Big thanks to all that came out to our show last Wed. at the Rickshaw Stop! What a great way to get back into the scene. How about Plants and Animals and Greg Ashley? We certainly had fun and hope you did too!

Cheers,
Scrabbel

Here is what they had to say about Scrabbel!!!

Make awesome music and then disappear. This seems to be the game plan for San Francisco's Scrabbel. You might not have trouble running into Scrabbel mastermind Dan Lee at various shows around town but, seriously, when you ask him about a follow-up to 2005's pop gem 1909 all you'll get is a laugh in your face. Go talk to his label, Three Ring Records, and all you'll get are a bunch of shrugged shoulders. But I guess when his last album was so good we'll continue to wait. Mixing elements of pure pop with eccentric instrumentation and electronic flourishes, Scrabbel is certainly one of the best indie bands in San Francisco, if not the most prolific.

Click here for the full article and MP3's!!!

Just released today! It also features an Aislers Set cover as well! Go and grab it now!

Emily, I at eMusic!

If you haven't seen our new video, then stop reading and go look! It's going to be a featured video on youtube starting tomorrow, and i hope that people like it!!!
My friend, Paul, and I spent a lot of hours to generate 3 minutes of awesomeness.
Aya and I made little felt characters, I went crazy and built a little cardboard car, and
a small city block in my living room to film in, and then i got the band to wear costumes (made by my friend Nathalie) and spend an afternoon under the hot "DIVA" lamps.   ................please stay tuned, for we will be making another video
soon............

I wasn't really going to put this one out there, but Eric Nakamura reviewed it in the latest edition of Giant Robot magazine, and so I wanted to make it available for anyone to hear it.

What a surprise! He was up in San Francisco during the SF Intl' Asian American Film Festival, and extended his stay to see us play our show. Unfortunately, he showed up late and missed us. I had made 50 copies of this silly single to give out at our show, and I saved one for him. Thanks, Eric for putting it in GR! 

The song was really fun to make. It's a pseudo mash up of the Smurfs theme song, the Golden Girls theme song, and "If You Want me to Stay" by Sly and the Family Stone....and some crowd noise sampled from Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give it Up"

 I'm not sure what posessed me to spend time recording it, but I'm glad that i did. I think it's because I'm surrounded by real life golden girls in my day job....but that's another story.......

We are creeping in on the Directions in Sound show at the SF Intl' Asian American Film Festival. Sometime ago last year when I spoke to Chi Hui about playing the show, I had it in my head that I'd have the new album ready to go.

Fast forward to a week before the show and we are nowhere near a new record. It's a bummer for me, but that's how it is. BUT...I'm not totally laggin' on all fronts. I have made good on my New Year's resolution: I cancelled my gym membership.....even if it was many many monthly dues after the last time I ran on a treadmill. But still, I'm feeling like i'm behind on my homework and I'm scrambling to get ready for the show. (It's very much like last week!)

What's been goin on since......????????? We played the closing night show at this year's NoisePop Festival. It was deja vu to be back at Bimbo's for a 7:30 set. The Botticellis were great. I really liked their songs. Alexi is a really good singer. Money Mark was 3rd, but we missed his show to go eat burgers up the road ...paid for by our mindblowing $75 we got for playing the show. Did I mention the show cost $25 per ticket and it soldout in a day or so????Yeah, I know it wasn't becuase of us, but still I know that we had more than 3 people come to see us, because we had to buy scalped tickets to get some of our friends in? Oops, did I type that? anyway... Money Mark was a nice guy, and apparently his keyboard crapped out on him during his set. Had I been there, I would've let him use my Nord, and that's precisely what he wanted to ask for, I later found out. Oh well.....At the end of the night some kid mistook Stanley for Money Mark and proceded to talk to him about his set and the unfortunate keyboard mishap. 

Backstage, the main guy from Cake told Aya and I that he was happy to have us on the bill. He told me he enjoyed my recordings and choice of covers (referring to my Hijacked Tunes EP, I presume) That was unexpected and nice of him to say. I found out that he asked to get us on the bill, or had some personal push to have Scrabbel at the show. We talked for a bit and i later introduced myself to him. He shook my hand but never said what his name was in return. Was it one of those things where I was supposed to know his name???? Should I have known his name??? Am I the ass??? Aya kind of gave me a look like it was something I should know just because we are on the same bill. Usually when people say "Hi I'm so and so" the reply is the same, right? I don't know....it's not like a situation where i'm talking to john paul george or ringo, ya know? (That's no dis to him in any way, I'm just sayin I didn't know)

 Well, anyway.....thanks for the kind words, main guy from Cake!  I promise to do my homework before the next event.

I hope you all had a nice thanksgiving.

I ate myself stooopid......thanks to my dad for buying a 16lb.

turkey for our family get together of 4.

 

The other week I went and saw +/- at the Bottom of the Hill.

That was an amazing show. They were so damn good. Their drummer was totally awesome, and i reccomend seeing them when you can.  Thanks to James for dedicating a song to us. (We covered their song YoYoYo on our last album, 1909)

I've been working on new songs, and the album is starting to take shape. I'm really excited about it now, and I hope i can finish it up in the next few months..............

 

 

so i guess that last entry wasn't the 1st blog, but just MY 1st blog entry.

I should get more involved in my own band!?!

Over the past couple of days, Yo La Tengo was in town and i got to see them more than once. They played at the Bleeding Edge Music festival in Aya's hometown in the south bay. When I was playing with the Aislers Set, we went on a month long US tour with them a few years ago. They were very sweet and dedicated a song to me in their set. Ira mentioned that they would be hanging out in SF for the next couple of days and would go to see a show at the Hotel Utah. It turns out that they went to see a friend's band - DreamDate.  It was good to see them again and remember the days i went around the US w/ the Aislers Set

Chris, the drummer and label dude, has been on top of the myspace page more than myself (blame him for the blue backdrop, and praise him for everything else) !

anyway.....i'm busy (dan) trying to record some new songs for another album. One of those tracks is posted now for your listening (dis)pleasure. It's actually an older track that I started back when it was just Becky and I. We had 2 versions one with bass and drums, and one with bass and wurlitzer (becky was switching it up). I always wanted to merge the two, and now i more or less have and added the lovely cello and other bits too. I wish that she was still involved, as i miss her input and ideas. I was listening to an old practice tape of us trying to work this song out at her parent's house. The drum and bass version was like a Pixie's (I Bleed) thing and the wurlitzer version was more 70s Taxi TV Theme song style. What does this new version sound like? 

 

Be on the lookout for new Scrabbel songs in the coming months as well as a new track on the At the Crossroads compilation to be released in September!