Tomorrow is The Flash Wednesday, which means that The Motion Sick will be rocking out at Church (rock club) in Boston using our super powers (did we mention FREE!!!).
The theme song for the night, "Aquaman's Lament" is available now for listen and download at: http://themotionsick.com/ash/
In case you foolishly missed last week's Arthur Ashe Wednesday Show or the previous week's Splash Wednesday show (or even if you were there), check out some fabulous photographs at http://www.themotionsick.com/ash/ to see how much fun we had.
Today is Arthur Ashe Wednesday, which means that The Motion Sick will be rocking out at Church (rock club) in Boston (did we mention FREE!!!) and serving non-stop aces at you!
The theme song for the night, "Tennis Pro" is available now for listen and download at: http://themotionsick.com/ash/
In case you foolishly missed last week's Splash Wednesday show (or even if you were there), check out some fabulous photographs at http://www.themotionsick.com/ash/splash.html to see how much fun we had.
08/13/08 The Dig's Summer Music Blender presents Ash Wednesdays Residency @ Church Arthur Ashe Wednesday - Tennis Theme 69 Kilmarnock Street Boston, MA 02215
9 - Joe Kowan 9:45 - Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling 10:15 - Leesa 11 - The Motion Sick
Much like Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, Leesa is using the Ash Wednesdays show to test run her new rock project, Naked on Rollerskates. The skaters are currently in the studio putting finishing touches on a debut EP. For this show, Leesa will be backed by The Motion Sick's very own Matt and Travis on bass and drums respectively.
The project is pretty hush-hush, but I did hear some tracks secretly recorded using spy equipment at the studio and they sound pretty awesome. We at The Motion Sick are all really looking forward to the release of the EP and really excited to catch the first real live run of the project this week at Arthur Ashe Wednesday at Church.
In the meantime, you can make friends with Leesa on Myspace to keep an eye on her recording progress.
We in The Motion Sick land have all been involved in a variety of musical projects throughout our rock and roll lives. Currently, I am involved in one band beyond The Motion Sick. That is Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling. The band is named after a particularly odd episode of the TV show The Prisoner - an episode which was named after lyrics from the title song from the amazing and sad film High Noon.
The song and film are about honor, moral obligation, fear, and death. The Prisoner is an allegorical science fiction show about breaking free from societal norms and maintaining individuality under the thumb of faceless heirarchy and big-brother style totalitarianism. Because these were all precisely the themes of the songs we were preparing, we decided that the name fit well.
We are a two-piece experimental art-rock band with an extremely minimalist approach. Sophia Bliss, formerly of Blitzkriegbliss plays drums and sings. Sophia may also be known to fans of The Motion Sick as the author of the song "Jean-Paul," which appears on our second album, The truth will catch you, just wait... My role in this band is playing bass. I run the bass through both a bass rig and a guitar rig.
The songs are chaotic, but highly structured and simplistic with frequent repetition and a good deal of open space. We are influenced by a sort of fictional, austere post-industrial milieu and the music recalls the sound of proto-punk/new wave/no wave bands and dark songwriters like Joy Division, Einsturzende Neubauten, The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Diamanda Galás, Nina Hagen, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, and Leonard Cohen.
Arthur Ashe Wednesday is our first-ever live performance. We're essentially playing it as a preview of what's to come. We'll be playing a short 5-song set and probably won't perform again for several months while we continue to work on our songs. Right now, we're still experimenting with our self-imposed limitations: 2 members, bass and drums only, and few effects (currently using only two pedals plus a tuner), and we're trying our best to break away from some of the conventions of rock music while still keeping the songs accessible. The construction of this music has been a wonderful process for us, but still feels somewhat incomplete as we continue to grow into our ideas. As such, we still have no recordings yet. For a very general idea of the sound, you can listen to our prior work as Blitzkriegbliss!.
Here is a version of the song by Tex Ritter, who also did the High Noon soundtrack version. There is some lyrical variation here. For trivia buffs, Tex Ritter was the father of John Ritter of Three's Company Fame. In other random links, the film High Noon also co-stars Grace Kelly of The Motion Sick song "Grace Kelly" fame.
