Just to let people know we are still writing songs after the old road.
 
theres a split 7" with spires which should be available soon.

also work has begun on two new songs which will most likely go on to a split with our good friends black channels.

since dave McG moved to berlin we have lost all momentum but time has come to get it goin again!!!!!





finnie/mesa

We were featured on Vic Galloway's show this week and like it said on the show you can download "Return to Victories" from the myspace page for this week.  Although I daresay we'll forget to make it unavailable to download again once the week is out!

Go to Vic's bbc introducing page if you want to listen again and here finnie introduce the song on the show.

Having had a days to reflect and recover, its probably about time to write about what has to be the best mesa show ever.

First of all we need to thank ally for letting us use the arc. Cheers big guy! Secondly, a big thank you to all the bands who played. Was so good to see Tobin and Ewan again, Ommadon where brutal!

It was great to see channels again, they really should get the finger out and play all the time! Sunset squad were awesome as per and the lovely boys in sinatra made the night special.

Other than that, it was great to see so many people there. It was so old school! Graeme, steve, ash, damage, all of whom hold personal responsibility for mesa ever playing in public! Legends. The Nauld boys and girls who came and got drunk. Rab Gray at a Skramz show.... Yas.!

We all had an awesome time and it was a fitting send off for dave (who incidently we're gonnay miss like fuck).

Thank you everyone.

Best night ever!

Who said screamo was dead? It didn't feel like it on saturday.

We have just recently finished recording a track with Tom Mitchell for a split 7" release with our friends Spires  www.myspace.com/spiresatwar.   The record should be out within the next month or so and its safe to say we are pretty excited about it as Spires are a great band.  Tom worked really hard on getting the sound right for our tune and we are all pleased with the outcome.  We will probably post the track on here at some stage in the near future so keep an eye out for it's appearance.

We are also pleased to announce details of another landmark event in our time as a band.  As of August 7th Mesa Verde is 5 years old.  We played our first show with Yage and Santo Caserio at the Glasgow Barfly on this day back in 2004 so we felt that we should mark the occasion by having a wee party in our favourite venue with some of our friends from the Scottish/British DIY community.  For a number of reasons we cant actually advertise the name of the venue but given the hints we will put up it should become clear where it is.  If anyone is still not sure about where we willl be playing then dont hesitate to drop us a message, we'll be happy to tell you so you can come and get drunky with us.
 
Here is your invitation!

Mesa Verde Are 5....

.... and would like you to bring your own booze, get it down you and dance around to the following bands at the following "not so secret venue".


Sinatra
Sunset Squad
Black Channels
Mesa Verde
Year at Sea

Saturday 1 August
@  our second home, Glasgow, Commerce Street.
(for more details contact Mesa Verde via email or myspace)
£3/4 entry, BYOB

Big thankyou to Ally for making this possible, we really appreciate it.  We hope you can come along.  It should be an awesome night!  See you there.

Our new record "The Old Road" has been reviewed by John over on sputnik music. It got a pretty great write up too:

"I firmly believe that one of the greatest song titles ever is "A Heart Filled Reaction to Dissatisfaction" (City of Caterpillar). It perfectly portrays the honest, raw, and articulate nature of that bands music so well, it could very well have been an alternate name for their self-titled release. That band, with their brooding post-rock methods of inducing catharsis within their own unique realm of "screamo" helped to inspire some of the most acclaimed acts 'screamo' has today. While the vast majority of fans on this site are aware of Envy, Daitro, Sed Non Satiata and Raein, one of the least known bands of the "euro" offshoot has been writing music that rivals anything the (relative) big dogs have put out. Mesa Verde (headquartered in Glasgow), after releasing two solid EP's, finally poured their creative effort into a full length record, The Old Road, and the result is arguably the most stunning emo album of the year."

It gets better... (read full review)

Big thanks to John for the review, I think it's the first of the new record so far.

So we now have 'The Old Road' out on vinyl.  Lovin it.  It's been a fuckin long time coming to be fair.  Think we started recording in October 2007.  We're really happy with the final result.  Obvious thanks to Robin who recorded it for us, Dany from Art For Blind for helping us put it out and Tom Mitchell for his fancy ass camera work. 

The whole process was a beast, some songs are seriously about 2 or 3 years old from their first conception.  If people like it and buy it then thats a bonus, if they don't we'll all be sitting with a box forever, distribute them to friends and family who will melt them into ash trays or soup bowls if they are really clever.  I'm no caring.

