New Black - Time Attack

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

2005-10-27T10:37:00.000-05:00

We're all just waking up from our day-off rest at the Kraska family home. Nick's pop was kind enough to grill us some meat and veggies, let us drink his beer and do some laundry. We've hosed off all of the funk and grease of the last few days and are rarin' to go for the next leg of this here tour.

The shows have been pretty wicked awesome for the most part, we have zero complaints. Big ups to the good people at Grimey's Records and our boys Apollo Up in Nashville, The Labiators and Travis the poster-maker in Asheville, our homies Bald Eagle and Nardy the poster-maker in Columbia, J. Hall and his hyper-smart baby in Kansas City and Billy and Shea and Elizabeth and Luna and the Math and Science Highschool in Hot Springs.

My awesome camera that my wife gave me before we left is now a paperweight (due to know fault of my own) and awaits repair once I get back to Ohio. So no more pictures, which happens to be bullshit.

Tonight, D.C, and I've got a couple of things to say to the President, so I hope he shows up.

Ames, Iowa

2005-10-19T09:53:00.000-05:00

We're just getting up to steam on this here tour, had the day off yesterday after a pretty fun show in Minneapolis and one in Dubuque the day before. I love having the record on vinyl, but those things are wicked heavy. We took in a little culture yesterday at the Walker art museum, saw our friend from Pachyderm, Jim, and drove halfway to Omaha, which is where our show is tonight. The stupid rock and roll behaviour has been kept to a minimum, which is good for our health, but leaves us a bit short on entertaining stories. Here are a couple of the several pictures that I have taken so far.....FLICKR

records in, covers done

2005-10-14T14:07:00.000-05:00

don't drink pop (soda) (coke)

2005-10-11T17:50:00.000-05:00

i just got back from the dentist getting half of part one of my major hostile cavity takeover plan. it sucked. i now have some stupid temporary inlays, and i will get real teeth when we get back from tour. so, i get to only chew on one side of my mouth until then. i attribute my recent spike in cavity's to the free pop (soda) (coke) machine at my work.

i say pop or soda (pop is michigan, where i grew up and seemingly the rest of the midwest inclusing illinois, soda is wisconsin where i went to college, and coke is what patti and other wackos in florida say - there is absolutely no logical reason you should refer to a sprite as a coke, then ask for a sprite. we argue about this often in the van.) check out where you stand on the debate.

i also redesigned the web site. it is here. purevolume has us featured on thier home page now so lots of people are listening to our pretty songs.

the van is in the shop right now getting a new transmission line and fan belt, along with whatever else our friendly mechanic chums at norm's auto clinic on lincoln recommended. rachel and patti apparantly did a thorough cleaning over the weekend so hopefully no more garbage for at least the first day of tour. patti and rachel can sure nest like crazy in those back seats. kimball and i just listen to bad southern rap in the front.

To love, honor and rock, as long as we both shall live.

2005-10-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

Vinyl en-Route

2005-10-05T11:09:00.000-05:00

our records shipped yesterday, you can track the progress here. we just have to, uh - make our custom covers now. as of right now they have just left lewisberry, pa. i have no idea where lewisberry, pa is.

here are some awesome photos andrew ballantyne took at our texas ballroom release show.

New Press

2005-09-29T10:43:00.000-05:00

Patti and I did an interview with Bob Mehr of the Chicago Reader for his column The Meter. They took some fancy pictures of the four of us, and my big-ass head is on the front of section three.

Chicago's Newcity called us one of the city's ten bands on the verge. Big ups to our pals Bang! Bang! and Patti's other outfit, The Dials, for also being "on the verge". We're all on the verge of something.

Nick and my interview with Mike Gibson is up and running on the 75 Minutes site. We sound like nerds and talk about the internet alot.

Maximum Rock N Roll gave us a nice review. I'm paraphrasing but I believe it was something like "a great release from a band I dig or something. I mention it because Maximum Rock N Roll sort of intimidates me, so I'm glad that they were nice.

We're getting our pictures taken again tonight for UR Magazine, whom Rachel had a talk with, and Shea has been working like crazy getting us a bunch of press for the upcoming tour.

GO BUY THE RECORD.

In Stores Today!

2005-09-27T09:48:00.000-05:00

Can you believe it? Time Attack in stores today!! It's been quite the journey. You can get it at your favorite local record store or insound.com. Liam and I talked to Mike at 75minutes.com last night, it was also pretty cool. Through the magic of COMPUTERS he was able to record our conversations over internet phone from different parts of the country (NY, Ohio, Chicago) and he will the ASSEMBLE them into a hopefully cool interview. Podcasts are pretty cool. At first I couldn't really figure them out, but it's turned out to be pretty easy. The wave of the future they say.

