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The idea of opening for one of my musical heroes was both surreal and terrifying. But once we talked to Jimmy Gnecco and realized what a perfect gentleman he was, the nerves went away and I was just excited to play. Before we went on, we got to witness Jimmy do a sound check. There was one particular note that he sang that caused me, Patrick, Becky and Charles to applaud like the nerds we are. After his sound check, we got to chat with him for a little bit. Me and Patrick told him what big fans we were and how Precious in particular is our favorite Ours album. I asked Jimmy if he was going to play anything from Precious, and he said he would probably play a few songs. I told him that’s all I needed to hear and not to tell me which ones, I didn’t want to spoil it.

Our set went surprisingly well. All the songs we played were new ones, although one song, “A Wasp in a Wig”, has been in our set for a while now.

This was our setlist:

1). Graphic Historical Film Violence
2). Mister Freeze
3). A Wasp in a Wig
4). Lava Dome

Photo courtesy of Kirby Franklin

After we played, we wound up talking to the man known as Static, an incredibly talented guitarist who was playing with both Free Dominguez and Jimmy Gnecco that night. Static has been playing guitar in Ours for years. He complimented us on our set and said that we reminded him of King Crimson, and that he was a big fan of Islands, Lizard and Larks’ Tongues in Aspic. These three albums also happen to be our favorites, so Static won the ‘best tastes in music award’ for that night.

Another hot topic of discussion was that I was singing songs in an uncommonly low register and had also grown a beard, leading my friends to believe that I had become twice as manly as before. Dan Cole from Rexedog appeared and asked me when I had become so George Harrison-like, because of my beard and also that he thought our first song reminded him of All Things Must Pass-era George Harrison. This leaves the question, if I shave my beard, will I still be able to sing as low? For now that question must go unanswered, as my beard remains.

Free Dominguez played after us. She’s another awesome singer with an extremely powerful voice and an impressive range. She is also in the band Kidneythieves, but has been playing with Jimmy Gnecco on the string of solo shows that concluded with Friday night’s gig. She played her whole set with Static on an acoustic guitar and an elaborate setup of effects pedals, which he used to loop guitar parts endlessly and create beats and soundscapes on his guitar (one of our friends described it as “modern-day Frippertronics”). The two of them played an intense and captivating set, and their songs were both intricately arranged and catchy.

And then there was Jimmy Gnecco. I had seen videos of him performing live, and I knew that he was a great live singer, but boy oh boy I didn’t realize exactly what he was capable of. The dude is amazing. He played a mix of his own solo material and Ours songs, and hearing all of these songs together and in such a stripped down form just demonstrates what a great songwriter this guy is. He explained to the crowd that he had been fighting off a cold and therefore his voice wasn’t in prime condition, but you wouldn’t know it to hear it. If that was him on a bad day, then he must literally be shattering glass and peeling the paint off of walls on a good one.

The highlight of the evening for me began when Jimmy played “Broken”, one of my favorite songs from Precious, which caused me and Patrick to go temporarily insane. After he played it, he said something along the lines of “Here’s another song from Precious for my new friends The Tea Club” and then proceeded to play my absolute favorite Ours song, a song called “Places”. If you’ve never heard it, do yourself a favor;

buy Precious and listen to the song “Places”.

Needless to say, I was in tears.

Also, I should mention this… Jimmy carried around two hours of music with just his voice and a guitar, and his guitar playing was impeccable. So it’s not just that he’s a great singer… the dude can play. What’s funny (and endearing) is that, despite his tremendous talent, he kept a lighthearted and occasionally self-depreciating manner about him. Not just on stage, but when we got to talk to him before and after the show. Like I said before, he was a perfect gentleman, very gracious and polite to everyone in the band.

Getting to share the same bill and stage as Jimmy Gnecco was quite an honor. If you haven’t checked out his new album, I highly suggest you do. Jimmy is producing beautiful, beautiful music that should be heard.

My man-crush has only deepened since Friday’s show.

Jimmy Gnecco ‘The Heart – X Edition’

P.S. – Thanks to Kirby Franklin and Bill Johnson for letting us borrow their guitars. Also thanks to Andrew Miller for getting us the gig!

