4/7 @ Royale (w/ The Airborne Toxic Event) 9:00pm
4/14 @ Middle East Upstairs (w/ See Green) 8:00pm

You can hear us test out some new material and new arrangements at the same time as we break in our new rhythm guitarist, Zac Taylor. You’ll also be glad to know that drummer Mike is back at 100%. Both dudes sound killer! This is the biggest and best Darkbloom line-up yet.

One more thing about the show: Mike Forrester, who’s been drumming with us since last fall, sustained some injuries when he was rear-ended by an idiot in a pickup truck. The good news is he and his wife walked away; the bad news is, he’s gotta take some time off drumming. So Rob and I will be holding this one down with acoustic guitar, electric piano, and the occasional kick drum sample. It will definitely be a different kind of Vivian Darkbloom experience. Come check it out if you can!

See you at the show. Here’s hoping Mike recovers soon!

But at least seven of those hours were dedicated to re-recording rhythm guitar tracks we had already done. For what possible reason could we have been wasting so much time retracing our steps? Let me break it down for you in exactly one word: tone. That’s right, the holy grail of the rock and roll crusade, the wily endangered species every guitar player has his sites on but only the craftiest can hope to bag, something so intangible and esoteric you can’t possibly understand it, because if you did it would melt your mind like so much burning cellophane–no, you, mortal, can only hear it, and hearing feel it, and with only your peripheral, um, hearing, because to hear it straight on would be to go insane! All of which is to say that I couldn’t really hear it, or I guess I thought I could hear it, but after the thirtieth or so permutation of guitar+amp+cabinet I was pretty much dozing in the corner. But SCOTT hears it and now YOU will FEEL it and THAT’S why Scott gets the big bucks, you get me?

Rob amid the cabs

We are lucky to have such a killer producer (with such an amazing attention span!), plus he has an amazing wife who in addition to being a high-powered attorney found the time to bake us cookies. Thank you, Kim!

Cookies by Kim

We’re lining up some shows around Boston for spring, so stay tuned.

Now, you need to help us choose an appropriate cover song to get everybody into the Halloween spirit. Rob suggested this one:

Any other suggestions? Psycho Killer? Werewolves of London? If you suggest the song we end up playing, come to T.T.’s and we’ll totally give you, like, a shirt or a beer or something.

We’re back at Scott’s studio tracking some guitars, enjoying Scott’s huge collection of guitars, amps, and stomp boxes. One of the distortion pedals we’re using is called the “Red Snapper.” It’s red and has a picture of a fish on it. Scott says it was recommended to him by a friend who produces Michelle Branch, which means we can finally harness Michelle Branch’s classic distorted guitar tone. Other highlights have included the squealing, yelping, generally distressed-sounding Fuzz Factory and the nuclear-class, malfunction-prone Echoplex. It’s nice to take those tight, clean rhythm tracks and slather on some noise.

Our best weapon against the Soviets

Here’s a quick vid of Rob taking a little four-bar guitar solo through the Fuzz Factory, with Scott at the controls:

We also took a field trip to Scott’s friend Tom’s backyard studio to record some keyboards on Tom’s beautiful Rhodes.

Fun times were had by all.

Come along with me, won’t you?

Most of the recording happens in the drum room:

Drum kit

Another angle on the drum room

The cheese stands alone.

Next is my favorite room in the studio, the bass/bathroom. Notice the Ampeg 8×10, which I risked my life helping Scott carry down from the garage.

We can also use these mics to record people when they pee.

Here’s Cristiano in the control room. Notice the stack of amplifier heads, working in concert to demolish you with bass tone.

Recording is pretty grueling, and  it’s hard to break momentum to go in search of nourishment. Luckily, we found a good sub shop down the road, and it’s named for my favorite state!

Clearly an auspicious beginning to the process.

We’ll spend a couple more days recording basic tracks, then get to work on overdubs, mixing, etc. etc., and then in a few months we’ll work on the next batch of songs. You should never, ever trust a rock band when it tells you when it expects its album to be finished, but let’s say it will be “spring”…ish.

Tour was a blast, and we want to thank everybody who came to see us, all the venues who hosted us, and especially all the bands who rocked out with us: Company of Thieves, Pioneer Ships, The Hard to Get (coming to P.A.’s on 8/19!), The Real. Yesssss.

Tomorrow we are going back into the studio for the first time in a year with our good friend Scott Riebling. You know him as the producer of groups like Low vs Diamond and Metro Station and the bass player from the great Letters to Cleo. Scott has set up an entirely new studio outside of Boston, and we get to help him break it in! Yessssssss.

I’ll try to snap some pictures and send some updates from the studio.

Yessssssssssssssssss!

But at the same time, no place else pulls such a fast one: gangs, crime, clogged freeways, endless sprawl. What kind of cruel joke is this?

And yet — although I am a prototypical neorotic Northeasterner, although I am diametrically opposed to everything about L.A. in every way — I like this place. I like its contradictions. I think it’s neat.

You know what dawned on us today? People here are nice. We played at Silverlake Lounge tonight with Pioneer Ships and The Hard to Get, and everybody was just super nice. Bands, sound guy, bartenders, bouncers. Say what? No bouncers in Boston are nice. And the club has its own parking lot??

Great show, good times. See you again soon, L.A.

We don’t know about other musicians, but one of the biggest attractions of the rock star lifestyle for us is the crazy, liberating hours you get to keep. While other people are tied into their conformist, button-down, nine-to-five cubicle lifestyles, rock musicians get to explore the freedom on the fringes of society, staying awake when other people sleep, dreaming sweetly while other people slave at their jobs.

So, obviously, we all relished waking up at 3 a.m. today so we could make our 5:30 flights out of Logan. Somehow this all went off without a hitch; personally I don’t remember most of it. When we got to San Francisco, we took a taxi to the van rental place (exclaimed our cab driver, “I don’t think this is good area”), solved last-minute insurance problems, loaded up our stuff, and we were on our way.

By the time we took the stage at the Blank Club in San Jose, we had been awake about 22 hours and were suffering from varying degrees of dehydration, dizziness, hallucinations, etc. The flashing reflections off the disco ball took on terrifying shapes in our sleep-deprived consciousnesses. It’s a wonder we got through the set. The crowd was great, at least when it didn’t look like an enormous purple coyote licking its monstrous chops.

It was great fun sharing the stage with Company of Thieves, who are all truly excellent musicians and lovely human beings. You should check them out!

We also sold some merch. One guy stood in front of the table, staring at our “I heart VD” buttons for more than a few moments. Finally he said, “I wonder if I could get away with wearing one of these at work?” Heh, right. Then his wife/gf added, “He’s a gynecologist.”

Soon: bed. Tomorrow: LA.