News
- Meet Max HartSeptember 18th, 2007View
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You epicurean puritans,
Who is this Max Hart?
It’s the question that’s been on everyone’s mind in recent weeks, as he’s shown up stage-left at show after show playing keyboards and guitar with equal facility, and in our dressing room, eating some the best stuff on our rider. Who is Max Hart? you reasonably wonder. And the time has come for us to respond.
Max Leland Hart (née Maximilien James Leland Snow), a.k.a., in no particular order, Max Snow, Max [i.e., maximum] Snow, The Snowman, Hart of Snow, Maximum Hart, Max-a-millions [DJ name], Maxillofacial, The Smile, Poisons Enemy, and The Max Tax, was born in northern California in the 1970′s, when “gold fever” had seized the nation, driving hundreds of thousands of prospectors to the San Francisco area for a chance to make their fortunes. During these years, San Francisco would expand from little more than a frontier outpost to a literal boomtown, latticed with roads, dotted each week with new schools, churches, and of course, saloons. It was in these saloons where Max found his early education, watching attentively the movements of the barkeeps, croupiers, and prostitutes, with an eye toward increasing efficiency and profit. The story goes that at age 7 Max approached the owner of the ’49er Brewpub & Whore’snest with a plan to double the establishment’s take in a month. Intrigued by the youngster’s gumption, though finding his suggested course of modifications rudimentary and naive, the owner decided to give Max a job sweeping floors. And that is what he’s been doing this whole time, until we called him a couple weeks ago and asked him to go out on tour with us.
Okay, Max basically grew up in a house of ill repute — but can the guy cut loose? “Plenty of my friends who grew up in whores’nests are my most reserved friends,” you point out. Don’t worry about Max, y’all. Boy ain’t all business:
We know, we know. We still haven’t answered the big question: Does Max look like Owen Wilson? And if so, can he offer any insight into Owen Wilson’s whole suicide attempt thing? Well, yeah, he does kind of look like Owen Wilson. A lot of people think that. Take a look:
But Max claims not to have any inside dirt about Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. He also says he doesn’t know whether Owen Wilson might try something like that again. When pressed, he admits that if he were Owen Wilson — which he is, more than most people, anyway — he wouldn’t try it again; he says he’d be chastened by the first attempt and he’d get some help. Which is classic Max, as we’ve come to know him: seeing the best in people, even to a naive degree. One can only imagine what kind of hair-brained scheme little seven year-old Max offered that bar owner back in the gold rush days; even as one chuckles thinking about what it might’ve entailed, one sympathizes with the owner’s decision to put little Max on broom-duty and keeping-the-whores-physically-clean duty.
So are we going to keep Max around? You tell us! Please take a second to fill out the poll below and let us know whether, when it comes to Max, we should “keep him” or “Jeep him”! By “Jeep him” we mean put him in a Jeep and send him packin’ — that’s right, his own brand new 2008 Jeep, as a consolation prize, just for participating. Now vote already!
What? The poll doesn’t work? That must be a sign that “man’s fate must ne’er be decided by committee,” as Max’s old boss Ralph Waldo Emerson, the whoremaster, will still tell you if you visit his saloon. No, guys, there’s no easy answer as to how long Max will stick around. Maybe we’ll grow to hate his sanctimonious ways, which for now tickle us so. Maybe he’ll grow to hate our open-minded, funny, refreshing, handsome ways, thus achieving what psychologists and bookies long ago labeled impossible. For now we’re very pleased with the way he helps us pull off fully realized versions of the new material and put a little life back into some of those musty old nags.
Yes, Max may be around for quite some time, or he may ride out the next tour or two and then move along to other things, in his new Jeep. All we ask is that you trust us to do what’s best for the band, and shut the fuck up and mind your own business.
Check this guy out:
- Perfunctory Canada UpdateSeptember 7th, 2007View
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You Hairless Werewolves,
Man oh fuck, lots of stuff going on recently, and it’s been awhile since we discussed it here — a show in Toronto yesterday; a gig with Snow Patrol outside Belfast and a slick shebang in Ibiza last week; Reading & Leeds Festival before that; months and months of recording and writing the new album (tentatively titled You Bang, She Bangs, You Want Some… Unh!); a show here and there in New York, Germany, and the UK earlier in the year; a gimantic headline tour before that; shows across the goddamn globe before that; more shows, mostly in the states and the UK before that; and, before that, more shows. And nary a word here on the “”"”"”News”"”"”" site [additional "scare quotes" for emphasis].
