There Are No Seats On The Train
12/26/05

What a week. A subway strike in New York City is like an oxygen strike on Earth; you can't imagine it being pleasant. Dave and I were lucky in our day jobs: I could work from home, and Dave drives out of the city to get to work. But it did mean that we had to cancel our show at the Sidewalk Cafe this week. It normally takes nothing short of a physical barrier to keep me from a gig, but that's about what happened. We couldn't get in to Manhattan, believe it or not, not in the early evening when we were trying. We weighed our options, decided it was probably too cold to swim the East River (and besides, what of our equipment?), and sent our regrets to the Sidewalk Cafe. I was doubly bummed about missing another encounter with Lach (pronounced "Latch"), the amiable and curious Master of Ceremonies over at Sidewalk. I will never forget playing there some years back and launching into a fairly ambient song (I brought my own reverb, if that gives you any idea). Lach starts making space noises over the PA and says something like "Welcome to the Planetarium at the Sidewalk Cafe..." One for the record books.

For those of you who were planning to go the Sidewalk show, you probably were unable to get there too, but for anyone who made it there, only to find that we were not, I humbly apologize. I can only say that it will be worth it to come to our next show, and not just because we'll be debuting new material...

Happy Holidays, to all
Mike

The Reel Trio
12/3/05

As Mike has said, we have been in the "recording studio" working out more songs, so that those of you who have driven either your family or yourselves crazy by constantly playing the same four songs over and over can finally move on. There are many good tunes being concocted and, though they are as good as or even more rockin' than those already released, our sound quality has improved tremendously with new technique and equipment. So far we have a few in the oven, including (do not hold us to these titles, for they are but working titles...) "Susan Sarah St. John," "Geodesic Dome," "Meantime," "Thumbs Up," "No Seats on the Train," "For the Dream," and "Places." Without sounding proud or whatever, they are good. Yes, very good. The problem is simply time. If you ever have read "Recording Sessions," the book that diaries the Beatles music making, you can see both how quickly and how slowly a song can be recorded. We bend to towards the latter. And while this can be frustrating, because we just want to make the song, so we can listen to it, it ends us up with a better song.

Last night we worked on putting the drums, electric guitar, and clav fills into "Thumbs Up." With the exception of vocals, the raw data is down, but needs to still be ironed out. After vocals go in, Mike can do his magic. Then we re-looked at "Places," which is one of the greatest songs Mike has ever written. We spent most of our time with electric guitar and piano, trying to bring out the chorus from the rest of the song. We experimented with some distortion (something not heard too often from the Trio) but in the end found a better clean sound. The piano is great. One of Mike's many strengths is his keyboarding and, though we didn't record anything just yet (piano-wise) he's on to something.

Well, I guess that's all for now. Hope to see any of you at the Lucky Cat this week.

Your Humble Servant,
Dave

Dave and Mike Deathrock
12/1/05

When you're a band that hasn't made it big yet, or has made it big, but has since sufferfed an embarrassing decline, one of the simple pleasures of playing live is being booked alongside other bands that aren't even on the same planet, genre-wise.

I can recall a few years ago as a solo artist being sandwiched in between a space-rock band (a la Kula Shaker), and the bassist and guitarist from P-Funk.  Although for this gig, I had a few friends on stage with me in an ad hoc backup band, it was still folk music in between space-rock and P-Funk.  Of course, it didn't help that I was in my "low energy" phase, of which I feel thankful that I have since grown out.  Suffice to say, I was the odd one out at the show, and it was very obvious to everyone at the gig.  (Dave once said to me in regard to that night, "Did they give you the 'Borders' look?", which although enigmatic, was telling enough that I remember it to this day.)

I mention this because the show that we are playing next week puts us as openers for a band, well actually a DJ, who is described as, and I quote:  "post-punk, deathrock, coldwave, dark synth, early industrial & more".  I should point out that we are described on the same page as "folk-rock locals".  Now don't get me wrong, I'm actually into early industrial (and I consider myself deathrock all the way), but come on now.  I doubt we're going to get any fan base fallout from the "dark synth" crowd.  (Although, on a side note, the state of punk music being what it is today, I would not be surprised in the least bit to get crossover fans from post-punk.  When I think of post-punk, I think of the bands played on MTV, which tend to resemble the Beatles with distortion pedals and tattoos.  Don't let the piercings fool you; these guys are pop.)

Perhaps I'm being too closed minded.  My CD collection has Type O Negative next to Travis, and Ministry next to Mojave 3, so I believe that it is possible to like lots of different types of music.  I myself am quite curious to hear this DJ.  I guess we'll see if anyone there is curious to hear us.

Loving this,
Mike

Our Space On MySpace
11/12/05

While doing our latest round of calling booking agents and sending out press kits, we got a response from one person saying that he didn't want us to send a press kit. "Just send us a link to your MySpace page."

