Empty City: Pink Spiders at Cicero's 3/24/09

This week's Empty City show:
Pink Spiders at Cicero's 3/24/09

I've personally been a fan of this Nashville-based band for quite some time. Mega super buzzy power pop goodness. Until recently (in the last year maybe), they had this schtick that didn't bother me much but I can see how it could turn some people off. This glammy pink/black/white neo new-wave thing (whatever that is) that played right to 16 year old girls. They were on Warped Tour, etc.

Well, the long story short is that they got dropped by their major (Geffen) and two of the three dudes quit. Lead dude, Matt Friction, (with major-label-funded but not released new record, Sweat It Out, in hand) decided to recruit new band members and carry on. We played with this new line-up last September at Bluebird (now Firebird) and they absolutely killed! I'd seen them in the past and they were pretty ok, but this new crew brought the heat! IMHO this has much (everything?) to do with their badass new drummer, Nick Slack.

Check him (them) out in action here in a recent-ish clip (Gimme Chemicals) followed by one of their classics (Modern Swinger).





As a coincidental side note, another great band, The Hard Lessons, are playing Cicero's the next night. Luckily STL already loves these guys.

Empty City Shows

I'm starting a new segment here on the snoop-bloggy-blog (wtf?) called Empty City Shows. It's a concept/name that I've been kicking around for some time now, so let's see if I can give it some new life here. It goes a little something like this:

It happens once in a while. Amazing touring bands come through St. Louis. When they do, there's hardly anyone there. People in STL can be so damn ignorant and complacent hanging out in sports bars and seeing the same cover bands week in and out. If you happen to go, you can stand up close without anyone bothering you. Welcome to Empty City.

This might have little-to-next-to-nothing to do with LEFT ARM, but sometimes it will be bands we've played with in the past and were impressed by.

This Is A Test

Exciting news! The test lacquer is in from the mastering house and it sounds amazing! Gnarly vinyl goodness.



SIDE A:
Electric Babies

SIDE B:
Go Home
Loser's Recipe

Can't stop the hits

This past Wednesday evening we went in to Gary Copeland's South-Fi studios to try out (and lay down) 2 of our newest cuts, "Black and Bluetooth" and "That's Your Problem". You probably best know Gary from his band LoFreq and he currently is the genius behind the sound board/system at The Wedge (where we've pretty much taken up residence the past few months). Gary's working on a mix for us, so expect that to show up here sometime soon.

In 7" news, the tunes are off at Aardvark being mastered so we should have the reference lacquers back in the next week or so.

One last bit, LEFT ARM now can be found on facebook. Click the button below.

Howlies! Videos!

Howlies video for "Angeline":



And my favorite Howlies tune right now, "Sea Level"

Howlies!

Awesome band from the ATL coming to the STL Monday night! Firebird's getting remodeled as we speak (fka Bluebird). Come check it out as we help break it in!

Also, Howlies will be doing an in-store at Vintage Vinyl at 7pm Sunday evening if you want twice the Howlies action.



Firebird / 2706 Olive St / St Louis, MO

WHY CAN'T WE BE FRIENDS?

Just a quick batch of updates here ya'll. For starters we had another sweet show in Carbondale last weekend. Thanks to everyone for coming out. It was real real cold, but we did out best to bring the heat. We just love PK's! And it's always good to play with our pals The Dammit Boys.

Also, (with the help of Road Kat - our official 4th member) we'll finally be sending out to have the plates cut for our 7" this week! Yay! No promises yet on when it might be ready to get out to ya'll, but the process is at least started.

Lastly, we have a gob of badass shows coming up in the months ahead! In February, we'll be heading to Columbia, MO (for the first time) to play at Eastside Tavern with our good pals Pat Boone's Farm and Monte Carlos. So that's real exciting. In March we'll be hitting Bloomington/Normal once again to play at IBC with our new friends The Abacinators.

And (last but not least) we'll be playing our new home-away-from-home, The Wedge, once again this Sunday (2/1) with an awesome band from Iowa, Radio Moscow. I think they've been through town once or twice before, but they have a new album coming out in April on Alive Records and this date will be the kick-off date for their tour behind it. So come out and show some love.

Check out this Radio Moscow video: