Meanwhile, just above the atmosphere, just above our ability to detect, there’s a ship full of creatures who followed our radio transmissions back to us from a very long way away.  They first picked up the opening credits of I Love Lucy, with that satin heart and Ricky’s band tearing through the theme song, and they followed the trail all the way up through Mary Tyler Moore, to Roseanne, to Jersey Shore.  At which point, deeming us unready, they retreated for at least the next thousand years, to watch and wait…

…while the fence posts fly by and the rumble strip keeps him awake in the driver’s seat.  It’s still another six hours to Philly, to play to thirty people if they’re lucky.  Then New York, DC, Baltimore, Richmond, then back in time for work on Monday.  Yesterday was her birthday, but he doesn’t feel right about calling her anymore, especially not since the blowout over that last drinking and dialing fiasco.  And on top of that, it turns out that hot bartender in Cincinnati has a thing for touring bands, emphasis on the plural.  Ouch!  Underneath his cool, he thought they might have been more to each other, but it looks like he thought wrong.  She was witheringly unconcerned about it, too.  Enylise would have never done that to him.  It’s too late for that now, though.  But you can’t let it show, you gotta be hard, you’re on your way, man, buck up!  Still, that little devil desire sitting on his left shoulder really did a number this time.

After enough times through the circuit, cities all blend together into colored streaks of neon and sodium glaring against the rainy windshield as the wipers keep the beat.  He got close, but the peak happened two years ago.  It’s becoming impossible to deny anymore; the draw has been going down for awhile, and the fire in his belly is sputtering, too.  But what next?  Time to be a man and make amends if he can.  Even if it’s too late, at least he can tell her he finally knows what it means to have something real.  Maybe that will be enough to win her back.  Will it?

—

That is the CliffsNotes version of our quasi-concept record, “Primetime,” released at 12:01 on 1/1/11.  To the best of my knowledge, we at least share the distinction of being the first band to hold a record release on 1/1/11 in the history of earth, although I suppose someone could have put out a gramophone 100 years ago.  Ah man, someone probably did.  Well then, the first release of 2011 anyway, and the curious numbers on the calendar line up nicely with the title of the record: 2011 is a prime number.  So is eleven, the number of songs on the record, and of course, the number our amps go to.  These little synchronicities are what make life interesting for us, and we’re all very happy that New Year’s Eve just happened to fall on Friday night this year.  We want to thank Church for continuing to treat us so well and for providing a great stage to have a party with everyone!  Our friends and show openers Apple Betty cheekily exhorted us to go to Tennessee, to go to Alaska, to replace that TP roll when you use the last square, I mean it’s not hard, ok?!  The Upper Crust was a revelation of tight, AC/DC punch and powered wig aplomb tied to aristocratic disdain.  JustBill outdid himself as usual with great camera work, both video and still, and Joe Turner surprised us with by stepping in last minute with a laptop full of projection imagery to kick things over to the next visual gear.  These guys really helped make it a show and not just a gig, if you know what I mean.  Thanks, dudes!

We also have to shout out to Boston Music Awards “Producer Of The Year” Benny Grotto (Aerosmith, The Dresden Dolls) and Mad Oak Studios for delivering what I think is a superb sounding record.  The experience of recording it could fill another blog, but I’ll just say it was the smoothest ride, best sounds and most fun I’ve ever had in a recording studio.  I hope you’ll agree that Benny did a great job of getting that live urgency out of us, a notoriously tricky thing to accomplish in the petri dish of a tracking room.  We can’t recommend these guys highly enough.

So now what?  Well, it’s time to go out and play our record about playing out, and try not to live through some of the worse moments our protagonist brought upon himself.  We could be writing our own future, or we could be living vicariously through an imaginary guy as we take a less toxic and parallel track and keep the rest of our lives together while logging those road miles.  Or both.  Or neither.  But it’s been immensely satisfying, and gratifying to make.  We’re looking forward to seeing you soon, wherever you are, to find out if we tickled your rocking bone. (Don’t be dirty, you know what I mean.)  See you out on the trail!

—

Own a copy of “Primetime”:

• Physical
• Digital

—

Take a YouTube tour through “Primetime”:

• Teaser

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“Primetime” Buzz:

AOL Music

• “Full CD Listening Party”
  • The Boston Band’s second album is all about the pursuit of fame.
    

