Hey y'all-

5,000 miles and 13 shows later, the guys in the band, the half-naked light-up mannequins, the robot-inspired sounds + yours truly are happy to be back in the big city after the longest, busiest and most successful US tour to date. Thanks so much to everyone who hipped their friends in Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Illinois to the music (we've never had so many friends-of-friends-of-friends in the house so many nights in a row. Pretty amazing!); put a roof over our heads for a night or two; double-billed with us somewhere along the way; flew in from out of town to catch on of our shows; etc etc etc.
We love you all!

A big thanks as well to Mike from Deadly Designs, who took some fantastic photos of our show at Caledonia Lounge in Athens, GA.

If you missed us this time around, never fear; we'll be out and about again in spring 2009. Stop by the Myspace page occasionally for tour dates, live audio from shows in Chicago, IL and Denton, TX, plus soon-to-be posted footage from our upcoming live DVD: http://www.myspace.com/suiteunraveling

We're closing out an extremely busy summer and fall with two big shows this week:
Wednesday night we're happy to be sharing Public Assembly's main stage with Uri Gurvich and Kneebody as a part of Hepcat Music's 'Real. Live. Music.' series.
Thursday we'll be hitting the 55 Bar in Manhattan for the first time in over 2 years.
Also, keep your eyes peeled for news about the season finale of our graphic-novel-oriented robot costume party plus concert series, Monduna.
And then that's it for a while, folks. We're having a ball out here. Come get it while you can!


The skinny:

Wednesday, October 15
Brooklyn, NY
Real. Live. Music. @ Public Assembly (with Uri Gurvich and Kneebody!)
www.hepcatmusic.com / www.going.com/RLM7
8:00pm
(this one WILL sell out! Get advance tickets here: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/44634)

Thursday, October 16
New York, NY
55 Bar
www.55bar.com
7:00pm

Love and robots,
Lily + the Suite
www.myspace.com/suiteunraveling
www.lilymaase.com
www.cdbaby.com/addtract

Hello everyone!

The Suite Unraveling hits the road tomorrow to bring you new sounds, new video, and a whole lot of robot body parts as we work our way across the country in our big ugly van. Can't wait to see some old, familiar faces on the road. Please come out and say hello if we're headed your way!

the skinny:

Suite Unraveling
fall tour 2008

Monday, September 22
Athens, GA
Caledonia Lounge
www.caledonialounge.com
10:30pm

Tuesday, September 23
Atlanta, GA
eyedrum
www.eyedrum.org
10:00pm

Thursday, September 25
Austin, TX
Room 710
www.room710.com
10:00pm

Friday, September 26
Dallas, TX
Gezellig (with John Ellis and Snarky Puppy!)
www.gezelligbar.com
10:00pm

Saturday, September 27
Denton, TX
Hailey's
www.haileysclub.com
8:00pm

Monday, September 29
Bryan, TX
Revolution Cafe
www.myspace.com/revolutioncafeandbar
9:00pm

Tuesday, September 30
Edmond, Oklahoma
University of Central Oklahoma Jazz Lab
www.ucojazzlab.com
8:00 and 9:30pm

Thursday, October 2
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Nick Utrie's Little Theater
www.greenbaymusic.com
8:00pm

Friday, October 3
Chicago, IL
The Velvet Lounge
www.velvetlounge.net
10:00pm

Saturday, October 4
Chicago, IL
Chicago Calling Festival @ Heaven Gallery
www.heavengallery.com
7:00pm..

Wednesday, October 15
Brooklyn, NY
Real. Live. Music. @ Public Assembly (with Kneebody!)
www.hepcatmusic.com / www.going.com/RLM7
8:00pm
(this one WILL sell out! Get advance tickets here: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/44634)

Thursday, October 16
New York, NY
55 Bar
www.55bar.com
7:30pm

Saturday, October 18
Brooklyn, NY
Monduna season finale @ the Bushwick Department of Public Works
(with Kneebody!)
presented by the Addtract Consortium - www.rules-of-addtraction.org
10:00pm

If you haven't picked up a copy of our new CD, unbind., don't forget that it's available through CDBaby.com...
www.cdbaby.com/addtract

Thanks for listening, and see you out there!
Love and Robots,
Lily + the Suite Unraveling

Greetings!

