Hockey, Tom Carter Benefit in August, and another Video

Well it’s getting close to that that 4 week countdown to the new album and so we should begin mailing out CD copies in the next week to reviewers and folks like that. In the meantime, we’ve got some other things cooking. On the bad side this includes an infestation of ants in my Marshall cabinet (they have since been evicted) because you know my gear hasn’t had enough issues as of late. On the plus side, Steve’s folks sold a house and wanted to ditch their old air hockey table so guess where it ended up? Yes, our studio! And naturally this meant that we got nothing accomplished last week and I kicked Charlie’s ass. OK actually it wasn’t a thorough trouncing, it was tied up until the last point and I think half our points came from scoring on ourselves. Still, air hockey rules and Charlie owes me some Top Shelf Booze next time we’re in a bar.

Other news, looks like we will be playing the Tom Carter Benefit at Rudz on August 24th. You may all know Tom Carter from his days in the Mike Gunn if you go really way back or you may know him from his various projects. One of those projects, Charalambides, was on tour when Tom came down with pneumonia that went south really fast and forced doctors to put him in a medically induced coma. For a long while it didn’t look like he would live through the ordeal but eventually he did and not long ago Tom was pulled out of the coma though he still remains in rehabilitation under the hospitals care and it may be months until he is able to return to the states. This of course means some heavy medical bills and so we are putting together a show (with the help of John Cramer and Sandy Ewen) to help Tom with those bills. A trust has been and website for donations has been set up (visit http://helptomcarter.org/ ) and the entire door along with any sales of our new album (which is released that same week) will go straight to that trust.  As of right now we don’t have a full line up but Project Grimm and the LP4 are definitely signed on to play.  Johnathan Jindra is hosting a sister benefit of local experimental artists the following day Saturday August 25th at the Railyard (2020 Commerce).  That line up is as follows:

Sandy Ewen / Damon Smith – improvised duo
Richard Ramirez / Brian Traylor (night at noon) – noise duo
FLCON FCKR – live handmade electronics interfaced with laptop
A Week of Kindness (Sean E. Matzus)
Eric Todd – solo guitar

Also, David Dove is putting on a third, more intimate benefit via Nameless Sound sometime in September.  We’ll keep you posted on that one.

In other news, looks like in addition to “Crom” (which should be out in about a month) we will be making a second video this time with local video guy B-Luce.  It won’t be as elaborate as Crom given that we won’t have months to work on it but it should be pretty fun.  This one is going to film by committee so everyone is putting in their 2 cents including Mlee since right now the big contender is “Rust”.  We’ll be meeting at Valhalla next week which means we’ll likely just drink a lot, talk shit, and get nothing done.  😉

Speaking of videos, there is a local film with Charlie in it that I’ll share with you maybe next week.  It’s pretty awesome but given the tragedy in Colorado this morning, a film with guns blazing seems a little inappropriate.  Our hearts go out to the victims and their families.