Bonjour! The new EP is trucking along. We've signed up Grammy-winner Charles Dye (Aerosmith, Bon Jovi) to mix and a great launch plan that gets our work into your ears easier.
The album is expected to be released on November 10 and for the first month, it will only be digitally available for download on TristanClopet.com.
But here's the catch: Pay what you want.
Art has a different value for everyone and it's in our mind that you shouldn't compromise your indulgence and exposure just because you don't have the funds. We just want you to hear the album.
Of course, there are options.
If you pay full price for the album ($5.95), two bonus tracks are included in your download and for $14.95, you can download the album and bonus tracks plus a voucher for a T-shirt (any size) redeemable at any Tristan and the Juice show.
As Worn By Our Fantastic Models
American Apparel Never Looked So Good
After the first month, the album will be available on CD and on all your usual online retailers
Hi and welcome to the blog. We’ve returned safely from our 21-day tour of the east coast. It was quite an amazing time and best summed up by Chase (our road manager and friend since childhood) as “Four months worth of life in three weeks.” So , I’m going to be recounting our happenings with pictures and videos. I hope you enjoy them. Feel free to leave comments. Especially if they come at Dan's expense.
My Old Apt. In South End
June 26th: Boston is easily one of my favorite cities in the world. I lived there while working on a summer session at Berklee and I would love to permanently move there if I could only put up with their annoying infatuation with the Red Sox. My sister (nine years my senior) went to college in its suburbs and visiting as a young lad, I developed an early affection for the place.
Our friends and fellow Miami musicians, The State Of, recommended this place in Cambridge called "The All Asia." It was described as an oriental restaurant and they even warned us that louder bands could sometimes create a muddled mix in the small(ish) bar.
At this point, we had all realized that there was a very common difference between the northern and southern venues. As the tour progressed and we ventured closer and closer to the Mason-Dixon Line, we noticed the appreciation for our work and the empathy for our daily dilemmas kept growing. In the South, we were "the band," here to entertain the people with background noise while they drink and talk amongst themselves but once we hit Raleigh, we noticed that people were coming out to hear original music.
There is such a disparity between the performances of small bands and famous bands and most of the time, it has nothing to do with the quality of the performance, but the quality of the songs. Of course a great show is mandatory but as a new band, you're asking the audience to both pay attention to this new art you're throwing at them but also enjoy themselves. It really isn't an easy task to ask of someone out for leisure. It's infinitely more fun for both parties when the audience has a predisposed expectation and they can put the concentration and comprehension aside and just rock out. People up north, for the most part, seemed way more willing to listen and not just hear and as someone who spends an exponential amount of energy writing songs that contain a lot of honesty and very little apprehension (or at least I hope they do), it's a huge compliment and very comforting. But I digress...
Hi and welcome to the blog. We’ve returned safely from our 21-day tour of the east coast. It was quite an amazing time and best summed up by Chase (our road manager and friend since childhood) as “Four months worth of life in three weeks.” So , I’m going to be recounting our happenings with pictures and videos. I hope you enjoy them. Feel free to leave comments. Especially if they come at Ale's expense.
June 23, 2009: With three New York City shows in four days, we were settling nicely into the Big Apple. Colin started to feel better and wandered around with Ale and Rich. Chase, Mike and I went to find wireless internet in the village and Dan found solace in walking every single block on the island. The previous night, someone got word of a 311 concert in Central Park. I think we all wanted to go but only few wanted to dish out the money so the rest of us went to a free Fema Kuti concert in Prospect Park. It wasn't until then that I thanked my mother for nudging me into all those African dance classes when I was young. Na Poi!
Just Outside Prospect Park After The Show
The day of the show, we got there early to look around. Southpaw was one of the more famous venues of the tour and we spent quite a bit of time perusing the archived show advertisements adorning the walls. The venue was pretty large for our standards and had a downstairs green room (ooh la la!) After the exploration, we listened to A Tribe Called Quest and killed some time in the opposite parking lot. Behold, the "46th Annual Brooklyn Football Fest."
Hi and welcome to the blog. We’ve returned safely from our 21-day tour of the east coast. It was quite an amazing time and best summed up by Chase (our road manager and friend since childhood) as “Four months worth of life in three weeks.” So , I’m going to be recounting our happenings with pictures and videos. I hope you enjoy them. Feel free to leave comments. Especially if they come at Colin's expense. :D
Before I actually start this blog, I just wanted to say a quick thanks to all who read this. We've had a much better response than we could have ever dreamed of. Over 1,000 people read the recent Raleigh blog last week. Thanks very much from all of us for reading and spreading the word. It's a steep climb but together we'll make it...