Lily Maase writing from a coffee shop in Chicago in the midst of my 'accidental' tour from coast to coast of our fairest and most confusing country.

Last week found me an hour outside of Boston with the Lascivious Biddies, in a lovely little arts space called the Firehouse Arts Center. Wonderful staff, wonderful audience, and a pleasure to play with the ladies in the band for the first time since November.

This weekend found me deep in the heart of Oakland at California State University's East Bay Campus (formerly Hayward) for a jazz festival run by my old NYC friend and colleague, Johannes Wallman. This is Johannes's first academic year as head of his own jazz program, and it was exciting to see the amount of energy he is willing to expend on behalf of his students.
Some of the young players down there sound fantastic! (special kudos to Golden Valley High School, who had the cojones to play free jazz in the middle of a big band festival) Students age 14-22 attended my guitar workshop, and it was a trip trying to find a way to engage people who come to the music with an equal desire to learn, but with such a disparate level of experience.

Teaching is fantastic. It's the one place where I feel like I'm able to do some small amount of good in the world, and I look forward to all of the guest teaching I'll be doing over the next couple of semesters. More info on that to come soon!

Greg Osby was the special guest at the festival, and we had a moment to catch up backstage before the show, which is always a pleasure. A few people manage to appear in my life from out of nowhere, right when I'm in need of some perspective.
Chris Speed is one of these guys; I always seem to run into him on the subway right when I'm in need of some sage piece of advice about a recording project or my work with the Addtract group. Greg is another, and as my own band is starting at last to really turn into Something, it was wonderful to bounce some of my somewhat hardnosed ideas about what the music should and shouldn't be off his more-experienced ears and hear what he had to say.

Now I am in Chicago, typing away, on a day off before a couple of gigs and a couple of recording sessions. I have a session booked thanks to the Brown Rice music collective, if things work out the way they're supposed to I might actually have time to make that solo record I've been talking about for the last year.

I'll post pictures from the road when I hit my hood back in Bushwick next week. As nice as it is to be out and about, I miss my crazy warehouse space and all of you crazies back in the BK.
See everyone on the flip side!

Lily

Hey Everyone,

You can now find the suite unraveling on last.fm, one of our favorite sites for sharing, streaming and discovering great music. We're kicking off our page with a last.fm exclusive: a live version of "Mountain Song", from our Zebulon show in November '07. This is one of the only places that you can hear this great Lily Maase penned track, as it is not available on our "unbind." CD.

To check it out, go to www.last.fm/music/The+Suite+Unraveling

So I’ve been forbidden by Lily to refer to the April 10 Zebulon show as "pirate jazz", because it might create the wrong impression. But when you see the line up we have for you next Thursday, I think you’ll understand where I’m coming from...

the Suite Unraveling + Mike Gamble’s Second Wind
at Zebulon, Thursday, April 10, 2008

the Suite Unraveling
at 11:00 PM

Indie jazz quartet with saxophone and robots

Lily Maase – Guitar + Composer
Evan Smith – Saxophone
Matt Wigton – Bass
Fred Kennedy – Drums

Drayton Hiers + Annie Reichert – Production Design
Brian Garton – Video + Projections

When is a jazz band a rock band? When is a rock club a loft party? Can a saxophone be a singer? Genres and geography collide when the Bushwick-based Suite Unraveling returns to Zebulon, with their assemblage of abstract storytelling, live video and robot toys in tow. With brand new songs from composer and band leader Lily Maase, the Suite Unraveling inaugurate spring in style.