Well fuck us right in the belly button. We have been remiss. Here’s what’s going on:
It’s Masterpiece Theater over here, in other words, you guys! - Plant Wrap UpJuly 19th, 2007View
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You checkered futures,
Owing largely to the ingestion of vast oceans of alcohol peppered with creative talent, we finished recording the album (tent. titled “Birds of a Pleather”) last weekend and have returned to New York, where the weather is positively SOUPY! We walk down the street and half expect to run into gigantic wheat gum alphabetical characters! Seriously, folks!
All of which makes one wonder what the bits of pasta in ABC’s ‘n 123′s are really made of (?). It ain’t “wheat gum”, we can tell you that, because we just coined the term. Go to ChefBoyardee.com and the mystery grows only more viscous. No ingredients are listed for any of the products, and there’s an animation of a boy coughing up blood (!).
Screen grab from ChefBoyardee.com: after eating from a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, a queazy-faced caucasian male youth hacks blood at the viewer.
You need to get past that disgust right now, guys, and applaud Chef Boyardee’s compulsion for candor.
Wondering what the last few days in the studio were like? Peep this documentary footage:
All real, everybody. We don’t even know George Lucas.
We’re playing the Siren Festival this weekend, and meteorologists are saying it’s going to be off the hook. If you live in the South Brooklyn, Coney Island area, anywhere in there, you should stop by. - Broken Amp, But All Is Not LostJune 26th, 2007View
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You bastard scions:
Two nights ago tragedy struck in the form of a misbehaving Vox AC30 guitar amplifier. Tracking, like a freight train grinding to a halt, ground to a halt. And while at least one unknown dude’s Sunday was spent performing a tedious and delicate amp repair, at least two dudes hit the freakin beach! It was sunny hike weather, so Keith and Chris slathered on sun tan oil, pulled up their pants, and drove straight at the ocean. Once they arrived, the beauty was so overwhelming that Chris couldn’t stop taking pictures and Keith couldn’t stop texting friends his impressions.
Keith to one friend: “can’t. in bay area recording for few weeks. drink a pitcher for me. i will drink one for me, too, here.”
And to another: “what say you to a 3 o’clock knocked up? i’m cougar hunting but will be back in hour or 2″
“you know you want to see it again. i’ve actually seen it TWICE, but i feel 3 more viewings in me”
“that has angelina jolie. i would rather actually be beheaded”
“why risk another cusack failure when knocked up is a slam dunk”
Ariel made the resumption of recording today feel tremendously special by hauling out some ceremonial garb.
Let’s get a closer look at those shoes…
Ariel calls these “huraches”, but admits that’s probably the wrong term. Please email us if you know the correct one so that again he might walk the righteous path.
Coming up in the next couple of days: a comprehensive guide to the guitar pedals that will color and shade the new album (tentatively titled Mermaid Stewwwww (Yuck!)). A little closer to home, you will lose your job. - Neck Deep In RecordingJune 24th, 2007View
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You long-suffering succotash:
It is on. The record (tentatively titled “Do Smoke Detectors Detect The Smell Of Smoke?”) is beginning to look like an H-Bomb. Here’s how it’s gone down so far.
On Sunday we drove up to Sausalito (from Los Angeles) to start recording at The Plant. Along the way, somewhere near Fresno, we hit In-n-Out for some burgers-n-fries-n-370-degree-heat — we found all three in abundance, as well as tons (literally!) of fat road warriors!
Once we got to The Plant in our cars, the natural thing to do was to walk inside.
The Plant’s interior has some quirky details, such as this curvy hallway …
… and this wobbly mirror, which makes things look all curvy! (Check out the camera’s reflection: SOMETHING’S NOT QUITE RIGHT!!)
