I always knew a time like this would come.

Over the years, every time I'd search a band's page and see a blog that said the band was breaking up, I knew it was a day closer to a time when the people in my band would have to part ways as well, as it seems most bands must do one day.

The truth of the matter is, both Scott (guitarist) and Bill (drummer) have left the band. Scott moved back to Connecticut, and Bill is moving on to graduate school. This leaves me, Jayna and Jamie to cancel our shows for August and reassess our plans for the band.

I don't want to write some long, drawn-out self eulogy that describes how we've seen the Columbia music scene grow and shift over the past three years, because eulogies are for dead things, and we aren't dead yet.

In this downtime from playing shows, Jayna and I are going to be be writing and demoing songs that have been in the woodwork but were never quite fleshed out with the full band. Over the next few months, we will be releasing those demos through this page so that all of you can have a chance to hear them, as well as selling physical copies through our online store. If you're interested, we hope you continue the dialogue between us and you, the fans and friends we have come to gain and depend on as we grew in this band. Please keep the comments and messages up, because we are still here. Regardless of the name that's attached to the song you are listening to, I won't ever stop making music. It's something I feel I was born to do.

In addition to the new songs coming your way, we will also be featuring videos from our own home studio, letting you take a further peek into the process of writing and recording songs. Those videos will be here on our myspace, updated from our youtube account as we make them.

Lastly, we will have one final acoustic show, for the time being. Rather than cancel our show, we've decided to play it acoustic and to provide you with one last intimate performance. We will also be having some good deals on Tshirts and CDs, naturally, so make sure to come out and pick yours up. After this show, any TMIM merch will only be available through our online store at This Machine is Me @ Big Cartel.

Here are the details for the August 20th show. Make sure to come out and support all the bands, because it will be well worth it:

8/20
Doors: 8pm
Cover: $8
Set Times:
8:30 - 9:00 - Man With A Gun
9:15 - 9:45 - This Machine Is Me
10:00 - 10:30 - The Artichokes
10:45 - Until - SAVAS


Thanks again for sticking by us this whole time, from doing promotion for us, to changing your myspace name to "This Machine is ..." to even laughing at our stupid jokes while on stage, bringing your own glowsticks to shows or just noticing us in public. Ever since I was in middle school in Myrtle Beach, I'd always imagine one day I would play the stage at NBT. On August 20th, I get to do it once more.

Come to our last show (for now). We'd love to talk to you.



-Blake
This Machine is Me

welcome to the machine

by Paul Grimshaw - for Weekly Surge

 This Machine Is Me

 

Like all good college towns, Columbia has spawned its share of good college bands. With a thriving scene of coffee houses and bars near the University of South Carolina campus, to nurture these new talents, who knows when the next Hootie may emerge? A five-piece band made up in part by USC students, This Machine Is Me, will take its brand of alternative electro-pop/rock to Myrtle Beach’s Fresh Brewed Coffee House at 9 p.m. Friday, in an all-ages show ($5 cover). Local acts Atalaya and the Artichokes, along with Dirty White, will share the bill.

Fronted by a female lead vocalist, Jayna Doyle, This Machine Is Me has been compared to The Killers, but with a girl singer. Doyle, a Myrtle Beach native, moved to Columbia in 2004 to attend USC, followed by Blake Arambula, also from Myrtle Beach, who is one the band’s guitarists and keyboardist. “We didn’t know each other until we moved to Columbia,” said Doyle, who graduated last week along with guitarist Scott Long. Arambula will graduate this summer. “We’ve been playing for a couple of years now,” said Arambula. “In fact I’m the only original member left out of the first lineup.” The band is out gigging in support of its debut EP/CD, “Make Your Move,” recorded a year ago in Clearwater, Fla. Other players in the lineup include Jamie Beavers (bass guitar) and William Elliott (drums).

Favorable reviews from Columbia press didn’t come easily. “They’ve been really good to us, but we had to earn their respect,” said Arambula. “At first it was like they didn’t care for us but gradually we kept getting better and better and they like us now.”

Friday’s gig will not be the band’s first performance in Myrtle Beach. “We’ve been to Fresh Brewed about four times. It’s the only place we can play that allows all-ages crowds,” said Arambula. The band will take its original show to a new music venue in Loris called Mike’s Place starting at 6 p.m. Saturday. Mike’s Place is a restaurant that also caters to all-ages crowds. This Machine Is Me will share the Mike’s Place bill with Atalya and Gentry Dodd. “We’ve never played there before,” said Arambula, “but I hear the crowds there are very excited to hear live music – it’s like there’s nothing else around.” Doyle recalls the sometimes-subdued crowds in Myrtle Beach. “Our first time at Fresh Brewed everyone was just sitting down and we didn’t start until we got everybody on their feet,” she said. “You can’t enjoy our music sitting down,” added Arambula.

