I f I H a d A H i F i

The Sexy Results Crew at Fermilab

2011-12-13T23:54:00.003-06:00

The HiFi is hard at work crafting six new songs for a February event called Sexy Results: Cedar Block's Dig for the Higgs and How the Quest Was Won. To gain inspiration, Cedar Block's Brent Gohde took several of the Sexy Results artists on a road trip to Fermilab in Batavia, IL, to visit the particle physicists whom we will be honoring in this Turner Hall multimedia extravaganza on February 18. I went on the trip and had a nearly religious experience that you can read about at my blog:

The Sexy Results Crew at Fermilab

"Permanent Sleeperhold" in CHIKARA clip!

2011-11-15T21:41:00.002-06:00

Our buddy Jesse Dorje Irwin put together this clip using our song "Permanent Sleeperhold," a song about that time former AWA kingpin and 9-time World Champ Verne Gagne bodyslammed his roommate in the old folks home and broke his hip, indirectly leading to his death, in a pre-show vignette that aired before CHIKARA Pro Wrestling's "High Noon" internet per-per-view (iPPV) event on November 13! We think it looks pretty rad, and we're grateful to Jesse for a little exposure there, don'tcha know.

"Permanent Sleeperhold" is on the Nada Surf +3 EP, out in January on Latest Flame Records.

The Latest on Nada Surf!

2011-10-28T13:34:00.002-05:00

Let's not bury the lead: You can now stream ALL of the new Nada Surf +3 EP on our Bandcamp site. Listen to the entire record that is FINALLY coming out in physical form in January 2012, kicking off Latest Flame Records' 10th anniversary.

Previously on IfIHadAHiFi.net, we explained the reason for the delay: a sample owned by WWE that we brainfarted on in the song "Somebody Take the Damn Money," the tale of Handsome Harley Race's callous $25K bounty on the head of the dirtiest player in the game, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. Listen to the stream and you'll discover how we rectified the situation--we re-recorded the sample with some first-rate voice talent: Cleveland indie wrestler "M-Dogg" Matt Cross! Wrestling fans are very familiar with Matt, as he's a world traveler who's competed in Ring of Honor, Combat Zone Wrestling, Pro Wresting NOAH in Japan, and promotions in Ireland, Germany, and Italy. We met Matt through our friends Jay and Andy of Mondo Lucha!, the lucha libre-based burlesque variety show here in Milwaukee. Matt hopped into the HiFi van and grunted through Harley's Classic lines while Jay from Mondo Lucha! paced outside holding a pair of wrestling masks for his kids, wondering how it looked for a dude holding masks to pace back and forth in front of a blue van that grunting was coming out of.

Speaking of Bandcamp, the awesome developers there just released a Facebook app that enables us to place our entire Bandcamp functionality onto our Facebook page! Now you can stream all our releases, buy our records (including Nada Surf +3 in January), and help Russ Feingold right from our Facebook page. Frickin' cool.

So! What next for us? After a stretch of shows in October, we're now going into hibernation for the rest of 2011 in order to finish up songs for Sexy Results: Cedar Block's Dig for the Higgs and How the Quest Was Won. That's right--in February we'll be at Turner Hall debuting some BRAND NEW SONGS about the Higgs Boson, Particle Physics, and SCIENCE! And you thought we were nerdy before...

Nada Surf EP official release delayed. Well, crap.

2011-09-12T16:24:00.002-05:00

While on tour out East, we got an unfortunate email from Dan at our lovely label Latest Flame. The short version: we screwed up and the album release is unfortunately being delayed while we fix our SNAFU.

The long version:

Our song "Somebody Take the Damn Money," the ballad of Harley Race and his early-80s wrestling promo placing a $25,000 bounty on Ric Flair, included samples we had snagged from the original audio of the promo. Because we are morons, it completely escaped us that the audio may be under copyright to a certain wrestling company that, in 2001, bought all of the National Wrestling Alliance's video library. Yep, the sample is under the copyright protection of the WWE. Whoops. Boy, are our faces red.

So, while Dan leaves multiple voice mails for the licensing person at WWE, we are moving ahead with a backup plan to change the song so that it passes copyright muster. We're hatching some fun plans right now that we'll divulge once we've confirmed that they can come to fruition, but the huge drag is that this means that the song has to be remixed and remastered, and the lacquer re-cut before the vinyl can get pressed. A costly error on our part, to be sure, and it looks like it means the official release date will be pushed to sometime in January of 2012 (almost two years after Nada Surf's If I Had A Hi-Fi was released, which means that we suck at capitalizing on cheap promo). So, we're sorry, and we hope you bear with us while we try to figure out when we'll get the record out and in your grubby little hands. Nada Surf +3 is, if we do say so ourselves, and pretty baller record, and we hope you'll eventually agree it was worth the wait.

In the meantime, anyone know how to get WWE to respond to a voice mail?

Upcoming Business

2011-09-02T16:39:00.002-05:00

Gang, we're home and we have some regional shows lined up through the end of October, at which time we're going to take a quick break to hammer out some new songs that we need for an upcoming project in February. In the meantime, catch us LIVE at the following shows:

Sept. 17: Racine, WI @ Mosquito Inn w/Stock Options and Fresh Bison
Sept. 23: Chicago, IL @ Quenchers w/Haymarket Riot and Like Like The The The Death
Sept. 24: Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club w/Haymarket Riot and LLTTTD
Oct. 1: Chicago, IL, the PRFBBQ Auktoberfyst @ Klas Restaurant w/Sinking Suns, Begin By Gathering Supplies, Cougars, Call Me Lightning, and so much more!
Oct. 15: Dubuque, IA at TBD w/TBD (this should be hammered out soon, but rest assured, it's happening!)
Oct. 21: Madison, WI @ The Sett, UW-Madison w/Northless
Oct. 22: Hanging out in Madison to see Obits but not play with Obits, which is ok because holy shit goddamn fucking OBITS

Let's Wrap This Up: "Skeeter Pomeroy" Tour '11, Part 10: "Sorry, Someone's Fucking in the Bathroom"

2011-08-28T21:24:00.000-05:00

Here i sit, in front of my computer in what will soon be my former apartment, slowly allowing my life to return to a state of post-tour normalcy. I've got a lot to deal with this week--i need to move the rest of my stuff to the new place; i need to figure out when i can go visit Dad; somewhere in there i have to get back to that little annoyance of trying to find a job. But for now, i'm chilling out, petting my cat, and putting the finishing touches on our 2011 tour journal, because i know all twelve of you who've been reading can't wait.

Lansing, MI - Mac's

Paulding/Arson/Sleeperhold/Imp Walker/Defenestrate/Telescope/NMM

By the time the show began at Mac's on Friday, many of us were wiped out and cranky. The Wizard was snapping at people and many of us needed naps. I blame a combination of things, but the one thing we were most excited for--leisure time--was probably a huge factor. Thanks to the 90-minute drive from Detroit to Lansing, we had lots of time to waste for the first time all tour, and we opted to spend it in East Lansing among the college dudebros. Record stores and comic book shops were descended upon while Yale took to a coffee shop to do some day job work. At one point i met up with him and overdosed on the most amazing of mango smoothies. After two weeks of just staying afloat, health-wise, my body reacted to such a brazen intake of nutrition by slightly altering my consciousness to the point where i couldn't tell if i was in a food coma or if i was tripping balls on vitamins and nutrients. Add in a stop at a pita joint on the main drag and my only option was a power nap while the rest of the gang watched Punch-Drunk Love in the bar. Fortunately, the brief 15-minute crash was just what i needed.

Still, it felt like the prevailing attitude among some in our little party was "let's just get these last two shows over with," which is a dangerous frame of mind to be in. It screws those bandmates of yours who are actually trying to give the paying customers a memorable show, and it screws those customers, who are paying money to see you play and be 100% entertaining. It's the ultimate in selfishness, and no band should tolerate or suffer it. As Skeeter Pomeroy once said in the pages of the venerable, long-discontinued Milwaukee zine Milk, "if you're going to be sad, you have to be mad, or it's not going to work." In other words, if you're not rocking out, then fuck you, and the audience is well within their rights to let you have it.

Fortunately, this time, neither band's performance was adversely affected, and all crankiness was exorcised by the time HiFi played to what was probably the best crowd of the entire tour. Mac's was fairly packed for both our touring bands (even though we had to play before the two local bands instead of bookended between them, but whatever--chalk it up to miscommunication), and we blazed through some of our finer performances of the tour. I think it was Pittsburgh where my body finally managed to make sense of the endurance test i'd been putting it through; while most of the tour found me playing Zebras songs in a very tense, barely-held-together fashion, by Pittsburgh my arms and posture managed to find their zone (as well as my brain finally realizing that if i play the fills in the lightspeed "The Sun" as triplet sixteenths instead of standard sixteenth notes, i'm not pushing my arms to their dropoff point), and it's been clear sailing ever since.

Ft. Wayne, IN - The Brass Rail

Pot. Energy/Paulding/We Fiddle/Imp Walker/Arson/Black Holes/Success

After some more time spent in East Lansing, an incredible breakfast at a pancake house that served peanut butter and banana French Toast, and the realization that the bass cab was going to be fine for the last show (it blew because of mismatched ohm ratings between head and cab--an 8-ohm head pumping into a cab with two 8-ohm speakers that apparently cancel themselves out into a 4-ohm rating or some shit, so with only one speaker connected the ohms matched...I DON'T KNOW I'M JUST THE STUPID DRUMMER), spirits going into the final show were crazy high. We also had done a count of the cash in the HiFi band fund and realized that we were finishing this tour far ahead of where we started, somehow. We began in a $95 hole thanks to the fun times with the van impound and an oil change; even with that money reimbursed, we still ended the tour with around $290 in our previously depleted band fund. BRING ON THE STRIPPERS!

The Brass Rail is a killer little punk rock/rockabilly dive, and apparently the only cool thing happening in Ft. Wayne, a town where people apparently still drive past the punk bar and yell "hey, is that a gay bar?" at you when you're outside it. Pal, if this place were a gay bar, the drinks would be even stronger than they already are, so i don't know why you consider that an epithet.

On this night the HiFi played after a touring pop-punk band from Detroit and before Zebras and the local headliners, Kan-tis, a sort of more metal Primus (complete with funky bassist wearing a propeller hat and...a Primus shirt. Fuck yeah). After the pop-punksters' positive reaction from the crowd, HiFi set up, opened with "(The HiFi Vs.) Potential Energy," and were immediately greeted after the opening number with the following from some visibly pissed burly dude:

"THIS IS THE WORST SHIT I HAVE EVER HEARD!"

Well, strap in, buddy, because we're about to get a whole lot worse. Meanwhile, a dance party was breaking out in the front row as two well-dressed individuals couple-danced and one complete knockout gyrated near her boyfriend (or someone who wanted to be? I dunno). All in all, i'd call our completely face-melting set a win, and this set the best tour-closing performance HiFi's had since 2004, when we closed our tour that year with a killer show at Madison's High Noon Saloon and two of our girlfriends surprised us at the venue.

As i tore down my drums after a similarly killer Zebras set (possibly the best one of the tour, complete with rowdy fans who had seen the band before and a great sequence in "The Gift" where The Wizard took the theremin into the crowd and played it against people's heads), i bemusedly observed a fairly amorous couple lose the ability to wait until they got home to take matters into their overly-rambunctious pants. The girl disappeared into the ladies' room while her boy stood guard at the door and then not-at-all-surreptitiously went in after her, locking the heavy bolt on the door behind them. I can't say it was a bad plan, as that bolt was secure as hell--i used it myself when i had to drop a deuce at the venue earlier (normally i do my damnedest to avoid pooping at a punk bar because the men's room is never a crap-safe area--there's never a door on the toilet nor a lock on the bathroom itself. But we were talking critical goddamn mass and so the women's room was my only choice. Funny thing--ladies' bathrooms are covered in WAY fewer band stickers than men's rooms).

A girl showed up to knock on the door, but i broke the news that the facilities were due to be unavailable for a while. "Sorry, someone's fucking in there." "Are you serious? God, i really have to pee!" I had been chatting with a guy friend of Kan-tis' (and explaining the restroom coitus to him as well), so we assured her that if she used the men's room we'd stand guard. As she attended to her needs in the dude's room, we heard the megabolt unclack and the glowing couple emerged. I greeted them with a loud "YYYYYEAAAAAAAHHHH!" and Friend of Kan-tis lost his shit laughing. To the couple's credit they merely grinned, giggled and went about their evening.

Every touring band was paid $100 at the end of the night, which solidified the Brass Rail as Completely Fucking Rad in my book. Despite their weird-ass oddly-shaped stage (more long than wide, which made our stage plot a bit weird to sort out and meant that i was about 4 miles from the rest of the band on stage), and because of their patrons' willingness to voice their displeasure in hilarious ways (along with the dude yelling at us during the set, at one point i went back to the men's room, where i had tagged the celing with a HiFi sticker, only to see that the sticker had been removed), i would highly recommend this place to anyone who wants to play a show in one of those small towns where they're happy to see decent punk rock of any kind come through.

We followed a years-old HiFi tradition of driving straight home after the last show, arriving in Milwaukee around 7 AM with bleary eyes and happy hearts. Was this the best tour IfIHadAHiFi has ever been on? I don't know if i'd say that. I'd call it a pretty damn good one, however. Sure, we played in front of some ambivalent zombies in Nashville, and had shows with audience numbers in the single digits, but as i've said before, getting our name "out there" is, at this point, a secondary goal behind visiting pals and taking in this incredible country of ours. Sure, there were times while driving through torrential rain on precarious New York bridges where none of this touring nonsense seemed worth it, but we also finished strong with four consecutive shows that reminded me exactly why we do this. Am i already planning next year's two-week tour? Fuck no, but i'm definitely not against doing another one.

I'd rather not drive as much next time, though.

The Bass Speaker Blowout Tour '11, Part 9: "Keep Playing"

2011-08-26T03:13:00.001-05:00

Detroit. Small's.

We Fiddle/Arson/Black Holes/Magnets/Imp. Walker/Telescope/NMM

I'm at the bar after both my bands have gone over big time at Small's. Sure, we somehow managed to blow the second bass speaker of the tour, but throw all the HiFi feedback into the mix, and no one really noticed the flappy flap that much. We're selling some CDs and hearing killer compliments. One dude is adamant that he being us back in the Spring to play with his band and Child Bite. The bartender is pouring me my third whiskey & coke and a cup of water when the cute brunette in the oversized Descendents t-shirt next to me makes eye contact.

"The drummer." It's a statement, but she's squinting, looking for confirmation, as she has been drinking. I confirm her suspicion.

"Your talent...rises...above. Really." She's being exceedingly complimentary, almost fawning. She's a piano player who is trying to learn drums, and she's asking question after question about my ability to sing and play drums at the same time. I give her my usual boilerplate when it comes to the whole singing drummer thing: it was tough as hell to learn, i used to listen to The Pop Machine sound board recordings and hear my tempo accellerate out of control on the songs that i sung, i've been drumming for over 20 years, practice, practice, practice. All the while, the girl is getting more intense and more inquisitive, and i can see this conversation is leading to something that she needs to get off her chest. It's been on her mind, and she's been waiting for the right person to unload on--the person who'll understand the story she needs to tell. And i'm not sure how much she's had to drink tonight, but suffice to say it was enough to guarantee that this story will be told tonight, because apparently the singing drummer in the touring band, it has been decided, qualifies as the sympathetic ear she needs tonight.

"Have you ever had anything in your life that has kept you from doing this?"

I'm not sure where she's going with this, but i've never been considered an under-sharer, so i'm not uncomfortable telling her that i once had a relationship that ended because of the distance that resulted from me not moving to another state and choosing to remain with the band. But essentially, no, i've chosen jobs that enable me to tour and make music, and i've always made it a top priority.

The dam breaks, and my new friend, fueled by a night of rock n roll and lots of alcohol, let's 'er rip. You see, she wants to do what i'm doing--touring the country and rocking out, but her father is incredibly sick and it has fallen to her to take care of him. It takes up nearly all her time and she can't dedicate the time to her music that she wants. She's on the verge of tears several times during her story, and while i'm a little uncomfortable--after all, i've known this girl for ten minutes at this point--my heart is breaking for her.

I'm thinking of, and i tell her about, my grandma, who lost most of her adult life to a combination of single motherhood and caring for a parent (my great-grandma) who was unable to care for herself after my great-grandpa died, for various reasons including her health. I've at times, on my grandma's behalf, resented her immediate relatives, who never bothered to help with her mom. I most assuredly feel for this girl.

What i don't tell her is that as we're speaking, my father is in a hospital recovering from an infection and dealing with the fact that his cancer has returned and he will soon be losing his jaw and may never eat solid food again. I don't tell her this because this conversation is about her, and all she needs to know is what my mentioning my grandma accomplished--that i empathize.

Every child has to face the possibility at some point that the tables may turn and that they may become their parents' caretaker. Perhaps selfishly, i've always been a little thankful that since i live in Milwaukee, that responsibility may fall to siblings of mine that live closer to my ever-aging parents. But faced with it now, with this sweet, sad-eyed girl living out my worst-case scenario, thinking about how my own father is fighting right now, there's little i want more than to drop everything and be at his side.

She's wondering aloud how she can possibly have her own life, to the fullest that she wants to live it, when she has this stifling responsibility. I manage to say something trite about how important finding balance in life is--figuring out how to reconcile life's responsibilities with finding a way to live life to its fullest--but i have no idea how she should go about this. I don't know her life, and as much as i'd like to dole out a magic, cure-all answer to life, the universe, and anything, i don't have it. So all i say is all i can: "you've gotta keep playing."

She's said all that she wants to say. She asks me my name because she wants to remember our conversation. I tell it to her but i'm skeptical that the beers will allow her to remember it. I thank her for her truly flattering compliments and i adjourn to the performance room to watch the last band of the evening play, our conversation spinning around in my head.

I guess that was really all i could say to her, right? "Keep playing." "What happens if he finally dies, and suddenly i'm 40? I've already lost so much time." You've gotta keep playing, for yourself at the very least, or else, in her words, you'll explode. Would my dad be happy that i bailed on tour to be with him? I'm sure he'd appreciate the gesture, but ultimately he'd want me to finish my shows. Does my new friend's father know that she's put her music on hold for him? I have no idea, but if he's a good dad, i can't imagine he'd be happy about it.

So at the end of the night, i make sure to find her one more time. "It was very nice meeting you. Thank you so much for the nice things you said to me tonight." She gives me a new-friend hug, and i say to her, "keep playing, and take care of yourself."

"Thanks. You too."

I'll be home soon, Dad.

"You Look Like You Need a Giant Lollipop" Tour '11, Part 8: "I feel like I'm in Dayton in 1994"

2011-08-25T02:00:00.000-05:00

The following is the Yelp review i plan to post when i get home regarding the Newport, KY Johnny Rocket's Family Fun Diner of the Apocalypse:

I feel bad for the waitstaff at Johnny Rocket's. Not only are they required to shout mass salutations at every customer who enters the establishment, which personally makes me feel extremely self-conscious, but our poor waitress, a lovely woman who kept her energy up as much as could be expected while drawing ketchup smiley faces in cardboard bowls for no discernible reason other than that maybe toddlers would find it cute?, performed her job with the thinly-coated veneer of an employee who just under the surface very obviously wants to shoot herself in the damn face.

It's easy to see why. Early on in our Johnny Rocket's experience, it was pointed out by our server that gratuity is automatically added to the bill. We thought nothing of it initially, but after receiving our food, it was obvious that the tip is automatically added on to prevent what had to have been a rash of tip stiffings resulting from wide-spread dissatisfaction with what initially seems like a reasonable menu. How many waiters and waitresses have ventured in and out of this place after the thirty-second tip consisting of three pennies and a loose button? The "help wanted" sign was prominently displayed in the bay windows. I can't imagine they ever come down.

A quick note about pricing: if your sandwiches are going to float in the $8-$9 range, industry average dictates that this is a price that includes a side. The fact that your fries come in a "darling" little metal deep-fry basket does not justify charging an extra $2.75. And let's not even get into your cheese fries. Nah, fuck it--let's get into them. If they're gonna be $7, shouldn't the pile of nacho cheese, jalapenos and sour cream have more than 10 fries underneath them?

No chorus of hellos, no army of corn-syrupy ketchup smiley faces, can conceal the fact that your food is the saddest joke since the final scene of Solondz's Storytelling. The difference here is that no one should feel remotely bad for laughing at your cluelessly misguided "product."

By the way, tonight we played at Southgate House for the first time ever. The fact that the best conversations of the evening involved discussing Brainiac with the sound guy and our new awesome friends in the Jesus Lizardy Swear Jar should tell you all you need to know about how awesome the evening was. While only 11 people paid, which wasn't enough to garner any gas money from the door, the combination of band dudes and audience members filled out the room to the point where, after a night of playing for three people in Pittsburgh, it looked like a packed party house. I personally played the best sets i've played in days; not sure why, since i only got three hours of sleep the night before. But my wrists were more relaxed than they've been all tour, and my fills benefited from whatever zen trance i managed to put my body into.

HiFi Southgate Set: Tunguska/Paulding/Imp. Walker/Black Holes/X-13D/Pot. Energy/Arson/Success

Tunguska was played as a special request for our pal Dale Freeman, who's been following us since the old Pop Machine days, but man, was it sloppy. Everything else sounded great, though, and based on the CDs we sold, most of the people there agreed.

But most definitely, the best part of the night was yet another example of Why Bands Tour--to find link-minded people in different cities. One such dude was Shane from Swear Jar, who shares my love for noisy punk rock, snark, and calling bullshit on most of the lightweight, MOR nonsense that passes for "indie rock" these days. We were instant pals and i can't wait to drag these guys up to Wisconsin to play and hang out.

We had a minor designated driver incident tonight, as everyone thought someone else was the DD, which resulted in Yale willing himself sober enough to drive us to our friend Jonathan's house to stay the night. The designated driving--hell, the driving all tour--has been very unevenly distributed, and my resentment is starting to bubble out in all sorts of passive-aggressive ways. In Brooklyn as we were led to our friend Patrick's house, i cranked Reign in Blood in order to drown out the distracting, drunken jabber going on in the van. Because i've been trying to keep my body from wearing down while drumming two sets per night, i haven't been doing a lot of drinking on this tour, which suits me just fine, but results in the DD position defaulting to me a little more often than it should. It's been irritating, but so it goes.

Tonight, though, was not one of those nights, as the Southgate House parlour's bartender does not fuck around with the whiskey. The Jameson shots Dale bought us all were clearly doubles; still, i slammed mine in one go, much to the protestation of my gag reflex. Screw you, body, you're going to take this rapid-fire inebriation and like it. For once on this tour, anyway. After all, writing Yelp reviews is the most fun when drunk, i have just decided right now.

"Work is Overrated" Tour '11, Part 7: "Dude, when did the X Games become 'Nam?"

2011-08-24T03:17:00.001-05:00

It's a rule with our band (and probably with others as well) that the shows that involve the longest drive end up being the strangest and most sparsely attended. You may guess that with an intro like that, one of those shows will be recounted now. Well, i won't be giving you credit for that educated guess, because frankly it was a pretty obvious lead-in.

The drive from New Brunswick to Pittsburgh was supposed to be six hours, but tack on an hour waiting to get through a Pennsylvania toll booth where the lanes dropped down to one immediately after, then another half hour navigating construction in Pittsburgh, and we ended up rolling into Gooski's Bar around 8:15 after leaving at noon. This place was one of those charming dumps: writing adorned loads of square footage on the black walls, band stickers everywhere in the performance room, cheap greasy food, and the Milwaukee Brewers pounding the tar out of the Pirates on the television. I briefly pondered saying something about the Super Bowl or wearing my Packer NFC Championship t-shirt on stage, but think better of it after some online friends warn me that the van may be set on fire if i pull the trigger on my shit-talking scheme.

Band number one was named "Lightweight," and as it happened, it wasn't just a clever name, as their singer was mad slop-nuts wasted. He threw guitar picks at Yale, yelled at the audience, flailed into his band members, and whipped out his penis at least twice--once to drape its limpness (hey, some dudes are showers and some are growers) over his guitar and hump it at the end of the set. Despite how uncomfortable his bandmates and friends were rendered by the spectacle, the actual band sounded really good! Unfortunately, GG Allin Jr.'s antics broke a microphone, leaving the room with two working ones, limiting the HiFi's choice of songs. Ah well.

Sloppy McStaggerstein continued to impress during the Zebras set, resting his chin on Lacey's Moog and grabbing Vince's mic during "Diablo Blanco" and yelling into it, earning him a swift ejection from the premises. The exit from the show of Flashy McWiener and the friend who guided him out the door reduced the audience by 40%, dropping the number of people watching us from five to three (John from Microwaves, who set up the show; Vince's brother Dan; and the drummer from the second band). The HiFi set was a simple, bang-it-out six-song affair with the same number of people watching (like in Nashville, a bunch of people watched the locals and bailed for the touring bands--way to get the most value for your five dollars, numbskulls).