The Music Slut

• “Premiere: ‘Primetime,’ The Lights Out”
  • A theme record about the pursuit of fame: why we do it, what we gain and lose while we’re working toward it, how it can be earned or stolen, the business of building up and tearing down celebrity, and wondering what “making it” means in this day and age

The Boston Globe

• “No arena required: The Lights Out goes full-tilt on ‘Primetime’”
  • It takes a grand total of two seconds to situate exactly where “Primetime,’’ the second album by the Boston-based the Lights Out, stands — or rather, roars — on the musical spectrum.
• “New Year’s Eve events: NEW YEAR’S EVE AT CHURCH”
  • Arena-ready rockers
• “Promises, promises: Local rock luminaries offer their New Year’s resolutions”
  • My New Year’s resolution is to not let the zombie apocalypse stand in the way of my band hitting Primetime

The Weekly Dig

• “Astounding Ascent”
  • Dangerous…soulful…downright sultry

The Phoenix

• “Live Review: The Lights Out Rock New Year’s Eve”
  • Rock hooks…upswing of buzz…arena-ready confidence akin to what Foghat must’ve been like in the mid ’70s.

The Deli Magazine

• “The Lights Out release new album “Primetime” New Year’s Eve @ Church!”
  • One of the hardest working Boston bands…[Primetime] speaks to many about what the reality is of being in a band

Ryan’s Smashing Life

• “For Those About to Rock”
  • In the top 5 live rock bands in New England…devoted to their art, improving with each new release…at the core of the scene…value to that longevity…better than ever…2011 promises to be the rock band’s best year to date

Boston Band Crush

• “C.D. On Songs: The Lights Out – ‘Primetime’”
  • Full of happening…whirls around you…mobile rhythms punctuating splashes of bright, melodic guitar…fuel for your stomp-tastic dance moves…thumps out like an accelerated heartbeat……total power saturation

Playground Boston

• “New Year’s Eve at Church with The Lights Out”
  • Some of Boston’s finest pop rock, and this album is set to take them to an entirely new level

Exploit Boston!

• “15 Questions with Boston Musician Adam Ritchie”
  • If you’re content with your level of success, you’re not working hard enough

Speaking only for me, this was the first time I’ve ever been in drag, and ladies, I have an entirely new level of respect for the time, expense and pain of making yourself pretty.  Well, at least prettier than I was before, whatever that means.  But holy crap, what a ritual!  First of all, fishnet tights don’t last very long.  Two wearings, in fact.  But my gams have never felt so supported, encased as they were like two sinewy sausages.  Because the skirt was short, I gained a quick appreciation for the bunny dip.  It’s just not the same when your junk hangs out by mistake and you happen to be a dude.  Guys are all lumpy down there; it ruins the illusion.

We’ve done a couple of these things now, and our rules of thumb are simple: it has to be an artist with enough hits for everyone to sing along to, and the visual appeal has to be there.  Otherwise, why dress up?  Madge offered us the opportunity for a deep catalog of great songs, which it turns out most everyone in the sold-out club, Church, knew by heart, and a lot of different awesome looks to choose from.  And the opportunity to dress like  a chick!  As a raging hetero who long ago came to terms with his latent homosexual tendencies (it turns out they’re latent), it’s the kind of thing where it helps to have an excuse like Halloween to do without inviting the ridicule of your friends and the horror of your family.  Not that I’m agin’ it, you understand.  If you wanna sing out, sing out, and if you wanna cross dress, cross dress.  I think Cat Stevens said that once, before that near drowning in the ocean incident that turned him into Yusuf.  Although he was pretty good at the Rally to Restore Sanity from what I hear.