I wish I had thought to do this last week for our first residency show. Perhaps I'll go back and add features for those bands when I have a chance. This week, however, you'll get a little peek at each of the artists performing at Arthur Ashe Wednesday. Each of these artists, including The Motion Sick has a past affiliation with a Boston movement called Counterfolk.
Joe Kowan is a funny, clever songwriter, often seen wearing a sombrero. He writes about love, parental intercourse, his gangsta lifestyle, religion, and Martha Stewart.
His song, "Double Sided" has been called the grossest, nastiest, dirtiest, filthiest, totally wrong in so many ways, folk song you'll ever hear!
Whether singing a dirty song or a clean one, Joe is always entertaining. Best of all, he'll be ready to play some tennis at Arthur Ashe Wednesday (this Wednesday) at Church!
We are one of the 10 finalists in the Spin Hot Pursuit contest for a record deal with Original Signal/Epic Records.
We're one of the top Spin picks here and you can read the comments from the judges on all of the bands: http://musicnation.com/contest/spin/comments. Thanks to BUTCH WALKER, PETER MOREN, AMANDA PALMER, and DOUG BROD for the kind words! It looks like we fared pretty well in their assessments.
Now, the sad news is that we've decided to withdraw from the competition. The option agreement deal with Epic just didn't match our current needs. It's really tough to turn down a potential deal with a major label, but right now, it's just not the right thing for us. That is not to imply at all that it would not be the right deal for somebody else. We wish our competitors the best of luck with the competition and hope that they find the outcome of their work with Music Nation and Original Signal very fruitful! Rock on!
Thanks to everyone who voted for us and passed along our plea to all of their friends and enemies. As we had said, the competition was fierce and we were defeated by our good pals, The Luxury. Some of you may remember one of our many shows with The Luxury, including our Halloween Hair Fest last year (we were Poison, they were Def Leppard).
Anyway, they are awesome, we love them, and we're sure they are going to totally show up Coldplay.
Check out Melophobe's review of our show at TT's here. It seems that they had a fun time. They also posted some awesome stylized pics. I'll repost a couple here (hope they don't mind), but head on over to them to see the rest...
Here are some awesome, awesome photos by Kelly Davidson. Lots more great ones here. One of the photos of Matt will be appearing in the next issue of The Noise!
Sophia also took some awesome video of us rocking the place.
Friends! We have been selected as a finalist in the WFNX contest to find an opening act for Coldplay in Boston! Our video for "30 Lives" is now featured on Coldplay's special web site for this purpose:
So, I am trying to learn more about video editing. I hope to make a short film for the 48 Hour Film Project next year. As an exercise in editing, I spent all day making a music video for Jean-Paul out of public domain footage from the Prelinger Archives. It was particularly interesting to try to cover as much of the story of Jean-Paul as I could using the limited footage available. It turned out okay. I could work on fixing some of the timing and making things a bit better, but I only wanted to spend a fixed amount of time on the project, so once I reached that limit, I figured, I should just be done.
It contains a lot of strange stuff including prominent use of an old stag film, spiders, educational films, war films, commercial propaganda, etc. I don't want to ruin things too much by giving away specific sources. I tried hard to build the tension and dramatic elements. I think it was reasonably successful given the time and material limits.
If you don't like spiders or are bothered by a brief period of flashing lights, I'd suggest passing on this...
Here it is:
Better quality stream on Revver (with ads you can turn off):
A giant, giant thanks goes out to all of you who helped make our 100th show at The Middle East Upstairs a blast! We had an awesome capacity turnout, excellent crowd participation (possibly the best 30 lives dancing yet!), and a really fun lineup of Green Light Go artists. We were joined by our new friends Shawn Fogel and his unnamed all-star band, and our old friends, local awesomes Static of the Gods.
We got to spend time with Janelle, Heather, and Matt from Green Light Go, which was a wonderful treat, as they came all the way from Michigan and Arizona to be there for the show. They've done a lot of amazing work for us!
So, thanks again for all your support. We hope to plan our 200th show soon!
For now, though, we have a lot of great stuff coming up, including a mini-tour:
On 07/12, we'll be in our nation's capital, lobbying for rock at The Grog and Tankard.