We Fiddle/Arson/Sleeperhold/Take the $/Imp. Walker/NMM (half tempo)

Yes, half tempo. Before we played "No More Music" John yelled out a request: "whatever song you're going to play, play it REALLY SLOW." We acquiesced and proceeded to crack ourselves up rocking out on "No More Music" in half time, complete with Yale and me singing the lyrics at 33 RPM. I'm pretty sure i saw John do a legit spit take with his beer while The Wizard and i would half laugh, half yell (a yaff?) at Yale for constantly wanting to change to the next part early. I'm really bummed that there was no video.

As we tore down our gear, Vince wandered over to us and said, "watch out--things are starting to get tense." A tat-sleeved dudebro was having a very quiet, but very intense conversation with John while the rest of us looked on, confused. When he finally wandered off, John explained, "i've never met that guy before in my life! But he's all, 'you know me. YOU KNOW ME. I know you from 16 years ago. You don't remember me? I was a pro skater. I was on MTV, man.'" What any of this had to do with the guy wanting to kick John's ass, we're not sure, but before the dude wandered away, he had turned to Vince while John had gone to talk to the owner.

"WHAT'S THAT GUY'S NAME?" he asked Vince.

"Uh, i don't really know him that well..."

"HIS NAME'S SHITBAG."

"Uh, ok?"

Things kept poor Vince's blood pressure sky-high when the dude walked to his truck to drive away (wisely, given his drunken state)--a truck that coincidentally was right behind our van, and that he needed to walk to as i was walking to our van. After he muttered something about "follow [my] honky ass," i kept glancing back at him until his stopped, threw his arms in the air, and said, "WHAT?" "Nothing, dude!" He staggered past me as Vince nearly had an aneurysm, but we had successfully navigated the "washed up and sad" level of Skate or Die for the Band Wii.

The crowd wasn't quite as thin for Sunday's show at Don Pedro in Brooklyn, but a similar scenario played out in that we got to endure the most white-knuckle drive of the tour in exchange for playing in front of a handful of people (who, unlike Pittsburgh, actually paid attention and enjoyed both bands thoroughly). A two-hour trip from Philadelphia to Brooklyn was stretched to four and a half hours by torrential rain and gasket-blowing traffic that had me convinced that this was my last tour ever as i gritted my way over the Gorgonzola Bridge (or whatever the fuck it's called) in one of two narrow, precarious-as-hell lanes of bumper-to-bumper.

The entire drive on Sunday, as my senses worked at peak efficiency to avoid hydroplaning and colliding with the semis that would pass mere inches from my head, i resolved that the fun parts of touring were no longer worth the aggravation, and this was it. No more after i get home. I quit. Fuck this for eternity.

Of course, as soon as we saw our friends Patrick Walsh and the late, lamented Mount Vicious' Bri Bri and Alli, my resolve to give the fuck up melted away with the rest of my bad mood. Both bands played killer sets and we were treated to some badass Hot Snakes-tinged screamy punk courtesy our friend Steve and his band We Ride. If we hadn't played with Maple Stave in Durham i'd say We Ride were the best band we've played with on tour.

Brookyln: Paulding/Ratings/Pot. Energy/Sleeperhold/Arson/Grace/Telescope/NMM

The only real drag of the Brooklyn show was that way more of our friends promised to make it out than actually showed up, but whatever. We'll see 'em in three years, maybe!

Just as the long drives resulted in low attendance, the shortest drive of tour, Brooklyn to New Brunswick, resulted in one of the most packed and fun. Our friend and PRFer Kelli's basement hosted a birthday party for her bassist Colleen (she turned 23, and i immediately re-evaluated why i was hanging out with a bunch of kids 13 years younger than me), and their band kicked things off, setting the tone for Zebras and HiFi to burn through a pair of high-energy, brief sets with an eye on getting the noise done by 10 PM in order to avoid noise ordinances.

New Brunswick: Paulding/Arson/Imp Walker/Pot. Energy/Telescope/NMM

The basement show may not have had a blasted guitar player waving his dick around and humping his guitar, but it did have lots of excited kids, awesome vegetarian food for us to nosh on, $75 in donations, and quiet time by 11 PM. Perfection in basement show form.

We have four shows left now. The end of this tour honestly can't come fast enough. I've finally started feeling the effects of playing two sets on a nightly basis, and i'm frankly starting to get tired. Goofy facial expressions are now at a premium, and my shoulder is starting to demand detachment from the rest of my body about halfway through Zebras every night. Gotta fight through it now. But at least i know that i can finish the tour, because i got an update on Dad's condition today. While his condition is improving and he's eating soft foods and his infection is clearing, we have confirmation that his cancer has returned to his jaw. Once his infection has totally cleared up, he'll be moved to either Madison or Milwaukee to have another huge chunk of his jaw removed and replaced with a graft of bone from his leg.

While i'm relieved to at least know what's going on, and am relieved that i can finish the tour, i know that in the back of my mind there's a paralyzing fear that i'm not letting myself feel until i get home. The night before my dad went into surgery in 2000 ranks a solid #1 with a bullet on the list of the worst days of my life. I don't want to have to deal with this. I really don't.

But like a raging thunderstorm on the New Jersey Turnpike, i'll fight through this shit, because i have to. Because making it to the next show is sometimes all we have.

"Thunderstorms and Car Accidents" Tour '11: Part 6 - Philly Redeemed

2011-08-21T14:49:00.001-05:00

No, but seriously, thunderstorms and car accidents have been following us everywhere on this tour. We drove past the worst wreck we've seen yet on our way to the Danger Danger Gallery in Philly: car completely flipped; telephone pole cracked in half about 20 feet in the air, top half dangling in wires; 35 MPH zone. Someone needs to do an expose on city drag racing, i think--that shit's making a crazy mad comeback.

PREVIOUSLY ON "IFIHADAHIFI VS. PHILADELPHIA:"

We had an OK show in Philly in 2006 when we played a house venue called The Big Pink House (although we severely dropped the ball that night when, after two weeks of making John Mellencamp jokes, we opted for MotownPhilly jokes EVEN THOUGH WE WERE IN A PINK HOUSE), but our 2008 show in Philly with White Wrench Conservatory was a nightmare. Not only did we get to sit in a bar called The Fire and watch CC Sabathia get positively shelled by the Phillies during the Brewers' first playoff series since 1982, but then no one in the bar hopped across to the band room to watch us. We ended up playing in front of two of Dixie's friends, and that was it.

So we weren't all that thrilled to have to try to book a Philly show on this tour, and did all we could to avoid it. But our friend in Lancaster wasn't able to close a deal for us, and so, out of desperation, i emailed Danger Danger, a gallery that had never returned my emails in years previous. This time, however, they responded (!), and invited us to play their big anniversary benefit party to raise money for the gallery. Unfortunately, it being a benefit, it meant that touring bands would get no money out of the door, and we'd have to rely on merch sales. Having no other options and realizing that probably most all-ages kids in the area would be there, we agreed and decided to hope for the best.

Amazingly, we got pretty close. After a pair of, shell we say, more "sensitive" musical sets in the basement room of the gallery, HiFi set up and prepared to give these kids a good old-fashioned punk rock kick in the teeth. The venue did a great job of herding the audience into the room where the next band was playing, and--TAKE A LESSON FROM THIS, NASHVILLE--the kids were actively engaged with what was going on, which was excellent. I opened our set with a "We're IfIHadAHiFi from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We're a dance band. That's a hint, and you should take it," and launched into "Paulding Light." Yale kicked his stage antics into overdrive and we blasted those kids to the back of the room, much to their delight based on the loud, enthusiastic response. As all sets were limited to 25 minutes, we made sure to pack them with only the most crucial party jamz.

SET LIST: Paulding/Arson/Imperial Walker/Pot. Energy/Black Holes/Success

Zebras had an equally exuberant audience, including the occasional three-person circle pit during the more speedy numbers like "Me U God" and "Wiener Kids." All in all, these kids redeemed Philly in our eyes as a town where the kids know what's up.

HiFi managed to sell about $18 in merch, of which we proceeded to spend $12 upon our return to the previously lamented Fire. Our labelmates Trophy Wives were playing there and we not only wanted to see some solid bros in the middle of tour, but we wanted to help fill the room for them, because of course, based on our sample data of one weeknight show with no local band, shows at The Fire never draw. As it turns out, they had a few people there ("about...twelve?" their singer Billy estimated outside the venue), but we did a solid job of beefing up the attendance with our seven bodies (six of us and one Marissa Berlin). The TWives blasted through an as-usual killer set of tunes from their just-out-now-on-Latest-Flame record Old Scratch and handily dealt with a drunk Yale screaming at them to play a Wipers cover that they've forgotten. Post-show, Yale spied Billy by the side entrance and said "I'm gonna go punch him," to which i responded, "yes, that's a great idea. Punch Billy," knowing that Billy, being a man-mountain cross between an Appalachian pro wrestler and a bear, would be more than capable of ending that encounter like it was one of those "Messin' with Sasquatch" beef jerky ads. All Billy did, though, was ignore Yale and calmly walk into the bar, letting the door slam shut behind him while Yale drunkenly bellowed "BILLY I'M GOING TO PUNCH YOU!" Hilarity.

A recount of this evening would not be complete without a salutation to the fabulous Michael Markowski, who bought us all dinner at a killer pizza place/brewery across from Danger Danger, and filmed our performance. Another above and beyond gesture of graciousness from another awesome tour pal.

We are currently chilling in Marissa's parents' palatial estate, which is large enough to have me convinced that they are Hank Scorpio-level supervillains. A Jacuzzi tub? A shower with two heads? COME ON! Our hotel room at the Marriott was less luxurious.

"Virginia is for Road Head" Tour '11: Parts 4 and 5

2011-08-20T11:43:00.001-05:00

It occurred to me that i totally forgot to list off any of the set lists post-Nashville, so before we jump into it:

Knoxville: We Fiddle/Arson/Ratings Spike/X-13D/Black Holes/Take the $/Telescope/No MM

Athens: Ratings/Pot. Energy/We Fiddle/Black Holes/Arson/Take the $/No MM/Certain Fate

Wilmington: Paulding/Arson/Black Holes/X-13D/We Fiddle/Sleeperhold/Probalos/Success

Part 4: "Hey Man, Her Name's Kim"

Something we made sure we questioned on stage at both the Wilmington show and in Durham was what in the blue hell the deal is with a theme park we drove past on the SC side of the SC/NC border called South of the Border. We couldn't decide whether or not this place was the most casually racist theme part we've ever seen, but whenever we asked, audience members laughed and shrugged with slight expressions of embarrassment. I dunno, you tell me--are a giant sombrero drop and drunken Mexican caricatures ethnically sensitive?

Not pictured: dignity

The good vibes and generosity of North Carolina continued in Durham, thanks to our pals in the crushing Maple Stave. Their drummer Evan sprung for a hotel room at the downtown Marriott not two blocks from the Pinhook, the coffee-shop-vibed bar hosting us for the evening. It was here where i proceeded to play the sloppiest Zebras set of the tour thus far, questioning how my endurance has held up during week 1 of this two-shows-per-night escapade. Fortunately, when you play as fast as Zebras does, the drumming is such a blur that no one can tell when i'm fucking up, it seems, because Evan (one of the few drummers i'm legitimately self-conscious playing in front of, because he is dazzlingly incredible behind his kit) was totally into it.

I played better during the HiFi set, where the tempos are less insane and more geared toward dancing, and a decent-sized crowd at the Pinhook got into it enthusiastically, a few people even taking photos!

Durham set list: Paulding/Rating Spike/Fiddle/Imp Walker/Arson/Chance-Medley/Telescope/NMM

Zebras even officially outdrew HiFi in Durham, as a lovely lady by the name of Kim attended the show to see Zebras specifically. She attends a lot of Those Poor Bastards shows (Vince's other band, a synth-tinged country duo) and was psyched to see Zebras (which happens a lot with TPB fans, it seems, which is beyond cool. I still haven't explored a lot of TPB, but it seems that Zebras is nowhere near the TPB wheelhouse, so for their fans to come to Zebras shows and "get it" is pretty rad).

Vince, Lacey and Kim hung out quite a bit, which apparently cheesed off one of the bartenders (Vince suspects said bartender was trying to chat her up). In Vince words, "when i started talking to her the dude got really salty. I think he thought i was some sleazy creep, but then she walked away and the dude leaned over and said, 'hey, man, her name's Kim,' like he decided to help me out or something. It's cool, i know who she is, dude!"

Durham, North Carolina: gorgeous downtown, a cheap bistro with awesome salads and sandwiches (visit Toast when in Durham, for serious), and some seriously awesome rockers (honestly, Maple Stave threw down the best performance we've seen on this tour so far. Absolutely pummeling). This tour is officially good vibes all around now.

Part 5: DC Will Do That To You

One of my worst tour nightmares came close to coming true last night in Washington, DC. It still may.

We had loaded in to the Everlasting Life vegan cafe in Washington, DC and had just eaten some incredible mostaccioli when i got a text message from my brother Kris. "Call me at your earliest convenience."

As my parents and grandma get older, i occasionally feel mild pangs of guilt that i don't live closer to them and spend more time with them than i do. Granted, that would entail living closer to the Fox Valley and not in Milwaukee, which would kill my soul, but that doesn't stop me from feeling bad about geography cursing us by distance.

So when my little brother calls me while on tour to drop the bomb that Dad's back in the hospital in serious shape, it's a surreal, sobering thing. Dad is a throat cancer survivor, having had surgery in 2000, but he's fought health problems for years after, including problems with his teeth stemming from the radiation therapy (they've basically rotted out of his head and caused infections left and right). He's back in now, and the doctors are fearful that his cancer's returned.

My mind raced on the phone--do we need to bail? Do i need to be back in Wisconsin? My brother and mom talked before he called me and we all seem to agree that there's no reason for me to cut bait and bail on the tour, as there's nothing i could do if i were there while they do tests anyway. But if his condition worsens to a point that i can barely type without my throat going dry, i won't have a choice.

It was with all this hanging in the back of my head that i took the stage at this charming little vegan cafe and proceeded to thrash away in front of 20 paid attendees. Kris had ended our conversation with something he's heard me say before--"take it out on the songs." It's my personal demand of myself to never let personal shit get in the way of a good performance on stage. For one, it's selfish to let me shit ruin a show for the other guys in the band, and for two, it's the best therapy in the world.

I also had old friends in the audience to keep the dark thoughts from taking over--an old internet pal named Andy whom i hadn't seen since around 1996; and my best friend from childhood, Sean, who now is a hardcore Republican working for the US Chamber of Commerce. I dedicated "Imperial Walker" to him as "the song that got me in the National Review before him," which was his reaction when that hilariously misfired "review" hit. It's reassuring to me that two old pals on the opposite sides of the political aisle can remain good friends.

So i bashed away at my drums to entertain my old friends, and i bashed away to work through the stress of being 894 miles from my family in a legit time of need. As of now, i'm keeping myself optimistic that i'll be able to finish this tour, merely having to deal with the shadow of my dad's health as a ghost following us in the background. If you could do me a favor, dear person reading this, shoot a few positive thoughts our way to reinforce my positive thinking, won't you?

DC set list: Grace/We Fiddle/Imp Walker/Black Holes/Magnets/Arson/NMM

"Cool Story, Bro" Tour '11: Kindred Spirits

2011-08-18T04:35:00.001-05:00

I needed a new head anyway

I am sitting in a hotel room hooked up by our hotel employee friend Steve in Wilmington, NC, after hanging out post-show in the moonlight at the beach, feeling the tide pull the sand out from beneath me. This is why i went on tour, for this moment: stepping into the ocean with tourmates and friends from far away places, letting the earth kiss us with its salty tongue like an animal claiming us as its own.

Only ten people showed up tonight, but that's not important. If the primary purpose of going on tour were to try to expose large numbers of people to our music in a way that encourages memorization of our band names, this would be a wholly inefficient method of doing it. Knoxville on Monday and Athens on Tuesday were delightful; enough people turned out for both shows to allow us to put enough gas in the tank to make it to the next city, and most of them responded positively to our tunes. But as i stood around at the Caledonia Lounge on Tuesday night watching everyone drink, chat, and completely ignore our merch table (save the bartender and Chris Dragon's friend Sarah, who accounted for our first CDs sold in four days), i thought about the hundreds--thousands?--of touring bands i've seen over the years from the Concert Cafe in Green Bay to the Cactus Club in Milwaukee, and i'm sure that many of the ones i've forgotten were damn fine. Do any of the attendees at the Longbranch in Knoxville even remember the name "IfIHadAHiFi?" Or are they more likely to say "oh, man, that band...I Wish I Had A HiFi? They were great," their memories of the bands they saw on a random Monday night in August 2011 already fading into a jumbled mash of beer and feedback? As in love with our self-constructed image of the band too crazy to ignore as i am, i realistically get the feeling that by tomorrow it'll be "those bands with the crazy drummer" and "yeah, that night our pals played with some touring bands" by September, if not Friday.

The hard truth is that bar patrons (or basement show kids, for that matter) do not value touring musicians. Sure, they appreciate that we drove for several hours to play for them, but put a price on that appreciation and you can bet it ranks below that next PBR. Tonight a member of the audience drunkenly told me, "i really like your band," after both the Zebras and HiFi sets (both of which, if i may say so, were the best performances of the tour thus far and featured the most dancing audience members of any show to date). When he said it again post-BLACKS set, i responded, "then you should buy some of our CDs!" He squinted at me and slurred "what you may not know is that i spent all day selling textbooks so i could come here tonight and get drunk."

"And you definitely achieved your goal!"

*squint* "I don't think you believe me."

"I believe that you're drunk!"

"At least i don't have a Jewfro."

"Uh..."

"At least i'm not...Jewish."

"Uh, neither am i?"

Puzzling racism aside, it's clear that this dude, whose dancing and rocking out was genuinely appreciated, will forget about us in no time. In an age where the supply of touring bands chokes the demand into a dazed submission, i'm not so sure that being a blistering live act is enough anymore, if it ever was.

But that's why, at 3:30 AM, i'm standing in the Atlantic Ocean with Steve, The Wizard and Lacey, staring at the sky and talking silly shit. I wanted to come to Wilmington and play with Steve and Keith, aka BLACKS, and rock them silly. And then i wanted to hang out with Steve on the beach.

Steve, incidentally, redefined "above and beyond" today. Not only are we sleeping in free hotel rooms tonight, but he used his corporate card to fill our gas tank and tossed an extra $50 from his own pocket on top of the $35 collected at the door. He sort of gets it, you see. He's in a band that his hometown doesn't quite understand, or maybe politely tolerates (not for long, as they're breaking up), but he lives for that moment where his music clicks with someone who's never heard anything like it before. Tonight we swapped tales of minds blown and expectations tweaked, and of hometown shows where no one turns out to see our friends. Wins and losses--we have similar tales of both.

Kindred spirits, connected across the country through music.

This is why i'm out here.

"I'm The King! What're You Into?" Tour '11: "Yep...Sunday in Nashville"

2011-08-15T16:00:00.001-05:00

Pictured: the only photo i took in Nashville, because obviously

I've quite literally been to mass graves livelier than the audience of dead-eyed, apathetic kids at the Springwater Saloon in Nashville last night, but their overall indifference toward non-local bands was only part of what was so aggravating about this show (although it was the largest part). The show began with promise, as the sound guy, upon my introducing myself and explaining that we were the bands from Milwaukee, asked, "do you guys know Peter J. Woods?" Hey! Mutual pals! This is a good sign! He introduced himself, if my memory serves, as "Acme," which should have been a warning sign right off the bat--the name respected coyotes trust to fail spectacularly. We discussed the lineup for the night--two locals bookending three touring acts (HiFi, Zebras and Spelling bee from St. Louis, a dynamite little duo featuring a four-foot tall Asian shredder girl and a dazzling experimental/jazzy drummer dude). He set up two mics; when i asked about the availability of a third, he answered in the affirmative.

Things began to go south when we started setting up and i heard him defensively explaining to Yale and The Wizard that he only had two mics after all. The Wizard asked about a third stand, as he brought a spare mic along for situations like this. "This is all i have. people keep stealing our shit," spoken with a vindictiveness directed apparently at us for representing All Touring Bands Ever. Meanwhile, Rev.Ever struggled with his pedal board and lost. Either the power supply for half his pedals died, or the master strip of outlets did; we're not sure yet. OK, lovely.

Meanwhile, some anonymous girl (Lacey suggests she may have been the sound guy's girlfriend, but that's just speculation) storms up to Yale and Wizard and says, "you guys need to hurry up and start." Um, maybe blame the club for starting a five-band show at 11 PM, and don't blame the touring band? Sorry you need to get home to your DVR'd Jersey Shores.

So we set up and reconfigure our set to deal with our limitations. No more "Black Holes" because we only have two mics. No more "We Fiddle" because Rev.'s sound effects are out of commission. Gah. It only takes us through half of "Paulding Light" to get back into the pocket, but i'm already cheesed off, as the roughly ten kids who were standing around watching the first band, as well as most of the first band (save the guitarist), are nowhere to be seen. Outside talking, presumably.

I feel as though i should clarify things, as i overheard someone post-set being amused that anyone would be upset that a Sunday show drew nobody. Please. This ain't my first rodeo, Nash. Low attendance on a Sunday is expected. People liking our band is not expected or required, but if any of the kids at that show were to say "IfIHadAHiFi sucks," they wouldn't have a leg to stand on because none of them were in the room at any point while we played. C'mon, kids, we take pride in our room-clearing abilities; if you don't like our music, at least give us the satisfaction of being in the room when we start.

HiFi set: Paulding / Arson / Sleeperhold / Imperial Walker / Spy / Success

When Zebras plays some kids actually wander into the room; by a few songs in, they're all seated in booths, staring blankly ahead like they have yet to deduce that the flailing bodies on stage are powered by delicious brains. With about two or three songs to go, the microphones mysteriously shut off; by the time Spelling Bee play, they amazingly are working again. HMMMMM.

The last time HiFi played in Nashville, we played an overly-swank bar on a Sunday night with a pair of alt-country bands. The five people in the audience were driven out by our abrasive volume, but the alt-country bands were complimentary and the bartender was apologetic, loving our set and paying us in four Pabst tallboys because he had nothing else with which to pay us. As of August 2011, that 2006 trainwreck still stands as our best Nashville show to date.

We are currently chilling out in front of the Longbranch Saloon in Knoxville. The front door has our tour poster prominently displayed, and the local band tonight made a flyer that is also on the door. If five people are at the show tonight, it will still already rate as better than last night.

ANONYMOUS QUOTES FROM FRIENDS OF MINE SINCE I POSTED A "FUCK NASHVILLE" TWEET LAST NIGHT:

"I have never had a good experience playing in Nashville."

"Man, Nashville is just not friendly. I don't get it."

It's not just us, Nashville! Signs point to "Music City" being a crap town for touring DIY music!

"The Golden Girls' Rage: Kill Whitey" Tour '11, Part 1: FALSE START

2011-08-14T11:45:00.001-05:00

It's always smart to kick off a tour at Quenchers: we're generally guaranteed a sweet turnout, they feed the touring bands, and they make sure there's money to go around. I pretty much don't care if i never play another Chicago venue other than Quenchers ever again (which is not to say that we hate the other ones; just that Quenchers is that far above the others).

What is not smart is blowing up the one bass cabinet we're taking on tour right before the HiFi set. After a pretty decent Zebras set and a fantastic set by Chicago's The Cell Phones (one curly-haired singer lady with golden pipes, one dude with an acoustic bass distorting it through a pair of fuzzy fuzz amps, and a speedy drummer--highly recommended), The Wizard plugged his bass into Lacey's amp and, after cranking up the signal, promptly blew the 18-inch woofer. Whoops. On the bright side, we suddenly realized we'd be crashing in our own beds after the show, since we'd have to drive back to Milwaukee to grab The Wizard's gear (bad news for any of the ladies in the audience who were looking to grab The Wizard's gear after the show...HEY-O).

Anywho, Keith the sound guy ran the bass direct and, while it severely cut down on The Wizard's feedback, it apparently fazed no one in the audience. We gutted out a spirited set and Yale apparently has decided that this is the "Yale moves his mic stand into the crowd for at least one song per show" Tour '11, which i'm totes fine with.

SETLIST: Ratings Spike / We Fiddle / Sleeperhold / In&Out of Grace / 99 Probalos / Defenestrate / Arson / No MM

We're in the middle of a run where we play Chicago once a month minimum, so i did my best to mix it up and play some stuff we never play. Of course, posting these set lists means that people are gonna start requesting all kinds of crazy shit. NO, WE HAVE NOT RE-LEARNED "YOU'RE NO PIRATE"...yet.

Three copies of the new CD sold and one each of the old stuff. Dolla dolla billz.

