If you haven't already, check out the page of the STS spinoff band "Secret Detractor." They have two gigs under their belts now and show no sign of slowing down. Oh, and the band features the former/current/farmer singer/guitarist of STS.

In other news, drummer/guitarist/singersongwriter/everyman Sam Hintz will be losing his vi...er...getting married in a couple weeks, so be sure to send him congrats.

In still other news, rumblings of an experimental, long distance recording session are sounding more substantial.

And in news that only I care about, the Termination Shock has been breached for a second time.

- Peter

So did my mother. Do you have yours yet?

Peter

The band was informed this morning that the forthcoming full-length album has leaked to the peer-to-peer networks. We are investigating the origins of the leak at this hour. It seems that the company reponsible for actually pressing the discs listened to them and realized what a treasure the songs were. They then shared with their friends and it went from there. It is also possible that a band member purposely leaked it to create buzz, a la Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief." In any case, the band would like to ask that if you do run across the leaked album, please continue to share it. "You can't stop the signal!" The actual album will be released very soon!

As most of you know, the cover art for our new LP was to be designed by famed photographer Storm Thorgerson (Pink Floyd, The Mars Volta, etc.). However, he had a scheduling conflict and had to bow out. So we hired a second artist. His first idea was related to Sam's upcoming wedding, but we thought it was too event specific for the audience we are trying to reach:

The next attempt he made was closer, but Sam and I thought it didn't feature enough of the two of us. Aaron thought it would do just fine:

Finally, we decided that we wanted our artist to do more of a group photo cover. The photo shoot got a little out of hand and we eventually fired the artist over it. I'm still not sure what kind of a camera trick he used to get two Sams and two Aarons into the shot. I was just happy to be centered.

Taking matters into his own artistic hands, Sam painted a picture that he thought might express the complex themes of the album. But it was rejected solely because it was the wrong number of pixels. Pretty fitting imagery for the subject matter though...

So when all else failed, we dug out this picture of a former bandmate who burned out years ago. We thought it was a fitting tribute to our fallen friend a la "Wish You Were Here."

So there you have it. The ins and outs of choosing cover art. Nothing is as easy as it looks. Except for Tino, I guess.

Peter

We here at STS are Minnesota Twins fans. So we were saddened to hear that former Twins closing pitcher "Easy" Eddie Guardado was found dead in his Minneapolis hotel room Sunday. Even though the Twins were forced to let him sign with the Mariners a couple years ago, we still liked his 9th inning poise.

Goodbye.

Eddie G.

Peter

Our forthcoming album will feature a song dedicated to the one-noble profession of pirating. Alas, the calling has fallen into disrepair. Apparently, the pirates of today are nothing more than rag-tag consortiums of petty theives that can be out-run by a cruise ship and out-gunned by directional high frequency noise cannons. Arrrgh indeed.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/11/07/somalia.pirates.sonic.ap/index.html

Peter

Also: Listening to "Frengers" by the Danish band Mew. Highly recommended.