A Bit Of Trivia, Dining Tips and Our Album Cover...

Did you know that today is the "most depressing day of the year"?

We didn't. At least not until this morning.

Apparently, it's known as "Blue Monday" (not to be confused with this far better Blue Monday)

So considering this little bit of useless trivia, it's even sweeter for us to write this post. Because we have the great pleasure to report the following news items...

ITEM #1

Palace Amusements is DONE. Not mostly done, almost done or nearly done. Not done except for mixing or tweaks. Not done all but mastering. It's done as in you have read the last of our "it's on the way, we're nearly there, we're not just sitting on our asses" posts. It's stick a fork in it, signed, sealed and delivered done.

You're probably saying "well, if it's REALLY done where's the artwork?". Oh, ye of little faith.

ITEM #2



And there it is. This is Matt's fine brush work and we're all thrilled with it. Getting four guys to agree on a cover is a lot harder than it sounds. And we'd be remiss if we didn't thank Chris Gash for his hard work on helping us with design ideas.

ITEM #3

Palace Amusements will be released by the fine people at the New York based Modern Hymnal record label on March 6th, 2012. You'll be able to get it from their website, our website, ITunes and Bandcamp. You will also be able to get it at one of our shows, which we will be resuming in March. We are currently in the process of putting together a number of dates to support the release and we'll be posting them shortly. If you had a particular venue you would like to see us in, we'd love to know what it is so drop us a line.

Here's the final track listing for Palace Amusements

Signal To Noise
Hard To See The Sun
Canvas Shoes
Our Cover's Been Blown
Pinwheel
Hipster Turns 30
Carmelita
Ocean Avenue
Strange Matter
Keep It Like A Secret
It's Been Too Long
Losing Streak

If you haven't seen it already, here's a promo video for the first track, "Signal To Noise"



ITEM #4

It's too damn cold out, so I'm getting Vietnamese Pho for lunch. If you haven't tried it, you really should. It's hard to beat on a 23 degree day.

Stay Warm, kids!

TBR

A Brief TBR Update

Since it's been about a month since we last checked in, we wanted to drop you a line about what's happening with the record, the fall dates and us in general.

When we last checked in, we were in the mixing phase. And now…we’re basically still in the mixing phase. We're eagerly awaiting the next batch of tracks as we speak, and we're sure they will sound great - but since it's already October 11th, it's safe to say that Palace Amusements most definitely is not coming out on November 15th. I’m sure I owe someone a drink for that one (I’m looking at you, Steve). And since it won't be ready by the 15th, playing a fall tour to support it doesn't make much sense. We will likely still pop in for a few dates before the holidays, but we're going to hold off on some of our bigger plans until we've got the record in hand.

That's not to say that we haven't been busy. Bryan Sargent came by our last rehearsal and took some great photos. Some of them have popped up on our Facebook page already, some of them will be added soon and some of them will never see the light of day to protect our already questionable reputations.

Meanwhile, Matt and his old group My Favorite Citizen will be performing a reunion show at Maxwell's on December 28th, which I'm really looking forward to. Standing in front of him, I never get to see him play, and I’ve always wondered how he keeps that Yankee hat centered perfectly on his head.

And finally, we're very happy to congratulate Mark on his recent engagement to Erin, who he met at one of our Maxwell's shows a few years back. I apologize for not remembering the date, but it's not like I met MY wife that night. I don't remember much about that particular show, but I do remember Erin heckling us from the audience about the Yankees. Ah, amore!

Until next time, keep it real peeps.

Cheers,
TBR

It's Quiet (For Now)

The cables have been winded. The mics have been put away. It's all gone quiet here, and it feels really strange.

It's been a few weeks since we first mentioned it, but in case you missed the news, we wrapped up the recording of Palace Amusements on August 26th. This milestone was reached the same week that a hurricane and earthquake hit New Jersey. We're not saying these events are related, but nobody REALLY knows for sure, do they?