It was my birthday yesterday. I had a good day.

vinyl update

we got test pressings back the day of the listening party, and ultimately approved them, so they are being pressed as we speak. i guess i haven't talked much about this, so here's the basic deal of how it went down:

we had trevor slightly modify the cd mastered version (trim the end of devil, add a little to the end of the record) and then send the files to masterdisk. meanwhile i designed the labels following the classic sound org design and sent it off to masterdisk as well.

quick caveat about sound org (since mike was asking) it started originally as a vehicle to put out the ng kindheit 7" (my old no-wave/experimental band) in 1998. the name originally came from tim miller, the kindheit guitar player and had sort of a double meaning at the time - sound (read: solid, togther, secure) org (organization) and sound (sonic) org - which we thought was cool. since then it's been releases of something i've been a part of, this being SORG-005. also, as part of a label identity, all of the LP or CD labels follow the same design, something labels used to do in the 60s. i was inspired by old London, and RCA record labels - and keep that consistant across releases. since kimball and i met up in 2000, it's mostly been the two of us "running the label". there are boxes upon boxes of old releases laying about my house - it's not a very profitable operation!

back to time attack. andy vandette (blues explosion, beastie boys, david bowie, bruce dickinson and kid rock among tons of others) took trevors files and made a laquer. the laquer is basically a very fragile record. the music is played through the neumann cutting lathe, and the stylus vibrates cutting a path in the laquer much like your needle will at home. except the laquer is very fragile. once this laquer is cut, it is sent to the pressing plant to be plated - where they make an inverse mold of the laquer - this is a large metal stamper. once they have that mold, the stamper presses into the hot vinyl wax making a resulting record. that's the uber quick explanation of it all.

so the pressing plant makes a short run of 5 copies called test pressings - that they send to us to approve or reject before doing the whole run. these have simple white labels with the matrix number hand written on them (SORG-005) but otherise are just like the record will be in weight and playabilit. we got the pressings last week, listened to them and they sound great. so now they're being pressed at the plant (33 1/3 - the pressing is outsourced by masterdisk)

RECORD RELEASE WEEK

2005-09-21T10:38:00.000-05:00

A huge thank you to everyone that made it out to our listening party last night. A much huger thanks to Chuck and Neil at Club Foot for their hospitality and an even huger (hugest? hugiant) thanks to DJ John Benetti and DJ SCRVNR for their work on the ones and twos.

Record release shows Friday and Saturday.

FRIDAY SEPT. 23rd
ALL AGES! BRING YOUR BABIES!
w/Russian Circles, Hanalei, Maps And Atlases, Karma With A K
The Texas Ballroom

SATURDAY SEPT. 24TH
w/The Life During Wartime DJ's
Hideout Chicago

Nick turns 21 on Monday, so someone should buy him his first drink. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRASKA

New Reviews/Articles

2005-09-13T10:13:00.000-05:00

1. Pick up the new issue of Venus Magazine for an interview with us. The article doesn't mention that I SCHOOLED EVERYBODY IN SCRABBLE.

2. If you're in Chicago, you can pick up the first issue of THE MACHINE. If you're everywhere else, you can look at this PDF on page 25 for a story about us.

3. A review of Time Attack from Exclaim! magazine

4. A review of Time Attack from Slug Magazine

5 Some monkeys ride dogs to the record store so that they can buy Time Attack. It's true. I talked to the monkey.

STREAM TIME ATTACK! ON YOUR COMPUTER!

2005-09-07T11:11:00.000-05:00

You can listen to TIME ATTACK in it's entirety at Purevolume.com!!!! Pre-Order your copy from Thick Records RIGHT NOW!

New MP3

2005-08-31T21:02:00.000-05:00

Our friends over at Life During Wartime have added a new MP3 from Time Attack to their website. It's probably one of the best 10 songs ever written.

Tour Outline,New TShirt

2005-08-30T17:36:00.000-05:00

We're just putting the finishing touches on tour plans for October and November, you can watch the progress here. If you live somewheres we're not playing, and you want us to come to your town, drop us a line, and we'll see what we can do.....

Our buddy Nate, the fine, fine artist of our Sharkacopter shirts has outdone himself (once again) with his new design. Behold the zombie meerkats. Hopefully, we'll have those bad boys in time for our record release shows.

NEW BLACK COMES HOME

2005-08-09T15:06:00.000-05:00

It's been a long summer, but we're finally playing a rock show back in our swelteringly hot, stinky home.

Please join us this FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 at the Subterranean! We will be joined by Minneapolis' STNNNG and the super swell Modey Lemon. It's gonna be THE GREATEST SHOW EVER

Going where the water tastes like cheese

2005-08-03T00:51:00.000-05:00

We're heading out with our friends Bang! Bang! on Thursday for a wicked good long weekend to the Dairy State. On Thursday the 4th, we'll be playing with The Box Social at the Onopa Brewery in Milwaukee (that's the town that made that one beer famous! Or something!); at the Rock Island Cafe with Catacombs Of Rome in beautiful Neenah on Friday the 5th, and on Saturday the 6th, I'll be doing my best not to fall off of the incredibly high stage at The Slipper Club (again!) in Madison, where we will be joined by The Hat Party.

