Gone Tourin'

Hello friends. Tour is swell and everyone is in good health. Thanks to everyone who has come out to the shows so far. Just updated the remaining TBA dates to the right. Write us if you need further info on any of them. Cool!

Recording Week Umpteen, New Album, & US Tour

We've got a lot to cover here. A culmination of half a year's effort. I'm going to move fast so pay attention.

The light at the end of the tunnel was growing exponentially nearer. With only a few weeks left before tour we began sacrificing personal liberties such as sleep and a regular diet. We were machines working on schematics a better us had written. Joe announced a quota of mixing one song a day. They were long days. Mixing the record prompted us to add a bunch of auxiliary instruments to fill any pot holes in the songs. We finished everything with a day to spare before mastering but rather than taken a desperately needed rest Joe and Tank took the mixes over to our mastering engineers house to listen to everything on his speakers. A different pair of speakers can expose the most well kept secrets. Listening to your recording on your stereo, in the car, and on headphones is of course an important perspective but what they heard come our of those speakers was so dark and deep that they stayed there working through the night and morning. This began the marathon of sleep deprivation. Joe brought the mixes home at 11 AM and told me we had some recording to do. Some missing guitars, sour vocals, and a few other small things. We had until 5 PM when we were do back at Ryan's to begin mastering.

We brought our own computer and set up adjacent to the mastering room to tweak mixes up until the second he needed them from us. He'd finish one and come in for the next as we were printing the bounce. Our heads would pop into his side every once in a while to make sure we were happy with what he was doing. We listened to everything and wrapped up around 5 in the morning. We cannot thank Ryan enough for putting so much work into this and staying up until the wee small hours 2 nights in a row while still waking up to manage the studios at Drexel University in the morning.

Tank, Joe, and I headed to an all night diner in Center City for our obligatory celebration of this momentous completion. We were pretty cracked out and even made the regulars at this dive nervous as we shouted gibberish and failed to understand the plea of an outgoing local political candidate. Then it was back to the warehouse to finish packing, putting together records, and printing t-shirts for tour. We would never have finished getting all the merch for this 5 week tour ready without the help an amazing group of hand-selected friends. Still, this ended up in a 2nd night (3rd for Joe) of zero sleep but we were driven by a force far more compelling than comfort.

We met the rest of the crew from 1994! and Snowing in Lancaster, threw our schwag in the van, and hit the road. Finally shut our eyes for longer than a blink on the way to Hagerstown and then floated psychedelically on stage for our first show. Purgatory was ending and we were entering the dream.

So, here it is. The second album by Algernon Cadwallader entitled Parrot Flies. We've gone through a lot of changes and difficult times since releasing our first album. It feels like a new band sometimes. Or just been flying through our adolescence. I think it would be fair to measure band life in dog years. CDs are being rushed to us so we should have them by the west coast leg of our tour. The LPs will come in when we get home and we'll be able to start mailorder again. Until then you can come out and pick it up at the show. Here are the dates. All with 1994! and Snowing.


MAY
18th Hagerstown, Maryland @ Right Choice Ministries w/ LOUD
19th Blacksburg, Virginia @ JAX 130 Jackson St w/ Diarrhea Planet
20th Charlotte, North Carolina @ Treasure Fest
21st Greenville, SC @ w/ Days Become Months
22nd Birmingham, Alabama @ Spring Street House w/ The Max Levine Ensemble and Fewer Moving Parts
23rd Jackson, Mississippi @ Doc 36 w/ Les Doux and Pockets
24th New Orleans, Louisiana @ Dragon’s Den w/ Marathon
25th Houston, Texas @ Vinyl Junky Records w/ Football Etc.
26th Denton, Texas @ Lion’s Den w/ Final Club
27th Oklahoma City, Oklahoma @ Brass Bell Studios w/ Concussion Waltz
28th Albequerque, New Mexico @ Dad’s House w/ lots of bands
29th Phoenix, Arizona @ The Fixx Coffee Bare
30th Tucson, Arizona @ TBA
31st San Diego, California @ Che Cafe


