I feel it when it crawls...

We rehearsed for the first time together in 8 years.  As you'd expect it was a bit rusty. One thing is playing along to the recordings in the living room,  it's another to do it live.  Some folks knew some songs better than others but we were able to get a lot done, whatever one person struggled with a bit we would review or figure what needed to be done to patch the leak.  I'm confident we'll have a strong set together, there are some things we're going to try and maybe add to the core set as we go along.  We have another run of rehearsals planned and we're dedicating a lot of time to it just before we leave, which is actually only 15 days from now.

In other news many people have really stepped up their game with promoting the tour.  Manuel got the tour poster printed up which looks really cool.  The Barcelona Crew at Beauty Fool Records also printed up a poster, produced a promo video, and a radio spot. Thank God for friends.  I hope these folks can keep networking and helping each other out. It'd be great if it makes it easier to get bands to Europe if Manuel and others know they have people they can turn to and trust to put together a good show.

Now for the frustrations.  Merch.  The plant is running really late on printing up the 7"  we were supposed to have it by now and I was hoping to have it in Europe already but now it looks like we'll get it next week...so I'm hoping United Record Pressing will help us out and ship them out there.  With customs and all the other bullshit to deal with it's coming down to the wire.  We should have a tour shirt done also.  There are some other stuff in the works but I'm not even going to mention them until we have them in hand because I'd hate to get people interested in stuff and not deliver.

One more thing, I know you're all clawing at the walls waiting to hear what the pedal board will be...gear geeks take note. I intentionally chose a small board so I would limit what I use but as of now the chosen few are: Boss TU-2 Tuner, Boss, NS-2 Noise Suppressor, Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz (I guess I gravitated to the "2" series of pedals from boss), RAT distortion and taking care of reverb and delay in one stupendous, glorious box is an EarthQuaker Devices Avalanche Run.  I think that has all the bases I need covered.  That EarthQuaker pedal is pretty impressive, they have a more stripped down version called the Dispatch Master but I went with the Avalanche Run because it's more versatile and it'll come in handy at the studio.  I also got an Afterneath and a Palisades but those won't be going to Europe with me.  Other upgrades, I slapped a Curtis Novak PAF Jazzmaster pickup in my Classic Player, before we head out I might even swap out the tuners as well and call it my signature model.  I kept the 1 meg pot in there and it retains the sound of the original pickup quite well, still bright but a little smoother than the P-90 style.  It was just a bit then for my rhythm parts and considering that David plays the brighter, more melodic stuff in the band I wanted to make sure that midrange didn't drop out and also interfere with his parts.  I remember when I joined DP David and I spoke about how they always saw it as Tricia being the double bass, Robert the cello, and David the violin components of the band, so I'm trying to maintain that original philosophy.

I think we all wish we had another month to prepare but it's really amazing that this came together.  It feels like just a few days ago that it was even mentioned as a possibility, now we're down to just about two weeks before we leave.  I'm looking forward to the shows, meeting some cool people, hanging out with everyone in the band, we get along pretty well, laugh a lot, mostly at ourselves and the fact that we're in our 40's and 50's and heading off on a tour that most people do in their 20's.  Like Ted said, "I don't mind sleeping on floors, I just hope they aren't punk rock floors." Say a prayer and sacrifice a chicken for us...

One Month...

Sorry it's been some time since I've posted.  The rerelease of the first  Distorted Pony single that we're putting out has kept me quite busy.  The reference lacquer I received from Dave at Lucky Lacquers sounds great.  He did a really good job.  Thankfully I was able to ask friends to help with almost every aspect of releasing it.  My friend Frank from the band GORT has a print shop locally, GBY, that printed the covers.  Usen Gandara (Sleestak, White Eyes) who I've known for 25+ years handled the artwork and graphics, everything from laying out the new photo on the cover, the center labels, etc.. He also got the Instant Winner rerelease art ready for production.  I even sourced the nice poly sleeves with the sealing strip from my buddy Phil (Distortion Felix/Chavez Ravine) at Far West Record Suppy.  Sticker Guy came through with the pony logo sticker we're including too.  I first used him when Leopold went on tour in 1997.  It's a release between Total Annihilation Records which is myself and my best friend Anthony Francoso (Sleestak, Geronimo, White Eyes) and Beauty Fool Records (the 7" isn't on sale yet so don't bug them to death about it) in Spain which are also friends of mine Daniel  (WANN, Glitterhouse) and Edú (Glitterhouse).  I'm very grateful to all of them.   So we're pressing up 300 of them.  We'll have atleast 150-200 of them on tour with us but Beauty Fool is also going to have some up on their bandcamp. If you can't make it to the shows or want to guarantee you get one order it from Beauty Fool when the site goes up.  I'll put the link to their site on here.

