Do we have a lot of subways? What an important question. Let’s do some unscientific science. Here’s a google map of the downtown/capitol hill/central dist./queen anne/rainier valley bits of town and an overlaid “businesses” search for “subway sandwiches:”

20 dots means there are 20 of them, right? I checked, they seem to all be subway franchises and not some other business named subway sandwiches. Here’s McDonalds:

quite a difference there. How about KFC..

Crap. What about local favorite Ivar’s?

Over the same map, burger kind showed 1, local chain Dick’s had 2, and then I got bored of looking. Conclusion: there are a lot of subways.

Wow, what a dumb blog post.

Other news: Give/Sell was added to a couple more Northwest radio stations, KZUU in Pullman WA and KGRG in Auburn WA. If you’re in those neighborhoods call them up and request something. They might just play it.

In other news, the Seattle Weekly had a great writeup for the album and the show.

Also, Give/Sell is going into rotation on KEXP 90.3 FM in Seattle, which is exciting.. I hear that place is good. Call them up and request something!

And finally, I believe KUPS 90.1 FM in Tacoma is spinning the album as well…

tonight I’ll be playing on Hollow Earth Radio on the Internet on the Leaky Pipes radio show, and then Friday the band is back together to play the album release for Give/Sell, at Cafe Venus/Mars Bar. I’ve explained that elsewhere, I think, but there it is again. Here’s an excellent poster from Jeffrey Henry:

Hilariously, Open Choir Fire has a much better take on it. This is their email blast on the subject:

Hello again!
Say, if you’ve ever caught Open Choir Fire live, you know it may be all good times and jollies, being the irreverently careless side project (and hugely successful cash cow) that it is, but I bet you didn’t know that we also have a serious side as well.
Mississippi Painful started as an dadaist installation art project of Brian and Terry’s from back in our optimistic college days. Meant to shine a light what we believed to be an insurmountable socioeconomic chasm between the classes, the original installation consisted of two plastic champagne glasses filled with red and blue jello (dis)respectively, highlighting the oxygenated, de-oxygenated blood that runs through all our veins, regardless of class standing, atop a pile of mixed women’s lingerie. This came along with musical accompaniment (played live by Brian on his tenor sax, “Goldilocks”): A proverbial “broken record” of repeated overtones and deep harmonics, meant to symbolize humanity’s solipsistic inability to truly connect with [on any deep level], not only other forms of (un)natural life (nature, religion, etc.), but ultimately our own true inner selves.
Just kidding. As usual, it will just be us and our more talented friends getting dangerously drunk and playing country music. This time we have an album No Recession available for purchase. Also it is a CD Release party for the Graze’s new fucking album Give/Sell, which you need to have. And local heartthrob Seth Howard is playing as well, so there you have it. BTW, the Graze will be giving you a delicious taste tonite, playing live on Hollow Earth Radio, at about, oh let’s say 8PM.

Friday, March 5th
Mars Bar/Cafe Venus
& Nadamucho.com present…
The Graze
Mississippi Painful
Seth Howard
9p
$6
it’s a bar

OPEN CHOIR FIRE

www.openchoirfire.net

www.myspace.com/openchoirfire

openchoirfire@yahoo.com

You can buy Give/Sell at various digital locations starting today.. such as iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, eMusic. Of course you can also still get it for free at thegraze.net.

The album release show is March 5 at Cafe Venus/Mars Bar, in Seattle… with Mississippi Painful and Seth Howard.

First, on December 11 I went down to Portland to play at my friend Steve’s wife Kelli’s 30th birthday party. Steve rented the basement of a club called the Blue Monk, which is usually a jazz/blues club, and has a stage and PA and all that. And a buffet, naturally. The party was a mixed bunch, and for the most part strangers to me: friends and family of the birthday girl, old people, some kids, and then some musicians. It was a night of solo indie pop/folk performers, and (somewhat bizarrely) the headliner was Calvin Johnson (of Beat Happening, K Records fame).

Us openers played short sets.. I played 5 songs, which were fun for  me as they came from 5 different projects: 1 song each from my first album, from give/sell, from mississippi painful, from an invitation to love, and then a new one. In all other ways my set was, let’s say, inconsistent with the idea of party/dinner music. But! It was short, and a few people were into it, and the other acts were in the same boat.