JUNE
1st Los Angeles, California @ Women of Crenshaw
2nd Santa Barbara, California @ Biko Garage w/ Lumber Lung
3rd San Francisco, California @ Sub-Mission
4th Berkley, California @ 924 Gilman St. w/ Joyce Manor
5th Reading, California @ Sue's Java Cafe
6th DAY OFF
7th Portland, Oregon @ Backspace w/ Duck Little Brother Duck
8th Seattle, Washington @ Healthy Times Fun Club w/ Jason Clackley
9th Spokane, Washington @ The Cretin Hop w/ Girlfriends, DLBD
10th Rexburg, Idaho @ TBA
11th Cheyenne, Wyoming @ Crawlspace w/ Spraynard
12th Boulder, Colorado @ Astro-Land
13th Lincoln, Nebraska @ Mad Ave. w/ The Dads
14th Wichita, Kansas @ The Naked City Gallery w/ Information Welfare
15th St. Louis, Missouri @ Cranky Yellow w/ Orion Pax
16th Bloomington, Indiana @ The Bishop w/ Good Luck
17th Louisville, Kentucky @ Mowgli's House
18th Chicago, Illinois @ Strangelight w/ Sohns and Innards
19th Grand Rapids, Michigan @ The DAAC w/ the Reptilian
20th Columbus, Ohio @ Carabar
21st Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania @ Helter Shelter w/ Means to an End and Edhoculi
22nd Rochester, New York @ The Bugjar
23rd East Hampton, Massachusetts @ Flywheel
24th Scranton, Pennsylvania @ Redwood Art Space w/ Trainwrecker and Halfling
25th New York, New York @ Archeron w/ The Greek Favourites

Our First Bootleg

Finally, an alternative to a crappy desktop folder full of mp3s, our friends at Sex Cave Records are releasing a neatly packaged cassette of a professional live recording from the show we played in Vernon, CT in January 2010. It was a particularly rowdy show that really captures the live setting and showcases our fans ability to sing louder than our music. They have our permission to release it. You have our permission to buy it. Here is a link where you can purchase it. There will also be a release show this friday at UMASS in Amherst with our buddies, Band Name, Pachangacha, and Ape Up. Cool!

Recording Week 4 (Born Again)

Good morning campers. We had too much fun on our west coast tour with Big Kids and forgot about the cold sterile world of the internet. Here's what you've been missing.

We left off with our tapes now dumped onto the computer. This is usually the fun part. Overdubbing this and that, extra percussions, noises, and experimenting. We barely got that far. To save time we were now working in both Studio A and Studio B (Joe's bedroom). I would be working on vocals in A while he was doing some editing in his room and when we got bored of the scenery we would switch. It wasn't long before the cat was out of the bag; Joe and I both had reservations about the recordings. He thought this was too slow and I thought that was too fast and we both agreed that this other one just didn't feel right at all. We sat and stared at one another stroking our mustaches for few tense minutes before dropping the guillotine. We would have to re-record.

Sadly, we are no strangers to the concept of re-recording. To date every single recording we've done as a band has been scraped at least once and then re-done. It's an ugly streak but at the end of the day we rather have our record come out 6 months later than have a finished product we are unsatisfied with. Sometimes these things happen for a reason.