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When we got there, the first thing that Tim Gilles did was tell me about how recent scientific discoveries have shown that plants can communicate with each other in more sophisticated ways than we have realized, to the point where they can emit gases that warn each other of potential danger. This of course means that plant-life is the same as animal-life, and therefore my vegetarian lifestyle is pointless. Dasher did all of the engineering for the session. As per usual, I was coerced into doing my Joe Pesci impression multiple times. Nene prepared a scrumptious lunch for us, and spent the rest of the day providing me lyrical inspiration with Hounds of Love by Kate Bush. Do yourself a favor and watch the video below.

The actual recording went pretty smoothly. We had a lot more time to get the vocals close to how we’d want them to appear, and got to include some harmonies and things. Usually when we do demos, we do the vocals in one take at the very end of the session, but this time we got to dedicate the entire day just to singing.

As it stands right now, we have about 80 minutes of new material. There are a few possibilities as to how to release the songs:

1). Release it as one album and leave a song or two off. I don’t like this idea. I really like every song. None of them feel like “b-sides” or “unreleased songs” to me. And even without a song or two, the album will still be at an hour so. Unless we take off the really long songs. And I like the idea of albums being between 40 and 50 minutes. It just works.

2). Release it as a double album. I’m not into this idea either. I feel like double albums are the most effective when you have a whole lot of unfinished or partially finished songs, but they’re placed next to each other in such a way that it makes for a good, complete listening experience. But the new songs we wrote are very complete already. They’re as complete as they’re going to ever be, I mean. So to take all of these songs that we feel are really strong and put them all out at once would just be overkill, in my mind. I don’t want any of them to get overlooked just because of the sheer quantity.

3). Record all of the songs at once then release two seperate albums, AKA “pulling a Radiohead”, who legendarily recorded Kid A and Amnesiac at the same time but released them within 8 months of each other. This is my favorite option. This means that we get to have fun separating the songs into groups that flow and sound good next to each other. This also means that we get to pick which song is an “album opener” and an “album closer” twice, which is always fun for me.

4). Kendra’s suggestion: Release all of the songs on one album, but speed up all the tracks like those Alvin and the Chipumnks albums so that it’s only 40 minutes.

But, I suppose we really won’t know what to do with it until we’ve recorded the songs and can stand the finished versions up against one another.

Any thoughts or suggestions from our readers/listeners out there?
Feel free to comment, dammit! Here or on Facebook, doesn’t matter to me either way! Or you can e-mail us if you’re really shy.

Also… Happy Birthday to this handsome man.

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Like the last movie that we tried to watch, 1980′s Flash Gordon, Highlander begins with an 80′s Queen song. The opening scene is a man attending a professional wrestling match and then “becoming angry” and “flashing back to medieval Scotland”. Then he wanders into a parking lot where he decapitates an old man, in what must have been the Matrix “subway fight scene” of the 80′s. Now, the main reason why I continued watching Highlander after this nonsensical introduction was because of two reasons…

1). The way it was filmed sort of reminded me of the 1989 Batman movie.

2). The main character’s appearance. He has the classic tortured drifter look.
Raincoat… check.
Disheveled hair… check.
Scruffy beard… check.
But then, WHAT? RELAXED FIT BLUE JEANS AND BLINDINGLY WHITE RUNNING SNEAKERS? CHECK!

After this phenomenal opening scene, Highlander is arrested under suspicion of decapitating people. It is then that we realize that the main character’s name is not actually “Highlander”, it’s Connor Macleod. Also, he has some sort of an accent. I couldn’t figure out what it was, probably because it never existed before this movie. Then a cop calls him a derogatory word for a homosexual and Highlander single handedly beats up an entire police force. (Note: although I know that I should not refer to Connor McCloud as “Highlander” anymore, I will continue to do so.)

I don’t really remember what happens after this. Suddenly the movie is in medieval Scotland and there are some more excellent fight scenes. We learn that Highlander is immortal except if he gets his head cut off. (I asked Keanan what would happen if only half of his head was cut off. He said he wouldn’t die. But would his head regenerate or would he only have half of a head? Keanan didn’t seem interested in this question.)

