Darker Lights

Follow Us Around Pt.2

We’ve only played two shows but we’ve been on the road for going on 4 days…

We finally made good on our promise to visit the Big Apple in Colborne.  I ate some pretty gross fried apples.  It was worth it for this:

The Avante-Garde Bar (Ottawa) is an interesting place.

It’s an East-Block/Communist-themed cafe/restaurant/bar/concert venue. Bobby had some tasty Russian dumplings which I could not sample because I’m Vegan. I had a salad…Ottawa is a party town without any want for scantly drunk scantly clad women, cars that sound louder than our PA and public vomiting.  Greg McEvoy and his band were great. I had no idea they were Torontonians until we got talking. There were zero native Ottawa bands on the bill.

Because they are nerds….

Later we threw in the “Live at Pompeii” DVD and that got us all the way to Moncton.

Moncton has a great comic book store called The Comic Hunter.  I can’t stress how much of a nerd mecca that place is!

Plan B is a great little venue with some great people – really friendly staff who were appreciative and generous.  Thanks Moncton!

More to come!

-dean

Follow Us Around Pt.1

We’ve been busy. You know how you can tell? No blog post for weeks – no words here at the HQ – even as our newest album, Darker Lights is about to drop. All the work that goes along with releasing an indie record these days has gotten in the way… our apologies.

So there’s a lot going on…

First, the very first sound to be leaked from Darker Lights can be found and listened to here at: exclaim.ca. “The Hedonist,” just happens to be one of our heaviest selections from the new album…there’s more to it than that.

Second, we have a tour coming up (8 Shows in two weeks, plus 2 video performances).  Here are the dates (also on Exclaim.ca).  I was toying with naming this tour the “Follow Us Around Tour,” but opted to call it the “Autumn 2012 Tour” and to make some blog posts under that title instead.  So stay tuned for my tour diary as it happens from the road (complete with photos, etc.).  Meanwhile,  here are the details:

September 28, Avante Garde Bar, Ottawa ON (w/ Danielle Knibbe, Brittanny Kwasnick and Greg McEvoy $5 doors 9PM)
September 30, Plan B, Moncton NB (details TBA, $5)
October 1, Gus’ Pub, Halifax NS (w/ This Ship and Pioneer Video, $5 doors 10PM)
October 4, Cellar Pub, Fredericton NB (w / The Kendra Gale Band)
October 7, Divan Orange, Montreal (details TBA)
October 11, Jimmy Jazz, Guelph ON (w/ the Ednas, $FREE$, doors 11PM) – join us after the Elwins show across the way!
October 12, Foxx Lounge, Barrie ON (details TBA)
October 17, Handlebar, Toronto ON (w/ Burn Baby Burn, Locomotive 8 and The Effens, $7, doors 8PM)

Third, expect more “leakage” in the coming weeks. The album officially drops Tuesday October 8 but astute followers will be treated to more sights and sounds before then…meanwhile we’ll start packing for our trip…

Poster:

Tales From a Dog-Eared Notebook Pt.3

So it’s official. The Canadian street date for Darker Lights (cat. no. SK2050) is Tuesday October 8, 2013.  On Tuesday October 8 Darker Lights will be released by Sparks Music and will be distributed both physically and digitally by Universal Music Canada – that’s within Canada.  There will be international distribution as well  (more on that in later posts) but people outside of Canada will be able to get the album in digital or physical form from the Sparks Music Store and bandcamp. Of course you will be able to stream Darker Lights on Rdio and other similar services.

It will be a great relief to finally get this baby out there for you to hear. Until then, here’s another page from the lyric notebook:

-d

Tales From a Dog-Eared Notebook Pt.2


Meanwhile, the beautiful David Kleiser artwork was finished last Friday, approved and sent OUT so the first run CDs of Darker Lights are now in production. That means that some selected media outlets and people dear to our hearts will be receiving their complimentary promotional copies in the coming weeks, probably in September. Exciting! People, if you feel entitled to a comp copy please contact me with your mailing address and the reason why you think we might forget you. You probably already have my contact info but it can be found here. BTW, we are still playing the Rivoli this Saturday night. Canadian tour dates shall be announced in the coming weeks.

