News
- You ghostly orcas, skimming theAugust 25th, 2004View
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You ghostly orcas, skimming the surface from below,
The bears are back, and when we say ‘bears’ we mean the gentlemen carnivores of We Are Scientists; and when we say ‘back’ we mean beautiful to look at. Ha ha! No, we mean back in New York, natch. This paragraph so far has been a whole Batch o’ Natch, hasn’t it? Nothing but stuff that goes without saying. Let’s maintain that trend:- The L.A. shows went swimmingly, with us giving dynamic, gorgeously flawed performances, and with the kids in the crowd clenching their bodies tightly to keep bowels from relaxing and eyeballs from spinning in sockets. Here is a photograph we took from the stage:
- Like camels come across a plentiful oasis, bloating themselves with water in anticipation of returning to the sand
- The L.A. shows went swimmingly, with us giving dynamic, gorgeously flawed performances, and with the kids in the crowd clenching their bodies tightly to keep bowels from relaxing and eyeballs from spinning in sockets. Here is a photograph we took from the stage:
- Sons and Daughterpersons, Sorry we'veAugust 17th, 2004View
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Sons and Daughterpersons,
Sorry we’ve been quiet for a while. It’s not that nothing’s been happening, we’ve just been taking the news page for granted – why aren’t the kids at CNN.com not handling this by now? We’ve been busy working on the new(ish) EP, but also busy forgetting about it (it’ll come out soon, promise), thanks to the myriad distractions that are part and parcel of having pledged devotion to the WAS. We’re now in LA, playing some shows (check that page for more info), doing some more recording (is it common practice to release an album before starting to work on new stuff? We don’t care. You don’t tell us how to record and we won’t tell you how to bag those groceries.), maybe shooting a video or two. Also: the partying. We are talking about some B. E. Ellis-grade action, what with all the near-villainous carousing and skin-baring and drug-consuming (Keith is on antibiotics, see) and the disturbingly pronounced spiritual detachment. Sweet LA. - Mastodons, We have entered PhaseJune 15th, 2004View
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Mastodons,
We have entered Phase II of the release of the new album, and the excitement is palpable, it’s practically dripping down the walls. Phase I: We tell you nothing; we develop the album in secret without offering even the slightest hint that an album is in development; we give you one thing and that is a total lack of information. Phase II: We give you a beefy, well-fed preview of the album; this is what happened today; we drop a preview on you, out of the blue, and it explodes your goddamn mind, driving first into your mind from all sides, like a hundred little drillers, and then exploding the whole damn thing; you are in this phase now. Phase III is of course when we roll out the full-fledged, 40 ounce, scratch and sniff album, which is a little ways off yet.
There’s a lot of confusion out there, a lot of hysteria, a lot of excited moaning and hysteric confusion. The safest way, we feel, to approach this sort of situation is through an FAQ. And . . . . voila:
What will it be called? The album will be called Ask Your Doctor About We Are Scientists, and frankly that’s just what you should do.
What form will it take? A three-song e.p. with bonus materials.
Bonus materials? Divulge! Never. Lest the surprise be smeared. Among other things, you can expect a hi-res version of the Great Escape video, that fateful video, so that you and your loved ones will be able to experience its full-screen, tiny-pixelled beauty. Until then, make do with what is currently posted on the front page - You who wear drapes asMay 27th, 2004View
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You who wear drapes as capes, who misjudge your own whims:
It has been a fearful long time since your guiding light has shone, since, that is, we’ve called down to you from this craggy perch. That’s because here in the W.A.S. control room, we’re well aware that no news is good news, well aware that you old-fashioned admirers of the status quo would love it if everything would just remain as is, so that it doesn’t get any worse, because it seems like every time you turn around somebody has changed something and it’s inevitably for the worse. Well we’re all about showing people the road to right living here, and so we’re pretty excited to demonstrate for you that change can be good, it can be for the better; in this case it’s actually going to *make your entire miserable life a whole, whole lot more livable*. That’s right, we’ve made some minor design improvements to this website.
Let’s start small. We’d like you to first jump over to the Advice page, where you’ll find we’ve added a delightful little archive listing at the bottom. Go there now. Not bad, eh? It gets even better; even better than that.
Time to hop along to the Links page, which you’ll find looking better than it ever has, not to mention a bit fuller. Hit it!
Now, do you like magic tricks? Who doesn’t, okay? Who doesn’t! Well magic trick mecca is currently our band page.
Wow, right? Well that’s *nothin* compared to this: a Shows page featuring slightly tweaked/prettified design and A LINK TO A PAGE WITH ALMOST EVERY SHOW WE’VE PLAYED IN THE LAST TWO YEARS. Don’t play it cool, you silly dickhead! Go go go!!!
