme... bottom of the 9th, 3-2 count... what do you do? you show the fukk up is what you do. right then. right now.

you show the world the reason why you were born, the reason yr still alive and the reason why you must communicate,...cause it burns inside you.

i think friday night was one of the best... although last sunday night in Maine i said the same thing, and the night i FUCT up my heel, we kinda said the same thing...and the nite at lit all the way back in the 1st week of NOV..haha..i recall us saying that... and then in cincinatti we said that,,,......i don't know.. i just think we are consistent.

we show up.

i must say, the lighting and stage of VP is so conducive as well, just natural... perfect to perfom and emote on...

we had LOVED the set that we did at Geno's up in Maine... it was the following:

11/30 @ Geno's Rock Club - Portland, ME

1-DryDive
2-The Natural
3-Rx
4-Adult Themes
5-The Cycles & Territories of Winter's Past
6-I Don't Wanna Be Yr Boyfriend
7-PhoneCall
8-UFO

and....we had said that we were gonna bring that set out again in brooklyn, just because it felt so right.. why not wear the same suit twice??....... but of course, as most things function in cinema land - precise & with tact, but always on the fly.... we went for it with no set list... the script was flipped when Paul turned to me in midst of music earlier in the evening and suggested opening with "UFO", which we had planned on closing with, so i knew then that we were just gonna freak the cheek on yr hot spot...

it shook out in an amazing way... like the hair of rapunzel dude... this shit was a vine to climb away on... the set was magic and i thnk we made the walls shake.. but that's just what it felt like to me... it was this:

12/5 @ Vanishing Point - BK, NY

1-About A Girl (Nirvana)
2-I Don't Wanna Be Yr Boyfriend
3-Altamont
4-Adult Themes
5-The Natural
6-Rx
7-An Obstacle
8-UFO
9-The National Anthem (Radiohead)
10-National League Lament
11-PhoneCall

what can i say? i think i said it all on friday nite. i think i will leave it all inside of Vanishing Point. i think i wanna go test out my heel, take a shower and blast some punk rock and take a toke of sunday. i think i will.

Beck is rad.

dear science....

by TVOTR happens to be the 5th record, since my love affair began with music that began over 20 years ago (with the "Good Morning Vietnam" soundtrack - all 50s and 60s gems, GN'R's "Appetite For Destruction", & Dylan's "Bringing it all Back Home") that i have listened to EVERY day since i have acquired it........ just overwhelmingly done proper, so much so that it lends itself to everyday play.

when i got KID A in Oct 2000, i listened to it for at least 3 whole months straight, almost solely. i couldnt grasp the fact that radiohead dare to fufill their obvious commitment to excellence by following up my personal favorite record of all time, OK COMPUTER with a masterpiece. O.C. meant so much to me when it came out in 97 at 19 years old. i lived and died with that record.

the 1st record i believed in as a sign post of change and forward motion was when i heard DECADE by neil young (DECADE is a 10 year retrospective tracing most of the late to early 70s Neil catalog and some 60s gems. it was a double record of my pop's and a double cd of mine. i learned every strum, chord, time signature, tuning, lyric, approach and execution to both records (4 sides). to this day, if i were to have an acoustic in my hand or on my lap, i would naturally strum out a NEIL tune as soon as one of my own. no other guitar player has such different identities on acoustic and electric guitar. neil is my hero. neil is a one and only type player. he plays a hard lined melodic lead guitar line that dresses the song to accompany "Like A Hurricane", he experimented with sound manipulation & feedback with his 1994 record, done for Kurt Cobain, SLEEPS WITH ANGELS, he recorded a concept record about the environment in 2003s GREENDALE, and he continues to be one of the few veteran artists still creating. a constant innovator and vital part of the music history in his 30+ years and regarded as the godfather of grunge, Neil Young continues to innovate and play by his own rules.

now that you read this like a baby-ass blog and not realize what i mean, over and over... here is some cocaine...

i never took a guitar lesson. my father, a graphic & cartoon artist and subsequently, the coolest dude i have ever met, was also a guitar player and when he and i re-met (broken, .....actually - yet to form - families of the early 80s - he is only 16 years my senior and he and i were estranged from 86 on) in 1992, at 14, he taught me guitar, top to bottom. he showed me some chords, he supplied some essential early knowledge (yr right hand [strumming hand] is more important than yr left [picking hand] - still the best advice ever!!!! & (odd for a 14 year old to try to comprehend) make love to and care for the guitar but don't just fukk it - ever, you can do more with a blues scale and two strings than a 56 note run.

