shows

Haiti Benefit show, January 27th, at the Bell House (Brooklyn)

Haiti Benefit show, January 27th at the Bell House (Brooklyn)

As mentioned last week, we’re playing as part of a larger benefit show for Haiti, and details (as well as tickets) are available today.

The show is Wednesday, January 27th, at the Bell House in Brooklyn, doors open at 6:00, and 100% of the proceeds will be split between Save the Children and Partners in Health.

All sets are short, stripped-down affairs and we should be on about 9:15 or so. Although with a line-up like this, it’s worth making a full evening of it:

NY State Senator Diane Savino

The Wahoo Skiffle Crazies

Pat Kiernan (of NY 1)

Here We Go Magic

Eugene Mirman

Matthew Caws & ? (TBA)

Eugene Mirman

Sondre Lerche

Todd Barry

The Wrens

AC Newman + Rhett Miller + Nicole Atkins + Charles Bissell as The Seekers

Ted Leo

Jimmy Fallon

Cold War Kids

…with others still to be confirmed (and note Charles’ ’60s Australian folkie turn as part of the Seekers cover set w/ A.C. Newman, Rhett Miller & Nicole Atkins). If you’re there between 6:30 – 7:30, enjoy free food courtesy of Great Jones Café, Dub Pies, and more. And there’s a special two hour edition of keyboard karaoke hosted by Sara Schaefer and fellow South Jerseyan, Joe McGinty, in the front lounge from 11pm-1am.

Again, tickets are on sale as of noon today (here). And if you’re not in the NYC-area but still looking for a way to donate the much-needed money for immediate help and long-term rebuilding, see our list of organizations already in Haiti, doing great and difficult work there (one post down the page), courtesy of our friends at Air Traffic Control.

And for whatever you can do, thanks very much,

the wrens

Show - Boston, MA @ Middle East (downstairs)

On Sat January 16, 2010 we'll be playing in Boston, MA at Middle East (downstairs).

Tickets available here.

More about the show...

We kick off 2010, our 21st year, playing with friends, good folks and great bands both, Southeast Engine and Choo Choo La Rouge.

20th Anniversary Maxwell’s Shows (last minute & final details)

Howdy,

Here are the hastily-assembled details for our 20th Anniversary shows tonight & tomorrow.

For tonight:

we’ll be joined by our old friends (literally), 12:01. We played with them exactly 20 years ago when we both just starting out in southern New Jersey.

And per voting consensus, our set list will be some kind of re-ordering of these old chestnuts:

I've Made Enough Friends
North To Nothing
Whats A Girl
Built in Girls
Our Brightest new Year
13 Months in 6 Min
ex-girl collection
Happy
I Guess We're Done
Pretty O.K.
Propane
13 Grand
broken

We’ll be joined by some new friends on horns on “what’s a girl” and “broken”.

For tomorrow's early show:

we’re joined by (and some of us ‘with’) the wonderful Palomar . Our set is the “meadowlands top-to-bottom” deal so track listing is findable somewhere.
Our special guests include Beth Wawerna of Bird of Youth singing the duet “13 months in 6 minutes”, Lysa Opfer hitting the keys on “hopeless” and Briton Shell covering the baritone guitar part in “ex-girl collection”. Thanks, all.

And for tomorrow's late show:

it’s new song intensive with some old standards. Our friends Bob Fields, a great band from Hoboken with whom we played with many a mid-to-late’90s dive, have graciously reunited to play the show. We are honored.

For all three shows:

we’ll also have a new cd of some very old songs (think pre-Clinton era) and a new shirt commemorating our 20th year. The shirt and the cd cover (which stylishly folds out into a poster) were designed by Phillip of DoubleTriple and the shirts were silkscreened by little ol’ us w/ Phiillip.

Here’s the track listing for the cd:

The French Song (1991)
Soft Castration (1991)
Lips of Blue (1992)
Don’t Be Shy (1997)
Silverware (1992)
6th & Atlantic (1990)
65 (1991)

And finally, we’ll be recording all three shows – a first for us – in the hopes that if we sound passable as our cover band on at least say, 6 songs out of three sets, then we’ll put out a live ep.

Thanks again and happy birthday to us. Oh and to Kevin, who’s actual birthday is today.

the wrens

Polls close county-wide

Polls Close County-wide

Howdy,

With many, many thanks to all the folks who wrote in to request songs for the 'make the band do your bidding' portion of our 20th anniversary thing (a few posts down), just officially drawing the curtain on the polling booths. We were really nicely surprised at the high voter turnout and the sweet messages so again, thanks.

the wrens

Show - Washington, D.C. @ the Black Cat

On Fri November 20, 2009 we'll be playing in Washington, D.C. at the Black Cat.

Tickets available here.

More about the show...

The wrens 20th anniversary rolls on and into our nation's capital.

Ok, while not really a part of the official 20th shows at Maxwells, in an effort to get ready for those, there's a pretty good chance we'll be blowing the dust off some some weird back-catalog chestnuts as well as cramming for some new songs.

Hope to see you there,
the wrens

Third show added for 20th Anniversary (Meadowlands start-to-finish)

Howdy,

Just dropping by our own electronic ghost town to say that we’ve added a third show for our 20th anniversary / mirthday shindig – an early show for Friday, Dec. 4th at 7:30. In keeping with our theme of…um, having themes, this show will be the Meadowlands record, top-to-bottom. We’d tried setting this up last year to put that baby to bed, but it never really came together. This will be the one time you’ll probably ever hear ’13 months in 6 minutes’ or whatever it is and ‘ex-grille confection’, although I think we tried that one live once. Anyway, thanks to the folks that requested this - very flattering.