"the Suite Unraveling have created music that lives at the boundaries of jazz and progressive or art rock, being neither and both, with a message that is profoundly uplifting." – Budd Kopman, All About Jazz

Mike Gamble’s Second Wind
At 9:30 PM

A rotating trio featuring Mike Gamble plus special guests

Brooklyn based guitarist, Mike Gamble, leads a trio of shifting characters, appropriately titled Second Wind. Depending on the evening’s line-up, the trio could seep into a vamp-based composition or blast off to the unknown stratosphere. Nevertheless, Mike Gamble’s Second Wind adheres to its undeniable improvised nature, forcing the standard guitar trio format to walk the plank…

"...one the new breed of young guitarists who has the knowledge and skill to play in various techniques of jazz, rock, and other modes." – Mark Turner, All About Jazz


The upside of my not being allowed to call it a night of "pirate jazz" is that you’ll all be spared my sailor costume and bad "aargh", which maybe is better for all of us.

Zebulon is at 258 Wythe Avenue, between Metropolitan and North 3rd, in Williamsburg. Take the L to Bedford or, for a bit of a walk, the J to Marcy.

Aargh!

Drayton

Hey Everyone,

So it's a bit of a sad day over here at Addtract HQ, where we've had to re-schedule a performance at one of our very favorite venues here in New York, Goodbye Blue Monday. As you all know, GBBM (and here's the debate: one B, or two?) has been an inspiration to the Suite for the past few years, as well as a very important artistic home. We always love to play this great venue, but due to some unforeseen scheduling issues on our end, we've had to pull out of our upcoming March 7 show there.

So the show that would have been happening this Friday is going to be on hold for a few months. We're hoping to return to GBBM in June, with an extra special set to make up for our extended absence from their eclectic stage.

If you were planning to come see the Suite that night, we encourage you to go ahead and check out the rest of the bill this Friday, featuring Marques Toliver, graboids, our friends the Silver Arrows, Pariandi, and Squirrels from Hell. It should be an awesome night of music.

Meanwhile, we're gearing up for the kick-off to the Monduna series on March 22. What's Monduna you ask? Well, stay tuned and we'll get you all the details soon.

- Drayton

"Won't You Be Our Un-Valentine?"

Already dreading Valentine's Day? We've got the solution. Come help celebrate this most questionable of holidays with the most questionable of genre-bending bands, the suite unraveling ...along with a host of theatre performers, painters, graffiti artists, video installation, and a burlesque show.

We give you a candy-heart-free guarantee.

Thursday, February 14
the suite unraveling
hit the artfluxxx NYC launch party
@ the OS Art House
17 John Street
(between Broadway and Nassau in the financial district)
NYC

...burlesque at 6, film screening at 7, music at 8
the suite + video + live painting hit at 9
$8 at the door, and be sure to drop the suite's name when you walk in

All I can say about playing a wedding in the heart of middle America is, how did I end up in a country club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with my guitar, and why did these people feel like it was a good idea to have me help them celebrate the first day of the rest of their lives?

Playing a wedding is a challenge because if you are playing well you will be ignored, and if you are playing badly there is a chance some boozed up guy in a suit will come up to you in the middle of your guitar solo and tell you all about it. Playing dance music in a band with no drummer is equally challenging because most of the people who go to weddings hardly ever dance and have a sort of uniquely developed sense of time.

One thing I have noticed as a universal truth when playing music for people who have had a few drinks and are ready to have a good time, is that they get really jazzed up whenever you tend to beat the crap out of your guitar. I have seen this happen at bar mitzvahs, wedding receptions, warehouse parties on my neighborhood in Brooklyn, and on an on. I think it explains a bit why we have such a love affair with songwriters like Neil Young and Elliot Smith Kurt Cobain. They are really getting into it, and the only way we can know this for sure is because they are playing really hard.

This means that on numerous occasions I have opted to widen my control of the music in such a way that I play loosely and with a certain dearth of accuracy and taste. I don't necessarily play the tunes themselves. I play the shapes of the tunes, which means I play louder than I should and sometimes I hit wrong notes or open strings or flat out forget what I am doing halfway into the bridge of at least one song. It usually helps to get a bit boozed up myself and dance around.
This is probably not Good Music. But it does seem to keep people from nodding off on the dance floor, and in my own band it has occasionally served to really turn the music on.