Thanks for reading.

-d

Tales From a Dog-Eared Notebook Pt.1

It’s July 30 and we’ve been sitting on the final mastered and sequenced sounds of our latest album, Darker Lights since July 5th!!! Needless to say we’re itching to share or at least do something over here but there’s a bit process still going on.  Some of that process is too boring to mention here (i.e. talk of “focus tracks,” exact release dates, mail out times and long leads, etc. etc.,) but some of it is freaking cool. For instance we are collaborating with one of the most exciting young visual artists (and talented musicians) in Canada, David Kleiser to design and illustrate our album cover.   Those of you who may have ordered our limited edition vinyl for Inferior Ghost probably received, as a bonus insert,  a print of his excellent poster for our August 28, 2012 appearance at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.

All these meetings over copious amounts of coffee in the well-lit offices at Sparks have been fruitful. Soon we will announce a release date (we’ve narrowed it down to 2 possibles) and other exciting news.

Also coming soon will be some Fall season tour dates.

Meanwhile, we’ll be making a hometown appearance at the Rivoli, Saturday August 10 with friends Duck Duck Goose Goose and Wild Domestic. But you know this already, don’t you?  Here’s the FB event. Please join!

https://www.facebook.com/events/202725856557587

Cheers,

-dean

Echoes From A Dimly Lit Studio Pt.7

The new album is finally done! Done! At least the music part is. I actually completed mixing more than a week ago (Sunday June 23) at the amazing 6 Nassau in Kensington Market. The record is being mastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel as I write this.  We are quite proud, excited and eager to share but I have to say it’s been a difficult but rewarding experience. I guess we say that about every release don’t we? It’s true. Our previous release, Inferior Ghost, was hard to make because I had to close down my recording studio (which was where we wrote/rehearsed) and at the same time we had to finish up and promote what should have been a full-length album but ended up an EP.  I guess you can say there was a period of homelessness for us. We had no studio or rehearsal space between doing the last tracks for Inferior Ghost and touring to promote it. Inferior Ghost is really our half-finished sophomore album.

This latest album, Darker Lights, was difficult to make too. Musically, we  had to start over from scratch because we lost two members right after the Inferior Ghost tour. I junked all the songs I was writing for our original lineup. We had to re-invent our approach and ultimately our  sound. We also had to re-establish our home base – now a great little private studio we call Echo Valley. We had to write new material and we still had show commitments to honour. Darker Lights really began in the fall of 2012 with a writing phase tempered by a bout of writer’s block. We didn’t start recording “proper” until mid-February. Andy joined us in March and it is now early July. It took us 21 months to record our debut album and we did Darker Lights in five months – still, I feel it’s our best work yet.

There are nine new compositions and one “remake” of an Inferior Ghost song (which is like a whole new song now). The album (as of this writing) is just shy of 4o minutes long.  It’s darker,  heavier, more guitar-driven and more moody than the first album. That’s about all I can say at this point. We’ve been pretty good about keeping the work private so far – only sharing among ourselves and our inner circle. I’m proud to say that 90% of the record was tracked at our own Echo Valley studio and the remaining 10% was tracked at 6 Nassau at the beginning of a 15 day marathon mix session. Everything was engineered by myself and Nathan Vanderwielen.

Currently, we are working on a sequence for the record and should be putting the physical presentation together soon. Once we have a sequence I’m going to share some lyrics here on the blog – but no sounds yet…There is no official release date for Darker Lights. My guess is that it will be released sometime mid to late Autumn. I’m sure there will be a few teasers out there soon. Stay posted for more news.

p.s.

Next Toronto appearance: August 10 at the Rivoli.

-dean