So that nicely ties up the three anniversary shows in a Ghosts-of-Wrens-Past (old songs request),
-Present (hilariously, the 6-year-old Meadowlands) and -Future (new ones) way that would make Tiny Tim proud. And in show order, no less.
Tickets here and more info on the other two shows here (two posts down).


No County for Old Wrens and their Stories

And if you come by, maybe we’ll pour some sherry and regale you with the story of the time we walked one end of Hoboken to the other, handing out demo tapes to every bar & club in town – including Maxwell’s – in the hopes of securing one of the many lucrative live concert bookings that seemed just a lucky break away in the big city (that’s Hoboken in this story). And how we were surprised to find most of the bars closed.

It turns out both that it was the evening of January 1st – you know, the day after the busiest tavern day of the year – and that we were jackasses.
(It was also New Year’s Day 1990 but that part of the story is more about how old we are, not how dumb we were.) And come to think of it, that pretty much is the story.
Gaston, my son, it’s not much of a story, true, but hey…


Hawaii Four-0

And forgot to mention that if you’ll be attending the Dec. 3rd show, that also happens to be Kev’s special birthday (starts with a ‘four’, rhymes with ‘sporty’). And hilariously or sadly, depending, he’s the baby of the band. Tempted to say BYOCake but if we get it together we’ll have some there.


As always, thanks,

the wrens

Show - Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell's (early show added)

On Fri December 04, 2009 we'll be playing in Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's (early show added).

Tickets available here.

More about the show...

We’ve added a third show for our 20th anniversary / mirthday shindig – an early show for Friday, Dec. 3rd at 7:30. In keeping with our theme of…um, having themes, this show will be the Meadowlands played top-to-bottom, something we’d toyed with last year but it never really came together. So thanks to the folks that requested this - very flattering.

More details here (one post up).

Our 20th Anniversary Shows

Howdy,

As mentioned earlier this summer, 2009 marks our 20th year as a band. And to paraphrase a joke someone made (somewhere online…), even disengaged&distracted us couldn’t pass by a milestone like that with only a website post to point to along the way.

So we’ve set up a couple of ‘We’ve Been a Band For One-Score Years’ shows for December 3rd & 4th. And being all Garden State and all, they’ll be going down at the Pride of Hoboken, Maxwell’s.

Tickets here.

One show will be all-request old wrens songs, one will be all new songs, details below. But first, a quick look back at how far we’ve crawled (c. 1991):

Now, we don’t usually condone the zestier language here, but just look at this fucking mess. There are airline disasters less grisly.

Charles has given new meaning to the old sexist phrase ‘nice knobs’. It now means ‘knees’. He’s also going a little heavy on the “She Blinded Me with Rest-stop Sunglasses and Short-Pants” and looks, not so much further back in the photo, as he does much, much smaller than everyone else.
As if Kevin’s imagining him.

Kev has shed the top half of his exoskeleton to reveal the world’s tightest wristwatch and a surprising commitment to ‘Lite’ beer. But that’s all to distract us from a more sinister truth – Kevin Whelan…is a Centaur and the folded jumpsuit hides his bottom horsey half.

Jerry is mulling over an especially tough call on the last corner kick while moonlighting as the most intensely motivated salesperson at Foot Locker.

He in turn, is wearing the Pope Gregory hat – a stunning 28” likeness of Greg rendered in felt and beaver fur.
Water-repellent. Reversible. Sleeveless.
Beautiful.

Good thing there was a camera there at the exact moment the four of us beamed in to lay claim to Least Cool Band in the Universe.


Vote Early Vote Often

Sorry....anyhow, for both of you still reading, here are the themes to our pretty parties:

For the Thursday, 12/3 show, you make the play, armchair Quarterflash. You write the set list. Yep, whatever obscure ditty from our vast catalog of 3.5 albums in 20.5 years that we normally wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot Kevin, you vote ‘em in, and we’ll…probably make you regret it.

Nope, you don’t have to be going to the show. How would we even know? And yes, you can vote more than once. Why would we care? The New Math that will be used to calculate your vote and compute our oldies set, exists where the plane of imaginary numbers is bisected by the tangent of nano-technology and will weed out your shabby attempts at rigging the system.

So tell us what songs to play and whichever get the most votes, go in the set.
To do that, go to our Contact / email the band page , drop us a message with a tune or two or even a whole set that, given an infinite space-time and a merciful god, you’d wanna hear us try to play. Maybe put ‘Play Drunk’ in the subject line since we’ll probably have to that night.

Voting will end…let’s say, a little over a week from now, October 3rd. Gives us two months to get it together.


This is Our (New) Music

As for Friday, 12/4, come dressed as your favorite wren. Balding, middle-aged Paunch Men are automatically disqualified per competition guidelines. Bird costumes, encouraged.
Kidding.
For that show, we’re doing all new songs. Or as many as we can muster.

Oh yeah, we’ll have some as-yet-to-be confirmed friends’ bands from the days of yore playing both shows as well.

As always, one-score-and-seven-months-worth of thanks,
the wrens

Show - Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell's

On Fri December 04, 2009 we'll be playing in Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's.

Tickets available here.

More about the show...

The second of our “We’re Twenty Years Young” shows. This night is the All-New-Wrens-Songs show, or at least as many as we can pull off.

Oh yeah, we’ll have some as-yet-to-be confirmed friends’ bands from the days of yore playing as well.

Details here (one post up).

Show - Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell's

On Thu December 03, 2009 we'll be playing in Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's.

Tickets available here.

More about the show...

The first of our “We’re Twenty Years Young” shows. This night is build-your-own setlist so email us to tell us what you’d wanna hear. Preferably pre-Meadowlands, just to make it worth the trouble typing.

Oh yeah, we’ll have some as-yet-to-be confirmed friends’ bands from the days of yore playing as well.

Details here (two posts up).


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