So anyway, in addition to us, we had our good friends The Luxury in towels and face cream as The Go-Go’s, and Midatlantic as Lady Gaga.  “Guys Doing Girls” was the unofficial billing, and these ladies killed it dead, and the crowd of freaks and naughty nurses, pirates, rock stars, Colonel Sanders(!), et al showed their appreciation in spades.  By the time it was our turn, everyone was good and loose on Saturday night in costume, and when the opening riff of Material Girl first came out of Adamdonna’s axe (we went without keys), the crowd ERUPTED, and I knew it was going to be sublime.  And so it was.  Mattdonna writhed around the stage for Like a Virgin while Adamdonna took over on Bass, then Adamdonna did his best Vogue dance, which was disconcertingly good.  On the last “vogue” the crowd did the delay for us by chanting it over and over.  Brilliant audience participation!  Jessedonna killed it on Like a Prayer, in keeping with his look for the night.  We rocked Papa Don’t Preach like a draggy Bon Jovi who thought they wrote it themselves, replete with fist banging breakdown in the middle.  I heard a lot about that one later.  When it was over we hightailed it over to JustBill’s to rage until Dawn (although I cut out at 4:30, still respectable I think).  All Saint’s day broke over some bloodshot eyes and ringing ears, but we’ll do it again in a bloody heartbeat because Halloween rocks in Boston like nowhere else on earth!  Or even in the darkest chambers of hell.

A lot of bands come off as either tough-guy badasses, serious and mushy, or just all-out goofy. I think we did a good job of showing that we’re all three, and maybe more besides. We may sail a Viking ship up your ear canals, drink your beer, and punch holes in your walls with our heads, but we’ll also offer up our spare earplugs, restock your fridge and make a run to Home Depot the next morning. And Mike will be there to get it on camera!

I think she meant to say, “duke,” but Gigi is an uberhot lawyer from Cincinnati by way of Turkey(!), and we pretty much laughed our asses off all the way back to Boston because her accent made it even funnier. What’s that you say? You don’t know what duking is? Friend, have you ever come to the right place! Here’s how it is: some people do it, and some people duke it. Don’t do it; duke it! As founding father Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘Anything worth doing is worth doing well. And anything worth doing well is worth duking.’ TLO always tries to duke it when we rock it. And judging by Gigi and a bunch of other exceedingly hospitable and crazy people on Friday, duke it we did.

We were invited to Cincinnati to play the MidPoint Music Festival. What a lineup: Spacehog, Surfer Blood, Best Coast, Holy Fuck, Phantogram, Ted Leo and TLO. 2,000 miles, 40 White Castle sliders, 50 hours of sleep collectively over four days (duke the math), roughly 120 beers, an unknowable quantity of shots and a hell of a lot of fun. The first order of business was Philadelphia on Wednesday, to a repeat engagement at the Blockley. And incidentally, if you were listening to Danny Bonaduce on the radio in Philly that day, you would have heard him plug the show and talk about the last song on our Color Machine album, “Danny Partridge.” Ha ha! Our nefarious plan worked! That sure did charge us up for the show. Meanwhile, we love the Blockley, and on top of that we had one of those awesome road moments when we realized we were playing with Dive, a band we hung out with last year in Delaware when we played Dewey Beach. Great dudes, tight band in the general vicinity of Three Doors Down, good songs, excellent singer. I love meeting fellow warriors in odd places like that, it totally makes you both feel like you’re going somewhere when that happens. And thanks to Adam’s APO “brother,” Megan, from his Syracuse days, we were spared the search for a hotel and instead lugged our stuff down the narrowest hall imaginable with ten-speeds along the walls, around the corner and down the stairs to her awesome basement flat, stuffed her kitchen full of amps and drums, ourselves into our bags, and slept the sleep of the dead. Thanks Megan! That’s one more friend made, one less hotel room, one more tank of gas, or more realistically, another twenty-five beers.  Next morning we found out that hipsters are the same wherever you go, when we breakfasted at Cafe Lift, one of those boutique breakfast places with twee indie on the system, cat eyeglasses on the waitress, art for sale on the wall (pretty good stuff, too), bright red painted steel pipes running along the ceiling.  And mind blowing huevos rancheros. Jesse and Adam split this monstrous cannoli french toast with bananas and chocolate and pistachios all over the top.  Fueled up and ready to skip town!

