Sup people.  If you haven't noticed, we haven't been real active as of late.  It's ok, there's a good reason.  We've been kind of lying low for the last few months, putting the finishing touches on the record, finalizing things with Radtone, and trying to find a home for this release in the States and elsewhere.  We also went back to the studio to record two bonus tracks for the record (believe me, you'll be surprised!).  They'll be free downloads with the purchase of the actual disc. 

As far as the new CD goes, here's where we're at.  Radtone has officially decided to pick up this release, titled Heroes and Ghosts, with a release date somewhere in Jan/Feb 2010.  No exact date yet, but you'll have it soon!  For the US side of things, the artwork will be done once again by Stanboy Reinel (http://www.stainboyreinel.com) and we couldn't be more stoked to work with him again!  We're still figuring out who we can afford to master with, as we've funded this record ourselves so far, but we'll have an answer for you on that front soon!

We've just picked up a few shows around the Chi for you to check out in the next few weeks, so check out the shows page for some details.  We have one with She Like Todd and Michaelane in Villa Park that's going to be a blast!  If you haven't heard SLT's new stuff, it's flippin' awesome!!

We're also playing the Chicago premiere party for a short film entitled Moustachette, starring Ryan Key from Yellowcard and Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz from FOB.  We get to share the stage with Danger is my Middle Name and Coventry, and you'll be able catch some out takes from the film you'll only get to see if you're at the show!


Till next time,
E

Hey guys-

Just wanted to take a sec and thank everyone who came out to the Strung Out show last Monday and made that show a success.  We had a great time, and met some good people. 

We have another show this Friday (free....) at the Mutiny with She Likes Todd, The Hallow, and Ryan's Hope.  It's going to be an awesome night filled with many mini pitchers of assorted whiskeys....yum.

Also, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you all in on the party that's going down June 27th.  We're playing with The Tossers at Durty Nellie's in Palatine.  It's a hometown throwdown for us, and it would be great to see all your smiling faces and to share a pint with you!  We have tickets available that allow you to avoid the ticketmaster surcharges and taxes, which we know no one likes.  The tickets are $10, and they will be waiting for you at will call.  We only have 75 of them, so you better get on that before they're gone.  There's a link on our main page, but if you're lazy, I'll put it here attached to the blog post.

Hope to see you there!!

GET THE TICKETS HERE!!

E 

Hey guys!

We just recorded a little jingle for our good friend Luke (who owns Top Notch Tattoos in Elgin, IL) for his radio show, cleverly entitled, Tattoo Radio.  It's on Mondays from 6-7pm on 1410am out of Elgin, IL.  If you can't get it near you, you can stream it right online and call in!!  It's a little quiet because it's not mastered, but I figure you all deserve SOMETHING new after all this damn time, right?!?

Head over to http://www.wrmn1410.com on Mondays, and you can call in with any questions, stories......anything!!  Get the latest on upcoming conventions, guest appearances by top artists/piercers, bands and just cool people in general.  

So what are you waiting for?

In other news, I just got the designs in for some shirts and I need a little help with the design decision.  Add a comment to the bottom and tell us your favorites!!  The one that gets the most thumbs ups gets printed.  Click this link to check it out!!


Enjoy!!

E

We can finally say we're done recording.  We finished up tracking two weeks ago, and now it's on to mixing this crazy record.  It seems like it's been going on forever, cause it has :) . But this is it.  For serious this time!!  It sounds great, Mark has done an awesome job with everything and it's finally all coming together for us.  We'll have some snippets of sound up here for you to listen to pretty soon.

If you didn't already know, we have a show coming up in June (the 8th to be more specific...) with Strung Out, Death by Stereo, and This is a Standoff at Reggie's.  I can't wait for this show!!  If you want to go, I would highly suggest getting some tickets from MPshows.com  This show will sell out, and the tickets are cheaper than the at the door price.  Plus, when will you ever get to see Strung Out in a sweet and intimate setting like Reggie's?