for a bit of backdrop, i asked for a guitar at 12 years of age. i became obsessed with the music i had inside of me and i knew i would learn somehow. i received a second- hand, black Epiphone acoustic on august 22nd 1991. within a moments inspection of said guitar, i claimed, "i will never learn this thing." it had over 20 frets and 6 strings and just looked to me like a typical math project. (i hate math) i joined my 1st band in 1994,and although i brought in some musical ideas via my new learning process on guitar, my main job was to focus on singing lead in the band and freaking out. it was 1994 when i joined RISE. we were a hard alternative 90s outfit, actually kind of challenging for the time. anyway, i would strum away on the few "open chords (-not barre chords-) that i had learned by this point and continue and continue.

HOW IT FEELS TO BE SOMETHING ON by sunny day real estate happens to be one of the most important records of my life and again falls into the "listen day after day" category. i spun it for months straight, telling friends that it was a record to be listened to every day.

IN UTERO came out in september of 1993 and i could not believe the power there within did exist. nirvana found a way to get stronger and more defined.

and ultimately.....to backtrack, when i first learned how to play guitar, my favorite record and the most influential on my playing i would have to say was STICKY FINGERS by the stones. songs synch from deep grooves and free jams, more natural then sunshine, ...matter of fact, like exile, no sunshine - but a lot of shade and good darkness. the stones are the only ones who can do that, no one plays like keef.

honorable mention are fugazi's IN ON THE KILL TAKER from 1993, as well as gza'a LIQUID SWORDS, from the same year. 2 records that had exponential effect & growth potential.

i had yet to open up to hip-hop, fully, by the release of LIQUID SWORDS. let it be known that this past SEPT i attended a show of GZA performing the LIQUID SQORDS record at irving plaza in nyc and i was the 1st motherfukker agianst the stage hand-grabbing with RZA and throwing down proper. LIQUID SWORDS, is to me, as important as anything that Eric Clapton has EVER done.

hang me. i know some Clapton fans who are child molesters.

dude.... 100 watts of punk could'nt save us from the scream.

everyone who pretended to like me is gone...

it makes more sense to keep a daily record/overview of what goes on in band affairs via this thing.... with blogs so often used as these strange axes that wield power or arch dictators who profess what's cool or helpful tool's (haha..tool) to direct yr proceedings, why not use it to track movement in real time? (i always feel the need to make our "news updates" and "myspace blog" more of a straight away information based piece, so as to hip everyone of what is on the plate for the band in the near future, but i dont expound upon the way cooler bits of being in a band, like the SPINAL TAP moments, the ups and downs, gigs, noises and sounds, etc)

"the natural" and "rx" are 2 songs from our new record Exile Baby. they are 2nd and 3rd on the record. they run back to back as they are 2 movements of the same piece. initially the song was called "the natural prescription". i believe it was sometime in april, either right after our gig at matchless or right before, we had band practice and it happened to be in the bigger, less comfortable room at the studio building (electric plant) that we rehearse and subsequently, recorded EB at. we have a lock on the small room in the back upstairs, the cinema room. you see, we are 2 people so close quarters during practice adds an element of focus and intense eye contact which helps exponentially in the creative process, being that many times riffs grow to jams grow to songs within minutes when we get together each week at practice, just by communicating via "the shining"...talking with our instruments and the energy in the air and our minds/eyes. so,... at this particular practice, being in a different room (the studio room downstairs at electric plant is set up with a stage and couches and an odor of 1987 and a sweet vintage marshall head) we wound up filtering different ideas through the air before us. paul had been listening to a lot of radiohead's new record, In Rainbows, and was going through a bit of a phil selway fascination. the steady nature and murmur-type beats he often drops, one of the main keys in radiohead's functionality....ahh radiohead, the most important, the kings...... i happened to be feeling something jagged and dark midway through practice and a fragmented and sharp minor key riff sprang out of my SG. he locked on it and we started a meditation which ultimately made me feel the medicinal qualities of music at that moment. we continued to knock it out and at 1st pause, i do what often happens with new cinema songs, i named it based on its vibe with no lyrical content in mind. i do this all the time. they are children and they get the name they look and sound like when they fall from the womb. this one felt like it could cure my ill at the moment and it became "the natural prescription" right then.