Okay okay. Now brace yourself, just fucking BRACE yourself for what you’re about to see. Because this… oh boy… THIS page has lain in festering neglect for SO, SO long that you’re going to think we had forgotten it existed altogether. BUT WE DIDN’T! No-ho-ho, we did not. Instead we plotted, we planned, we counted our hams, and - You bashful, bashful otters: OneApril 19th, 2004View
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You bashful, bashful otters:
One week ago today, the We Are Scientists completed our final day of recording with Chris Fudurich, tall, famous LA producer. What we recorded was our songs Great Escape, Scene Is Dead, and This Means War. What it looked like was this:
Here’s Chris Fudurich at work bolstering our songs with slamming house beats and samples of women breathing heavy during sex.
Keith averts his eyes as Michael shamelessly asks Chris F. if he (Michael) can eat the contents of Chris’s shiny box lunch because he’s “hungry and [doesn't] feel like going to get [his] own food.”
Because of the wild drugs we took by the pound in order to foster creativity, everything at the studio seemed to be attacking us. A mostly harmless batch of cords became a hissing King Cobra, and a ceiling crowded with friendly old bats started to look like a veritable parking lot for deadly acoustic umbrella things from hell.
Keith shakes his amp furiously and yells for the “little guy” who “makes the bad sounds” to “come out and fight like a man”.
At a bookstore/art opening thingie where lots of cool kids were hanging out, Michael distinguished himself by playing Peek-a-Boo with people as they entered the store. Can you spot Michael waiting for his prey?
Too late! He’s got you! Peek-a-Boo!!!
The usually sensitive and tactful Greg Fishbein throws Keith for a loop by offering him $30 for a night alone with Michael Tapper.
An extremely rare sighting: Michael within a hundred yards of a bar that serves alcohol. Actually, this is a trick photograph that uses a very long lens to dissolve the distance between Michael and the bar; it’s that same long lens that gets Michael spinning drunk night after night.
And since Chris was always behind the camera, here’s a shot of him searching for his harmony in Scene Is Dead, but taken in his office this morning by him. - Poodles of every faith: ThisApril 7th, 2004View
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Poodles of every faith:
This weekend, the We Are Scientists will again resume the jetsetting lifestyle that suits us so very well (so well it led Roger Ebert to quip on a conservative talk radio show last week that it suits us “like a fine rolling paper suits my hash — fuck these kids today with their Dan Fogelberg and their plastic bongs!”) Yes, we have booked passage to California, and on Friday evening will be playing our first open-air show since last time we played an open-air show at Pitzer. This show, however, will be called Kahoutek.
If you’re unfamiliar with Kahoutek — with its glories, its swirling emotions, its wellspring kegs — then let us just tell you abou–… You know what? Better still, let us show you — Behold; an aleatory assay of Kahoutek that we made last year by spinning on a barstool (we bring three barstools with us everywhere we go) and snapping eight photos in quick succession:
The point of all this being that you should get yourself out to Kahoutek! Even if only in a metaphorical sense by closing your eyes and masturbating furiously. - You whose mothers live inApril 1st, 2004View
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You whose mothers live in bamboo villages where they cohabitate and procreate with marmots:
Make your way over to the First Time Caller site and you’ll be rewarded with an extended preview of this hot new indie flick that features the likes of Chris Elliot, Mo Rocca, and… holy crap, the WE ARE SCIENTISTS!!! That’s us on camera in the picture below. Just kidding, those are alligators — we don’t actually appear in the film like Chris and Mo do. But our music sure did make the soundtrack. Sizeable boner. [Great band name, Sizeable Boner. -- Ed.]
- Yeah, so we never reallyMarch 16th, 2004View
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Yeah, so we never really got around to cataloguing the exploits that went on a couple of weeks ago on the west coast, but suffice it to say that we had the Best Time Ever(TM), and that a great deal of the credit for that goes to the kids in Bishop Allen. Have we been pounding the Bishop Allen fanaticism into the ground, lately? Well, get used to it, people, because our love has not been weakened by the post-tour separation. For crying out loud – do you really expect us to go unchanged after having spent several days crammed in a van with this man:
What if we showed you this, then:
So, you see? Do you see the trouble we’re having letting go? It’s too much to bear.