Our songs are now in the very capable hands of Frank Marchand. Frank was the man behind the board for the last three Bob Mould records and he also remastered one of our all-time favorite 90's records, Sugar's Copper Blue. We're all very excited to have him working on Palace Amusements, though none more then Matt who got to talk to Bob Mould about working with Frank (or as Matt now likes to call him "my very good friend Bob Mould").

Palace Amusements will be released November 15th on the New York based Modern Hymnal Records. It was originally scheduled to come out on the Baltimore based Beechfields record label. We were very sorry to see The Beechfields close down over thr summer - we enjoyed our brief tenure in their strong stable of artists and have enjoyed playing with some of our label mates (like The Seldon Plan, Among Wolves, Gary B & The Notions, E. Joseph & The Phantom Heart to name a few), though we will certainly play with these fine bands again. Fortunately, Modern Hymnal stepped in and will give Palace Amusements a proper release.

Palace Amusements will be available on compact disc and digitally via iTunes as well as some other digital media outlets. The artwork duties are being handled by our very good frend Chris Gash. The final sequence of the album hasn't been decided yet, but here is the track listing:

Signal To Noise
Strange Matter
Keep It Like A Secret
Our Cover's Been Blown
Pinwheel
Canvas Shoes
Hipster Turns 30
Carmelita
Ocean Avenue
Hard To See The Sun
It's Been Too Long
Losing Streak

If you'd like a preview of one of the tracks, we posted our own rough mix of Hipster Turns 30 back in July. It's up on our SoundCloud page.

We're currently lining up a series of dates to support the release, so look for those on our Facebook page and website soon.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has been asking about and looking forward to hearing our record. We cannot express how much we appreciate your support and we hope you enjoy our record. Thanks for sticking around.

Cheers,
Jerry, Matt, Mark and Steve
The Brixton Riot

Hipster Turns 30

Here's a rough mix of the song "Hipster Turns 30" from our forthcoming Palace Amusements. It's a playful jab at a fictitious uber-trendy character who goes through a sort of "quarter life crisis" when he wakes up on his 30th birthday. Some of the lyrics are exaggerated for comedic effect (can you even buy books on tape anymore?), but you get the idea.

What I always liked about this song is that the bridge is taken from the point of view of the main character who longs for a time when he was younger and "the days would always seem so long". I remember sitting in middle school and watching the clock tick. The hours just seemed to drag on and on. Now they just fly by. You blink and another year has passed.

Hipster Turns 30 (Rough Mix 2) by The Brixton Riot

This is DIY

After posting about our low budget recording setup, I took some quick photos around our "studio". Polaroid effect added for...um, effect.

This is our DIY vocal booth. It's basically two microphone stands in a "V" with a blanket and Lightning McQueen sleeping bag draped over them. We stand in the center of the V when we track vocals. The wall directly behind this setup is covered with a large blue comforter, held up by painters tape. Vocal cheat sheet visible on the left. It gets a little tight in there and since the air conditioning vent rattles, it has to be closed when we track.

One advantage of recording at home is that I get to hoard all of the amps. Not just mine, but all the amps owned by the other band members. I'd like to be on Hoarders one day, surrounded by nothing but amplifiers and guitars. My wife has the same recurring dream, only she wakes up screaming.

More amp and geetar porn.

Finally, here's our computer and the ridiculously small screen. Note the size ratio of said screen with the studio monitors.

Baby (Elephant) Steps

It's been a ridiculously long time since this we've given any type of update, so I thought I'd check in and give an accounting of how we've spent the last 9 months.