we added water and it immed grew into something we loved, with an elongated intro made of atmoshpere and feedback. almost breaking itself into 2 pieces in front of us, but it wasnt until getting into the studio in june to start work on EB that we decided it should be 2 seperate tracks. you see, we have this method with the band. we let ideas grow and songs during shows explore of their own volition (feedback, noise jams, quiet lengths, strips of fabric, chord damage, etc). then after a certain period of time we will discuss the best characteristics that the songs have acquired via experimentation and try to reign in the proper parts, dress them accordingly. so after a lovely evening catching my morning jacket at radio city music hall in june and partying afterwards, of course we decide a good time to discuss the tailoring of said compostition is in the cab ride home at 4am, morning of recording session 1 for EB. it was that cab ride when we decided "the natural prescription" would become "the natural" (a stark movie score-type piece) and "rx" (the rest of the madness and a shortened, stronger title form). during that cab ride we also explored the idea of having companion pieces (shiner no1 & shiner no2) to open and close the record, like royal bookends. thick. determined................................. and yes, the race may never be won......but its all in the running.

this morning, in the dark of my gear-strewn apartment, with the Walkmen humming in the background (if you are a fan of theirs, please please please please esaelp esaelp esaelp check out a band called Jonathon Fire*Eater,...its the dudes from the walkmen with their original singer - the brilliant Stewart Lupton, -they made a full length record called Wolf Songs for Lambs in 97 on a major label and had 2 ep's previous to that - all of which are must-owns...nyc music before the scene came back)......anyway..when the computer asked me what to name this blog, after thinking.....hhmmmm???, cinemacinemablog, cinemablogcinemablog, bouncingexilebaby,.......all of which just were not correct.... the natural rx seemed to fit like a condom. its basically what music is for most of us who live and die by it. i have been down all the roads and the only place that rings of home is when a guitar is on my back and i am creating. same goes for paul and his kit. its medicine. hence, the natural rx.

wow. this is way more fun then,...... "we are in the studio. our new record is due out blah blah. we just played blah blah and we will play blah blah".

....... saturdays in october work well, ive always been a fan of them...the fall just stretches out proper in brooklyn....something about little bits of sparse foliage washing about cement that is a turn on)........ currently have the flaming lips "the soft bulletin" record blasting. it was my buddy Boney (a LIPS devout and all aorund great musical mind/DJ) who had suggested to me, at least 3 years ago, of having a blog for the band...a more personal touch. as i do often with good ideas from other people...i file them. this will give me a chance to drop some of the more interesting aspects of this whole deal over the side of the ship.

today we are having a cinema acoustic practice and band meeting here at CC HQ..........haha, i just realized i can write the most sparkiling candly flavored review of any of our gigs on this thing... as they are all magical, this i can assure you....if you like volume. anyway, fukk that....you can get a taste in person and i blow my own horn enough (you should see me in action)....i can however post all the set lists we have been doing since FEB (the coming out and re-birth of cinema from a 3 piece solid indie rock outfit to a 2 piece more experimantal freak out platform).................

last weekend we were in Cincinnati, OH for the MIDPOINT MUSIC FESTIVAL. when i feel like spreading some more of the details, i am sure i will drop an anecdote or 2 from the wild weekend it was (we love cincin and cincin loves cinemacinema)..... we decided at the hotel day of show after walking around town a bit to do a different set list than ever before (we never repeat the same set list anyway, but i think sometimes on foriegn ground a band might wanna play it safe, go with the playbook you got in yr back pocket... but we had no interest in that. it was paul's set list that we went with) it went as follows:

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-MPMF - sept27th

I Dont Wanna Be Yr Boyfriend
The Natural
Rx
Adult Themes
An Obstacle
PhoneCall
DryDive
Hope Dies Last
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murder most foul! murder indeed. we dropped our bit of Sabbath's PARANOID as the intro to HOPE (as we have done in the past, but not since june at LIT at the earliest), i intro'd PHONE with a section of KARMA POLICE (the "for a minute there, i lost myself" part) and right before ADULT i got a chance to accomplish a life long goal. you see, when i was younger, probably around 15 or 16, when i was in my 1st band, RISE, i had daydreamed about eventually being on the road and zig-zagging and criss-crossing about the country playing everywhere,... so in my deep manicured well-thought out mind set re: touring, for some odd reason i always thought, "when i wind up in cincinnati for a gig i MUST sing the WKRP in CIncy theme somg at one point in the set. this stuck with me over the years and when the invitation was granted us to come and rokk the MPMF there, the once long off idea came rushing back with the smell of opportunity. i turned that into one of my favorite moments on stage last weekend as i sang the theme song and by the end of the first sentence of said tune, the whole venue was singing it along with me. those moments are the reason why you keep yr head up and keep doing this. speak soon, ev.