La nouvelle Blague

The End of an Error

2011-07-20T11:18:00.011-04:00

After several years, two CDs, and some two-dozen shows the Posters are going on indefinite hiatus. This basically means that we will be taking the rest of 2011 off, and will regroup some time in 2012 to plan our next move. That next move may be to play a show or two, or to pick up where we left off and take over the world, or to do nothing and meet again in 2013 to revisit the question. We all still like each other and we all still like music, so it's inevitable that you'll hear from us again before the last chord fades to nothingness.

I'll still post stuff here occasionally when it seems relevant to the musical lives of Posters alums, including any new bands and anything that happens in Posters-land. I also have a lot of video and stuff that I've not posted, mostly one-minute clips of bands we've shared the stage with, so look for that.

When we started The Hilarious Posters we had two very specific goals: to be a band that a lot of people were pretty sure they had heard at some point, and to feel like we were only a few months from finally getting the recognition we deserved. Now that we've reached those goals it's hard to see what more there is to accomplish.

In all seriousness though, I am extremely proud of the work we've done as a band. Our songs are great and our recordings do them justice. About half the time, when we played out, we played majestically. Of course, at about two thirds of our shows there was virtually nobody listening, but on at least two or three occasions we played beautifully to a crowd of people who genuinely cared about what we were doing. I don't think there's anything in the world more satisfying than the way such a moment makes you feel.

But even if all this had demanded only half as much time and effort as it actually did, I would probably still be wondering if it was worth it. Being in a band is an insane amount of fun, but it's an even more insane amount of work, and it's not something that can be kept up indefinitely, week in and week out, by four people who all have non-musical careers about which they are passionate.

The Posters will be back later to play our old songs. Depending upon how we feel then, we might also write some new songs, and play those. If we all then get hit on the head and get amnesia, completely forgetting what it was like to record Cats II, we will record a CD of the new songs.

Thanks to everybody,

Sam

Playing at The Southern, Baby!

2011-07-12T11:01:00.005-04:00

We're playing at The Southern this weekend with Nobis and Ladybug Transistor.

I'm listening to The Yummy Fur at work and it makes work better.

Check out this cool article about Nobis. They came to America fleeing a radioactive tsunami! I feel really guilty about thinking this, but that's the coolest band back-story I've ever heard!

Us and Ladybug Transistor at the Southern

2011-06-30T11:40:00.010-04:00

Aww shit! Tell Spencer to send the zords, because we're playing a "high profile" show! (Update - and NOBIS has been added, ぴょん！)

It's going to be, you know, full of "industry types" scoping us out, though. You should probably stay away from this one, because for the sake of your future scene cred you will want to be able to say that you stopped listening to us around March 2011, and that once we started to get famous we turned into dicks and our music suffered. I don't think they'll even let regular people in, honestly. I think you have to be somebody important.

Oh, and in the interest of completeness, here's another flier for this show...(I haven't added Nobis to this one yet. Epic zombie fail lol!)

...and here's one for an old show that I never posted - a quickie that I threw together the day of our CD release last month.

Borrowed Beams

2011-06-06T18:51:00.000-04:00

As promised! Here's some Borrowed Beams of Light video from when we played with them at The Southern.

Here they are sound-checking.

Then in this one they are playing a song. I don't know what this song is called, though.

I'm packing for my trip, and I'll post more when I get back!

A Few Photos

2011-06-01T11:24:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to get stuff off my phone/camera before I go on vacation next week, so I have room to take and store lots of new pictures, so I'm going to try to post stuff that's been accumulating here in the upcoming days. First, some pictures from last Friday.s show at The Southern.

Backstage:

Borrowed Beams of Light:

The Astronomers:

I should have some videos to post soon!

We're Gonna Teach You To Rock!

2011-05-25T14:58:00.004-04:00

I went to the future and brought back this awesome clip of us playing at The Southern this Friday.

I didn't even realize were we going to be taking attendance! I guess I'm going to come up with that idea some time tomorrow or something.

Kate and Leopold were there too! They were beating up Sam Tyler and Marty McFly.

According to UPS the cds have been delivered to Dave and Renee's doorstep! Get yours at the big show or go to the bandcamp page now and rock it digitally!

Bandcamp

2011-05-24T11:38:00.000-04:00

This one time at bandcamp the Posters rocked you so hard it broke both your arms! Their melodies were so sweet you got diabetes, and their lyrics were so brilliant you got skin cancer!

Not long after that, you died.

Our new record is available for free streaming and paid download at our Bandcamp page, and so is our old one.

In lieu of flowers, please come to our release show at The Southern this Friday, May 27th.

Videos of Bands

2011-05-16T11:45:00.001-04:00

If you're not familiar with any of the bands for the upcoming release show, here's a youtube style primer.

The Astronomers:

I think the guy on the left is playing through a Matchless DC30, but I can't really tell because he's standing in front of it. If it is a DC30, and it's Mark Sampson era, that's a really good amp. Supposedly one of the best ever made.

Here's local darlings Borrowed Beams of Light:

Here's local ne'er-do-wells us. Note that Youtube metadata points out This video has no honors:

Get Ready!

2011-05-16T11:27:00.001-04:00

It's going to get real on Friday, May 27th 2011, at The Southern. Buy your tickets in advance, homie!

Borrowed Beams of Light open, and then us officially releasing our new fifteen-song opus Cats II, followed by The Astronomers unleashing their new record Size Matters. Not to pick a fight, but if size really matters you may want to note that our cd is fifteen songs and theirs is ten. Borrowed Beams' cd, released last year, is like five songs, which is so short it's practically an innie!

Everyone's going to be there, and it'll be the place to be seen in Charlottesville. If you don't go then in September people will be all like "Dude, you weren't in town for that?!? That was like the best show of the summer!" Then in December they'll be all like "Dude, you weren't there?!? That was like the best show of the whole year! I thought everybody was at that one!"

Release Show

2011-05-10T11:02:00.000-04:00

We're playing at The Southern on May 27th.

More deets soon!

Feedback Session

2011-03-30T11:47:00.005-04:00

[Edit: False alarm -- looks like he's back on, folks!]

