dear reader,

before i truly wake up, it’s easier to set aside the headaches, worries, and mountain of phone calls and e-mails that instantly buries me when i return home. granted, it’s harder to form complete sentences; but everything’s a trade-off, right?

first of all, let me say that we had a great weekend overall. we had a wonderful time meeting and listening to the bloodsugars, and can only hope that relationship continues. in cincinnati we played at this club, were treated very well by their gentlemanly sound guy, dwight, and got to play (and share an apartment with!) seattle’s joy wants eternity. (their website is great.)

the only real spot on the weekend, of course, was my unfortunate allergic reaction and the resulting cancellation of our show at brillobox in pittsburgh. good night, states has never before cancelled a show, and i was particularly sad to have done so this past weekend. we appreciate so much the support of everyone who attended and chose not to receive the offered refund; please come see us in october. it’s not too far away.

although this clearly doesn’t make up for the missed set, i thought i’d offer a brief tour of our stage set-up, in pictures and words, as a peace offering. this is maybe sorta what you might have possibly seen at b-box.

clockwise from rear stage left:

TREVOR
t-dog stands RIGHT THERE, people. that’s his ’70s bassman 135 that gives him such a deep, woody tone (thanks, tubes!), his venerable fulltone ‘69 (the first of two and only remaining ‘69 owned by gn,s) used to great effect on “not come around” & “family dark,” and his fender jaguar baritone (tuned to low E, like a bass). he plays it on the aforementioned “family dark” and on “far side of the boulevard,” which truthfully has been out of the set for a while. had we played on saturday night, you would have seen trevor bop hard, rock his silver j-bass (not pictured–it’s actually fused to his waist at this point, so photographing it without him is just not possible) authoritatively with fingers, pick, and thumb, and sing a bunch o’ harmonies. the low end, as they say, would have been held down.

JOE
i get really excited when i see joe’s set-up, because i know there are just so many great sounds that are going to happen here. unfortunately, my amateur photograph does not include joe’s pro junior, and his blond strat is just barely visible as a voluptuous curve leaning on the x-stand; this shot is more from joe’s perspective as he stands like a pablo-honey-era-jonny-greenwood-haired giant at the front of stage left. the synth is the nord lead 2 that joe plays on “i am the loser,” “only thing,” and “far side of the boulevard.” (megan actually stands here and plays it on “there is a treasure” as well.) this is the first clavia product we bought. the pedals are entirely for joe’s intricate guitar work, and there are clearer shots of them in some of the recording photos. if we had managed to mount the stage at brillobox, you would have seen joe pick his guitar literally thousands of times–many of them furiously–, often whammying (not a word) dramatically, cooly lay down some fat mono lines, adroitly play the knobs of his pedals (especially on “long coats, no energy,”), sing intently, and play acoustic guitar on “sometimes i see you on the lawn.” joe = sangfroid.

ME (STEVE)
well, not much to say here. in fact, i play acoustic guitar ~60% of each show, so this picture is a bit misleading. what’s interesting about these shots to me is how little space we each actually have to stand in, and my position on stage is no exception. lately i’ve been setting up just slightly forward of the dead center of the stage, between and very slightly set back from joe and megan. so… my tiny pedalboard [80% homemade (i’m all about the percentages suddenly)] featuring the delay for “there is a treasure” that i control with my feet, and the fuzz i use for leads on “only thing,” “killer of the one,” and “sometimes i see you on the lawn”; my awesome coiled guitar cable; the gibson les paul deluxe i bought in highschool as my first real electric guitar (and play on “there is a treasure” and “only thing”); and my re-issue twin reverb that i’ve used with few exceptions for the entire short life (so far!) of gn,s. not pictured: ‘65 gibson sg junior (for the rest of the electric songs) and ‘68 gibson b-25. the set list from friday night is visible at the bottom of this photo–joe and i almost always share a set list. had i not been an idiot and eaten bleu cheese on saturday, you would have seen me say stupid, slightly unintelligible things, sing my heart out, thoroughly abuse my beloved acoustic guitar (probably smashing the headstock into one of dan’s cymbals at some point), squint cross-eyed at the mic, and walk around to the jup for the end of “long coats, no energy.”

