as it's been suggested above, i cannot sleep. it's about 4am, and i remain wide awake; what better way to kill time *and* induce slumber than to update the 3 of you who read this on what's been going on with the band?

we've got a show in the works at the grog and tankard in georgetown with our buddies the console war, and that will be at the end of december; we'll let you know more as soon as the details are firmed up. we want to play more shows, though, especially a new year's gig, so we're working on that too. let us know if you can help!

we also have got a few new songs in the hopper, so that's pretty cool. as an unbiased observer, i can confidently say that they're the best new songs look!bandits! has begun writing this week. but really, they're going to be pretty cool. they won't be on the EP, but i figure that'll give people a good reason to come see us. i mean, right? well, i hope that's how that works, because if it's not then i'm out of ideas.

oh, and, as we've been saying for the last 2 months, we're almost done with the EP. it's really just down to recording some guitar and vocal parts and going back and fixing some things here and there. also the actual mixing and mastering, which we don't want to rush.

also, i wanted to explain why it's taking so long for us to finish this thing. in the middle of the recording process, we ran into some scheduling problems with our original engineer, miles, who was really talented and did a great job but wasn't able to meet with us anymore; luckily, we got in touch with andrew grossman, who plays guitar in back to save the universe and is also a prodigious recording engineer, and we've been working with him for a little while now. he is, needless to say, doing a superb job.

anyway, put the time we lost finding another engineer who could finish the project with us together with the fact that, with finals coming up, and andrew needs to study and i need to learn all the things i was supposed to learn this semester, and you end up with a sizable delay in the production of this record. i hope that it proves worth the wait for all of us; we really want to produce something you guys will like and something we can be proud of. the target for us releasing the EP is now january-ish. stay tuned.

at this point, it's quarter to five in the morning. awful. what, you might be wondering, is on tv right now?

i'll tell you.

the following things are being advertised via infomercial:

-one of those girdle-looking things that shocks your abdominal muscles so that you magically become thinner

-someone's book on how to drastically increase your personal wealth without spending any of your own money in the process, except for the money you spend on purchasing and shipping his book

-a kickass little foreman grill-looking thing that will apparently make preparing stuffed salmon a snap and easy to clean up

-an organization that will help you drastically increase your personal wealth with ten free website businesses

-some sort of special combination flower pot-grow light that i'm sure no one has ever used to try and grow pot

-something called rice 'n' shine, information about which i regret missing with my entire soul

there are also some music videos on, since apparently this is the only time of day mtv and vh1 can fit them into their schedules, as well as 3 different episodes of law and order.

5am and i'm still wide awake. this might be one of those magical nights where i don't sleep and as a result find everything around me to be either extremely funny or horribly irritating the next day.

anyway, to recap: show in december at the grog, where you will hear new tunes; record in january, god willing; get in touch with us if you can help out with shows and we'll love you as much as is reasonable or required for that sort of thing.

more later

--kevin

i don't mind telling you, this was an awesome couple of days. the show at solly's was amazing, and we can't thank everyone who came out enough, especially our friends and family from silver spring and college park, gavin from the alphabetical order, and GIGS mastermind sean gaiser. i also want to say that black and white jacksons are the coolest fucking band i've seen in a really long time. we definitely want to play more shows with them, so be sure to keep an eye out.

the next night, we played an early halloween party at jason's buddies evan and shane's house, and i've gotta say they really decked the place out. congrats to those guys on throwing a ridiculously fun party; we'll see you at the next one. everyone there was super nice to us and we played for about three hours. we came out of it exhausted, soaked in sweat and beer, and with a bunch of new friends who we can't wait to see again!

we're still finishing up in the studio, and it's going well; stay excited and look for rough mixes in a little while. also, our good friend lisa has been filming a lot of our performances and our progress in the studio over the past few weeks, so our studio tracks might be accompanied by one of those vaguely cliché yet persistently awesome band montages. nice.