But just one other thing that Keith wanted to communicate with everyone. Before the show in Sacramento, Keith took a moment for himself (NOT masturbating!) and enjoyed a quiet stroll around a residential ‘hood near the club. All was fine, and Keith was recovering nicely from the terror of having spotted this cadre of bats:
who were clearly up to no good, when he stumbled upon this house:
which he thought rather charming but otherwise not terribly notable. Not terribly notable, that is, until he rounded the corner and casually glanced up at a window on the side of the house, from which some particularly rad heavy metal music was loudly wafting. In this window – and, christ, do we wish that Keith’d had the presence of mind to have snapped a photo of this – was framed a large man with long, unkempt hair, and this dude – this awesome, heavy metal dude – in the privacy of his own home, was donning a Viking’s helmet!
Keith is thinking of moving to Sacramento - Just the briefest of notes,March 9th, 2004View
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Just the briefest of notes, here, to advise you that the We Are Scientists Musical Enterprise will be Unbuckling the Monster(TM) this coming Friday night. Questions? Allow them to be answered by the following fine news sources:
“One part rock show, one part total personality overhaul, one other different part rock show.” – The Sacramento SnitchPaper
“Witnessing the Unbuckling (of) the Monster(TM) by the We Are Scientists is like allowing a cat to pilot an airship: ultimately disastrous, but totally worth it (if only for the photos).” – The Miami NewsThing
“What is Unbuckling the Monster(TM)? What does that mean? Is it any different from the We Are Scientists’ regular rock show? No. No, I think it’s not.” – The Dallas Gunner-Dispatch
Basically, people, we are just playing our rock music.
But we are doing it with those kids in Bishop Allen. When we played a stretch of shows on the west coast with the BA, they blew our minds anew every evening. We ache for them, now, the way we used to ache for a sequel to Jeepers Creepers, before one actually came out and was only “okay.” BA will never disappoint you like that, though, that’s for sure.
We Are Scientists
Friday, March 12
at Lit
93 2nd Ave . NYC (2nd Ave & 5th St.)
9:00 pm
$5
with Bishop Allen (our bff’s) and The Confidence Men (from Boston)
Afterwards, people with sweet-ass haircuts and tight-ass pants will be simultaneously dancing and sulking, because, remember, this is Lit we’re talking about, here. - The thing is, it's sortMarch 3rd, 2004View
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The thing is, it’s sort of a tradition here at WAS.com for us to be really, really tardy in unveiling a tour diary, and we’re suckers for tradition, so although there’s a completed tour memoir, both witty and aesthetically progressive, sitting on our server even now, we think this would be an iconoclastically early time to post it, so we’ll sit on it for a few weeks instead. Actually, if you must know, we haven’t written so much as a predicate for the tour memorium yet, and perhaps that’s because it’s all still so raw for us. When you’ve just been wounded, when the harpoon has only just finished its navigation of your innermost thigh, you don’t want everybody standing around gawking or fiddling with the injury. No, you need a few days — maybe even weeks — alone to just come to mental terms with the aluminum pole riding perpendicular to your femur, the two forming some perverted cross advertising the American Track & Field Association.
But I guess in this case, with us, it has more to do with laziness. Or not quite laziness, but — and see if you’re not familiar with this yourself — that inertial torpidity that makes starting any new project, no matter how small, feel like trudging through waist-high Spring snow. Thinking up projects, conceiving of them — that’s like mercury in a grease pan. It’s the execution that eludes, that is therefore to be prized, and if you’re familiar with this stuff then you know that any ideal elevating intention over action (It’s the thought that counts!) is retarded twaddle at best, insidious self-invention at worst.
W.A.S. is listening at this moment to the new mp3 over at travismorrison.com, and jeez, for anybody who loved the D-Plan, as we surely did, this is a withering experience. We’re totally anti-trashtalking and all that, but this isn’t about trashtalking; this is about the pain of degeneration observed, degeneration of something that was once…sniffle…so special. Although you’d be right to say that ‘Change’ adumbrated this state of affairs, you’d be wrong to think that the sadness is therefore lessened.
It is now as official as non-refundable airline tickets that we’re playing Kahoutek (sp?) in Claremont, CA, the weekend of April 9th. We may also do a club show in the LA area that weekend; details on that and the Cahootech (sp?) show will post on the shows page by next week. While in CA, we’ll be recording 3 of our newer songs; these recordings may or may not be available in non-demo form to non-super-wealthy-A&R people later this Spring.
That last paragraph was SO. FUCKING. BORING. That is why we try to steer this page well clear of those interest-scuttling icebergs of fact that occasionally emerge from the fog and loom with self-importance. You know what, you fucking floe of logistics? The readers don’t want to hear what you have to say. They want to hear us trash talk more successful musicians! And proclaim charmingly impotent promises about things we’ll put on the site! And use stirringly loaded language to describe otherwise sexless scenarios like the maintenance-mandated surface-oiling of a Patriot missile!
p.s.: Henceforth when we are asked to describe our sound, we will describe it as “totally LRAD.”
