So, we played that KEXP benefit show at the Bowery the week before last – our first show in a couple years – and it went almost shockingly well, especially if you know our secret of preparation is not to ‘overdue it’ on rehearsal (like, keep it under three, boys).
We did manage to eke out three new songs though (not even counting the Abbey Road one or the Marked Up one from last month), which is a level of productivity we haven’t hit since Democrats last roamed the Earth.
Anyway, we had a wonderful time and here are a few pictures….
Our beloved sound guru, Jason...
One of the niftier things that happens on the county-wide web is that some folks have – on their own, mind you – made videos for songs of ours. I guess that happens for every band, but we still think we’re special. It’s a mid-life hormonal thing. Like our hot flashes.
But this is a video for the song Per Second Second from the Meadowlands that a young man named John Liang made a couple years back with his company Discreet Films.
By that time though, our website was a semi-abandoned electronic shipwreck, and we were entering the shadowy waters of another ‘self-questioning period’. With snacks.
So like we’d said a couple weeks back, we did finally got together, all four of us, in the basement, first time in about 10 years et cetera, et cetera....on January 19th (that's 2009, by the by). And we'd asked our friends Joe Centeno, formerly of the band Plug Spark Sanjay, and Patrick Glennon to take some video & photos, respectively.
We were really just expecting Joe to edit together footage of us putting this first song together and that we'd be depicted in the usual older-drunk-uncles-at-a-wedding style that we've been accustomed to.
Instead, in one day, he turned out an actual bonafide music video and thus, we look cooler than we actually are.
You can relive that magical January evening here on our new foncy ponts YouTube channel, where we’ll be posting more filmic crap as we move along:
In our ‘about the film-makers’ section…clips from the documentary that Joe’s currently making on self-taught outsider artists can be seen here.
And the still photos in the video were taken by Patrick Glennon and his other
musician pix are here.
Thanks again, young art-men.
Or began, actually. As foretold in our mini-comeback-from-the-comeback-that-was-the-meadowlandspost a week or so ago, we did in fact convene in our newly much-improved basement studio last week for our first ‘real’ recording w/ all four of us since…well, the last year that ended in a ‘9’...
See, this is what’s nice about folks stopping by your corner of the internet. We mentioned in the page for this, the pre-release version of the Meadowlands , that we’d originally made three different versions of the cover but only still had two.
That is until one Eric Sutton was good enough to email and send along a photo of his copy.
Now our own wrens collection is coming along nicely – thanks again, Eric.
from the wrens' Edit Desk 1/13/09:
Sorry, we should have made clear – the WorldSpace Session at Abbey Road thing (i.e. the new single, “pulled fences”) was recorded last February of 2008.
Kev’s demo for the song, which came out in Oct. as ‘In Turkish Waters’ for the ‘Fakebookshelf’ issue of the Lifted Brow, was actually recorded later, last spring or summer.
The funny part here is that we didn’t mention the date initially because we were embarrassed to reveal that it took almost a year to put out a song that took 5 minutes to record.
sorry for the confusion and thanks, as always,
the wrens
keeping folks waiting…since 1989
Howdy,
Hope your holidays were good. Heck, it’s been so long since we reached out from our hiding cave deep inside Mt. Winner (or even appeared in public, released new muzak, took a band photo...), we hope your ’90s were good.
(Is this viewable on your Mosaic browser? Is there still a spoken-word tent on the Lollapalooza tour this year? We tried calling your Iridium phone but got your machine.)
Timing being all, we patiently waited, wanting to synch our reentry to active indie rock with a worldwide economy primed to the absolute peak of its consumer-spending power.
(I’m about one phone bill away from standing on our corner with a cup in one hand and mp3’s in the other).
In spite of that, I think it’s looking to be a good year for us...
...singing 'Looks Like We Made It' in the reflection of your bald spot.
...working on my muuuuusic. Now let's see, what rhymes with Lard Lay's Light...
So years upon years ago, we swore to a pointlessly bold dare that if we ever got on the Tonight Show or Letterman, we would have to make up a song on the spot – no rehearsal, no cheating, no pre-air band huddle.
This is back when Carson still hosted (Johnny not Daly) and for some reason, was our measure at the time for having ‘made it’.
As if Johnny would have waved us over to the couch to sit next to George Gobel and be congratulated on our gumption...
Really?
Ok, doing my part to fight the Death Star, and with apologies for another last-minute plug, Charles is playing a solo show along with the Console War for a Barack Obama fundraiser tonight, Thursday, 9/4/08 in Washington D.C.
The event itself runs 6:00pm – 9:00pm w/ music starting around 7:00 and is at:
Darlington House
1610 20TH ST NW (right off dupont metro north)
Washington, D.C.