In August, watch out for our themed Ash Wednesdays residency at Church in Boston. That means a FREE show every Wednesday in August featuring The Motion Sick and some of the bestest bands in the Boston area:
If can you only see The Motion Sick once this year (how sad that would be), now is the time:
Come to our wondrous 100th show!!!! We have a ridiculously amazing, amazing lineup! You don't want to miss this. We don't want you to miss this. No one should miss this!!!!
First, Shawn Fogel - http://shawnfogel.com/ - performing with his band that includes world-famous music journalist Michael Azerrad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Azerrad - Our Band Could Be Your Life, Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Spin, Rolling Stone, Musician, Details, MTV News). Shawn is also well known for his work in the Zambonis, the hockey-themed band who has peformed at many huge NHL events, and The LeeVees, which features Shawn along with Adam Gardner of Guster.
Next up, your favorites, The Motion Sick, but enough about us...
Following TMS, we've got Boston's Static of the Gods (http://staticofthegods.delverano.com/) described by Skope Magazine: "Layered textures of infectious and mature pop rock with an edge unite to create Boston's hottest rising band ..."
The night will close with New York's Pela (http://www.pelamusic.com/), who sell out every show they play in NYC and are bound to start doing the same in Boston. Pela has had a song featured in the TV show scrubs and have shared stages with The Flaming Lips, Norah Jones, Sleater-Kinney, Mission of Burma, Devendra Banhart, The National, The Decemberists, Gomez, Rainer Maria, and others.
06/07/08 Green Light Go Showcase The Middle East Upstairs Cambridge, MA Pela Static of the Gods Shawn Fogel
The Motion Sick's 100th Show Celebration!!!!! 18+ $9adv/$10dos
We recommend getting tickets in advance.
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In other TMS news, screenshots from Dance Dance Revolution have come out and 2 out of the 14 feature The Motion Sick's "30 Lives" video!!!
Check it out: http://themotionsickreviews.blogspot.com/2008/05/dancedancerevolution-universe-3-screen.html or http://tinyurl.com/3fgokm
We've also posted a bunch of new live video and photos at: http://www.themotionsick.com/themotionsick/livephotos.html
You can visit our Youtube channel at: http://youtube.com/user/TheMotionSick
Just a summarized update on what we've been up to for the last bit of time...
-"30 Lives (Up-Up-Down-Dance Mix)" included in 2008 Dance Dance Revolution Video Game -"30 Lives" video on "120 Minutes" - MTV Latin Amer., MuchMusic, Fuse On Demand, and many other regional, national, and international stations - 2008 -CMJ Spotlight Artist - 3/14 - 3/21 2008 -CMJ Independent Select Tracks Chart #67 - "30 Lives" - Feb. 2008 -CMJ Top 200 #71 - The truth will catch you, just wait... - Feb. 2008 -CMJ Top 20 Most Added #13 - The truth will catch you, just wait... - Jan. 2008 -Blender feature "30 Lives" Breakout Video - Feb. 6, 2008 -SPIN.com Band of the Year - one of 8 finalists in the Underground Category -Best Boston albums of 2006 - Boston Metro - Jan. 4, 2007 -"Satellite" Music Video screened at the 2007 BIMINI Intl. Fest. of Animation Films -2006 Grammy Entry #60 in Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal -2006 Grammy Entry #127 in Best Pop Vocal Album -2006 Last Band Standing, WFNX and AI New England Competition -2006 Fuse TV Bodog Battle of the Bands City Finalists -SPIN.com Band of the Month - Feature in SPIN Magazine, Apr. 2006 -SPIN Essential - Music You Need to Download! SPIN Magazine, Mar. 2006 -Microsoft - New Music Feature - SPIN Magazine, Mar. 2006 -SPIN.com Band of the Month, Jan. 2006 -SPIN.com Band of the Day, Jan. 13, 2006
When we were down in Austin for SXSW, we met up with awesome fellow Aidan Williamson, who interviewed us for Strange Glue. He was a swell guy and asked us a bunch of interesting things and did a great job writing it all up for your amusement, enjoyment, and education...
"This interview is over!" exclaims The Motion Sick's guitarist Patrick Mussari as he slams his hands down on the table in front of him, and all it took was a small mention of two words, Joy Division...
