More Boat

Thought you might enjoy a few more photos from the night...courtesy of Donna Rizzo.

A sip of Vindaloo.



Every party needs a good...blood ocean.



UN:ART:IG put together this video with part of our performance and an introduction from Richard Vindaloo:



...and another of Miho Hatori's set:



The best part is at around 2:30 when some clueless creepster tries to grind on her and she punches him.

Boat Party

So Saturday morning I got a few messages about this cool boat party that takes place in Bushwick. I guess someone bought and converted an old Staten Island ferry which has quickly become a hot party spot for hipsters, dance freaks, and the occasional musical act, including Miho Hatori (of Cibo Matto and Gorillaz).

As I'm filling out the RSVP form, I get a text from Dan (our drummer):

"You around tonight? Nate is trying to book us for this boat party in Bushwick."

So... the afternoon was a bit chaotic. Victor, our synth player, was in Boston. We waited a while to hear whether it was confirmed. I tried to figure out what I would need to bring for backline and who was coming with us. But the stress was so worth it.

This place is hidden on a canal in Bushwick. Partygoers RSVP to the site, get a secret location where the shuttle bus gets them, and then travel behind a junk yard and through a narrow, shoddily constructed walkway, where they are greeted with fake snow, fog, and splash off water from the above ground pool that now rests atop the ferry deck.

Rain threatened to keep the audience thin, but eventually it subsided while the band got a little tipsy and gave Dirty Santa our toy list...



Later, Donna and I flanked Julie, aka The Party Goddess:



To be honest, I thought our set was pretty sloppy and I'm pretty I forgot to say our name, but we did have a stellar time...

Flight Playlist

I was in a weird mood coming back from Chicago Monday night...epic, heavy songs were on heavy rotation:

School of Seven Bells - "Iamundernodisguise"
Depeche Mode - "I Feel You"
The Arcade Fire - "My Body is a Cave"
Xiu Xiu - "I Luv the Valley OH!"
CAN - "Vitamin C"
PJ Harvey - "Plants & Rags"
Yoko Ono & Jason Pierce - "Walking on Thin Ice"

We have a huge show Friday at Shea Stadium (not THAT Shea Stadium). This new, confusingly named venue provides from multitrack recording for all who play there, so we'll be releasing the live recordings after the show. If you come by, let me know so I make sure you get a free copy...

Heat Wave

Man, it is really freakin' hot in my apartment. The dog has been hiding in some secret less hot corner of the closet all day and I've been sitting in front of the fan with one of those spritzing water bottles in my underwear.

Too much sharing?

We rocked it at Staten Island this weekend. Exhibit A:



For me the highlight is the very end, thanks to AJ. You'll have to watch it to see what I mean.

We also played the Antifolk Fest last night at Sidewalk Cafe, which was a bit of a disappointing homecoming for me.... the energy just wasn't there in the beginning of the set. However, at some point you just have to say f*#% it and start your own mosh pit.

If you're interested in joining my ongoing mosh pit, come out tomorrow at 9:30ish - we're playing The Charleston on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.

Oh, and I've been uploading videos from our shows to our new youtube channel:

www.youtube.com/user/clinicaltrialsmusic

I've been having a little trouble with the quality and streaming (especially when I use Safari as my browser...go figure) and a little tip I heard was that if the videos are jumpy add one of these strings to the end of the URL -

&fmt=8
&fmt=18
&mft=22

I don't know what it does, from a technical standpoint, but usually it works if your videos are jumpy or skipping. I'm here to help, people.

In the news...

As we gear up for Staten Island and my glorious return to the Antifolk scene this weekend, we'd like to link to some awesome press we recently got from one super cool music blogger and the Deli Magazine's front page.

Check out Billy Suede's kind words about Clinical Trials and subscribe to his blog because it's a great way to find great new music.

We were also mentioned on The Deli Magazine's main page blog, but they move pretty fast at Deli, so by the time you read this you'll have to scroll down quite a bit to find us.

Battle Scars & Boston Fun

My girlfriend says I shouldn't throw my guitar.



Glasses courtesy of Creepy Guy, who later engaged in some inappropriate back touching.



Victor loves to stand next to air conditioners.



Boston, or whatever.



That pizza was ordered around 3pm the previous evening. It slept on my air mattress...we might have spooned.



It's unclear what would cause a large circular patch of bush to turn that particular shade of reddish brown, but my guess is that there are a lot of pyros in Boston.

Somer in Somerville

Yes, it appears they have pre-emptively renamed the town after me in anticipation of us rocking the #$% out of Massachusetts this evening. This will be our 8th show, I believe, and though we'll miss our bassist AJ, we'd like to wish his girlfriend a happy birthday.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to vent.

We recently played a loft party in Brooklyn. Now, the beauty of playing a loft show should be that it is laid back and fun, and the major benefit is that you're not dealing with some asshole promoter who does nothing to promote, takes 100% of the door, and complains when you don't bring enough people. We've heard about even worse situations where they treat the artists like shit and - get this - if you bring people to see you, they actually push you back OR don't even let you play! The logic of this is that your friends & fans stick around and drink, waiting for you to play. Pure exploitation.

So, after about 4 years of playing around the city, learning to avoid this situation, can you imagine the disappointment of finding that a homegrown, DIY loft space was using this same tactic? I'm not going to name names here - if you're an artist playing around NYC and you want to know who to avoid, you can email me - but we were ready to pack our equipment and bag the gig when the guy running the venue tried to push us back from 9pm to 10pm to 11pm to probably midnight since we were given excuse after excuse about why another band would be playing before us.

How can you avoid this situation? I wish I had some advice. Music + commerce are a dangerous mix.