Daytrotter Session & New Shows

Daytrotter Session

New Shows

We’ve gotten to work with a number of amazing people on this record (there’s no “I” in record…or album..or CD…or band) and without the help of each and every one of them (and all of you) this whole thing never would have happened.

For the artwork, we got to work with an incredible artist from NY named Max Glaser.  Max is one of the most interesting, creative, and generous dudes we’ve ever met.  He also has an amazing collection of vintage Ray Ban aviators.  The attention to detail, the medium, the torching…incredible.  So here it is, the Red Room album artwork by Max Glaser.  And a big shout out to Chris Anderson for photographing the artwork and for putting up with our shenanigans.

And here’s Max doing his thing:

Much love and red rooms,

The SB’s

Hi all,

Well, it’s been a long time coming and we do apologize for our silence about the release of Red Room over the past few weeks, but we have some exciting news to share.

We are going to be putting out Red Room in partnership with Vanguard Records.  We couldn’t be happier about this deal.  They are an amazing label and they have fully embraced the record that you all helped us to make.  They believe in us and us in them.  We are so proud of the album and Vanguard is going to help us make sure that it reaches each and every one of your stereos.ssed it, this does mean that we are going to be pushing back the release of the record.  As badly as we want to release this thing today, the wait will be well worth it.  The wait is to ensure that Red Room gets the best possible opportunity to be successful.  Can’t argue with that.

JANUARY 22nd.  That’s the magic auspicious day.  To all our fans, we do apologize for the false alarm about the October release.  And to all of our amazing Kickstarter peoples, we promise that you will all still get your well-deserved rewards in advance of the release.  We owe you guys big time.

In the meantime, be sure to check out our free download on Noisetrade and all of our upcoming tour dates on our website.

Stay tuned…

The Shadowboxers

Want to send all the love and gratitude we got to Andy Lee for the new photos and the cover of our NoiseTrade EP. The man.

Well gang, today our first record was mastered.  We got the tracklist in order and, basically, that means the album is complete. As I’m sure you can imagine, we’re beyond excited (upon hearing this news, Ben got so pumped that he shaved most of his beard off…I actaully peed in my pants a little bit).

So before all of this music lands in your hands, finds its way into your head, (hopefully) influences you, and maybe leads you in the direction of new music, we thought we’d offer you some insight into what music WE were pumping into our own heads for inspiration before we recorded the album.

Here’s a little preview of the photo album from our wonderful tour in April with Larkin Poe!

Check out the whole she-bang on our Facebook page!

Had a great time playing in Seaside, FL last weekend as always. But this trip was just a little bit more special than usual……and no, we did not get the (small) man to do “the Carlton”.

Well gang, today our first record was mastered.

We got the tracklist in order and, basically, that means the album is complete.

As I’m sure you can imagine, we’re beyond excited (upon hearing this news, Ben got so pumped that he shaved most of his beard off…I actually peed in my pants a little bit).

So before all of this music lands in your hands, finds its way into your head, (hopefully) influences you, and maybe leads you in the direction of new music, we thought we’d offer you some insight into what music WE were pumping into our own heads for inspiration before we recorded the album.

Here’s a Spotify playlist complete with tunes like The Band’s “Ophelia,” where we mined for drum sounds and vocal treatments, Coldplay’s “A Rush Of Blood To The Head,” which influenced the end of songs of ours like “On The Move” and “Vienna,” and My Morning Jacket’s “Evil Urges,” which helped us define heavier tunes of ours like “Bad Guy” and “Fixer.”

Enjoy and feel free to let us know what other songs jump into your head when you hear our album in a few months!

Much love,

-M

Ladies and gentlemen, here is our heroine.

The other day a friend of mine winced when I turned up “Last Friday Night” on the radio, and I almost pulled the car over when his reasoning for the gesture was, “Maaaaaaan, Katy Perry blows.”

Ms. Perry is a celebrity, she is a sex symbol, she was married to a recovered addict-turned world famous comedian, she is now a divorcee of a recovered addict-turned world famous comedian, and she was also a slime-e at the Kids Choice Awards…she got slimed. Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino denounced our blue-haired, whipped-cream breasted warrior as a poor representative for “California Girls.”

But Ms. Perry is also something else. And it is certainly not a “blower”….she doesn’t blow.

She is something that, for many reasons, people choose to deny or at least struggle to admit.

Katy Perry is a bonafide, authentic, American Pop Star.

Now i’m not here to hate on haters, i’m here to share some love. Cause i’m proud to say that I think Katy Perry is worthy of the pantheon of respectably silly pop artists. She ain’t Madonna…but she might be our generations Cyndi Lauper. I mean Teenage Dream could stand as the 2011 version of Lauper’s She’s So Unusual. Oh, but you say Cyndi Lauper can actually write her own material, she wrote “True Colors”, ok fine, fine, fine, I jumped the gun. Teenage Dream is at least as good as Christina Aguilera’s skank ride, Stripped, which showcased singles such as “Dirrty,” “Fighter,” and the ballad “Beautiful.”

