We are happy to finally share our new single "Three Small Words" to with you. You can download the song for FREE here: http://www.maidavalemusic.com/freesong/
Let us know what you think!

100 miles from Babylon, i felt the tremble of the earth
my shoulders began to shudder, and my cough started to get worse

the earth had lost its center, i heard the voices in my head
but everything sounded different, and nothing made any sense

la la la la la la hey

we raised our bricks and mortar, built a superhighway to the sky
said, "to hell with the infidels", turned our backs and waved goodbye

turned up the music on our stereos, feasted in the middle of the storm
thought we'd stay so happy and contented, i'm not so sure anymore

Take me back … goin back to babylon

hang all of the martyrs, hang all of the dead
hang the one's who misunderstood and chose to sleep in instead

hang the poor and stinking, the sick and the blind
break me off a turkey leg, and pass me that bottle of wine …

A few months back, a leader in our faith community got up and made this cool announcement about how iTunes had lent its support to one of our CDs and we had made the charts there.

A few days later, he received an e-mail from someone who had attended the church that day, expressing their "disappointment" that he was endorsing a band that was not explicitly Christian.

Come again?

This is nothing new, believe me. I've heard rumors of it, but being on the direct end of it is something differently entirely. You want to scream, shake their shoulders, sit down with them, reason, but in the end all you can do is silently shake your head and keep on doing what you're doing.

Frankly, it also hurt. I don't quite know when faith became something you lived out and struggled with only on Sunday mornings, but it's obviously shifted. I don't know what this person expected to find when they listened to Maida Vale's music: "Jesus is a friend of mine?" (either you know, or you don't)

Somehow the expression of full-humanity, of longing and fulfillment, of love and rejection, of sin and redemption failed to connect with her. If we have to turn our backs on being fully human in order to be a Christian band, then perhaps we don't want to be a Christian band.

Maybe we weren't ever a "Christian band".

But maybe if struggle, transcendence, fun, desire, and doubt can be part of faith, then, well, we'll let you put two and two together.

Greetings…

We hope you've all been well, and are enjoying the flavors of autumn. Maida Vale is gearing up for an exciting few months of writing, recording, and playing shows. Here are a few highlights of what we've been up to.

Thanks for Listening
We had a great time hanging out with the Donovan and Manley at V89's Hootenanny. We had hoped to get a chance to talk a little, and been diligently rehearsing our "shout outs" (Holla!), but got a little "lost in the music," and ended up playing right up until midnight. Thanks for listening, for all the encouraging "Tweets" and messages!

Where Next?
Surely there can't be a tropical storm every time we play… We're really excited about playing some new music for you all, and there are a couple chances to catch us in the next few weeks.

+ Sept 28 (that's this Saturday) is going to be a blast, as we team up with Jacksonville's Sun Bears and some other very special guests to rock the new Engine Room (formerly the Beta Bar). For those of you who haven't yet seen what they've done with the place, check it out; it's really a great room! We should play around 11, but please come early and support our friends!



+ On Oct 4 we will be playing a special benefit concert for Porch de Salomon, a faith-based organization in Guatemala that is helping coffee growers achieve economic self-sufficiency through fair trade coffee, and also assisting them with humanitarian aide.


Let's Do This Together
One of the best parts of being in a band is getting to meet new people and hear your stories, while you hear ours as well. We want to encourage all of you to swing by Maida Vale's website, MySpace, or Facebook. You can also follow us on Twitter ("maidavalemusic"). While it's a great way to hear about what we're doing, we also want to hear about what you are up to as well; feel free to drop us a line.

SUMMER IS OVER?
Another summer in a sleepy Northern Florida town. Days are long, hot and humid, nights are … short, hot, and humid. We appreciate everyone who came out to see us at our last two shows at the Beta Bar and the Warehouse, we had a time doing both of those shows, playing some new tunes and getting to know some new friends.

You can find us in a few places over the next few weeks; come out and hear something new, drink a brew, and move your head a little to some good music.

• Aug 23 we will be at Tallahassee's Beta Bar with two very funky, very musical groups, The Lee Boys and Inca Maya. Caution: there may be hippies.

• Sept 13 we are joining forces again with our good friends the Sarah Mac Band, again at the Beta Bar. Last time this happened, the available seat quotient was low; the power slide quotient was high.