Except Calvin Johnson, who happens to be a consummate performer. He was able to get the buffet crowd interested and involved in his performance. And he was great, playing from his solo albums. Here’s a picture from my phone, you can kind of tell who it is:

Later on there was a  raffle and I won a Beat Happening LP. I had him sign it. I also drank all my drink tickets and napped through the drive home. A perfect trip! Here’s the album:

signed:

The week after, on December 16, I played at the Ball of Wax Volume 18 release party. That show was great for short attention spans.. lots of bands but they were constantly changing.. there’s a write-up for it here:

http://www.seattleshowgal.com/ball-of-wax-18-cd-release-w-oldman-winter-levi-fuller-the-pica-beats-more/

What was particularly fun about this show was our group’s configuration — Open Choir Fire, Seth Howard/Rosyvelt and myself were one of the composite bands — and it was the first time I’d played with that many people at the same time. It’s a big fad right now to have these big 7-or-more-member bands and I think I see why. Big sound and less pressure.

Check out the Ball of Wax 18 webpage here:

http://www.beeprepaired.com/oms.html

extremely not lame.

I’ve been having some ideas on what to do with Give/Sell, and one of them is to give it to people who sign or have ever signed my mailing list. That idea led to having to decide what to do with my mailing list.. and that led to me trying out a service called FanBridge.

http://thegraze.net/maillist.html

When you sign up, you’ll get the link and login/password for downloading the album. If you are already on the mailing list you should have received a link already… If you haven’t, check your spam folder.

And finally, that picture at the top of this post is from a tour long ago.. it links back to my new flickr account, where I’ve been uploading a lot of pictures from the last 8 years or so that I never got around to uploading.

PS: I’m playing a show tonight at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard, Seattle, Washington, USA. It’s the Ball of Wax 18 (the theme: 1-minute singles!) release party, and it’s going to be awesome. My set will appear within a conglomerated pseudo/superband involving Open Choir Fire, Seth Howard, and members of Rosyvelt, all playing each other’s songs for 20 minutes. This will be repeated with other bands and is not to be missed.

8pm, $7 gets you a copy of the CD. http://www.ballofwax.org

1. Apartment
2. Bet
3. Bastards
4. Canyonland
5. Cheap Wine
6. Six Years
7. Picky
8. Those People
9. Tiger Nightmare
10. Price
11. Second Sight

If I sent you mp3s please consider reordering them as per the above and dropping “Sheep.” And then let’s never speak of this again.

I made this album by myself again, with a tiny cameo from Sam Jansons at the end of “Bet.” If I’ve given (or sold) you the demos I compiled in 06 and 07, most of these recordings will be familiar to you. But that’s why they’re called demos.. I changed lyrics, added instruments and harmonies, rerecorded things, edited, mixed, and did tons of remixing. It was a lot of work and I’ll admit, it’s not Kid A. It shouldn’t have taken four years, but I’ll address that in a minute. Here’s the track list:

1. Apartment
2. Sheep
3. Canyonland
4. Cheap Wine
5. Bet
6. Bastards
7. Six Years
8. Picky
9. Those People
10. Tiger Nightmare
11. Price
12. Second Sight

Sooo… what took so long? That’s a long story, and this is a blog, so I’m going to tell it.

Firstly, I had technical difficulties. I record digitally and had a problem with something called “loopback latency” that messed me up for at least 2 years, made recording into a miserable experience, and screwed with my head. Eventually I got that sorted out. Then had to learn a lot about EQ and mixing, and that took forever. I also went down some paths that didn’t pan out, like external summing, and trying to build a plate reverb, and stuff like that. Fun things to do at the time, but not quick.

Secondly, I had some rules, such as “no autotune,” “nobody can play or record but me,” and “no drum editing.” These constraints were a personal challenge, partly since the bands I try to emulate recorded analog, and I don’t, I felt this was the least I could do to keep from “cheating,” as it were. But this meant I had to do tons of takes (my poor neighbors) until I had it right. And even then I had to break the drum editing rule. I edited. And comped vocals like crazy. Takes-recorded-years-apart crazy. Of course now I realize that wasting years is worse than breaking any of these rules, so I’ll probably abandon the solo thing and also cheat like hell next time.

Thirdly, I had distractions. I’ve played in four other bands since I released my first album. Not that I regret being in or having been in any of them, but they took/take time.

And finally, life stuff. The first time I thought the album was done was March 2008. I’d set a mastering date to give myself a deadline.. which was good in one sense as I got a lot done, but it was bad in that I wasted money having something mastered that wasn’t right. Then I got laid off, then married, then I got a new job, and a second job. I’ve been busy.

But regardless, it’s done, and I’m glad. I learned a lot making it, hopefully enough that I won’t have to spend as long making the next one. Oh and, I like this record. It sounds good and is fun to listen to, if I say so myself.

PS, I’ll put songs on myspace soon.