I wanted to tell everyone who came out to see us at the Doug Fir, “Thank you.” We had a great time playing; it had been a long time, at least when you compare it to the schedule we used to have. I think it was our first show in about three months, and it felt really good to be playing again. Hopefully some of that enthusiasm was apparent. I mean, I didn’t climb on top of my piano, like the guy from Editor’s might do, but I did what I thought I should do, consistent with the make-up of my personality.
I hope you liked our new song, “Flying Cars.” It’s one of our favorites from the new batch we’re working on at the moment. Kyle says it’ll be a long time before cars fly because it’s too inefficient; our fuel souce is just too expensive and cumbersome to make blast-off a real economic possibility. I guess he’s right. Too bad.
Have you heard what John Mayer said? He said something to the effect of, “There are two kinds of musicians in the world: blues musicians and non-blues musicians. Blues musicians want to hear notes bent; non-blues musicians don’t.” Of course when I heard this, I took great pains to convince myself that I was a blues musician. But I’m not sure I really am. What are you? Blues or non-blues? Don’t worry, there’s nothing inherently superior or inferior about either one. Just be honest and say what you really think.
Thanks again for supporting us at the show Friday. It means a lot to know there are people still digging the music.
Talk to you soon.

Over the past year or two, we’ve managed to come up with over thirty new songs. This feels nice since whenever I’ve read about the album-recording process of big important bands, they always say something to the effect that “We had about twenty or thirty songs recorded, then we ended up picking the best ones.” That is we may be a big, important band now. Or at least we share one thing in common with them.
Having said this, I am reminded of an experience I had in seventh grade, shortly after I bought Oasis’ “What’s the Story Morning Glory?” The world-wide-web was a relatively new feature of our lives, and I was in the basement, playing video games and browsing the pages Yahoo! brought up. I liked Oasis and their swaggering, bad-boy image, and noticed that I could find more information about them “online.”
So I did. I stumbled upon a lengthy, text-only interview with them, though I can’t recall the interviewer. What I do recall, and will always recall is my reaction to their, er, colorful language. It was sprinkled with more expletives than I’ve ever seen since, save for in HBO’s “Entourage” and in my former work at a drug and alcohol treatment center for adolescents. Being 12 or 13 and having very little exposure to the common speech of people in bands, I assumed that this was simply “par for course,” and that all real rock ‘n’ roll stars must have equally filthy tongues. It was much later, after I’d read many more reviews and interviews in music publications, and after I’d slowly realized the strange uniqueness of Oasis and the brash brothers, that I discovered they were on the heavier side of the f-bomb dropping continuum. For a time I really thought the world was a dark place; as it turns out, it’s just the Gallagher’s vocabularies that are dark places.
Of course I’ll drop an F-bomb from time to time… watch out.
To return to the topic at hand, however, I was mentioning that we’ve got lots of songs written, but have to whittle the list down into some sort of cohesive album. Which brings us to blog-audience participation (I mean, isn’t that what this whole “online community” thing is all about?). What role do you think song order or track-selection plays in making a “good album”? Should an album follow an emotional line that could be graphically represented? On the other hand, is the album dead, like Brett Vail says of the analog film? Has the “digital revolution” guillotined the full-length, sequential musical work?
A friend of mine said recently, “Who the heck wants a stupid album now?” or something to that effect. In other words, who wants packaging and compact discs and art-booklets when they could just store it all in iTunes and look up the lyrics somewhere on the internet? I don’t know. Is this debate already over while I’m just walking into the exhibition hall? Does anybody care? I suppose history will march on regardless of my vague, passive feelings.

Week One of our August residency at the Doug Fir has passed.  There was an excellent turn-out thanks to Tango Alpha Tango and Jonah, both of whom performed beautifully.  Mr. Aaron Trueb and Mr. Nathan Trueb joined us for our concluding numbers, My Best Friend's Girlfriend and Just What I Needed by the Cars, and played all the best parts (with permission), Aaron, in particular, on the smallest keyboard I believe I've ever seen.

It was fun to see some old friends and meet some new folks on Tuesday!  In the course of one chat, the city of New York came up, and I thought you might like to know a bit about David Byrne's musical building which stands there:

http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/art_projects/playing_the_building/index.php

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92470122

We hope you'll make it to each of our August shows on Tuesday nights.  Next week Brad Mac and Caves will play sets, and you'll hear some Climber songs interpreted by brass and woodwind.  Plus you can get admission and one beer with a tip for $10.  It's affordable and it stimulates the economy. 

I thought of something else noteworthy to share: We'll be accepting a commission from the annual musical charity event "Deep Roots" this year, which means we'll be setting to music the lyrics and musings of an accomplished high-school student writer. I'll try to make mention of when and where one might procure the said song when more details become available. For the time being, just consider this one thing: A bunch of high-schoolers who like music that isn't written and recorded by dull, pretentious 27 year-olds, being forced to watch their creative venture forced into the stylings of dull, pretentious 27 year-olds.

