Our friends at Draw Us Lines interviewed Dan as part of their A Few Pints series.  They bought him a few drinks and spoke about the new album, the new season in the band, and next week’s Warhol show.

Draw Us Lines is an amazing music blog, and the kind of music blog you want to add to your RSS feed or bookmarks and check out often.  Why?  Because it’s a music blog written by folks who LOVE music, and their cup runneth over.  The types of folks who would make you put in their earphones just to share the newest thing on their iPod.  The types of folks who would turn up the stereo in the car to offer their latest jam.  The types of folks, who if you were Facebook friends would constantly be posting music opinions for your viewing pleasure.  The types of folks, who if they had your email, probably would add you to a homegrown list just because they couldn’t help themselves but to introduce new music to you.

In short, check out the GN,S interview, but if you love music, make sure you keep an eye on Draw Us Lines.

My garden is slowly dying. It dawned on me yesterday as I harvested a handful of cereal box textured green beans bound straight for the compost bin. There is an invisible enemy wreaking havoc on those beans, the squash pollinated indecisively, the herbs simply refuse to grow, and the tomatoes are all falling off the vine half-blackened underneath.

I want to blame it all on slugs, those nasty leopard print nocturnal villains. At least then I could point the finger at my laziness to simply purchase some cheap beer and set it out in a tin can. I don’t really want to spend any money on cheap beer, and there’s the hope that some hipster friend will invite me to a party where I can wait til everyone gets drunk and then sneak a giant can of PBR out to the car. When it comes to crappy beer, I’d almost rather light some money on fire and see if the flames are a better slug deterrent. It would save me the trouble of finding a tin can.

All that is to say that sometimes you think you’re really good at something when, bang, your beans die, or your basil withers, or you hear your musical aptitudes captured on tape in a way that makes you decide they are musical ineptitudes and how on earth did you convince yourself that you should be singing live ever? I won’t be so transparent as to point your web browser to the recording in question, as the assignment for blogging this week was to “Make People Want To Come To Our Show,” but I will mention the unique results of this round of self-awareness which are to a.) quit the amphetamines and b.) conjure up a voice teacher. Lessons start in 2 weeks, but until then I am retraining my ADD tormented cognitive pathways to respond to coffee, which comes with the exciting bonus of restructuring my weak and indecisive digestive plumbing.

It has been a melancholy few days, then, feeling rather dramatically that everything I touch turns into a pile of dust. Or at least a pile of compost. Singing compost, actually. There’s an image for you.

From a very young age I have understood that special bands have albums I can associate with deeply personal, wordless emotions: Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s pack a one-two punch of despair and elation on The Dust of Retreat; Wilco’s Summerteeth is for lying on my back in the dark at the end of a long, loveless day; and Matt Pond PA’s Emblems delicately encapsulates the end of a heartbreakingly perfect summer before fall and grown-upness set in. I’m always amazed, then, when our songs provide enough leverage to pull me out of a deep funk. How many times have I played Long Coats, No Energy over and over and over? “Not nearly enough!” say my bandmates. Yet something in the music of Good Night, States has patched this week’s leaks in my under-filled container of self-assurance.

So whether you’ve been living on the heights, bogged in despondency, or are just surviving a khaki-pants bland sort of existence, I do hope you’ll come see us on Saturday, and that some part of the evening will change, if even for a few minutes, the way you feel about life. And if you can’t make it, well, maybe you should join me in my garden infirmary sometime. We can sing out of tune and watch the slugs get drunk.

We spent the weekend putting finishing touches on our June 1st release and beginning the song you will meet for yourself in July. I had the pleasure of playing a fantastic Baldwin baby grand, thanks to our friends Katie and Martin. This particular piano was perfectly in tune and with an action that I would describe as primly starched collar yet surprisingly easy going, which wasn’t a problem, until we attempted to execute a glissando.

The middle 2 1/2 octaves simply refused to yield to any sideways pressure on the keys.