DAY TWO: BLOOMINGTON BASEMENT CHEAPSKATES

We now have (slightly) more room in the van, thanks to replacing Lacey's white-dwarf-powered three-ton bass amp and cab with The Wizard's setup. We left Milwaukee and proceeded to embark on the longest drive to Bloomington, IN in our long, storied history of Indiana drives. [Obligatory snark-ass remark about Chicago's consistently shit traffic goes here] After passing a billboard in Gary that advertised a strip club called "Polekatz" (which, sorry, but while i am pro strip-club, i will not be patronizing one called "Polekatz," no matter how hot that Looney Tunes skunk was), we drove head-first into what felt like Jesus' watery revenge on a state that abandoned him and voted Democrat in 2008 for the first time since Christ wished the state into the union. Waves of rain blew sideways across the road like Aragorn's ghost army or the animated broomsticks in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, while Yale white-knuckled us down the highway in a heroic effort to keep us on the road and upright. Meanwhile, i checked Weather.com: Severe Thunderstorm Watch. Uh, yeah, we're watching it right now, assholes.

Eventually we made it to Gay Dudes Annex, aka Rob Waxeater's house, where we were playing along with the band he just joined, Bad Creeps. The show was a blast; just enough people showed up to cram into the front of the "stage area" while Zebras blasted through a quick 25-minute set to an appreciative, mind-blown pack of kids. This was the first night where Zebras and HiFi played back-to-back sets, and thus, the first night that i essentially played nonstop for an hour, minus a set changeover. So far, no worries. No feelings of fatigue as we charged through a six-song set that expanded to eight when we opened with "We Got the Beat" to just play something in order to get the kids back downstairs for the start of our set.

We Got the Beat/We Fiddle/Arson/Imp. Walker/Paulding/Chance-Medley (Rob request)/Telescope/No MM

It being a basement show, naturally, the kids at the show, despite being totally into both bands and rocking the HELL out during both sets, managed to donate $13 and buy 0 pieces of merchandise from both bands. Yes, kids, we drove six hours just to donate our time for your entertainment. You're welcome!

Whatever--we drank whiskey, we watched Bad Creeps kill it, and Lacey and i stayed up until 5 AM watching Rob's Bad Creeps bandmates try to hump each other with little success. I'm not sure if they were trying to weird each other out, or if one of them was genuinely trying to get on the other. Either way, it was adorable. I guess it's not just a clever name--they really are bad at being creeps. At least they lived up to the venue's name!

I slept in the van last night. It was awesome in that it felt like camping and i got to do a crack-and-whiz (i.e. cracking the van door and peeing out of it onto Rob's lawn) twice. THE FREEDOM OF THE GREAT OUTDOORS.

Tour 2011 Eve

2011-08-11T21:38:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, IfIHadAHiFi and Zebras depart for a 16-day trek through the Southeast and Eastern United States. It's the eighth tour of at least a week that the HiFi have gone on in our 11-year history and the first tour that i'm doing with Zebras. We're not exactly road warriors (although we've gone out enough times to convince people that we are), but it's the best we can do as a bunch of folks with day jobs (ostensibly).

Preparations of the most unglamorous sort are underway: acquiring fresh-from-the-plant Nada Surf +3 CDs, stocking up on toiletries, packing, buying Triple-A coverage online. It's the van stuff that, of course, is the biggest pain in the ass and the most stressful. Dealing with my own car's issues is my least favorite stressor as it is; being the guy in the band that has his name on the title (which is the way it's been since we bought our first van in 2002, ugh) is a whole extra level of bullshit. Insurance, oil change, cleaning the sucker out before we leave...all of the fun gruntwork that people who have never been on a tour tend to not think about. Oh, how romantic! Piling into a van with your bandmates and hitting the road, bringing the message of your rock and rolls musics to the awaiting throng! Uh, yeah. If only you could see with my eyes when we're loading out after a show at a Brooklyn bar while the booker explains "well, sorry, you can see here on the tally sheet that no one came to see you, so you don't get any of the door money," spurring Yale to beg $20 off the owner because thank god that he at least liked us and feels bad. (Since we're playing with friends in Brooklyn this time, that shouldn't happen. But it has.)

This time out we'll be relying more on the kindness of strange bar patrons than ever, as our band fund was exhausted on Monday by an adventure involving unpaid parking tickets and the City of Milwaukee tow lot. Our registration sticker was stolen from the van back in June; two months, four tickets, and plenty of scatterbrainedness later, Yale was driving me to the tow lot on Monday to get our precious tour van out of hock. $105 tow plus $20/day storage just because we spaced on paying parking tickets. If this were a political post, i could say plenty about how many of our governmental institutions exist to keep poor people down by piling bullshit fee on top of bullshit fee, but let's not get into that right now. What's pertinent is that our little van adventure on Monday drained the rest of the band fund that we had, along with $50 of my own money in a tow out of the lot (the passenger side front tire was gashed, which the city tow truck guy swears happened before he got there, and his report says the same...whatever) and a friendly mounting (heh) of the spare tire by a helpful mechanic. IfIHadAHiFi would like to extend their sincere thanks to the Bottom Lounge in Chicago for financing our vehicular incompetence.

Amusingly, a friend on Facebook joked that it was time for us to try a Kickstarter campaign to offset this minor disaster, but i think he knew that my response would be "i was just joking to myself that we should do a 'pay for our tour!' Kickstarter campaign, except that we find the idea of 'pay for our tour!' Kickstarter campaigns totally fucking gross." It'd be especially gross in this situation--"hey, we fucked up and had to blow our whole band fund on City of Milwaukee BS; give us money to go on tour!" It may sound like dick-wagging braggadocio, but i really feel that adversity like this is what makes my band strong. It has always bonded us on the road in an us-vs-the-world way. Our shows on tour are blistering and urgent because, well, there's a real urgency to our being on stage. I feel that would be lost if we used something like Kickstarter to give ourselves a cushion. Fuck that. We're flying without a net big time on this tour, and really, i wouldn't have it any other way. The tour stories are better that way.

So, hey! East coast! Please come see us sometime in the next 16 days. We promise that we will play violently loud, abrasive and thrilling music in an oft-times dangerous manner, and i personally promise that you will bear witness to a mind-fucking drumming endurance contest for the ages. For the next two weeks, Martian Dance Invasion! and IfIHadAHiFi's website will be cross-posting tour reports whenever we can. Also, be sure to follow the Twitter accounts of IfIHadAHiFi and me, as they'll have plenty to offer as well. See you out there!

FRI 8/12: Chicago, IL @ Quenchers with The Cell Phones
SAT 8/13: Bloomington, IN @ Gay Dudes Annex (Rob's House) w/Bad Creeps
SUN 8/14: Nashville, TN @ Springwater Supper Club w/Gnarwhal and maybe Deluxin
MON 8/15: Knoxville, TN @ The Longbranch Saloon w/TBA
TUE 8/16: Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge w/Easter Island, NEVER
WED 8/17: Wilmington, NC @ Reggie’s 42nd Street Tavern. W/ BLACKS
THUR 8/18: Durham, NC @ The Pinhook w/Maple Stave
FRI 8/19: Washington, DC @ Everlasting Life w/Cephalopods, Night & the City
SAT 8/20: Philadelphia, PA @ Danger Danger Gallery w/a bunch of bands
SUN 8/21: Brooklyn, NY @ Don Pedros w/We Ride, Bombshell
MON 8/22: New Brunswick, NJ @ house show w/The Silent Way - message us for details
TUE 8/23: Pittsburgh, PA @ Gooski’s Bar w/Dwarf Fortress, Lightweight
WED 8/24: Cincinnati, OH @ Southgate House w/Swear Jar
THUR 8/25: Detroit, MI @ Small’s, in Hamtramck w/Telecollision & Damn Near Killed ‘Em
FRI 8/26: Lansing, MI @ Mac’s w/Fun Ender & Dr. Device
SAT 8/27: Ft. Wayne, IN @ the Brass Rail w/TBD
SUN 8/28 DRIVE HOME

Tour starts FRIDAY!

2011-08-09T12:46:00.005-05:00

Please come out. Dear god we're gonna need the gas money. Also, we should have copies of the CD version of the Nada Surf +3 EP!

All dates are with ZEBRAS:

FRI 8/12: Chicago, IL @ Quenchers with The Cell Phones
SAT 8/13: Bloomington, IN @ Gay Dudes Annex (Rob's House) w/Bad Creeps
SUN 8/14: Nashville, TN @ Springwater Supper Club w/Gnarwhal and maybe Deluxin
MON 8/15: Knoxville, TN @ The Longbranch Saloon w/TBA
TUE 8/16: Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge w/Easter Island, NEVER
WED 8/17: Wilmington, NC @ Reggie’s 42nd Street Tavern. W/ BLACKS
THUR 8/18: Durham, NC @ The Pinhook w/Maple Stave
FRI 8/19: Washington, DC @ Everlasting Life w/Cephalopods, Night & the City
SAT 8/20: Philadelphia, PA @ Danger Danger Gallery w/a bunch of bands
SUN 8/21: Brooklyn, NY @ Don Pedros w/We Ride, 1 more
MON 8/22: New Brunswick, NJ @ house show w/The Silent Way - message us for details
TUE 8/23: Pittsburgh, PA @ Gooski’s Bar w/Dwarf Fortress, Lightweight
WED 8/24: Cincinnati, OH @ Southgate House w/Swear Jar, NEED ONE MORE
THUR 8/25: Detroit, MI @ Small’s, in Hamtramck w/Telecollision & Damn Near Killed ‘Em
FRI 8/26: Lansing, MI @ Mac’s w/Fun Ender & Dr. Device
SAT 8/27: Ft. Wayne, IN @ the Brass Rail w/TBD
SUN 8/28 DRIVE HOME

2011 Tour Itinerary with ZEBRAS

2011-08-01T16:14:00.001-05:00

This is our tour itinerary.

FRI 8/12: Chicago, IL @ Quenchers with ?? (we're hoping Fake Limbs can do it, but if not, WE NEED A LOCAL. Help?)
SAT 8/13: Bloomington, IN @ TBD
SUN 8/14: Nashville, TN @ Springwater Supper Club w/Gnarwhal and maybe Deluxin
MON 8/15: Knoxville, TN @ The Longbranch Saloon w/TBA
TUE 8/16: Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge w/Easter Island, NEVER
WED 8/17: Wilmington, NC @ Reggie’s 42nd Street Tavern. W/ BLACKS, White Tiger and the Bed of Roses
THUR 8/18: Durham, NC @ The Pinhook w/Maple Stave
FRI 8/19: Washington, DC @ Everlasting Life w/Cephalopods, Night & the City
SAT 8/20: Philadelphia, PA @ Danger Danger Gallery w/a bunch of bands
SUN 8/21: Brooklyn, NY @ Don Pedros w/We Ride, 1 more
MON 8/22: New Brunswick, NJ @ house show – Message us or Ruffian for details
TUE 8/23: Pittsburgh, PA @ Gooski’s Bar w/Dwarf Fortress, 1 more TBA
WED 8/24: Cincinnati, OH @ Southgate House w/Swear Jar, NEED ONE MORE
THUR 8/25: Detroit, MI @ Small’s, in Hamtramck w/Telecollision & Damn Near Killed ‘Em
FRI 8/26: Lansing, MI @ Mac’s w/Fun Ender & Dr. Device
SAT 8/27: Ft. Wayne, IN @ the Brass Rail w/TBD
SUN 8/28 DRIVE HOME

All dates are with ZEBRAS.

If a Chicago PRF band wants on the Quenchers show, please get in touch. It's Fake Limbs' if they want it, but they aren't confirmed yet.

THANK YOU

2011-07-12T01:23:00.003-05:00

To everyone who came to Saturday's Archers of Loaf show at the Bottom Lounge early enough to see us (which, amazingly, was most of the audience), THANK YOU.

To our friends who represented in the audience and heckled us to make us feel at home, THANK YOU.

To the Bottom Lounge, for treating us like rock stars and being a top-notch venue with amazing sound, THANK YOU.

To the Archers of Loaf, for being one of the greatest bands ever, for being four of the nicest, most humble, down-to-earth-dudes we've ever had the pleasure of joking around backstage with...THANK YOU.

For those unaware, i've started a personal blog called Martian Dance Invasion! where i talk more in-depth about our experience opening for Archers of Loaf. It's REALLY frakking long, but if you have a half hour, go nuts, as you can read it here.

LET'S GO LOAF!

(P.S. Thanks for the photo, K!)

Stream Two New HiFi Songs from the Nada Surf EP +3!

2011-06-20T15:52:00.002-05:00

"We Fiddle, You Burn" and "Arson, You Let Me Down" are now available for streaming at our Bandcamp site. Both songs are from the upcoming release Nada Surf EP +3; "We Fiddle" coming from the Nada Surf side, and "Arson" coming from the +3 side. The record will be available on vinyl, limited run CD and download on September 27 from Latest Flame Records. But if you come see us on tour in August, you'll be able to buy it directly from us! How about that one, folks!

New Show Added! July 9th with some band you may have heard of.

2011-06-06T17:13:00.002-05:00

In case you hadn't gotten word yet, we've been invited to open for Archers of Loaf's July 9 reunion show at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago. To say we're excited would be an understatement up there with "you know, that Jayne Mansfield had some nice breasts." We owe a debt of gratitude to the Archers' champion bassist Matt Gentling for asking that we be put on the bill! And if you're thinking, "fucking hell, HiFi's gonna ruin my Archers reunion experience with their sucky-ass suck-noise that sucks," you can yell at Matt at the show!

Memorial Day Road Trip and random other updates

2011-05-16T15:37:00.003-05:00

Hi! IfIHadAHiFi is hitting the road over Memorial Day weekend. Here's where we'll be:

THUR 5/26: Indianapolis, IN @ Indy’s Jukebox w/Step Dads, Pessoa and Full Rainbow
FRI 5/27: Kalamazoo, MI @ Louie’s Trophy House Grill w/Brown Cow, TBD
SAT 5/28: Bloomington, IN @ Sound Factory w/TBA

We'll be playing a bunch of tunes from our upcoming EP, Nada Surf +3. Come buy us drinks. Gas is expensive, ya know.

That EP, B.T.dubs, is mastered and mere days away from getting sent to the pressing plant to turn it into lovely 180-gram vinyl. I know, we can't wait either.

Booking also continues for the rest of the summer. Here's what it looks like right now:

JUNE:

SAT 6/4: Green Bay, WI @ Crunchy Frog's FROZEN CODEBASE JAM CITY ROLLERGIRLS & BURGERTIME RELEASE PARTY! w/Gothsicles, Resist Her Transistor
FRI 6/17: Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club w/Police Teeth, Waxeater & Absolutely
SAT 6/18: Madison, WI @ Project Lodge w/Police Teeth, Waxeater & Zebras
SAT 6/25: Louisville, KY @ Cahoots w/Police Teeth & Trophy Wives

AUGUST TWO-WEEK "HEY, WE HAVE NEW EPs TO SELL" EAST COAST TOUR (NOTE: all dates are with ZEBRAS):

FRI 8/12: Chicago, IL CONFIRMED @ Quenchers w/the Maybenauts (Ellie Maybe’s Birthday)
SAT 8/13: Louisville, KY
SUN 8/14: Somewhere in TN - HELP NEEDED
MON 8/15: Atlanta, GA - HELP NEEDED
TUE 8/16: Athens, GA
WED 8/17: Wilmington, NC CONFIRMED @ Reggie’s 42nd Street Tavern. W/ BLACKS, White Tiger and the Bed of Roses
THUR 8/18: Raleigh, NC
FRI 8/19: Washington, DC CONFIRMED @ Everlasting Life w/Cephalopods, Night & the City
SAT 8/20: Lancaster, PA
SUN 8/21: Brooklyn, NY
MON 8/22: New Brunswick, NJ
TUE 8/23: Pittsburgh, PA
WED 8/24: Cincinnati or Columbus, OH - HELP NEEDED
THUR 8/25: Detroit, MI CONFIRMED @ The Belmont, in Hamtramck w/TBD
FRI 8/26: Lansing, MI
SAT 8/27: Ft. Wayne, IN – CONFIRMED @ the Brass Rail w/TBD

We have solid leads working everywhere other than Tennessee, Atlanta, and Columbus/Cinci. We'd appreciate any help.

Finally, if you haven't listened to and/or ordered Police Teeth's incredible new album, Awesomer than the Devil, you're behind the curve! As a band that has a new record coming out in 2011, we are comfortable saying that ATTD is the album of 2011. Get it.

The HiFi's 2011 Tour Planz are SET! (and some include Zebras!)

2011-03-23T12:14:00.002-05:00

Folks!

Our touring plans for Summer 2011 are set. If you can help, get in touch. NOTE: the August dates will be with our friends Zebras, who happen to include our own MrAlarm and me, DrAwkward, in their ranks. DOUBLE DUTY.

MAY MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND MINI-TOUR OF EVILE:

THUR 5/26: Indianapolis, IN
FRI 5/27: Kalamazoo, MI
SAT 5/28: Bloomington, IN
SUN 5/29: Cincinnati, OH

IN JUNE WE KICK IT WITH POLICE TEETH:

FRI 6/17: Madison, WI (w/the Wax Eaters)
SAT 6/18: Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club (w/the Wax Eaters, most likely w/Absolutely)
FRI 6/24: hanging out at the the PRF BBQ while PT shreds
SAT 6/25: Louisville, KY w/Brophy Wives

AUGUST TWO-WEEK "HEY, WE HAVE NEW EPs TO SELL" EAST COAST TOUR (NOTE: all dates are with ZEBRAS):

FRI 8/12: Chicago, IL
SAT 8/13: Louisville, KY
SUN 8/14: Chattanooga/Knoxville, TN (or really, anywhere in eastern TN; whaddya got, PRF?)
MON 8/15: Atlanta, GA
TUE 8/16: Athens, GA
WED 8/17: Wilmington, NC
THUR 8/18: Raleigh, NC or Greenville, NC
FRI 8/19: Washington, DC or Baltimore, MD
SAT 8/20: Lancaster, PA
SUN 8/21: Brooklyn, NY
MON 8/22: OFF/DRIVE or Philly/New Brunswick, NJ
TUE 8/23: Pittsburgh, PA
WED 8/24: Columbus, OH
THUR 8/25: Cleveland, OH or Akron, OH OR Detroit, MI
FRI 8/26: Lansing, MI
SAT 8/27: Muncie, IN
SUN 8/28 DRIVE HOME

Imperial Walker Video Round-Up

2011-03-08T11:08:00.002-06:00

"Imperial Walker" keeps making delicious noise. We're nearing $500 in total donations (before Bandcamp and PayPal take their cuts), and we're trying to take over YouTube with sweet clips to keep the word out there:

First, Jack Packard (maker of many of our awesome videos) delivers this "making of" clip:

Second, our buddy Conan Neutron of Victory & Associates provides the following image montage music video:

And finally, our pals Matt & Jim of Caffeinated Recordings filmed us giving "Imperial Walker" its LIVE DEBUT last Friday at Quenchers in Chicago:

We would love it if more people assembled their own "Imperial Walker" clips based on the Wisconsin protests. If you do, let us know and we'll post 'em here!

"Imperial Walker" gets "reviewed" in the...National Review?

2011-03-03T21:47:00.004-06:00

So this was a heck of a mindfuck for us on Thursday morning--our google alerts let us know that "writer" Robert VerBruggen posted a snarky, sarcastic "review" of our protest anthem "Imperial Walker" on the National Review Online. The fuck?

In the realm of politicized rock ’n’ roll, IfIHadAHiFi has some big shoes to fill. Woodstock ended the Vietnam War. Live Aid eradicated hunger in Africa. Rage Against the Machine sprang Mumia from jail. And of course, Eminem, Bruce Springsteen, and whole swaths of the Billboard Top 40 got John Kerry elected president. So the bar for this Milwaukee-based noise-rock post-punk quintet — led by Mr. Alarm (who plays bass) and Dr. Awkward (whose moniker seems to refer to his efforts to drum and sing simultaneously) — has been set, and set high. Undaunted, they barge onto the scene in a high-volume blast of self-righteous fury with their new track, “Imperial Walker.”

We had to read it a few times to suss out exactly what was going on--it initially seemed that while the dude obviously wasn't fond of our politics, that maybe he liked the music? After all, he said things like "grating guitars, scratchy vocal processing, and a sludgy sound that may or may not be the low E string of a bass," things we normally take as compliments. But after a couple readings, we figured out that, no, he's being sarcastic, and he may actually mean those things as put-downs?

Also, apparently we're a five-piece now, which is news. Where is this fifth member of our "quintet?" He or she has been skipping a lot of band practices.

Whatever, we're in the goddamn National Review! The most widely-read online conservative talking point database! If we've gotten their attention, we must be doing something right, even if they think they're being condescendingly clever. So, awesome.

By the way, we're right around the $400 mark on proceeds raised from the download. Have you donated yet? The song has like 600 "likes" on Facebook but only 100-some downloads, so get on it, cheese!

Download "Imperial Walker" and donate $1 to Russ Feingold's Progressives United!

2011-02-27T22:26:00.003-06:00

So, the members of IfIHadAHiFi have been obsessed with following the current drama in Madison, as our beloved Wisconsin's governor has declared war on working class Americans and has attempted to strip public unions of essentially all their power. We have tons of friends and family that work in the public sector, and frankly, knowing what this bill could do to them and their livelihood makes us seethingly angry.

So we're doing something about it.

We spent this weekend recording a new song--a protest song titled "Imperial Walker." It's for sale now as a download on our Bandcamp site with a suggested minimum price of $1. Each dollar we receive from this track will be donated to Progressives United, the new Political Action Committee founded by former US Senator (and the closest thing I personally have ever had to a political hero) Russ Feingold.

Here's the text I posted on the Bandcamp page:

IfIHadAHiFi couldn't be prouder of our Wisconsin roots and our state's progressive heritage. The current assault on working Wisconsinites on the part of our current governor is an affront on that heritage, and an all-out class war on our beloved state's working class. The least we could do was show our support in the tried and true tradition of the old-fashioned working-class protest song.

100% of the proceeds from this download will go to Russ Feingold's new Progressives United PAC. Progressives United was formed to take on the ever-growing influence of corporate America in our political process, as further empowered by the Supreme Court's erroneous "Citizens United" decision. Nowhere in the country right now is that influence felt more dramatically than in Wisconsin, where the Koch Brothers currently work in tandem with Governor Scott Walker to bust public sector unions. Visit www.progressivesunited.org to learn more about Mr. Feingold's latest venture.

We couldn't have made this project happen without three fantastic people: Shane Hochstetler, who generously donated the use of Howl Street Recordings for no cost; and Nick Ehlert and Dan Siercks who donated their weekends, also at no cost, to engineer and assist, respectively. Amazing people in this town.

Spread this around on your Facesbooks and your Twitterses, won't you? Let's bum the governor out and make Russ some scratch and help him fight people like the Koch Brothers and other corporate interests sticking their noses into our political process.

http://ifihadahifi.bandcamp.com/album/imperial-walker

It won't be long now

2011-02-11T13:18:00.001-06:00

Listening to the masters of the Nada Surf EP and the "Arson, You Let me Down" 7-inch and they sound noisy and immense. Oh, man, am i psyched for people to hear these. Soon!

HiFi at Mad Planet Sat. February 19th!!

2011-02-09T18:58:00.003-06:00

New show! IfIHadAHiFi is playing Mad Planet the Saturday after next with the excellent Milwaukee band, CASTLE THUNDER.

IFIHADAHIFI
with
CASTLE THUNDER

MAD PLANET
533 East Center Street, Milwaukee

8 PM
21+

Yes, we still update this thing

2011-02-01T23:02:00.002-06:00

So, since, as the good Rev. explained yesterday, we finally got with the times and hopped onto Bandcamp and DELETED OUR MYSPACE (god, that felt good), a site overhaul was in order. And with that i suppose should come an update to let ya know what we've been up to.

Ya see how that banner up top says "New EP and seven inch coming Spring 2011?" Totally true, yo. The long-awaited (by us) Nada Surf EP is about to be mastered by our old mate Justin Perkins, along with four other songs that will constitute the "Arson, You Let me Down" seven inch, backed with "Somebody Take the Damn Money" and "Permanent Sleperhold." The fourth song will be a bonus download that you get ONLY by buying the damn record, which we plan to press as soon as we get those tracks back. As for Nada Surf (hi Google!), Latest Flame Records is targeting that for a May or June release. Knock on wood.

In other news, we just partnered with Yale's other band, Death Dream, and bought a new van that we'll be using to wander the Midwest and hopefully the East Coast this Spring and Summer. Keep your eyes peeled.

Aaaaaand did i just say that Yale has a new band? Well, not "new," really, since they've been together for about a year now, but yeah, dude's been killing it in Death Dream when he's not making noise with us. You owe it to yourself to check 'em out; fans of us and similarly noisy, dark post-punk will love 'em. He's not the only one playing double-duty either; MrAlarm and i have joined Madison band Zebras as noisemaker and drummer, respectively, and Rev.Ever has been scoring films with his experimental noise combo The Fucking Teeth. He's even got a new band emerging from an undisclosed location in Milwaukee any time now! So...yeah. We keep busy.

That's all i got. Buy our shit.

HIFI BANDCAMP IS LIVE!