~~Addendum to the last post: Krull has mysteriously been taken off the nailgun listing for the show at DUST. Has Dylan finally begun to retract his blades into his starfish-like metal housing?~~

There is now a video of us posted on Andrew Cedermark's Feedback blog on the C'ville's website.We play Geniuses, Not the Strut, and The Fists and the Fighting. We also recorded Face Without An Eyes (aka Haunted Drumset) but it's not in the video, I guess to keep it under ten minutes so it's youtube friendly. Thanks to Gary for setting that thing up, shooting the actual video, and getting it on Andrew's blog!

April Geniuses!

2011-03-29T10:37:00.000-04:00

We'll be playing at DUST this Friday, homie! Mss., Krull, and Rommate (from Chicago) will also be playing.

I'm hoping it'll be as much as possible like this:

Later, Dowg!

Kuchar Madness

2011-02-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

It's been sort of quiet in Posters land lately. We've been working on the record, and getting closer to done. Lots of trumpet recording, which is basically done (I think). I took a picture of our new microphone. It's a ribbon mic and I got it mostly for trumpet, though Dave claims, paradoxically, that it sounds less good than and indistinguishable from the SM57 we normally use. Anyway, I think I'm going to keep it because it's the first mic I've found that sounds good on the Stang Ray - the amp we use live. That amp sounds magical when you're in the room with it, but until now I've never found a mic that could capture its sound on record.

Anyway, I thought I'd post an update with something non-Posters-related but still important, which is that I found a blog the other day with a bunch of George Kuchar movies posted, including the elusive Pagan Rhapsody, which I'd been dying to see for a long time. This is a real find, as George Kuchar (unlike his brother Mike) doesn't want his film (that is, non-video) work released on DVD, so some of these movies are tough to see.

I'm glad to report that Pagan Rhapsody is every bit as good as I'd hoped. What an ending!

Capstan Shafts

2011-01-24T12:26:00.005-05:00

Here's some video I shot of two partial Capstan Shafts songs. I don't know what they are named. Capstan Shafts were really good though! I totally agree with the comment James made about them sounding like early Green Day covering Guided By Voices, though I think there's more than a little Milky Wimpshake thrown in there, too. (James's confusion over where everyone was I think shows him underestimating his own taste-making power, because an afternoon post on Nailgun, had there been one, would probably have delivered the crowd who's absence he rightly bemoaned).

There are only two things I didn't like about the Capstan Shafts. One is that their guitar player / singer is left handed, and the other is that the bass player had a five-string bass. Other than that they were straight up awesome.

I hope we get to play with those guys again. They were nice.

Set List January 5th

2011-01-17T18:00:00.000-05:00

I just found this while cleaning up my room.

It's the setlist from our show at the Taphouse last week, here flanked by some major works of German romanticism.

What was the mystery opener? All I can tell you is, next time we play a cover, I hope we practice it first.

Whoa, I just sold something on Amazon. Awesome!

Upcoming Show at Tea Bazaar

2011-01-10T11:12:00.001-05:00

We don't seem to be listed in any of the usual places, but Jacob assures us that we are indeed playing with the Capstan Shafts on the 22nd, which is a week from this Saturday. [Edit - we're on the Holy Smokes page now. Thanks, Jacob!]

No word yet on the third band. Do you want to play?

Nilsson's Popeye demos = Genius.

That Was Fun

2011-01-06T12:28:00.002-05:00

Wow! It's been a month since anything has been posted here. I have some videos of bands we've played with recently that I keep meaning to post.

Here's some pictures of last night, though.

The Ha-Rang

The Ha-Rang again

Marie from Corsair's kickass plexi head

People outside

Gull also played, and I have about thirty seconds of video of him, but I didn't take any pictures (it was too dark). Gull, The Ha-Rang, and Corsair were all really great. It was an evening of really good local bands that are all really different from one another. Something for everybody!

RIP The Taphouse. It was a good place.

Godard Day

2010-12-03T20:34:00.001-05:00

Happy eightieth birthday, Jean-Luc Godard -- after Freud's yours is perhaps the most brilliant mind modernity has produced.

Love,
The Hilarious Posters

All Things Can Tempt Me

2010-11-20T21:52:00.005-05:00

I'm deep in the procrastination zone right now. I'm supposed to be working, but I can't!

I decided to start an additional blog, actually, to document an issue that I feel really strongly about. I hope to call attention to a lot of silent suffering with this one, and put a human face on an issue too many of us laugh off or talk about in hushed tones. The blog is called Ugly Ric.

I'll post some video of The Fire Tapes and Red Satellites soon, promise. I got four thirty-second clips, featuring snippets of two Fire Tapes songs and two Red Satellites songs.

Here's a picture I took of the Sat's set list while we were cleaning up.

I also took this picture of people who were in front of the stage after the show was over.

And I took this picture of our set list when I got home.

By the way, we skipped Sibella (as usual). I swear: next time we're opening with it!

Just Got Back

2010-11-20T00:55:00.000-05:00

That show was awesome! I have nothing but good things to say about The Fire Tapes and Red Satellites. I have both video and pictures which I'll post over the weekend. For now you'll have to be content with this, which is also completely awesome in every way.

Show on Friday!!!!!

2010-11-18T11:50:00.001-05:00

We're playing with Red Satellites and The Fire Tapes tomorrow, that being Friday the 19th of November, 2010. The show is at the Tea Bazaar and is $5.

Also I have revamped the blog, as people were saying it looked a little stale.

Red Satellites are celebrating the release of a new CD, which I hope everybody will buy.

For those of us who don't celebrate the weekend before Thanksgiving as if it were some kind of actual holiday, this show is going to be the hottest thing going down this week!

November Spawned a Monster of Rock

2010-11-02T10:28:00.003-04:00

Fall is here in all its chilly glory! Now I can finally break out my special Kubla Khan inspired "fast thick pants" that were too warm to wear before.

It's election day today. I'll spare you my thoughts on that this time around. Go vote (unless you're a Republican).

Also, this:

which is going to be awesome. The flier pretty much says it all, including how I feel about Dave and Renee going on holiday without me (sniff).

