13.September.2010
I’ve got shows! As always, e-mail aaron@atticaattica.org with any questions.
The What About Very Old Friends Tour
19.September.2010
Rochester, NY @ The Shark Tank, 5 PM, $3 donation
Pre-Show BBQ at 2 PM!
w/ Josh Mordecai
e-mail aaron@atticaattica.org for address
22.September.2010
Oswego, NY @ The Bat Cave, 15 Orville St., 6 PM
w/ Mayflower, Ghost Robot Ninja Bear (solo)
23.September.2010
Ithaca, NY @ The Ghostcat, 514 N. Aurora
Doors @ 7 PM w/ Campfire Story Circle
Music @ 8:30 w/ Ghost Robot Ninja Bear (solo), Rye ‘n Clover
24.September.2010
Benefit for Fe Y Alegria of Barquisimeto, Venezuela
Lindenhurst, NY @ The Brew Haus
111 N. Wellwood Ave.
10 PM, $5 suggested donation
w/ Make It Plain (feat. Duncan of Capital & Thieves and Assassins), Correspondents
25.September.2010
Benefit for the Jake Stults Foundation
Brooklyn, NY @ Party XPO
929 Broadway, 7 PM, $10 All Ages
w/ Ruiner, Achilles, Another Breath, Such Gold, Mayflower
Advance Tickets
26.September.2010
Philadelphia, PA @ The Crystal Palace, 49th & Locust, 6 PM-ish
w/ Captain We’re Sinking, Ark Royal, Paper Lanterns
28.September.2010
Oak Ridge, NJ @ Rawest Venue (aka The Cliffs), 6 PM
All acoustic outdoor show w/ Control, Erica and Tyler, Kristia of Exit She Calls, Insouciant, The David Alan Fear
Go HERE for important directions on getting there.
Last weekend, I played Campfire Fest. As you can see, it lived up to its name. It was the first show I’ve played where I woke up in a tent, swam in a lake, and spent the entire day in flip-flops, all without leaving the “venue.” I’ve played a lot of shows in my life, so it’s extremely rare that any show has more than one “first.” This is what I loved about Campfire Fest. It was different. I saw twenty or so performers play over two days, and all of them were acoustic. This isn’t to say that it wasn’t loud…we were loud enough to get the park ranger to threaten to call the sheriff. (But we were also charming enough that he didn’t.) In the end, I met a lot of new friends and heard some amazing musicians.
I think this is the first weekend that I really felt like acoustic music was powerful. Sure, songs or performances can be powerful, but my love of punk rock has given me the permanent assessment that being plugged-in is superior, and playing acoustic is just the absence of electrical options. After this weekend, I feel differently. We had two days of music without electricity and it didn’t seem boring or mediocre. Indeed, it was invigorating. There may come a time when we cannot access electricity as readily or cheaply as we do now, and I no longer fear that possibility, since I know that we will always have plenty of music regardless.
I also have to give recognition to the good folks who came out to the basement show in New Jersey a few weeks ago. I didn’t have a lot of time to play shows during my east coast visit, but we sure made the one show count. To be frank, it was the best show I’ve played as Attica! Attica! I say that because the participation was so enthusiastic… incredibly enthusiastic, in fact. Some people knew the words better than I did. Additionally, my friends in Barcode Youth played “Five Year Plan” with me, and they made it sound really, really amazing. Damn, those boys can shred. Hopefully, we’ll get to do it again sometime soon. And it’s always great to see my old tour buddies in The New Dress, especially since their new songs are so good.
Now would be a good time to say that I’m going to be back East for a good while. I’ll be working, but hopefully I have some shows up my sleeve as well. Keep an eye on the shows page for updates. Until then,
- Aaron
7.July.10
I bought an accordion. I am well aware that this purchase is the musician’s version of the Nordic Track. This will not languish in the corner of the garage, my friends, oh no. The day after I bought it, I bent my finger back very, very far against a basketball. Now I cannot play my accordion. I guess that’s appropriate, since I don’t know how to play it. What I’m trying to say is don’t expect my accordion-only covers album of Stevie Wonder songs to drop anytime soon.