Time to record! We assembled our instruments (pictured here: two violins) …
… and we assembled our mics and amps (pictured here: a green amp and a silver-and-grey mic) …
… and our various pedals (pictured: a wonderful distortion pedal) …
… and we got down to fucking business!
Plenty of time is spent working out the perfect parts for each song. (Get a load of Ariel working out the perfect part for that piano.)
And a shit-ton of time is spent by Ariel editing stuff on his thinking machine.
Everybody mostly stands around and watches while he does the editing.
…
…
Sometimes we’ll hit the hoop to kill time while he edits. This has been fruitful. All of us can now slam, stuff, do hook shots from up to a mile away, bounce the ball and then grab it and slam it, do a lay-up, shoot three pointers, and dribble. The basket features a breakaway rim and a regulation 4-ft. pole, and a leaf mat for tough landings.
Sometimes you’ll come back inside from a long, tough game of hoops and find Ariel tooling around in the hallways on his razor scooter, shooting the shit with an old friend over the phone.
We’re all very excited about the songs, though Ariel insists that it’s not great musicianship but his razor scooter that’s going to put this record over the top. Who knows, maybe he’s right, at least about the fact that it won’t be great musicianship that makes this album, because there won’t be any (would maybe be Ariel’s implication)!
More along these lines very shortly! Too long to hold your breath, but too short to take a vacation and hope not to fall behind while you’re away! Anyway, vacations are mainly for assholes, probably! - Beat Up Old FellasJune 12th, 2007View
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You soothsaying assassins:
It’s true, what you probably didn’t hear: We played three shows in New York last week under the nom de guerre “Beat Up Old Fellas”. Why the (sort of) secrecy? There was a little deliberate leaking, we admit. But everyone from some guy who wrote a comment on Brooklyn Vegan, to some other dude who has a blog, to this guy who’s a fictitious character in this one dude’s unpublished fan fiction, accused us of Intent To Manufacture Hype By Means Of Non-Secret “Secret” Show. And that was definitely part of it, and we are enjoying the lavish lifestyle that the recently gained fame has afforded us, but mainly, we didn’t want to play any of the stuff from With Love & Squalor because we had a bunch of new songs we wanted to try out before going into the studio to record them. So we didn’t want any big With Love & Squalor fans showing up and being disappointed by an unrecognizable set. Thankfully, it worked. The kids didn’t know what they were in for, didn’t know who the hell we were, and they loved what they heard. Here’s a picture from Friday night at Maxwell’s of a dude whose expression can serve as a handy mean of all audience expressions taken as a group:
Hey, just kidding. Members of the audience were generally very receptive and outspoken with their praise. Here’s just one of the friendly faces that kept the mood buoyant and fun throughout the three shows:
How bout a few more pics from Saturday night’s gig at Mercury Lounge, featuring The Teeth, Spinto Band, and Bling Kong?
Michael made a t-shirt for us to sell, and sell it we did, at a premium: twenty bucks just to take part in bidding! Over a hundred people paid to bid! Some chick ended up paying over a grand!
Nick Spinto weathers the Spinto-merch sales slump brought on by the presence of a single Beat Up Old Fellas tee.
Joe Spinto may be tired of running from the cops, but Jon Spinto will never tire of mocking Joe’s predicament (Joe stands accused of fucking rabbits). (Fucking them hard guys.*)
* The rabbits die.
Master engineer Chris Coady, slated to man the mics on our upcoming album, breaks his one big rule by showing up and familiarizing himself with the music before deciding with absolute finality how it will sound on the record.
Karen Ruttner and Matt Rubano perfectly showcase the two possible responses Chris can get to his line, “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Our new drum tech can barely talk and he shits his pants every day, but he knows drums like a horse-whisperer knows horses and whispering to them, and how to convince the horse of things using whispers poured into the horse-ear, as well as, presumably, how to saddle and otherwise care for a horse, all while keeping his voice low; whispering, if you will.
Chris accomplishes using just one foot-pedal what takes Keith nearly a dozen: having more than one sound come from his instrument. Greater than or equal to two sounds, let’s say.
Keith gets it done.
Chris gets it done.
Michael gets it done while following the game on his headset.