There are rumors afoot about 1) the cover charge (which I'll post here as soon as I know it) and 2) another band being added to the bill. No word on order or anything yet, but I assume the Satellites will be playing last since no one in their right mind would want to follow them. If we end up going on after the Satellites, though, I think it would only be fair to expect Kris to take his shirt off.

[Edit: 1) The door will be the usual Tea Bazaar fiver, 2) It'll just be three bands, us, the Sats, and The Fire Tapes, whom I'm quite excited to see.]

Lots more action coming up as soon as all the posters are states-side. We're pretty close to finished recording, and there's still a chance (if slim) that we'll get the record out this year. It's going a lot faster this time, but there's three times as many songs. Then there's mixing, which I feel was the weakest aspect of the EP (totally my fault), so I really don't want to rush that. Once that's done, though, mastering and pressing should only take a week or so. We also plan to play a show in December, though nothing's set up yet.

Sam

Spooky Greetings!

2010-10-31T12:51:00.003-04:00

It's Halloween today. Dave and Renee are going as people who have gone on holiday to Wales, and it's the most convincing costume ever! Recording is on hold while they're away, which I'm sort of sad about, but it's probably for the best because I have a ton of work to do on both the reading and the grading fronts.

We have a show lined up for when they get back, though. Tea Bazaar, Friday, November 19th. This will be a release party for the new Red Satellites EP, and Red Satellites are also playing (obviously). The Fire Tapes have just been added to the bill. They're the new Charlottesville dream-pop band everybody is talking about right now. We're super excited to be playing with the Satellites again. Dancin'!

This is what I'm into lately. I can't stop watching it!

I really wish they'd use it as a dream sequence (or the opening credits?) on an episode of House.

Soupy twist!
Sam

... and Demo Streaming!

2010-10-16T22:01:00.005-04:00

I've also added a bunch of demos and stuff to soundcloud. Right now it's pretty heavily weighted towards Sam songs, because I didn't want to post too much of Dave's stuff without his permission. But there's a hand full of things on there that nobody had heard before, in addition to some old classics.

[Edit: I've added some more stuff, and I guess the player updates automatically, so the description below isn't really exhaustive anymore. Anyway, if you actually want to know more about any of the tracks than the notes on soundcloud tell you then just email us.

All you really need to know is that the songs on this playlist are all songs that the Posters play, but none of these versions have been -- or will be -- released in any "official" way. It's sort of a cyber-age B-Side bin.

Dave will also be uploading some more stuff soon. Let's hope for some oldskool Geoffrey Crayon shit! Most of Dave's demos are just acoustic guitar, drum machine, and "la la la" vocals, but let's hope he'll post some anyway. I know there's a good one of Not the Strut that was in heavy rotation at my house for a while!]

Demos and Alternate Versions by TheHilariousPosters

The set includes the original demo of Geniuses, an early version of the Justin version of Geniuses (which was on MySpace for most of 2009), a version of Fists from that month when I was the drummer, and some other goodies. There's even one song that we've never played live, and which won't be on the CD we're making! It's called For Whom The Belt Holes, and I include it only because it's been a particular favorite among my close friends for a while (take that for whatever it's worth).

There's the rough mix of Conestoga which was posted here a while ago, and then the other songs are demos of three of my songs that will be on the CD.

Rock on!

EP Streaming

2010-10-12T13:06:00.007-04:00

Yo, Homies!

With all the energy currently going into the full-length we're recording right now, it's easy to forget about the EP we put out last winter.

Have no fear! I've just rigged up a thing so that you can listen to it on line pretty easily. I think we might take it down later, and, like, replace it with five songs from the new record, but for now the whole EP is here and free to stream wherever and whenever.

The Hilarious Posters (EP) by TheHilariousPosters

This thing will, I hope, end up on our new homepage too, as will a feed of this blog, so that, while I'll still be hilariously posting here, you'll be able to read everything from our central hub.

We'll also be posting rough mixes of a few new songs as they're finished. The Conestoga Fries rough mix is already available at Soundcloud (the place from whence the EP streams).

In other news, lots of bands in Charlottesville are breaking up, which is really sad. Everybody go see Drunk Tigers and The Caninos while you have the chance!

Columbus Day Weekend

2010-10-11T21:08:00.007-04:00

I made this video today compiling stuff I've recorded with my phone over the weekend. Most of it is about 30 seconds each of Lost in the Trees and Elf Power from the Tea Bazaar show last Saturday. Then there's just some unrelated video of Dave and me recording stuff this afternoon. We worked on acoustic guitar for about six songs.

Also, we have a real website up now, and we have our very own domain name and everything! The site looks great! It's been mostly a Renee and Dave endeavor, though, so I'll leave it for them to make the official announcement. Look for it soon!

Rock on!

Side-project show Saturday the 2nd (tomorrow)

2010-10-01T16:58:00.010-04:00

I've been working this week on getting cover art stuff together for the new cd, though there's still no real consensus about what will be on the cover. We may end up scrapping what I've done and having somebody else do something totally different (though I hope not because I think what I have so far is pretty rad!).

I sort of proposed the idea of a December 3rd release date to people today, but that might be too soon or might be wrong for some other reason. With the EP I remember we were trying to get it done for Christmas and the actual release was on Valentine's Day!

Anyway, tomorrow night, that being Saturday, October 2nd, there will be a show at Tea Bazaar featuring my side-project band, The Womans, and two other bands. I posted a flier about the show on this page a couple of weeks ago. One of the other bands is the side-project of the guy from The Spinto Band. The third band is called ROAR and I don't know if they're a side-project or not. Either way, the evening will be side-project heavy for sure.

I played the demos I recorded of the songs for The Womans for Dave the other day. He said it sounded like music by somebody with a lot of problems. I was sort of trying to make a soundtrack for, like, a '60s beach party held on Halloween. We're also doing some covers, because I've always wanted to be in a band that played a lot of covers, but usually if I'm only in one band I don't want to do that because it might seem like I'm just lazy and don't write many songs. But since this is my second band I'm just going to go for it in terms of covers (and in terms of creeping out girls).

We (The Womans) are also looking for a lead singer, so if you want to sing in a band give me a shout. I originally wanted a female vocalist, but since our aesthetic is sort of all about creeping girls out I think that's probably not going to happen, so guys are welcome.