In other (aka actual) news, I just bagged up the final mix of a sah-weet Propagandhi cover song for a split 7”. I don’t know if I’m allowed to divulge anymore interesting details yet, but I can tell you that this is the first A!A! track to involve the djembe. It sounds like maybe that would be bad, but don’t worry, it’s good.
Also got a couple shows on the stove, one in Jersey and the other in California. See you there.
- Aaron
8.June.2010
At this moment, I am looking at a big stack of money. It’s more cash than I’ve seen on my desk in a long time, and none of it’s mine.
Last week, I played a benefit show for the Jake Stults Foundation. It was an average turnout for an Attica! Attica! show in Portland, and the requested donation at the door was $3-5. Perhaps you can understand, then, why I was astounded that the total we made averaged out to be $20/person. Considering that some people donated $3, others donated much more. Two days later, my friend Jesse was at a hardcore show and announced an upcoming benefit screening for the foundation. One of the bands, Dangers, decided to donate all of their door money and merch money from the show, even though they were on tour. Two days after that, I was at a show talking to my friend Rory of Soul Control about the situation, and he returned with a generous donation from his band, despite being 3,000 miles from home.
We are truly a stunning community. Within a week, we raised just under $1,000, mostly from people who barely knew Jake or didn’t know him at all. We are not some enormous charitable organization using donations to cover administrative fees, nor are we a church with loyal weekly contributors. We are just a group of people who take care of our own. And Jake was one of us.
The circumstances of Jake’s life and of his death allowed for him to donate 7 organs and enough tissue for up to 70 additional recipients. It is rare that a person’s passing can have such a broad and profound impact on extending and improving the lives of others. We can and should rejoice in this fact, but we must do so with an awareness that the efforts to save his life came at an enormous cost. As of today, the medical bills stand at $115,000. I think we can all agree that this is far too great a burden for one person to bear.
So it’s up to us. I am so satisfied and impressed with the pile of money in front of me because it is evidence of how strong and unique our community is. We are great. But this is less than 1/100th of the financial burden that Jake’s wife and family face. I hope you will continue to demonstrate how strong our network is by helping with a donation to the Jake Stults Foundation. If you are reading this, then you were a part of Jake’s community, even if you didn’t know him. I encourage you to act the way you would like the community to respond if you were in the same situation. Thanks for your generosity, your kindness, and your support.
- Aaron
12.May.2010
I lost a friend this weekend. He started the first band I was ever in. He was my oldest friend in Portland. The last time I talked to him, he invited me to sing for his new band. Now he’s gone. There’s a lot that I feel, but not much left to say.
Except this: Here’s to Jake. The most excited storyteller, the most animated bass player, the most unpredictable van driver, and most genuine dude I have ever known. May the music he left behind comfort us in his absence.
At the memorial yesterday, I found out that someone had already received a successful kidney transplant from Jake after waiting for more than a year for a match. Three days after his passing, he is already saving lives. I don’t believe in destiny, but I do believe in beauty. And that’s about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
15.April.2010
Despite my highly enjoyable first visit to the basement of the Breakfast and Dessert House in Philadelphia, I still did not expect this second show there to be as fantastic as it was. The ambiance of the basement is a perfect mix of dinginess and coziness, full of friends past, present, and future. Nick and company put together a good mix of acoustic music, astoundingly good considering they assembled it in a week’s time. It was one of those shows where everyone was really hanging out in between bands, not just lingering near each other. It felt so comfortable that I decided to indulge my friend Scotty’s insistence that I learn and play Bad Religion’s “Ten in 2010” in belated honor of the New Year. I played the song to an outlandishly enthusiastic singalong.
I also played “Frostbite,” which I haven’t played much in the past year. I always thought that song would be best with a hearty singalong, and this show proved me right. Back when I started writing music, I used to have heavy anxiety when people sang along to my songs. It made me self-conscious that anyone was actually paying enough attention to the lyrics to memorize them, or listening to the songs enough times to inadvertently absorb them. Nowadays, I really crave the singalongs. In the moments when I’m not the only one singing, I feel like we take a major step toward breaking down the barrier between performer and audience and we become a group of people singing a song we all know. I enjoy this just as much when someone else is the songleader. I don’t need the glory of being the one who wrote the song; I just want us to sing together.