Relieved of the exaustion that would have been packed into the week leading up to tour we let our worries melt and fully embraced the Christmas spirit. We had another potluck at the warehouse and exchaged gifts under the physcadelic pine tree. The greatest gift truely came from above. Joe weaseled us 5 days to record in a church a mile away from our place. Our friends Jess and Josh run a non-profit rock school out of one of the rooms and arranged for us to record in the chapel. It snowed the day after Christmas. The next morning we packed up half of the studio into our van and drove it over to the church. We shoveled out a parking space and loaded in. The studio was set up in an extra room on the second floor. Transporting the tape machine would have messed up it's calibration and broke our backs so we decided to go digital for this session. This was also the quicker and more convenient option. Day one was spent getting the most glorious drum sounds we have ever heard. Tank and his kit were set up in directly in the center of the room. Stained glass windows cast colored light across them. It was dead silent in the church except for the sound of Tank's drums echoing through every room. In another effort to save time and to ressurect a live feeling that could not be found on some of the first sessions's recordings we would track the bass right along with the drums and ditch the click track. For this we used my usual bass set-up; An Acoustic 450 head and a Peavey 2x15 cabinet. We stuck this in a side room to give it a little bit of isolation and also ran a direct line into the computer. It sounded like it always does and we were happy with that.

Every morning we would meet up with Josh or Jess at the church, listen to the drum sounds, tweak anything that had shifted overnight, and track songs until we thought they sounded right taking breaks along the way for the AA meetings and to eat soup and drink coffee. When we started this session we had about 5 songs that we really thought needed to be done again. By the time our 5 days were up we had done 9 songs and would've done the rest if we could because we loved the sound so much. But we had what we needed. It was a new year and still no new Algernon Cadwallader record but we shrugged that fact right off the airplane and it landed somewhere in the mid-west. We knew our clean slate would be waiting for us when we returned.

Check out the Big Kids Blog to hear about our tour adventures. Apologies for the lapse in journalism. We are back online.

California, Here We Come

P.S. Locked ourselves out of the house while taking this picture.

1/4 San Diego, CA @ Che Cafe 3112 Midway Drive
w/Big Kids, Koalacaust, Joyce Manor

1/5 Chino, CA @ The Warehouse 13390 12th St.
w/Big Kids, Koalacaust, Joyce Manor, Summer Vacation, French Exit, Peanut Butter and Jamage

1/6 Garden Grove, CA @ The Cabin 12101 Gilbert St. 7PM
w/Big Kids, Koalacaust, Summer Vacation, Joyce Manor, Tiny Lungs

1/7 San Francisco, CA @ Cloud City 3201 3rd St. 8PM
w/Big Kids, Koalacaust, Summer Blondes

1/8 Berkeley, CA @ 924 Gilman 7pm
w/Big Kids, Summer Blondes, Sourpatch, Yi

1/9 Santa Cruz, CA @ Kickback Cafe 1222 Soquel Ave. 7PM
w/Big Kids, Koalacaust, Calculator

1/10 San Jose, CA @ Texas Toast 15560 Woodard Rd. 6PM
w/Big Kids, Comadre, Calculator

1/11 Santa Rosa, CA @ North Bay Art and Film Collective 7pm
w/Big Kids, The New Trust, Semi Evoloved Simians

1/12 Medford/Eugene/etc. (woops! looking for a show)

1/13 Portland, OR @ KPSU Radio @

1/14 Portland, OR @ The Artistery 4315 SE Division 7PM
w/Big Kids, Lee Cory Oswald, Duck Little Brother, Duck

1/15 Olympia, WA @ Chez Puget 1139 Puget St. 7PM
w/Big Kids, Livingston Seagull

1/16 Seattle, WA @ The Black Lodge 8pm
w/Big Kids, Jason Clackley, Livingston Seagull

Recording Week 3 (Guitar)

Hello and welcome to the third installment of the Algernon Cadwallader studio journal. We'd like to thank you for keeping an interest while we take care of the boring "behind the scenes" part of the band. Think of it as though we are open during renovation. I assure you we are doing all that we can to make things as entertaining as possible for you. We're especially fond of the feedback that you leave in our comments. It's nice to keep in touch with the outside world. Without further ado, Joe Reinhart on the guitar.

