“Deadpan Hands” is available on Amazon, iTunes or CDBaby.  Discussion about the song by songwriter Philip Bertulfo:

In the years leading up to the recording sessions for this album, we were quite a prolific band — almost comically so. It bored us to play already-written pieces, so even during practice, whenever there was the briefest of lulls between numbers, someone would inevitably start something and the rest of us would be helpless to resist joining in the creation of something new. This happened every rehearsal. In fact, it even happened in between rehearsals.

Deadpan Hands emerged from an impromptu jam session Ben and I had one day when we were supposed to be packing up our equipment to transport it to a show. It was just the two of us, sweatily rushing out a new song before we had to commit to our “real” duties. By the next practice, we had shown it to the others. Within the week, a song had fully formed. I was thrilled! In particular I was excited that I finally had a nice lengthy riff on which I could base a complex melodic guitar freakout.

Lyrically, the song imagines Colin Powell as a severely misunderstood prop comic, addressing the United Nations in February 2003 with his ineffective, tired schtick. Sometimes people will go to such transparently desperate lengths try to convince you of something, and I’m always flabbergasted as to how anyone ever falls for it. But we all do.

-phil

Lyrics after the jump…

Deadpan Hands Lyrics

Introducing your savior
Don’t believe a
word he says
a word of it
don’t believe
a word he says, no
Anybody listening
sits before a
prop comic
over their heads
lobbing jokes
over their heads, now

Deadpan handling anthrax
Gagging reflex
under such
great, great control
Giggling reflex
such control, now

it was all
a bad joke
but everybody
took it too hard ’cause
they don’t know
they don’t know
Everybody’s
falls for something
terrible sometime

Credits

Phil Betulfo: songwriter, lead vocals, rhythm guitar, noises
Matt Collander: lead guitar
PJ Macklin: bass
Ben Sachs: drums

“Dig a Hole” is available on Amazon, iTunes or CDBaby.  Explanation by songwriter Matt Collander:

An over-caffeinated wall of sound, “Dig a Hole” kicks off the album as maybe the most “ordinary” Percolator song on the album.  I forget what inspired me to write it, exactly, but my friend Tony Cramer was recounting to me one day how funny it was that the Beach Boys had considered “Do You Dig Worms?” for a song title.  Somewhere between that and the Beatles’ “I Dig a Pony,” “Dig a Hole” seemed like the song title to go with.

Thematically, the song’s all about subtext and the very complicated inner workings of things that people often take at face value and then stop investigating, or that no matter how you try, you won’t ever get to what’s beyond you.  One image that I really liked that came to me in trying to piece together lyrics for this song was the idea of nature being coordinated on an anthropomorphic level – that all the plants were singing to each other, and were part of some vast assembly line that keeps things going, unbeknownst to anyone, really.

I’ve recently stumbled upon the topic of ayahuasca rituals in Amazonian shamanic practice, which is basically sticking to a strict diet of fish, rice and fruits while readying yourself spiritually to drink hallucinogenic tobacco water, vomit like crazy and have insane spirit journey hallucinations.  The whole thought is that the plants will guide you and are conversant with you in your experience.  Hypocritically of me perhaps, I think it’s probably just a simple case of tripping your balls off and being way dehydrated, but the idea is pretty cool.

Dig a Hole threatens to be one of the most “pop” songs we’ve done, but as has been pointed out by album engineer & mixer Mike McGovern, for as poppy as it could’ve been, we really play it loud and fast a là Hüsker Dü, obscuring the simple 3-chord structure with buckets of spazz and distortion.  What’s funny is, when all the electric guitars and drums are taken away, my acoustic demos sound like some weird spiritual folk mantra.

-matt

Lyrics after the break…

Dig a Hole Lyrics

Up on the surface, everything is as it should be
but you’ll never know, no you’ll never know
Sleeping in gardens in between chrysanthemums
you’ll never see, no you’ll never see
you’ll never see, no you’ll never see

That all the roots run deep beside electric wire
and all the trees will hum like an inhuman choir
tiny seeds erupt and sprout up through the ground
they will climb above the grass to find you there
but you won’t notice that this has been happening
you’ll never see, no you’ll never see

Ask me a question, you will never get an answer
you’ll never know, no you’ll never know
Talking in circles till our tongues tie together in knots
you’ll never speak, no you’ll never speak
you’ll never speak, no you’ll never speak

Your line of questioning will dig a hole too deep
you’ll burrow underground into a factory
on an abstract plane, six feet inside the mind
little seeds pass by on an assembly line
every little seed will rise into a vine
all of the aphids breed and swarm behind your eyes
but you won’t notice that this has been happening
you’ll never see, no you’ll never see
you’ll never see, no you’ll never see
you’ll never see, no you’ll never see
you’ll never see, no you’ll never see

Credits

Phil Betulfo: bass, backup vocals
Matt Collander: songwriter, lead vocals, rhythm guitar
PJ Macklin: lead guitar
Ben Sachs: drums

Percolator @ Odd Obsession from Aqua Bear on Vimeo.

