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CONAN PICS, VIDEOS, AND PHILLY CHEESESTEAKS
May 8th, 2008 (79 Comments) Thanks to those of you who tuned in and watched or TiVoed us on Conan O’Brien on Monday night. It was an amazing experience; not only getting to play, but getting to see Conan’s rehearsals, seeing how they put together bits and the monologue, how they decide what stays and what goes, and getting to meet Conan (who was really stoked on Teppei’s Nash guitar, btw). Performing on TV is always a little scary at first, but the rush of playing and then having everything go well is really gratifying. If you missed it, you can see it on NBC.com. The multi-talented musician, backline tech, computer wizard/programmer, and photographer, Chris Jones, took some photos during rehearsal.
In other news, the “Come All You Weary” video is done, and will be premiering on absolutepunk.net on Friday. We’re really happy with how it turned out, and I actually think it’s the quickest editing process we’ve ever been a part of. Zach (Merck), the director, did an awesome job. Hope you all enjoy it. Let us know what you think in the comments. We’re in Philly tomorrow at the Electric Factory (one of my favorite venues). A trip to South Street, and Jim’s Steaks is in order. A hometown show for Circa. Hanging with the mewithoutYou dudes. Stoked. The new Russian Circles album, “Stations” is out now. Go get it. More photos, videos, and babble coming your way soon. Be good. -riley -PLAYLIST- Update From the Road April 29th, 2008 (236 Comments) Sorry for the lack of posts from the road…My goal for this tour is “productivity” which leaves me less time to wander on the interwebs (at least in theory). I’ve been totally encompassed in building some fx pedals. I’ve built two so far and I’m kinda bummed I’m done with them because that’s what I was basing my productivity on. We’re talking about going through some Rosetta Stone programs and trying to learn some languages, complete with group homework assignments. Ha. We’ll see how that goes…if it goes at all. I may have to just build some more pedals, or maybe an amp! Booyah. Anyhow, the shows have been going fairly good. Some great, some ok. It’s taken a lot longer than usual to settle into the set since we’re completely changing it every night, but I feel like we’re just starting to get the hang of it. Keeps us on our toes I suppose. Thanks to everyone coming out to the shows. I feel like the vibe has been really cool. A bit more intimate maybe with the air/earth stuff. We’re having fun, and I suppose that’s what really counts. Doesn’t hurt that Circa and Pelican are great dudes/bands. We’ll make an effort to check in more often, but if you don’t hear back from me, that means I’m being oh so productive and you should be happy for me. Oh, and the highlight of the tour for me so far was probably visiting the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis. The place is EXACTLY the way it was when it was first build. Same linoleum floor tiles, same acoustic tiles on the walls, unreal. If you don’t know, Sun studio is where people like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Cash, etc. got their start. Crazy. It’s late. I need to sleep. Teppei haven’t done this in a while, but here’s some stuff I can think of off the top of my head that I’ve been digging: I was listening to music while I browsed pedal circuits online and realized I have some friends that are in great bands that not many people know about…so: And finally, stuff I just bought off iTunes: Goodnight.  WE IZ ON TURR April 18th, 2008 (293 Comments) Hello, you. It’s Riley. The tour is off and running, and despite a little rust, some technical difficulties/evil robots (shocking, right?), and too many songs to choose from to make our set lists, everything is going well. Thanks to those of you who made it out to one or both of the San Diego shows. Great crowds both nights, and it was great to start a tour at home (kinda) amongst friends and family and phenomenal weather. We couldn’t be happier about the bands that are out with us on this run. Getting to share the stage and hang with Pelican and Circa Survive every night for the next six weeks, is a blessing. There were some questions about the “Roadie for a Day” contest we’re running with MacBeth, PureVolume and LiveNation, regarding how much “work” you’d be doing and if you’d have to “carry heavy stuff”. The truth is, you’ll have to perform the entire load-in by yourself, set everything up perfectly (without any help from us), set up the lighting rig, go to front of house and run soundcheck, focus lights, line check everything before the set, and once the show