Please come by if you are free tonight. Although the suggested donation is $150 (it’s very ‘Beltway’) the organizers stress they want people to come to enjoy the party and contributing any amount helps.
Here’s their official invite/description:
...time is running out....
Please join us for a night of excellent live music with shows from Console War and Charles Bissell.
Downstairs, there'll be delicious munchies and big-screen TVs for Redskins watching...
....and, as always, there will be fantastic company and lively conversation. We're encouraging donations, of course, to attend, but all are welcome. Please click here now to donate.
For those who can't make it, please help us raise funds for the Obama campaign by contributing now!
(Those of our dear friends who are lobbyists, we understand, and yes, please come without donating. Yes, special treatment, yet again....)
Kristen Grimm, Gwyn Hicks, Alex Slater, & Norissa Giangola
Darlington House
1610 20TH ST NW (right off dupont metro north),
Washington, DC 20009 US
Thursday, September 4, 6:00PM
Hi.
This wasn’t probably the first post in x months you were looking for but work on the next album…? Begins soon enough, Grasshopper.
In the meantime though, there’s…Charles! Broadway Charles!
Jazz Charles! Freshly washed & waxed from his stint as Okkervil River’s guitar temp, he’s playing a solo set at Knitting Factory (NY) along with good friends, Get Him Eat Him and
Besides, what else are you gonna do tonight? Stay home & watch tv? Is there even anything on?
I mean it’s not as if centuries of cultural history are culminating in one crystalline moment of staggering importance, reaching a key journey point in an American political roadtrip set in motion in part by Lincoln over 140 years ago - and on the very anniversary of M.L.K.’s earlier milestone, no less - with the official party nomination acceptance speech of a presidential candidate so spectacularly cast by fate and/or nature for the role of leader that his mere presence on a proscenium stage moves regular folk to civic involvement, to feelings of true patriotism, to at least awareness and not uncommonly, to tears .
Wait, is that tonight?
can I come over?
Well, you can always TiVo history. In the meantime, we’ll be holed up here:
Thursday August 28th,
Knitting Factory (74 Leonard Street).
Show starts at 8:00pm.
are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.
There’s even a Facebook page for this show, which is a kind of giveaway that we weren’t part of planning since it’s at all current, of our time or cool.
See you in September…
the wrens
Howdy citizens of 2008,
Hoping your all your holidays and new year and stuff have been as nifty as our own. I got an actual stocking.
Just a quick little – yet important - news item for this next week. Charles has been invited along with an impressive handful of much cooler musicians (see below) to participate in a 3-day artist retreat and benefit show in New Orleans put together by the Future of Music Coalition and Air Traffic Control...
Howdy,
In typical 11th-hour style, just letting you all know that Charles is playing a solo show tonight, Wed. 10/17, for the nice folks at Gothamist and WOXY who are holding court at White Rabbit (on Houston), lo this week of the CMJ Fest.
It’s a day-party-type thing so set time’s about 6:45pm.
And very honored to be taking up stage space before Rev. Billly and the Church of Stop Shopping. Great recent article on him here, also courtesy Gothamist.
The Forms, another great band, are also playing tonight and later in the week, the ongoing Gothamist/WOXY party will feature Palomar and Pattern is Movement (two faves) among a bunch of others.
To be forewarned, Chazzie cut a chunk off a fingertip chopping brussel sprouts two nights ago so all guarantees on quality-of-performance are even iffier than usual.
For those of you who prefer your muzak storage mediums flat, round and on the dark side, the double-vinyl version of our Meadowlands album (w/ bonus songs) is back in stock.
Hope summer's been good to you.
Related to the story below regarding Bottom of the Hudson’s tragic accident, we’re doing a couple of benefit shows in September (details of both the accident and updates on news can be found on our label’s site,
First, Charles is doing a solo show at Monkey Town in Williamsburg, Brooklyn this Wednesday, Sept. 5th.
This is the usual solo Charles thing with out-of-the-norm wrens songs into looping pedals but unusually this time, in collaboration with video artists Elizabeth Maertens and Phillip Kim who will be pushing Monkey Town’s four built-in video screens to their limits.
Also on this bill is Tris McCall (another of NJ’s own and a wonderful songwriter) and the really, really good Overlord.
Monkey Town is a very nifty venue and a very small one - reservations are required and seating is very limited.
But note that they’re currently having server problems with the online reservation form so best bets are to email reservation requests directly to:
Whatever proceeds Charles drums up from this show will also be going to Trevor’s family and to help offset medical expenses for Bottom of the Hudson’s Greg Lytle, who was also seriously injured in the crash...