Still foaming at the mouth? Ok, let me legitimize my argument by going over some of the key factors leading up to an album like Teenage that I think place a person such as Ms. Perry in the category of “Silly but Respectable Pop Star with Lasting Power*” :

* Lasting Power, in this case, means that an artist will most definitely wind up on one of those music compilation packs they sell on infomercials that are on at 3:30am. Ex. The “I Love the 2010’s!” compilation that Rebecca Black and that guy from Glee will try to sell us in 30 years.

1.) She hasn’t always had it easy. Perry got dropped not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES by labels before everything came together. She found a sound and even then, Capital Music wasn’t sure that singles coming from a former Christian music singer with names like, “I Kissed A Girl” and “Ur So Gay” would do well in her native bible belt. Can you believe the girl used to sound like this?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFTNdpfYU3k&feature=related . Also, the only video cameo she was able to pull off before her first commercial record was one in a P.O.D. video. HARD TIMES.

2). Girl can sing and actually knows what she’s doing (sorta). She can’t dance…in fact, she sucks at dancing*….but she’s a real singer (check the vocals in the video above).

* This is only acceptable because of the size of her chest, the fact that her chest shoots multiple flavors like whipped cream, sparks, and confetti, and because she has blue hair. Not my call guys, there’s a checklist somewhere and since “can shake assets” wasn’t seeing any action, the people at her label had to do something.

3.) Most importantly (to this blog), she came out with an album that includes 6….wait, now 7 hit singles: Teenage Dream. Ok, so these songs bump because producer gods like Dr. Luke and a bunch of pop geniuses from Sweden threw in electro and hip hop into these tunes, but Katy sells ‘em. Let’s count em’* shall we?:

*…the singles. I don’t care about….I don’t think anyone cares about the other tunes (except for like 500 Japanese girls who worship her 3 times a day…4 times on Friday…they have “Last Friday Night Sabbath”), especially cause some of them have hooks like, “I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock, cock.” Lot of thinking left for us to do there.

- “California Gurls” w/ Snoop Dogg: Perfect summer single; it’s dumb, there’s candy, and there’s Snoop. “Best Selling Digital Song of 2010” ain’t bad either.

- “Teenage Dream”: AHHHH this song is so goddamn fun. Best summer jam in a minute! It’s a classic pop progression with a fresh and funky feel….what more could you ask for??? We like this tune so much, we cover it from time to time. So if you find yourself and The Shadowboxers at the same frat party, exclusive rooftop shindig, or moon bounce, expect this tune to be played.

- “Firework”: While this one leans on electro a little more than i’d prefer, it’s still a really fun tune…and yeah, her breasts shoot fireworks in the video. Thank you American recording industry.

- “E.T.” w/ Kanye West: Weird tune….which is why i’m happy it was a single. I don’t necessarily even like this song, but i’m happy a tune as industrial and S&M’y can do so well on an international scale.

- “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”: This tune should be used in contemporary music classes as an example for what a pop hit single in this decade sounds like. A friend played this for me a few months before it hit radio because of the crazy auto-tuned sax solo (which I love) and I was like, “….why wasn’t this a hit last summer?” It’s cause those smarty pants at the record label had so many other hits on the record that they had the flexibility to say, “Pshhh, let’s save it for next summer.” I mean this record is so huge that it has TWO summer jams released during TWO SEPARATE SUMMERS!

- “The One That Got Away”: Yeah….not the best song from the record. It’s a bit of a push but I still dig the song a lot. Not that this should matter to anyone but I like it more than “E.T.”

- “Part of Me”: Revealed at the Grammy’s and released on the Deluxe Edition of the record, this break up jam is sort of a lesser and more serious “Teenage Dream”…but hey, people seem to be listening to it!

So in conclusion, I just brain vomited about a record and an artist that is near and dear to my heart. That’s what I did. And I did it because I hope at least some of you will listen to this record with different ears. Will knowing that this is the second record in history to boast five number one singles (the first was MJ’s Bad) change your mind about Katy Perry? Maybe not. But I think KP deserves what she’s got right now and that these singles are respectable, well-crafted tunes that stand against any of the pop hits from the 1970’s and on (hey, at least they aren’t “Ur So Gay”). So don’t like Katy Perry if you don’t like her, but at least respect the whipped cream shooting chest and the voice and songs that emanate from it. And if it’s unreasonable for me to expect at least a single person to change their tune about Teenage Dream, then hey, a guy can always dream.

Bye now and thanks for reading,

-M

Link: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Here’s to the last confederate,

The “dirt farmer at the end of his day,”

The stern, Southern preacher.

Here’s to some Midnight Rambles you’ll never know but we couldn’t have without you.