Untitled Document

06.24.00

as i am having one of my much-loved shut-in saturdays (at least till the sun sets), i have fixed and updated a few pesky things on the site, including fixing the links from the photos and design pages. sorry that it took me a while to get to that.

unfortunately, i think the slow season for the band is now kicking in. rick's going away for most of july and part of august, and aug might be going on one of his infamous and terribly glamorous "family vacations", so there go a heaps of practices off the schedule. it's hard, as we were all expecting july and august to be our period of recuperation from an arduous tour... hence everyone making non-band-related plans. now that the tour's fallen through, it leaves us with an unexpected and unearned sabbatical, quite at random. it is sad, really, as we're working on a lot of new material... and putting it on hold makes me nervous, perhaps because my memory is not what it should be, perhaps out of fear of losing momentum. we do have a show scheduled for 20 August, though, so we'll have to get back in gear by then.

i'm going to use the time off in july to work on a "side project" with another red-haired singer... but more on that as it develops.

i do, by the way, want to thank everyone who came to our record release party last week, and everyone who bought the new single -- also the other bands. it was quite lovely to play in a line-up of such esteemed colleagues. i'm sorry, this journal area is really supposed to be FAR more interesting and perhaps confessional -- not some boring schmoozey thanking of other bands... but i did mean it sincerely. well, watch for juicier details as soon as one can manage to do something worthy...

06.22.00
today is the first day of our non-tour. last night's show was the kick-off of our non-tour. it is sad. here i sit, still in boston, when rightly we should be merrily driving to new york today... beginning a country-spanning road trip. it's funny, but due to my abiding pessimism (which i am trying to rectify), i feel like i knew all along that our tour would be canceled. however, this only goes so far toward amelioration.

nonetheless, i think our show last night went fairly well. i had an amusing time anyway. i gave away a snow jar, and that is aways satisfying.

12.04.00
a.m.
why can't i sleep anymore? i believe it has something to do with all the van halen i've been listening to and my belief that they contain/know something of eternal truth and my determination to find it in them. or maybe it's the other way around.

11.03.00
a.m.
(as i type this now i realize i had gotten the date wrong, should read 12/03) i'm drunk. again. of course. today i realized something. i got off the phone with terri around 4:30 a.m. - TERRI STEENBERGEN, I LUV YOU! how the hell do you have such confidence in me? - and fell asleep shortly after. i was up again at 7 and try as i might i could not go back. i started bill drummond's "45" - rick webb, you right-on-giver-of-books - it's fucking amazing! bill drummond, a true-right-on-visionary! i know what i have to do. one must simply go for it. i dragged myself out of bed and forced myself to work on chapter 3. it was not easy. it made my brain hurt. it exhausted my soul. but i did it. something i've been trying to do for months. i realized something today. like it or not, i am an author. this "disgraceful life i've been living under the guise of writing a novel" (andy shea's words of endearment, ladies and gentlemen) might actually turn out ok. this book i'm writing might actually be ... good. around 3 o'clock i took a much needed break (for 3 days at the beginning of the week i'd write for 2 hours, then, exhausted, pass out for two, then spend an hour trying to summon the energy to do it again. this cycle was beginning to wear on me.) i went to A.E.H.Q. and we did the local mailing for the comp. all this while listening to the new FOSCA album which is FUCKING BRILLIANT! we're getting things done, it feels good. we get the burrito and i take a much needed nap. then off to new wave night. i had a really good time at man ray. chris played "age of consent" and i caught myself thinking, for the XXth time, "does it get any better than this?" - POP MUSIC, with all its glorious meaninglessness. she was there and she looked FUCKING FANTASTIC. why can't i talk to blondes anymore? could i ever talk to blondes? is that why all this has happened? (one day i will write a song called "blonde". this, along with "sarah's records", is one of the two songs i am destined to write.) she wasn't there though. but it's alright, it will all work out ok. and, of course, she wasn't there. but that's alright too. i haven't been too "jazzed" with her lately. but that will work out alright as well. i had a really good time tonight. tomorrow we're having band practice for the 1st time in over a month. i'm excited. i get to make music with my friends, with my band. i hope the sharpie and big pad made the move to the new space. we get to play "blue green" and "pale light" and "tremelous haloes". those songs still give me the chills when we play them. and that's fucking great! i mean, why do anything except for the fucking feeling? and that's all i really want (besides her) - to amaze myself, to give myself the fucking chills. for a while it seemed so hard. now i pretty much do it on a daily basis. maybe it's just taking the place of smoking. but i guess it doesn't matter why as long as it happens. and keeps happening. and that's important, i guess.