The Tom Perriello campaign was just at my door, reminding me to go vote on election day, which I was going to do anyway. Wouldn't their time be better spend visiting the people who weren't already going to vote for Perriello? I hate campaigns so much.

See what you get when you mess with The Orphans!
Sam

it's a small world After All!

2010-09-29T08:43:00.003-04:00

Oh man! Can you feel it?! Can you feel the excitement in the air? The energy? That's the energy generated by at least a dozen people who can't wait to get a sneak peek at the upcoming Posters full length. Well,at long last, here it is...the first track to spring from the basement!

Conestoga Fryz (Rough Mix)

For those that don't know this song is my ode to the gone but not forgotten Disneyland attraction of the same name. Check it: Conestoga Fries. And yes, it is extremely fun eating overpriced McDonald's French fries out of a covered wagon. Oh, the memories!

Anyway, enjoy! And look for more sneak peeks in the weeks to come! See you at the Elf Power/Lost In The Trees/Hilarious Posters show on October 9th at Tea Bazaar! We won't be playing this song!

Love, Dave

09-23-2010 at the Taphouse

2010-09-24T13:41:00.014-04:00

Here are some pictures I took the other night. For some reason there's a lot of blank space above them in this post. It's because of the weird Blogger formatting, I guess, which seems like it's going to let you edit html but then has all sorts of weird display stuff that it adds when you actually publish the post.

	Demon Beat


	Elephant Child

Show on Thursday!

2010-09-18T20:07:00.006-04:00

Alright! We're playing at the 12th Street Taphouse on Thursday and we're totally excited!

It's going to be a good time.

Edit:

Oh, I forgot! We're going to be playing three songs we've never played before, so in that respect it'll be a departure from the norm, both because the songs will be unfamiliar and because we normally don't play more than one untried song per show. There are two songs of mine that are new, one is a pop song that's kind of Comet Gain meets Fraggle Rock. The other is more of an abstract arty piece which Renee has compared to the first Feelies record.

Dave has a new song that has a kind of Kinks-meet-Johnny-Cash vibe. Like "Victoria" but with a more American, travelin' music angle. I think he was going for a Game Theory kind of thing, but whatever. Scott Miller is a really hard guy to rip off (I should know!) so it's not a surprise that it turned into something else, and it's no loss because the song is great!

Oh the shows I would get to go to if I only had a time machine!

Sam

Upcoming Whatever

2010-09-02T11:07:00.021-04:00

I'm listening to last.fm right now and some weird version of "Sunlight Bathed in Golden Glow" by Felt is on. It's not the version on Strange Idol Patterns. It's got a cool bass intro that kind of sounds like Just Like Heaven. But my point is: Felt rules!

Folks, the Posters have been busy and we're going to stay that way for a while to come.

Lots of recording has been going on, though lots of re-recording has also been going on, so I'm not sure how much actual progress we're making. I think the record is going to have 16 songs and be about 35 minutes long. We had an almost-finished version of "Not the Strut" (which we sort of think of as this record's single), but we decided it was a little slow and so we're starting from scratch with a new version at the right tempo. I'm still trying to convince Dave to put vocals on the slow one and post it here as "Not the Strut UK Surf." There is also a genuinely weird version of "Ferris Beuller" that we'll probably have to scrap, though at some point I'll definitely be posting that somewhere for people to hear because it's kind of awesome. It sounds like a dub remix of "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite."

In the meantime, we have shows coming up, and we're working on getting our website up and running, and we're going to make t-shirts. The current plan is to have four t-shirt designs, one by each of us.

Our next show will be ~~Saturday, September 25th,~~ Thursday, September 23rd, and it'll happen at the 12th Street Taphouse, which until recently only hosted stand up comedy on its stage (for reasons unknown, Charlottesville has a lot of stand up comedy), but has recently broadened its offerings to include stand up tragedy. Naturally, we were one of the first troupes to whom they offered a spot. We'll be playing with fellow stand up tragedians ~~The Capstan Shafts~~ somebody else. The Taphouse is where Northern Exposure used to be.

Also, my exciting new band will be playing its first show on October 2nd at The Tea Bazaar. We're called The Womans and we've got a bunch of songs that are even shorter and even weirder than my songs in the Posters. We're also playing a bunch of covers. We've only practiced once, and we're still looking for a singer, so that show will probably be a complete train wreck of the kind that you don't want to miss. That band has two Caninos in it.

Sam

Work Hard! Play Hard!

2010-08-17T16:50:00.008-04:00

I think I mentioned last time I posted that my righteous new phone can record video. Here are the first spoils of this new power. Two little movies of the Posters working on our new record.

In this first one, Dave and I are working on guide vocals for Tommy2K, bass for Sibella, and then acoustic guitar for Penmanship Brigade. I seem to remember that there was some kind of phasing problem with the acoustic guitar, and it may have to be re-recorded. I didn't actually set the mics up for the guitar, and whoever did (coughDave) may have forgotten to make sure they were more or less equal distances from the sound source.

A week later, we had a drum day and got like four songs done, two of which (Tommy2K and Gap Year) I got some video of. The other two songs were songs of mine, and so I had actually to be helping with the production instead of just standing there with a camera being in the way. We just got a new preamp and an additional SM57, so we were all psyched that day about being able to put a mic over the toms. In all the excitement I forgot to flip the phase on the bottom mic on the snare, and I've been kicking myself over it for the past three days! It was probably karma for secretly blaming the acoustic guitar phase problems on Dave the week before.

That's how we roll, though. When it's time to cut loose, we go mental! But when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work, we're all like "Get 'er done, hombre!"

Sam
(I had to sign in through the Posters' blogger account because the videos are still rendering.)

Diaspora

2010-07-27T22:02:00.003-04:00

So I am in Portland, Maine, hanging with an ill and much loved family member. I don't know if anyone reads this blog anymore. Its upkeep has fallen mostly to me this year, and this summer I haven't been much in the mood for blogging.