If you have a piano and a friend at your disposal, you can perform the following exercise to feel as if you were there with us on Friday night: begin at the high end of the keyboard and glissando to the E which is a tenth above middle C. When you reach that E, have your friend depress firmly the sides of your head with the lower part of his palms, at the middle of your skull, to disable your hearing. Meanwhile, you remain glissandoing until the B two octaves below middle C, at which point your friend releases your ears and you continue to ravage your finger down to the very last note on the keyboard. Neat, huh? Anyone who sends footage of themselves performing this act of solidarity with the Good Night, States keyboarding department will certainly receive some great door prize. For example, the piano currently in our living room. If you can get it out the door.

Recording has some significant ups and downs for me, spanning the heights of sheer jubilation that I AM ACTUALLY DOING THIS!! at the age of twenty seven, really playing rock and roll that other people will hear - and maybe even like - perhaps for years and years to come, to the lows of timing my nerve-induced intestinal dysfunction so that it looks like it was Steve’s idea to take a break from the sound board where he has just listened to forty three attempts at the pre-chorus and while he’s having a slug of some hard liquor, I’ll just run to the bathroom, la di da, and be there for twenty minutes attempting to keep my malodorous misfortune to myself so as not to dispatch my compatriots on the other end of the headphones.

I have been in this band just over one year, and it has only recently occurred to me that the constant exposure to the recording process has caught me up on a lot of skills that might normally take much longer to evolve. Were I to play in any other band, any other normal, hard drinking, tattoo laden, good-times-havin’ rock band, instead of our workaholic, long-distance, perfectionist, goal-driven, music mastery focused little family here, I would probably have one album under my belt at this point, and therefore about one week of recording experience to my name. Good Night, States has taught me a phrase on which will.i.am spent a lot of money, but far fewer editing hours than Steve is spending on our upcoming release, to spew, namely: Yes. We. Can.

And. Nearly. Every. Weekend. Too.

My confidence seems to be growing, along with it a distinct sense of hope about my tiny, fragile, late-bloomer musicianship, and also I now take legal amphetamines which certainly make the world extra bright!

Oh Yeah! She Wrote A Blog Post!

i’m writing this, my first post, not to contribute anything novel or edifying to the conversation that is already well underway, but rather in the hope that it will be a catalyst for more and better submissions from the rest of the band. i’m also writing this to share with you, my loyal fans (or our loyal fans…whatever) the deepest, most profound, most personal components of my being. my deep, cavernous being.

it’s a little bit embarrassing for me to share this with you, but i think it’s important that our relationship be founded on the solid rock of honesty. preferably a truth-bearing slab of limestone (for any potential patron[esse]s out there granite or marble would be really nice, it’s just not in the budget right now). in fact, i’m going to edit the tour rider to call for a truth-bearing slab of marble on every stage we play henceforth.

last weekend, in the midst of a 12 hour rehearsal (no, we did not break for meals, and yes, i was wearing a catheter) i did something i’ve never done before an audience. right there in trevor and megan’s living room, in front of god, the band, and the elderly neighbors on the east side of bruce street, i busted my nut.

of course, this made quite a scene. at the time i was tweaking the nord lead 2 (for our regular readers, i’m also playing the synth label game) and i stumbled across a particularly stimulating bass tone that sent my guitar from its precariously pro junior-supported upright position into the opposing wall. and though i thought nothing of it at the time, when i next picked up the guitar to play it, i found that my nut was indeed busted.

i’ll have you know that superglue is a legitimately utilized substance in the repair of many guitar parts, nuts included. steve was good enough to find the disembodied nut piece, megan was good enough to find some superglue and a bamboo twig to apply it, and i was good enough to flawlessly return the formerly disembodied nut piece to its rightful place on the neck of my guitar.

see, this story had a happy ending after all.

as a final word, i’d like to bring to everyone’s attention the blatant war-on-joe’s-integrity that trevor has imprudently waged via this blog. every good deed deserves another. just wait…