We have Adam Turman doing some custom hand-screened posters coming in for this show, and they'll be for sale along with some of the vandals posters as well.  While we're on the subject, you can expect to see all brand new merch at that show as well, and we'll be handing out some 3 song demos of the new songs for your listening enjoyment.  


If you can't wait until then to hear some new tunes, you can catch us at Mad Maggie's in Elgin Sunday May 17th with our buds in Starter Kit.  It's an all ages show, should be nice and warm out.  So grab a few beers with us and hang out!

For those of you in the Chicago area, tune in every Monday from 6 -7pm on 1410 am for Tattoo Radio!  You might hear some exclusive Couterpunch tracks being spun...wink wink....nudge nudge  

-E

So we just got our myspace page working correctly again.  Sorry guys!!  All the buttons stopped working, either because I'm a dumbass and deleted the codes, or myspace changed something on their backend.  Let's just say the second one so I feel better about myself.

You'll notice a new pic up top, and we have this crazy guy named Brian on there.  Bout time right?  I'm not exactly HTML/CSS saavy so back off!!   Anyways, it's done, so enjoy....

We just had some photos taken (once again) by Tracy Graham and he did a killer job!! We shot at some weird warehouse that had a possessed elevator.  No joke.  The thing would just move on it's own.  I feared for my life!  It's also where our buddy Jim Milardo has started Armored Star skatepark, Chicago's only private indoor park.  Really nice set up, you should check it out if you're into that sort of thing.  It's in our top friends.  Can't wait to ride that place!

If you want to scope out some more of our photos and more of Tracy's work, check out tracygrahamcracker.com.  I would make it easy on you and just post a link, but myspace is all gay like that.  My links never seem to work, and then anything I type underneath said link disappears upon posting.  Anyone know a solution to that? 

I know I've said this before, but we are almost done recording.  I know I know, it's been like 17 years since we started in Nov, but we have been getting in a day here and a day there  when Mark's sched allows so be patient.  This is also what happens when you have four singers in a four piece band.....LOTS OF VOCALS!!!

But this stuff is turning out amazing!! Sounds huge, rocks even harder! Hopefully I'll be able to put something up for y'all to hear in a few, who knows?

Finally, we will have some new merch going up here pretty soon.  Hoodies, new shirts, leapord banana hammocks with CP emblazoned on where the 'tip' will be, thing like that.   I hear they're super hot this summer.  Stay tuned!  A pre-order will be on soon!!

E

Hey out there,

Rod here.  I wanted to update you on the goings on in the land of
Counterpunch.  Some of you may or may not know we have been recording a new record which has been a wonderful process…. A long but wonderful
process! We have 4 dates in February to wrap up vocals and
start mixing the first week of March.  This is Counterpunch's first time recording w/producer (and former CP drummer) Mark
Michalik, and my second experience working with him. He's a genius! Some of the bands he's worked with include
The Swellers, A Wilhelm Scream & Much The Same(RIP).

Speaking of The Swellers, last weekend I got an invite from Nick and Jono to come down to the studio and sing some backing vocals. Let me say their new record is going to kick your ass! After I laid down some "Church of
Rod" type ooohs and ahhs and some background harmonies, Eric and Brian
showed up and we knocked out some group vocals. It's always rad
hanging out w/ The Swellers we go way back and they are good friends!

That brings me to my next announcement WE ARE PLAYING A SHOW!!!! Yes, it's been quite a while but we are going to test out some of this new
material from the record on you and make some ear drums bleed, and
guess who's playing with us…The Swellers at Reggies Rock Club in
Chicago.  You can go to http://www.reggieslive.com/..rockclub/index.shtml and buy tickets online.

Saturday, February 21 • 10:00 PM • Ages 17+ $7 in advance and
$10 at the door.

