Our internet guru & band-member, PJ, has slipped into an irregularity in the fabric of time (pictured above) after trying to iron it out of his urban camouflage jumpsuit (unimaginable), so our regularly scheduled Single of the Month will be with you shortly.

For now, I might redirect your attention to some relatively deranged Beatles covers, originally recorded by Percolator (Helter Skelter) and myself (Matt) for our friends at the Aquabear Legion.

Click links to stream, or right click & Save As to download and put on your music pod discman machine:

Helter Skelter – Percolator

Revolution #9 – matt collander

You should really check out their entire White Album Tribute Cover Album Thing…lots and lots gems, all free (Why Don’t We Do It In the Road, Honey Pie, Wild Honey Pie, Martha My Dear, Birthday…all must-listens)

Oh yeah, and we’re also still preemptively excited to be playing Martyr’s on Wednesday,  August 19 with our friend Sean’s band, Save the Clocktower.  $7 at the door!

Click HERE to hop onto our mailing list!

Auch ist hier eine andere wichtige Sache.

-matt/Percolator

Hidely hey!

So, the Darkroom was awesome last night.  Pictured above is myself (left) and Doug (not left), visibly enjoying ourselves, due to the show.  Many thanks to those who came out & much appreciation to the Grownup Noise for getting this together.  Deanna Devore put on a great acoustic set & the Ropes closed the evening with a real gritty New York electro rock set.  Also, thanks to the drunk guy who gave me vocal tips after the show as we loaded gear.  I think the show went a little something like:

1. Safeward

2. Eye Contact

3. Model Town

4. Deduction

5. Dig a Hole

6. Minerky Bill

7. Only Hungry

8. Stapling Flowers

9. Angelo

Our next show’s at Martyr’s on Wednesday,  August 19.  We’re playing with our friend Sean’s band, Save the Clocktower, who are a sometimes loungey, sometimes rocky, always sweet guitar/key/drum trio.  $7 at the door, gentleladies and charming men.

Oh yeah, and if you’d like to be on our MAILING LIST, just click on those big blue words, input your e-mail address, and then click submit.  Simple, easy, free.  Fun.

Then, by a coordinated series of digital tubes, your information will travel, “packet by packet” until we receive the recombined data on our end.  The data will be printed via computer image laser imprinting on large sheets of industry-grade papyrus, which will be hung from the walls to dry and “settle.” After weeks of binary translation, we will be able to transcode your address into our system, and begin to send you updates about shows, or other notable things you might enjoy.

See you soon!

Mr. Todd Miller of New City was kind enough to give me and PJ a call Monday night to interview us for New City. Check out the supple and delicious fruits of his labor right here.

Also: We’re playing the Beat Kitchen tomorrow! With Ganges and David Darrens! Check out our Shows Page above for more info. Like I imagine lemurs say whenever they do that wacky sideways leap-run: YIPPEEEEEEEEEE!

-phil

BEAT KITCHEN: We’re playing at the very cool Beat Kitchen (2100 W. Belmont) Thursday, February 12th w/ deftly improvisatory friend David Darrens & Ganges, who are at least partially composed of cool people from Halfway House.  It’s $8 at the door & I believe things kick off at 9pm.  PJ has designed & printed a really amazing poster for this show, so keep your eyes peeled for it around town, or to show up spontaneously in this very spot.  Also, just FYI, friends Alla are playing February 28th at the Bottom Lounge.  I’ll be there & so should you!  Check out their sweet Kanye cover on their myspace.  It’s funny hearing the song sung by a singer.  Just sayin’.

THE DELI: We’re honored to be The Deli’s Artist of the Month for February!  In a heated, bloodthirsty, vote-based battle, we actually tied with songstress Via Tania and couldn’t be happier…she’s pretty awesome & should certainly be checked out by all.  Check this site out for whatever being “Artist of the Month” means.

HALFWAY HOUSE: After our totally fun radio appearance (downloadable audio available soon), we played the Halfway House.  Now, I hadn’t heard of this place before, but man…what a cool freaking place.  It’s a 2nd floor apartment filled with art & music folks who like to throw parties & set up shows…how cool is that?  It’s right, 1/2 way between Western and Damen on Milwaukee…just West of the Dulce De Leche cafe, and just a block East of the stellar Odd Obsession video store.  So, awesome place to be.  This was definitely the most fun show we’ve played in a while…total blast.  Love Raid played a very pleasantly chill & fun set, following our spastic calamity.  Piss Piss Piss Moan Moan Moan really took the cake, though…Nicole helmed a table-full of electronics, nudging details & fluctuations into an ever-evolving field of noise while Alex either helped with the twiddly noise knobs, or savagely thwacked at the drums…equatable maybe only in my mind to Battles, minus all guitars, bass and keyboards, focusing on the throb of noise & drums…damn.  Great show!

For posterity, or if anyone’s curious, after playing “Confabulation” for a ragged sound check, our set went like this:

1. Deadpan Hands
2. Dig a Hole
3. Incidental Lines – live debut!
4. Minerky Bill
5. Model Town
6. Only Hungry
7. Stapling Flowers
8. Two Ways
9. We Are Not Alone

MONSIEUR LABOUCHE: I’m on a real creative tear with Monsieur LaBouche…I’ve very concretely laid out the happenings, details & general gags for the next 25-odd strips, going so far to even name them!  Consequently, on the Monsieur LaBouche page, I’ve posted all the upcoming titles for the next 4 months.  So, read ‘em and weep.  Or, read them and wait…?

RADIO – We’ll be making our radio debut this week on 88.7 FM WLUW, Thursday the 29th at 9 p.m. Tune in live, or check out their webpage for streaming capabilities…just click on “Listen Live,” download the thingamajig and streaming should begin.  If not, do you have Realplayer, or some other streaming program?  I think you’ll need one of those.