07.09.00

well here i am back from a long and grueling tour, uh short and grueling tour. no we didn't actually go on tour remember it was canceled due to a big f**k up. there i go editing myself again. what did i do then, when we were supposed to be touring but instead were forced into a week of free time due to the fact that we, or at least i had already made plans not to work and refused to cancel my plans not to work. ( i do believe the rest of the band also kept away from the office) well heather and i went to the folksiest of folky festivals in maryland, common ground on the hill. it was really quite a groovy time. oh and let me start at the beginning of the week. we started pretty inauspiciously by missing our plane (we knew it was bound to happen sooner or later as we refuse to get to airports early and have to sit around and eat bad airport food and listen to the same five minutes of news from around the world over and over again, and usually end up running through crowded airports, knocking little old ladies and babies to and fro to catch already taxiing airplanes) and being forced to wait for four hours in the airport eating bad airport food and listening to the same five minutes of news from around the world over and over again. anyway when we arrived in maryland we were a little early and our luggage came right off so my father wasn't there yet and i decided to go back to see if he had gone to meet us at the gait. on the way, i was approached by a woman who thought maybe i was with metallica production. i paused briefly to decide but said "no" ( what a trip that could have been if only i had said "yes", but i don't think anyone would have been too happy with that decision). the next day was registration at common ground and was quite hectic and everyone was in a state of utter confusion (oh yeah my mother was volunteer coordinator of this whole event so we were helping with volunteer stuff too and didn't really have much of an idea what we supposed to do.) that night there was an orientation and some music, just a sampling of the week ahead. so anyway let me tell you about the weird, my life is in the books i read life. first of all a few months ago i read a book entitled 'leap into darkness" about leo bretholz's escape from death in nazi germany by leo bretholz and michael olesker (who's son was in my kindergarten class) anyway i was taking a class on the bodhran (irish frame drum) and who should be my instructor but myron bretholz, son of leo bretholz. yes my bodhran teacher is a jewish man from maryland. excellent drummer who insists he was switched at birth and that somewhere an irishman is playing the kletzmer and not sure why. ah but my lived it books life doesn't end there. aug has gotten the band into a julian cope fog with his autobiography (cope's not stone's). so i was reading along on wednesday, nearly finished 'repossessed' when julian finds a book that reminds him what a righteous and gravy dippin' trip rock and roll had been and changes/renews his outlook, a book called 'guitar army' by john sinclair. i had been eating lunch all week with john sinclair. sitting at the same table as julian cope's guru. he called my mother square even. i think it bothered her but it shouldn't. he's actually pretty unhip himself even if bob dylan did right a song about him and he is a guru of cope's. i kind of dug his blues poetry and he's pretty well into his thing. i mean he gets a good vibe going on stage. he's way red faced passionate and you've got to appreciate that kind of thing, but man he tries a bit too hard to push his "i'm still with it, i'm cool, right? let me tell you i can dig i spent time in jail and after that you can go along with the groovin' punches know what i'm sayin' know what i mean can you d.i.g. dig what i'm on about wanna reeeelax with this cool daddyoh and some good weed" rant, yet he could not stop complaining about the food and the sleeping conditions and i'd say all that leads to a rectangle at the least. anyway the week was cool and every night there was some great music going on somewhere. a lot of blues. olde time, bluegrass, irish, scottish, gospel, appalachian... you name it. and i learned i bit of hammered dulcimer and bodhran. i can't hear music the same way. it's all jigs and hornpipes and reels. looks like we're going into the studio later this year so listen for the bodhran and dulcimer and see if you can do a little cloggin' next time 'round. i can see annie cringing but it's gonna be a real (reel) hoot. don't worry it'll still sound like the 'streetlamps you all have grown to love. i'm off to bed now. aug and keith and i are going to n.y. tomorrow to see gene. i'll let you know all about it later.see you soon.

craig

and oh yeah, as civil war style blues legend sparky rucker said,"theworldwasmadeinsixdays.therewasboundtobesomeproblems."

02.12.01
First of all, let me say, directly, that we are terribly sorry not to have updated the site in several months. Unfortunately, stodgy was rather poopy, and we could not access it via ftp for quite some time, due to circumstances beyond our carnal (read to yourself in the voice of John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons). It was all desperately sad — but I would like to thank our loyal 1-9 visitors a week who looked at the site anyway, their reasons oblique.

At any rate, the news. We've been working, rather concertedly, since Christmas, on material for our new album. We're in our space quite a few nights a week now, in those ephemeral hours between work and going out to the bars, writing new songs and trying to solidify arrangements — and making charts full of arcane symbols to represent the aforementioned and sticking them on the wall.

I think we have about 13 or 14 new songs now. Some are more done than others — and some are our attempts to bring to fruition ideas that have been kicking around in one form or another for almost three years now. (oh, that does make us sound like a heap of slugs!). The very newest material though, i think is quite exciting. I think we have, at last, cast off some of the sonic smokescreen, the debilatatingly confusing mask of effects that was clouding the vision, in favor of something somewhat cleaner (though still dense and textural) and more concise. Perhaps the boys would disagree with me, i don't know, but i like to think we're approaching purer territory, clearer vision.