Our "tour" kind of fell apart which was a let down but I guess shit happens.  there seems to be alot of people giving it "thats a disgrace etc etc".  We weren't too bothered so the reaction from other people is a curious one.  We're under no illusions, and we certainly don't think becasue we have stuck to this DIY thing from the start that we are owed anything.  We did and still do get alot of help from various members of the DIY community in Scotland which is brilliant, but bands should not be invited to play cities on the back of their principles alone. 

Saying that, the shows we did play in London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow were awesome, met some really cool people in the few days.  The Battle of Wolf 359 folk down south and all the kids in Aberdeen, who incidently really know how to party!  Was also good to spend time with the rest of the black channels boys, I would seriously be up for playing every gig from here to the end of our little band on the same bill as Black Channels, awesome folk and tremendous tunes.  (By the way I'm not the drummer who is a member of both bands biggin himself up!)

We'll be heading down south for a couple of one off shows in the next month or so, Manchester and Nottingham, should be awesome.  The plan is to try and arrange a wee UK tour in Easter 09', probably start trying to organise that in the new year. 

We started writing again today which was good, lots of ideas getting thrown around.  Look out for a release in 4 years then!  Nah, we're lookin into the possibility of a split 10" with Black Channels as soon as we can, but given they write 10 songs a day and we write about 2 a year, it's littered with potential nightmares.

Mesa is 4 years old and like every band there have been lulls where not much happens for a while but we've always dragged ourselves back.  To be honest, barring some unforseen circumstances, there is no likelyhood it will end anytime soon.  We're basically just 5 mates who spend some time playing tunes and using that to go trips to places, play shows and party.  From a personal point of view having mesa on the go is amazing.  I couldn't contemplate not having it there, it's helped me through some shite times and it's always been there to celebrate the good times with.

Maybe when we're older we'll turn off the distortion, lower the tempo and  chill with the screaming, who knows, but for now we are all up in our own and everyone elses grillz and I FUCKING LOVE IT!

Right, I'm off to get oot ma dial.

Tam/mesa

Amor Fati received a pretty nice review from Last Hours #15:

"I hate how the word 'emo' has been completely bastardised. I want to use the E word to describe this band from Glasgow, but I would use it the same way I would use it to describe La Quiete. Certainly not the way The Daily Mail would use it to describe My Chemical Romance. In fact, this band really reminds me of the frantic emotive thrashing sounds of La Quiete, except they are slightly more cohesive. It has long, steady build-ups and crashes into a cacophony of fun and noise. This EP polarises its melodic with the frenetic and it works. It would make great bike ride music. Oh, and the artwork is really cool as well. It is folded in an unusual way and when you unfold it there is a drawing of someone hanging. (12oh5)".

Just noticed that the lyrics thing on the myspace player doesn't work in the Firefox browser. So for any of you that can't read them, here's the lyrics to the songs we have up just now:

Clarity with Distance
don't you look back
at what could have been
tourists live in safe houses
we live in broken homes
and you'll know when you've reached us
because we'll be the ones with no faces
letting time pass us by
this is our occupational hazard

when homes become houses
where will we go?
fuck apprehension,
what we need
is a little more romance
just call it civility

count up the profits
from return trips to fresh starts
and when you're back in black let me know
from clarity this distance
comes meaning of charity
you won't need a receipt to let me go

so it reads from your gospel:
"the younger they are,
the harder they fall"
no more second guessing,
the older they are,
the further along.
there is no other end to this
so take what you came here for
but there's nothing left you don't have

solve these mistakes
with the same thinking that caused them
define your plateaus
with white-flag facades
here is now and we are free
to do as they want

Substance Abuse
you always sound good
when the words coming from you
are recited so clear
that you'd think they were new.
rock your single portrait
for all it's worth
i've rocked mine too.
this is substance abuse,
deny it,
derive it.

contrived words need explanations,
forget about me
what does that say about you?
confined to expectations,
far be it from me
to teach you to dance.

You wanted to hear
but you're not listening,
so you put up the act
and hold us to task
because the things we think
don't matter to you
but when all is said and done,
you're just an army of one.
so shout your slogans
and we'll shout them with you
and sing your protest
and we'll play along.

don't need to explain just do it,
we've heard just about enough.
you see only what you want to see,
you hear only what you want to hear.
how many words spoken
have led to actions?
silence,
the noise hear is deafening.

this is substance abuse
passed as the truth.

broken records need fixing,
we're in this together.