Once again, it was APO to the rescue of the band!  Brother Denise let us roll our stuff into her dining room once we hit Cincinnati. It turns out she’s a metal chick, which we found out when we got to peruse her astounding collection of Poison memorabilia, especially that dreamy Bret Michaels with his man-dana and his cowboy hat, and his pouty pucker, and those eyes like limpid pools…*sigh*

…ahem. So we killed the rest of the night at The Comet, where it was confirmed a second time that hipsters are hipsters wherever you go. It was like we fell into a wormhole at the Model and got spit out at Cafe Lift, and then we got spit out again at the Comet. On to the Northside Tavern, then knocking off 20 White Castles and one mini bovine.

The next day was a lot of checking out the city, waiting for the musicians to wake up, waiting for the sun to go down. Being mistaken for Spacehog(!).  We got a great recommendation from Dave, a writer from Cincinnati music blog, Each Note Secure, to drive over the river to Kentucky to the Hofbräuhaus for schnitzel and beer. I’m not usually big on Sausages (that Bret Michaels crack up there was a joke.  I swear!  Ok, well just don’t tell the missus), but it was the very best sauerkraut I’ve ever had, and the beer was excellent and came in these huge glass tubs with handles on them. The only thing that would have been better is if we could have gone at night, because it looked like it gets going pretty well in there. It’s a true German beer hall, replete with flags from the fatherland and benches heavy as church pews, sturdy enough for a drunk to stand on and opine, or maybe sing if it’s late enough in the evening.  As it was, we needed to get to the club to make load-in.

The Mainstay Rock Bar sports a nice high stage, and a rustic timberframe vibe.   Since we were on first, we got the holy grail treatment: soundcheck!  Not that it matters that much anymore because we kind of mix ourselves with amp volume onstage.   But still always nice.  By the time nine pm hit, we were a tasmanian devil of twitchy energy, waiting to, well, to duke it.   It’s that moment in the set, usually about three songs in, when it begins to dawn on the crowd.  That may be my favorite moment in a live setting: the moment when people realize they are witnessing a real band with real ambitions to write real, lasting, well crafted songs as well as bring the energy of an arena act to a club stage.  At this point in our quest, we have the element of surprise going for us in that way.  And although it will be nice once everybody gets it finally, I’m going to miss these times when we can anonymously show up, rock out, and blow people’s heads off. Anyway, it didn’t take long after we finished the set that we started hearing from the very effusive people that they dug it! Including Gigi, her husband Oğulcan, who along with their friends, Courtney and Mai, dance in the Cincinnati Ballet, and a couple of singers with the opera. Now that’s cross-pollination! How come we don’t get ballet dancers at our shows here in Boston? Then again, I can’t say I’ve been to the ballet recently. Regardless, they were some kind of fun!

Saturday: kicking around, waiting for sundown, playing bocce at Neon’s. We saw Tom Tom Club that night. I think they were great, but truth be told things were a bit foggy by then, so I’m taking Matt’s word for it. He’s the Talking Heads guy anyway; he knows better. More adventures running from club to club, checking out bands, meeting up with new friends, getting marked with glitter and pulled into house parties.  And one singer teaching himself, AGAIN, that the hard stuff can sneak up on you and you should just stick to beer, fool! But do I listen to me? Usually yes. This night? Not so much. Don’t think I’m proud! But up til about midnight-ish was a peak experience. Like Adam said on the road the next day, feeling sick to his stomach from chowing his share of our second 20 sliders on an already balky stomach, “I’ll do it again!” Not, “I’d do it.” “I’LL do it.” As in “I will.” Now that is what I call commitment! Naturally, the early start we had envisioned for Sunday was not in the cards, and we kept waffling between stopping in Syracuse to break up the trip, or to just chug the whole 1,000 miles back in one shot. Ultimately we did the latter, made it back by 2:00, home by 2:30, bed by 4:30, and after all that reconditioning of my circadian rhythm, up at 7:30, which is just crazy, but I didn’t have to work that day, so I knew I could nap later.

Whew! So that’s the condensed version, if you can believe it. Five days in 1,387 words. As we move into the regular touring phase of our career, it feels really good to know we made waves, made friends, and want to go back and make some more music there soon. And yes, we duked it hard. Very f#!king hard.