Meanwhile, we've settled into our new practice space quite well, though I must admit we miss the Fly Seville (who we were sharing with before) as they are so friendly, attractive and rock with great earnestness and charm. We have, in our new space, installed some pleasing amber overhead lights, and have draped some lovely amber christmas lights on craig's bass drum, and it really makes the room quite appealing. (As one cannot see the dirt in the low light... though there are amusing problems, as the orange light somehow optically cancels out the red on/off indicator on my distortion pedal, so i occasion make some surprising noises at surprising times).

We are going into the studio at the end of March, with Bruce MacFarlane (of Cathode fame) and are anticipating that he will make us sound spiffing (so long as we subjugate our egos to his iron hand). We shall try, once begun, to finish this record quickly. In fact, we are pretending at the moment that it might be out in the autumn. At which point we are hoping to play at a festival in Holland, and then maybe do a few other European dates. (no, really). There's a rich history of Boston bands who, though underappreciated at home, did quite well abroad, and it seems like it really could not do harm to join their ranks. (Though, because of the music i listen to, i do have some mad desire to play small clubs in the mid-, south- and northwest and meet lots of earnest boys).

We've not been playing live too much of late, due to all this writing and trying to concentrate and so forth... but we do have a show lined up in NYC in March, with the drummer from Sonic Youth's other band (i'm sorry i'm too lame to remember the specifics at present) and our wondrous Canadian chums Mellonova. Check the shows page for details if you so choose.

We're still hoping that our label will get it together to arrange a festival/show event to promote the "Know Your Enemy" comp they released this winter, at which we, as well as lots of other titillating bands might play... that would be this spring sometime, i suppose. Check archenemy's site for details.

Well, i realize this is some damn boring news, not even interestingly written, but, at least you know we're alive and well (if that's the sort of thing that concerns you.).

love,
annie

10.07.00
We are, i suppose, becoming accustomed to life out of the box. Our box. These days we're sharing a "normal" practice space with the very kind and gracious Fly Seville, who have a very tidy and well-appointed digs indeed (and good taste in music). However, soon, we will, like fledglings, be out on our again. Not that this is very interesting, at all.

We're also embarking on our "tour" this month. Sadly, our tour has been whittled down to two shows. Somerville MA, and NYC. It's hard to say if Somerville counts as an on-the-road show or not, as Craig, does, indeed, live there... but the rest of us don't, and really, it's a good 20-30 minutes from MY house... so that's almost like another city. NYC will be exciting though. Like a "normal" band, eh. It's like when my mum, who always has had very very strange dogs, with emotional problems of varying degrees (the dogs, not mum), sees the current darling scratching an ear and says, "i love when you do dog things!" that's like us. we're doing band things. well, when we can get aug to play standing or sitting, instead of lying on his back on the floor anyway.

09.07.00
We demolished our practice space. The Box is no more. Alas, skyrocketting rents in Allston, and a change in the structure of our Idealism, lead us, after three cozy years within its soundproofed confines, to bodily tear the place to shreds. The last week in August, thus, was not such a nice wee for us. It's taken till now to even feel the slightest bit recovered. {click to see our poor sad box in action}

06.24.00
We had a quite successful and amusing record release show for The Cartographer last wednesday, the 21st. It was quite crowded and the other bands did a splendid job. I think we sold a bunch of singles (and thanks go out to our friends who responsibly minded our merchandise table without being asked when we were clearly too drunk and/or too flakey to do so).

In conjunction with Planetary Group, we're going to do a big mailing and promotional push for The Cartographer, starting next week. Aug reports having noticed us charting in WI for some reason, though we've not yet sent them a record... I'm beginning to suspect that the midwest is way cooler than i'd ever suspected... i keep meeting people that are earnest and interesting only to discover they're from Wisconsin. it's very odd.

Other than that, the Streetlamps are having a bit of slow period coming up, as various members go on various holidays. (ok, everyone is going away but me, who is, i guess, just working. fun,)

We've got a show scheduled for august, and plan to start recording our new album around then as well (or possibly in september/october). We're also hoping to go on a tour or two this fall. For real this time.

06.01.00
The Cartographer 7" is now out, at long last. We are thinking of having a party to celebrate its release, sometime in the next month, though we're not sure yet. We'll let you know.

On the whole,, we are busily busy preparing for our tour in June and July with Breathless. We're also working on quite a few new songs (some of which we played at the last O'Brien's show), which we find very exciting.

As you have probably noticed, this entire web site has been revamped. I was really quite set on making it terribly flashy and impressive and ultra-designy, but i decided to do something instead which was clear and functional and, could be accomplished in a single sunday. Perhaps the future will hold upgrades. Please excuse the parts (like our journals) which are not quite done yet.

We are gearing up, technologically, to send in reports from the road.


Annie {last updated 06.24.00}	Aug {last updated 12.03.00}	Craig {last updated 07.09.00}	Rick {last updated 0.00.00}