The day before, I went to church in my hometown for the first time in years. The service included several unison prayers and a handful of hymns, both of which are common to most church services. Speaking in unison is just creepy to me, the essence of cultish groupthink handed down from on high. Singing hymns, however, is more transcendent. If I’m alone, I don’t sing hymns because I am not a man of faith. But I have no problem singing spiritual songs with others because we, whether as a community or as a contrived group of people, desire to feel the power of our numbers and the energy that comes from that. Reciting words that are not my own sounds monotonous and thoughtless. Singing words that are not my own still feels exuberant, because singing with others just feels outstanding to me. The lyrics have to be profoundly stupid or pretty offensive to derail my exuberance. Hell, they can even be profoundly stupid and I’ll still enjoy the experience.
In the DIY scene, or the punk scene, or whatever you wanna call it, our songs are our common language and our cultural currency, and I’ll gladly sing along to a song that I don’t necessarily find inspiring if it means I can sing with 5, 10, or 100 other people. The basement show is our house of worship, and we understand that singing along doesn’t obligate a person to espouse every word of the song in question. If it did, no one would ever sing along to anything. It just celebrates that we have a common bond within the diversity of our ideas. And hey, singing just feels real good.
I finished off my last song, and after some shouting for “one more!”, I decided to sing “We’ll Always Be Home.” I’ve never ended a set with that song since I sing it a cappella, which seems a little weak for a final song, but I was feeling so good I figured, “Why not?” I started singing, and I was shocked at how many people were singing every word with me. When I started Attica! Attica!, this was the highest possible success I could imagine. To encourage more singing along, I tried to write songs that were still thoughtful but a little less wordy than my previous bands. I didn’t really succeed at that (I’m a verbose dude), but I still hoped that these songs could provide a foundation for a hearty and fulfilling singalong. This Philly show was the realization of that idea, and it felt really, really good. I don’t know if I’ve felt that good playing live since Marathon’s last show.
So thank you, Philly. And thank you to anyone who’s ever sung along or written a song for me to sing along to. I now have accomplished everything I wanted to do with Attica! Attica! I’m by no means done (I have a few projects in the pipe as we speak). It’s just that everything that happens from now on is gravy.
30.March.2010
Getting on a plane in 8 hours to go out East and see the good people. Hope to see you in NYC or Philly!
- Aaron
26.March.2010
LAST MINUTE EAST COAST SHOWS! I’m playing in NYC and Philly next week. Check the shows page for the details!
- Aaron
18.March.2010
Okay, the Great Facebook Experiment of Oh-10 seems to be working. I even learned about RSS feeds yesterday. I don’t mean to fashion myself as a complete nincompoop when it comes to Internet stuff, it’s just that I only care about the Internet when it can give me things I need. Like pants. I need new pants. Give me pants, Internet.
You really can’t even blink without the Internet passing you by. It makes me think about the “singularity” (have you hear to this?!). A handful of futurists (and maybe one particularly prominent one whose name escapes me) are predicting that the rate of change will continue to accelerate exponentially, leading to a point where change happens so quickly that it will be indiscernible to human intelligence. In other words, artificial intelligence will supersede human intelligence, unless we augment human intelligence with artificial intelligence. Yes. Robocop. I actually sort of believe all this, but until then? I’m going to continue to be amazed about RSS feeds and attempt to devote more of my time to basement shows and less of my time to mediocre forms of pseudo-communication like Facebook. Oh, and if you haven’t already done so, be Attica! Attica!’s fan! Singularity, here we come.
- Aaron
15.March.2010
I just made a Facebook page for Attica! Attica! I don’t understand how it works. The Internet is making me feel like Grandpa. The Grandpa who can’t program the clock on the VCR. Er…I meant Tivo. I’m not going to beg for you to become my Facebook friend or whatever, but it would be nice if I could get more fans than the Attica! Attica! page that someone else made and that I have no power to update.
- Aaron
