Maxwell"s.....January 30th, 2010

We're poking our heads out at the end of January after spending time in the studio recording and enjoying the holidays with family and friends. I can safely speak for myself and my bandmates by saying Maxwell's is a special place for us to play. It's like playing a hall of fame of sorts, so many shows we've been to there..........from Luna to Alex Chilton (which by the way was the LOUDEST show Steve and I have ever witnessed). It's weird because it's *warning: cliche coming* an honor to play there and we, inexplicably, always get a great crowd when we play there! We hope you're a part of it.

So, what now?

The performances are in the proverbial "can" and what we're left with is this collection of songs, finished and somewhat unfinished, waiting to be finalized for posterity on LP #1. There are lyrics to write, melodies to reconsider and possibly change, a handful of overdubs, mixing and mastering.......and how many physical cd's do we actually press when it's all done? Does anyone still buy cd's? (I do, but I also just got a cell phone that can take pictures too!) But that's all unimportant anyway isn't it? What IS important is that this music we made reaches as many people as possible. We have no dillusions of ever making a cent from making music but we also don't want to cynically put it on the internet to float around in cyberspace for eternity either. So,I guess what I'm trying to say is please enjoy our album. PLEASE!!!!! We love you.

- Mark

A Message from Mark Wright

So, this weekend we record our first full-length record. I know, yipee right? Well, I was thinking about this on the ride home from wherever I was last night. An awful lot can happen in a REALLY short period of time. During the course of writing and arranging the songs for LP #1, members of the band have experienced job losses, spouse losses, house losses, memory losses, etc.(you get the picture). We've also watched our kids grow, fallen in love, and learned a lot about being in a band and playing music. It's been a hard couple of years, but you won't hear that on most of the album. We want whoever listens to the songs to take from them what we have. There are only a few downer moments in a couple of tunes but, for the most part, we were just looking for opportunities to forget all about the negative things in life and create rock and roll that takes us, and hopefully you, to a better place. As music lovers, we're just trying to pay back what we owe to all the bands and artists that got us to where we are as a band and inspired us to look beyond the parade of dramas in everyday life to create something new. We really hope you like what you hear. Thank you!

- Mark

A message from Matt Horutz of The Brixton Riot

Hi! This is Matt, drummer for The Brixton Riot. I just wanted to say that I'm really excited about heading into Arcade Audio Recording Studios this weekend for my very first recording session with the band. I think we wrote a really strong prog-rock opera record and I'm psyched to get all of our 8 minute (or longer) songs preserved in digital format. You can rest assured that I've got my 16 piece drum kit (including Octoban toms) all tuned up, and the 38" gong is polished and ready to go. Who knows, we may even attempt a Yes, Rush or Genesis cover!

P.S. – The airbrushed fantasy art we have for the album cover is TOTALLY killer!!!

- Matt

Preface To LP # 1

After countless delays, scheduling conflicts, canceled and rescheduled (and canceled again) sessions, some head-scratching, some sixth grade math and even a bout of the Swine Flu, we're finally five days away from beginning work on our debut album.

Actually, the "work" part started a long time ago. We've been preparing for a while now - writing new songs, tracking demos, arranging and re-arranging older songs and so on. We tracked our first demos for the record all the way back in April, in preparation for our originally scheduled sessions at Red Bank's Retromedia Studios in August. Then August became September and September became October. After some soul searching (and number crunching), we realized that we needed to explore other options to stay within our budget. Enter Dave Harman, drummer extraordinaire for The Campbell Apartment and the owner of Arcade Audio. After a brief scheduling hiccup in October, we're all systems go to begin rolling this Saturday.

It's hard to say exactly what will make it to the final product. The pool of tracks is about 16 deep and spans everything from our first song ("Cover's Been Blown") to our latest ("Signal To Noise Ratio") and there's even a cover song on the list. The plan is to get as many of these recorded as possible and then decide which songs will make the cut. None of the tracks on the Sudden Fiction EP will be repeated on the record.

And that, dear reader, is where we stand. We're planning on blogging, tweeting (I can't stand this word) and whatever it is that one does on Facebook throughout the recording process, but really, all that is secondary to actually recording. So all I can say for certain is "we'll try".

Oh, and as for that vague and unoriginal title "LP #1"...I'm happy to report that we do have a few candidates for a real title, with one front runner...but we're going to keep those quiet for now.

- Jerry

Saturday, 11/7/2009 3 PM - Kenny's Castaways (NYC)

WHAT: The Brixton Riot returns to perform at the 9th Annual International Pop Overthrow Festival for the 3rd consecutive year.

WHEN: Saturday, November 7th at 2 PM.

WHERE:

Kenny's Castaways
157 Bleecker St.
New York, NY
(212) 979-9762
http://www.kennyscastaways.net/
$10




*** ALL AGES, BUT ALL PERSONS UNDER 21 MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A PARENT ***

WHY: Because we're huge fans of IPO and of Mr. David Bash, the man who makes it all happen. International Pop Overthrow (or IPO, as it has affectionately become known) is a pop music festival which features the best pop and rock bands from around the world. The festival takes place annually in several U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta, Chapel Hill and Minneapolis, two cities in Canada: Vancouver, British Columbia and Toronto, Ontario, as well as Liverpool, UK.

And to top it all off, we have the good fortune of sharing the stage with Lieder, one of NJ's finest and one of our personal favorite bands. If you've been to a few of our shows, odds are you've seen Lieder once or twice. They're a great band and you DON'T want to miss their set. In fact, you can't go wrong with any of the bands on this bill or on any other night at IPO. David goes to great lengths to put together cohesive lineups and find some of the best rock and power pop bands you've never heard. We'll all be there early and stay until the end. Here's the full lineup.

1:30 Kevin McAdams -http://www.myspace.com/kevinmcadams
2:00 R. Stevie Moore/Lane Steinberg - http://www.myspace.com/rsmlms
2:30 Lieder - http://www.myspace.com/liederband
3:00 The Brixton Riot - http://www.myspace.com/thebrixtonriot
3:30 Ed Hale - http://edhale.com/
4:00 The Desperate Club - http://www.myspace.com/desperateclub
4:30 The Intangibles - http://www.myspace.com/intangiblesrock

This is our first show in three months and it's the last "planned" show for 2009. We don't expect to be adding any others before the New Year, but hey, you never know...

Is This Thing On?

Hi there,

Thanks for finding your way to our Blogger site. We created this blog as a "central spot" for posting band news, show information, photos and other media. We'll also be posting journal entries as we continue to work on our first record. Odds are that it will probably host the incoherent ramblings of one or more members at some point, most likely fueled by large quantities of alcohol.

The original concept was for this site to serve as a "media blog"; a place to post audio and video recordings of various live performances, rehearsals, cover songs and demos, and we certainly hope to do all that with this space. The other goal was to try and simplify our current method of blogging, which usually requires posting the same (or similar) information to Facebook, iLike, MySpace and ReverbNation. For now, we'll use this as the main online source of information for the band (though we will continue to post live dates to all of the other sites). It will also allow us to keep the mailing list emails brief and as infrequent as possible. Believe it or not, we do go out of our way to be non-intrusive.

So that's basically all we've got for now. In the upcoming weeks and months, look for more information on the recording of LP #1, free mp3 downloads, information on upcoming shows and general news items.

That's all for now.

Cheers,
Jerry - Mark - Matt - Steve
The Brixton Riot
thebrixtonriot@gmail.com