The Posters played as a three piece the other night. I wasn't there to take pictures (though I did just get a sweet new phone last week and it takes video) but anybody who has them is encouraged to add them to the mix somehow. I did see one picture that showed the Posters taking advantage of my absence to use an amp from off the children's menu. Please! That amp's not even rated R, dude!

Love from Maine to anybody who reads this. Life is too short and too sad not to rock out.
ST

WTJU

2010-06-23T10:56:00.006-04:00

Anybody who reads this blog I'm sure already knows about this (partly because most of the people who read the blog are in the Hilarious Posters) but I thought I'd give a shout anyway to WTJU in Crisis, run by Tyler of Posters faves Mss. Lots of changes are being proposed at TJU, and while the changers have been justly accused of mismanaging the transition, and the changees have been justly accused of some alarmist rhetoric, I think we can all agree that more (and more inclusive) discussion needs to happen at the station before any plan in finalized.

[Edit: Tyler has also started a forum.]

I did a weekly show on WTJU from 1998 until 2005, though I've kind of lost track of what's been going on there over the past five years, partly because I don't listen to the radio. (I'm too self absorbed.) From 2002 until 2005 I was in a band in which all four members were TJU djs, one of whom was rock director for part of that time. So while I'm one of the people who doesn't listen to the station, and therefore am I guess part of the reason the proposed changes appear necessary to some, TJU has been a major part of my time in Charlottesville, and a major part of my musical education. I can only assume that if it's true for me it must be true for many other people, and messing around with something that means so much to so many -- or even to a small crew of particularly dedicated folks -- is not something to be done quickly or lightly.

I hosted the last rock show at Peabody, I'm pretty sure. I was subbing for Paul Wilkinson, if I remember right. Chuck was standing behind me the whole time waiting for the dudes to call and nervously pacing. He said I might have to shut down quickly -- with only a minute's notice -- and that there were already people over at Lambeth waiting to power up the thing. He said the transition would be basically seamless, which blew my mind. But the call didn't come until 6 or so, about two ours after my show was over, and I think jazz was on or something.

Recording

2010-06-13T21:51:00.006-04:00

I haven't blagued in a while, but we've been busy recording. I took some arty photos of us making our record.

Here you can see Kris rocking the drums hard. It's all blurry because that's how fast he plays now. It can't be captured by a camera. That image is actually from last Wednesday. I think he was recording Not the Strut (or possibly the all-new version of That Thing You Don't).

Here's one of Dave playing guitar on Not the Strut. It's from today.

Renee was reading on the stairs while that was going down.

We're getting stuff done a lot faster than when we recorded our EP, but we also have a lot more songs to get through this time. About three times as many!

I'm hoping we'll have a demo of Not the Strut -- finished electric guitar, drums, and keyboard takes with scratch takes for bass, acoustic guitar, and vocals -- to post here this week. It will also be on all the various pages we maintain (assuming it actually gets done).

We also worked today on some demos for songs of mine that I haven't played with the band yet. One is an old song I used to play with Dave and Justin, and the other one is a new song that I haven't played with anybody yet.

Happy Birthday!

2010-06-06T20:36:00.000-04:00

It's the one-year anniversary of our blog!

Go blog!

Memorial Day Rockin' Eve-Eve-Eve

2010-05-29T21:31:00.018-04:00

Yesterday was the Friday that led off Memorial Day weekend here in Charlottesville (and I guess throughout the rest of the country as well). We played the Tea Bazaar with Paper Fleet and Borrowed Beams of Light and a good time was had by all. All three bands were different from one another, but similar enough that people who liked one probably liked all three. I know I did!

The Posters played first, and we were a lot sloppier than usual, but it was fun and I think the general outline of each song still pretty much translated to people. I broke a bass string, which I've never done before, even just in practice!

Next up was Paper Fleet. Their singer / guitar player guy looked much like Jordan Catalano.

They should consider changing their band's name to Frozen Embryos. Or, you know, Residue. Also, they should get Rayanne to sing "I Wanna Be Sedated" with them. (Actually, no, they shouldn't.)

I'm sorry these pictures are so bad. I forgot my camera (which takes pretty terrible pictures anyway) and I was stuck with my phone. Renee took a lot of pictures with her new camera (which she claims is "almost as good as Josh's") and she'll probably post them on fbook.

The Beams were on next. Here they are tuning up.

I was pretty impressed with how many people in town know all the words to their songs. Admittedly about half their lyrics are just "ahh" or "ohh," but still, people knew all the other words too.

As you can see in the picture below, the whole band is saying "ahhhh." I think this was the beginning of "Thousand Year Powernap," the song with the bass line so infectious that Dave cannot refrain from playing it in practice whenever we're not practicing one of our actual songs.

Local photographer and video rental impresario Andy is taking a picture of the Beams here.

I went to the back of the room to get a shot of how huge the crowd was. I'm not sure if as many people were there for our set, but even if it was half of what you see here it was a pretty big crowd for us, and it was really fun to share the stage with the Beams. Adam is a pop songsmith of the highest order!

Anyway, that was a badass show. Other than breaking a string it was a totally positive experience. I still have "Kids Are Great" stuck in my head! At the moment we don't have anything lined up until mid July, so it's going to be nose-to-the-grind-stone recording for a while.

Tomorrow Is Gonna Be Psycho!

2010-05-27T12:30:00.018-04:00

I finally got Photoshop at work again!

It's a few days late in coming, but I wanted to tell everybody that Renee had a cool (short) writeup in the C'ville this week. In the print version, on stands until the next issue comes out Tuesday, there is also a photo of her. Renee is indeed every boy's dream girl, which means that Dave is lucky for more reasons than simply having a cool job and being in a band with moi.

Also, don't forget that we're rocking the Tea House with our compatriots in the Charlottesville quirky pop scene Borrowed Beams of Light, and cool garage rock / slacker pop outfit Paper Fleet, from Brooklyn. I think they might know this guy I know named Chuck, who is good friends with my brother from art school and is (or was?) in The Bright Lights.

We're pulling out all the stops this time around. Dave is basically playing nothing but A-sides. I can't remember what songs of mine we're playing. I'm pretty sure they're good ones, though.

