dear reader,

no time for the rambling musings you’ve come to expect of my posts. gotta get this label submission to the post office (they still take hard copy–isn’t that the craziest?) before i go to work.

the title here goes out to megan and joe, and for the rest of you is from a bout of recording-induced delirium on saturday. there’s really nothing to get.

recording… oh yeah. so, joe and i are going to be finishing some songs over the rest of the spring as part of a gn,s ep called “in the impossible tension.” probably not all of the songs will make it onto the site as singles, but then again, maybe they will. the first one is going up tomorrow, and it’s called “arsonist’s blues.” it’s the best.

i think i mentioned this in my last post, but this brings our track-release schedule to a ridiculous once-every-two-weeks (whether that’s biweekly or semi-weekly, i’ll never know; someone comment and tell me!). part of the reason we’re doing it is to build a listenership, and if you’re reading this, we need your help doing that! any band stupid enough to try and write, record and mix a song every two weeks is clearly a conversation piece, right? right.

well, thanks. i knew i could count on you guys.

ps. if you’re a prayin’ man (or woman), pray that jude cole and keifer sutherland would give us a record deal. i am not making this up.

dear reader,

firstly, thanks so much for commenting. it means a lot.

secondly, if you’ve downloaded “long coats, no energy,” thanks again! if you paid for it or decided to then buy the whole album, then you’re just about my best friend. i sincerely hope you’re enjoying the song.

we’re working really hard at these songs–recording the may 1st release this coming weekend, and writing the june 1st song last weekend–and it’s starting to seem like there isn’t anything else in life. honestly, i don’t even unpack anymore. the only thing i have to decide on a friday (or thursday night) is which of my half-packed suitcases (still invariably on the floor of my bedroom) i’m going to take that weekend.

but i’m not posting to complain. actually, i’m not complaining at all. i wanted to make the first mention here of some material joe and i have been working on in extra time afforded by the unparalleled convenience of living in the same state. the additional outlet has so far been refreshing and stimulating creatively, and the music shows both a continuity with and subtle distinctness from gn,s material to date. insanely, we are going to be releasing one track every month in addition to the full-band first-of-the-month release.

“arsonist’s blues” will be up on this site for download next tuesday the 15th. reception to follow.

well, 12 hours of driving, specifically.

it’s amazing what can happen in 12 hours. you can get pulled over by the mahwah police (well, apparently you can do that in 5 minutes if you’re going 71 in a 55). i assumed that when the cop looked in my back seat and saw the guitars and amps and then asked if we were musicians, he was going to call in the narcotics squad and have us strip-searched. instead, he returned my license and registration.

“slow it down.”

“but officer, reprise is already at 56 bpm. we can’t play it much more slowly”

i don’t think he would have understood the joke though, so it’s probably best that i just thanked him and drove away.

in 12 hours, you can drive from bergen county to pittsburgh and back (if you avoid rush hours). and during those 12 hours, you can spend 100 dollars on gasoline (thanks, opec), be reminded that sax and rock are antithetical (thanks, bruce), and repeatedly ask yourself and your passenger, “what the hell are we doing?”

it was never asked, but it was implied at moments. it’s a legitimate question, too.

lest we forget, the answers can be found on the music page. one answer is in the form of an album. another was posted last week, and more will be found there soon. i thought the last song was great, but the next one is better. actually, the next three are all better. and the fourth is so good that it makes me cry to hear it. not really because it’s beautiful, it’s just because it’s so damn good. as a band, we haven’t even started working on it, but i’ve been sitting on my bed playing it ever since we got back this evening, just to hear it out loud.

and even though my self-imposed question still stands (what the hell am i doing?), the truth is, i’m amazed at my good fortune. we’re recording again in 5 days. keep listening.

“this is a new word to me, near-fields.”

dear reader (hello! i haven’t posted in over a month),

my mind is filled with many such quotations (generally deadpanned in a thoroughly french syntax) from my wife, certainly because i love her but also because they’re funny. (”are you going to read me nietzsche?”)

of course, this opener is related to the sudden infestation of monitoring equipment in our tiny apartment, which my aforementioned wife has accepted graciously and with humor. (”do you like the new speakers?” “yes, they’re bumblebee-ish.” it sounds like lines from a foreign language textbook. welcome to our home.)

i’ve been struggling to write this post for several days now, but actually i think this is probably the best moment. last wednesday night joe and i left late and arrived in pgh at 2 am to begin recording on thursday morning. st. david’s in the south hills lent us their unsuspecting and conveniently vacant rectory, and we transformed it thursday into a little studio. (watch the photos page for a nice series on this.) we managed to track one whole song while we were there, wrapping up on saturday with a little extra keyboard work by megan.

since i’ve been back, it’s been All About the Mixing. this is scary because a) i’ve never mixed anything totally by myself before and b) my inner recording workaholic is brutal. having survived two days of it so far, though, i can report that everything is great. the tracking, it turns out, was wonderful despite the sprint. drums are tight. vocals sound great. the song is really gaining a life of its own now that it’s fixed in a tangible medium (little shout-out to copyright law!), and that’s what you hope for as a recording artist: that certain intangible extra.

it’s actually so great here behind the ‘phones that i can’t wait to record the next one. you can call this a soft announcement: good night, states is going to be releasing several tracks this spring, and i couldn’t be more excited.

watch the news page for a real announcement about the release of this single, “long coats, no energy.”

love from rainy montvale,
steve

ps. does ANYONE know how to make quicktime my default music player? stupid apple.

Steve and Joe arrive this weekend!

There is something so great about the Friday before a weekend of songwriting. I’m at work right now, and all day long I have been thinking of the two guys on the road from New Jersey, in their vehicle loaded to the roof with music and sound equipment. I wonder what music they’re listening to as they burn through hundreds of highway miles. Maybe they’re just talking. Hopefully the roads are free of snow and ice.

When I arrive at home, there will be a few hours of calm before a storm of guitars, cables, amps, and pedals floods the living room. Dan will come in and bash around on his drums, probably take something halfway apart, then ask to borrow tools we don’t have so he can put it back together again; Joe and Steve will spend 45 minutes standing over Joe’s pedal board making ear piercing electric screeches with their guitars, figuring out which guitar pedals aren’t working and why; Trevor will set up his gear in approximately 37 seconds and then sneak down to the basement to keep building his latest bass pedal; and I will constantly pop up from the piano bench, Whack-A-Mole style, to see if our collective gluten-free dairy-free meat-free dinner is on fire in the kitchen. We have certainly found a rhythm for these weekends, and it feels good.

On Sunday afternoon, we will be exhausted. We will have spent anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours playing one, maybe two, songs. It will feel funny emerging from the house to interact with other people in the non-musical universe. We will pack Steve and Joe’s car with frozen hands, shiver in the street for hugs, and then wave goodbye. The house will be so silent. We will all be humming the same tune for the next week. And that music, the themes and choruses of new songs, will hold us together, thin and shimmering like precious threads over the miles between New Jersey and Pittsburgh.

This is the only way of being a band that I have ever known, and though it is not so easy, I think it is very beautiful.