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.