Above show photos taken by Justin Rice, co-director of the Textbook and Lousy Reputation videos, member of the magnificent Bishop Allen band, cat owner, fiancé, man. Guy. Fella.
Post performance, Shawn Lobb slaps it, snaps it, and wraps it, as we say in the live music business. Then he whaps it, baps it, and takes a crap on it, which is what separates him from even the best stage techs.
The photographer corners a tiger.
Four fans made it out to see W.A.S. after their laser vision penetrated the “Beat Up Old Fellas” disinformation campaign. Interestingly, the guy is from Stoke-on-Trent, but he was the only one of them who didn’t seem to know who the hell we were. Suspicious, we thought, given how much time we’ve spent in that town! His authenticity was redeemed when, after we quizzed him on The Underground and The Sugarmill, Stoke’s two finest venues, he shrugged and asked, “Yeah, but would you want to live there?” No sir! Death first! Death by fill-in-the-blank first!
Then there were these guys, who so aggressively pimped their buddies’ band New York Howl (you see the t-shirt, but can you see the business card slipped into a back pocket? the persistent conversational refrain?) that it would surely damage our karma not to include a link here.
Jay Belin, booker for the Mercury Lounge, and Mike Mori, guy who books W.A.S. at the Mercury Lounge.
Three-sixths of The Spinto Band play a jazzed-up cover of Happy Birthday to a crowd only too happy to finally hear something they vaguely recognize.
Kendell walks away with the world’s only Beat Up Old Fellas t-shirt, plus a $1200 hole in her pocket.
An irrepressible lady’s man and director of mainstays in the W.A.S. videography like The Great Escape (version 1) and the Gilbert & George studies, Mathieu Shrontz knows where the major girl-crossings are in most clubs.
Michael seals the deal. Four hundred plastic combs to be delivered to the pier at midnight exactly. In exchange, the congressman dies, but in a way that makes it look like a gun and knife accident.
Keith kisses a vicious little anthill of grape Pixie Stick sugar off of Joe Spinto’s baseball-shaped bicep.
Keith confronts Brian Teeth about having a mustache while playing in a band, calling it a “shameless, transparent stab at distractive marketing that can’t begin to stand in for good music.” Brian: not catching much of it; too drunk on free rounds for guy with mustache.
Guy has got his dick out, is why everybody else is so upset. (Good eye! That is indeed Mark from The King Left with his dick out!)
And that’s about it guys… well, maybe there was one other teeny little thing. Okay, we’re being coy! The fact is that yes, we did start a blog called Tits, Pits & Bits on Saturday night, and yes it did, virtually overnight, become the most important information thing ever. Please head on over for a look right now — this thing is bigger than all of us, and is bound to outlast our grandchildren’s very molecules! - Summer is heating upJune 4th, 2007View
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You rumpled old octopi:
It’s been some time since we checked in with you all in any formal capacity. Sure, we’ve paid visits to most of you at your homes, bringing with us either a nice fruit tray or a nice-enough bottle of wine or some unexpired warm milk, depending on the time of day. And we wiled away the evening hours in the cozy confines of your living rooms, dens, bedrooms, bathtubs. And it was pleasant — much was discussed — and you got to know us better as people, and we you, and 99% of the time it was a thing to remember fondly. And occasionally the street out front would end up swimming in the red and blue light of all manner of emergency vehicles, and we’d have to get our friend the Senator on the horn just to avoid jail time, and this was all of a piece.
But it’s been a while, has it not, since we addressed you in bulk? Since we went on the record in a way that would make it impossible to deny having said what we said? Since the facts were spelled out in plain English??
Well it’s time to do just that. Here, for the record, is most of what we’ve been doing lately:
(1) Working on songs for the new album (tentatively titled “YOU ASK YOU FIND OUT FUCKED UP SECRET”).
(2) Chilling out in the manner popularized by the islands.
(3) Smoking various doobs.
(4) Kicking it irie with fellow members of our same gang.
(5) Urgently nailing down a marg recipe.
(6) Maxing.
(7) Just like thinking about stuff.