starts… you’ll have to run sound and lights from front of house while teching on stage. You do it all. Once the show is over, you’ll have to break everything down, pack it up (again, with no help), load the trailer, and then once you’re done, we’ll take turns punching you in the balls (if you’re a girl, you’ll skip this step, obviously). Sounds cool, right? Seriously though… You won’t have to do any heavy lifting, or any lifting at all, really. You won’t set anything up, or be put to work at all. You basically get to come out to the show early, hang out with us and our crew, see the inner workings of what makes a Thrice show happen from start to finish, hang backstage and just be a part of our crew for a day. You’ll be a “fun tech” more or less. Plus, you get free shoes. Awesome deal, right? So go sign up. Big thanks to those of you who have picked up Vols. 3 & 4 this week. We REALLY appreciate your support. We worked long and hard on this project and to have it finally be out in it’s entirety feels great. It’s crazy to think that we finished recording it almost a year ago, and it’s just now getting to your ears. So now that you have the whole Alchemy Index, I thought it would be cool if you guys could post track listings of your version of The Alchemy Index in the comments. You’ve got 24 tracks to choose from, you can put them in whatever order feels best to you, mix and match songs from different EP’s, think about segues and how songs flow in and out of each other, and just basically build your own Alchemy Index. Build and share playlists in iTunes, maybe? Discuss why you chose the order you did? It’s like Build-A-Bear, but without the bears, and without the five-year-olds. Or maybe it isn’t. What? That’s about it for now. When your post references Build-A-Bear, it means you’ve had too much coffee and that it’s time to back away from the computer. We’ll be updating regularly, so keep checking in, and start posting your ideas for track listings in the comments. Peace, Riley -PLAYLIST- Torche - Meanderthal blablastuffblabla April 11th, 2008 (375 Comments) Hey everyone. So a few things… I see that the album has leaked, but I also see that everyone who comments on this site are digging it, and that’s great. We’ve all been super anxious to get this second half out to you all, because from the day we started this project, it’s always been about the whole picture and it’s been hard for us only having one half of that out. Thanks to everyone who have downloaded but are still vowing to buy the record. That’s very honorable :) And of course to those who are trying to “abstain” or “not cheat”, hats off to you gentlemen (and ladies). Self control is a rare gem in these times! But yeah, I’m very excited for next tuesday (4/15) for the album to be officially released. Dustin once again did a great job on the packaging/artwork. On second thought, maybe it’s totally lame of me to be mentioning our record leaked on our site, but no one buys records anymore anyway right? Come on, I dare you to prove me wrong! I guess it’s obvious that I (we) have been snooping a bit on the comments, and I just want to commend everyone for keeping it clean, good, and productive. I have to admit I was pensive about allowing comments on our updates because we’ve had some disastrous message boards in the past, but this seems to have been working out…at least so far. Keep it up. Finally, on the news side of things, like the video we posted mentioned, we’re just busy rehearsing and getting ready to leave. It’s going to be a fun tour. Great bands, great peeps, and we’re really excited to be playing some of the Air/Earth songs. Word people. Teppei Yo! April 8th, 2008 (132 Comments) Sorry I haven’t posted in forever. A 16 month old will do that to you a little bit, but still, sorry. Nothing to much going on except getting ready for tour which you can see in the previous videoblog, or, maybe you internet people call them vlogs? Is that proper? I don’t know. The only thing I do on the internet is read this. www.qwantz.com It seriously makes my day. Read the archives so that you understand the characters. Probably not for everyone. Other than that, I have a new guitar coming from Nash. It’s lost in the mail somewhere right now, but I’m trying to track it down. The tele that Teppei plays on stage is made by Nash. They look awesome and play amazing. Check it out. www.nashguitars.com Books: Watching: A LITTLE PRE-TOUR VIDEO UPDATE April 8th, 2008 (38 Comments) In lieu of another blog post, we figured it was time to switch things up and try a video update. We’ll try to do a few of these–in addition to your regularly scheduled blog and photo posts–during the upcoming tour