Hitch would like to remind you to be on time for the show, which will start at 9pm sharp, because we're going on first and, like Rachel on Glee (and Tinkerbell), we need applause to live.

Show This Friday. Recording Today.

2010-05-23T20:38:00.012-04:00

I'm sort of sad that there isn't more stuff on youtube by Lungleg. Why was there never a video of "Previous Condition?" If I ever get a time machine the first place I'm going is a Lungleg show, for sure!

[Edit: It didn't occur to me to check until today, but there is some good stuff on their (official?) myspace, including a cool lo-fi version of Theme Park and a show from 1994 split into two long tracks. It never occurred to me that a band from the '90s would have a myspace, but as we all know I'm a technophobe and don't really know how these things work. My God Lungleg is good, though! It's like somebody combined Girls At Our Best with Blast Off Country Style. I highly recommend both CDs. They've been in heavy rotation at my house since I discovered them a few years ago.]

Anyway, I'll not bury the lead more than I already have. The Posters will be opening for Borrowed Beams of Light at the Tea Bazaar this Friday, May 28th, 2010. If you've not heard the Borrowed Beams, you probably do not live in or near Charlottesville, but you can head over to their website and listen to their excellent five song EP in its entirety. I hasten to add that the Beams feature the songwriting and singing talents of Adam Brock, who is also the drummer in The Invisible Hand. Other local rock stars are also in the band, but the focus is very much on Adam's voice and clever, catchy songs. They are one of the biggest things in Charlottesville right now, and deservedly so. Also, they don't play as much as many of the bands around here because, even though their material is as good as that of any band in town, most of the people are in other bands that play more often, like the Hand and Corsair. Anyway, this is a big show for us because the Beams are really popular and really good, so I'm hoping this will be the show where I finally start getting some groupie action.

Also on the bill is Brooklyn's Paper Fleet. On their myspace they cite Joe Jack Talcum as a major influence, and that's a pretty apt comparison. They sound a lot like "Dean's Dream" from Big Lizard In My Back Yard, which as far as I'm concerned is a very good thing.

We're playing first at this show, probably starting around 9:00 or 9:30, so plan to get there early and enjoy some tea.

In other news, Dave and I recorded some stuff today. We actually got a whole lot done, which usually scares me, because the more you get done the less good all of it usually sounds when you listen to it the next day. I'm really pleased with the way those Russian microphones I bought sound on acoustic guitar, though. I'm hoping they'll sound as good as drum overheads. Listening back to the acoustic we recorded for "Aubrey" last week I was struck by how natural it sounded. If they work as well as I think they will on drums I might be able to pawn one of my large diaphragm AKGs (which would rule).

I'm still not pleased with my bass playing on "Penmanship." Although I'm thinking that when we record the actual thing I want to record it through a guitar amp with lots of reverb.

Does anybody else think the end of Ashes to Ashes was a little too much like something from some galex-obsessed nerd-girl's fan fiction? (Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.) It's not that it was overly galexy, just that it was so on the nose in terms of giving the most psycho elements of the fan base exactly what they wanted. To think that some of those freaky people on The Railway Arms actually had it way more right than anyone else!

I guess this probably should have tipped me off.

Anyway, RIP the Quattro.

Sage Comme une Image

2010-05-10T13:28:00.002-04:00

This is the direction we're headed in for the next album... Hope everyone approves! Thanks to everybody who came out to rock on Saturday and thanks in advance to everyone who's gonna come out to watch us tear it up at Tea Bazaar on May 28th with Paper Fleet and Borrowed Beams of Light! It's the day after my 33rd birthday! Come celebrate (or lament) with me!

- Dave

Workday/Schoolnight and Young Adult Fiction

2010-05-09T13:27:00.018-04:00

This is going to be a photo-heavy post, so I've made the thumbnails really small. You can click on them to see them big.

Last night's show was off that hook, dude! The first act was Workday/Schoolnight, one guy and about twelve machines working together to fuck shit up. It was all of the good stuff about experimental electronic music (danceable beats, Human League-esque synth hooks, smart lyrics and really funny samples from found materials) with none of the things that can sometimes make that music unlistenable or boring (i.e. not having actual songs).

The awesome lyrics and sound samples -- many from what sounded like early-'90s self hypnosis and life coaching cassettes -- really created a bleak picture of the irredeemable distopia that is modern America, but this message of alienation and hopelessness was delivered in the form of a first class dance party act. I can't imagine a more fun way to reflect on the failings of this hellscape we all inhabit.

The Posters played in the middle slot, and after us was Young Adult Fiction, from Richmond. Seeing them play, all the Pavement comparisons started to make sense to me. There's almost more of a visual resemblance than a musical one. It's not just that they're five dudes playing Pavement instruments (including a Bob Nastanovich guy), but they actually look a little like the guys in Pavement. But in a weird way. Check it out: The Malkmus guy looks like Malkmus, but the Spiral Stairs looks like a cross between Steve West and Mark Ibold! And then the Steve West looks like Bob Nastanovich!!! The other two guys -- the bass player and the auxil-ovich/percussionist don't look like anybody in Pavement.

Here's the back of Dave as he gets down to their phat tunes.

They switch instruments for a couple of songs, and the drummer comes out and sings some songs while the singer plays drums. Switching instruments is always awesome!

Then they switched back and I took this picture from a different angle. As you can see, the people just couldn't sit still.

For the last couple of songs, Dylan (aka Charlottesville's Rhythm Bandit) played the auxil-ovitch, and the bass player took off his shirt. I'm not sure if the two things were related because I was too busy dancing. Everybody was kung fu fighting!

During the last song Dylan broke the fourth wall in a kind of situationist rejection of established decorum. I think he also may have broken this drum. Dave is trying to contain the madness, but he can't!

That was probably the most fun I've ever had at the Tea Bazaar. Word!

Tea Bazaar. This Saturday. Be there!

2010-05-04T21:36:00.003-04:00

I sort of can't get enough of this kid. I'm really into his voice and the kooky moves his drummer has. Most of the time when people cover a Wipers song they try to be really tough about it, and can't really do justice to Greg Sage's voice or guitar tone, but this guy just doesn't even go down that route. He rocks it Lois Maffeo style with just acoustic guitar and minimal drums, and it totally works.