MRB
we used to be so close you and i,
but now they've gone
and so have we
nothing else mattered
but the death of us.
they cannot take us
they cannot leave us
it's up to us
i was born in '84
and you died in 2001
and now i'm left
to pick up the pieces.
they told us there'd be room for us,
so we called their bluff
over and over and over.
at the edge of the world we fell together,
you said i said,
we'd never forget.
and nothing else mattered
but the death of us.

off and on and
on and off and
off and on
just like we liked it
on and off and
off and on and
on and off
just like we left it
and i don't know
where to look for you now,
because i've lost my shadow
then you lost everything
they gave you
and you've never looked so good

and now they've got me
where they want you to be,
amor fati
if you could do it all again
what would be different?
would we even have met?

you couldn't break us down
in our part of town,
this time around
we've been found
out of place
out of time
a love story
with only one character
the truth is out.
i've lost myself.

have you never wondered
why riots don't bloom in july?
when we lose the winter blues
spare time doesn't seem such a rare commodity

this time i think should be able to remember.

Dance Dance Dance
we will dance as they dance,
sing as they sing
until our words lose all meaning
and all that is left will be echoes of their sound.
it's all over
you play both sides
you see who wins
and you compromise.
lost between the well studied lines,
so went the dream we passed on through.

no latecomers.
cultivate and assimilate
the words the actions the heart
of yet another
bastard subculture.
destroy every page until they all tell the same story.

you sing words you don't understand
you drop names
to impress the ones you lied to
to impress the ones you danced to.
tonight let's dance our own dance,
tonight let's make this our last.

refuse the refuse,
ascertain knowledge
from all forms of hate.
shake off the fake out rhetoric
and ditch the copy and paste:
references only spoken here.

rebuild the city
with new walls
with open doors
on both sides.
rebuild ourselves
with new ears.

for every sun
that sets to return
every ship that sails must be allowed to sink.

the seed is sewn
for a minute we're reborn
for a minute we're free
to think
to drop the act
to never let them consume us
so that our strength
may no longer be hidden.

all words must be confronted
and nothing taken for granted
except our impressionability.

Amor Fati has been reviewed at punktastic and it got a pretty good review (4/5), although I never thought I'd ever read a review of us with the bands Tool, Thursday and Poison the Well mentioned.

Check out the review on punktastic.

Or here it is if you can't be arsed:

"Hailing from the heart of Scotland, Mesa Verde are here with their debut EP 'Amor Fati' to give us a taste of just how good experimental music can sound when it's produced in the right way. They're the sort of band that is hard to categorise or pigeonhole, yet their influences are obvious, ranging from prog-rock, to metal, to good old fashioned hardcore. In this 24-minute EP, we're given a taste of exactly what the band is made of.

The introduction to 'Clarity with distance' is a misleading excerpt that takes influence from prog-rock heroes Tool, before descending into madness. Fortunately, it's the organised kid of madness that makes for pleasant hearing. Sounding like a b-side of some kind of Thursday/Poison the Well supergroup hybrid, it's a well structured piece that utilises some great guitar and drum work to create an epic sound. 'Substance Abuse' is something of a let down after the first track, as the ghostly progressive sound is replaced by the more straight-up hardcore elements. While not being a bad song itself, it's by far the weakest here. Following this is a sort of prelude to the following track which allows us to hear the gentler side of Mesa Verde. Sounding like a live recording, it demonstrates the band's compositional ability, before we are hit with 'Dance Dance Dance'. The aforementioned serves as a brilliant contrast to the instrumental interlude, as it returns back to the heavier side of things, with some pretty experimental drumbeats throughout, and a definite structure proving hard to pinpoint. Not that this is a negative point though - when music like this is done wrong, it ends up sounding crap, cheesy and rushed. Fortunately Mesa Verde gets it spot on and proves they have the talent to pull these kinds of songs off.

Ending on a colossal 11-minute journey without a name is the finest idea this band have offered on this 4-track EP. There really are bits of everything thrown in here, and it's the sort of idea that shouldn't work at all, but it just does. Pulling together all their influences, they manage to have created a track which sounds entirely unique in today's musical landscape, and serves as a well overdue piece of refreshment from the copycat bands polluting our venues and labels. I'd like to see this band make a name for themselves, as 'Amor Fati' is actually a great record, but because it's so unconventional, so experimental and ultimately so varied; I struggle to see this happening.

Andy R"