TLO has been cleaning house. Several months back, we had the opportunity to record four songs for free at Boston University’s CDIA over in Waltham. Our good friend, Graeme Hall, (from Moki, Matt’s old band / AKA co-lead singer for Bang Camaro / AKA a great guy) was studying recording and production, and had a project where he needed a band to come in and do some stuff. Since Graeme is a capital fellow who is deep into the scene, and since it afforded us an opportunity to record for free in a state-of-the-art studio, we naturally jumped at the chance. So we hauled our gear to Waltham and cut four songs in record time, very late at night, fueled by latin american food. Well, we’re happy to report that Graeme got an A on the project. We thought that might be the end of things, but you know, he did get that A for a reason; these tracks sound really good! We’ve been sitting on them for a long time, waiting for them to ripen and fall off the branch. That time is now. Because there’s a new full length coming very soon, we felt like this was the ideal time to tease the world with four previously unreleased songs, including two rarities that almost never get played live. So Graeme did a little tweaking to get them ready for release and we dropped it on the world September 11, 2010, on the same night as our good friends and comrades-in-arms Muy Cansado released their excellent new record, Love and Fear, to a sold out Middle East Up. After a summer of drifting, vacationing, recording, and not much rehearsing, this was an excellent way for us to jump back in with both feet. And to prove that we can carry the headlining spot and keep the crowd there and excited, which is exactly what happened, so thank you all who showed up and stayed late, which was pretty much everyone who came through the door. I know we’re all party people here, but still, midnight is not really headlining; it’s playing last. Headlining is when your opener hit the stage at seven thirty and you hit it at nine. Regardless, the crowd stayed and made it much more of a headlining at midnight situation. We did our best to bring the requisite energy to bear on the situation, and we needed every bit of it to follow the excellent bands in front of us. Starting with The Press from NYC, a three-singer math rockish indie twang type act from Brooklyn. It was my first time seeing them and they caught me a bit off guard with all the different writing styles in one band, but as their set went on, they really won me over with their range and energy. Next up, Sidewalk Driver, hands down one of my favorite bands in Boston. Picture a bald guy in Ace Frehley silver platform boots, a Liberace cape, a little top hat rakishly perched on his glistening dome, and a voice suspiciously close to Cee-Lo (GREAT cover of Fuck You, guys!). And then picture him fronting a crack band playing tight, cult movie rock. These dudes, and one dudette rocking the guitar, are the perfect house band for the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Muy Cansado. This was their night, and we were happy to be on board in support for their strong new release. Love and Fear gives you more of the Pixies inflected, sneak-up-on-your-limbic-system-and-stick-in-there-before-you-know-it songs that made this trio quietly stick out on their debut, Stars and Garters. They don’t dress fancy and they don’t shoot glitter cannons into the crowd at select moments (neither do we; that’s Sidewalk Driver), but the songs get in and they stay in, and they have range. I still say they need to cover “The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)” by Timbuk 3. C’mon guys that song screams Muy Cansado! The sound is anything but “very tired.” I like the irony. The crowd loved ‘em, and they did us the courtesy of being a tough act to follow, which always juices me. So we did our best, and to hear everyone tell, it was good enough to round out a phenomenal cross section of what Boston has to offer, sprinkled in with a little Brooklyn for good measure. It ought to be  a crime to have this much fun, but it happens every night of the week somewhere in the world, so it’s an ordinary crime. But they haven’t outlawed it yet (although they did their best by raising the drinking age to 21), so we’re going to keep on pillaging. See you in Philly and Cincinnati, where we ride the Rock Pony to the MidPoint Music Festival along with Spacehog, Surfer Blood, Best Coast, Holy Fuck, Phantogram and Ted Leo!

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Buy a hard copy of Rock Pony:
http://bit.ly/fleshpony