The Hilarious Posters will be doing some rocking of our own this Saturday at our beloved second-story Tea Bazaar. The headlining act will be Richmond's Young Adult Fiction, about whom everybody has been saying good things. People have described them as sounding very 1990s, but I don't really hear it. Probably, once again, folks have confused "1990s" with "good."

Also on the bill is Workday/Schoolnight from North Carolina. It's electronic slightly-experimental stuff, but still very song-based, and featuring poppy synth hooks -- accessible while not being dumbed down at all. I'm pretty sure it's just one guy and a bunch of machines.

On Sunday we made the first stabs at recording stuff for our long player. The idea is to have it out in the fall, but given that five songs took us five months to record last year, there's a chance that fifteen or twenty will take us into fall 2011! We recorded stuff that will probably not be used for the actual record, but will serve as guide tracks later on -- bass and acoustic guitar on Not the Strut, Penmanship, and Ferris Bueller.

Go Us!

2010-04-19T12:29:00.016-04:00

Check it out, everybody! The Hook has implied that we are somewhere between the 13th and 69th best band in Charlottesville! Woo hoo!

Seriously, though, congratulations to Mss, Pompadour, and virtually every other band we have ever shared a stage with.

:,-(

In other HP news, we're making our triumphant return to Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar (just "the Tea Bazaar" for you cool kids) on May 8th. It's a Saturday. ~~We're playing with a band from Chicago called Caw Caw~~ who seem really fun and energetic, judging from their myspace.

[Edit: Caw Caw's participation is no longer a sure thing, as they may have to be in another town that night. The show will feature us and at least one other band: Richmond's Young Adult Fiction. More deets in a separate post soon.]

This show will feature at least one new song -- a rousing, anthemic, as-yet-untitled sing-along which will also involve some surprises. VHS & the Babies fans will know what I mean when I say that, with this song, we're introducing a new "module."

There's another new song we've been practicing, but I don't think it'll be ready for the show in May. It's either going to be called "Showmen" or "Lots in the Supermarket." It's sort of a sequel to "Geniuses," in that where "Geniuses" was kind of about Orson Welles, this one is kind of about Val Lewton. Most of the song is faux hard rock, in tribute to the Blast/Trapnest feud (which the song is also kind of about), but it has a sweet disco breakdown in the middle, which was inspired by the chorus to this song (the part at 1:29).

I have to go teach Sylvia Plath. Laters.
Sam

Cool Evening at the Garage

2010-04-10T17:06:00.011-04:00

Awesome show at the Garage last night with Travis Kokas, Mss, and Sam Buck Rosen.

Travis was up first, playing some very pretty and bittersweet songs. Dave backed him up with excellent harmonies, Garfunkel-style.

Next up was Mss, who were always great, but are really evolving in an exciting new direction. Josh was playing a lot more lap steel, giving their usual slow-simmer noisiness an unusual hawaiian flavor. Hula girls would not have been out of place. (Nor would they have been unwelcome, and I can't stress that enough!)

The HP kicked out the jams after Mss, ripping through song after song about vaginas, to the delight of Dave and Renee's realtor, whose name I've forgotten (but that guy is a major new force in the world of rock n roll cheerleading). He also said my songs sounded like The Cure, which is by far the most flattering comparison I've received while I've been in this band.

I'm guessing that pictures of our set will turn up soon on facebook or something.

Last was headliner Sam Buck Rosen, a late addition to the bill, whose incredible songs instantly made him a welcome one. He had the weird smarminess of a vegas-era Elvis, mixed with the wide-eyed innocence of Jonathan Richman, and some kind of Buster Poindexter thing thrown in there too. He also looked like a slightly less good looking David Boreanaz.

More Buzz

2010-04-06T20:18:00.015-04:00

Nice words about us in the C'ville today. Unfortunately I don't think the section that mentions us is included in their online edition, but those who want to check it out are free to come look on my refrigerator, where it will be displayed indefinitely.

In other news, we're playing at The Garage this Friday. The Garage is a little art gallery next to the funeral home downtown, and in the summer they have rock shows on the sidewalk in front (the gallery itself is too small to have the shows inside). The Posters went to see The Caninos, Andrew Cedermark, and Jacob Wolf there last year, and it was awesome, although more low-key and contemplative than your standard rock show.

We'll be playing with Mss (I believe it's the first time we've re-paired with any band, which shows how much we love Mss and also how much Locust Grove pride we have), and they're always good. Dave's Cusack's bandmate Travis is playing too, and also a guy from New York who like me is named Sam. The entire shindig will be wrapped up in time for people to catch the whole thing and then head over to the Tea Bazaar to support WTJU, which is hosting a rock marathon related dance event late into the night.

The the next night (Saturday the 10th), also at The Garage, a tripple bill of Posters' friends and allies will be performing. Pompadour (Charlottesville's best band, IMO), Left & Right (awesome jangly Caninos spinoff), and Andrew Cedermark (local rock-n-roll reporter and celebrity) will make you glad you came out two nights in a row.

Both Garage shows are free. (I think they pass the hat or something, but you have my permission to be a scrooge.)

Dec Interview & Other Noize....

2010-03-29T10:26:00.009-04:00

Hey everybody! Dave here...haven't posted in a while and before this blog descends into some sort of outlet for Sam's pathos I thought I would chime in and let everybody know about the recently printed interview with the Posters written by Gary Canino for the [edit: I think Dave means "a" - st] UVA newspaper, The Declaration.

Anyway, there is a brief mention of the band Bikeride in the interview. They are probably my favorite unsung band of the last decade and one that will most likely never get the credit they deserve since lead singer/guitarist/songwriter Tony Carbone died a few years ago. Every time I write a song for the Posters I'm thinking of Bikeride so I thought I would post the following video for everyone to check out. Their last two albums, Morning Macumba and The Kiss, are both worth seeking out.

See everybody April 9th at the Garage! It's going to be a good one....I promise!

- Dave

March Mildness

2010-03-27T19:33:00.011-04:00

Can March really have been so slow a month for the Posters? I guess we've been practicing only once a week lately, so less has been going on. We broke ground for two new songs on Thrusday, though neither, it's likely, will be ready for our outdoor debut on the 9th (at the Garage).