What MySpace page?

I got on the Internet in 1995, pre-Napster, post-Arpanet. Also, my day job is in IT, so I consider myself fairly aware in the technology department. However, aside from a few mentions in conversations of "oh, it's kind of like Friendster", I had never really paid MySpace any mind. But then I recently read an article in WIRED magazine about how MySpace is mating social networking with MTV, and I felt like I had dropped the ball somehow. So, Dave and I fired up the old browser, and went to see what all of the fuss was about.

The great thing about the Internet, and by extension MySpace, is that anyone can make a web page. The bad thing, of course, is the exact same thing. That's what makes Google such a godsend - it brings order out of the chaos of the Web. From what I can tell, MySpace is able to make the endless glut of band pages navigable due to its friend list. You see a band with 200,000 friends, you know there's something happening there. It's as if SoundScan or Billboard had a love-child with your ninth-grade homeroom. "How many friends do you have?"

I've been typing in the names of bands on MySpace to see who has a page there. The answer is, nearly everyone. Hopefully, we can jack into the explosive nature of the social network, and get some more exposure that way. Even though that's what every other band is thinking, at least it's a possibility right now, unlike getting a Dave and Mike Trio video played on MTV (or even filming one). On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog, but everyone knows you're a band.

So will you be our friend?

http://www.myspace.com/daveandmiketrio

Mike

Save CB's!
10/16/05

We played CB's 313 a few nights ago, and it was awesome. I played there a few years ago when I was doing a solo gig (The Wandering Minstrel was my pseudonym). I recall it being a good show, and I was excited to come back as a local. Well, it was great. The venue has a semi-stage (two feet off the ground is good enough for me), and plenty of room to stretch out and peruse the exotic artwork on the walls. I would have liked it if the bar was a bit closer to the stage, as it would have allowed people who weren't there to see us to hear us. However, that's a double-edged sword, because if you have people at the bar who don't want to hear you, it can get loud and distracting. So I guess it's just as well.

Most importantly, the sound was amazing. Dave and I could hear each other, and the audience could hear us clearly (even our vocals). When you're a hard rock band, intelligibilty is not that important (which is why you can't sing any of the lyrics on your way home), but for us, it's key. Hard rock (which I happen to like very much, by the way) operates on the premise that the music should be as loud as the vocals. Although it's all about the music for us, the vocals are usually louder than the music. And it works; listen to old Dylan albums and in certain cases, you can't even hear the guitar. But you feel it, and you know it's there, and it fills in all the right spaces.

CB's 313 is, as you know, next door to the venerable CBGB's (OMFUG to you too!). The two venues have a good thing going, employing punk rock in one venue, and acoustic acts in the other. (I hear tell they even have a downstairs area where they do jazz, which I think is super cool.) The bathrooms at CB's 313 are a high point for me. While the band is playing, go into the bathroom. Instantly you are transported halfway into a different world, because you can hear the band from next door screaming, "Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi!" or something. I stood in there for a good few minutes getting two totally different audio feeds in each ear, wondering how in the world they got graffiti all the way up on ceiling. Definitely recommended.

So anyway, the gig went amazingly, and I think we played the best we've ever done. For all of the people who braved the torrential downpour that night, thanks. If you weren't there, you missed out. But fear not, as we've got more good stuff planned.

Mike

You Take the High Tech and I'll Take the Low Tech, but I'll Get the Post Up Before You...
9/26/05

Greetings from Trio headquarters! If you haven't been checking this spot daily, I can hardly blame you, as there's been nothing here to read. The original intent with this blog page was to link our site in with some kind of blogging software, or even some external hosted site like Blogger or Myspace or BlogForever or Blogblogblog, or any number of sites that lay claim to Infinite Content. After a few months, it became quite obvious that neither of these options were going to happen anytime soon. Dave and I don't have the benefit of having a web designer (anyone want to help us out on spec? Email us!) so everything here is done the good ol' fashioned way, in a text editor. Regardless, it's still seems easier than trying to join up with some other site, and besides, I'd like to concentrate on music, not web design!

Ahh yes music. The summer was fairly uneventful, as vacations and events took Dave and I into our separate worlds, but we're back here playing the good play for enjoyable music. We're sending out press kits, and trying to contact that most elusive creature, the Booking Agent. More details later. Dave and I write songs faster than we can record them, which isn't necessarily saying all that much, but once again we are Doing This Ourselves, so it's a lesson in patience. The good news is that our new songs rock! Our threshold for songs is very high; this means that a song has to wow us for us to even consider going with it. But as usual, we'll let you be the judge.

Dave and I plan to keep this updated as best as possible, with interesting behind-the-scenes stories and possibly less interesting personal ramblings. If you have any comments or questions, send them to us, and we promise to respond.

As always, we hope you enjoy. Thanks.
Mike