I'm so ready to play some goddamn shows that my teeth are chattering. LET THE WHISKEY FLOW.

New review of Time Attack at Baby Sue

First Review of Time Attack

2005-07-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

The first review of the record comes to us from Fiona, age 9, of Hot Springs, AR:

""It makes me wanna do my dancing. Of course, I always wanna dance. I like dancing to it, and if I like dancing to it, it's good for dancing . . . for me anyway. Some people like dancing to Beethoven, I guess--I like dancing to this."

Track #10: "This is like spy music."

Track #9: "This is disaster music. Like when somebody's having a great big party, and they make a big mess."

Fiona freewrite: "Spies dancing reapeating [sic] a big house and a small town piano what else can I do? Time attacks wish lists devils' cars screaming microphones corners sounds motorcicles [sic] Scooby doo 2 Jungle and/or rainforest people".

So, obviously, it's a really good record.

Promo CDs In

2005-07-08T10:19:00.000-05:00

We met up with Neil from Rollo Tomasi/THICK and he delivered 4 promo copies of TIME ATTACK to us. We held it like giddy schoolchildren, it was awesome. They will be sent out to magazines and stuff shortly. Awesome awesome awesome.

cds shipped, supposedly

2005-06-30T16:41:00.000-05:00

we have yet to see them, but we got word that they were shipped from the pressing plant, ironworks digital yesterday, so in theory we should have them in our hands soon. but that doesn't help you does it, since the record wont come out till way later. sorry.

we're also making all kinds of plans for fall and touring. lets just say, every time we come up with a plan, a new, slightly better one comes up - so we'll leave it at that in case an even better one comes up tommorow, at which point we'll tell you about it then.

2005-06-29T18:18:00.000-05:00

And now, we wait

2005-06-08T15:29:00.000-05:00

The record is done, the artwork is done, everything is at 'the plant'. In theory, the whole process will be done in a couple/three weeks, and we will have real live copies, wrapped in cellophane in our hands.

Release date: Sept. 27th.

What happens now? The Publicity Machine gets rolling. We sit patiently and wait for Patti and Nick to come home. Possibly, we drink an entire bottle of maple syrup. It's possible we've (I've) already had several.

I'm gonna go crazy with the waiting.

taking over the world

2005-06-01T13:03:00.000-05:00

i just got off the phone with patti - she has safely arrived in berlin and she'll be back at the end of july. the phones ring funny when you dial over there. one of the first things she says to me increduously was, "there's a starbucks on the corner here. they're taking over the world."

artwork

2005-06-01T11:56:00.000-05:00

know who's super talented? jef at polishbroadcast that's who. he's turned out some wicked amazing designs, and is putting the final touches on as we speak and then sending off to the pressing plant.

he did a bunch which were basically exactly what we asked him to do, and then he did one that he said he did basically that just felt like our music - which was way better than all of our ideas. it's super cool having someone take your little pieces and having them shape it into something complete, cool and visually great.

we're still behind the gun to get everyhing off to the plant. patti and i also went and had calbee from snapcult take a few studio photos - liam and rachel will go in when they get back and through the magik of "technology" it will appear that all of us are in the same room at the same time. so far they look real awesome. patti has a new foxy haircut and looks pretty hot. i apparantly look pretty good too if you believe patti. it was cool to hang with calbee and nicole, since they took some photos of us after our very first show, and we hadn't spoken since. it was a wierd time warp catching up on what both parties have been up to in the last 2 or so years.

From The Road

2005-05-26T12:25:00.000-05:00

I'm currently in Monroe, Louisiana, on an travel/off day of the Zincs/Monade tour. In several ways, it's a world apart from a NB tour.....we're traveling on a tour bus, and playing support for a band that features one of the founding members of a highly influential band (Stereolab) that has toured with Sonic Youth and REM (needless to say, this sort of pedigree brings out some pretty creepy superfans)....I like the not having to drive, and the waking up in the town we're going to be playing with enough time to wander around and relax before the show, but I'm missing playing my own songs, and it is a pretty crazy switch to go from being one of the lead/front people of one band to being a substitute in a support role. I'm having fun though, and these French people are swell.

I am excited to hear the final master of the record, and anxious to see some of Jef's artwork for it. I'm doing what I can to find a computer (atleast one without a French keyboard) in each town so that I can check the progress. This computer hunt has now gotten me lost two days in a row. I'M AN EXPLORER

Even listening to my unmastered copy, I've got to say that I have never been so proud of a record before.

edumacation

2005-05-26T10:06:00.000-05:00

go learn something. if you're too lazy to read, sit back and watch.

pretty pictures

2005-05-25T18:24:00.000-05:00

here are some pictures from mixing and overdubbing at studio greg studios ii.

cool guy on the gtr.

every song from the demo playing simulataneously slaved to the 24 tk.

calibrating the 2 track.

me spinning around like a tape machine about ready to pass out but the picture looks like im sitting still.

doesn't liam look good with a bag over his head? (dont try at home)

ehaustion mixing at 5am.

final mix checklist