A Father's Father mp3 is available for free at Musical Family Tree along with a few other samples of songs.

Father's Father and more on MFT

Also, we are playing a Joy Division Set at the Abbey

"The Queen is Dead" Smiths/Morrissey/Joy Division/Poice Tribute Night!
Black Weds. @ Abbey Pub
8:00PM Wednesday, November 25th

Wilco was amazing to say the least. There were moments of chaos mixed in with precision. I could have left after the second song and have been pleased with the concert. They played songs from all of their albums and the mix of songs complemented each other well. The multi-instrumentalist sometimes played guitar, so that there could be three guitar parts, and they played off of each other well. The bassist was a great backing singer - the others were great singers, too. Jeff Tweedy's voice couldn't hit a bad or unpleasing note. It was nice to see the drummer switch the way he held his left hand drumstick (traditional to matched). The overall mix was very nice.

The opening band was good. I'm a big fan of Tortoise, but I felt the mix should have been better. The low frequencies from the kick drum (possibly triggered sounds) seemed to mask much off the other sounds. Also, the bass guitar was hard to hear.

-B

Check us out at Manifest.
We will play May 15th from 1:30 to 1:45 at Balbo and Wabash Avenues.
If you can't make it watch it stream live online at Manifest Live Stream
http://www.colum.edu/manifest
The Show is FREE and open to the public.

The site has just been updated with the new album "Messenger". Check out the Media Page. The album is being produced into CD form as we speak and will soon be available on iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, eMusic, GroupieTunes, Amazon MP3, Lala, Shockhound, and Amie Street. Keep your eyes out!

Here are some samples of the new album:

Love Like Glue:



The Drain:

We are mastering our new album this weekend. Next thing you know we will have CD's.

It will be well worth the wait!

We are in Milwaukee this weekend recording a new EP at Howl Street Recordings. Right now we're tuning the drums up and we should start tracking in a bit. Later (and into the late night) we'll do vox and tweaks and after tomorrow we hope to have a finished product for yall. Much thanks to Shane at Howl for the uber support and recording skills. Anyone in the Milwaukee area on Oct 11 should go to Point's East Pub to see our second Milwaukee show. Come get your crunk on.

-AT

I had to miss practice today as I was at Cusp Conference (unbelievably motivating) for work. But at least I got some music time in. I remember Kim telling me a while back that she had seen The Smoking Popes play with the Foo Fighters at the Riv and that she was pissed and yelling at people for disrespecting the Popes during the show (read: origin of pencil reference). Well Kim got to see them once again, tonight, as they closed for the conference to an adoring crowd. Good show.

-AT

We have a new 2008 EP - # 2 with three songs: Father's Father, Scent, and Middle.


Father's Father:

Scent:

Middle:


They were recorded at Studio A of Columbia College Chicago in April. The vocals of Middle were done near the end of the Summer at our practice spot (The Nest). Thanks to Todd, Ed, Sebastian, and Kyle for help recording and suffering through the very LOUD click during tracking. Another version of ATM was recorded the same day.

Father's is a weird blend of a few mixes - one of them being a "15 minute mix" (phase issues), Scent was mixed in Control B in about an hour and a half with only a few compressors and a couple of reverbs. There is a little distortion on the vocals because I overloaded the board and liked the results. Both needed a little help in the low end, and were mixed with a mono backing track (keys and bass combined) from an mp3. Middle was finished on the computer - I had control of the levels of each separate backing track, but they were just mp3's also.

A very fast and simple "mastering" attempted to bring the three songs in the same ballpark of levels.

Soon, we will be recording another EP in Milwaukee.

-B

We've been super busy the past few months. We've been getting scads of gigs.

After our Betty's show, we played at Reggie's for the second time. We like Reggie's; free shows and good crowds.

Then we played the Darkroom for the first time. It turned into a rad little birthday party for Andrew. Thanks to Dave Cumming and stationary camera for media coverage.

Not too long after the Darkroom show we played our first ever outdoor festival. The first annual Heart of Chicago Festival was going through some birthing pangs and we only got to play a few songs, but we thought it to be a good experience. Thanks to Andrew 's brother James for the video.

The last show we had was at Cobra Lounge where we played a set of Joy Division tunes. If you weren't there, you missed a great show. Thanks to Kim for the video.

We have some more shows slated very soon so stay in tune. While you're here, check out the pics on the media page. We've invented a new type of photo...the flash bomb!