Hey, see that?  Thanks to TimeOut Chicago for letting us put a video on their site.  More thanks to Zach Long for helping make that happen.  More and more thanks to Brian Wiebe for shooting and editing it, and to Brian Chankin for hosting us at his wonderful video store, Odd Obsession.

“None of These Are Words,” the Digital Experience

Well, we’ve made our second full-length album and it’s available online (also, here and here).  But what about the liner notes?  What about the promotional tour on all the morning talk shows?  What about the overly verbose writeup on Pitchfork, accusing us of being either too predictable, or having disappointingly eschewed our formula?

There is little fanfare to an independent band’s digitally self-released album, but there is still a world of trivia to share.  We’ve decided to make a little bit of fanfare ourselves and share our album with you guys one track at a time.  So, starting tomorrow, we’ll be posting about one song a weekday, for the next 12 days.

No longer will our mumbling get in the way of understanding what we’re saying: we’ll give you song lyrics!  No longer will you puzzle over our odd topic choices: we’ll maybe explain!  Deduction (the video above) will have a full writeup on day 10, so keep your eyes peeled for it.

Hopefully, you’ll find something interesting in our deluge of album information.  It was certainly a fun experience to piece it together over the last year or so, and we’re exceptionally proud of it.

Hey everybody,

It’s been a while since we’ve made a peep, but we’ve been busy, busy.  We recently finished our second full-length album, “None Of These Are Words,” and it can be bought at such distinguished online vendors as Amazon.com, iTunes, or CDBaby…I think it’s a full dollar cheaper on Amazon, but our CDBaby band page looks better, so…I’m torn on which to suggest most strongly.  It’s got all of our best songs, and none of our worst songs, and they’re all in order, so you don’t have to change discs or start it over or anything.

If digital music is not your idea of fun, maybe live music is?  We’re playing at Beat Kitchen this Thursday with the excellent Woo-Man and the Banana, as well as the “I haven’t heard them yet, but I’m sure they’re also great,” Abbot Smile.  Tickets are $8, doors at 8pm, show starts at 8:30 & is a 21+ event.  It looks like we’ll be going on at 9:30.

See you there!
matt/Percolator

Our long-in-the-making 2nd album, “None Of These Are Words” is out now digitally!  You can click here to see it on iTunes, or check out our spiffy CDBaby page here.

We’d love to hear what you guys think.  Email us with questions, comments, or nonsense.  Our gmail is ready for anything.

Hey, we’re playing Beat Kitchen next Sunday with Brazzaville. We’ll be playing a heaping helping of songs from our upcoming release, “None Of These Are Words.”

Doors are at 7:30, show’s at 8:00 (I think we’re the only opener!  And we go on at 8 sharp, I presume).  21+, no baby infant children allowed at this alcohol-friendly adult event.

So, we’ve got all our ducks in a row finally.  LP2 will be titled “None Of These Are Words.” It features the cover art above (painted by me) and will contain the following 12 tracks, in precisely this order:

1. Dig a Hole

2. Deadpan Hands

3. Charley Varrick (Don Siegel, 1973)

4. Model Town

5. They Built a House Around Me

6. Over Yr Head

7. Modern Guy

8. Kentucky Marmalade

9. Incidental Lines

10. Deduction

11. Angelo

12. Marquee at Sundown

We’re on the verge of getting our mastered version of the album juuuuuust right, and will then promptly toss it up on iTunes, Amazon, etc., etc., for your listening pleasure.

We’ll be playing 2 shows soon…1 at Ronny’s, June 9th and one at Beat Kitchen, June 13th.  More info on those shows soon.  We’re trying to plan our CD release party for mid to late July, and should have download cards of the album available for purchase, so hopefully, we’ll see you at a live show soon, and you’ll soon have a copy of “None Of These Are Words” in your hands.

Well, we’re rolling toward completion on Percolator’s LP2, which is named…something.  We’ll figure something out.

It’s taken us a while to get to the finish line, but now suddenly we’re crossing many small finish lines, on a near daily basis.  On Sunday, we finished mixing the album entirely, getting together with friend, engineer & mixer Michael McGovern in our stuffy, tiny rehearsal space for upwards of 9 hours to nudge vocals just a little this way, and then just a little that way back until it was just so, making sure the drums were as epically huge as we’d imagined them, making sure the bass made asses shake.  Mike’s been with us every step of the way as we’ve recorded 25 songs (probably much more than he thought we’d be recording!), helping us figure out how to get the Percolator sound he was attracted to down on a recording more genuinely than we’d been able to before, and he’s really pulled it off.

But now that he’s done recording our album, what will he do next?  Drop us a line if you’d like a bona fide recording engineer to record your album for you.  Mike’s great at what he does.

Meanwhile, Mike’s got some people to thank, himself.  Mike?

Michael McGovern’s Thank You’s for Percolator’s LP2

Because I’m just a lowly recording engineer, I don’t get to say a lot of public “thank yous”.

