That Is What We Are

"Do your ears decieve you? No. They do not. It IS angels. Performed at the Opry Mall Food Court."

FS: Gibson G-201

We're selling our Gibson G-201 combo organ for cheap. If you live in--or can get to--New York, and are looking for a fun restoration project, drop us a line!

Jess' setlist from last night's show

Thanks again to The Leader for inviting us and to Showbeast for opening!

Can't stop listening to: The Micragirls

The Micragirls? From Finland?

Here's their Shandells cover:



Here's them covering Joanie Sommers:



Here's one of their own:



I've said it forever: Finnish girl garage groups are here to stay. Good work, Micragirls!

What's your favorite Halloween song?

I don't mean "what's your favorite Halloween song," and I definitely don't mean "what's your favorite John Carpenter song," but more what's your favorite "Halloween-appropriate" song? Something like one of these, or any of these, if that makes any sense.

There are some great Halloween-centric songs out there that I don't know squat about, but want to. If you can point me in the right direction, please do!

Art Jess made

Poster for a tennis event at the Greenpoint Ave. station on the G train

Bye Kelly!

We need a new delay pedal

Our trusty Akai Headrush (E1) is finally starting to crap out on us and we need a backup/replacement.

Here's what we need it to do:

give at least 500ms of delay

self-oscillate on demand

run on batteries

Things we'd like it to do but can live without:

tap tempo (we can always just reach down and turn a knob)

low pass filter (there are plenty of mods out there for this)

stereo output (I know, I know, but it's always nice as an option)

true bypass (again, if we're just talking here...)

Finally, we need something that we can take on stage and not be too precious about. We aren't shunning extravagant boutique delays, but don't want to drop a paycheck on something that we wouldn't feel comfortable bringing to a bar.

Any recommendations??

We have bed bugs, pt. 3

Today there was more vacuuming, more wiping down the walls with alcohol, more spraying of chemicals on and around our bed...

...but we did manage to have Shamblers practice with Ben at our rehearsal space in Greenpoint, which was a blast:



Reminder: we are playing THIS FRIDAY at Goodbye Blue Monday in Bushwick with The Leader, Sprinkle Genies and Schwervon! We go on at 8-- GET THERE!!

We have bed bugs, pt. 2

We spent the entire day washing everything we own at the laundromat down the block and then drying it for twice as long as normal. What did this accomplish? Well, hopefully, it killed anything living in our clothes, but more likely, it just shrunk our pants.

"Infected" bags of clothes on their way out:


"Disinfected" bags back home and resting in hermetic isolation:


Then, we plopped in a movie our pal Jarred turned us on to--"The Flesh Eaters"--and got to work cleaning the bejesus out of our bedroom. Here's Jess striking her best Lydia Lunch pose with our cool new Ghostbuster-styled vacuum:


Finally, we coated our bedframe with (a) rubbing alcohol, (b) double sided tape, (c) vaseline and (d) toxic death spray, which our Super was kind enough to provide. In fact, here's a clip of Jess spray painting our mattress with poison, soundtrack by Julian Stein:

Current favorite eBay seller

Telegift. Dub and roots reggae 45s with sound clips.

We have bed bugs, pt. 1

Leisure Cove update: There was some sort of bed bug infestation in our building while we were gone and our apartment was caught up in the shitstorm: we weren't hit by the tornado, thank god, but we're still screwed.

Our plans for this weekend and beyond now look like this:
Tomorrow: wash everything, vacuum everything, scrub down the walls with alcohol
Sunday: call a professional to come in and use products that we're not legally allowed to buy
For the next year: live like the very worst of the Hollywood germ freaks, but without the luxury of being financially able to do so

Seriously, from everything we've read, and certainly everything we've heard, bed bugs are more patient than rocks, and can hang out for over a year in truly incomfortable situations without flinching. Apparently, you not only have to kill them, you have to kill them in every room of your building (in our case a gigantic, somewhat shabby apartment complex) then wait for their eggs to hatch (two-four weeks) and then do it all again. And then put everything you own in plastic bags for a year and a half and hope that does the trick. If not, start over.

Obviously, we'll keep you posted, hopefully with photos of us completely losing our minds and looking more and more like the pose I'm told Howard Hughes struck towards the end.