The first band takes the Fresh Brewed stage around 8 p.m. Friday; a $5 cover will be charged at the door. Fresh Brewed Coffee House is located at 933-A Broadway Street, Myrtle Beach. Mike’s Place is located at 4434 Broad Street, Loris. A $5 cover will be charged at the door.

Read the Original Article Here

...It's true, but not the point.

Soooo...listen:

We've got some really big things happening in the future! We just opened for Eve 6 Tuesday night! It was ridiculous. Thanks to everyone who came out and supported us and to all of our new fans and friends - WE LOVE YOU.

Stay tuned for updates, new shows, new songs, AND more info on our new drummer!! We are working really hard on some brand new songs for you guys and really pouring our hearts out in everything we're doing.

We've gone through some pretty rough stuff lately so please keep showing your support and we will ALWAYS return the love.

=) Jayna, This Machine is Me

Hey all,

We just wanted to let everyone know that we are being featured in this month's edition of the Garnet & Black magazine. If you are on the USC campus you can pick it up now. If you don't, you can check out the issue online by going to http://www.garnetandblack.sc.edu/. Big thanks to Aleks for writing it and to Justin Fenner for putting together a great magazine.

We are really excited for the concerts we have coming up and we hope you can make it out to at least one of them. We will be putting up a new acoustic track for your listening enjoyment soon, so keep stopping by as much as you can!

Hey all, we've been getting a bunch of spins on WUSC lately, so make sure to call them up and request your favorite TMIM song. They have both the new ep and old ep in their library. The phone number is available on our main page, as well as the screen name WUSCONAIR that you can IM with your requests. If you are from out of Columbia, you can still hear us by streaming the station online by clicking here.

Here's what the charts looked like for last week. If you can, request us enough and we can get back on the list for this week too!

Charts 10/28/08
Submitted by wuscadmin on Mon, 11/03/2008 - 17:52. Charts
1 OF MONTREAL Skeletal Lamping
2 I'M FROM BARCELONA Who Killed Harry Houdini?
3 THIS MACHINE IS ME Make Your Move
4 NOAH AND THE WHALE Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down
5 MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA Let My Pride Be What's Left Behind
6 DEAR AND THE HEADLIGHTS Drunk Like Bible Times
7 OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW Tennessee Pusher
8 ROSEBUDS Life Like
9 DEERHOOF Offend Maggie
10 HER SPACE HOLIDAY Sleep Tigers [EP]
11 REPLACEMENTS Radio Sampler
12 NIGHTWATCHMAN The Fabled City
13 KARL BLAU Nature's Got Away
14 HELLO TOMORROW Au Revoir [EP]
15 JAPANESE MOTORS Japanese Motors
16 AIDS WOLF Cities Of Glass
17 SUBWAYS All Or Nothing
18 INNERPARTYSYSTEM Innerpartysystem
19 SUBMARINES Honeysuckle Weeks
20 JAY REATARD Matador Singles '08
21 MV AND EE WITH THE GOLDEN ROAD Gettin Gone
22 FADED PAPER FIGURES Dynamo
23 VALIENT THORR Immortalizer
24 TEAM GENIUS Team Genius
25 RED CAR WIRE Let's Never Get Older
26 PHYSICS OF MEANING Snake Charmer Destiny At The Stroke Of Midnight
27 BLITZEN TRAPPER Furr
28 SWAYS Happy Days Are Coming
29 AWESOME COLOR Electric Aborigines
30 NEW FAMILIARS The Storm

and here is the review, care of Eric Saa, Program Director at WUSC 90.5 FM and HD1 Columbia, thanks Eric!:

Artist: This Machine Is Me
Album: Make Your Move
Standout Tracks: "Marianismo," "Silhouette," "Models & Bottles"

Say what you will about these guys, but they are definitely one of the scene darlings here in town, and, with a listen to this disc, their sophomore effort, it's apparent why. This is the kind of music kids can really get behind. There's room for booty shaking. There's room for yelling some great lyrics at the top of your lungs. Then there's more room for shaking that rump. This Machine Is Me may not be creating the next big trend in music, but I'll be damned if they're not good at what they do. Like on their first disc, the focus here is definitely on vocalist Jayna Doyle. She can belt it. I can't say it any more clearly than that. Sure, the musicianship is much better this time around (thankfully so is the production), but once she gets going, it's her show. Bottom line, if This Machine Is Me keep cranking out tunes like this, we could be witnessing the birth of Columbia's next really big thing.

Keep requesting us, we appreciate it very much!


-TMIM

Last night at the Art Bar was incredible. It had to be the most fun at a show we have had all year. If you are reading this and you were in attendance, we all thank you for being there to see us perform.

During the set, I started saying something about the Columbia scene that I wanted to finish. Here is the rest:

Every time I talk to people in the Columbia area who are involved in the music scene, they all give me the same answer when I ask them about it. "There is no scene anymore in Columbia, people just don't go to shows anymore," is what they say.