But it’s been primarily (1), rest assured. Let us be the first of many revered critics to assert that the songs on our next album are top balls. They are fuggin, like, yep. Kay guys? Stop worrying about the new songs. Don’t care what anybody told you, no matter how much of an insider he was, no matter even if it was one of us individually: these songs are tip top, mountain top balls, believe it.
Couple of additional facts:
(1) Michael is living in LA, killing it, murdering the scene. Why’d he go? He heard they had great pizza. The irony is that the person who told him that was actually thinking of New York — it’s New York that has great pizza, not LA. And get this, full circle: New York is exactly where Michael moved from, guys. New York, where the good pizza actually is, as opposed to LA. LA, where Michael moved looking for good pizza, ironically.
(2) The new album (tentatively titled “Collective Soul”) is being produced by Ariel Rechtsaid ( DJ name: “Server Wars”; not “DJ Server Wars”; “Server Wars”). Ariel is the total same dude who recorded our last album, so don’t worry, if you enjoyed our last album, this new one should be very much to your liking indeed! Of course, if you thought the last album was only okay, bear in mind that Ariel has made big changes to his producing approach. And if you hated the last album, realize that with this new album, both we and Ariel have aimed to do every last thing completely differently, right down to recording on cotton fabric instead of onto a computer. T-shirt material. It sounds real good, trust us, or we wouldn’t do it. And if you didn’t even know we released an album, or that we’re a band, then you’re going to love this next album.
(3) We’ll be recording the new album, tentatively called “DJ Server Wars”, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Complete with sailing and land, this area has all to offer.
(4) Chris’s boy Dashiell continues to flourish and grow on a steady diet OF DOG BRAINS, believe it or not:
(5) We’re playing the Siren Festival in New York later this summer, and then the [Carling Brand Of Canned Beer] Reading & Leeds Festival later on in August. If that isn’t a full live schedule, we simply do not know what is. - imeem redirectJuly 21st, 2006View
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Unless you’re looking for facts; in that case you’re better off trusting the media. Renee maintains a commendably comprehensive W.A.S. press blog at What’s the Word.
And Alison & Ellie have collected like 99% of the press we’ve done in the last year at We Aren’t Scientists, plus pictures, videos, lyrics, and a ringtone.
- NMNGH single releaseMay 1st, 2006View
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Hey fellers and fillies, got some news for you — lots of news, lots of news, lots of news, lots of news, lots of news! You know the funny thing is, we just wrote that and everything, but there’s actually not that much news. Humph! (Ever seen that in dialog in a book? “Madam Suddsley, honestly — you must cease that fidgeting or I’ll be driven mad.” Mdm. S: “Humph!” Sure you’ve seen it. But does anybody say that? Oh hell no, hell no they don’t. What’s… well, what do you think’s up with that?)
Yeah, the news is exciting over here, and so far despite best efforts nobody’s been able to hide it:
Here’s one bit of white hot announcement: Our new single is out in the U.K. It’s called Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt, and yes it’s oddly familiar, and yeah that’s because we released it as a single last summer, and sure, if you don’t mind we’d love for you to shut the fuck up about that. Okay, let’s talk about it. Re-releases — what gives? Well, the idea, presumably, is that you re-release something when it’s initial release was likely to have reached only a negligible percentage of your current audience. Which is probably the case with NMNGH, if you think about it. Back in June, when we first released this guy, we had maybe… oh…. let’s say forty fans. Forty fans in the U.K. Now? Shit. Shit! The human mind recoils at the prospect of speculation. Let’s just say we have more fans than there are ants in all of the United Kingdom. (Hint: the ants are all fans.) (Another interesting question that refuses to be ignored: are there ants in the U.K.? Would a U.K. resident know an ant if it bit her? Would she scream, “Yow! What the-?!? Some little alien lobster thing just got me!!”)