As we had previously mentioned, all non-album related band activities came to a halt while we finished up Palace Amusements. I'm sorry to say that this meant passing on some wonderful show offers and that always sucks. We made two exceptions for our January 2011 shows with The Seldon Plan as part of their farewell (or hopefully just "see you later") tour. It's weird looking back at the first half of the calendar for 2011 and seeing only two dates. It's our least productive year by far (performance wise, anyway). But the good news is that all of that self-imposed solitude actually worked. We've finished the overdubs and we're halfway through the vocal tracking and a third of the way through mixing. The mixing is being handled by Frank Marchand who has worked on the last few Bob Mould records as well as The Seldon Plan's The Collective Now. The artwork for Palace Amusements is being handled by our good friend, Mr. Chris Gash. Unfortunately, my idea to feature a baby elephant on the cover (partially as a reference to their gestational period and partially as a reference to this album cover) was overruled. We're very excited to have Chris and Frank (and their amazing talents) on our record. On our end of the record needs to wrap by the end of July and it will wrap on time. I say that with certainty because a) we have no other option and b) we are all ready for this thing to come out. Very ready.

We're looking at an early November release date on The Beechfields record label which means that when all is said and done, Palace Amusements will have taken us a ghastly two years to finish. I could write volumes as to why this happened and what we would have done differently, but I won't bore you with these things. There isn't one right or wrong way to make a record, but we definitely discovered one of the wrong ways. In contrast, we knocked out Sudden Fiction in two weekends, but that isn't exactly the right way to go about it either. In the end, most of this comes down to money or a lack of it. All we really want to do is make records and if that means tracking in the spare bedroom and using your son's Lightning McQueen sleeping bag as a vocal booth, then so be it.

Now that we are on the back nine, we are resuming our normal band activities. We had all four members together in a rehearsal room last Tuesday for the first time in six months, which felt kind of like the first day of school. With Chinese food. We're also booking shows again starting with two dates with those fine chaps The Anderson Council (7/29 at Crossroads and 8/26 at Asbury Lanes) and we've got some things in the works for September and beyond but I'm probably getting (way) ahead of myself again.

So that's the update for now, but we'll be around a lot more often.

And I'm back to the makeshift sleeping bag vocal booth.

- Jerry

A Year Ain't Enough

A year is a long time. A lot gets crammed into those 365 days.

But for us, it turns out that a year is not enough.

A brief pass through the blog posts shows that right around 12 months ago, we we're getting excited about tracking our first record at Arcade Audio. With the tracking behind us, it sure felt like we were "almost done", or at the very least, pretty close. Oh, how wrong we were. And now that we're getting close for this dubious "anniversary", it's hard not to feel at least a little...I'm not sure what the word is - lazy? Guilty? Perhaps a bit of each.

I originally intended not to update this blog until the overdubs were finished. They're not done, but we are close - of the 15 original songs, 10 are in the books and three are in progress. Getting to this point has taken a lot more work then I expected. We have been fairly active tracking at my house for the last four months. My three-year old asks "Is Mark coming over?" on a nightly basis now. I think he has enjoyed this process more than we have, probably because our "studio" is one corner and one wall in his playroom (allowing for rousing games of Don't Break The Ice between takes).

Tracking usually takes place after work on weekdays, between the hours of 7 PM and midnight. Some nights, we start a little later and go until around 1 AM. Then it's back to work the next morning until the whole cycle starts over again. Getting motivated after working all day is difficult. There are a lot of distractions, including the always popular options of sleep or even just crashing on the couch. Fortunately, we've had some help - thank you to the New York Yankees for their rapid postseason exit and Cablevision for blocking Fox 5 during the World Series. You kept me focused, and I'll keep checking my mailbox for those refund checks.

I've gotten to the point where I'm no longer making predictions on "when" it will be done, at least not in the form of firm calendar time. The short answer is soon - later then Christmas, but earlier than spring training...oh please, let it be earlier then spring training.

We've started making preparations for our first shows of 2011, including two very optimistic dates in January. We're playing back-to-back shows in Baltimore and Hoboken with the Seldon Plan (MINI TOUR!!!). We'll be posting more about these dates in the next few weeks in all of the usual places.

For those of you who are have been asking about where we are at with the record, thanks for your patience. We think you're going to like it.

- Jerry