2011-01-31T15:23:00.002-06:00

Dear everyone: IfIHadAHiFi has finally entered the late 2000s by joining Bandcamp! Stream any of our three full-length CDs for free, and download them at various costs. Fame By Proxy is $10, No More Music is $5, and our long-gone debut, Ones and Zeroes, is FREE! Please note the little "like" button under each release as well, plzkthx.

Sincerely, The HiFi

New video! "Black Holes Resonate (in B-Flat), Baby"

2010-03-25T23:41:00.004-05:00

Check it out, y'alls--video number SIX from our album Fame By Proxy (which you can still purchase from the fine folks at Latest Flame Records, by the by)!

Soak it in:

"Black Holes Resonate (in B-Flat), Baby"
Guest Starring:
Titania Lyn as the Hot Alien in Distress
Jack Packard as the Fearsome Space Squid
Liz Koetting as the dead girlfriend
Director: Jack Packard
Head Puppeteer: Lisa Packard
Dead Rocketeer: "Hey" Jay Bauman

Meanwhile, work continues on the Nada Surf EP. We've been tracking off and on for a while now at the Church of Murray with one Thom Geibel, but it's been on a "whenever we have time to do it around day jobs and regular band practice" schedule, which means it's been going slower than it should. Once we get past out 10th Anniversary show in April, we'll settle down and get to work again. We really want this sucker out by Fall at least.

Speaking of which: 10th Anniversary! It looms! It's happening at the Cactus Club here in Milwaukee on Friday, April 9, and also features our pals Bear Claw, Waxeater, and White Problems! We will be debuting 6 entirely new, previously never-played songs, many which will be on the Nada Surf EP!

I'm just gonna say that one more time: Nada Surf EP. By IfIHadAHiFi. How's it hangin', Google?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: IfIHadAHiFi to Return favor, Name EP After Nada Surf

2010-01-11T23:42:00.001-06:00

For Immediate Release
Jan. 12, 2010

Milwaukee Noise-Rock Band Returns Favor, Names New EP After Nada Surf

MILWAUKEE, WI – Wisconsin noise-rock ensemble IfIHadAHiFi, flattered by the recent decision by New York alternative band Nada Surf to reference them in the name of their upcoming covers album If I Had A Hi-Fi, have announced that they are working on an upcoming EP of new original material that they will title Nada Surf in return, continuing a proud tradition of mutual collaboration started by groups like U2, Negativland, REM and Green.

“When we found out that Nada Surf were naming their new record after us, we were really flattered and honored,” says HiFi drummer DrAwkward. “We honestly didn’t realize they were such big fans.”

“We were disappointed when they declined to name their 2003 release, Let Go, after us,” added bassist MrAlarm. “A friend had forwarded us an email from their mailing list that explained that they had decided against it because there was ‘a band from the Midwest who had the same idea for their name.’ Apparently over the years they became big fans of ours and decided to do it anyway. And hey, good for them! If there’s an established brand that screams ‘unit movers,’ it’s IfIHadAHiFi.”

In return, IfIHadAHiFi have announced that their new EP, which the band began tracking in December with local musician/engineer Thom Geibel (White Wrench Conservatory, Quinn Scharber and the…), will be titled Nada Surf. “I mean, it’s the least we can do to show our appreciation for the free exposure,” says guitarist Yale Delay. “The music scene’s all about community, you know? If Nada Surf is willing to plug us to their fans, the least we can do is let our fans know that there’s this great band out there called Nada Surf that they should check out.”

However, while the Nada Surf album seems to be built conceptually around the Milwaukee noise-rock group, keyboardist/guitarist/bassist Rev. Ever explains that the favor can’t be returned to quite that extent. “Judging from their tracklist, it looks like a smorgasbord of our influences. I mean, Kate Bush? The Moody Blues? Hell, Depeche Mode are the reason I picked up a guitar. Which I know is weird, since they’re mostly a keyboard band, but whatever. Unfortunately, it’s too late for us to change our tracklist, so none of our songs have anything to do with Nada Surf at all. Sorry guys!”

IfIHadAHiFi are shooting for a summer/fall 2010 release for the Nada Surf EP, to be released on vinyl and flash drive formats on Latest Flame Records, the home of their 2008 release Fame By Proxy (still lots of copies left! For the love of God, please buy one. Our label dude’s been questioning his judgment).

ABOUT IFIHADAHIFI

Self-described “bitter, pissy assholes who play loud, unlistenable cacophony with a dance beat,” IfIHadAHiFi formed in Wisconsin’s Fox Valley in 2000, relocating to Milwaukee in 2002 in order to “make it in the big city.” In a review for their 2001 release Ones and Zeroes, Pitchfork stated “they could stand to be an important band. Or at least a lot of fun.” (The author of the review has not been spotted on the website since.) One of Alternative Press’ “100 bands you need to hear in 2005,” The HiFi have shared the stage with such notables as Melt-Banana, Rocket From the Tombs, NoMeansNo, Poster Children, and most recently opened the Milwaukee show on the Jesus Lizard’s 2009 reunion tour. Women want to know them, and men want to know their secrets.

IfIHadAHiFi Thanks Nada Surf

2010-01-07T13:08:00.001-06:00

IfIHadAHiFi would like to thank Nada Surf for naming their new covers album after us. Thanks guys!

11.24.09 was the best night ever.

2009-11-28T12:00:00.002-06:00

This Thanksgiving, IfIHadAHiFi were thankful for everyone who made Tuesday night's Turner Hall show with The Jesus Lizard one of the best nights of our musical "career" (such as it has been). To Marc at Turner, to TJL's management, to our friends from Bloomington, IN, who made the drive up, and to everyone who came out to support us and cheer us on...THANK YOU. Shit was crazy.

IfIHadAHiFi are now taking a break from playing shows to get an entirely new set written. We'll also be recording a to-be-named new EP beginning on Dec. 5 with our buddy Thom Geibel of White Wrench Conservatory and Innocent Civilians fame. So rest assured, if you're not seeing our name out there playing shows for a while, that we're still damn busy. I'll update here when i can remember to.

Until then, cross your fingers, knock on wood, and wish Latest Flame Records luck as they try to secure a showcase at South By Southwest for all of us on the LFR roster! Not holding our breath, but you never know...

Nov. 24th: THE JESUS LIZARD!!

2009-11-14T12:00:00.004-06:00

People, i don't feel shy about pointing out that we're on a bit of a tear. First off, thanks to everyone who came out and saw us play two shows with our friends Poster Children last month; we had a blast at both Cactus Club and Bottom Lounge. We also were very excited to get our hands on this amazing little nugget from Mr. Jay Ryan:

Dude still has some on sale at his website, The Bird Machine, so pick one up!

Anyway, that's not why i'm posting today. Peeps need to be made aware that our next BIG show is on Tuesday, Nov. 24, at historic Turner Hall in Milwaukee. Oh, and some "famous" band is closing the show, i guess. They're called...The Jesus Lizard?

These guys are gonna be on tour, so it'd be cool if you showed up to make sure they have gas money to make it all the way to Chicago that weekend. Tickets are still on sale at the Turner Hall website. Grab 'em now!

Meanwhile, we've hit a hot streak of songwriting, and we're going to FINALLY start recording our planned 5-song vinyl-and-flash-drive-formats-only EP with Mr. Thom Geibel, formerly of our friends White Wrench Conservatory and currently the main dude behind Innocent Civilians. We're gonna get that started in December and hopefully get that business released by Latest Flame Records sometime in the next year. Knock on wood!

Oct. 16 and 30: POSTER CHILDREN!

2009-09-27T20:23:00.002-05:00

This month, people! Champaign, IL's indie-rock legends POSTER CHILDREN (est. 1987) are joining us on stage for a pair of epic rock shows.

FRIDAY, OCT. 16
CACTUS CLUB, Milwaukee, WI
10PM, $8

FRIDAY, OCT. 30
BOTTOM LOUNGE, Chicago, IL
8 PM, $12 Adv, $14 day of show
Buy tickets here!

Also of note: The Oct. 16 show will also feature our dear friends white, wrench, conservatory., who will be playing their second last Milwaukee show EVER on this night (yeah, they're breaking up, and breaking our hearts). And the Oct. 30 show will also feature our Madison pals Droids Attack, who aren't breaking up any time soon. Seriously, these triple bills are absurd with awesome.

Meanwhile, work still progresses on our next EP, which we hope to start recording with Thom Geibel of the aforementioned WWC this month. We'll be recording "X-13D" and "All Hail Magnets," which we've been playing live, as well as new songs called "Spy in the House of Fuck," "Minotaur Documentation," and "Someone Take the Damn Money," as well as a couple others. We'll let you know how it goes. We're hoping this sees the light of day on Latest Flame Records sometime next year.

Until next time...OCTOBER 16! OCTOBER 30! BE THERE!

The Tour Blog Concludes!

2009-09-16T22:53:00.002-05:00

(batshit awesome kids at the Haunted Basement in Des Moines)

The tour blog is complete! Check out Part 5 and Part 6 over at Third Coast Digest.

Oh hai, we're home!

2009-09-07T14:05:00.003-05:00

The above photo was taken at our San Francisco show by the talented Shannon Corr, who is very good at what he does. You can find his other photos from the show here.

So hey. We're home! After thousands of miles and a few hundred spent on new tires, we're back from a pretty excellent two weeks. Great shows and good times. We have a long, long list of people to thank, so i'll try to list them now, and apologies to anyone i forget:

Self-Evident and Sauce for the show in Minneapolis, and Mike from Mise en Place for the crash space; Michael Wo for the guitar amp; The fine folks of the Wisco in Madison; Matt and Project Noise in Bismarck; Mike and the Badlander in Missoula (and a hello to When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth), and Wil for the crash space, bass guitar and case; Police Teeth, The Bismarck, The Funhouse, Jordn, and Al in Seattle; Nate Carson, Seth and Spider Test, Rapids, and The Know in Portland; The Hemlock, Mount Vicious, Pegataur, Lisa Hix (for the tire hookup and crash space!), Conan Neutron, Chris Bolig, and all our Wisconsin pals in San Francisco; Josh and SpokeShaver and the Curtis St. Tavern in Denver; PolarOPPOSITEbear and Kirby's in Wichita; The fine folks at Bottomfeeder Bay in Warrensburg; Lemp Arts Center, Carlin, and the Conformists in St. Louis; and Beati Paoli and the kids of the Haunted Basement in Des Moines. Shit, that's a lot of people.

I still have some tour blog left to write, but in the meantime, here are part 3 and part 4, which take you through San Francisco. We'll see you in October for the two shows we're playing with (OMG) POSTER CHILDREN!

Salutations from the road!

2009-08-27T12:07:00.003-05:00

In Seattle with designs on destroying The Funhouse tonight. We got a sweet color photo and writeup in the print edition of Seattle's weekly, The Stranger.

The first two editions of our tour blog are also up at Third Coast Digest:

Part 1

Part 2

See you soon!

And away...we...GO.

2009-08-20T12:16:00.002-05:00

The van's been checked out, the songs are practiced up, and the directions will be printed out this afternoon. We're ready to roll.

Once again, here's our route:

8.21.09 Madison, WI: Willy St. Pub (The Wisco) w/Self-Evident, The Suit
8.22.09 Minneapolis, MN: Sauce w/Self-Evident, Speed's the Name
8.23.09 Bismarck, ND: Project Noise
8.24.09 DRIVE DAY
8.25.09 Missoula, MT: The Badlander w/Arrested Adolescence
8.26.09 Bellingham, WA: The Old Foundry
8.27.09 Seattle, WA: The Funhouse w/Police Teeth, The Bismarck
8.28.09 Portland, OR: The Know w/Rapids
8.29.09 San Francisco, CA: Hemlock Tavern w/Mount Vicious (CD RELEASE), Pegataur
8.30.09 San Francisco, CA: Second SF show TBD
9.01.09 Denver, CO: Curtis Street Tavern
9.02.09 Wichita, KS: Kirby’s Beer Store
9.03.09 Warrensburg, MO: Bottomfeeder Bay w/Them Damned Young Livers
9.04.09 St. Louis, MO: Lemp Arts Center w/The Conformists
9.05.09 Des Moines, IA: The Haunted Basement w/Beati Paoli, Wolves in the Attic

I'll be doing a tour blog over at my "Cultural Zero" blog at Third Coast Digest. You'll also be able to find tour updates by following our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/ifihadahifi. I'm sure i'll be laying down some sweet tweets on my personal Twitter account as well.

Wish us luck! Shit starts tomorrow night--Friday, August 21--at The Wisco in Madison, with The Suit and Self-Evident. Away we go...

LET'S DO THIS.

2009-08-10T19:14:00.002-05:00

Holy shit, we leave in just a little under TWO WEEKS. Starting on August 21, here's where we'll be for 16 days:

8.21.09 Madison, WI: Willy St. Pub (The Wisco) w/Self-Evident, The Suit
8.22.09 Minneapolis, MN: Sauce w/Self-Evident, Speed's the Name
8.23.09 Bismarck, ND: Project Noise
8.24.09 DRIVE DAY
8.25.09 Missoula, MT: The Badlander w/Arrested Adolescence
8.26.09 Bellingham, WA: The Old Foundry
8.27.09 Seattle, WA: The Funhouse w/Police Teeth, The Bismarck
8.28.09 Portland, OR: The Know w/Rapids
8.29.09 San Francisco, CA: Hemlock Tavern w/Mount Vicious (CD RELEASE), Pegataur
8.30.09 San Francisco, CA: Second SF show TBD
9.01.09 Denver, CO: Curtis Street Tavern
9.02.09 Wichita, KS: Kirby’s Beer Store
9.03.09 Warrensburg, MO: Bottomfeeder Bay w/Them Damned Young Livers
9.04.09 St. Louis, MO: Lemp Arts Center w/The Conformists
9.05.09 Des Moines, IA: The Haunted Basement w/Beati Paoli, Wolves in the Attic

That's not a bad itinerary, if i do say so myself.

HEY! PRESS PEOPLE! You can contact us at hifi@ifihadahifi.net if you want to have a chat with us before we hit your town. Let's rap, cheese.

Tour update AND Mount Vicious is coming!

2009-07-19T19:43:00.005-05:00

Guys,

We've just about got this shit put to bed. Here's where West Coast Tour business stands right now:

8.21.09 Madison, WI: Willy St. Pub (The Wisco) CONFIRMED
8.22.09 Minneapolis, MN: Sauce CONFIRMED
8.23.09 TBD Bismarck or Minot, ND--Please help!
8.24.09 DRIVE DAY
8.25.09 Missoula, MT: The Badlander CONFIRMED
8.26.09 Bellingham, WA: The Old Foundry CONFIRMED
8.27.09 Seattle, WA: The Funhouse CONFIRMED
8.28.09 Portland, OR: The Know CONFIRMED
8.29.09 San Francisco, CA: Hemlock Tavern CONFIRMED
8.30.09 San Francisco, CA: Second SF show TBD
9.01.09 TBD Denver, CO
9.02.09 Wichita, KS: Kirby’s Beer Store CONFIRMED
9.03.09 Warrensburg, MO: Bottomfeeder Bay CONFIRMED
9.04.09 TBD St. Louis, MO
9.05.09 Des Moines, IA: The Haunted Basement CONFIRMED

The four shows in bold are still being worked, but all of them are being worked by peeps we love, so we're pretty sure these will fall into place shortly.

In the meantime, getcher asses out to Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and Dubuque this weekend! We're doing four nights with our good pals in Mount Vicious, who are going to peel the skin off your face and fuck the mouth hole. Dates below:

7.23.09 Chicago, IL: Quenchers w/Mount Vicious and Builder/Destroyer
7.24.09 Milwaukee, WI: Cactus Club w/Mount Vicious, Year of the Scavenger, and elusive Parallelograms
7.25.09 Madison, WI: The Frequency w/Mount Vicious, United Sons of Toil and Zebras
7.26.09 Dubuque, IA: The Busted Lift w/Mount Vicious

Here's a taste of the Mount Vicious goodness: a video of them performing "Steroid Unicorn" at Gilman in SF:

You want this.

Summerfest Approacheth

2009-06-23T21:39:00.002-05:00

Hey folks--

Movement continues on the August/Sept. West Coast jaunt. Most cities that aren't confirmed have people working them pretty solidly, so we're confident shit will fall into place sometime in July. If it doesn't we'll panic then! Here's how things stand right now:

8.21.09 Madison, WI: Willy St. Pub (The Wisco) CONFIRMED
8.22.09 Minneapolis, MN: Sauce CONFIRMED
8.23.09 TBD Bismarck or Minot, ND--Please help!
8.24.09 TBD Billings, MT or DRIVE DAY--Please help!
8.25.09 Missoula, MT: The Palace CONFIRMED
8.26.09 TBD Bellingham or elsewhere in WA
8.27.09 Seattle, WA: The Funhouse CONFIRMED
8.28.09 TBD Portland, OR
8.29.09 San Francisco, CA: Hemlock Tavern CONFIRMED
9.01.09 TBD Denver, CO
9.02.09 Wichita, KS: Kirby’s Beer Store CONFIRMED
9.03.09 TBD Lawrence/Kansas City, MO--Please help!
9.04.09 TBD St. Louis, MO
9.05.09 TBD Iowa City, IA

Meanwhile, Milwaukee, you get us at SUMMERFEST next Monday, June 29, on the Cascio Groove Garage Stage at 7:30 PM. Here's your entire lineup for that day:

2:30pm Macyn Taylor
3:30pm Carrie Melton
4:30pm Longacre
5:30pm The Vega Star
6:30pm Time Since Western
7:30pm IfIHadAHiFi
8:30pm Testa Rosa
9:30pm The Wildbirds

And watch out for our shows in July with our pals from Oakland, CA--MOUNT VICIOUS! The new band from Conan and Chris from Replicator will tear your face off and then fuck it. July 23 at Quenchers in Chicago, July 24 at Cactus Club in Milwaukee, July 25 at the Frequency in Madison, July 26 at the Busted Lift in Dubuque, IA. POWER IT UP!

This Weekend in Sturgeon Bay!

2009-06-09T19:49:00.003-05:00

It's that time again! The Steel Bridge Songfest is once again invading Sturgeon Bay, WI this weekend! The important day for any Northeast Wisconsin HiFi fans is Saturday the 13th when we take the stage at the Red Room, 66 S 3rd Ave, with our good pals white, wrench, conservatory., Quinn Scharber and the ABC Reboot of V, The Maybenauts, and Year of the Scavenger! Nothing but foolishness and angry livers all weekend.

What goes on at Steel Bridge stays at Steel Bridge. Just don't get Steel Bridged. Right Quinn?

This Saturday! PRF BBQ!

2009-06-02T22:11:00.005-05:00

So three of us waste time during the day on a nerdy message board called the Electical Audio Forums, better knows as the PRF (The PREMIER ROCK FORUM). Someone got a wild hair up their ass and suggested we all get together in Chicago for a BBQ, some live band karaoke, and performances from all our bands. Obviously we had to be there.

So. THIS FRIDAY, SATURDAY, and SUNDAY:

The PRF BBQ/ROCK FEST

UNION ROCK YARDS: CHICAGO, IL
2734 W. NORTH AVENUE
Chicago, IL

Here's the schedule:

Friday:

9:30pm to 10:00pm - Let's Get Out Of This Terrible Sandwich Shop
10:00pm to 10:20pm - 20 Minute switch-over
10:20pm to 10:50pm - The Suit
10:50pm to 11:10pm - 20 Minute switch-over
11:10pm to 11:40pm - Bear Claw
11:40pm to Midnight - 20 Minute switch-over
Midnight - Karaoke

Saturday:

Noon-2pm: Talky Talk

2:00pm to 2:30pm - Leopold & Loeb
2:30pm to 2:50pm - 20 Minute switch-over
2:50pm to 3:20pm - Begin By Gathering Supplies
3:20pm to 3:40pm - 20 Minute switch-over
3:40pm to 4:10pm - That Damned Fly
4:10pm to 4:30pm - 20 Minute switch-over
4:30pm to 5:00pm - Blood Sucking Fiends

5pm-7pm: Food!!!

7:00pm to 7:30pm - The Chrome Robes
7:30pm to 7:50pm - 20 Minute switch-over
7:50pm to 8:20pm - The Conformists

8:30pm-11pm: Movie? Comedy?

11:00pm to 11:30pm - Push Pull
11:30pm to 11:50pm - 20 Minute switch-over
11:50pm to 12:20pm - Trophy Wives
12:20pm to 12:40pm - 20 Minute switch-over
12:40pm - .22

Sunday:

Noon-2pm: Talky Talk

2:00pm to 2:30pm - The Columbines
2:30pm to 2:50pm - 20 Minute switch-over
2:50pm to 3:20pm - My Canadian Girlfriend
3:20pm to 3:40pm - 20 Minute switch-over
3:40pm to 4:10pm - IfIHadAHiFi
4:10pm to 4:30pm - 20 Minute switch-over
4:30pm to 5:00pm - Ling Ling

5pm-7pm: Food!!!

7:00pm to 7:30pm - Century Rocket Building
7:30pm to 7:50pm - 20 Minute switch-over
7:50pm to 8:20pm - Mayor For Life
8:20pm to 8:40pm - 20 Minute switch-over
8:40pm to 9:10pm - (-o-)
9:10pm to 9:30pm - 20 Minute switch-over
9:30pm - The Bitter Tears

There's a separate donation requested per night, or you can attend all weekend with a suggested donation of $15. That's a deal, people. We're bringing down sausage and some Mars Cheese Castle eats for the attendees. You know you want this.

Video: IfIHadAHiFi @ Frank's Power Plant 5/21/2009

2009-05-27T19:53:00.003-05:00

Our old pal Jack Packard took his hand out of our pants long enough to shoot some video at last Thursday's Frank's Power Plant shindig. Look and listen?:

"Black Holes Resonate (In B-Flat), Baby"

Half of "All Hail Magnets"... A new one.

Thanks, Jack!

In other HiFi news... We've been readying new songs for a forthcoming EP that's going to be recorded by Thom Geibel in the coming weeks. The songs are coming out even more spastic and weird than usual HiFi faire. We'll be playing the new ones out here and there all summer long.

Also coming up! THE PRF BBQ SPECTACULAR @ Union Rock Yards! And Steel Bridge Song Fest in Sturgeon Bay! Check the MySpace shows page for more info.

May 21st, 2009!

2009-05-16T10:53:00.000-05:00

IfIHadAHiFi
The New Loud
We Are Hex

Frank's Power Plant
Thursday, May 21st
9:00 PM
21+

If you like things that rule come see our friends We Are Hex from Indianapolis! Get your Memorial Day weekend started early!

IfIHadAHiFi West Coast Tour in August!

2009-05-07T16:34:00.001-05:00

Hey fools,

We're planning our huge annual two-week trek, and we're finally heading out to visit our pals out west! If you can help with any of the shows in bold, please let us know! The ones not in bold are being worked and we feel pretty good about 'em, but we'll likely need help in the emboldened areas. And right now there are a few. Hook us up!

F 8/21 Madison, WI
S 8/22 Minneapolis, MN
Su 8/23 Minot/Bismarck, ND
M 8/24 DRIVE DAY or Billings, MT
Tu 8/25 Missoula. MT
W 8/26 Seattle, WA
Th 8/27 Bellingham, WA
F 8/28 Portland, OR
S 8/29 Oakland, CA
Su 8/30 San Francisco, CA or Day Off in Bay Area
M 8/31 DRIVE DAY
Tu 9/1 Denver, CO
W 9/2 Lawrence/Wichita, KS
Th 9/3 Kansas City, MO
F 9/4 St. Louis, MO
S 9/5 Somewhere in IA

IfIHadAHiFi on Fan-Belt

2009-04-22T17:08:00.004-05:00

Check out our new video for "Defenestrate Me" and an interview with Dr.Awkward at Fan-Belt!

In other HiFi news... We're playing the Mondo Lucha after party at the Monkey Bar in Milwaukee on Saturday! Hope you're ready for ONE HOUR (or so) of HiFi punishment! That's 2X the HiFi. Plus there's live band karaoke! Even an opportunity to have US as your live karaoke backing band!! Get excited!

The Amazing Jack Packard!

2009-04-13T21:27:00.002-05:00

Our good friend Jack Packard of Almost Twins and King's Horses just laid down a spectacular trilogy of IfIHadAHiFi video goodness this evening. Behold! The new video from our latest album, Fame By Proxy:

"DEFENESTRATE ME" Directed by Jack Packard.

Bonus! 2 songs from our performance last Saturday night at Club Garibaldi:

"Paradise by the Paulding Light":

And from our forthcoming EP- "X-13D":

Jack Packard is a force of nature. Fear him.

Pardon Our Dust!

2009-04-10T16:53:00.006-05:00

HiFi central is being re-mixxed. Getting our paper straight. ..::Rev.Ever

VIDEO: IfIHadAHiFi's Friday Night Performance at Union Rock Yards

2009-03-30T20:08:00.002-05:00

Thanks to our pals at Union Rock Yards in Chicago for posting these stellar clips of us rocking "Paradise by the Paulding Light" and Mission of Burma's "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" from last Friday's show!