I just finished recording and mixing the first full-length album of my career, and it’s been a long trudge to get here. Since graduating with a B.A. in sound recording FOUR YEARS AGO (jeez, that’s just hitting me) I’ve had a lot of false starts, time off, and personal dilemmas to contend with. Granted, recording engineers make tons of albums, and because it’s just the job, there aren’t many milestones. But I’m going to be self-indulgent for this one, because it’s my first real achievement in the world of recording music, it’s been a long time coming, and I’m quite proud of it.

It would be unreasonable for me to get a space in the album liner notes for the people I want to thank. But while this is the first time I engineered an album alone from start to finish, there have been a lot of people without whom I could not have done any of this. Like, literally wouldn’t have happened.

Some of you directly contributed to this record specifically, others taught me methods that guided me through it, others taught me how to reason through difficult problems, others lent their time, equipment, expertise, and emotional support. And I inherited/stole equipment from a couple names on here, so thanks for that as well.

So, my heartfelt thanks go out to:

Terry, Joann & MaryAnn McGovern, Brett Bakshis, Jon San Paolo (three cheers for this guy and for JSP-WTF Brewery), Matt Hart, Tony, Russell, Gary, Chris Gazdic, Dan Epstein, Dianne Zahnle, Chris Brickley, Freddy Breitberg, Jack Alexander, Benj Kanters, the entire ’06 EA crew including Steve Albini, Greg Norman, Russ Arbuthnot, Chad Smith, Ben Flint and John Novotny, Kevin Jensen, Dan Gardner, Helios Liu, Corey & Neal (SCI Technologies), Pat Droppleman, Josh Younger, Ken Peiser (RIP) and anyone I’m forgetting who should come forward and demand that I thank them for whatever they contributed to this.

Even though I never got a chance to meet the man, I’m sure I wouldn’t have had the inspiration to get off my ass and get a record made in quite the same way without the influence of Iain Burgess (RIP).

MAJOR thanks to Jenn Schiffman, Zeina Samara, Adriana Montiel, & Marissa Milstein for allowing your dudes to spend so much time with me instead of you.

Most of all, thanks to Matt Collander, P.J. Macklin, Phil Bertulfo, and Ben Sachs for letting me record their awesome music, and for being patient while I fully re-learned how to make a rock album. You guys are true friends – thanks for trusting me. The next one will sound even better, I swear.

It’s been reeeeal quiet here since our last show, but that’s soon to change.

Firstly, we’re playing a freeeeee show at the Double Door on Tuesday, April 27th w/ our friends Daemon Familiar.  Eskrima Killed Magellan headlines & The Moses Gun is also on the bill somewhere. 

Doors are at 7, show starts at 8 and we are the first band on the bill, so be there by 9 if you want to catch every moment of excitement.

If you plan to come out (which you should certainly do), it doesn’t have to be too late a night for you.  Getting to sleep by 11pm on weeknights is the new rock & roll lifestyle, I hear.  Further event info is here.

Our forever-in-progress album 2 is being mixed currently by friend & collaborator Mike McGovern & we’ll be taking  an initial crack at sequencing the thing tonight.  Hopefully it’ll get mastered mid-May and be available shortly thereafter.  While we’re getting all of that settled, we’ve trucked well ahead of ourselves and are working on the next 25 songs we couldn’t possibly wait another minute to start arranging and rehearsing.  So, look for a staggering abundance of Percolator stuff soon.  I promise!

You’ll be seeing an aesthetic overhaul to the site soon, too.  We’re real fans of Tumblr & will be integrating it into this site, to feature blogged items from our personal Tumblrs (Phil’s and Matt’s, so far), as well.  Hopefully you’ll still get all the news you need, but will have more to look at on a more frequent basis (achem…new Monsieur LaBouche comics, for one).

the end.

Hey everybody,

We’ve got a big, big show coming up. Friday the 26th of February, we’ll be playing the Subterranean (2011 W. North St., right off the Damen Blue Line). It’s $8, doors open at 8:30, show starts 9ish, 21+. The Loto Ball Show will be headlining, which should be a sight to behold (possible fire breathing!), the Vindits will be playing with us again & our friend Brian from Odd Obsession will be kicking off the evening with a short Dj set, as well as dj-ing in the time between acts. The way that breaks down, we’ll probably be 3rd, putting us on around 10:30.

You can buy tickets ahead of time here.

If you’ve thought about coming to a Percolator show before but haven’t, Friday, February the 26th is going to be a real good jumping on point. We want to make this night particularly special, so we’ll be practicing our fingers down to nubs and readying a setlist to rock the pants off of the bepantsed. We’re really looking to pack the house on this one, so please come out if you can. And bring your friends. All your friends (every friend).

It’s also mine & Phil’s official public birthday celebrations, so even if you hate music, we’ll gladly provide you earplugs as long as you come & have a drink with us.

In other news, we have all our releases available on iTunes now. Sweet.

See you at the show!

-matt/Percolator