June 24, 2009: In a way, I have Sullivan Hall to thank for bringing Alejandro on board. When I first approached him about the possibility of playing with us, we talked about the tour and I mentioned our dates in NYC. Funny enough, he had played at the venue before with Trombone Shorty and couldn't wait to go back...
Much like Raleigh, this was another big gig for me, personally. The other half of my closest friends and family (including my dad) live in the city or thereabouts. But this time, the booking agents were a bit more understanding and easy to work with. Sullivan Hall was one of the first gigs that we booked for the tour and served as the lynchpin for the other dates.
We arrived early and got a prime parking spot on Sullivan Street and walked around a bit. Rich, Dan and Colin checked out some boutique stores, Ale got a massage from this underground Asian masseuse (? I know), and Chase and I got some food. We reconvened at a record store where I found the soundboard recording of an obscure Red Hot Chili Peppers show from Germany in 1999. Ace!
When showtime rolled around, it was stressfully similar to the Raleigh scenario. When you're negotiating with a venue, they want to know roughly
Setting Up Backstage - Pardon the Undies
how many people you can bring to the show. If you don't meet that quota, you're probably not going to be invited back. So with just an hour until we hit the stage, I started to worry a bit. After watching some of the openers, I went back stage to prepare and when I came out for the set, there they were! We got a pretty good crowd that night. I think there were about 65 people specifically there for us and a few others who stayed.
(On that note, if you were there that night, or any other night for that matter, you really don't know how much we appreciate it. Coming to the shows helps on so many levels. For one, it's a totally different animal playing for an enthusiastic (or even attentive) audience. And two, for the reason aforementioned, it really helps us get more gigs. So I can't say thank you enough if you've come to support us. Every single person there means so much to me. Sounds like a crock of shit but it's completely true...)
The atmosphere that night was explosive. Rich and Dan were two cogs completely locked in with one another, Alejandro's fingers were about to catch fire on the keys and Colin was his slinky jammin' self. I think we were all really receptive to the amazing amount of enthusiasm in that room.
Show Time!
And we had lights. It's odd because you wouldn't really think a light show makes that much difference but lemme tell ya....it does.
We played for about an hour that night but I had to scrap one of the newer songs called "So Alive" that had been really well received so far because the chorus calls for some extremely high notes and unfortunately, I wasn't having the best of vocal performances that night. When I was a kid, I always used to wonder why singers of bands always seemed like prima donnas and now, I think I know why. The abuse that your voice takes as an instrument really highlights the lack of durability compared to, say, a drumhead. Dan can beat on that thing all day and it will still sound the same, but sing two four-hour sets on back-to-back nights and you'll hear a pretty noticeable difference. I don't consider myself a prima donna and I hope the guys would agree, but as a singer, you are a bit more sensitive about your performance. It's much more personal.
We did play "Proximity Bomb", which will also be on the new album. Lots of fun! (By the way, this camera had a really good bass pickup so there's a big difference if you have decent computer speakers or headphones...)
One of my favorite moments of that video is when you see the sticks start flying from out of the percussion section. I think it's around the 2:00 mark. When I first saw the playback, I had to rewind it because I thought a bat had flown into the picture or something...hee hee.
Here's "The End of an Era". Much thanks to Mikey who did a very admirable filming job.
After the set, we caught up with some of our good friends who made it out. We were just hanging out, chatting about random stuff, exchanging thanks and that's when someone asked Dan to do his best street drumming. Insanity ensued.
Afterwards, we went out and had a few drinks, but it wasn't until the next day, while walking around the village that Ale just casually mentioned while laughing, "That homeless guy had a copy of 'Duende.'" I looked at him and realized he wasn't kidding. I turned around and sure enough, the dude had the cd jacket on the pavement next to him. We chatted a little bit and I obligingly gave him some change for the advertising fee but I stayed away from explaining "Concrete Dreams."
Later on, we were just south of Washington Square Park south and saw one of our flyers on the ground. Such a weird feeling, seeing yourself on the floor of a public street. I shared the eureka with a lady who was waiting at the crosswalk. She didn't care.
Yep. That's My Friend...
In the end, it was a great experience and we were all really clicking and happy to have Rich back in the fold. It was my friend and drummer, Phil Muellerschoen's idea to bring Rich aboard and I'm so grateful that he had that great thought. Having said that, the dude has a LOT of equipment! We took up the majority of the backstage area and loading and unloading was always quite the task, but Lord knows, it's worth it!
From his diary...
"After finishing our set, it was nice to be well acquainted again with packing up instruments! I should have gotten another degree upon graduating...Rich Chwastiak has graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor's of Music Degree in Percussion Performance and...INSTRUMENT STORAGE!"
Right Around Where We Saw the Errant Flyer
Next up...Boston, where coincidentally Rich will call home next year as he goes to grad school at the New England Conservatory of Music (oo la la!)