But something was different last night, something that objected to that claim. The hundreds of people positioned at Art Bar might have been there for friends, they might have been there for drinks, but one thing was for sure, they were there to see live music.

And I thank the Free Times for this. Every year, the Free Times disproves the claims of the people in Columbia who say no one goes to shows anymore by offering the music crawl. Cheap admission, tons of great bands, and a whole lot of fun to be had on a saturday night.

So now when these people tell me that Columbia has no music scene, I think about what happened last night, how every local band and regional band played their heart out, and how happy the people were to see their friends and enjoy the music.

Columbia needs to have more events on a consistent basis just like the music crawl, just like the T-Mobile concert in 5 points, because music is what truly can bring the people together.

I looked out into the audience in front of our stage last night and saw that it was undeniable. Columbia does have their very own scene, and the cheers and applause of the crowd last night proved it.

Blake

Just a little update.

We've finished recording.  Now we're busy listening to mixes and tweaking things.  The stuff sounds amazing though, trust me.  You'll get to hear it all very soon.  We're looking to release the new EP in late August or early September, once we get all the artwork done.  Look for us to be out on the road this June and July.  We're playing our hometown for the first time in a while this Friday, the 30th, and it's gonna be a lot of fun.  We're unloading the rest of our tshirts for a reduced price, so grab one before they're gone.  And, of course, our company will be offered for the low rate of free!  Oh, we'll have some new faces on stage with us.  Scott Long has taken over one of the guitar spots and Dennis Ming will be filling in on bass for us, so be sure to show them both a lot of attention.  Hope to see you guys at the show!

-Roscoe

YO.


Jayna here from This Machine is Me - we're going to be going into the studio next week to record some killer new tunes for our 2nd EP. We are so excited, so stay tuned to our page for updates from the studio on recording and whatnot - there will probably be some videos of us being silly, too, so watch out.


With that said, new songs from the EP are going to be posted in the near future and we need your help in deciding which oldies are gonna make the cut to stay on the player.


SO - What is your favorite This Machine is Me song that you want to see remain on the page??

Let us know!  We really appreciate your feedback.  And thanks for listening and supporting us!! 

PS> don't forget to mark your calendar and come out to Headliners May 30th! We are opening for Columbia's hottest soul-funk band, VILLANOVA!

Holla

This Machine Is Me's "Self-Titled EP"
February 19, 2008

"Follow my lead and I will pipe you out of town."

We'd do best to strap on some dancing shoes, hop on the floor 'neath the pulsing lights, and lose ourselves to the charm of this saucy vocalist and her band, the curiously dubbed This Machine Is Me. Thanks to the breeding ground of potential talent that is the Internet, aspiring artists from all over the world have never had a greater opportunity for exposure: fame is but a click away for some. With the convenience, however, comes a dilemma (at least for the economic music fan or iPod owner). For every future star there are a hundred pathetic wannabes, and wading through those disappointments is like trying to see through your windshield on a foggy morning. Although from time to time the finds are so astounding, they make up for every ridiculous Goo Goo Dolls cover that you stumbled across in the meantime. Thankfully, This Machine Is Me is one of those groups.

Their self-released, self-titled EP is a versatile fusion of The Killers' electro-rock (sans the unaware lyrics and Brandon Flowers' question-raising eyeliner) and Blink 182's coy lyrics and instantly catchy song structures (sans any references to oddly romantic interludes with the neighbors' dog; you know what I talking about). Long story short, TMiM takes strengths from both camps. Throw in Jayna Doyle's soul-filled vocals and you've got yourself a daring winner, from start to finish.

The chemistry's in all the right places, and the band seem aware of the potential firecracker of great hits they sit on, ready to catapult them to stardom. In this day and age, fans hold the key to making a group's efforts frugal, regardless of what the now-obsolete music critic has to say about a piece's originality. And what sells with the casual listener? Hits: catchy tunes that are easily relatable and just original enough to dissuade any initial hint of déjà vu. And be assured, TMiM lays those successes down with an easy one-two punch, the bulk of the release over before I realized it.

That isn't to say that there's naught but a hairline's difference between genuine quality and cheap distraction: no, these guys (and gal) earn their stripes with ease. Is it avant-garde art rock at its finest? My, no! Is it deliriously memorable and infectiously catchy? Yes, it most certainly is!

RECOMMENDED DOWNLOADS:
Rome Is Burning (A great ballad with a hardcore-inspired finish)
11 + 2 = 12 + 1 (Electric pop with a fantastic hook)
Models & Bottles (Bubblegum punk that's decidedly "in the know)
RATING: 4/5

-John Michael Wofford, AverageJoe Music Online
http://joemusic.wordpress.com/category/reviews/