Case in point (from a great story Jess found online written by a bed bug survivor):

"Now I just sleep in the sterilized clothing I plan on wearing the next day [on a futon wrapped in painting plastic], or I use something I keep tucked in-between the two mattresses.

Bohemian yes! With the blankets bundled up around me, I am getting better at not letting them drag on the floor. And that's a serious issue. I tend to subconsciously bundle myself up now during wake-sleep-wake-sleep-wake-sleep periods …. But this was only after having to throw all those sheets and blankets back into the drier, like 5 or 6 times because they'd draped and hit the floor."

Great.

Lee Hazlewood, 1929 - 2007

Obituary

Lee Hazlewood was someone The Shamblers looked up to. He will be missed.

John in the studio

Here's John Cottrell, listening to playback and playing recorder at Jackpot! Studios in Portland, OR on 8/11/07. Thanks again, Kendra!!





Listen for Cooper at the end of the recorder one: "John, rats pee on those things." Who knew!

What's the story with the RE-20 pedal?

Has anyone out there gotten a chance to try the new Boss/Roland Space Echo yet? Or, for that matter, can anyone point me to a decent review of the thing? The only ones I can find (on Harmony-Central) make it sound like a $300 miracle and are, as such, completely suspect. An excerpt:

"I think they locked some poor Japanese guy or girl in a room with the original and an electronics kit and they didn't let them see sunlight until it sounded the same in a blind test."

Honest user review? Copy from a guerrilla marketing department? It's anybody's call these days.

I'm looking for the inside scoop from someone who has actually used one in a real world context, specifically as a vocal insert. Does it compare/compete with an RE-201? Does it have more in common with the UAD edition? Without using the word "warm," what does it sound like (is there, say, a YouTube video of one in action)?

I ask because, well, like anyone in the world, I want a Space Echo, but more to the point, I've been seeing second-hand Space Echoes finally dip below the $500 price floor on eBay, with regularity, for the first time ever. Obviously, as with anything on eBay, for every good deal there are twenty bad ones, and even with the more expensive "kept in a climate-controlled, smoke-free velvet box" auctions, nothing is certain. Still, there seem to be more and more RE-201s with Buy It Nows of of less than $550, which should be interesting to anyone who (a) wants one and (b) knows that paying $700 is paying $300 too much.

Are people selling off their tape delays for COSM delays? Is the technology finally there? Is this just a coincidence?

Anyway, I'm curious, so if you know, let me know. Thanks!

BTW

While we were out of town, there was a big storm in our neighborhood, with heavy rain, lightning and an honest-to-god tornado. Luckily, it somehow missed our building entirely, and our apartment/ studio/ everything we own is fine. Our neighbors weren't as lucky...

Nature hike

Portraits: The JCs

Checking in from Portland

It turns out the bar down the block from Terry's apartment has free Wi-Fi, and so here we are.

Below are photos from last night's jam session at Duvall's place. We came up with five or six new songs, and will probably grind out about that number again tonight. We've got a recording day planned at Jackpot! on Saturday and, fingers crossed, will have worked out the kinks in the new material by then. It's sounding good, though! Honest!!

Go west, young Shamblers

We're leaving for Portland today, and won't be back until next week. The blog is going to be inactive while we're there.

On the plus side, we've just gotten word that The Shamblers will be playing on Friday, 8/24 with our friends The Leader and their friends The Sprinkle Genies and Schwervon at Goodbye Blue Monday in Brooklyn. It's going to be a great one, and we go on at 8, so get there early and buy us a drink!


See you then!

Leaving a mark

I came across this odd bit of animation while researching high-def rubber stamps for a project I'm working on. It reminded me a bit of the Z. Vex site, actually...

Somehow, I ended up here: "Creative Concrete Stamping."


This seems like a great alternative to spraypaint or mosiac graffiti. And, because it looks like something Public Works would be doing anyway, you could probably sneak onto a sidewalk repair site in broad daylight, imprint your tag and make your exit under the guise of a Union break...

eBay pick of the day: Goya "Attache"

Goya "Attache" suitcase amplifier


I have never seen this before and I want one crazily. No, it isn't going to sound great, but isn't that the point? It's a tube based 2x5 in a suitcase, for chrissakes. I know what I'm (potentially) getting myself into. And besides, what other accessory/amp do you know of that goes to 16???


Seriously. I need this thing.