So that about wraps it up for now…oh yeah I broke my leg about 3 weeks
ago and have been stuck on the couch this whole time.  The good news
about this is the cast comes off one week from the show on Feb 21st
and I can't wait. Being broken sucks major balls if it wasn't for pain
pills and "Item 9", I would be totally bumming!

That is all for now, see you guys at the show!

Rod

Getting there! Almost sorta done!

Holy crap it is cold here right now. And I mean like -20 or something ridiculous out right now.

Anyways, here's to a happy 2009 for all of you from Counterpunch! I know this is going to bea great year for us and I hope the same for all of you. We're slowlybut surely finishing off these songs, and they still sound killer.You're stoked, I know. We were able to squeeze in a few days with Markscattered throughout December, and we got through a good amount. Westill have a ways to go though. a----lot!

We have some more dates with Mark in February, hopefully we can belt this out for y'alls.

In other news, Jared went and busted up his leg.  He has a full on cast that he won't let me draw a dick on.  Kind of a bummer.  Both on the broken leg and the lack of phallic decoration.   Hopefully he'll be up and hopping around soon enough.  Maybe he'll let you draw a dick on it.  You should ask him.....might make him feel better..

Peace out, we'll talk soon!
-E

So we were able to burn through 15 songs worth of music in the 10 days we spent with Mark Michalik. Unfortunately we didn't get to the vocals, but we have some dates in December set up so hopefully we'll post some of the new sounds for all to hear soon.

The first week was all drums. Tuning, playing, more tuning, more playing......

I had enough Ramen to feed half of (insert random small country here...) while El Richo supremo beat the hell out of his kit. The sounds we got are pretty stellar, if I must say so myself. Rod, Brian and I played plenty of Madden and NHL '09 while all this was going down, and despite my best efforts, I still suck ass at Madden. Always have, always will. The furnace was not working the first few days, so the studio was like an igloo. Good times.

The next week, Rod finished up his bass in like 10 minutes for the album. Seriously, the guy is a machine........

Then it was on to guitars. This shit sounds amazing! The guitar tones are warm, biting, and focused. There's a lot going on on this record guitar wise, so it took some time to get through all of that goodness, but during the process we apparently have picked up a few formidable influences on this record. Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Optimus Prime, A Wilhelm Scream, Megadeath, Your mom, Van Halen, and the list goes on. Pretty crazy. You're going to be surprised to say the least.

A few nights we ended up at the Four Moons tavern in Roscoe Village, conveniently located on the corner where we were staying. Kind of a tiny towny bar for the locals with a really bad jukebox. So Rod and I end up closing the place on Tuesday, and there's this guy at the end of the bar hanging out with his friend. He decided to buy everyone at the bar a drink because there were like 5 people in the place and he'd never done it before. So we had quite a few Makers and called it a night.

Friday brought us some horns and stand up bass. Yes you read that correctly, horns and stand up bass. I know, I know.....a little weird, huh? Oh well, you'll understand once you get your ears wrapped around this new CP goodness.

That's all for now folks. There's a few pics up in the studio album if you wish to check them out. We have a TON, so check back for new additions!

E

If you didn't read this at the top of the page, then here ya go....

We have a new member in Brian Phee (Break the Silence) playing guitar and singing for us. He's killin it and I'm sure you'll find out soon enough. He's going to be playing on the new album and we couldn't be happier.

Speaking of the new album, we're almost done prepping it. We have a little work left to do but we're definitely on the home stretch. We'll be stepping in the studio with Mark Michalik November 11th to lay down some sweet audio goodness. As of now I'm not sure how many songs will make the cut, but I can guarantee you that this release will be a HUGE step forward for us both musically and personally. This album takes us in a few different directions, and they're all good. See ya soon!

-E

Due to an overwhelming demand, we just launched a Facebook page. I'm just joking. No one wanted us to put a page up there. Seriously. But if you happen to be on Facebook and want to stop by our lovely little page please be our guest.
-Eric