 

Last night (Friday, Jan. 4) we played a really fun show at Mississippi Pizza. Put together by the Dimes, the show featured singer and songwriter Ehren Ebbage, Johnny and Pierre of the Dimes, Nat and Dave of Derby, and Kyle, myself, and my wife Brittany, who had her Climber debut upon the little carpeted stage. I've never played the Pizza before, and didn't realize what a great venue it was for music being played at a moderate volume, which is a pleasant reprieve from the inner-ear jarring decibels we're accustomed to at most clubs. I'm not knocking loudness, per se, but rather praising softness. What I had seen before, from the sidewalk, which in the summer time allows passers-by to look into the room from behind the stage, were performers doing jigs, accompanied by smiling, clapping people. I think there may have been a fiddle involved. I thought, "That place is a place like the Green Dragon Tavern in Hobbiton"; and I liked it. But what could we ever do there? We are loud and serious and too clumsy to ever play in there.

Thank goodness we got the chance. And you know what? The smiling clapping people were in attendance for us too. There was even a bit of a clapping theme, one might say, begun by the Dimes in their quirky historic story-song, and continued on until Derby closed the night with their characteristic harmonious blend of perfect vocals and toe-tapping guitar-work. So good job everyone on the clapping and smiling and making the evening a really unique and enjoyable experience for us all.

We'll be back in February to do a show at Berbati's. Look out for a Dimes/Derby show at the Holocene later this month too.

-Michael

We played our first show with new drummer, Eric Lemiere this last Friday, the 28^th.  It had been a long time since we'd had the pleasure of playing Doug Fir, so we were very excited to do so, particularly with the new bands of old friends Brenna, Kelly, and Paul, all formerly of Man of the Year. 

Brenna plays with The Fast Computers now, a singularly enjoyable band to watch.  The on-stage dances were the envy of all in attendance.  We also wanted to steal the singer's ability to be amusing in between songs, something Climber has never exactly mastered. 

Kelly and Paul comprise two-fourths of Blue Skies for Black Hearts, which, in my humble opinion is a band name that asks, "How can good things happen to bad people," a sort of reversal of the age-old question that haunts everyone who has to deal with misery.  They also were excellent.  (Paul, if you ever happen to read this, I must compliment your attire at the show.)  Our own Kyle Lockwood had the opportunity to arrange and perform strings on Blue Skies' upcoming album.

We think Eric did just fine, and we hope you did too.  Thanks to all who came out and supported all of the bands!  It really was a cool sort of reunion to play the bill: As Kelly said, it was like being on tour again but without sleeping in weird places or horribly long car-rides. 

If you like pizza or music or both, you might like to come to Mississippi Pizza and watch a show I'll be participating in this Friday (1/4).  It'll be an acoustic show and should be a very casual, enjoyable evening of music from at least three other dynamic duos from Portland bands. 

We played the Musicfest NW last weekend and it was awesome.  I'd like to thank all those who graced us with their presence.  Honestly, to play two great shows after taking an almost year-long hiatus, and to be greeted with enthusiasm is amazing.  Thanks for shouting for "Escape," and sorry we couldn't play it.  You know, there is certain decorum, certain etiquette that we simply must abide by.  How rock'n'roll is that? 

For those of you who weren't there because of either a trip to the wildlife safari or because you'd already had an interesting night at the art museum, the show was at Jimmy Mak's, which is clearly labeled "Jazz" on the sign out front.  It is a jazz club, and looks very nice with its black tables and wait-staff in black.  I didn't see any black wait-staff though, which was a little disappointing.  Kyle was able to use his new bass-rig, which was fairly awe-inspiring.  I (Michael) was able to use a grand piano which was also inspiring, though, perhaps not of awe.  Dean just used his regular stuff.  *Yawns*

Jonah played before us and Derby played after us.  Both can boast excellent vocalists.  It was a really fun night.  There was even ample beer.  It doesn't get much better. 

We played a new song called "Integration!" which will not be on the new album, but will likely be on one after that.  Someone allegedly believed it to be of a political bent.  I applaud them for their interest and attention to lyricism, but are they correct? 
The words go thus:
 
Integration!
Everything's connected
Everyone's extended
No one is alone anymore.

Quantum mechanics
When I move a frog jumps
Spirit filled people
Determinism

The sparrow falls, the seed falls
The city falls, the market crashes
A brand new kind of planet for a
Brand new kind of human
A brand new kind of ethics begins in 15 minutes

Good old man about on his 2 legs
Hiding in his cottage with the door shut
Something on the stove, something on the hearth
No one calls him up so he's happy for once

Do you remember when the telephone wasn't stuck in your ear?     

Talk to you soon.  I mean, type things at you soon. 
-Michael