First of all, thanks to everyone who came out Tuesday night. We had TONS of fun. Roxy and Dukes is a great venue with hilariously surreal decorations, including a giant blue head looming behind the drumset, a big glittery crescent moon, and a creepy ultra-realistic mannequin of a biker dude sitting at a table. The whole place gave me a Pee Wee’s Big Adventure/Tim Burton feel.

It was great to see a lot of familiar faces, like Jim Robinson, Alan and Amy, Joe, Boney, Ray and the NJProghouse crew. Dasher and Nos, two engineers from Big Blue Meenie Studios, came out to see us too. Half way through “A Wasp in a Wig”, my guitar cut out entirely, and I realized that my effects pedals had completely lost power. So I had to unplug everything and just plugged my guitar directly into my amp. This also meant that I couldn’t use my tuner, and half way through one song, Nos yelled out “TUNE!” (Typical Big Blue hecklers.)

This was Tuesday night’s set list:

1. Powerland
2. A Wasp in a Wig
3. Nuclear Density Gauge
4. Oz Style
5. Planet Moon
6. Cool Smack
7. I Shall Consume Everything

But besides those small technical difficulties, the rest of the show was a truly phenomenal experience. The audience was great, we felt very loved. Once again, Beardfish was simply AMAZING. I can’t say enough how much of a pleasure it’s been to play with these guys and to get to see them perform.

On the ride home, Joe apparently went on one of the most hilarious rants of his life, which me and Patrick missed because we were in another vehicle. From what I understand, at some point Joe said that Tea Club fans should be known as “Krampinators”, and they’ll have different “levels” of importance, the “ultimate” level being “Shaq Level”. Some of this was captured on film and will be released at a later date. We stayed the night at Joe’s parents house, who once again restored our faith in humanity with their generosity and graciousness.

The next day was mostly spent driving to Massachusetts, although we did stop off at a rest stop, where Patrick drank salsa straight from the container and Charles ate an inordinate amount of Tostitos and I did planks and ran around with Joe. Then we went back to our hotel rooms and listened to a surprising amount of Justin Timberlake. There is also video footage of me loudly singing along to Invisible Touch-era Genesis. This will probably also be released someday unfortunately.

Today we got up early to drive to the city and do some sight seeing. We went to Johnny Cupcake, where Charles bought a shirt. Then we went to Newbury Comics, which is an awesome place. I got a SWEET Michael Jackson t-shirt there, Becky got some socks with manatees on them and a “beautiful unicorn” shirt, and our friend Earl Grey bought a Storm Corrosion CD. Then we went to Panera Bread for lunch, and the cashier saw my shirt and we bonded over our mutual love of Michael Jackson. We found out that the other cashier was apparently a huge prog rock fan too, so we invited him to the show. Who knew that Panera would attract such great musical as well as culinary tastes? Then we witnessed a man walk out of a Trader Joe’s with an owl stuffed animal, who looked at it and said “let’s go, Wendy.” Then we went into a beautiful store called The Fairy Shop, which was filled with all kinds of books and trinkets and collectibles related to Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Lord of the Rings and other fantastical and magical things. As always, there was a point during the day where Earl Grey began asking Siri ridiculous and offensive questions.

We just arrived at The Magic Room, so I must go. I will blog about more things as I remember them. Many more pictures and videos from the past few days to come!!

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This is the set list we played:

Beardfish was EPIC. Their music is sophisticated but also rocks extremely hard. Rikard, the lead singer, has an amazing voice. And their bassist, Robert, looks more like Thor than Rick Wakeman, as I had previously stated. He also has the ability to float on stage. Everyone in the band is extremely cool and friendly. We bonded over a mutual love of both 70′s prog rock AND Nirvana. I’m extremely excited to be playing 2 more shows with these guys!!

And now, off to Dunellen, NJ!

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Our good friend “Earl Grey” set up our new and improved merch table…

The guys from Beardfish seem like very nice gentlemen! Their bassist also bears more than a slight resemblance to a young Rick Wakeman.

EXTREMELY excited to play!!!

I need more coffee though…

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On our way to Baltimore for the first show of our mini-tour with Beardfish!!

Unfortunately, The Tea Club van (aka “The Cat”) has taken a turn for the worse… But the Rizzolos were kind enough to let us use their van, so we are now ready to embark on our journey!!!

Orion Sound Studios, here we come!

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http://progressiverockcentral.com/2012/05/12/mesmeric-tea/

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You can read it by clicking here!

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That is all.

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But here are a few interesting memories I’ll share.

-Morris the Fish, Ze Vole, and Moon/Cow watching over the entire session

-Me and Patrick sitting on hard metal chairs while Ze Vole was provided with a soft, cushy, expensive reclining chair

-Adding multiple elaborate vocal parts that we will have no hope of ever recreating live

-Tim forcing me to sing a high C# (a note that I didn’t know I could hit and that I’m still not entirely convinced that I successfully did)

-Watching MST3K: Laserblast with Noz

-Watching Thank You For Smoking with Dasher

-Tim heckling Vus about his love of Nirvana on Vus’s birthday

-Drinking a LOT of Tang

-Watching a Rangers game with Tim, Noz and Patrick and being introduced to Don Cherry, one of the all-time great sports personalities.