The Instant Winner rerelease looks great and from what we've been told it sounds really good.  I don't think we'll get out copies until we're in Europe.  That's also a limited run of 500 with various colors and a limited poster.  Again, if you can't make it to the show order them because we probably won't have any available once we're done with the tour.

Tricia and I got together last week to go over music.  I have the multitrack tapes transferred onto Protools so we can listen to individual tracks to figure out our own parts when we need to analyze what we should be playing,  as well as play along with the rest of the band and mute our recorded tracks. We're trying to have enough material for an hour set which I don't think I've ever played except in the Ebola Orchestra, most of the time it's been 20-40 minutes for me. It'll be interesting to see how we come up with sets to vary things.  We have full band rehearsal coming up and I'm pretty confident but there are some songs where I have no idea how Robert created the noises that were coming out of his guitar and amp.  I remember from seeing DP live that it was more of a variation of things that he played and getting within the ballpark was what would happen most of the time.  I've learned a few things over the years so I'm excited to have my own spin on his parts.  To quote Tricia "Don't worry, at times Robert was so loud and feedingback we'd be like, what the hell is he playing, we couldn't' even hear ourselves!"  I'm all for the noise!  The more fucked up the better.

The guys in Cani Sciorri have been really helpful with getting gear together. London got lucky.  He'll basically only have to take his drumsticks and clothes.  The Cani guys scored a double bass pedal for him and their kit is pretty much what he uses...Ted even has a metal drum to bang on.  I'm a bit stressed on taking my Travis Bean.  Just a couple weeks ago I was working with Brujeria at the studio and the airline lost Anton's ESP/LTD custom (please see link below) It was supposed to be on his flight, then on the next flight, then arrive a few days later...it's been a couple weeks and still nothing.  So taking a rare, vintage guitar to Europe sounds risky but I've been playing that guitar at every show for the last 21+ years.  I got my Travis Bean Artist for $700 back in 1997.  After hearing the Jesus Lizard, Shellac, Sonic Youth, Six Finger Satellite all playing those I decided it was a pretty versatile, amazing sounding instrument.  I placed an ad on an America Online message board and some guy replied who was the roommate of someone in the Archers of Loaf.  His friend (I guess the guy in the Archers) was selling his TB because he wanted a Gibson SG.  So a few weeks later I had my TB1000 Artist in my hands.  I had that and a Karl Sandoval  custom tele for a while (he's the guy that built Randy Rhodes' polka dot flying V).  He's a local and I did the math and it was cheaper to have him build me a custom guitar than it was to buy a new Fender American Tele...go figure.  Anyway, soon after our drummer in Leopold bought a TB1000 standard that was pretty beat up for $450.  He eventually sold it to me for the same price, so now I have two Travis Beans. I'll be taking one on tour along with a Fender Classic Player Jazzmaster that I've modded a little since I need to use a bit of tremolo for dives and noise on some songs.  I spoke with Mario Lalli from Fatso Jetson, he goes to Europe a few times a year with FJ and Yawning Man and he said he uses a MONO double gig bag that he insists on taking as a carryon to make sure his guitar and bass don't disappear.  He's lending me his bag and he straight up said, "You have to be an asshole and make sure you get it on the plane with you."  Thanks, Mario.  Noted.

Still working on the pedal situation.  I've been trying out a bunch of stuff but nothing seems to sound as good as my amp.  The Cani guys have a Brunetti and claim it's bad ass so I'm praying that amp does the job on its own.  I looked up a few youtube clips but these guys on there play all these 80's hair metal riffs and never push the amp as hard as I'm used to. You see these guys copping Guns N Roses riffs and pretty much any Marshall based amp is going to sound good but when it comes to noisier music, there's just not a lot of examples out there.  They also play guitars that sound nothing like what I'm interested in, Charvels and BC Richs.  Whatever works I guess....
Well, that's it for now.  I'll let you guys know how rehearsals go.  I think we'll be pretty strong with the songs we did the last time around but the songs we're adding to the set we'll have to work on quite a bit. Wish us luck.

One last note.  I realize I'm name dropping a bit but really it's simply to add details and give you a more vivid picture of what this experience is like.  I think it'd be pretty boring to be doing something like this blog and not include specific people and also, these people are helping me out and I very much want to publicly acknowledge them because I really appreciate their friendship and all they are doing for me and Distorted Pony. Thanks.

Antena Krzyku - Instant Winner (scroll down there's a few order options)
Beauty Fool Records
Lucky Lacquers Mastering
Far West Record Supply
Sticker Guy
Anton's missing ESP/LTD