MEGAN
we’ve never played with a band that had more keyboards than us, and unless we start opening for wilco or potentially jean-michel jarre, probably never will. i’m not proud.
this is where the proverbial magic happens. it would not be easy to describe everything that actually takes place behind these ‘boards, probably not even for megan. off the top of my head, i believe she currently uses 5 electro patches, 5 x-station sounds, and i think 11 jup sounds in the course of a set. (that’s actually like 275 possible combinations!) but i’m getting ahead of myself. the top right synth is a roland jupiter 6, made sometime around 1983. it’s been in gn,s just as long as any of us, and is prominently featured throughout “short films on self-control” and the internet singles. our website is modeled after the thing because we love it to death. it weighs like 10,000 lbs. or something and is 100% analog. i could talk about it all day. the little silver guy in the upper left is a novation x-station 25. it’s got a great little touchpad and joystick that megan uses pretty extensively in “long coats, no energy” and “killer of the one,” a bunch of onboard effects, and the ability to sync just about anything to tempo (in terms of bpm) which we really like. (that’s how those blips on “not come around” always fall right with the beat!) megan actually sits the x-station on a music stand these days, mostly because no one can figure out how else to mount it so it’s within easy reach. the third keyboard is a nord electro 73 that megan uses for all the non-synth sounds in our set: acoustic piano, rhodes, wurlitzer, and organs (except for the trashy ’60s organ sounds on “killer” and “she wrote a letter,” which are the jup). this a just a really great ‘board all the way around, and in contrast to the jup weighs like <1 lb. and is 0% analog. joe actually stands here and plays the electro on “there is a treasure.” among the things you cannot see in this photo are the two sustain pedals megan uses for the jup and electro, and the secret chinese-herb voodoo she must certainly be using to be able to step on both pedals while standing up. scary stuff, folks. notice the set list taped to the electro.
had our little band been able to play on saturday, you would have seen megan play maybe a trillion notes (192 of them 16th notes), constantly change patches, bop almost as hard as trevor but with a little more femininity, somehow direct nearly all of her voluminous vocal stylings in the direction of the microphone floating ominously above the sea of keys (25 + 61 + 73 = 159), and maybe, if you’re really lucky, tuck her hair behind her ears.

DAN
dan’s drums are really beautiful. although megan’s rig has approximately as many buttons, switches, lights, visual displays and control sticks as the cockpit of a commercial aircraft, the real helm of the gn,s live show is arguably right here at the skins. before i orient you to the inner workings of this command center, let me impress you with my drum knowledge by talking for a second about dan’s kit itself:
two cymbals: old. i think they’re zildjian, probably made by actual turkish people in actual turkey. they’re definitely different sizes or something. brass-colored.
hi-hats: definitely two of those.
rack tom: it’s small; it’s awesome; it has a moon gel.
snare: the head features two or three moon gels, usually some marker doodlings or drawings of robots, and one note reminding dan to put the lightbulb in his kick drum that backlights our logo on the kick drum head (thanks to emily kane–go, kanes!). there are somehow “wires” involved with this drum but i don’t know what they’re connected to. maybe dan.
floor tom: big. i know that i like when dan hits this and that it is hard to mic. two moon gels!
bass drum: also called the “kick.” i am NOT allowed to stand on this drum.
well, i think we’ve all learned something here. this photo does not show the hat trick that dan mounts on his hi-hats for some songs, or his stick bag (he uses mallets on “there is a treasure”). what you can see clearly are his yamaha clickstation metronome, his one-shot shakers (two of i think 4 shakers he uses in the course of a set), the briefcase in which those items live, dan’s roland spd-s sampler and trigger pad bank, and his in-ears that allow him to actually hear all of these things (they’re sitting on the floor tom–see?). dan somehow installed hardware on the underside of that briefcase that allows him to secure it on a stand, so he can grab things out of it and toss them back in without worrying about knocking it over. the spd-s is the source of many extra arpeggiators (”i am the loser,” “killer of the one,” “spring is the winter’s end,”), noises (”i am the loser”), drum loops (”sometimes i see you on the lawn”), and the glockenspiel and xylophone sounds dan plays on “family dark,” “long coats, no energy,” and “she wrote a letter.” although dan plays an actual glockenspiel in songwriting and recording, programming individual notes into each individual spd-s pad is easier for live work because, besides being one or two fewer instruments to lug around, it allows dan to play mallet instruments with regular drumsticks. dan’s role in live shows is special because we play to a click, but trevor, joe, and i (and sometimes megan) can’t hear it at all. it’s only in dan’s ears, so he has to somehow keep us all from going horribly off-course. the cruel dynamics of rock ‘n roll are such that, if one of us does go way off, it generally appears to be dan’s fault. it’s also his job to start the click at the correct tempo for each song, and then begin the intro or song at the appropriate time and when all the other involved members are ready. if one of us is for some reason not ready to begin a song (which happens all the time), of course we also find a way to make that dan’s fault. such is the life of a drummer. had my body produced the enzymes to digest casein, you would have seen dan make -1 or -2 mistakes, play his drums with a wide and thrilling range of dynamics and expression and often with one hand, yell effusively at at least one point in the set, have roughly 2x as much fun as anyone else in the band, make a series of inimitable faces, and probably mouth the words to several songs.

or something like that.

My favorite blog, Boing Boing unearthed another gem last week. This video (see below) was posted on youtube recently and has quickly become a hit around the interwebs. After you watch it, you’ll realize why.

This blogger recently interviewed the lead singer and has more back story for you to read.

Check it out!

