Well, this blog has served us well but it's time to move on to a new era for Please Do Not Fight.
From now on all our blogging will be happening over at our website and we'll be blogging and video blogging extensively once again! Don't worry, all the old posts will be over there too so you won't be lonely.
Come join us won't you?
Love,
Zen
So this year my computer and external hard drive bombed taking all my music with it. I recently acquired a brand new hard drive and ipod (for my birthday!) and I also recently moved into a new room so I've been unpacking all my CDs and re-burning them onto my computer. It's been kind of a nostalgic process and since I've begun working on new material for album #2 I've been revisiting the albums that really made a difference in my life and influenced me as a songwriter. I thought I'd share a couple of 'em with you. I highly recommend them all.
The Get Up Kids - "Something To Write Home About"
It's a given that one of my huge influences is Weezers 'The Blue Album', but I was even more influenced by the OTHER bands that got a kick out of that album. Enter The Get Up Kids. I actually ended up getting way more the Red Letter Day and Woodson EPs but this album got me started. I love the drumming and I love the up front lyrics. Yeah, it's cheesy sometimes and 'emo' (Whatever the hell that means anymore) but it's honest and fun and poppy, but not too poppy, and full of big huge power chords.
The Weakerthans - "Left and Leaving"
The Weakerthans are more of in power-pop vein of rock but brought two things to the table that really inspired me. First was a slightly more folky-country influence and the second was some of the most poetic lyrics I had ever come across. Usually rock lyrics, when written down, read like crap but I swear you could take most songs by The Weakerthans and appreciate the lyrics alone. This shit seriously reads like poetry!
When you get off work tonight,
meet me at the construction site,
and we'll write some notes to tape to the heavy machines,
like "We hope they treat you well. Hope you don't work too hard.
We hope you get to be happy sometimes."
Bring your swiss-army knife, and a bottle of something,
and I'll bring some spraypaint and a new deck of cards.
Desaparecidos - "Read Music / Speak Spanish"
Again, I think it's a given that I'm a big fan of Conor Obersts (of Bright Eyes fame) song writing style. No choruses and lots of up front personal accounts. But what really got me going was this one-off album from his side project. Take his way with words and beef it up with some power-pop stylings and distorted power chords, then change his lyrical content and switch gears to focus more on social commentary and you have Desaparecidos. This is the album that really branched me away from solely writing about my relationships with girls. Spike and I are both big fans of this album and he used to always complain about the low-fi recording style but I still maintain that it's the rawness of this album that assists in it's awesomeness.
Okay I'm beginning to realize I could pretty much go on forever and I really have to get to bed for our big show and music video "première" tomorrow (see flyer above). Besides, I'm not really sure how interesting this all is. If ya'll are into it let me know and I'll do some more. I promise not all of my influences revolve around guys with whiney voices being backed by huge power-pop guitar chords even though that is exactly the kind of band I love. Promise.
Love,
Zen
You know you want too ...
Alright, so finally here is part 2 of our behind-the-scenes "On The Other Hand, Fight! Fight! Fight!" music video clip. I actually had a lot more footage but due to a miscommunication between Erin and I we ... well, deleted it. Sorry. I think in the end though it worked out as the clip above reveals absolutely nothing about the actual video and that's just how we like it - surprise is the key element in success! Right? Am I right? Ah nevermind.
Anyways, the music video premiere will be held at our July 12th show at The Vibe in Foster City. We're playing with Madders, Super Adventure Club, Unequaled Clarity and Punchface, of which Justin - the lead singer - makes an appearance in our video and is featured strongly in the clip above. More info is over on our MySpace and I'll post the flyer once we've got more details cleared up. The video itself will be here and on YouTube shortly thereafter! I, for one, have already seen it and am pretty damn happy with it so we hope you like it too!
Also, for those who missed it, you can check out Erin and I's interview on FNZ Radio right now by clicking here! We actually stuck around after the interview to play a family-feud style game with the hosts of the show but they cut that part out. Honestly, it was probably for the best again since one of the answers to one of the questions was "a used condom". After doing the show Erin and I went and hung out and immediately spent a solid two hours playing Mario Kart.
And let's just leave that at that.
Love,
Zen
So, Erin and I are going to be on FNZ Radio this Saturday at 8:30pm! You can tune in on-line right here! We're going to be interviewed by Craig I believe who came out to our Rockit Room show and was very nice and enthusiastic about our performance! We're really really psyched to be on his show and hope you're all able to check it out!
Our last radio appearance was on Pirate Cat Radio with DJ Coleo and you can check that out on his podcast right here! We played a bunch of songs acoustic-style and it was a lot of fun! He even made it out to our birthday show and brought me a birthday shot so pretty much we can't recommend his show enough!