Social experiment: We play this little song about Laura Ingalls Wilder called, appropriately, "Prarie," in the middle of the second set, right after a little swingy number that I believe was about a woman marrying and ultimately murdering a large quantity of men. The swingy numbers are nice because I can play like Freddy Green, guitarist for the Count Basie Orchestra, which means I am placing a chord on every possible beat of every measure, which means everyone dancing will have an easier time figuring out when to lift their feet.

We jump into the intro. Nobody dances. I switch from playing my usual light arpeggiations of the chords to some sort of a heavy-handed imitation of Bob Wills and the Texas Doughboys. And immediately, we have dancing. I switch back to arpeggios. The guests begin to look confused. I switch back to chords. They dance. This goes on for some time before I remember that I'm here to make a living and should probably stop torturing the wedding party.


In all, for a wedding gig the evening was a resounding success. Playing with the band is fun and we were able to make progress on some new music, which is always good for morale. The bride and bridesmaids seemed to know the words to most of our songs, and it ultimately makes me very happy when my playing tangibly improves the happiness of others. I made a few mistakes that were much better off in a country club than in a 500-seat theater, I remembered a bit about what it means to sing in tune, I spent 30 hours in a place I never would have ventured on my own, and I broke in a new set of strings.


From here, I head to my home town in New Mexico for a much-needed rest, and then the Biddies and I head to Arkansas and Kentucky for a mini-tour before I head out on my own.


As an aside, having a late August birthday for some reason means my celebrations are always a bit unorthodox. This year, I will turn 25 in the middle of a Christian University in Barbourville. Anyone who knows me, or has read my non-musical account of Iowa on my personal page, should get a few giggles out of this.

Back in Montreal.

It's funny how your life overlaps, and youc an be in the same place in the same way at the same time, only time has gone on and things are different but somewhow very much unchanged.

Last July I was here with my band from Brooklyn, and we had just made a record and I was out of money and, thought I did not see it yet, nevertheless had become a person very, very changed.

The July before that, even, I had sold most of what I had and moved with a guitar and suitcase and very little cash from Denton, Texas, to the middle of New York simply because I felt if I did not, I might decay beyond the point of ever coming home. (Incidentally, while I have been in Montreal THIS year, a gang of young men firebombed the bar district in my old neighborhood, lest it be destroyed instead by impending contractors and good old American Progress.)

In the two years since, I have at various points spent three quarters of my monthly income simply making rent; moved in with a Moroccan couple and a violently intolerable parrot in an attempt to pare away at this percentage; gotten over my fear of my hands on my guitar; made three records as an unintended document of the way this fear diminished; fallen in and out of love more than I care to admit; developed and learned to laugh at the worst insomnia I can imagine; begun to drink too much and learned to laugh at that as well; played music in Brooklyn, New Mexico, Boston, Hawaii, Montreal... Found more music within myself than I thought possible. Found msyelf (at last!) inside the music I found at first inside of me. Become afraid of the self I found. Learned to laugh at that one, too. Got over being alone. Learned to carry around inside me, like all thse burning little notes I eventually set to page, a sense of being home.

Now I am two years older and three records later and I am here again, to play again, and finishing the polishing on the very first recording that I set out tow years ago to make and have in many ways already moved beyond.
When I return to New York in mid-July it will be as if these two years had not occurred at all. My rent will be what it was when I first encoutnered that huge and crazy city I have had to call home. I will have no money and no future really set in stone. I will be with the same people, see the same skyline, do the same things.
It is like starting over with the same hopelessly clean slate stretching far in front of me and in many ways I feel like I am overlapping myself, year after year, crossing time and again through the self-same plane.

If it weren`t for my brisk New York demeanor, my pierced and widened earlobes and short ciyt hair, my new home within my own 2-years-older skin... and these recordings--frozen moments in this unfolding, artifacts that tell us yes, you may be here again (and again, and again), but you are moving, and though it may not look like it, what with being in the same place and all, at last you have let yourself go and realized after two years have always been swerving into something new.

Also, these days I have better gigs. And my guitar, now well-traveled where last year it was more or less untamed, has worn these changes well.