Things began quite like they did for bass tracking with three premium amps standing at attention to prove their sonic worth. These three were the Orange AD 30 with Mesa 2X12 cabinet, the Vox AC 30, and the Fender Twin Reverb. Though all fierce and unique we managed to weed out the Twin fairly quickly and began focusing on the remaining soldiers. Joe fell in love with Vox when we toured in Europe and he played a rental every night for a month straight. The way it breaks up like earth under a bulldozer causes the soul to cringe with pleasure. He bought one almost immediately after we returned home and just finished paying it off the other day. It's little brother, the AC 15, can be heard on our Fun 7". For anyone who has ever played out of an Orange I need not try to sell this one at all. In touring band terms, it is the Mercedes Sprinter of guitar amps. It is the brightest (looking too) and heaviest sound you can ever expect to hear and the knobs are even labeled with goofy little cartoon icons! It doesn't take much to get this pair singing like Hall and Oates in the boys room. We start putting some stuff down but soon get a suspicious feeling that maybe that was too easy. Everything sounds great but maybe a little to great? With a bit of A-B'ing it becomes evident that the offensive tones of teenage rebellion and 20-something frustrations we are looking for in a lead guitar are coming by and large from the AC 30. Rather than cluttering tape with multiple tracks of each guitar take we decide to use the Vox for the dirty stuff and have the Orange provide us with very intimidating clean parts. So with the easy stuff out of the way, on to the hard stuff.

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And so it was, in the honor of great sound, that Joe escalated the gauge of his strings to 12's. His finger tips would soon look like deep canyons of dried super glue. His care-free temperament would follow. As we entered the month of December it was getting quite cold in Philadelphia as it usually does. We are no strangers to winter here in the warehouse. The big open warehouse with 12 foot tall windows, skylights, brick walls, and concrete floors. In fact we are like bitter, scornful brothers of the bastard season as we are forced to live in immediate proximity to it day and in and day out for 4 to 5 months out of the year. We played the game of balancing the quantity and intensity of space heaters in the studio with the frequency of breakers we were tripping in our fuse box. The morning routine includes rolling out of bed and quickly snuggling into a winter coat before leaving the bedroom. The studio was still warmer than the common area and so that was incentive to stay in there and keep working. Joe's writes parts that are no less than miniature guitar solos that he sometimes repeats and to watch him play them is to be very confused. Now, to watch him write them, alter them, and/or add to them is to be completely dumfounded, aggravated, and/or slipping in and out of consciousness. We could basically measure the time it took to finish a song in days. Somewhere around this time Tank and I found it best to leave Joe in the studio and pop our heads in now and then to see how things were going. A lot of times things were going like Joe bouncing up and down and playing jangly Operation Ivy songs on guitar and other times things were going like Joe curled up on a coat in the middle of the floor sleeping. And in between that recording Algernon Cadwallader songs. With the extra time on my hands I adopted a big puppy named Drake. He has proved to be very helpful around the studio. Say hi Drake. Moving onto the clean guitars was a welcomed milemarker and soon enough they were done.

At this point we were ready to take what we had on tape and dump it into the computer. Joe utilized connections he made when going to college to get us into Drexell University's studio to do this since they had a bigger and better digital interface which would save a lot of time and trouble. I could tell I was coming down with something flu-like so we went to our favorite nearby bar and got really really drunk. We celebrated how far we'd come and got the courage to think about how far we had to go. I had nightmares that night and woke up feeling like a trash can. We would have to put off doing vocals and move on to editing or adding axillary instruments. I wondered for the first time if we'd finish this recording before we left for tour.

Ladies and gentleman, and unexpected gift from old man winter; trash soup!

Shirt

I just came across this blog on which our friend Duncan from Louisville spurts a little history about band shirts he has acquired over the years. A really neat idea since the best part of crappy DIY band-printed shirts is obviously the memories that follow them home from the show. Algernon Cadwallader made the top 12! I found the origins of our shirt particularly moving. Maybe because I was there to experience them too. Cool!