also, 'sin city' is on tv right now, and i'm not really sure why because it's not exactly the most tv-friendly film in the world. they're right at the part with clive owen and benicio del toro in the car with all the crazy-ass colors and stuff, though, and i have to say i'm enjoying it.

more later

--kevin

so we were in the studio for a little while last night, and we got a lot done. 'you can't' is now completely finished, so that's exciting; we're going to get our hands on some rough mixes pretty soon, so check back in the coming weeks.

also, tomorrow night is our first show in dc! it's at solly's tavern, which is at 11th and u streets nw. it's right by the u street metro stop on the green line, so come get drunk and rock out with us. we'll be playing the stuff from the EP, so you'll get a special sneak preview of the record. for free.

so we'll see you tomorrow night. and for those of you who can't make it, feel very very bad. and wish us luck.

more later

--kevin

right, so, to start, the first layout that we had, the fancy flash one? that was sweet or whatever, but the blogs were invisible and that's no fun. so i changed it. this one is...well, it's grey. which i'm cool with. let us know what you think and we'll go from there!

now, on to studio matters. today was our second day of working on our first EP, which we've yet to name (current possibilities include 'Look!Album!'). it's going to have 6 tracks on it, and they're all going to be quite good. so far, we've got the drums, the bass, and chris' guitar parts for everything; we made a dent in jason's parts today as well, but ran out of time. so far, it's going fairly smoothly, as you can see from chris' blog from friday.

and let's talk about that blog for a moment. first of all, chris, you left words out. all over the place. awful. i could edit it for you, but instead i'm going to leave it and let everyone see how very, very bad you are at writing things. second, i make chris say nothing. although i might start saying that 'bandit time' thing.

but yes, we're making solid progress and having lots of fun. below, in no specific order, are the tracks on the record, so you know what we're talking about when we mention a song.

Stand Up
You Can't
Halloween
Two Year Cities
Attractive Young People With Deep-Seated Emotional Problems (working title)
New Plan

more later

--kevin

We're done the drum tracking!!

Incredible as it may be, in only a little bit more than 2 hours, Ryan managed to finish tracking all the drum parts for our 5 songs!

Our afternoon started around 5PM when Kevin and I arrived at WMUC and met with Miles to begin going over our plans. Jason and Ryan arrived a bit before 6 and we began to load in. Around 6:30 or so we were set up and ready to record. I can't tell you what happened from 7 to 8 because I was busy getting Chinese food for everyone but all I know is by time I was back Ryan had just finished tracking "You Can't." Apparently they had some problems with a wire doing something to someone with someone's cousin, I think I'll blame Kevin's because that seems like the easiest thing to do, but you'll have to ask him.

Long story short, by 10:30 we were done and packing up.

I'm pretty sure that Ryan only needed two takes for a song twice, and once was because of technical difficulties. The only conclusion of course is that RYAN IS A DRUM MACHINE IN DISGUISE.

that's what I'm going with anyway

so thats it for day 1

unfortunately due to a scheduling conflict, we weren't able to get into the studio on Saturday but we're looking forward to Sunday when we're back in!

Stay Tuned! We're all really excited about what's to come!

Same Bandit! place, Same Bandit! Time,

(Kevin makes me say that)

-Chris

welcome to our blog!

hopefully there will be more than one of these entries.

we are going to use this space to keep you guys up to date on general band stuff. also the four of us will post random musings about life and whatnot, which is fun. is it a novel use of the blog? no. but it requires a certain amount of commitment, and i like to think that that's what counts in this particular landscape.

it'll be my little way of getting you to come back for more. assuming you like reading sprawling, roundabout messages about things. if not, well, i tried.

for now, here's what's going on with us: we're new. we're writing, we're booking shows, and we're planning to record in the near future. we're shooting for a finished record in october, but you never can tell.

the other guys might post stuff here as well, so by the end of however long we exist you should be able to experience four distinctive writing styles all on the same myspace blog, and isn't that exciting for you?

yes, yes it is.

more later

--kevin