Buy a digital copy of Rock Pony:
http://bit.ly/digipony

Date the Pony:
http://www.okcupid.com/profile/Rock_Pony

Adam did his usual solid job of getting some press there — Performer “Show of the Month” review forthcoming — and we were flattered to speak with the lovely Meaghan, Colleen, and Alex, who came to interview us for MusicRemedy. We’re all looking forward to reading the article, but right off the top of my head, one question they asked really stuck with me, which was, “How have you evolved from show number one to tonight?’  Great question, Meaghan!  The three main things for me personally are the sense of ease and comfort and rapport we have with each other and with the audience, the improvement in our execution on stage and most importantly, the evolution and deepening of our writing.  As to ease and comfort on stage: that’s a product of better and better execution, and also knowing not to take any of this too seriously.  It’s inherently ridiculous to rock out, pure and simple, and that’s the great joy of it.  Everyone can partake of the experience from the audience, not too many have the privilege of living it from the stage.  As to better execution, that’s just rote repetition with a beady eye trained on ourselves at all times, having high standards.  But the biggie is, as it ever shall be, in the writing.  The great equalizer, great writing makes up for a poor singing voice (I’m talking to you Bob Dylan!  And Blood on the Tracks is one of my all time favorite records), a bad band (even Neil Young concedes that Crazy Horse is a bad band, although “bad in the right way.”  Unlike Daughtry, who is undeniably good, but good in the wrong way, know what I’m sayin?), a bad attitude (do I even need to point out an example?).  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we’re writing great material, but I like our chances with it, and it has gotten and continues to get better by the day.  Anyway, as for the show itself, we led with Seven Days, the very first song we ever wrote together, played Pride and Shame for the first time since our first show, and broke out two brand new songs (Having it All, Interstellar Valentine) just to keep it interesting for ourselves and everyone else.  We made a fist while hitting the high notes.  We jumped into the crowd during the ripping guitar solo.  We shook our asses and banged our heads, and visited each other on stage.  We stood up to choke the cymbal.  Holy Christ, did we rock!  Thanks to everyone who made it awesome by being there and cheering us on.  I’m looking forward to show number 1,000 and I like our chances to make it there.

As we looked back and tried to sum up the last year, it really became apparent in hindsight that we’ve been pretty busy guys. We dug our early morning faces deep into the pillows on the Ritchies’ couches more than once, as we spent a lot of time further down the seaboard, in Asbury Park for the Wave Gathering Festival and at the Dewey Beach Music Conference. We planted our feet in New York, playing both MEANY Fest and CMJ. We made it to the semifinals of the WBCN (rip) Rock ‘n Roll Rumble, laying waste and smiting about us! We played 38 shows. We released a record! Color Machine came out in September, and we are delighted with it. We opened up the season for the New England Patriots. We cut a deal with MTV Networks and placed a song in an Absolut Vodka ad. We loosened up a bit with a Slush Puppie Flashmob and a surprise Halloween show as Phil Collins’s's’s's’s's. We’ve gotten to play with some truly excellent, totally ready-for-primetime bands in a lot of different cities. We even found time to record a few other songs, a little something for 2010. We made friends. 2009 was in short, the best year TLO has had yet, and we thank you for making it happen with us!

This year, look for more of us out on the high seas of the open road, to mix two metaphors. Starting tonight in fact, when we take the stage at Nectar’s in Burlington, Vermont. Sort of a homecoming for some of Burlington’s prodigal sons, of which our own Matt King is one. Check out what he had to say this week to the Burlington Free Press, Seven Days and his hometown Herald. Also playing are our good friends and great musicians The Luxury and the ever-revelatory Township. This show is like a thirteen car pile up, you can’t look away! Except that instead of accident victims, everybody is playing guitars and making rock faces.

We’re looking forward to a year of face-melting solos living side-by-side with sweet vocal stacks and turn-on-a-dime chord changes, starting tonight and continuing on next week in Boston at the Middle East, then it’s back to New York City for shows at the Crash Mansion and The Bitter End. Mercy! We’ll keep you posted, so don’t be shy and don’t be strangers. We’re looking forward to some transcendental rock moments in 2010, and the best of those moments are always shared. See you out there!

Cut to two weeks later.   Adam is already down in New York, hard at work on band and other business, which leaves Matt, Jesse and I to get the gear there in time for Jim McTurnan and the Kids That Killed the Man. set as well as our Boston buddies St. Helena.  I guess we were providing the backline, which is always cool with us for two reasons: 1) we get to hear our gear as audience members and check out what it sounds like from the other side, and 2) no set up before we play, it’s already done!  What more could I add to the myth of New York City that hasn’t been said a million times before?  Not much, and from the three of us who went down that Tuesday in the van it was an archetypal whirlwind tour, so we didn’t see much beyond the Alphabet Lounge and the inside of the van.  They have bike lanes down there now, that’s pretty cool.  Nice job, Mr. Bloomberg!

