Ten months without an update is pretty unacceptable, but then, this band’s history has always been marked by concentrated bursts of activity and periodic lulls. Had we posted here over the course of the academic year, there wouldn’t have been much to tell - a handful of shows, some enthusiastic conversations, some vague plans; but mainly, we each focused on other aspects of our lives.
When I started this band four years ago, we intended to record an album, release it for free online, and play a few regional dates at most. Over time we got more serious - our lineup solidified, we wrote new songs, began touring - but our ambitions always remained modest: create music we could be proud of and perform it as a means of having fun together more than anything else. We’ve been really fortunate to have always broken even, but monetary success never really crossed my mind. Despite the band’s many personnel changes over that time, we’ve managed to put out a record of some length every year and tour every summer - all while everyone was working or going to school fulltime. I couldn’t be more pleased.
We were poised, as the 2009 school year concluded, to do precisely that again; but of course, things inevitably change. As many of our fans are friends, you may have already heard this, but for those we don’t get to talk to regularly, here it is: after this summer, we planned to go on a potentially indefinite hiatus. There are no major personal problems to speak of - hence the fact that we are not quite “breaking up.” But we’re all at weird transitional points in our lives and we each need to make something else a priority right now. This happens a lot, and there are a million different reasons for it. It’s less tragic than it sounds. All good things must end.
Our plan was to write and record a full-length album to be released last week (at our show at Café Nine on Wednesday, July 22, which was also to be the kickoff for a three-week tour) - a rather tall order. We knew that we would all be too busy to work on it much longer or tour much later, so this was sort of The Moment. Over the course of a month, from mid-May to mid-June, I put together twelve songs that I’m really proud of, a coherent narrative album called
Attic & Cellar. I’ve written more extensively on the penning of the songs at my personal blog, which can be found
here. Suffice it to say that this record has been a long time coming - the culmination of our four years as a band and my four years as an undergraduate as well as a realization of our creative evolution. Our sound (and my voice) found, we decided it was time to document· In short, this record is a big one for us - the biggest, in fact. It will be our last, and, I believe, our best.
On June 17 we began tracking the album, severely apprehensive about finishing it by our July 1 deadline, especially since most of the people performing it didn’t know the songs yet. Since we record our own albums, we’ve done a lot of writing and experimentation in the studio in the past. This was severely hampered by our timeline, however. We were killing ourselves to get things done. We worked everyday from 9am to midnight with minimal breaks for meals, etc. and after a week and a half we were nowhere near done. I had been excited by the fact that the pressing deadline would keep us from agonizing over every detail of the songs, would keep them fresh and raw and honest, but things were coming out sloppy. We were miserable and the record still wasn’t going to be finished anyway so we acknowledged the reality of the situation and made some big decisions. The tour was not as booked as we had wanted it to be and our bus was going to cost us a great deal in taxes, insurance, gas, and the cost of repairs, so we decided that, for the first summer in four years, we would not be touring in 2009, and that we would not (yet) be releasing the album.
Right now we’re all going in vastly different directions - everyone in the band is figuring out school or a career or other music projects or moving or
something big. The six of us live in four different cities. Only very rarely are we all together at the same time in the same place. Jake graduated high school this June. In the fall, he’s moving to New York to begin a fantastic music composition program at NYU. I have no doubt you’ll be hearing more from him - although not necessarily in rock and roll. Noah moved to Brooklyn where he’s been selling sausages and booking, playing in, and tourmanaging bands. Wil has been working and drumming and is headed back to school in the fall. Alex Syner is in Boston, studying at Berklee and working and staying up all night and smoking cigars. Dave recently graduated from Goddard College and is now working and playing music. His band Sidewalk Dave just put out an awesome record - check it out (they're in our Top Friends). As for me, I graduated from Western New England College this May. I'm taking a year off to apply to PhD programs in English. I spend my days reading and writing and researching and studying for exams and filling out applications.
Ironically, deciding to slow down in the recording and release of the album has allowed us to revise our commitment to continuing to play together. We may never tour again, although I certainly hope that’s not the case. But we are going to finish this record the right way. It will come out - hopefully physically since Kelly Sullivan has already done an absolutely magnificent job on the artwork - and we will definitely play some shows to support it. We will remain a band, playing selectively over the course of the next year - existing, in some sense, as more of an idea or a myth than a material reality: one in which you will need to remain steadfastly faithful, as you already have so many times in the past.
We plan to record the album slowly but steadily through the fall and winter. We’ve no deadline or anticipated release date, nor do we have a plan for financing or supporting it as of yet. We will cross all those rickety bridges when we come to them. I’m confident in the record’s merits and can’t wait for it to blossom as it becomes an increasingly collaborative entity - as it moves from my madman’s mind through the magical fingers of so many dirty, eccentric hands and, finally, to tape. We will update when we’ve something newsworthy to announce. Until then, don’t forget about us.
Alex