(Left) A puzzled hockey commentator (Right) Don Cherry

And now, a silly video of Tim Gilles abusing Big Blue Meenie staff.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

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I drove… and immediately messed up the very first turn I was supposed to make. While circling around, we realized that Becky left a valuable gift that Kendra had given her for recording strength in her car.

A lamb that uses magical star power to give Becky recording strength.

So we went back and picked up the powerful lamb and we were on our way. The rest of the drive went fairly well. We were only a half hour late for the studio.

When we got there, we basically went straight into recording mode. The always fabulous Noz was the engineer for the session. Like Charles, Becky attacked the recording with extreme determination and confidence but with less tattoos. Song after song, she just *NTOK* knocked them out of the park. *NTOK* Just like that.

Becky Osenenko, seen here knocking some songs *NTOK* right out of the park.

“A Wasp in a Wig”?  *NTOK* Out of the park!

“Mister Freeze”?  DONE.

“Lava Dome”?  OUTTA HERE. *NTOK*

“Oz Style”?  NEXT SONG.

“Graphic Historical Film Violence”?  *NTOK*

(For the record, *NTOK* is me attempting to spell out a tongue clicking sound. You know, like the sound from that one Snoop Dogg song. *NTOK*!)

Here’s a video of Becky knocking a section of “Oz Style” out of the park.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The second day of recording started with Noz coming downstairs with a freshly buzzed haircut, and then Tim coming downstairs and telling me to listen to the guitar solo in the song “And the Cradle Will Rock” by Van Halen for some reason.

Now, it is a well known fact that Patrick is a closet AC/DC fan, but what may not be as commonly known is that I sort of love Roth-era Van Halen. I sort of love David Lee Roth’s voice.

After this, Tim left for the day to go visit some family. I immediately went on the computer at the front desk and YouTubed that Van Halen song. While I was listening, Dasher came in the studio and told me that he had a weird dream about Van Halen where they were playing the song ”And the Cradle Will Rock”. I was blown away and told him that I was unbelievably just listening to that song. He then told me that he was lying, and that he had ran into Tim outside while he was leaving, and Tim told Dasher to walk in and claim to me that he had a dream where Van Halen was playing the song ”And the Cradle Will Rock”.

LIES. ALL LIES. PRANKS. But seriously, this guitar solo.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

On the recording front, Becky continued to knock songs out of the park, partially because of the powerful lamb gift that gave her star power and sat on her keyboard the entire time. Noz had to do some mixing on another project so Dasher took over for a few songs. By the end of the night, Becky had completed the keyboards for nearly everything except for “I Shall Consume Everything” and “Firebears”, which were basically finished but just needed some touching up.

At some point the night disintegrated into chaos. 9/11 appeared with a bunch of those snap pop toy thingies, y’know, those little white bombs that you throw at the ground and they make a loud noise? You know what I’m talking about. Then we spent a considerable amount of time researching the episode of Rocko’s Modern Life where Rocko walks down the stairs naked and Heffer keeps saying “NAAAAAAKED”.

NAAAAAAKED

And also the episode with Mr. Onion Head. Then me and Becky started doing extreme acrobatics in the Studio C hallway. Becky did some impressive ballet moves, and I managed to pull off this cool move.

The third day was spent putting the finishing touches on the keyboard tracks. A *NTOK* here and a *NTOK* there, basically. Charles drove up to the studio to hang out for a bit. We still had some of those snapper bombs, so we threw a lot of them around while Becky was attempting to record. She still managed to finish all of the keyboards before 6 o’clock. So all of the keyboards were recorded in only two and half days! Not even a half really.

EXTREME BECKY KEYBOARD SUCCESS!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The only tracking that remains now is the mysterious anything-can-happen “additional guitar and vocals” that me and Patrick are going to be doing in the next 4 days.

ALMOST DONE, DUDES AND DUDETTES.

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click to enlarge

The Tea Club will be doing a mini-tour of the Northeast in May 2012!

We are excited to announce that we have been asked to join Swedish progressive rock band Beardfish for their only 3 US dates.

Beardfish have performed at ProgDay, NEARfest, Europe’s Symforce festival and countless other Euro gigs and are poised to appear at this year’s Terra Incognita festival in Canada on the weekend of May 19th/20th, 2012.

Beardfish / The Tea Club :

• May 14, 2012 Baltimore, MD: Orion Sound Studios, The Orion LiveMusic Showcase
• May 15, 2012 Dunellen, NJ: Roxy and Dukes, NJProghouse Progressive Music Series
• May 17, 2012 Brighton, MA: The Magic Room, NewEARS 

More Tea Club dates to be announced as bookings become finalized.

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