just to change things up a bit. We’re just a week away from releasing Vols. 3 & 4 (Air & Earth) of The Alchemy Index, and 8 days away from the start of our headlining tour with Circa Survive and Pelican, and we’re excited to hit the road again. We’ve been spending our time at home getting ready, rehearsing, and cultivating facial hair. Hope you’re all well, and we’ll see you very soon. THINGS ‘N STUFF, ‘N STUFF ABOUT THOSE THINGS! March 31st, 2008 (245 Comments) Hello, people. It’s Riley. It’s been a while since Teps posted last and a lot has happened since then, so I thought I’d stop by and let you guys know what’s been going on. As most of you already know, we put the song “Broken Lungs” from the Air EP up on our Myspace last week, BBC Radio played the song “Daedalus” from the Air EP–a rip of it is floating around on the comments of this blog, BBC streams, message boards, etc. Check them out if you get a chance. Hopefully those’ll tide you over until the 15th when Vols. 3 & 4 come out. Last Thursday, we went out to Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita to shoot a video for “Come All You Weary” with Zach Merck. The ranch is way out in the middle of nowhere, and I guess they’ve filmed some scenes for Deadwood, The Devil’s Rejects, and The A-Team (!!!) there. Zach and his crew got some amazing footage, and now we’re working together in post-production to put together a video unlike anything we’ve ever done before. I can’t give away any details, but can tell you that I know we’re all really excited about how things were looking on the monitors, and what this video could turn out to be. I’ll post a few photos that Teppei took at the bottom of this post. Last Friday, we headed down the street to the Orange County Register to be a part of their new Soundcheck performances. Teppei and Dustin played 4 songs acoustic, Ed and I joined in for a Q&A with Ben Wener, and then we hung out with the 30 or so people who were selected by the Register to watch. The whole thing was videotaped and should be up on the Register’s site by later today or tomorrow at the latest. It was a really cool experience because it combined three things we do pretty regularly, but rarely all three at once (acoustic performance, meet-and-greet, video Q&A/interview). That’s about it for now. We’ll check in a couple more times before we leave for tour. Hope you’re all well. -Riley p.s.- baseball season starts today. i woke up feeling like a kid on christmas. so excited. -PLAYLIST-
Practice Makes Perfect March 20th, 2008 (352 Comments) We started practicing for the upcoming tour and are aiming to have around 30 songs total to be able to have in rotation. We usually create a setlist or two having only a couple extra songs to pull in if we want to, but we’re trying to do things a bit different this time by having a giant pool of songs we pull songs out of. The point is to keep things fresh, interesting, and a bit more spontaneous. We’ll see how that goes…Anyhow, we’re breaking out some older songs we haven’t played in a long time, and of course, are learning songs off of Air & Earth as well. Cheers, HOME, HEALTHY, AND HAPPY March 3rd, 2008 (332 Comments) I have finally kicked this brutal flu, and 10 lbs. and one pathetic beard later, I am somewhat back to “normal”. Ed’s on the mend as well, and is markedly less gray-faced and phlegm-riddled than he was last week. Now we’ve got a month or so to recharge, rehearse, and relax. For me, it’s all about dusting off the BBQ, following Angels spring training games, watching the Lakers dominate, and gearing up for March Madness. There isn’t a better time of year, as far as I’m concerned. Sports geekery aside, I spent so much time whining about the cold and apologizing for being ill in my last couple posts, I totally spaced and forgot to thank the dudes in Say Anything and their crew for being great tourmates and helping make our first legitimate Canadian tour, a great one. Many thanks to them for helping make the tour happen. Don’t forget, the “Come All You Weary” digital single will be available tomorrow (w/the remix of “Digital Sea” and acoustic version of “The Whaler”). That’s al for now. Be well. -riley News ニューズ Nouvelles February 29th, 2008 (58 Comments) * UPDATED UPDATE: Conan is happening on MAY 5th, not March 5th as was originally posted. Oops. Here’s some news updates: 哲平より oh and a little side note…Attack in Black, whom we just toured with in Canada, released a vinyl only record called the Curve of the Earth and it’s really good. I just listened to it for the first time yesterday and it’s great. Very stripped down and great vibe. Check it. |
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