The CRY! I Think I'm In Love

I didn't bring a camera for any image-capturing last night, so here is someone else's video of a song by the Cry! a tuneful young quartet of lads from Portland. Ya know how sometimes, as you go through life, you get confronted by youthful energy, talent and vigor, and you want to hate it, but then you actually get lost in it and just have a fucking good time? That's what the Cry! did for me. Great songs, great playing, great singing, great style choice and only 20 years old...goddammit, grrrrr....Fuck Yeah! A totally fun act, I'll go see them next time they play in town. They remind me of my friends from way back, Brent's T.V. from Arcata. We, the Underlings had a good, tight set and I caught sight of several friends, groovin' hard to the rock. We cut it loose, put the pedal down and rocked out, and it felt good. I can't wait for our CD release at Luckeys on April 27, it always seems to be the one room in town that fits our sound the best. OK kids, rock and roll, we will next be playing at Kelly's Olympian in Portland this coming Saturday, I hope to see some P-town friends out that night.

Rock ya later,


the 'Lings

Totally Stoked!!

 

I can't believe the luck we have. When ya get a call that speaks in your ear, " you guys wanna play with Pierced Arrows?", what do you say? Hell yes! Thank you, Gods of Rock for letting this bit of good fate trickle down onto us, your underlings. We also have a killer show coming up next week, opening for Portland power-pop band the Cry down at Luckeys February 18th. In the meantime, we are doing our best to get some out-of-town legends to appear on a bill with us in the EUG, trying to bring the ROCK back to the dankest citidal of gloom on the west coast.

AGENDA: 2012

We here in the Underlings camp have been somewhat optimistic about the impending end-of-the-world scenarios being tossed about in internet-land - the end of the Mayan calender, the end of peak oil, the systematic downsizing at the Chinese factory where Mrs. Butterworths is made - but now it's hard to be sure if any of these rumors actually have any weight to them. Apparently, stuff on planet Earth is only available in a finite supply, and this includes internet conspiracy theories and/or sarcasm, so for the foreseeable future, the Underlings are going to continue booking shows and releasing CDs, as futile as existence in this dimension seems at times. Enjoy the following pic, courtesy of Peter Herley:

Rat-Faced Rock n Roll

We had a great time, rockin' and rollin' at the Maize lounge in Eugene last Saturday.. We always have a good time when we play with our friends in BAITBALL. The room had some people in it and things were fairly jamming during Baitball's set of alt-country-meets-Cure music - lotsa hard-charging, mid-tempo rock songs in an 80's vein. The band sounded great and the tripped-out hippy projector ambience didn't hurt (that much!) I don't know why, I personally am very nervous anytime we play a new venue around town. You just never know how things will turn out. As it turned out, the sound in the room was good, people stuck around and we even had plenty of great friends drift over from a nearby party at Lane and Cara's house. The U-Lings set was loose but fun, we played a looong set, maybe 1.5 hours, which is double what we usually play, but we had to keep the party going as the closer band. The vibe was good and many noisy/shreddy/bangy moments occured. OUCH! My ears hurt! I must be too old.
We is still working on our dang CD that we made this past summer durn it these things take forever. Of course you will hear the news of it's droppage here first, so stay tuned.
Here is a pic my friend Sebastiane took of us:

The End of Summer Blues

Man, I always feel like I lost something when the end of summer rolls around. The weather is still nice but one can feel the slightly cold nip in the air, creeping in, day by day. We only get to live through so many summers as humans, and every time another summer is over I feel that much closer to death. C'est la vie!
 We the Underlings played two separate sets at Eugene Celebration last weekend. We had a blast. Friday night, we jammed at Luckeys in the early-ish 8pm slot. The opening band was called John Craig and the Weekend and they were pretty swell. Very pop they were, with a Bass/Keys/Drums + computer noise + male/female vocal interplay. It was obvious that the fella John Craig was a mighty bassist. HE threw down with a technically satisfying bass solo over his computer/drummer groove and it was fucking killer. The band reminded me somewhat of the SF band the Lovemakers, who used to tour around these parts from time-to-time. After the first band, we were entertained by the gentle removal of a tweeked-out, amped-up individual who had been verbally freaking out patrons at the establishment. Kudos to the bar-staff for getting rid of troubled folks without resorting to violence. The Underlings (us) played a decent set and tor it up pretty well to a receptive crowd. Attendance was not as dense as last year, but we still rocked our balls and folks seemed to dig it, so we were pleased. The next day, Saturday, we kicked it down at the Eugene Celebration Eugene Weekly stage and watched Tyler Fortier and his band perform their very popular local songwriter-folk-rock to a crowd that was really liking it. They seemed to be just about right for the mainstay Eugene music crowd - something that would go over well at the Saturday market or at an open-air summer gig. Up next , it was US again, rockin' balls and sweatin' tons in the heat. Dan Jones came up and played I remember the Fuzz and Vice Squad with us and it was nice to have his sonic textures floating over the top of our ROCK. We finished strong and then got the hell off the stage so that the Golden Motors could get set up, which they did and they rocked it too and had some heavy, slow numbers with a lot of feel to 'em. I manned the merch table while my kids crawled all over our t-shirts and cds. I tried to keep them away from the 7" records because kids and records do not mix.. Here's a pic of us taken by Mr. Random: (peace out! -Ed)

Mixing the new CD in P-Town

Man, I love that we get to take a few mini-vacations this year to record a proper CD up at Smegma Studios in Portland. Mike Lastra pretty much IS Smegma, which is both a band and a studio. As he puts it, "30-odd years of recording the baddest-assed bands in Portland. Yup." That pretty much sums the place up. With a great view of the Willamette river shortly before it runs into the Columbia, the peaceful old house that houses Smegma is apparently a great place to get some work done if you are a band; at least, we got a ton of work done in a very short amount of time. Nothin' to blame but location Voo Doo, an' also having an experienced engineer helps a ton, yeah.  We recorded our 10 tracks back in June and now we have just returned from a 2-day mix session and let me tell you, it sounds great. We can't wait to get the whole dang thing packaged up so we can give you and your sister a copy. Chunky, meaty, song-y - it's pretty much got everything + a badd-assed bass solo too boot. songs about sausages, tax preparation, small-town auto race tracks and doom-and-gloom, end-times chunkers, it's all done and soon to be delivered to the public at large. Stay tuned!! 

Oh yeah, and please come out and see us at the Eugene Celebration, August 26 @ 8pm @ Luckeys in Eugene and August 27 3pm @ Eugene Celebration / Eugene Weekly stage. 

later dudes and dudettes!

-Underlings

SUMMERTIME BLUES

Ha ha I always love it when things fall over. The only thing better is watching your drummer pick up the mess...errrr... I mean, watching your drummer tell his "underlings" to pick up the mess. Summertime and the living is dreary. Those of us in Central Western Oregon ain't getting no summer this year - the season jumped straight from winter to fall, skipping spring and summer - at least in our neck of the woods. At least we have found time to fire up the barbecue in between rainy, overcast or (occasionallyt) sunny days. As most of the world knows (and undoubtably cares about), the Underlings have finished tracking our second full-length music release,. due for a winter release. No title yet has been adopted pending band negotiations. We will keep you posted. Next Underlings appearance: August 26 @ Luckeys in Eugene. Have a nice day!
-Underlings