PARADISE:

CERTAIN FATE:

Note in the last video the lack of pants on Dr.Awk and Mr.Alarm. Sexxxay!

Shit we been doin', and other crap that's notable

2009-03-08T19:28:00.003-05:00

Hey y'all,

So recently it came to our attention that our reflector email address, hifi@ifihadahifi.net, wasn't working. We figured out finally that when we switched our hosting from the old No Karma server to our new one, we forgot to re-set the reflector. Whoops! Anyway, it's fixed now. Once again, you can rach all four band members by dropping a line to hifi@ifihadahifi.net.

So, other stuff's afoot. We're finally getting close to having a crop of new songs together that we're going to try to record this summer for a quickie EP on Latest Flame. We figured that since Dan at LFR posted on his site that we were going to produce an EP this summer that hey, maybe we should take that as a deadline and get cracking! So that's the plan. IF YOU ARE LUCKY, look for new recordings later this year in the form of a new HiFi EP. We'll see.

Many Milwaukee shows and a few Madison and Chicago ones through March, April, and May...keep checking as we're gonna try to throw some Minneapolis and other Midwestern locales in there this summer. And of course, we have to figure out when we're gonna tour the West Coast, but that's still on deck.

In the meantime, sheesh, aren't these last few Battlestar Galactica episodes mind-blowing?

In Which IfIHadAHiFi and Year of the Scavenger Tear Shit Up in an Unfuckwithable Manner

2009-02-10T01:05:00.002-06:00

Friday, Feb. 6: IfIHadAHiFi/Year of the Scavenger/Begin By Gathering Supplies at Quenchers

Some quick bullet points about Friday's show in Chicago:
-Quenchers is probably now our favorite venue in Chicago. Beat Kitchen has always treated us well, and the fact that we haven't played Union Rock Yards since the Touch & Go 25 afterparty necessitates the "probably," but it's hard to go wrong with a venue with a pretty decent sound system, what looks to be 100+ kinds of beers available, an automatic crowd, and a $5 "recommended donation" combined with a payout from the bar.
-Shit, that wasn't a very quick bullet point.
-After 8 years of playing shows in Chicago, we FINALLY have something resembling a draw in Chicago.

We arrived at the venue at nearly the same time as Year of the Scavenger, our road buddies for the weekend and the current project of our hetero rocker lifemates Cody and Chuck. Nearly as soon as we walked in we were greeted by a ton of Chicago pals, and by the end of the night, it was hard to keep track of everyone: loads of EA Forum folks; Dan from Latest Flame and Matt from the Gunshy; our pal AJ; our other pal K; now ex-Lustie Michael and Joie Superstarcastic, with a posse of about four others; the illustrious Ellie Maybe. How do you establish a draw in a foreign city? Make friends over a period of 8 years.

Begin By Gathering Supplies started the night off with a killer set of what i'd best describe as 80s-influenced noise-pop played with a guitar, a live sequencer/synth, and a new drummer. At times the live drumming clashed with the sequenced drums, but when it did, it was minimal and didn't last long before things got solid again. Best part of the set was actually when the sequenced drums dropped out, giving the new drummer the ability to just bash with no regard for syncing with the machine. But whenever he did bash, he wouldn't get out of time and the sequenced drums would come back in right on time. Solid debut for the new guy.

It's stupid to a degree to say i waited for YotS to set up like an expectant parent or something like that, since we've been playing with Chuck and Cody's bands for years, but this was their latest ensemble's first trip out of town and we were the ones that got them the show, so i stood there confident that they'd bring it but hoping that all my pals in the audience would dig it. Within one and a half songs Michael ex-Lustie walked past me and said "I already fucking love 'em." Consider it brought! They sounded great on the Quenchers stage and had the crowd won over pretty much immediately--not too much of a surprise in retrospect since their brand of 90s Dischord-via-70s arena rock is really tailor made for an audience weaned on Albini/Yow badassery.

Notable events during the YotS set: 1) Woman asks for the microphone and says some disparaging remark about whoever left a tampon in the ladies' toilet, or something; 2) either that woman or a second, slightly weirder one (i forget which) leaned over to me and said "i think one of these guys should get naked. I think it should be the drummer." 3) Second girl later leans over to me and asks, "can i cut off one of your curls?" She then motions that she wants to put said curl in *her* hair, like some sort of weird Native American trophy. I diplomatically explain "um, i think my girlfriend has final say over all my curls," and then politely say "i'll think about it," successfully avoiding her for the rest of the night. At our last Quenchers show, i signed a boob; at this one, a girl was asking me for a lock of my hair. What the hell is the deal with this venue?

Our set was a barnburner by every possible measurement. I started off working the cheap heel heat by saying "this is weird; i normally get up here and start ragging on your sports teams, but there's no football or baseball right now, so who cares?" K immediately yelled "It's hockey season, motherfucker!" and a couple others people (i.e. a very loaded Scott from the Chrome Robes) immediately started yelling at us to "Go back to North Dakota!" and "Go Canadiens!" and such ridiculousness. So good! Yale responded with cracks about the parking and toll booths that got some cheap boos as well--all good-natured kayfabe storyline booing, of course.

Yes, i'll be using wrestling slang all throughout this entry, thanks.

We tore through eight songs and had the ladies dancing and singing along up front while Yale gave the soundguy fits. He first asked "please don't do that" while Yale ran his guitar neck up and down the ceiling ductwork, then got *really* pissy when Yale ran out the door behind the stage onto the sidewalk. (It was later explained to the Wizard that they've had issues with their licensing due to the noise.) While the soundguy was having an aneurysm, the audience was cracking the hell up (so i'm told, as i was not wearing my glasses in order to achieve maximum ruckus).

Final door take: $170 from donations and an extra $100 from the bar--$90 per band. The extra from the bar is what makes Quenchers a classy fucking joint.

After the show we bid adieu to YotS as they spent the night at AJ's (well, Brian and Chuck did--Cody had friends at the show and drunkenly tried to get the rest of the band to hit a bar with his friends, leading to a hilarious standoff where Brian and Chuck got into the van and said, "Cody, we're leaving," to which Cody said, "no, we're going to the bar! Fuck it, i'll take a cab to AJ's! Go then!" As Chuck and Brian drove away, Cody suddenly exclaimed, "they really left! Fuck, i don't know where AJ lives!" Or something like that. I assured him that since we were all planning to meet up at Kuma's at 11:30 the next morning, he could just meet us all there), and headed to our friend Randall's pad for after-bar beers and VH1 Classic. Highlights apparently included Yale punching Mat from Builder/Destroyer in the nuts, a two-hour quest to achieve a pizza order, and a hilarious running joke where we would loudly plan to grab the car belonging to one of our drunk female friends (who was alone in the next room trying to pass out), causing her to continually yell "NOOOO!" and fling open the door to yell about how we weren't taking her car, falling out of her dress all the while. Amazing. Eventually pizza was achieved and we attempted to get some sleep on the floor at around 6:30. Random drunk conversations kept me up until around 7 or 7:30, and i had a very interrupted 2 or 2 1/2 hours of sleep before i had to rouse the gang to rally for Kuma's at their opening time of 11:30 AM.

YotS got to Kuma's just before us and were the third party in line our of at least eight parties when we got their and stood with them as part of their group. We were seated and Rev.Ever and i immediately ordered a pair of deliciously spicy bloody marys in order to get the nutrients flowing again.

The following will be the only photo of this entry:

This is the AXEHANDLE, February's special at Kuma's. According to Google, Axehandle are an Alabama Thunderpussy side project with two drummers, so the name now sort of makes sense, as the photo you just saw consists of the following: a bed of waffle fries, a 10 oz. Kuma's burger, an egg, sausage gravy, and two biscuits. And it was AMAZING. The Wizard wins the award for polishing his Axehandle off and completely cleaning the plate, fries, gravy, and all; i didn't have his stamina (nor did i have Yale's, who took down his entire Mastodon [BBQ Sauce, Cheddar, Bacon, Frizzled Onions]). Brian from YotS sung the praises of his High On Fire [Siracha Hot Chili Sauce, Prosciutto, Roasted Red Pepper, Grilled Pineapple, Sweet Chili Paste] all the way to Bloomington, Indiana...where we were headed next!

Saturday, Feb. 7: Waxeater/IfIHadAHiFi/Beati Paoli/Found Objects/Year of the Scavenger at a Bloomington Basement

We arrived in Bloomington with enough time to chill out at the pad of our pal Rob (of Waxeater and Tremendous Fucking fame), which gave us time to get to know the Beati Paoli guys and hang with Rob and TremFu drummer Ed. But before long it was time to head to a liquor store and then the venue, a ridiculously large basement set up better than any basement currently operating in Milwaukee, i promise you that.

This basement was big enough to have a back room for gear storage, a makeshift bar where cans of Pabst (and later Beast and Bud Light Ice or whatever bullshit Rob and i bought for the house when they ran out) were provided, and still provide standing room for at least 100 kids while another 150 or so milled about the rest of the house. Kids flowed in and out of the basement like they were the house's circulatory system, always pumping, pumping.

YotS opened this show (which was jam packed full by the time they started at about 10:45) and once again slammed. Brian eventually attracted a group of young ladies he dubbed his "biddies" while Rob and i checked out one particular brunette in a white dress, then looked at each other and shook our heads. "Man, i'm ten years younger than you, and *i* feel dirty," Rob remarked. True that. Underage drinking, capacity issues, and statutory rape fantasies--how more rock 'n' roll could a party get? (OK, not really statutory rape--she was probably 19 or 20, and hell, it's Indiana. What's their age of consent, 12?)

Once again, our set was complete chaos in the best way. When we set up someone (i think maybe Rob) started yelling at us to play our Mclusky cover (which we played twice live in 2007 and haven't touched since). Brian immediately picked up on it and yelled "yeah! 'To Hell With Good Intentions!'", not realizing that that's our Mclusky cover. We started sort of playing it as a joke, and by the third verse we were slamming through it with abandon, which was just silly and led into another totally blazing set, complete with party numbers to get the kids dancing (including our Go-Gos and Burma covers, as well as classic HiFi No More Music-era jams like "Potential Energy," "Chance-Medly" and "Doubting Thomas Telescope." Kids danced and slammed into us and our pals playfully fucked with Yale up front. So awesome.

After our set Waxeater tore shit UP with some crazy Jesus Lizard-inspired noise rock that had the mosh pit flowing with a madness. I watched about half the set and then made my way back to our merch, where i saw some dumbass kid trying to steal a Found Objects t-shirt. As he stuffed it down his pants i walked right up to him and asked, "are you gonna pay for that?" He gave me this nervous "busted" grin, pulled the shirt out and threw it back onto their merch pile. Two kids standing near me looked at me and asked, "who the hell steals a local band's t-shirt at a basement show?" A selfish fucking idiot, that's who. I hope you stumble across this, asshole, because i call you out on the internet as a piece of shit! OooooOOOOOOooooo.

After the show i stood outside talking to a rather drunk Chuck, asking him if he had enjoyed his weekend. "It got us wondering why we bother playing shows in Milwaukee." I nodded knowingly.

It really was a rewarding experience being able to bring our pals along on these shows. First, it's really nice to be able to use our years of networking to help our friends get in front of some appreciative crowds outside of Wisconsin (and it's not every trip where each show is in front of a shit-ton of people, like this weekend). Plus, on a selfish note, it's nice to be able to show off to our pals and show them how we do it in front of a non-Wisconsin crowd. For years while we were treated to indifference in Milwaukee (not like we're any hot shit now, but at least our Cactus shows are well-attended these days), we'd tell people how it was a different story when we hit the road, how we'd routinely blow some people away in another town and leave them freaking out about our live show. It was nice to go out and back it up and show off in front of our friends. Heh heh.

Waxeater will be heading up to Chicago and Milwaukee and playing shows with us in March. Chicago's all set at Union Rock Yards (the Payless basement where we rocked the T&G25 afterparty), and Milwaukee's still in progress. But do come out and see them, because they fucking bring the NOISE.

Download our 2001 disc "Ones and Zeroes" for free! With bonus tracks! Wtf!

2009-01-25T22:12:00.002-06:00

Hey y'all! In case you didn't notice it on this big ol' splash page, we've decided to give everyone out there in internet land a 9th-anniversary-of-our-first-practice present (not really, but we don't have anything super-huge coming up right now, so we figured now's as good a time as any). You can now download our 2001 debut full-length CD, Ones and Zeroes, for free by clicking on this link here. You'll get the following badass tracks:

1. The All Tied Up
2. (This is) The New Science
3. The Secret to the Shimmy
4. Loop 27
5. AV Club Dance Party
6. One Happy Pussycat
7. Tunguska-Electro
8. Outdoor Shitkicker '69
9. Edison No Side
10. The Sound of No America
11. She's My Machine

...as well as the following super-special bonus trackage!

12. Murder is for Me (from the Make Way for No Karma compilation)
13. HM (an old The Pop Machine song covered by us for the CDRGMBK compilation)
14. Sign o' the Times (a Prince cover we recorded for the Auscultation comp; features Noise Lesion's only appearance on lead vocals!)
15. Murder is for Me (Dub mix)

Hit that sendspace link and grab that shit!

So, what else is new? We're playing shows here and there--look for a trip to Chicago and Bloomington, IN in early February--and working on figuring out when we're gonna head out West. In the meantime, we're also writing a bunch of new songs (by my last count we're working on 8 in various stages of completion, including "X-13D," which we've been playing out since September). We for some reason have it in our heads that we're gonna get these done and recorded by this summer in an effort to put them on vinyl along with the eventual vinyl release of Fame By Proxy, but our past track record suggests that these songs will be done sometime in 2011, so wish us luck. In the meantime, if you haven't grabbed a copy of FBP yet, what are you waiting for? It's fricking awesome! Head over to the Latest Flame site and order your ass one! Or grab it on iTunes!

By the way, howzabout these last episodes of Battlestar Galactica, eh? Damn!

IfIHadAHiFi/White Wrench Conservatory “Search for Snufflegus” Tour, Vol. 3

2008-12-28T16:53:00.006-06:00

Oh hai, everybody. We still have tour reports to finish posting, don't we? Hrm, let's get on that...TWO MONTHS AFTER TOUR ENDED. Oops.

IfIHadAHiFi/White Wrench Conservatory “Search for Snufflegus” Tour, Vol. 3

In Athens, OH, photographed by Dixie Jacobs

9.30.08: Andyman’s Treehouse, Columbus, OH w/Lollipop Factory and Swiss Army Mouth

Right about here, on a Tuesday night, the concept of a well-attended rock show pretty much runs out of steam, as it often does when no one in a strange town knows who you are and suckas gotsta work in the AM. Andyman’s is a cute little venue with a friggin’ TREE growing through the room where the bands play, extending upward through the roof. We play with the delightful Swiss Army Mouth and Lollipop Factory--the former an instrumental indie-prog band, the latter a sexy-as-hell two-piece playing crazy 70s proggy pop-rock over a thumping drum beat provided by standing drummer Becca, whose rhythmic stylings make this lonely road-weary drummer a little uncomfortable, if you get what I’m sayin’.

Both our bands play well once again; at this point, I’m feeling pretty confident in our two-band touring rock ’n’ roll juggernaut’s ability to deliver the goods consistently all tour. Unfortunately, on this night we both deliver to essentially the other bands and maybe a half-dozen stragglers curious about the racket. Ah well; the first four shows were so gangbusters that we were due for a minor letdown (which wasn’t much of one, since we were still hanging out with rad out-of-town pals).

10.1.08: The (Bruce) Manor, Athens, OH w/Fleshworld

Ya know, it’s never a good sign when you’re setting up your equipment to open the show, and the residents of the basement that is so graciously hosting you that night exclaim “man, this is the worst show we’ve ever had!” No, they weren’t referring to the quality of the bands, as their madly dancing asses could attest mere minutes later—they were referring to the fact that no one was showing up for this house show. Essentially, our set was played in front of the house residents, but if there’s one thing we learned from reading Get in the Van, it’s that you play your ass off for whoever’s there, because it’s not their fault that no one else showed up. Well, in this case, since these guys were the ones responsible for promoting the damn show, maybe things were a little different, but whatever. Again, we blew suckers away, causing a very large, very awesome dude named Pencil to exclaim, “this guy [Yale Delay] stuffed his entire fist in my mouth and I didn’t bite it off! I liked it that much!”

Fortunately, a modest number of people started trickling downstairs during the WWC set, and they once again ruled it in front of an appreciative, if small, crowd. Have I mentioned that HiFi bassist MrAlarm (aka The Fucking Wizard) has been sitting in on bass for a lot of WWC’s songs this tour? It’s been doing many of their already excellent songs a lot of favors, believe you me.

Anyway, the real story of this night is not the show, it’s the Smiling Skull Saloon, a bar down the street where they were having karaoke that night. DUDES. Karaoke in a city where no one knows you = license to get STUPID. In the words of Slater from WWC: “One of the last things I remember that night before I blacked out was you coming up to me and saying ‘I totally signed us up for “Straight Up” by Paula Abdul.’” The incriminating video has yet to surface on YouTube, but rest assured it exists.

The night ended with a blacked-out Rev.Ever trying to start nut-punching fights with Slater and Thom and constantly getting beaten down by them. The next morning, the Rev. and I were the first ones up, and his first words to me were “why does my knuckle feel like it’s broken?”

10.2.08: The Fire, Philadelphia, PA with NOBODY

Let’s see…the “local band” on the bill for this early “all-ages” show was actually some horrible mallpunk band from Jersey, and they didn’t show anyway, leaving our two bands to play in front of two people (a pair of Dixie’s friends from college) while the rest of the bar watched the Phillies trounce the Brewers in Game 2 of the NLDS. The highlight of this show was when it was over, as we watched Sarah Palin stumble through the VP debates. Give the Fire credit for letting us crash in the office/apartment upstairs, ensuring that nothing would get stolen from our van in the middle of the night, but otherwise, Philly can more or less eat one.

10.3.08: The Basement, Kingston, NY

You want the bad news first? OK, here it is: we chat with the owner of the Basement, a killer hole in the wall in Kingston, NY, about halfway between NYC and Albany. “So, are there any locals on the bill tonight?” “Well, if you want, we can get on the phone and see if we can rustle a local up for you.” Uh, wtf, dude. You know that pretty much defeats the purpose of a local band, right? You know…draw, promotion, that sort of thing? Milwaukee, be thankful we have clubs like the Cactus Club, where the staff bust their ass to put locals on every bill and make sure every show has a chance of doing well.

Still, the good news is that the owner immediately redeemed himself, despite not paying us any money, by saying “you guys drink for free all night.” Oh, you silly man. We’re from Wisconsin. You’d be farther ahead paying us each $100 out of the bar and giving us a couple drink tickets.

After we play a pair of stellar sets (again) and soundly kick the asses of the smallish Friday night crowd (again), we move on to lots of top-shelf whiskey and cases upon cases on Pabst. The bar staff is completely awesome. Dani is a 33-year-old rocker chick who not only holds her own with me in hair metal trivia, but remembers bands I had long forgot, like Sweet FA. Seriously, Sweet FA? We’re completely in love with the Basement and their staff and resolve to make a return trip as soon as is humanly possible. Small crowd, no money, but a great time.

Still, despite the last four nights of less then stellar payouts, we’ve somehow moved enough merch through the first week of tour to feel comfortable springing for a hotel room for our two bands. Do not underestimate the value of doing this once in a while on the road. After a week of floors and couches, a nice cozy hotel room and hotel shower can do wonders toward making you feel like a human being again.

…Even if half the people in the room still have to sleep on the floor. On to Boston!

IfIHadAHiFi / White Wrench Conservatory "Search for Snufflegus" Tour 2008: Vol. 2

2008-10-22T20:43:00.007-05:00

HiFi in Indianapolis, by Dixie Jacobs

Here's the poem Thax Douglas presented us with in Chicago:

IfIHadAHiFi #2

Colonizing

Space with its

Feathered hurricane

It implants a

New country,

A kind of mega-house,

Tucked between

Each layer as new

Winds of logical outrage

How I as memory

Begets memory

Of wrongness that

Never goes

Awry as it fades

Outward, its

Shattered daddy-

Bell refusing to

Ring another tone

To further

The legacy.

I can has awesome?

9.27.08: Mac's, Lansing, MI w/a pair of high school punk bands

Our bands are bad for children. We played an all-ages show at Mac's
which was set up by our friend Tom Muth, formerly of the fantastic
Killdozer-influenced pigfuck band Red Swan, and of course Slater and Thom from White Wrench Conservatory immediately break into the "Bring Back the Pussy" porn video references from the night before. To hear Tom Red Swan tell it, "as soon as you guys started making pussy jokes,
some parents that were here to see one of the local bands immediately
headed for the door." The scene from in front of the stage: Thom asks
"Whatever happened to good old-fashioned pussy fucking?"; Slater
responds, "What about the girls who don't do anal? They have to work
too!"; tons of high school boys crack the hell up as a bunch of high
school girls look horrified. Yep, we're going to hell.

Our last few shows at Mac's were 21+ bar shows with sparse attendance,
so it was a nice change of pace to play in front of a bunch of kids
who don't have the jaded "seen it" attitude of so many aged rockers
that we've played in front of. After WWC charmed the kids at Mac's, we
blazed through a solid half-hour that saw the kids in attendance just
lose their shit. It was fun as hell. It was especially gratifying (and
ego-boosting; whatever, those who know us know we're in love with
ourselves, it's cool) to know that our friends in WWC got to watch a
bunch of kids dance their asses off to our music. Slater called it the
best HiFi show he had ever seen, simply because of how the band and
audience were feeding off each other for energy. Personally, we
thought we didn't play as well as we did in Chicago, but i can see why
the audience response would make up for that. A good show is more than
just how the band played, after all. Bottom line: we need to play more
all-ages shows.

Pay from the door amounted to about $25 per band, but we're still
coasting on last night's gas money, so no worries there. We packed up
and made our way to Tom's pad, where we were greeted with an
incredible pasta dinner made by Tom's girlfriend Ellen, a half-Bengal
cat named Wally (a new addition to the Muth household since last time,
and OH MY GOD do I want a Bengal kitty of my own! Gah!), and Tom's
home-distilled liquor. Yeah. Tom owns a still. His "apple jack" booze
is 120 proof and out of sight.

Nights Rev.Ever sleeps in the van due to severe cat allergy: 1

9.28.08: House Show in Indianapolis w/We Are Hex and Small Arms Fire

Jilly from We Are Hex is
someone we've known for seven years, ever since our first ever
mini-tour, which took us to her home in Muncie, IN (home of Tim
Robbins' character in the criminally underrated The Hudsucker Proxy!).
It's always a treat to see her and play with one of her bands, and
really, that's what this tour is about more than anything—getting to
hang out with our friends from all over the eastern US. You know that
scene in American Hardcore where the one dude is talking about how
most normal people hear "San Diego" and think of the zoo, but because
he was in a touring hardcore band, he hears the words "San Diego" and
thinks of Battalion Of Saints? That quote resonated with me because
I'm the same way, and when i think of Indianapolis i think of We Are
Hex.

This house show was a perfect "let's help out some touring bands"
storm of drunken locals lookin for a party, a surprisingly
nice-sounding basement with a decent PA (and fun lighting that made
for great photos!), and local cops that apparently didn't give a damn
that a bunch of rambunctious punk kids were drinking in a yard on a
Sunday evening in Indianapolis (in a state where you can't buy alcohol
on Sunday because it's the Lord's day, and everyone knows the Lord
hates Hamm's and Milwaukee's Best. So, like, are Jews allowed to buy
beer on Sundays, Indiana? Well ARE THEY?!?).

Our bands' sets were accompanied by great performances by locals href="http://www.myspace.com/smallarmsfire">Small Arms Fire and
the aforementioned We Are Hex, who play a gothy sort of darkwave punk
that i immediately decide i'd love to book at Club Anything some
night. We Are Hex w/IfIHadAHiFi and, say, Lambs of Abortion--tell me
the goths wouldn't lose their minds (if not their 50 cent Rolling
Rock). Both WWC and the HiFi on this night played pretty excellent
sets, and this being day 3, i'm feeling good about how practiced up we
are as bands. We're in the pocket and seriously delivering every
night. This is solid.

Nights Rev.Ever sleeps in the van due to severe cat allergy: 2

9.29.08: Uncle Fester's in Bloomington, IN w/We Are Hex and
Tremendous Fucking

A few weeks before tour i went to see my pals in the Chicago punk band
The Lusties play at Points
East Pub. Their bass player, Michael Lustie, presented me with an
official Lusties condom with their logo on the package (with the
awesome disclaimer "objects in condom may appear larger than actual
size"). I told Michael that i would try to use it on tour and text
message him as soon as the deed was done. I thought maybe that would
have been a little creepy for him, but he replied with "i demand
video," which trumped me in the creepy department with a quickness.

Why do i bring this up? To dispel the myth that dudes touring the
country in indie bands get mad crazy laid in the best rock and roll
tradition. Maybe it happens for other, more conventional bands, but
four sci-fi nerds on the road are gonna bat a good solid .000 (sure,
two guys in the band are taken, but that just means we single dudes
have to step it up). CASE IN POINT: Bloomington, IN, one of our
favorite cities in the country to play by a mile.