You may buy that argument or you may not. What you can’t help but buy — with your last tooth as trade if it comes to that — is the two fresh(and here we use “fresh” in the hip-hop sense, not the grocery store sense)-ass b-sides you have to choose from. Long have man and beast lauded our cover of The Ronettes Be My Baby. Well, during South by Southwest we went into a studio with old Ariel (producer of With Love & Squalor, plus countless jests) and recorded a version of this tune that will once and for all put to rest the question “Who is greater? Ariel Rechtshaid or Phil Spector?” Just kidding — it’s never occurred to anyone to ask that. This post is getting pretty word-heavy, so here’s another photograph:
That’s Storme, our infallible new tour manager, punishing Keith for mouthing off — she’s going to shoot lighting right into his face, which will certainly teach him something. Let’s try to answer all the obvious questions: She’s British. Yes, her name’s really Storme. And don’t even think about it, fellas — she’s married. Just kidding, she’s not. She’s actually totally available. You should definitely approach her and throw some sweet lines her way if you ever have the chance. Can’t guarantee you’ll meet with much success, but hell, you only live once, right? She might punch you if your line is gross, cuz she’s hard like that, but hell and stuff, right?
So we were talking about that single, and the b-sides, and there’s one we didn’t get to: Ram It Home. This is a tune that we wrote a while back for the band of some friends, a band that was going to be an 80′s cock rock band. We liked it so much we decided not to give it to them (just as well, since they settled on more of a blues rock, Zeppelin feel). But we’ve never really known what to do with the song, cuz it doesn’t sound like any of our other stuff — frankly, it sounds like Motley Crue. In a good way. And well, this new single may not be the place for Ram It Home, but maybe there is no place for it in this world — who among us can’t sometimes sympathize with that feeling of displacement? And what do you do when you feel displaced? Do you retreat? To under a bush or a patio to die? No. You jump in. And usually you find out that the appropriate metaphor was probably something more along the lines of, you were a fish out of water. And jumping in felt great. Which is a lengthy, discursive way of distracting you from the fact that we accidentally put an 80′s hair metal track on our new single. But let’s speak in real terms for just a second, y’all: this track is no joke.
The single can be purchased from the comfort of the digital realm here.
What else is going on, you ask? Well, first of all, are you still reading? Wow. You’re one bored-at-work motherfucker. Quit your job, really. That’s the other big bit of news. You need to quit your job now. Because look at that big spread of text up above this paragraph — you just read all of that! And it didn’t say a one goddamn thing! You’re wasting your life, is the point. You need a job where, if somebody presents you with a page or two of meandering, maybe-psychotic prose, you say you’ll read it later and then never do. Cuz you forget about it. Cuz you’ve actually got things happening in your life. Things like this:
And this:
And, if you play your cards exactly right — this:
Sorry if that advice was like totally unsolicited and unwanted, but, y’know, we care about you, and we want to see you happy. Happy and doing this kind of thing:
[Here's the one sentence version of the news we didn't have time to write about cuz there were too many fun keys on the computer to press and they confused us: This week we play Jools Holland on U.K. tv and we're also playing some in-stores; next week we're going to Japan with our male companions Editors; and tickets have gone on sale for our fall U.K. tour, and you can buy them here. Oh, and if you still haven't given your vote for World's Sexiest Vegetarian to Keith (yes, this is a second sentence -- it's important enough that we're perfectly happy to contradict ourselves), FOR THE LOVE OF PETA AND BETHLEHEM, DO IT!] - Glasgow post gigApril 8th, 2006View
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Dear fuckers,
We mean that affectionately! It’s true, what your friends and counsellor say: you do need to loosen your tie, your bonnet! Ya fucker!
Hey, so we’re four days deep into this current tour, four days worth of ¡Forward Russia! and Foreign Born shows splattered all over our shirts, and it’s going — in a word — great. Parse, if you can, the following paradox: every night has been perfect; every night is better than the last. WTF, right? Welcome to our world, where lines are ill delineated, borders are muddled or blurred, rivers meant to divide countries are brackish to the point of matching the surrounding turf, et so forth.
Here’s Michael backstage enjoying the supple, swarthy charms of our latest creation, a W.A.S. signature sweater:
Damned if he isn’t among the most laid back players currently in the game!
Minutes after the Glasgow gig’s conclusion, this happened:
The heterosexual girl or gay gent who shot this photo fainted DEAD AWAY moments after opening the shutter and has not yet regained consciousness. We ask that you keep him or her in your prayers.
