January 29th, 2011
Ryan at home in Champaign
5:42pm

A small update, friends.

Our trusty van, The Millenium Falcon, came home yesterday. It’s been at Joe Machens’ Collision Center in Columbia, MO since the accident. It’s fixed, it was painless, and we even got an additional payoff because they couldn’t find a plastic trim piece for the door.

And, to pile on the good news, and in addition to the progress we’ve made on “Residential Weather”, I spent the last 24 hours finishing another new song and recording an almost-album-worthy version here in my home studio. It’s called “The Thermostat, The Telephone” and it’s beautiful. Keep your eyes and mouse clicks right here for more progress and goodness.

January 26th, 2011
/ From Ryan at home in Champaign /

For the first time ever we’ve built a new song from the ground up completely together. Dave & Chris were just messing around with a drum & bass part two weeks ago as they were warming up to start rehearsal. Mark & I quickly hopped on and everyone started hearing new ideas. We ended the 2 ½ hour rehearsal by recording our progress with GarageBand. We spent the week listening individually to that recording. Then, last week we polished and structured and reworked all of the parts from the first rehearsal. Things moved a little slower, but we still ended the night with a better version of the song and once again recorded our progress.

Over the last week I’ve been brainstorming for lyrical ideas and trying to finally find my songwriting process. I’ve always just had small ideas that I pushed and pushed until something good came out without really structuring my moves or giving myself a routine. I realized that what has held me up in the past and caused each song to take MONTHS to write is that I don’t write down all of the ideas I have for each song-seed. I just let it roll around and around in my head for weeks and weeks hoping that the next spark comes quickly. Sometimes it does and sometimes it just rolls around on an endless loop. With Residential Weather I knew from the first rehearsal that the music made me feel like talking about what my neighborhood is like in the winter and at night, when everyone’s keeping warm inside relaxing in front of the television or on the couch. So, I’ve spent the last two weeks writing down how this idea makes me feel and what specifically I notice when Jody and I are out walking our dog, Rufus, or when I’m driving home after sunset. I realized that I have a lot of thoughts in my head that are interesting and definitely songworthy. The writing classes I took in college helped me understand what it is to think poetically and creatively about everyday situations. Now, I have to recognize when something I’m thinking about is good material for a song and then actually PUT IT INTO A SONG, the second being the hardest part.

The summary of all of this? We built a brand new song together and this song has helped me find, or has at least pushed me in the right direction to find, my songwriting process. All of the songs of ours that I’ve liked in the past 6 ½ years are the ones that said exactly what I meant them to say. And not so coincidentally they’re also the ones that everyone else has liked. So, THIS IS THE ANSWER. It’s simple, it’s logical. We push on.

More to come…

January 12th, 2011

Friends and faithful supporters…

We want to check in with you, wrap up the last year, and give you a few previews and predictions for 2011. Dave is continuing to heal quickly! In fact, we rehearsed on Tuesday for the first time since the accident and he was playing at almost full-steam. Thank you physical therapy and just the right kind of shoulder blade fracture. The icing on the rehearsal cake was that, without planning it, we wrote 90% of a brand new song from scratch in 2 ½ hours! Keep your eyes & ears peeled for “Residential Weather” coming your way soon.

/ Reflections on 2010 /
It was our best year yet, and that’s why these first 6 ½ years are just the beginning of what we have planned. We aren’t going to make one of those “hop off when it’s finally going really well and start other projects that are bound to land us in some world music circle” kind of moves.

Here’s what we did this year:

+ January – The Chemicals EP was released
- – - – - -(Our release show at Highdive was our biggest crowd at home yet)

+ February – EP Release Tour with We Landed on the Moon!

+ March – sold out show at Highdive in Champaign with St. Vincent

+ April – 4 shows on Record Store Day!
- – - – - -Parasol released our first vinyl single (Body of Water / Fatal Flaw)

+ May – our first sold out show at Schubas with 75% of tickets sold in advance
- – - – - – we avoided a lawsuit over the album cover with the help of Boing Boing

+ June – Summerfest in Milwaukee

+ August – Yes Yes Yes was released on Parasol Records
- – - – - -(Our biggest shows yet in Chicago & St. Louis)

+ August/September – YYY Tour: East Coast
- – - – - -(Highlights: Kalamazoo/Jamestown/Brooklyn/Philadelphia)
- – - – - -Sold out show at The Art Theater for Pygmalion Music Festival
- – - – - -Brittany Pyle’s video for “Breathing Light” was released

+ October/November – YYY Tour: The South & West Coast
- – - – - -(Highlights: Memphis/Charleston/Baton Rouge/Austin/Tucson/Portland/Seattle/Denver)
- – - – - -Zimos Ferguson’s video for “Wooden Houses” was released

+ December – Dave was hit by a drunk college girl in Columbia, MO after a 4-day Midwest
run, leaving Ryan to finish out the rest of the year playing solo sets in Chicago, St. Louis, and Champaign

TOTAL SHOWS IN 2010: (coming soon!)

/ What’s to Come in 2011 /
This year has started off unlike any other period of time since we formed in October of 2004. Because of the successful release of Yes Yes Yes we can finally turn off the touring engine for a while and focus on new songs. We get to do what the bands we love and envy get to do: sit down and write a new record. The two and a half year process of recording and releasing the two EPs and the full-length never let us really be in this situation. We just kept going and going without knowing exactly where we’d stop. This time, and for the first time, we can just write and rehearse and filter until we’ve found the songs that make us the happiest. Then we’ll record them with everything we’ve got (without taking 30 months) and there’s the new record.

/ Growing Even Closer to You /
We’re also planning on getting you, our friends and supporters, involved more with everything we do. Chris will start recording video of our rehearsals so you can see and hear what’s happening with us from week to week. In addition, we’ll be more engaging on this blog, Facebook, & Twitter because a lot goes on to keep a band working and you haven’t been able to see most of it. We’re ready to be a part of your day everyday. And please continue to send your love, comments, and ideas to us. We say it a lot, but we really need you. It bums us out when we see bands who seem to operate only for themselves and their closest friends. We’re not interested in keeping anything a secret. We need you to keep putting our music on your blogs and including us in playlists and sharing us with your friends. WE NEED YOU!

This blog is about to become a constant, so check back often. Thank you. We love you.

xo,

ELSINORE