Uncle Festers is part of a loose network of bars in Indiana that
partake in a series of shows called href="http://www.punkrocknight.com/">Punk Rock Night. There's a bar
in Indianapolis that does it on Saturday, some bar in (i think) Ft.
Wayne that does it on Sunday, and Festers does it on Monday. What this
means is that Festers ALWAYS does good business on Monday nights,
which is a blessing and a half for touring bands. Weeknights are
always sketchy for unknown touring bands, so a Monday night in a town
that knows and loves us cannot be trifled with. And this night, while
not quite as packed as previous HiFi Punk Rock Nights, was no
different.

Once again, WWC and we slammed through solid sets and sounded probably
as good as we have all tour, thanks to a killer sound system run by
our pal Mike from the great Bloomington Band href="http://www.myspace.com/pushpull">Push-Pull. We Are Hex and Tremendous Fucking were
great once again, although Hex's set had some weird tense moments. But
TremFu brought the PAIN with a cover of Mclusky's "Lightsaber
Cocksucking Blues!"

After the show, i began my nightly post-show ritual of dutifully
standing by our merchandise in the hopes that a few drunk bar patrons
actually liked our set enough to contribute to our gas fund by
actually buying a CD or t-shirt. I believe as of day four of the tour,
our total CD sales stand at around 5 copies. Ah well, i download as
much as anyone else, so i shouldn't bitch.

"But what does this have to do with making the carnal what what on
tour, DrAwkward?" i hear you asking. Well, as i'm standing there by
the merch, two cute young ladies start showering me with praise for
being a drummer who sings lots of lead vocals. "That must be really
HARD!" "Wel, yeah, i had to practice it a long time; i used to suck at
it prety badly." Etc. etc, talk about Wisconsin, talk about Indiana,
etc. I decide one of the girls is hot enough that i'm going to make
sure they know about Rob from TremFu's afterbar. "Oh, we don't know,
we have class at like 9:30." THAT'S PLENTY OF TIME TO RECOVER. ROB,
MAKE SURE THEY HAVE DIRECTIONS TO YOUR HOUSE.

We make our way to Rob's for the afterbar and immediately The Wizard
(HiFi bassist and scallywag) starts running game on the girl i had
targeted. COCK-BLOCKED BY THE WIZARD. Sumbitch. I decide that the
friend, who is also cute, will now command my attention, but as they
were both about 21, drunk, and actually kind of annoying (at some
point there begins some ridiculous exchange where one of them declares
she wants to be an actress, and starts practicing her death scenes by
having the Wizard shoot her with a fake gun), i quickly lose interest.
Despite my sad attempts at alpha male-dom, at the end of the day i'm
more interested in making intellectual connections with people, and
"WHOO I'M PRETENDING I'M SHOT OMG I'M DRUNK" isn't gonna cut it, no
matter how cute those shorts look on you, missy. After a trip into the
graveyard next to Rob's place to check out a grave marked with the
last name "BATMAN" (no really), the party starts to break up and we
collapse in various places around the house. No love connections are
made and i really don't care, because we rocked the hell out of
Bloomington and engaged in ridiculous shenanigans afterward.

Nights Rev.Ever slept in the van because he passed out in a chair,
then drunkenly tried to steal the Wizard's couch after the Wizard went
to the bathroom = 1

Gravestones marked "BATMAN" and drunkenly urinated on by a member of
White Wrench Conservatory = 1

NEXT: Remember what i said about weeknight shows being hell on unknown
bands? Yeah, that.

We are going to hell.

IfIHadAHiFi/White Wrench Conservatory "Search for Snufflegus" Tour 2008: Vol.1

2008-10-14T21:49:00.006-05:00

So we're home, and that means that it's time to dole out the tour diaries. We'll be posting these once a week until we're done, usually in chunks of multiple days. Currently, the tour diary is being posted first on the local Milwaukee Fan-Belt blog, but since they're (probably wisely) editing these for space, you'll get the unedited version here about a week after theirs runs. And with that, we give you day one:

photo by Logan Jacobs

9.26: Chicago, IL—Quencher’s w/Bear Claw and the Ellie Maybe Experience

Fantastic first day. The drive was uneventful and a slew of buddies and pals were waiting for us in Chicago. Bear Claw are old friends of ours from their days in Carbondale, which they referenced onstage (“hey, remember when we played Bo Jr.’s in Carbondale and you threw your cymbal stand in the river?” Note: I was sick and that stand had been giving me shit, ok?). And Ellie Maybe and Dixie from WWC became fast friends at this year’s Steel Bridge Songfest in Sturgeon Bay, making the show just a big ol’ sick gross lovefest. Adding to the fun was the fact that the Brewers took game one of their season-ending series against the Cubs, putting the Crew a game up on the Mets for the NL Wild-Card. So obviously I needed to talk shit from the stage while proudly sporting a Milwaukee t-shirt.

We were also surprised by an appearance from the great Thax Douglas, Chicago poet about town and music scene mainstay. Thax is known for writing poems about rock bands and reading them before they play; the first time we met him was when he showed up at a show we played in Chicago in 2001 and asked to read a poem he wrote about us. Tonight he wanted to debut “IfIHadAHiFi #2” before our set, and obviously we obliged. Totally made my entire night.

The set itself was pretty furious—we slammed through a solid mix of old and new songs, plus threw in our cover of Killdozer’s “The Buzzard” to give Yale some mischief time in the audience. Response was great, we played well, and Yale stuck his head through White Wrench Thom’s shirt and carried him on his back. Good times.

Tonight got us off on the right track financially, too--$120 for us and the same for White Wrench, which we knew would be the most we’d make for the next two days.

After the show we made our way to Thom’s friend Mark’s place for late night wine and Mexican food. A certain adult-themed video in Mark’s possession entitled Bring Back the Pussy 8 has now fueled approximately three straight days of horrible n-stage banter and in-van jokery. It’s hard argue with packaging plastered with phrases like “whatever happened to good old-fashioned pussy fucking?” and “what about girls who don’t do anal? They need to work too!” With logic that difficult to refute, how can you go wrong?

Final Night 1 Tally:
Bottles of wine consumed between two bands: 4
Stories above ground Slater from WWC puked off of outside the apartment: 4
Number of “Bring Back the Pussy” jokes told: approximately 25

More to come soon!

Fame By Proxy NOW ON SALE in digital form!

2008-09-23T20:12:00.004-05:00

Hey fools, get yourself to the iTunes store RIGHT NOW, because Fame By Proxy is NOW AVAILABLE. Do this favor for yourself.

And remember, the HiFi/White Wrench Conservatory "Search for Snufflegus" Tour 2008 is starting FRIDAY at Quenchers in Chicago! We're sharing the stage with our pals Bear Claw and the Ellie Maybe Experience. Do come down, won't you?

You probably noticed that Rev.Ever has set up a Twitter feed that'll be updated periodically from his phone while we're on the road. You'll be able to find proper tour reports here and at the Fan-Belt blog, but be sure to check the Twitter feed for up-to-the-minute drunk texting! Technology!

By the way, here's where we'll be for the next two weeks. Do it up.

9.26.08 Chicago, Il: Quencher’s (w/Bear Claw & Ellie Maybe Experience)
9.27.08 Lansing, MI: Mac’s (w/some high school ska/punk bands, hell yeah)
9.28.08 Indianapolis, IN: 4828 College St (House show w/We Are Hex)
9.29.08 Bloomington, IN: Uncle Festers (w/Tremendous Fucking and We Are Hex)
9.30.08 Columbus, OH: Andyman’s Treehouse (w/Swiss Army Mouth and maybe Lollipop Factory)
10.01.08 Athens, OH: The (Bruce) Manor (w/Fleshworld)
10.02.08 Philly, PA: The Fire -- ALL AGES
10.03.08 Kingston, NY: The Basement
10.04.08 Boston, MA: O'Briens 18+ 3 PM EARLY SHOW (w/Tyler Hollis Derryberry, Get Laid, Thunderhole)
10.04.08 Jamaica Plain, MA: TBD House Show, probably with the same bands as the early show
10.05.08 South Windsor, CT: Was gonna be at Club 645 Pizza & Pub but i guess it's being moved. I'm not worried.
10.06.08 New Brunswick, NJ: The Parlor (w/Ho-Ag and some others)
10.07.08 Brooklyn, NY: Death By Audio
10.08.08 Baltimore, MD: Current Gallery
10.09.08 Greenville, NC: Spazzatorium Galleria/Spazz House
10.10.08 Washington, DC: Velvet Lounge
10.11.08 Covington, KY: The Down Under

"Paulding Light" on WOXY!

2008-09-09T23:40:00.003-05:00

We HiFi dudes have been fans of WOXY, the Future of Rock 'n' Roll, for years upon years. I personally discovered WOXY with my college roommate Kory as we drove to Hamilton, OH for a friend's wedding reception in 1995. We listened for hours as they played Lou Reed, Morphine, and Girls Against Boys, and we thought to ourselves, "what the hell? This is a commerical station?" Instantly, we were in love.

So imagine how excited we were to find out today that WOXY played "Paradise By the Paulding Light" off Fame By Proxy as part of its "New Tunes Tuesday!" Go to the WOXY website and email them a request to play it again, won't you?

And hey, WOXY--thank you! We thought you were the best station in the country before this; you've just cemented that spot in our hearts (very closely followed by CD101 in Columbus, who have been playing us since 2004. We love you Tom Butler!).

Sept. 5 & 6: Fame By Proxy release shows--a recap

2008-09-07T17:48:00.001-05:00

Oh hai! Remember how we used to do show and tour reports? Now that we have a swank new website that can be updated easier than the last one, i'm gonna try to get back on that again.

So this weekend we officially began selling our new full-length, Fame By Proxy, via a pair of shows in Milwaukee and Madison. The first, on Friday, was at the Frequency in Madison, a new club opened by our good friend Darwin in the space where the Slipper Club used to exist. We spent the first couple hours of our time at the club drinking free PBR, eating pizza, and watching JJ Hardy hit a walkoff single to beat the Padres in extra innings.

After a lovely set by Cincinnati's Ampline, we took the stage and i immediately shat the bed. I've been having issues with the locking mechanism on my DW500 kick pedal since i bought it in June, but Friday night took the cake. Not halfway into "Defenestrate Me" my kick drum was on a 45 degree angle from my foot, and the pedal was getting wedged on the drum head about every third strike. Very frustrating, very distracting. And for some reason i decided to power through on "Paulding Light," and it just got worse.

I tried to adjust the pedal properly after "Paulding" and had no luck. My now-soured mood was being compounded by a complete lack of audience enthusiasm, so i threw the pedal toward the front of the stage, stormed downstairs, grabbed Ampline's drummer's pedal (in a funny moment, he yelled "HEY!" then ran up, adjusted something on it, then handed it back to me), came back upstairs, threw my kick pedal off the stage and into the stairwell leading to the back alley, and installed the Ampline pedal. From then on the set went off pretty much without a hitch, except that i was so thrown off that i played like shit the rest of the set.

Still, despite my frustration and the near-complete lack of audience response, we got nice comments from the sound guy and a few other people, and one dude bought $30 worth of stuff while explaining to Yale how he has a ton of friends in the UK who apparently LOVE us. Hey, cool, know someone who can get us over there?

As it turns out, it was a good thing that we got a less-than-solid performance out of the way the night before our proper CD release in Milwaukee, because our set at the Cactus Club on Saturday brought the pain. We took the stage in a fairly packed room, launched into "Defenestrate Me" (complete with a new Iron Cobra kick pedal which i bought earlier in the day--lesson learned, only buy Iron Cobras from now on. This is how brand loyalty happens), and proceeded to blaze through the best performance we've executed in months.

The show was free, so we were hoping for an insanely packed Cactus Club. As it stood, a wedding prevented a lot of our friends from showing up, and there were random other people i expected to see that didn't make it, and that was disappointing. But! The lack of familiar faces (and make no mistake, there were still plenty, and it was great to see all of them) was more than made up for by the large number of people there whom i didn't recognize. Having a ton of friends at your show is great; but having a crowd that's half friends and half people you don't know who still came out to see you? Even better.

The other bands last night were outstanding as well--King's Horses (subbing for a too-sick-to-play New Loud), White Wrench Conservatory (because obviously they're going to play our CD release, duh), and our Portland-via-Madison labelmates System & Station were all fantastic. All in all, we put together a solid night of free kickass rock 'n' roll for a packed room. That. is. awesome.

So hey, thanks to everyone who made it out! You made our CD release last night feel like an incredibly special moment with your dancing, your "hey hey!" singalongs on "Success!", and your demands for an encore which we didn't honor because we're jerks. Our next Milwaukee shows will be a pair of basement gigs in October, but before that, we're heading out on tour! See you when we get back.

By the way, final tally for CD sales at the release show:

Fame By Proxy sales on Friday: 1
Fame By Proxy sales on Saturday: 6
No More Music sales at its CD release in 2004: 7

So, we're on our usual pace! We'll be rid of these CDs by 2013, for sure.

FREE CD RELEASE SHOW TONIGHT!

2008-09-06T09:53:00.003-05:00

9:30 PM TONIGHT (Saturday, September 6th, 2008) at The Cactus Club (2496 S. Wentworth)!

w/
White, Wrench, Conservatory!
The New Loud!
System & Station!

And it's all going down for FREE!

READ. ---------->

Interview with Dr.Awkward and CD release show preview HERE.

IFIHADAHIFI.NET is ALL NEW and ALL NUDE!

2008-09-02T20:12:00.005-05:00

ONLOOKERS,

New web site!! After hours upon hours toiling in the mammoth sweat box that is my home, smoking, pacing, and temporarily swearing off all human interaction- The new IfIHadAHiFi site is here to blow your mindz!!!

Feel free to waste a bunch of time here now.

THX,

..::rev

New web site coming!

2008-07-01T16:43:00.006-05:00

Hold your horses. This blog is gonna look funny until you see it in context with the new web site. Which is going to look more amazing than Pegasus meat tastes. Guaran-effing-teed.

SAT APRIL 5th - HiFi turns 8.

2008-04-03T21:58:00.005-05:00

3.28.08: Beat Kitchen, Chicago w/the pAper chAse: "'Big Guns' By Skid Row is a song about firearms"

2008-03-30T15:44:00.001-05:00

It always seems to throw people when i tell them that i still get nervous before shows sometimes. "Really?" they ask? Yep--i, who is generally pretty damn comfortable on stage and has been doing this for years, still get nervous before certain shows sometimes. And for some reason, this all-ages show at the Beat Kitchen had butterflies churning in my gut when i woke up at 7 AM. I've never had them THAT early.

But we were of the opinion that this could be a huge show for us. All ages, Chicago, with one of our favorite bands in the known universe. The room was sure to be packed wall-to-wall with impressionable youngsters with disposable income, right? So we worked overtime to finally re-stock our merch: buying more copies of Hot Nuggets! and No More Music from our label pals and finally ordering a new run of t-shirts. So we arrived at the Beat Kitchen ready to win over a ton of new fans and move some units.

Ah, those silly expectations.

By the time we started playing at 8:20 PM (ten minutes earlier than the advertised start time of 8:30--um, er? There was some explanation about new liquor laws in Chicago dictating an earlier end time for all-ages shows, but still...10 minutes was going to save the night? Eh, whatever. The Beat Kitchen's been good to us so i won't bitch too much), we discovered that apparently Chicago trains their people at a pretty early age to arrive late for shows. We started playing in front of about 20 people or so, and by the time we had finished, several more had trickled in. But by the time Reds and Blue finished and the pAper chAse started, the place was wall-to-wall packed, as expected, with i'd guess about 20% of those people actually seeing us play.

This is something i'll never get--i think if the pAper chAse had played by themselves with no openers, a good number of people would have thought "what the hell, $12 for one band?" Yet they're fine just showing up on time to see them and no one else, i guess. I dunno. No sense in bitching about it, and at the end of the day, i'm not really that bummed--just bemused by the average concert-goer's willingness to not get their money's worth. I mean, it's very rare that an opening act wins me over in the first five minutes of a show...i get that. Very often they're not much to write home about. But it's still nice to give 'em a chance, ya know? I mean, you're spending the money on them.

Anyway. I can't control other people's habits, so no sense in wasting time thinking about it (even though i just did). As for our set, it was fine. We were solid and played well, and those people that were there for us enjoyed it (i even heard laughter during our between-song banter, so ha!). So mission accomplished to the best of our ability. A few roadblocks like Rev.Ever breaking a bunch of guitar strings didn't really derail us at all, and playing was fun, although i got tired out really quickly for some reason, be it lack of sleep the night before or the Beat Kitchen food not agreeing with me. Not sure.

Reds and Blue were enjoyable spacey keyboard indie rock (confidential to white, wrench, conservatory.: you should probably get in touch with Reds and Blue about swapping shows), and what can i say about the pAper chAse? As usual, they were ungodly and incredible. They opened with a pair of new songs that felt 8 minutes long each and still had me grinning and giggling like a doofus at the pure musicianship being shown on stage. The more and more i see that band, i can't help thinking, "John is a fucking genius. And he's a fan of OUR band? Really? How? Why? The amount of talent we have as musicians probably fits into his pinky finger and he's told me he loves us? What?" It's truly humbling and weird and awesome to think about that.

The show ended by 11 PM, so we were able to jaunt over to Quenchers in time to see our pals Bear Claw, but unfortunately miss the Conformists. Ah well. Bear Claw were excellent as always, and we got to say hi to some Chicago pals that decided to spend the evening over there instead (which, hey, it was free and the bands were awesome and we had played in town three weeks prior, so sure!).

Oh, and our merch sales? Two t-shirts sold to friends. I couldn't help but laugh at all the effort we put into re-stocking the shelves. The good news: we have plenty of t-shirts for sale next weekend in Madison and Milwaukee!

March 2008: So Far.

2008-03-23T19:30:00.000-05:00

We have played a few shows this month, and we have been sorely remiss in writing about them. In an effort to get us back into the swing of things on that tip, i will now post some brief summaries of these shows we have played. These will not be as detailed as they would have been had we stayed on our game and posted about them as they happened, but what are you gonna do? At this point these are more for my benefit that yours anyway. SO THERE.

March 2: Mad Planet, Milwaukee WI. Our pals Neptune finally made a return trip to Milwaukee after having not visited us for the last SIX YEARS. This show was the same night as a big Black Lips show at Turner Hall, so expectations were low regarding turnout, draw, etc. However, a modest but appreciative number of people came out to watch us, Neptune, and Collections of Colonies of Bees. Our set was energetic and fun, and included a few old numbers we had been practicing in order to bring them back into the set for the sake of freshness (we knew we were playing a lot of shows this month and didn't want to get sick of all our new songs, so the answer was to bring back some old ones, like, on this night, "Tunguska-Electro" and "Gotta Disappear").

Neptune were, of course, mind-blowing. Their sound has changed a tad in the six years since we saw them last in that while they still have intimidatingly huge home-built guitars, the bulk of their sound is now built on homemade electronics and tone generators. Mark would bend the shit out of some light switches while Dan pounded the crap out of his homemade drums and Jason chanted into the mic. Intense and excellent, to say nothing of how good it felt to re-acquaint ourselves with some old friends we hadn't seen in years. Thanks to their being awesome, it felt like we had just played with them a week ago.

March 7: Cal's, Chicago. In the past, all our shows at Cal's have happened in front of like 8 people. On this night, we showed up at the bar to see the room already filled in anticipation of the Big Rock Show! It was the last show that Let's Get Out of This Terrible Sandwich Shop would be playing for about four months, as their ringleader Tony was heading off on a cruise ship with Second City. The Sandwich Shop put on a hilarious and fun-packed show full of fuzzy indie-pop goodness, and they are one of the most well-dressed bands we've ever played with, easy.

Our set is a raucus party thanks to a good number of people who came out to see us--a bunch of EA Forum people, Mike and Edie from the Lusties, a tons more. Total basement-show atmosphere with Yale slamming into the crowd, cord issues, and all sorts of madness. SO MUCH FUN! I plug our upcoming show at the Beat Kitchen with the Paper Chase, and a few people express a real desire to make it out.

Oh, and we played "The Sound of No America" for the first time since Havre, MT in 2005, if my estimation is correct.

March 8: The Attic, Manitowoc. Well, it's the Attic. Obviously we'll make it fun, even if the turnout isn't what it used to be any more. A notable exchange that made me feel old and depressed:

14-year-old show attendee, to promoter Chris Karlin: "Are there any metal bands playing tonight? When's the next metal show? We want to see metal bands."

Chris: "There aren't any metal bands tonight, but you should stick around because all the bands tonight are still really good."

Me: "Chris, if you want to tell them we're metal so they come watch us, that's cool."

Chris: *laughs* "Seriously, guys, you have to stick around for IfIHadAHiFi. I saw them for the first time in this building when i was your age.

Chris made me feel really old with that remark.

Anyway, another show, another great time. My mic was a piece of shit, though, so no one really heard me until the last couple songs when The Wizard and i traded. The kids ate it up and we sold a bunch of copies of Hot Nuggets!. We also, perhaps most importantly, found out that there's a new strip club called Stars Cabaret outside of Manty. We asked about it from the stage. Yale: "Is this another one of those places where it's all girls you knew in high school?" Lots of laughs and emphatic nodding, followed by Chris presenting us with free passes to the club! Ha!

We'll use them in June on our way up to Steel Bridge.

March 14: Cactus Club, Milwaukee. We were seriously under the weather for this one--The Wizard was just recovering from the flu, and i was fighting off a cold bug of my own. Still, a decent turnout saw us give it our all and play, yep, another pretty fun set, even if it wasn't our best. We busted out "Edison No Side" for the first time in years, and ran it into "Success! Success! Success!"

Danish power-popsters The Beatitude returned to Milwaukee for the first time since they played a show in 2003 with the New Blind Nationals at Onopa. They remembered Rev.Ever from the show, which probably wasn;t hard as one of the girls in the band is a friend of Ashley Altadonna's and visits Milwaukee pretty frequently. Anyway, they are white, wrench, conservatory were great, of course.

The next night we were supposed to play in St. Paul with wwc, but we ended up blowing the alternator outside of Baraboo. The story, as told in my own journal:

Friday: Our show with the Beatitude and wwc was loads of fun. We didn't necessarily play our best show ever (the Wizard was recovering from a nasty flu bug and i was--and still am--fighting something off), but we gave 'er as best we could and played fairly well overall. The bar was crazy packed but judging from the money brought in at the door between 38 and 43 of them paid to get in...which, now that i think about it, is pretty damn good for a show consisting of us, white wrench, and a pop band from Denmark (who totally brought it, by the way). Cycling in old Ones and Zeroes tracks, as well as resuscitating some No More Music songs we had dropped for awhile has injected some real old-school fun into our sets lately. Having visiting in town and at the show is always an extra bonus load of awesome.

Saturday was an adventure and a half, as we left Milwaukee for St. Paul (caravaning with Lemur and white wrench) only to discover on our way out of town that our battery gauge was looking awfully low. We kept an eye on it and as soon as i saw it drop lower i called Dixie and had them meet us at a rest stop outside Baraboo, where as soon as i decelerated the van conked out and i coasted into a parking spot between Dixie's and Slater's cars. We charged out battery from Slater's with jumper cables and elected to turn around as we were likely dealing with a bad alternator and stopping to recharge every hour or so was sure to be a pain in the ass.

Here's a sampling of my half internal/half external-with-the-guys monologue/dialogue as we discovered that the exit we took in order to get onto I-94's eastbound lane was the same one that was a mile out from effing Paradise City, home of the glass ceiling with nekkid stripper above you (and a vacuum tube that shoots tips upstairs into the room at the feet of said nekkid chick...AWESOME):

Yale: "Oh, hey, strip club in one mile!"

Josh: "Deej, isn't that the one you're always talking about? Paradise Something?"

Me: "OH FUCK IT IS! PARADISE CITY! SCREW GOING HOME!"

Me (internally to myself): Wait, let's think about this--it's about 4 PM so maybe they still have a lunch buffet or something going. I'm hungry! Yeah, but it can't be as hopping right now as it was when Saara and i were there at night that one time. Plus, we'd have to get our battery charged again to make it home, and i doubt that a stripper would charge our battery in lieu of "charging our batteries," and if she did, she'd probably still want $50 or so...fuck it, we're going home.

The van kept running while the battery gauge once again dwindled to nothing. It was decided that the safest route off I-94 would be the Van Buren exit as it's more of a straight shot--trying to take the ramp onto I-43 N would have been an unmitigated disaster. So Yale and i started making phone calls to people who might be able to meet us on Van Buren with jumper cables, enabling us to charge the van enough to get it to a garage.

Note: It's a surreal feeling, driving a van that is chugging along fine, while calling ahead for someone to meet us at the place where we fully expect it to conk out. It feels a little like Keanu Reeves in Speed.

