The City Veins

We’re playing the venerable Ft. Reno festival tonight as a part of a great line-up with The Boom Orangutangs and Sarah Azzara. We’re on second (7:55 PM). It’s free, it’s outside, and it’s fun. Come check it out.

We were pretty excited on Friday. We had to be. That is the only way that I can explain how fast our first five songs were. We had been practicing the set we played at Iota for a few weeks, and had it timed to right about 45-50 minutes. Well, after the first five songs Aaron looked at his watch and realized that we had three songs left and about 20 minutes. Spencer took this information and spun out the next two songs, “If You Say So” and “Strike Up The Band,” to almost absurd levels. Friday night was the first time that “If You Say So” had two guitar solos, but Spencer kept building the song back up and I decided that if I didn’t solo, the whole thing would been pretty stupid.

The big secret with our band is that the drums are pretty much leading everything. When we are playing live, Spencer pretty much decides when songs end, and how long certain sections are. Spencer also is most responsible for shaping the songs, and giving them their dynamics. Most of our songs are written first on Aaron’s bass, and then Spencer’s drums. I am almost always the last element. I think that is what gives our band its strength, and probably explains the alternate time signatures that we like to use.

That said, Spencer took “Strike Up The Band” out too long. It got a little wandering and unfocused. If I were James Brown, I would dock his pay. Hell, why not. Spencer, I am taking 10% of your band income.

Friday night was great. I loved having all of the guests. On “Oh, Backwards!,” the last song, Spencer hit his intro fill and everyone came in together on one. There was this fantastic wall of sound, and I just lost it. I simultaneously thought, “what they hell have we created?” and “this is the most fantastic thing I have ever done.” I couldn’t stop smiling. I don’t really remember playing the song, just the joy that I had while playing it. At the end of that song Spencer and I just go all over the place while Aaron tries to keep the song together as best he can. During practices, we told everyone to just go nuts at the end, and if they can play around the key of Eb, all the better. We like to create chaos in certain parts of our songs, and tried to convey that to our guests. When we hit the end, I looked over to the horns and told them to just go. I felt like I almost dared them to go as wild as they could. It was great, and I kinda want to be in a seven piece band now.

Except that saxophonists seem to like to show up late, and adjust their reeds when they are on stage.

So, thanks again to Tom from These United States, Drew from First Rays, Kriston from Gestures, and Tim from hopefully some band soon.

Also, thanks to everyone who came out. If you missed it, click here to buy our CD.

All of these photos, and many more, by Flickr user dotslinesandpolygons. Who has taken a lot of great photos of us in the past, and a lot of other local bands.

We sincerely thank everyone that came out to our release party last night.  We were overwhelmed by how many of you were there and very grateful for the enthusiastic support. Planning for a release party is a little stressful and hectic, but you all made it completely worthwhile and wholly rewarding.  Also, double thanks to those who bought a CD!

In addition, shout outs to Tom from These United States, Drew from First Rays, and our inimitable horn section, Kriston and Tim. You guys were amazing and “Toe The Line,” “Don’t See It Coming,” and most especially “Oh, Backwards” will never sound as good to us again.

Big things are happening in City Veins land.  Our new CD is now available for ordering online! Check it out just in the right hand column ——->

Also, we’re one week away from our CD release party at IOTA.  We’ve got some special guests lined up like Tom Hnatow of the amazing DC band These United States and rumor has it we may have a horn section for some songs as well.  It’s going to be a pretty awesome show.

(Sidenote RE: City Veins Fun Facts - It’s kind of surreal to me that Tom and These United States are having so much success around here.  Tom grew up about a mile from me in the middle of nowhere in rural PA. I played in a band with his brother for about 3 years. In high school, his brother and I helped Tom win a battle of the bands at his college.  It’s pretty crazy and pretty cool to me how big his band is in DC having known him from back in the day.)

Anyway, happy Friday.  It’s been a busy one for me - I wanted to write a full post here but won’t have time until later.

As with many people in DC, I am moderately a political junkie. And as political heroin goes, this year’s primary elections are 100% grade-A straight-from-the-Afghani-poppy-fields black tar. This race is so compelling, so ever-changing, I found myself in desperate need of a fix of updates, opinions, and information every hour or two.

It’s this need that unfortunately has me watching more cable news than ever. The Internet is wonderful and I check it often, but for some reason whenever I turn on the TV I find myself watching CNN, MSNBC, or (on the rare occasion I’m jones-ing really bad) FOX. I stay glued to this shit (and that’s really what it is) for way longer than I should, considering how often they repeat themselves.

Cable news is dumbing down this country in ways that are too numerous to count. Ridiculous red, white, and blue colored graphics are thrown all over the screen all the time, and most of the move in disorienting ways. On MSNBC, for example, they have to superimpose the box with whatever “expert” is being interviewed over top of a background filled with moving white pillars and with the text of the constitution superimposed on top of that. CNN is trying desperately to recapture viewers lost to FOX, and it shows; they have almost as many graphics on the screen per inch as FOX and they continually find new ways to simplify every complex subject into two to three buzzowords that they shout out at each. For example: the question was raised (about every 5 minutes) on Monday “how will Kennedy’s endorsement help Obama?” Every single expert gave the same tired answer, all day long: “LATINOS!!!! UNIONS!!!!” Not one could come up with any more insight than that - and trust me, I watched enough of it to know.

CNN also has the nauseating slogan “the best political team on television” (see a great article on that here), which they like to say about every 4.5 seconds. I swear Wolf Blitzer must get paid by how often he works that phrase in.

And don’t get me started on that ridiculous stage setup of these debates. Look at this stage:

Then look at the stage for the Kennedy-Nixon debate:

Which one says “this is serious business, and we’re focusing on issues” and which one says “POLITICS IN YOUR FACE!!!!”?

I just want to be told the news as if I’m a grown-up and can understand the issues without idiotic simplification.  Is that too much to ask?