UPDATED: Apparently some people are questioning the authenticity of the video (below). Further information here and here.

try and imagine those three words in a triangle.

dear reader,

“she wrote a letter” was probably the most difficult single yet to mix. hopefully it’s not the most difficult to listen to. (actually, i’m listening to it right now, on our site. i’m always on our site now because i accidentally dragged my gmail bookmark right off the bar, and the good night, states bookmark is now where the gmail one was. imagine the confusion.)

yesterday i had a sudden influx of free time, which in some way, shape or form, is what most of my posts seem to be about lately, and which i knew then to be short-lived, certainly, so i spent it editing this long overdue video. i promise you will either find it charming or absolutely terrifying and not at all funny, in an understated way. anyway, you should watch it and share it, because i’m sure one of my band mates will make me take it down soon.

as is often the case, i was in the midst of mania inspired by mixing last week. i think it’s part of human nature for lows and highs to accentuate each other, mostly because emotions are generally dependent on perception (which for human beans is not real objective on the whole); and if said ups & downs are right next to each other, then you’ve got something really, really special.
again, well-tread ground on this blog is the fact that mixing creates that for me all on its own, regardless of whatever personal equanimity or lack thereof i’ve got, because of the process. unusually, though, the most memorable moment of last week’s blur is one of real euphoria; and like all truly great bouts of euphoria in my life, it was also a moment of great clarity.

(let me take another sip of coffee to really settle into an ironic tone.) that clarity was clearly exhibited last wednesday as i drove down the hills of allendale road quite a bit too fast, singing/screaming “OH YEAH!” on the way to my 3.30 session. it seemed like the only thing to do. you see, “she wrote a letter,” is really about (drum roll, please… ) CHANGE, in all it’s difficulty and destruction and most of all beautiful elation. freedom, people. fo rill.
i’m tired pretty much all the time now. joe’s theory is that no matter how careful we are, the in-between week is not long enough to catch up from the weekend. ever. that’s probably true, and i think it’s also true that a lot of my fatigue is really internal. in any case, the song reminded me just in time that nobody has to stay where they are–if marilee changed her dollars for pesos, her DMs for euros, baby, then man i can, too. specifics will die, nay are even now fading away. embrace the nothing-permanent.

without the details, of course, i’ve got no kind of dialectic, but that’s ok. i traded it for freedom.

ps. ok, SERIOUSLY, watch the video.

dear reader,

feels like the home stretch here. i sat here mixing for so long yesterday i don’t even want to do the math. on saturday, two very good friends are getting married (to each other, no less!), and i’ve got quite a bit more preparation to do for the pieces i’ll be playing.

but let me just celebrate for a moment with you. i’m really happy with “good times, so wearily desired!,” and i sincerely hope you’ll give it a listen (the in the impossible tension tracks have been moved in the player and are after the short films songs. you can do it. you can find it).

it turns out that working on songs very quickly goes a long way towards precluding the crafting of messages i usually try to do as a songwriter. this track, consequently, is maybe a bit more candid in some ways than most. granted, allyson still doesn’t know what it’s about, but she did say, “does it have something to do with proust?,” which is really pretty insightful/awesome. [earlier versions of the lyrics actually included proust AND his madeleine (!), but it just sounded too weird. (raise your hand if you have no idea what i’m talking about.)]

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS A LONG, PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATION OF THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH WITH LITERARY REFERENCES. IF YOUR FACE BEGINS TO HURT OR YOU ARE PREGNANT, SKIP IT.
the story runs thus: i had come across the original english title of marcel proust’s famous work, which i believe is remembrance of things past. it struck me because, although sort of pretty, it doesn’t have the strength or provocation of in search of lost time, which is more of a translation of the french title (i think there’s a later english version with that name). naturally, any confusion/comments/complaints/suggestions in the gretz household regarding proust are directly put to our resident proust expert, allyson. come to think of it, she’s the only expert on the subject i know–resident or otherwise.
the significant part of this is really the conversation that allyson and i had about proust’s re-experiencing of the past, and the questions it naturally raised for me. is it possible to remember ANYTHING factually, without re-interpreting the experience? can one even trust his memory, consequently? the more personal counterpoint is that nearly all memory has a sort of negative emotional screen for me, which is probably why i emphasize the interpretational aspect of “memory.”
END WARNING.

so, “good times, so wearily desired!” is a song that shares my experience of and outlook on memory, or at least part of it. the lyrics should be up pretty soon. you should probably disagree with what the songs says, ultimately, but you should also bop along to the consumer electronics of yesteryear.

oh, yeah, the celebration. i kinda got sidetracked there. well, i gotta go, but YOU should have a beer.

happy 15th.

Google is this band’s weapon of choice. For example, if it weren’t for Gmail’s ability to track email ‘conversations’ and the fact that all 5 members have Gmail accounts, we would probably have a lot more interpersonal issues than we do right now. We also utilize the calendar for scheduling (conflicts) and we share nice spreadsheets of where we want to send press releases to, so that everyone can contribute. It really is a life-saver.

In addition to the aforementioned services that The Google offers, we utilize one other secret, secret weapon: Google Analytics. With Google Analytics, you are able to track hits and other stats for your website. One of my favorite features lets you see the search strings that people used that lead them to your site.

So, to blatantly steal and idea from PittGirl and Land of Yajeev, I’m going to list my top 5 search strings to date (by number of hits). Here they are… (more…)