Anyway, traffic congestion between Miller Park and the Domes fucked us. The van died as i was in the middle lane slowing down with the rest of the traffic. Fortunately no one was in the right lane, and i was able to immediately veer the suddenly power-steering-less van over to the shoulder, where Jamie eventually met us with jumper cables. In her words, she was actually sort of thrilled to have punk rock van troubles back in her life for a day. Ah, sometimes it's good to be friends with the ex-girlfriend of an ex-Modern Machine.

After some thrilling on-a-dime Y-turning by Jamie in order to face our van head-on, we got the van charged enough to get it off the interstate ASAP, exiting onto St. Paul Ave. (ironic, as we began the day heading to St. Paul MINNESOTA), where it promptly died again near Van Buren. This time we let the battery sit on Jamie's for a while longer, and was then able to drop it at the garage no problem.

By the time we recovered our gear from the van and transferred it to the Church of Murray, it was now roughly 8:30 PM. I was HUNGRY and raring to DRINK LIKE A FIEND. Michael and i met up with Lindsey at Rio West for Mexican food and a pitcher of margaritas for starters, coaxing Jamie back out to join us so we could buy her some thank-you shots (us for the van help, Lindsey for Jamie buying her a few the last few weeks).

March 22: Corral Room, Madison. Pretty much all our shows at the Corral Room are lowly-attended. This was no exception, although we did much better on this night than we have on others (15 or so being a huge step up from 3 or 0). But this one was a blast nonetheless, as the lineup we were playing with was full of pals: wwc, Whore du Jour (a madison supergroup of sorts containing friends from the Skintones, Screamin' Cyn-Cyn, and Cats Not Dogs), and Pat mAcDonald, accompanied by his pal MelanieJane on backing vocals.

Pat plays a great dirty blues with soapbox guitars and a mic'd stomping board for tempo. His half-hour set was mostly peppered with bitchin' covers, from "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" to "Roadhouse Blues" (probably one of the few Doors songs i can stomach). Whore du Jour were absolutely stellar. The basement room made them sound nice and full and loud and fuzzy, and Heather is always a hoot to watch on drums.

Our set was a blast as well, as the other bands gathered up front to watch, along with one miss Norah Fox and her boy Ian, who came out for the show because we hadn't seen her since, geez, last June? LAME. Anyway, good times were had, we played well, it was another goofy basement show vibe, and i can't wait for our show at the Annex on the 4th with Box Social, Sleeping in the Aviary, and Mise en Place. THE END!

Stuff! New Stuff! New Year's Update!

2008-01-05T11:47:00.000-06:00

Hey y'all. Happy New Year, etc.

Y'know that record we recorded with Shane Olivo from The New Loud at his studio, Bobby Peru's? Well, John Congleton's just about done mixing it, and it's sounding like the best thing we've ever done, easy. The drums are huge, the bass punches you in the gut, and the guitars scrape all over your face. Best money we ever spent. We spent some time in the last week talking to Dan from Latest Flame Records about release schedules, and when the damn thing gets mastered in early February, we'll probably have a more solidified idea about whether we're gonna make that late May release date we were talking about.

Meanwhile, we've been writing new songs and shooting videos for some songs off the new record. Yep, videos! Our pal Jack from Two Room Honeymoon, who is also one half of the dudes responsible for those ridiculous "high five" videos over on Funny or Die, has shot a clip for our song "99 Probalos," and will be shooting another one for "Science Depends on Us" later this month. Because we're vain and want to see our ugly faces in stupid music videos. And, we suppose it'd make a good promotional tool for the record, y'know? Something like that.

Got a show in Manitowoc coming up in February, and one in Milwaukee in March. We really should schedule more of those.

Go Pack,
DrAwk

Our Weekend With Arks: 11/2 MKE and 11/3 St. Paul

2007-11-13T23:43:00.001-06:00

I am getting awfully bad about updating this shit on time, especially considering all the free time i have lately. Fortunately, i have a Statement of Purpose to put off writing, so...hai!

What will never cease to bring me epic degrees of warm fuzzies is this one truly beautiful aspect of being in a rock band: as a vehicle for meeting wonderful new people, it is second to none. After years of building up a literally nationwide cache of awesome rocker pals, from Replicator and eastward through Bang! Bang! and the Sump Pumps all the way to Ho-Ag, it blows my mind that as we enter our 8th year as a band, we have once again struck New Rocker Buddy Gold in the awesome guys that comprise Chicago's Arks. Paul, Lanny, Glennome and Mat are some rad and hilarious dudes, and we couldn't have had a better time playing two shows with them over the first weekend of this month.

The first of these shows happened at a newish Milwaukee gallery/all-ages space called the Borg Ward, which may now be one of my favorite places to play a show in the town. A basement-sized space in a room behind the gallery portion of the Borg Ward, the room basically puts forth the vibe of a basement show with the added benefit of being above ground in a legit venue with a decent PA. Astounding. This show was our first with every other band on the bill, all of whom were fantastic. elusive Parallelograms played a ramshackle set of Shoegazer-flavored psychedelia (Think Thurston and Lee playing with the 13th Floor Elevators) featuring a drunk-off-his-ass drummer who was probably more entertaining than he bargained for. Burbank Cartel play a great shoegazey (there's that genre twice now!) brand of indie rock with electronically-flavored drumming and great songwriting. And Arks! Oh, Arks. I hate to reference their Pitchfork review, but Girls Against Boys is really a good touchpoint for them, especially with Paul's vocals reminding me so much of Scott McCloud or Mark E. Smith. All three are truly fantastic. Arks' set in particular was hilarious thanks to some drunk heckling provided by that aforementioned eP drummer, the completely sauced Corey.

Also, The Borg Ward has a kitty:

Our set was worlds better than our last show, at Cactus Club. Lots of fun slamming into crowd members, playing guitars on ceilings, the lot. The best part was that other than a few of our regulars (Dixie, Thom, etc.), the gallery crowd at the show was filled with people who i think hadn't seen us before, and they were eating it up. On top of that, after the non-Mat Arks guys gushed about how much they enjoyed us, Mat got to inform them that we were playing with them the next night in St. Paul, a fact they somehow remained ignorant of until after we played on Friday! High-larious.

After the show, we loaded up and made our way to the Church of Murray for beers and hangout hilarity. Then, a night's rest, a morning's breakfast at Ma Fischer's, and we were on our way to St. Paul, Minnesotee.

We hadn't been expecting much from the Station 4 show in St. Paul. First of all, Mat and the guys from our Edina buddies Mise en Place went through just about every Twin Cities club in the area before settling on Station 4. Triple Rock--booked. Big V's--booked. Turf Club--yup, booked. And this was back in July and August! Also, we started hearing from friends in the area that Station 4 is a metal bar that no one goes to because it's out of the way of just about everything else that a self-respecting Twin Cities indie rocker goes to. Well, shit. That's too bad because Station 4 is actually a pretty nice place. Lots of space, HUGE stage (drum riser! DRUM! RISER!), and great sound thanks to a very metal but very polite and knowledgeable sound guy. I cannot say enough nice things about the venue, despite the fact that no one was there.

Seriously--Mise en Place brought along a handful of about 5 people, and we actually pulled in three thanks to the fortunate coincidence of my new Milwaukee friend Betsy being in town for a family wedding and wanting to get away with a couple pals to see us. Unfortunately, they got there as we were playing our last song, which is too bad because we brought it pretty solidly on this night. About 80% of the set was completely different from the night before, and we made full use of the ridiculous stage. Before we started playing, i walked over to the Wizard and said, "ok, when we're noising out, i want you to take the first cymbal i pull out of my kit and place it on the floor for me." So, as we were making our usual end-of-set cacophony, he complied with my request and i followed suit by taking another cymbal and placing it on the stage in front of the riser, enabling me to complete an awesome sequence where i jumped off the riser and crashed the first cymbal, then immediately jumped off stage and crashed the second one on the floor. Ah, theatrics.

The Arks set was even more hilarious the second night because i got the brilliant idea (after a few beers and a shot) to start yelling stuff like "If you guys were a pirate band, you be YAAAAAAARKS!" "If you guys were grassy, you'd be PARKS!" "If you guys thought pro wresting was real, you'd be MARKS!" Etc. Of course, Rev.Ever chose his moment perfectly, shouting near the end of the set, "If Fonzie jumped over you, you'd be SHARKS!" And of course, they were tremendous once again, as were our pals Mise en Place, busting out their fairly unique brand of noise-pop which we enjoy very very muchly.

Let it also be known that Mise en Place are excellent hosts. We made our way to their guitarist Michael's place for Domino's Pizza, beers, and Hi-Def boxing, while we got to say hello to his dog, Juno:

You'd think that now that i have a camera with a phone, you'd see more photos of the bands we play with. Nope, nope. To further illustrate the direction this journal is probably going in, here's a photo of the canine companion of Mise en Place's drummer, Shaun. This is Paul Stanley:

We awoke the next morning at Shaun's pad and met the Arks boys and the Mise en Place dudes for lunch before bidding them good journey on their way to Omaha. We then left for Milwaukee, finally managing to tune in the Packer game as soon as we crossed the border back into our home state (dirty pool, Vikings Country--although i suppose our team took care of that with a 34-0 shutout this weekend, did they not?), just in time to hear the Pack pull one out on the road against the Kansas City Chiefs. As of this writing, our boys in Green and Gold are 8-1. GO PACK GO!

10.22.07: Cactus Club w/Captured! By Robots

2007-10-23T12:19:00.000-05:00

Last night's show with the mighty Captured! By Robots reinforced for me an important lesson in playing on stage: fessing up to a bad set on stage is very tricky business. If you joke about it a few times, it's maybe seen as self-deprecating and the audience may not get that you really mean it. If you let it affect the overall show, though, it runs the risk of derailing the whole process in a feedback loop of mistakes and frustration, thusly ruining what the audience may see as a perfectly fine set of music. Always remember: The audience doesn't know your songs as well as you know them.

Last night, i think we walked the tightrope of a derailed set, but managed to avoid the feedback loop and still pulled out a set that was fun for the audience, even if it was a bit of a chore for us. I blame myself. See, things were running behind schedule because the C!BR setup (drums on one side of the stage, toms on the other, among other roadblocks that come with an all-robot band) forces Alex (Cactus soundman to the stars and all-around amazing human being) to re-think a lot of his usual setup. Thus, by the time he had us miked and soundchecked, it was a little after 9, which was the announced start time of the show. To make things worse, Yale was having pedal issues during the setup process. This didn't slow things down, as it happened during Alex's setup, but i was so paranoid about Yale's tone being off or weird due to a swapped out pedal (he was also borrowing White, Wrench, Conservatory's Ampeg bass amp as his Ampeg Reverb Rocket is in the shop--similar amp, but slightly lower frequencies as a result of it being a bass amp, obviously) that i wasn't really paying attention to the sound balance on stage. WWC's amp is quieter than Yale's, so our on-stage sound was pretty quiet overall as a result.

My mistake: Right at the beginning of the set, i notice that i'm not hearing much of Yale's guitar at all, so i ask Alex for more in my monitor. Soon, Yale's guitar is all any of us can hear. And since we're too stubborn to make multiple monitor requests during a set (we have a sort of unofficial rule where we make one monitor request per show and then shut the fuck up and deal, because musicians who constantly harp about the monitors during their set are annoying, so none of this is Alex's fault), we soldier on. All throughout the set i am operating under the assumption that while it sounds crappy to us, it's sounding fine to the audience, so i keep thrashing about like i always do. The audience is receptive--at least, for it being a Monday night crowd!

The second half of the set starts to derail a little, though. "99 Probalos" is a slightly more midtempo song for us, and we haven't played it live enough times to figure out how to keep the energy up in the set while we play it. I'm not entirely convinced that we should play it live very often. This leads into "The Buzzard," which i believe goes well enough, except i flub a few fills in the disco bridge. Then, we gloriously fuck up the opening of "Success!" when i completely misjudge where Rev.Ever started playing the opening riff. I come into the verse about a measure early and it takes The Wizard and Rev. a bit to readjust. Fuck. By the second half of the verse, we seem to be back on track, but yeah. Dudes on stage at this point are getting crazy frustrated with the unbalanced mix and resultant performance fuckups, and by now i sort of feel like i'm punching the clock with regard to my stage presence.

Fortunately, "punching the clock" for me looks like most other drummers "going all out," and as we climbed off stage, i overheard people saying good things. Yale's lady Beth and my roommate Scott both agreed that the set sounded totally fine--Scott didn't even catch the "Success!" flub (although Beth did, but she said we got on track nicely). To top it off, a group of younger dudes dressed up in Secret Service outfits at the pre-tour behest of JBot (this season's C!BR tour was a recap of the last seven years of the GWB Administration, complete with JBot dressed as Dubya, GTRBOT dressed as Cheney, and DRMBOT making a creepy, creepy Condi Rice), who were recently 21 and had never seen or heard of us before, loved us, and are likely coming to the Borg Ward show on Nov. 2nd. If we played well enough to actually convert new fans, we must have done all right.

So there you go. Obviously, no one is happy playing a sloppy set, and it gives us stuff to work on, but they happen. It's taken me a few years to learn this, but if we snooty indie-rock noise "arteests" can remember that we're also entertainers, and that the audience left entertained...well then. Mission Accomplished.

And speaking of "Mission Accomplished," the Captured! By Robots "Dubya" tour is a riot. Not my favorite C!BR gimmick tour ever, but GTRBOT constantly screaming "I'M GONNA SHOOT YOU IN THE FUCKIN' FAAAAAACE!" is awesome, and the cover of "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who is fucking unstoppable. Go see 'em when they come through.

10.18.07: New Record News, WMSE, and more

2007-10-18T16:28:00.000-05:00

10.18.07

Oh, i'm sorry, were you expecting an update long before now? Have you forgotten with whom you're dealing here?

So here's what's up with IfIHadAHiFi: Earlier this month, we spent five days at Bobby Peru Recording on the south side of Milwaukee with our pal Shane Olivo of The New Loud. With him at the controls, we laid down basic tracks, overdubs and vocals for our third full-length, tentatively called Tragedy Breeds Success unless we come up with something better. The recording process was largely pain-free and a hell of a good time. Being holed up in a studio with no one but your band and an engineer tends to make the imagination run a little haywire, and as such, many amusing stories can be told about the five of us just sitting around talking mad shit, from the coining of the phrase "the porn-thick cock of the king" to the invention of The Damnwich.

The Damnwich, by the way, is now IfIHadAHiFi's trademarked junk sandwich of choice. After a friend of ours began a debate regarding which hamburger "enhancement," Hamburger Helper or Manwich, was more disgusting, a plan was hatched to incorporate as many ghetto fixin's from our youth into a sandwich as possible. We came up with a loose meat burger that combined ground beef with Manwich sauce and Hamburger Helper, then seasoned it with Shake-N-Bake. The only condiments that were allowed on the Damnwich were ketchup, hot sauce, and macaroni and cheese. The end result was a creation of sheer decadent genius. I myself had two.
As far as the actual recording, upon listening to the rough mixes i think we are all in agreement that this represents our best work yet. The drums sound positively enormous (thanks to the Pearl Masterworks kit i was bashing as well as the very live-sounding concrete-walls-and-hardwood-floors room), the guitars and bass scream, and synths gurgle in the way you've come to expect from us, but what's notable is that this is likely to be our poppiest release yet. We are busting out some radio-friendly jams with this one, y'all. Most of them you've heard if you've seen us live in the last year or so; staples like "Success! Success! Success!" and "Paradise By the Paulding Light" will be on there, as well as less-familiar tunes like "You Can Dig 1000 Holes, But it Takes a Body to Make a Grave" and "99 Probalos." Catchy, noisy, dense, and fucking LOUD. That is this record in a nutshell.

So, after we head back in to add a few additional bells and whistles (a few more vocals and maybe some more noise are necessary), the tracks will be shipped off to Dallas for mixing in December, with mastering shortly thereafter. From there, it'll be time to think about release schedules. We'll let you know more about that when things with our likely new label get sorted out.

In the meantime, we'll be playing shows here and there...watch for us in Minneapolis in early November and in Lansing in December, with more to come, hopefully in the new year. In the meantime, we're writing and polishing up our first batch of post-Tragedy songs. One of them, "X-13D," will show up in demo form on the soundtrack to The WMSE Cookbook, also featuring tracks from Milwaukee superstars like Testa Rosa, Collections of Colonies of Bees, and Couch Flambeau.

Dude, i just let that sink in for a second. We're on a comp with Couch Flambeau! Wtf!

"X-13D" chronicles the attempt by a secret government branch to drug the populace into a state of compliance by sneaking experimental snack chips into food shops, including the Mars Cheese Castle. Because we couldn't come up with a clever way to make a recipe for pan-seared salmon steaks rhyme with itself. So it goes.

So, yeah, we've been quiet with the updates, but lots of stuff is afoot! See? Proof!

-DrAwkward

09.15.07: !OUCHO! Fest, The Mutiny, Chicago

2007-09-19T15:41:00.000-05:00

For the last nine years, Joe Sepi and his band (appropriately enough entitled *joesepi*) have hosted !OUCHO! Fest at our favorite dive bar in Chicago, The Mutiny. The gist of the whole deal is this: lots of bands, free admission, and free grillin'. Apparently the owner of the Mutiny makes an annual trek into Wisconsin to buy a shit-ton of sausage, and the Mutiny faithful reap the benefits. This year, we were fortunate to be one of the bands invited.

We made our way down to Chicago with a van filled with nothing more than guitars, pedals, the synth, and some cymbals and hardware, as there are so many bands playing that for the sake of expediency, all bands use the same backline. We normally detest this practice, as playing through other people's gear seriously changes our sound most of the time, but in this case, the spirit of the proceedings (a bunch of folks just getting together to eat grilled meat and play rock and roll) was more important than us having "our sound" exactly the way we wanted it, so we were happy to have a light load to carry this time out. Also in the van was our pal Christopher McGarvey of Chicago's A Vast Amount of Scientific Data, as he lives in Milwaukee and needed a ride down.

The Mutiny is just the way we left it last time--a fucking hole in the wall, and we couldn't like it more this way. We each hooked ourselves up with their huge $6 mugs of Pabst (which are about the size of half a pitcher), and took in the tunes, notably great bands like the aforementioned AVAOSD, The Chrome Robes, Century Rocket Building, .22, and *joesepi*, all of which were completely outstanding and filled with rad dudes. Hot hot photos of them all can be found here.

One big plus that !OUCHO! has over your typical Mutiny gig is that the crew brings in actual sound guys and monitors. This didn't help us on stage very much, as all i could hear was Yale's guitar and a little bass, but still, it helped greatly for the audience, and for the bootlegs being recorded of our sets by the sound dudes. Listening back to the recording of our set, it's as i thought when we played--not our best night, by a long shot. Tones were weird thanks to the foreign gear, and many many things were out of tune during many many parts of the set. Still, troopers we are, we slammed through and made it entertaining, and at the end of the set, no one apparently had noticed that it was an off night, because we were the recipients of many handshakes and accolades. Hey, cool, i'll take it. These positive response was received despite my insistence on renaming nearly all of our songs as slams on Chicago sports teams. "This next song is called '200 Million Dollar Payroll and the Same Record as the Milwaukee Brewers.'" "This next song is called 'Rex Grossman is Wisconsin's Favorite Quarterback.'" Etc. People laughed more than scowled, apparently.

We took off for home around 1 or 1:30 AM after an evening of grilled meat, awesome rock (from everyone else), and lots of quality time with Chicago pals like Faiz (formerly of Danger Adventure, who was playing with *joesepi* that night), Zach of the ex-Hit Commission of Champaign, and many many others. We're looking forward to bringing A Vast Amount of Scientific Data up to Milwaukee on November 2nd, and looking forward even more to showing them a good time at the Church of Murray afterward. Bring it on, Chi-town!

08.25.07 Racine: It's 1982 All Over Again

2007-08-27T13:44:00.000-05:00

This was actually written by Yale, but i'm not sure if he can post here yet or not (and if he can, he probably doesn't know he can).

I am totally going to do one of these...

So things start out bad... the Dr. informs me that the back hatch to the van is not working, since the side door dosent open either this is really not good news, we somehow figure out how to load everything but the bass cab, through the driver side door, over the middle seat and into the back, as if normal loading isn't sucky enough we have to do "extreme" loading...

We pull up to the venue (an old market of some sort) and unload basically having to do everything above only in reverse. E=MC Hammer play a great set, I normally hate slap Bass but they make it work...we sit through a bunch of "hardcore" bands and then leave to get some subway, it should be noted that I do not understand playing hardcore in 2007 anymore than I understand playing in a cover band.

Conversation at Subway...Larger black female sitting at anougher table to me "are you a basketball team?"

Me "YES"

We got back to the venue in time for Cougar Den, who were great and reminded me of the late 90s Ohio scene (Armstrong secret 9, Hairrot the Spy) I really liked them...a bunch more bands played, and then we were up...The set started slow, I broke a string during the 1st song, and DR. really messed up Premeditated, after the set I learned he sprained his ankle very badly during this song.

By mid set we had the crowd in the palm of our hand... people were dancing and rocking out...after us Get Rad played... I do not get, GET RAD (see statement about playing hardcore in this day and age) people were doing spin kicks and picking up change, I find this funny to no end, but am scared to laugh as anyone of these hardcore kids could kick my butt...

THE END!

I will now go listen to our track X-13D which will be on the WMSE Cook book comp. we recorded it this weekend and it features a really messed up drum machine/synth played by the Wizard...

A Very Economical Recap of Our Last Five Shows.

2007-08-16T16:57:00.000-05:00

Hey! Remember when i used to keep these show recaps updated on a regular basis? Me too.

June 9: MKE, Cactus Club. white, wrench, conservatory. CD release show w/Viva La Foxx and the Kents. Insane turnout, which confused me greatly. Possibly one of the best sets we've ever played. Top 5 for sure. Viva were amazing and Amy had some amazing camel toe happening (which she acknowledged on stage because she doesn't give a fuck). wwc were fucking solid as hell and had many guest stars. Afterparty was silliness. Giggled watching people hit on Amy with Reuben around. Reuben: "meh, whatever. I remember one time when we started dating and i was playing a show and some dude was hitting on her in the audience. I was getting pretty pissed and then i saw her deck the guy across the face. That's when i realized i have nothing to worry about, so now i just roll my eyes." Or something like that. This was over two months ago.

June 15: Manitowoc, WI. The Batcave. Us, wwc, The Kents, and Surf Ninjas. Oh, Manty. Good times. Everyone played well, we blew away Manty kids, someone got sweet photos of us, Norah and her boy were there, then wwc and we got a pair of cheap motel rooms in Two Rivers and drank with The Kents and their pals. Much love, Manty, as usual.

June 16: Steel Bridge Song Fest, Sturgeon Bay, WI. The Wizard covered the important shit in this Superstarcastic.com post. Jane Weidlin was outside in the beer garden when we played, so she didn't see us, but she owns a copy of Hot Nuggets! now, so, yeah.

August 7: The Vault, MKE, w/wwc and Terrior Bute. We apparently play all our shows with wwc now. Packed basement of 20-some people, free show, hot and muggy as hell, i gave myself a bangover the next day from all the thrashing i did behind the kit. Apparently some of the kids there had never seen us before, which is why we need to play these shows as much as possible.

August 8: Madison, The Annex, w/The Arkhoffs, Johnny Nobody, and The Dollyrots. 7 people paid, but they were cool people, so it was a fun show. Kyle from the Arkhoffs broke his snares, so he asked to borrow my snare drum and promptly broke the bottom head. How'dya even do that? Took the bottom head off his snare; problem fixed. Played well. Ate Taco Johns. Darwin Sampson = total dude.

COMING UP: Replitour! Cinci, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee! August 31 thru Sept. 3! Go to our website's tour dates page or to our MySpace for details! Holy cow!

July means recording. OooOOOOooo.

2007-07-03T12:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Day Before Independence Day, and Happy Day After Scooter Libby's Pardoning Day. USA! USA! USA!

Sigh.

Anyway. Thanks to everyone who came out on our recent road trips and hung out with us. As usual, you can read all about our exploits right here, although our journal hasn't yet been updated with our last three shows, but that'll change soon. Additionally, we're planning to finally get our mythology section brought up-to-date, and we'll be attempting to coincide that with our new website layout. We'll see how that goes.
In the meantime, no shows until August. July will be spent polishing the songs for our next full-length, which we are finally recording starting July 16th with our man John Congleton, the mastermind behind one of our favorite bands, The Paper Chase. We'll let you know how that goes, but suffice to say for now that we are incredibly excited.

Talk to you soon,
DrAwk

HiFi "Minotaur Documentation" Tour '07, Day 4: 06.04.07 Bloomington, IN: Party Crashers

2007-06-14T10:56:00.001-05:00

Another Monday on the road, another Punk Rock Night at Uncle Fester's in Bloomington. PRN in Bloomington is one of the most golden of oases in the world of DIY punk rock touring: a guaranteed hot crowd on a Monday night, which is a dead zone in any other city. Playing shows on the road on a Monday usually result in the locals saying, "man, come back on a weekend and it'll be much better." Yes, because bands are able to magically route their tours so that they're only traveling on weekends and the rest of the time they're home in their beds. Someday transporter technology will render weeknight shows obsolete.