Suddenly Sean Connery is introduced as a flamboyant Spanish Jack Sparrow character. It is revealed that he is Egyptian and cannot die, like Apocalypse from X-Men. Sean Connery is lovable and “trains” Highlander to “be better at being immortal” and a hilarious montage of Sean Connery beating Highlander’s ass ensues.

A TRUE MAN.

At some point, a female character is introduced and falls in love with Highlander. There’s also a disturbing “dark Highlander” called the Kurgan who tries to kill everyone Highlander loves.

Then the movie switches back to modern times. Another female character is introduced and falls in love with Highlander. INEXPLICABLY there is a scene where a Vietnam veteran character is driving around a city at night. He happens to drive by the Kurgan fighting a man with a sword. In modern times, the Kurgan looks similar to a mutant from The Dark Knight Returns. This scene also contains my favorite line of dialogue in the entire film.

The Vietnam vet gets out and shoots the Kurgan with an automatic weapon. The Kurgan stabs the Vietnam vet in the stomach, lifts him up with the sword, and throws him in an alley. Then the Kurgan steals a car from an old man and kidnaps his wife.

Some things happen, and then some more things happen, and then the female character finds out that Highlander is immortal and has been assuming the identity of deceased babies for generations. In an absolutely terrifying scene, the Kurgan (who is suddenly bald and looks more like a mutant from The Dark Knight Returns) kidnaps Highlander’s girlfriend and insanely drives around the city, causing huge accidents and hitting bystanders.

WMB INC.

The end of the movie involves an elaborate and genuinely exciting fight scene between Highlander and the Kurgan. After the disappointing fashion of the second act, Highlander is back to wearing his iconic blue jeans/white sneakers/ raincoat for the climax. There is an epic sword fight that reminds me of Link fighting Ganondorf, and then the phrase “there can be only one” is spoken in an indefinable accent, and the movie ends with more Queen songs.

THIS HAPPENED, GUYS. THIS IS REAL.

Highlander gets a solid 3 out of 5 “tea stars”. A flawed masterpiece. Phenomenally directed. I loved it. Now to skip Highlander 2 and onto Highlander 3. What? This makes no sense you say? Well that’s what Highlander III did.

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So…….. we return to Big Blue Meenie Studios today for some more pre-production..

This is Pat making this post by the way.. Charles claims he’s “at death’s door” and is “too tired” to make this post because he was abducted in the middle of last night by a black market organ harvesting secret society and now no longer has kidneys, a prostate, his right lung, or small intestine (he also insisted on beginning this post with “true believers”…)

Charles also claims he’s going to take “photos” of today and post them on his tumblr so all you fans can have “up to the minute” access to the days events.. Here’s the link, sports fans: http://charlesleo.tumblr.com/

rex manning day…

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The show is on February 17, 2012 at the North Star Bar in Philadelphia. Tickets are $15.

Some of you may know that the brothers McGowan are pretty huge Ours fans, so this is quite a thrill for us! It will be well worth it to come out and see Jimmy Gnecco perform, you WILL be mesmerized by this man’s voice.

Also playing will be another amazing vocalist, Free Dominguez from the band Kidneythieves!

The show is going to be an intimate acoustic performance, so The Tea Club is going to be playing as a four piece, minus Joe on the drums. We will be playing some songs that we usually don’t get to play in a loud rock environment. It will be a very different Tea Club experience!

SO DON’T MISS IT!!!

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I didn’t actually know that Firefly existed until my brother Patrick recently decided that he needed to see if The Avengers movie was in capable hands. IT IS.

There’s really not much I can say about Serenity on an internet blog without giving away some kind of spoiler. But I will say this.

Bernard the messed up elf from The Santa Clause is in it.

"HEYA SPORT."

Some of you may consider that a major spoiler. BUT I COULDN’T CONTAIN MYSELF.

On a related note, here’s a video of Captain Malcom Reynolds shooting Dennis Reynolds from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

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“Altpress.com can confirm that seminal post-hardcore outfit At The Drive-In will be reuniting after eleven years of dormancy. The band has launched a new website here as well as a twitter account, which is here.

The group broke up in 2001, a year after the release of Relationship Of Command. Members went on to form The Mars Volta and Sparta. AP will keep you updated as the band’s plans become known.”

WHAT DUDE???

THESE guys over here.

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Click here to view the video on YouTube.

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