The Alphabet Lounge is on the lower east side of  Manhattan, appropriately enough in Alphabet City (Avenue A, Avenue B, etc.) and is a cozy room for about seventy five people, tops.  There is an exposed brick wall to the right as you walk in, and the stage is behind a railing, which they kindly removed for the night so everyone could see the bands from more than just the waist up, Ed Sullivan style.  We had to make do with only three mics, which meant that Adam was constantly running over to Matt or me to pitch in on background vox, which made for kind of a cool visual actually.  Very arena rock.  We saw our good friend Jen Kellas of The Music Slut in the crowd, valiantly staying awake after hosting her annual blowout at Piano’s.  She’s a rock trooper.  And we always love to see our friends from Eat Sleep Breathe Music — this time it was Sister Jeanette and her friend, Lauren. Music consultant and former rock star and A&R guy Rick Goetz (whom we also met at Dewey) took time to come see us, as did legendary music writer, John Swenson.  Then you throw in the other two bands that played before us, and we’re talking a decent little crowd making the room feel warm for us.  Well, I think we delivered in spades that night.  It was such a whirlwind to get there, then a whirlwind to load in and find parking, why not play like Tasmanian devils also and make it a hat trick?  So we did.  I think one of the single biggest mistakes bands ever make live (and we’ve made it too, but we learned not to do that anymore) is going up there without the right energy.  I don’t mean be a manic freak and swing from the chandeliers necessarily (although you wouldn’t lose if you did), but to bring the requisite energy to bear for whatever your sound is.  In our case, most of the tunes rock hard, fast and sweet, so we point at you while singing and make guitar faces and spin around and jump in the air and throw our hair around.  Mostly because we like to, it just feels natural that way.  I recommend it.  But not on while you’re on the Green Line commuting to your day gig.

And then it was over.  Adam had plenty of work to do still for the week, so we dropped him at his hotel on 35th Street, high fived each other on a show well executed, choked down some sort of awful tasting lemon lime five hour energy shots to keep alert and drove home.  By the time load in at our jam space was completed, I think it was around four thirty.  We made it home before the sun found us, but not by much.  Thanks, CMJ!  I wish we could have stayed to check out more of it, but day jobs beckoned.  For now, we’ll be satisfied knowing we were a small part of it.  For now…

The Dewey Beach Music Conference bills itself as the most artist-friendly conference in America, and based on our experience it would be really hard to argue that.  What a fantastic time!  But I’m getting ahead of myself, because we stopped for the night in Freehold to break up the trip, where Adam‘s mom and dad put us up and fed us subs big enough to have lunch left over for the ride the next day.  And since we were in the area, we thought we’d stop by Dogfish Head to tour the brewery.  ‘Cause, you know, we love us the beer.  That foamy gold ode to licentious excess.  Or in this case, more of an amber/brown color.  We warned them we were coming, and they said they were ready! We arrived to take the tour promptly at three.  It looks like they’re expanding the plant; we saw a new wing being built and a little area being developed around the brewery.  After a little poking around, we came to a side door with this hipsterish kid in a hoodie and sneakers just going in.  “Are you dudes here for the beer tour?”  And that was when we knew we were in for a good time.  He led us in through a warehouse, smelling of malted barley (everything smells good in a brewery.  It’s like a grain silo farmy earthy sweet heady kind of thing).  As for the tour itself, it was good and well done by the guide, but since I’ve already talked about going through Harpoon’s brewery in an earlier blog, I’ll skip the details.  Suffice it to say, there is a lot of stainless steel, a lot of catwalks and ladders and hoses and a certain kind of party positive humanity that runs these places out of real love.  The free beer was great afterwards (especially the Punkin Ale), and we tried some new gear, made friends, left our CD and caught a little buzz in the process.  And caused a little buzz too, if I may say so.  On to Dewey Beach!