Anyway, enough rambling. Despite a sudden decision by the state of Indiana to adopt Daylight Saving Time, thus denying us the extra hour we thought we had to get to Bloomington from Lansing (seriously, Hoosiers, wtf? My world has shifted), we still arrived in town early enough to find the bar still closed. After consulting the flyer to note that there are only three bands on the bill (us, Sump Pumps, and a local called Landlord), we drove to Rob and Kyl3 Sump Pump's place to chill out. As we made conversation, we asked Rob about the other band on the bill; he knew nothing. He then brought up how our Milwaukee pals Terrior Bute contacted him to get on the bill, as they needed a show on their way home from Baltimore. Rob had referred them to Josh at Fester's (as had i), but had heard nothing since.

Then the phone rings, and Rob has a conversation with Josh. Suddenly we discover that 1) Terrior Bute have arrived, having never heard anything from Josh and hoping to hop onto the show, and 2) ON TOP OF THAT, Josh had allowed two other touring punk bands to hop on last minute before Bute even showed up. Suddenly we had gone from three bands to SIX on a Monday night show that normally starts at 11 and ends by 2 (the bar closes at 3). WTF.

We arrive at the club and starting giving Terrior Bute good-natured shit when we see them. Obviously this isn't entirely their fault; Josh never responded to their email, and they showed up understanding that if nothing else, they'd get to hang out at the show. Admittedly, we were a little annoyed at the prospect of smashing six bands together on a Monday night, but fuck it--that's sort of what punk rock, DIY touring is about. Plus, Terrior Bute are our pals and a great band, so of course we're gonna help 'em out if we can. No question. Arrangements are made to have all three of our bands (Bute, Pumps, and us) share our gear, and away we went.

Credit Josh at this point for running the show like a goddamn machine. He started the show a half hour early (10:30), and instructed the other two late-arriving punk bands to share gear and play 15 minutes each. And to their credit, the switchover was quick and painless and both bands were done by roughly 5 after 11. Suddenly we were back on schedule (especially considering Bute play for 20-25 minutes, tops). So credit the first two bands for being efficient (but don't credit the second band's singer for being a dick and throwing a bottle up into the second level area and almost hitting Kyl3. Douche move, Massengill).

After Landlord's solid Dinosaur Jr. cover, we set up our gear for Terrior Bute, and the boys do us proud, slamming through their keytar jams and easily winning the crowd over (as we knew they would--c'mon, a crowd that likes us and the Sump Pumps? No-brainer for Terrior Bute). We hit the stage and blasted through some new tunes for the Bloomington crowd (i think last time we came through we treated them to "Paulding Light" and some Hot Nuggets! songs, but i think everything else new we're playing was new to them as well), and the Sump Pumps just killed. Their new material is seriously incredible, as the CD-R Rob burned for us confirms. Just...wow.

The other amazing thing about Bloomington is that you can buy beer until 3 AM there. Thus, on the way back from Fester's, a last-minute run to Kroger's was executed before closing time so we had beers to consume at the house. We kicked back and had a few with Matt the BattleBot (Murder By Death's bass player, who lives with Rob and Kyl3) as we watched Lewis Black on HBO. Yup, real livin'.

And so, our first multi-day road trip with Rev.Ever ends without a single hitch. I think the dude can hang.

HiFi "Minotaur Documentation Tour 2007 Day Three: 06.03.07 Lansing: "Jesus led me to the basement!"

2007-06-12T22:18:00.001-05:00

One important piece of information needs to be remembered during the recap of our time in Lansing this time out:

Tom and Jim from Red Swan built a still.

This is what sludgy doom balladeers in central Michigan do when they are not doing rock and roll--they distill their own hooch from whatever occurs to them on that given day. Upon our arrival, we were given some "Apple Jack" to sample--distilled 100-proof apple liquor. It was a little vinegary and a whole lot tasty, y'all (and as i am writing this, it's been over a week since i drank it and i can still see, so i think they know what they're doing). Tom at one point admitted to a desire to distill an entire Ceasar salad. I expect a full report when this happens.

When our bands arrived at Mac's there was an all-ages show wrapping up which featured the following bands (see if you can guess the prevailing genre of the musical acts at this show): Bloodlined Calligraphy, Dagon, Straight Line Stitch, Know Lyfe, and Among the Atrocities. If you're picturing a scenario where we're standing outside the club as inside we hear chugg-ch-chugg-a-chugg RRRRROOOOWWWWRRR wreee-nee-nee-nee-neener CHUGG, you're pretty much spot on. Once the show ended, i watched the kids haul their fancy road cases and fancy equipment out of the venue as i waited to load in my beat-to-shit duct-tape-covered drumset into the venue. I watched these kids, all decked out in their black jeans and black hair and black black black things, and i looked at my friends and myself--me with my salt-and-peppered hair; The Wizard and Tom with their male pattern baldness; Yale with his Sconni dude paunch, and i imagined these kids staring at us and being convinced that we were waiting to get on stage to play CCR and ZZ Top covers all night. And while that would be fun, that's not exactly what we had in mind for the club.

What we did have in mind was the usual hot rock, which was delivered despite a pretty nasty derailment during "Defenestrate Me" that wasn't able to get back on track because vocals really couldn't be heard on stage. There was some nasty bass feedback ringing through the monitor mix that kept us from really hearing each other, but we trudged through like troopers to positive feedback (heh) from the small but attentive audience. And Red Swan KILLED it. Duh. Those guys need to play out of town more often and share the awesome with the rest of the Midwest at least.

Let's pause for a moment to check in on our resident rookie and see how he's been handling his first major multi-day HiFi road trip. As i alluded in the previous entry, Chicago saw our Rev.Ever get loaded up on the whiskey and beers and pass out but good in the most contorted of ways on Zak Starcastic's floor. When we awoke on Monday morning after Sunday's Lansing show and subsequent Apple Jack consumption, i noticed a cut on the Rev's forehead.

"Um, dude? Where did that come from?"

"Uh, i don't know! Um...OH! I remember! Tom took me downstairs to the basement to show me where they keep their gear, and i bashed my head on the ceiling going down the stairs, i think."

Remembering that Tom went to bed before any of us, i looked over at Tom and asked, "um, Tom? Did you take him down to the basement last night?"

Tom looked at us quizzically. "No......"

It was eventually decided that Jesus himself must have come to the Rev in a vision that night and led him into the basement in order to, well, crack him on the head, i guess. Bad Jesus. Naughty Jesus. But maybe he was trying to tell Rev.Ever something? We'll never know, but we do know that the Rev was definitely in the basement at some point, because he accurately described it to Tom.

After a quick Mexican lunch and a stop at a music store for supplies (as we entered the store, someone asked us which one of us was the drummer, to which Ever motioned at me and answered, "this guy." Another rookie mistake! I had to then explain to him why no one in the band is ever allowed to identify me as "the drummer" in a strange music store ever again), we were off for Bloomington. Thanks again, Lansing.

IfIHadAHiFi "Minotaur Documentation" Mini-Tour 2007 Day Two--06.02.07 Chicago: Superstarcastival!

2007-06-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

"Hey Doc."

"Yeah Rev?"

"I noticed you put the recap for this show over on the Superstarcastic blog, where you are a regular contributor."

"Yes. Yes i did."

"What the fuck, man? You're neglecting the HiFi tour journals and pouring all your writing chops into something not directly related to the band? Where's your dedication to the music, man? Since when does some blog take precedence?"

"Dude, are you seriously questioning my dedication? You? New guy? Fine, i'll link the recap over to our journal too, and just for that, i'm gonna add how you got all tore up on whiskey and bierce, Karaoke'd on Demand to some R. Kelly jam, and passed out with your eyes half open."

"Dirty pool, Doc. Dirty pool."

IfIHadAHiFi "Minotaur Documentation" Mini-Tour 2007--Day One: 5.31.07 Madison: Vete Al Infierno

2007-06-06T21:19:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, after this show was booked, we heard a story from our pal Slater, of white wrench conservatory and Two Room Honeymoon fame, about the Inferno, the goth bar we were playing on this night, this night of our first ever mini-tour with Rev. Ever. Basically, the point of the story was that upon visiting the bar, Slater and his pal made a solemn vow and wrote a contract on a napkin, which essentially said, "We, Slater and [Slater's friend], being of sound mind and body, do solemnly swear to never again make fun of Club Anything." (Club Anything, aka Club ? aka Club Interrobang, aka Club Huh, aka Club Riddler, etc. is the local Milwaukee goth bar, which, well, is sort of a running joke in these parts for myriad reasons, including it being A GOTH BAR.) So we were prepared for GOTHIC MADNESS as we pulled up to the club.

Unfortunately, no such luck. Apparently they all know that on one Thursday night per month, our buddy Jake Crustacean books bands he digs and plays music he likes, so they run for the hills. So with the exception of a couple girls in back of the bar who inexplicably kept yelling at the bands to play quieter and turn it down, most of the 30-40 people in attendance were indie rockers and bands filled with indie rockers. Amongst the pluses: my little brother Kris, aka Skippy Awkward (yes, it's not a palindrome. Inside joke); old pal, ex-echo-static drummer and fill-in Brainerd drummer Chad Ovshak; and other old pal Eric Amble, who wanted to evaluate the new guy. Solid folk, all.

Openers Road Agent Spin played a competent set of catchy power-pop, the highlight of which was a rippin' cover of Thin Lizzy's "Cowboy Song." Brainerd headlined and totally fucking tore the roof off the sucker with loud as fuck Unsane-meets-Killdozer nastiness. And our set? Went over great, but it was "eh," i thought. Well, no, not "eh"--better than that, but we had some issues, notably Yale needing to borrow one of the Rev's guitars at the last monute as he hadn't realized that he messed up both his guitar's jacks in Minneapolis last weekend. So his guitar tone was a little weird, which threw me off. No biggie, really, and we still played well. Even if the ladies in the back thought we were too loud and one of the friends that Kris brought with him wasn't feeling it. Heh.

Instead of taking cash from the door as payment, we took what we made ($31!) and invested in a couple copies of Hot Nuggets! for the tour, via Jake. A pretty smart idea, as those six copies will gross over $60 by the time we get them sold.

Friday June 1st was a "day off" on the mini-tour (ha!) as we had been expecting the Superstarcastival to take place on this day instead of Saturday. Once that got shifted around, we really had no options for Friday night except for playing a quickie in Milwaukee, and frankly, we're playing too much in the town this summer as it is. So we rested up on Friday and awaited departure for Chicago Saturday.

5.27.07: Gas is 30 cents cheaper in Minnesota

2007-05-30T14:29:00.000-05:00

Hey, y'all. In an effort to make our website relevant again, we've incorporated blog software into the website (read: this website is now on Blogger, yay) in order to make things more easily updateable. One benefit to this is that we'll be throwing the tour reports you normally see on our LiveJournal and our MySpace blog onto this site as well. Because we're nothing if not repetitive. We're nothing if not repetitive.

With that in mind, let's recap this past weekends Big Ass Rock Show in Minneapolis:

Current gallon of regular unleaded in Wisconsin: $3.46. Current gallon of regular unleaded in Minnesota: $3.17.

Dammit. First the Twins take two of three from the Brewers, now this. When are we constructing those toll booths at the borders?

Minneapolis was beautiful this weekend. The Triple Rock Social Club is in a very nice part of town (near a college, i think), and the skies were not cloudy all day. We pulled into the parking lot to see Soundman Jason opening up the club. After unloading our gear, the remainder of the pre-show evening was spent BS'ing with Jason about fellow Milwaukeeans he knows and the Minneapolis scene (this part of the conversation was subtitled "These Damn Kids These Days Starting Bands That Suck, God"). One by one the other bands showed up and we got to meet the lovely lads of Mise en Place for the first time, including Shaun, their drummer, who invited us up in the first place and hooked up the Triple Rock for us.

Jason's words of caution: this was the best weather Minnesotans have seen all year, and there were only 12 people paid at last night's show. Therefore, expect barely any turnout as most people are chilling in their yards with lawn beers and grilled meats. Well, i can't say i'd have blamed them, since that's what i did pretty much the entire weekend when i wasn't in another state.

However, as we sat in the restaurant/bar section of the Triple Rock, taking in the unmitigated glory of the Triple Rock po' boy that the Wizard ordered (let's be clear--this was not a sandwich. This was a massive pile of potatoes, chicken, and cajun spices with two hunks of bread in the middle of the pile to offer an illusion of structure. The other bands gathered around and "ooh'd" and "ahh'd" at the pile of amazing), we soon discovered that Jason was going to be proven wrong! Before the show even started he wandered over to our table and said, "hey, we already have made more at the bar than we did all last night!" Final tally at the end of the evening, on this Sunday night of Memorial Day weekend? 91 paid.

We just have excellent luck with Sundays before Memorial Day, i think. We did one of those in Madison a few years ago and it was gangbusters.

The show itself was beyond great. Mise en Place play this great blend of indie-math rock with nice screamy, piercing guitar leads. The Slats are, of course, The Slats: fucking excellent. Their sparse Wire-like post-punk was in fine form as always. NOTE: They are heading out for a few shows in July and are hitting The Vault in Milwaukee on, i believe, July 14th or 15th. Check out their MySpace for the dates and hit that shit. You will not be disappointed, especially when they launch into their amazing freestyle political raps. No, i'm serious. It's awesome and not the least bit cheesy whiteboy.

As we set up to play in the middle slot, all i could think about was how Shaun had spent so much time building us up on stage, saying it was an "honor" to play with us, and all this really flattering stuff that basically led me to think, "Oh, shit, we'd better bring it." We set the tone early by soundchecking our vocal mics with INXS lyrics, and then launched into the "Defenestrate Me/Paulding Light" twofer to kickstart things. People went BIZONKERS. We've had entertaining shows in Minneapolis before and played to decent responses, but this was crazy. Get this: people were laughing at our banter. Wtf. I think this was partially because when i explained that one of the songs was called "Black Holes Resonate in B-Flat (Baby)," Jason started conversing with us from the sound board, saying stuff like "wait, are you serious? They do? Holy SHIT. You guys have blown my mind. No, wait, tell me more about this." Meanwhile we're waiting to start the next song and he's all "i have to know more." What's to know, dude? 50 octaves below human hearing! Look it up!

I think when it's all said and done, we're gonna get a LOT of mileage out of that song. Let this be a lesson, kids: songs about love and relationships and feelings are LAME. Songs about nerd shit get people talking.

Mise en Place, being the generous, amazing dudes they are, donated their share of the door to us, which resulted in us being able to triple the band fund after gas (no, the band fund didn't start with much). After an extended post-show schmoozefest, in which apparently a few people told Yale that we were the next Brainiac (a sentiment i write off to excessive alcohol intake and the fact that i dedicated "Black Holes" to Timmy Taylor in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of his death last week) and the booking agent explained that he missed our set, but based on what people were saying about us he wanted us to come back soon and could he get our contact info and a CD?, Shaun hopped into our van to drunkenly navigate us back to his gorgeous home in Edina to crash for a few hours before we had to get the Wizard back to Milwaukee for work.

This is where things get a bit embarrassing for Shaun, and if i were a nicer person, i'd probably stay silent, but fuck it, it's funny. After pulling over twice to allow Shaun to throw up, we made it to his place, where we met his incredibly excited dog, Paul Stanley, and where he and his wife had set up spare rooms for us to sleep in for the night. We never found the spare rooms because Shaun went to the bathroom and inadvertantly stayed there. In the morning as he saw us off, he explained that he woke up on the bathroom floor with his dog licking his face and his glasses in the toilet. I immediately regretted not owning a decent digital camera for about the fifth time this month.

Shaun, do not be embarrassed. Thom from white, wrench, conservatory is still plotting revenge on me for what i did to his bathroom on New Year's Eve. We've all been there, sport.

After an uneventful drive home i crashed for four hours, then went back to (HiFi practice compound and Wizard abode) the Church of Murray for Memorial Day grilling and illegal firepit. For once, the weather even on Memorial Day itself (which is normally rainy and miserable in Wisconsin) was nice. I couldn't have scripted the weekend better. No, not even if we had gotten to play Shaun's copy of Guitar Hero II.

IFIHADAHIFI 3.0

2007-05-28T16:56:00.000-05:00

New IfIHadAHiFi site in the works! Eventually all the old links will be up and active, but it'll look a little something like this. Lots more content to come once we finish our mini tour that runs from Thursday, May 31st through Monday, June 4th.

We're currently playing out material that's going to be on the new album we're recording with John Congleton of The Paper Chase in July.

Dates:
- Thu 5/31/07 - Madison WI @ The Inferno 21+
w/ Brainerd
- Sat 6/2/07 - Chicago IL @ Beat Kitchen 21+
1st ever Superstarcastival! w/ The Lusties, Das Kapital, Pool Of Frogs, The Red Tie Affair
- Sun 6/3/07 - Lansing MI @ Mac's Bar 21+
w/Coco Coca, Sam Vicarii
- Day 6/4/07 - Bloomington IN @ Uncle Fester's 21+
w/Sump Pumps

2000-04-05T12:28:00.015-05:00

2000-04-05T12:27:00.012-05:00

Black Holes Resonate (In B-Flat), Baby from the album Fame By Proxy

Get Killed, Get Noticed from the album Fame By Proxy

(This Is) The New Science from the album Ones And Zeroes

Gotta Disappear from the album No More Music

Watch You Disintegrate from the album No More Music

Gotta Disappear (Live on WMSE) live on-air performance from 2004

Doubting Thomas Telescope (Live on WMSE) live on-air performance from 2004

2000-04-05T12:27:00.007-05:00

Fame By Proxy

September/October 2008 - Latest Flame Records LFR-22

BUY IT

Defenestrate Me
Paradise by the Paulding Light
Your Head on a Ratings Spike
Black Holes Resonate (in B-Flat), Baby MP3
Get Killed, Get Noticed MP3
Creative Lessons in Accounting
Science Depends on Us
You Can Dig a Thousand Holes, but it Takes a Body to Make a Grave
Song for the Dead Millionaire
Success! Success! Success!
99 Probalos

Recorded by Shane Olivo in Milwaukee, mixed by John Congleton (The Paper Chase) in Texas, and mastered at Silver Sonya in DC, the disc brings still more hooks, still more obtusely nerdy subject material (Black holes? The Paulding Light? Really guys?).

Hot Nuggets!

April 2006 - Crustacean Records crst57

BUY THE CD
BUY THE LP

Spin Spider Spin (Takako Minekawa)
That's Almost Premeditated! (HiFi original)
Ay, Paisano! (Modern Machines)
We Got the Beat (The Go-Gos)
Sleep! (Big Black)
That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate (Mission Of Burma)

The concept for what became Hot Nuggets first took root in August of 2005, after IfIHadAHiFi and the Modern Machines each played a live set at Madison's WORT radio station and then ripped it up later that night at the Slipper Club. Jake Shut from Crustacean Records hosted our radio performance and attended the show, approaching both bands with the intention of eventually releasing something by them. Nato from the Machines told him that we had been talking about a split 7" where we would each cover a song by the other band, as well as a separate cover song. Jake was into it, but before long we all got way too excited and expanded the idea to a full-length split-CD/picture disc LP where each band would contribute an original, one cover of the other band, and four other miscellaneous covers.

Later in the year (September, actually), Jake hung with the HiFi at the CMJ Music Marathon, where the HiFi decided it would be funny to scream "HOT NUGGETS!" at random strangers in Brooklyn. We're still not sure why. Regardless, DrAwk then text messaged Nato to say, "And the name of the split shall be Hot Nuggets!," and the rest was history.

Our portion of the record was mostly recorded at Master Blaster studios in Madison by echo-static's guitar wizard and Crustacean co-owner Todd Ostertag--he recorded "Spin Spider Spin" (Takako Minekawa), "That's Almost Premeditated!" (HiFi), "Ay, Paisano!" (Modern Machines), "Sleep!" (Big Black), and a cover of Killdozer's "The Buzzard" that will go on Crustacean's eventual Killdozer tribute CD. "We Got the Beat" (The Go-Gos) was recorded in April '05 by Danny Friedman at the Tannery in Milwaukee, and "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" (Mission of Burma) was recorded wayyyy back in the wayback by ustin Perkins in October 2003, while we were finishing up the recording for No More Music! How ya like that?

No More Music

March 2004 - No Karma con032

BUY IT

(The Hifi Vs.) Potential Energy
Chance-Medley
Gotta Disappear MP3
I'm in Love with a Girl that Steals
Gongye
You're No Pirate
We Need This Noise to Live
Watch You Disintegrate MP3
Tussle and Loop to Speed
Exit Interview
Doubting Thomas Telescope
No More Music
Uptight (Everything's Alright) - bonus track

( No More Music reviews. )

For this, our second full-length release, we went back to our pal Justin Perkins, in whose basement we recorded Ones and Zeroes. This time, Justin was working up at Simple Studios in Green Bay and had a lot more toys for us to play with--more mics, more room, more digital tracks, and the results were far superior to the last CD. We actually started by recording 4 of the songs in 2002 (way back before we even left on our first West Coast tour!), and then followed that up by proceeding to slave over another crop of songs for the next year until finally, in July 2003, we had enough to put together a full-length again.

The timing ended up being rather fortuitous, because right around when we were finishing up No More Music, our old friends Michael (who put out our last record on No Karma) and Ben were starting a new label called Contraphonic, and very much wanted to put out our next release. We agreed, knowing it'd be a gas to work with them again, and the rest is history.

More hot-shit college airplay, more hot-shit reviews, and our most hot-shit tour to date (in other words, a tour in which we didn't lose money). Rockpile called it "already one of the year's best." Skyscraper called it "giddy." Splendid called it "amazing." Pitchfork didn't call it anything.

Ones and Zeroes

June 2001 - No Karma NOK-020

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The All Tied Up
(This is) The New Science MP3
The Secret to the Shimmy
Loop 27
AV Club Dance Party
One Happy Pussycat
Tunguska-Electro
Outdoor Shitkicker '69
Edison No Side
The Sound of No America
She's My Machine

( Ones And Zeroes reviews. )

This was recorded in the span of two months or so at the home of Justin Perkins of Yesterday's Kids. We did it on 16-track analong tape and mixed it down onto his computer. It was a good time, for nothing else than watching Justin emerge out of his "I don't really know these guys, and I've just recorded punk bands, so I'll just go with it" shell into coming up with more insane recording ideas than we had! We then delivered a CDR of the final mix to Michael at No Karma, and he wiked it soooo much dat he put out ower wekord. Awwww. 1000 CDs pressed and 2 8-track cassettes so far (the 8-tracks include bonus "stuff." Whooo!). Released June 19, 2001.

Compilations:

CDRGMBK (2001)
"HM"

Penny Compilation (2001)
"(This Is) The New Science" (demo)
&
"Edison No Side" (demo)

Make Way for No Karma (2001)
"Murder Is For Me"

Auscultation (2002)
"Sign O' The Times" (Prince cover)

Shake Them Haters Off (2002)
"The Secret To The Shimmy"

My Malady (2003)
"You're No Pirate"

Starting Line-Up (2003)
"Watch You Disintegrate"

Workman's Comp (2003)
"Watch You Disintegrate"

Contraphonic: Lookin' Good, Soundin' Good (2004)
"(The HiFi vs.) Potential Energy"
&
"Coughing Up Static"

Smart Pop: Kill The Scene (2004)
"Chance Medley"

Weird Science Fair #1 (2005)
"Black Holes Resonate (In B-Flat), Baby" (demo)

Weird Science Fair #2 (2005)
"Paradise By The Paulding Light" (demo)

We Will Bury You: A Tribute To Killdozer (2006)
"The Buzzard" (Killdozer cover... of course)

Demos:

We Will Not Be Responsible For Any Damage to Plastic Bowling Balls. This Includes Scratches, Nicks, Gouges, Etc. Use Them at Your Own Risk (2000)
1. "(This is) The New Science"
2. "Mars Invades Puerto Rico"
3. "Your Hip Hop Chief of State"
4. "Edison No Side"
5. "The Sound of No America"
6. "She's My Machine"
7. "The All Tied Up"
8. "(This is) The New Science"
9. "Murder is for Me"
10. "Edison No Side"
11. "The Sound of No America"

The Fake Jan EP (2001)
1. "Murder Is For Me" (rough mix)
2. "Sign O' The Times" (Prince cover)
3. "HM"
4. WRST Interview

Tour Only CDs:

The Miseducation of Paris Hilton (2007)
1. "Paradise By The Paulding Light" (demo)
2. "99 Probalos" (demo)

I Heard You Guys Were Loud: Live at WMSE 02.07.06 (2007)
1. "That's Almost Premeditated!"
2. "Your Head On A Ratings Spike"
3. "Song For The Dead Millionaire"
4. "The Buzzard"
5. "Locusts!"
6. "Success! Success! Success!"

2000-04-05T12:24:00.012-05:00

CONTACT

2000-04-05T10:59:00.008-05:00