• Sept 15 will find us on the magical waves of radio as we go into the V89 studio to play "Hootenanny". It's just like Wonkavision, but without the chocolate.

You can find particular show times and more information at our website, MySpace, or Facebook. You can also follow us on Twitter ("maidavalemusic").


MAIDAVALEMUSIC.COM
If you find yourself sitting around on a lonely chilly evening ("autumn" actually happens in some parts of the world), wondering, "I wonder what Maida Vale is up to?" Chances are you can find out. If nothing else, we're timely. Want to know what rehearsals, studio time, vague silliness looks like according to Maida Vale? Curious to know the creative idea and/or process behind a particular Maida Vale song (we call them "Song Stories")? It's all on the website, children. Not to mention acoustic downloads, show videos, and other media. It's not going away.

NEW MUSIC COMING!
We have been in the studio tracking a single, "Three Small Words". Without giving too much away, we'd like to say that we're really excited about the way it's shaping up and sounding. Stay tuned for release dates.

This is what we're chewing on for inspiration, in case anyone is interested...

Some Musick:
+ Death Cab For Cutie: "I Will Possess Your Heart" (Narrow Stairs)
+ Emmylou Harris: "Where Will I Be" (from Wrecking Ball)
+ Nine Inch Nails: "Discipline" (from The Slip)
+ Rolling Stones: "Sympathy for the Devil" (from Beggar's Banquet)

And a book:
+ Cormac McCarthy, The Road

To Maida Vale friends, old and new:

As people are hearing American Sun and seeing the band for the first time, we would like to humbly ask all of you to lend a hand (or a finger) by doing one or two things, including…

+ Write an iTunes review of the record;

+ If you have a blog, write a review of a show or the record (so your friends will know what they missed);

+ Subscribe to the RSS feed of our new website to see pics, videos, and blogs

ALSO!!!!
The new record is up in the iTunes store (also available at Amazon), and once again our friends at Apple have decided to make it a featured new release in the folk genre. We are currently flying off and on the top folk albums chart, so if you haven't bought the album yet, help us keep moving up the charts. Our EP in October peaked at 21, and we are shooting to get American Sun into the top ten.

"I hope you know,
white knights and heroes are wasted in middle America."

So the phrase goes. "Great Lakes" was born out of watching a relationship die. Or maybe a couple. Midwestern images tumble and fly around like birds, but the essentials are: what does someone do when they are with someone who has (had?) the best "heroic" intentions in the world, but has no ability, focus, or even desire to carry them through? Years into a marriage, maybe we need more than the white knights and heroes. We need someone to take out the freakin trash and make dinner for a change; to show love in that subtle, non-Hollywood way. Someone who cares enough to argue about stuff and and fight to make a collective life better ("… imaginary fights and words not spoken…").

This is actually the oldest song on American Sun; at least 10 months. It went through a couple different rewrites before we hit on the vibe that's on the CD. There was some Death Cab in it at one point, some Police. We kept fiddling with it and fiddling with it until it came together, pretty much all at once. I still remember the Saturday rehearsal when it started to peak its head around the corner. The first time we hit the harmonies. One of those times when everyone in the band immediately knew that the song had "found itself." That's how creativity works at times, you just keep approaching songs from different angles: varying tempos, feels, radical new ideas, and then one day everything clicks into place, and there's a part of you that isn't really sure how you even got there (but you're thankful that you did).

Tracking it was another adventure. It was one of the first songs we did electrics on, and then immediately started adding vintage keyboards on it in selective places. Later, we still weren't really feeling it, and so Justin re-did a part that knit a lot of it together, and then we added the tasty (literally) percussion and—yes, you do hear them—hand claps (courtesy of the Case children, Eric and Nathan).

You can download an acoustic version of "Great Lakes" from the Maida Vale website (www.maidavalemusic.com). You can hear the full version on our CD, American Sun (on iTunes and Amazon.com)

• Given enough time alone, grown men will surely revert to behaving like 16-year olds, including the following activities:
o Throwing food at each other from moving vehicles
o Using said vehicles as items of fun
o Off-color jokes (with much, much laughter)
o

Good trip. Great shows. Great friends.