We rolled into town around seven, and right up to the Rusty Rudder, or HQ for this whole thing.  Adam Lewis, of The Planetary Group as well as a panelist at the conference, was drinking on the deck, so we hung out for awhile with him while we got the lay of the land.  We also ran into our old friend, AudioCandy‘s Paige Dearing, who we first met back in Syracuse. The way they had it set up was two opposing stages on the back deck and two inside.  When one band finished, the lights swung around to the other stage and another act went on, so there was no downtime between sets either inside or out, or over at the Bottle & Cork up the street.  This is a genius move, as far as I’m concerned.  We were slated to play at nine, and we were on exactly at nine.  And we did our thing, and happily got some notice from our peers.  We kept hearing about it from a lot of different people over the next couple of days, so apparently we played with some heart. One of them was the promoter for Summerfest, who caught our set and asked us to play this year’s festival!

The other thing that was so excellent about this conference was the level of talent and professionalism on display all weekend.  We saw at least thirty shows over two days between everybody in the band, and not one of them was less than really well executed.  It was really enlightening to see all the talent working so hard to realize itself.  This conference showed us what that next level is, and it also showed us that we’re plenty capable of standing out among even this strong field, judging by the many compliments we got for our show.  But in particular, we liked Flying Machines, Automatic Fire, Natalie Gelman, Shayna Zaid and the Catch, This is a Shakedown, Mean Tamborines, Brother Josephus and the Love Revolution Orchestra, and of course our friends Roman Traffic.  Although they got ripped off on the vocal mix for their set, I thought.  Still, they killed it like only they can, there was blood everywhere!  Did I mention the free food and beer yet?  Oh man…Vikki Walls does such a good job of putting this thing together.  The trade show floor, the panelists, the free food and beer and vodka snow cones.  On Friday night we all got carted up the street to Venus, where we were served this crazy feast of lobster, pan seared ahi, softshell crab, salmon, lobster salad, seaweed salad, clams, mussels, crab cakes, et cetera.  Absolut was there serving up Absolut Citron with freshly squeezed orange juice.  The sun setting over the bay.  I mean, if you had gone to a wedding and they served this for dinner, you would be talking about it for years.  Legendary.  And apparently they did it again the next night, but we had to be in New York on Saturday night, so no go for us.  But that was okay because Mrs. Ritchie cooked us up some steak and noodle pudding and apple pie on our way to that show.  Oh, and Thursday night, we ate so well in Rohoboth, Jesse was making people drop chicken wangs left and right. What is this crap about musicians starving on the road anyway?  Who does that?  Not The Lights Out!

One tragicomic final note on Dewey Beach: one of the bands we were hoping to catch while there was the Superficial Saints from LA.  And awesomely enough, they found us to say they dug our set, so we think, ” all right!  Synchronicity.”  Only to find out the next night, after witnessing some guy jump into our hotel’s courtyard pool from the third floor balcony (and get his band evicted in the process), that the Superficial Saints’ drummer had gone off a hotel roof the night before and broken his arm and gone into four hours of surgery.  They obviously had to cancel their set, and they had driven from LA to play!  Sorry guys, that’s the way the ulna shatters, I guess.  No disrespect intended, we wish for that guy’s speedy recovery.  I also recommend ground floor hotel rooms whenever possible, for loading in and out, and apparently to reduce temptation to reenact that scene in Almost Famous.

We got to Jen Kellas‘s basement flat in Brooklyn and loaded in the gear we weren’t going to need for our M.E.A.N.Y. Fest showcase that night.  (Thanks for the crash pad, Jen!)  Jen is the force behind The Music Slut, the sometime voice-over artist (check out her work on Five Seventeen, from Color Machine, our new disc) and all around friend of the band.  It was about fifteen minutes from her place to the Bowery Poetry Club where we were playing, which turned out to be a good thing when we learned we had to go back for the rest of our gear because the backline wasn’t at the club.  A minor issue, soon taken care of by Matt and I.  It being a showcase, the set was only five songs long, but we milked those five songs for all the energy of at least a six song set!  It was great to see friends and family in the crowd, and our Asbury Park Wave Gathering friends Alison and Suzanne from Eat Sleep Breathe Music.

The next day, it was brunch at Eat Records and back to Boston to the strains of a mock-Creed video on Matt‘s phone that had us all yelling, “Yasseah!” On the whole, this trip was a really positive experience, where we made friends, saw the sights, spread the word, drank the beer.  Not that it wasn’t work.  But pretty good work if you can get it.