What the heck is this?
Jamming with Mates of State
Lewis and I have been in Stratford, Connecticut this past week practicing with The Mates of State. We’re joining them for about a month of touring. It’s been totally fun so far. We’re not just playing violin and cello. Lewis is also playing trombone and tambourine and I’m playing guitar, glockenspiel and egg shaker. We’re also both singing… or yelling. Whatever you want to call it.
Mates of State – “Get Better” video
The Practice Space
Check out the Mates of State blog here.
Kori and Jason Hammel (The Mates of State) must be the sweetest couple in rock’n roll. We’ve been staying in the attic at their house and they’ve been taking great care of us, throwing barbecues and letting us clean out their refrigerator. They have two beautiful daughters, Magnolia who is four years old and June who is four months old. On our first day here Magnolia put on a concert for us with tambourine, ukulele, penny whistle and improvised lyrics, mostly about really long walks.
Magnolia Hammel
There’s also this crazy cat here named Rhue. She’s really friendly for the most part but every once in a while she gets possessed and starts running around the room and hissing. It was pretty scary at first but now we’re used to it.
Rhue
The first show is on Friday here in Connecticut and the second show is Conan O’Brien. Yes, that’s right. We’re going to be on Conan next Tuesday night, so you should tune in. Lewis is going to be playing a trombone duet with La Bamba.
After that we’ll be heading to the west coast and then to the rest of the US:
| 05/16/2008 | New Haven, CT | Toad’s Place |
| 05/22/2008 | San Francisco, CA | Slim’s |
| 05/24/2008 | Bend, OR | Les Schwab Amphitheater |
| 05/25/2008 | Sasquatch Festival, Washington | Gorge Amphitheater |
| 05/28/2008 | Los Angeles, CA | Henry Fonda Theater |
| 06/06/2008 | Lawrence, KS | Wakarusa Music Festival |
| 06/07/2008 | Omaha, NE | The Slowdown |
| 06/08/2008 | St. Louis, MO | The Bluebird |
| 06/10/2008 | Oklahoma City, OK | Bricktown Ballroom |
| 06/11/2008 | Dallas, TX | Granada Theatre |
| 06/12/2008 | Houston, TX | Warehouse Live |
| 06/13/2008 | Austin, TX | Emo’s Alternative Lounge |
| 06/14/2008 | Little Rock, AR | Rev Room |
| 06/15/2008 | Memphis, TN | Hi-Tone |
| 06/17/2008 | Newport, KY | Southgate House |
See you there!
-anton
Anton and Lewis in the Kitchen
Donatello Playing Cello
So I realize that it’s February now and it’s a little bit late to be posting Halloween pics but these ones are just too epic to ignore. Thanks to the amazing Riki Feldmann for these pics!
Lewis is Donatello
Jon is Slash
Anton is a White Guy
Gilman is PUNK ROCK!
Check out the rest of the pics HERE
Two Days in a Dusty Basement Covered in Baby Powder and Chocolate Sauce
I just saw a close-to-final cut of our music video for “Out of the Abyss” and I have to say, all of our hard work has paid off. The zombies are totally frightening and we do an awesome job of destroying them with our rock. I’m really excited to put it out and I think that people are really going to like it. So I thought I should maybe explain a little bit about what we went through to make the video happen.
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The guys in charge were Travis Jones and Adam Rygiol, both recent graduates of the San Francisco State film program. Travis’s original idea for the video involved mythical birds, magic teleportation worm holes and one scene with three helicopters. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford to make that one. Since we are all poor and paying for it ourselves, I thought we should try to keep the budget to around $200. Travis came up with a new idea: Zombies. It was perfect. You really can’t go wrong with Zombies, plus Travis and Adam are total experts. Adam is currently on a mission to watch every zombie movie ever made… That’s serious dedication. I personally think I would probably have trouble sitting through 5 minutes of “Zombie 4 – After Death” (although “Zombie Vs Ninja” sounds like it could be pretty cool).
We found a great location to shoot the video: the basement of It’s a Grind, a sweet coffee shop on Nob Hill. The owner was really into the video and was totally supportive. The basement itself was dark, dusty and completely epic. Perfect.
I called a bunch of friends to see if they would want to come and be zombies for it and everyone that I talked to was super into doing it. The only requirement that we had was that everyone involved with the video had to have seen “Night of the Living Dead”. I actually had never seen it myself. It’s pretty sweet and it’s public domain, which means you can stream it for free if you want.
Finally the weekend of shooting arrived. The first day was mostly just shooting the band. Travis had this idea to cover us in baby powder in between every shot so that there would always be dust flying everywhere. We went through a whole bottle of baby powder on the first day alone and I’d say that about 80% of it probably ended up in our lungs. We had to take breaks every 30 minutes or so to go upstairs and get air and I couldn’t help but notice the patrons of the coffee shop staring at us as we came out of the basement in costume and make-up, covered in baby powder. Whatever. It was nothing compared to what they’d be seeing on Sunday.
Sunday was Zombie Day. Everyone came with their own costumes and our friend Alicia Campbell handled the make-up. We had some dope-looking zombies including a bearded zombie, a hole-in-the-head zombie, a dangling-arm zombie, and bride and groom zombies. For blood, since the video is black and white, we used the old chocolate syrup trick, the same trick Alfred Hitchcock used for the shower scene in Psycho. Since we used up our whole bottle of baby powder on Band Day, Travis brought two bottles for Zombie Day and in case you didn’t know, chocolate sauce + baby powder = big sticky mess. Our trips up to the coffee shop that day were much funnier than the first day. Our friends were all nonchalantly ordering coffee in full zombie make-up with chocolate sauce dripping down their faces. It was pretty bad-ass.
Finally, after a a few hours of zombie moshing and a few more hours of throwing bloody limbs around, we were done. It was a good two days of hard work but I think it was totally worth it. Hopefully everyone else who worked on it feels the same way. I can’t wait to show it to everyone.
-Anton
The video premier party is:
Wednesday, Nov. 28th at Madrone
500 Divisadero St. (@ Fell)
9 pm, 21+, $5
with performances by DJ’s Nick and Ant, Hippie Grenade and Judgement Day
If you want to see Riki Feldmann’s epic photo’s from the shoot you can find them HERE
What kind of zombie would you be?