We’re really excited about this, especially because it’s like we finally get to play a live show for friends of ours who aren’t able to catch us in Chicago.  Make sure to check this out!

SHOW -  Loft party!  Come out the Halfway House on Saturday, Jan 31st to see us play with friends Piss Piss Piss Moan Moan Moan and Love Raid.  More specifically, that’ s in lovely downtown Wicker Park (Damen Blue Line stop), at 1742 N. Milwaukee, 2nd Floor.  $5 at the door will buy you a night’s worth of mind-pleasing, ear-improving music.

COMIC – It’s Tuesday, so here’s Monsieur LaBouche #5.  You can catch up with the rest of the comic thusfar at the Monsieur LaBouche Page.  Tune in every Tuesday and Thursday for new comics!

So, Monsieur LaBouche is taking off!  It was very satisfying to get the first one done, but now HERE’s Monsieur LaBouche #2!  Click HERE!!!

For your viewing convenience, I’ve made up a Monsieur LaBouche page, to archive the strips.  Enjoy!

Also, FYI, we’re playing a show at Reggies today (Thursday, Jan 15th, 9pm $8, 2109 S. State St., awesome!).  If you hate cold weather, get outside, get yrself to the show & avoid the weather!  It’s the only way possible, I believe.

Oh, anyone hear about Batman dying today?  I betcha it won’t stick, but man, Grant Morrison sure kicks some ass!

Well, we’re not very far into 2009, but we’re already very, very busy…we’re playing:

Thursday, January 8 at the Bottom Lounge w/ Sissy Mena, Trio in Stereo, Medium Sized Rabbit (1375 W. Lake St., Chicago, 8pm, $8, 21+)

Thursday, January 15 at Reggie’s Rock Club w/ On Again Off Again, Mother Electric and Cup & String (2109 S. State St., Chicago, 8pm, $8, 17+)

Thursday, January 29th on WLUW 88.7FM – In-Studio Performance…somewhere between 6pm and 10pm, so tune back in later for our specific air time.

So, if you like Thursdays, music and us, your January is looking pretty swell! Otherwise, I had the great pleasure to play a nearly-acoustic set last Friday at Hotti Biscotti (not a coffee joint? i’m still not sure), opening up for the Nothingheads, who played a knock-out show, stacked with favorite tunes of mine (like concise rocker Gerhard & Ernie). For my set, PJ, fellow Percolator member & designer of this spiffy website, accompanied me & also played a few songs of his own. This made the night more successful than the sparse acoustic set I had anticipated & I think I can easily say that the band that followed us, Free the Fox, was probably the surprise hit of the evening. “Pared down” from an 8 piece to a 6 piece, this was a “loose” evening for them. It was hard to pin down what exactly they sounded like…ending with a ramshackle cover of Animal Collective’s “Kids on Holiday” didn’t do much to clarify, but all their stuff sounded great (They Might Be Giants + Neutral Milk Hotel + Born Ruffians…but, not?!). Apparently, Kankakee, IL is a fertile band-spawning area!

Happy New Years, everybody! A couple of things worth mentioning…we’ll be playing a handful of shows in January so watch out soon for forthcoming dates, times & locations.  By the looks of it though, between the slew of shows getting set up & all the recording we have ahead of us (LP2 is on its way!), 2009 is looking very, very exciting!  Very shortly, however, friends the Nothingheads will be playing a free show:

Friday January 2nd at Hotti Biscotti in Logan Square, 3545 W. Fullerton, 8pm FREE

…which is a cool little coffee joint in mine & Ben’s neighborhood.  Why do I mention this?  Well, aside from being an awesome band that we’ve had the pleasure to play with before and hope to play with again, they’ve asked me to play a short acoustic set before the show.  I’m very used to playing full band shows, and not so used to playing with only an acoustic guitar, so this should be some folksy, adventurous fun.  I’d highly recommend investing your $0 in this surely entertaining evening!!

But, to get to the REAL point of this post…Sylvia Browne, “psychic” extraodinare!  That’s her beautiful visage at the top of the page.  I’m sure this lady’s not news to a lot of people, but I just can’t help but point her out & laugh…beyond the obvious humor of being flat wrong as a psychic, she’s also either terrible at her job of cold reading people & conning them, or much less likely, she’s actually a functioning medium that, while gifted, understands her gift so poorly that she’s unable to meaningfully interact with the people she’s attempting to help, despite genuinely receiving imagistic impressions from the dead.  Or maybe the dead are just fucking around with her?  So, bad con-woman, or bad psychic?  Or both, and then more?  I think you should decide, by joining me on a video adventure after the break, by clicking here… (more…)

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the SubT last night (I don’t necessarily blame you…who knew the weather would taunt us for hours before it decided to show up?!), I figured I’d put up a report to fill you on what you missed!

I think it was probably one of our best shows, but being able to watch Busted Canoe and especially Allá made the night way more satisfying than it should have been. More after the jump.

(more…)

We’ve had a busy, busy weekend, setting up another show, writing/drawing comics, making a poster & doing drum tests.  The upswing of it?  After some booking juggling, we’re happy to announce that we’ll be playing at the Subterranean with local psych-rockers, Allá. So, if you’d like to see us in December, you’ve got 2 awesome choices:

December 16th – at the Darkroom with Genius School & Flatlander, $7, 21+

December 18th – at the Subterranean with Allá and Busted Canoe, $8, 21+

Tell your friends.  Tell your friend’s friends.  Tell Santa, and all his friends.  Tell Kevin Bacon & the 6 people he’s with (then tell them to tell 6 other people & pass it on).