Hey folks – I recently got the chance to have a chat with the folks at Up to Your Ears. We chatted about TPE, my current band Stag, and my obsession with 70s polyester suits. It’s a good laugh.
Babble Listening Party
So we tried to do this thing, where we’d listen to Babble, and then talk about it. This was after we did the Manic Pop Thrill listening party. (Oh – that reminds me – I could post that as well… huh…)
Anyhow, it didn’t go so well… until it sorta did. The day before I tested everything and it was working great. We were going to use Zoom to get all the Petrols on video, and use the chat and Q&A, and then rebroadcast that to Mixcloud for folks who didn’t want to sign up for Zoom accounts or download software. Simple, right? I’m an expert, right?
On the morning of the party, not so much. Remember, 7PM UK time is 11AM my time, so… yeah. Anyhow, we decided to postpone the listening party, but we decided to have a chat nonetheless, and enough people hung around on Zoom that it turned out pretty well. Here it is, if you’d like to give it a listen.
The good news is that I’ve figured out a way to do this for next time, and next time we’ll do even more testing. We’ll announce the next one of these soon.
More Free Stuff
Hey all –
It’s that time.
I’m doing a massive cleanup, and have stumbled on a bunch of boxes of Anodyne CDs. For those of you who don’t know, that’s the group I formed with Harris Thurmond when I moved back to Seattle. If you haven’t heard it, ask around in the forum – I haven’t met a TPE fan yet who didn’t like it. Pretty much what you’d expect from me writing with a guitar player from Seattle.
If you’d like one, send me an addressed puffy envelope with some postage. I’d imagine it would cost about $1.50 or so in the States, say a couple of pounds to the UK and 3 Euros to the continent. Just drop a few coins into the puffy envelope. Don’t worry about sending me foreign currency – I’m back and forth all the time and will use it to buy beers next time I’m there!
UPDATE: Okay, I miscalculated a bit on postage. Don’t worry if you’ve already sent an envelope. I’ve got you covered. But if you’re reading this, postage should be as follows: $2 for US, and 5 Euros/Pounds elsewhere.
Here’s a sample to help you make up your mind:
[display_podcast]
Send ’em to: 523 26th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122
Happy New Year! (with free live TPE downloads!)
Happy new year from us all here at TPE Headquarters.
It’s been quite a year for us, as you all know, starting off with a bang at South by Southwest, and ending on a high note at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Funnily enough, we had some equipment challenges at both, but somehow it all worked out and the gigs were a blast.
Thankfully, courtesy of the incredible NYC Taper, you can hear for yourself. He’s made a great recording of the Bell House gig, and offers free high quality downloads at his awesome site. You can download good quality MP3 files, or even lossless FLAC versions of the entire gig, here.
A big shout out to NYC and everyone who came – you were great as always! Here’s looking forward to 2010.
Are you ready for this?
That tour was amazing – New York, you are in for a treat!
Here’s just a brief little taster of what’s coming at you from Friday night at Koko
[flashvideo filename=wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Abandon-snip-mod.mp4 height=336 width=576 /]
Fans Interview the Petrols – #1
Some of you may remember that the fans put together a list of questions to submit to the band last year after the first set of reformation gigs. Well, it has only been a year, and we’re finally getting around to it. The idea is to answer one of these every few days. Think of it as a sort of TPE Advent calendar, if you will.
As the list grows, I’ll put them all on a special page, but for now they’ll just be on the blog. So! Without further ado, let’s get this started:
5) – It’s general agreed that those gigs were incredibly tight considering the band hadn’t performed together for 14 years, do you think you’re better musicians now than in the TPE days of yore ?
Ciaran: While its not really for us to say ….I absolutely agree. Steve’s voice sounds stronger and the band don’t push quite as hard as we used to – i.e. we are still v. tight but there’s a kind of looseness happening which lets the songs breathe and groove a bit more. Probably due to a) getting a bit older; b)not playing all the time and therefore making a routine of it; c)listening to a wider variety of music over the years when we’ve been having a break. Every show since we reformed have been winners.
Steve: Aw shucks. It’s not just me – I think we’re grooving better as a band now than we ever did back in the day. Without wishing to sound too cliched, there is a certain power to maturity, knowing that less is more, that showing restraint can be far more powerful than losing control. Speaking of losing control, there were a lot more stimulants involved back then, legal or otherwise. And finally, after having spent a decade and a half _not_ playing together, I think we’ve all come to realize the unique combination we are. The sum is much greater than the parts, and I think we’re all much better able to understand that now, and cherish it accordingly. By letting go and surrendering to the whole.
Ray’s Latest Masterpiece.
Enjoy.
“Detonate” is Amazon’s Free Song of the Day tomorrow!
UPDATE: This is US-only, I’m afraid. :^(
I’m sure most if not all of you already own it, but this is a big opportunity for us to get exposed to thousands if not millions of new potential fans. So if you have any blogs or email lists that you post to, send ’em over to Amazon.com/mp3 or amazonmp3.com and look in the top right.
(In case you hadn’t gathered, there’s a free song every day here – it’s never a bad idea to visit!)
Cross your fingers for us – let’s hope some folks love the track, buy a few downloads, and come to the shows.
TPE in NYC
Yes, that’s right.
Bring your ice skates, get ready to catch a live filming of The Daily Show or 30 Rock, but most of all get ready to rock in NYC.
It’s an awesome venue, and is guaranteed to be a freakin’ great time. We’ve been putting this together for quite some time, and it’s finally come together. Come spend the holidays with us in beautiful New York! Or, actually I should say Brooklyn, as we’re playing the Bell House in beautiful Park Slope:
Buy Tickets or just look at this cool venue.
This will be the first time we’ve played stateside in… oh wait. We played SxSW this year. No matter. If you forget about that, then it has been… twenty years !!! (I think) So save up your pennies, find that companion airline ticket, or cash out those air miles. We’re on our way.
New TPE Digital Releases with Unreleased Tracks
Hey All –
We’ve finally managed to get Fireproof and Final Flame released digitally. We’re working directly with IODA to make them available to all music sites, and can verify that they’re available on iTunes and Amazon. Woo hoo!
But there’s more. This release of Final Flame restores the original running order and full length of the original shows. Some of you may have heard these six unreleased tracks via the “unofficial” versions (I believe I may have sent some of these myself), but this is the first time they’ve officially been made available.
We will also be releasing physical versions of these two releases through a partnership with Amazon’s Disc-on-demand. More on that later.
In the meantime, we would absolutely love it if some of you wrote some reviews!