I recently saw Godard's Soigne ta Droite, which I'd not seen before, and I was pretty impressed with the Rita Mitsouko stuff I heard in that, so I've been checking them out. Also, Judy and Mary.

Something I forgot to say last time I posted was that, before our set at that Random Row show, the girl from Stereo Telescope asked me what we sounded like. I said something about Apples in Stereo because that's the least embarrassing comparison that's been made by somebody outside of the band. After we played she said that my description was accurate, although she would have added that we have touches of "really happy '90s pop" along the lines of "Weezer or The Gin Blossoms."

Besides the fact that the Apples retain their title as least embarrassing comparison, the only result of this comment is that I was sad to see yet another opportunity for somebody to name-check Hypnolovewheel wasted. I realize this makes me old, but Hypnolovewheel is great -- probably the only one of those full-on alt rock bands I'm not now embarrassed to have listened to. There isn't even much to recommend them on youtube, given that the videos they made are for songs that, while good, are not exactly in their top five gems.

If you feel like spending a few dollars on mp3 downloads, check out Kiss Big and/or Turn You Off. They're good.

If some day somebody, unprompted, says my songs sound like a cross between Nothing Painted Blue and The Voidoids, I'll die happy.

April will probably bring more news, because we're supposed to start recording again.

Quiet Loudly and ex-Most Ghosts

2010-03-16T21:31:00.010-04:00

I've got a lot going on this week, what with settling in to my new place and grading papers and whatnot, but I was excited to post these pictures of the bands we played with the other day (even though they kind of didn't come out). So this is going to be a kinda short overview, but definitely check these bands out if you can.

The first bit of news was that Most Ghosts no longer have their drummer or bass player, so rather than do some kind of Most Ghosts unplugged thing the two guitar players did two mini sets. Here's Daniel Harris, who did some effects-heavy guitar and vocals stuff. Lots of loops and layers and textural things, starting out quiet and pretty and then becoming loud and chaotic.

The other Most Ghost actually had a partner, forming an awesome electronic duo called Stereo Telescope. They had awesome danceable groves with minimalist guitar work -- kind of like a slightly updated New Order but with boy/girl vocals. Since boy/girl vocals is my favorite thing in the world I was extra excited.

Then we played, and finally the headliners -- Quiet Loudly. Really funny banter, great songs with lots of surprises. Lots of dynamic and tempo changes but with at the same time some pleasantly simple riffs. My only complaint was that there should be more singing and fewer long instrumental stretches (but you know me, I pretty much feel like all songs should have singing all the time).

Random Row 03/13/10

2010-03-08T13:53:00.007-05:00

We're going to rock Random Row Books again this Saturday, so turn off, tune out, and drop in.

We'll be playing with Boston's Most Ghosts and Brooklyn's Quiet Loudly. Judging from the stuff on Most Ghosts' myspace they have some pretty intense two-guitar interplay that I'm really looking forward to seeing live so I can geek out over it.

Barring any major disasters at practice this week we're going to debut two new jams at this show, so if your reason for not coming was going to be that you've already heard all our songs, think again, spaz!

Post-partum Update

2010-02-23T14:05:00.011-05:00

Ah, in the wake of our EP-release euphoria it's back to the grindstone for the Posters!

We've been working on two new pop-rocks this past week. One is "I Want a Bee or Dog." It's the first chapter of the "Noah's Ark" trilogy, which concludes with the currently-hibernating 50-second new wave jam "Come On Down." The middle part of the trilogy, "Das Ark," is still being written.

Anyway, IWABOD is a song that rips off The Smiths, and then was in turn ripped off by me myself for the Posters' shortest song to date: Ferris Bueller. My limited vocal range is proving a problem in the singing of this one, because in the low octave the low notes are too low, and in the high octave the high notes are too high. I'm seriously considering changing the key (or becoming a eunuch, whichever proves less of a hassle).

You can get a taste from this instrumental demo recorded by my project with Ariel, The Trojan Whores.

I Want a Bee or Dog (demo)

We have also been working on a rock-opera-tastic piece which does not yet have a name, though its vibe is not unlike the one in this video of renowned early-Who tribute band, The middle-period-Who.

In other news, I'm getting thrown out of my apartment next week, so if you've ever had fantasies of living with a local rock star and two cats now is the time to act.

Sam

Absence live

2010-02-15T12:33:00.005-05:00

Gary Canino (once again -- thanks, Gary!) took some fabulous high-quality video of our show the other night. Here's the closer of the set.

Check out the rest of Gary's youtube channel, too; it's got a lot of good stuff, including a great Caninos performance from their set at the same show.

I'd like to point out that my singing in this video is not "bad," but was strategically and deliberately deploying a performance style meant to preempt any rumors that I use autotune on my vocals when we play. There should now be no doubt that I keep it real.

PS: It's fucking snowing again!

Last Night's Gala

2010-02-14T14:12:00.017-05:00

Thanks to everybody who showed up to our EP release last night! Special thanks to those who stuck it out and stayed through our set. Things were running a little behind schedule, and we really appreciate it.

We had a lot of fun. The Caninos were incredible. When I saw them last fall at The Garage I could tell they were a good band, but something about the low-key vibe of The Garage -- or maybe just the occasional SUV that drives between the audience and the band -- prevented me from realizing just how good they are. Last night I was lucky enough to hear them do "Naufragous" twice, once at sound check, and once as the second song in their set.

There something that The Caninos really get right, which a lot of bands don't, in my opinion, and that's that they let their recorded stuff be laid back and understated -- like, they let the strength of their songwriting create the momentum -- but then when it's time to play live they really rock hard, and bring as much charisma and raw power as possible. It's something I remember really liking about Dressy Bessy circa 2000 -- that their live sets sounded nothing like their records, but each offered what its medium was, respectively, best at offering. Craft on the records, and intensity live.

At the end of their set they got a bunch of people on stage to do a We Are the World style sing along.

If The Caninos played first, acting as the show's Genesis, DBB Plays Cups were surely its Exodus. Here they are playing either something from Cups or one of DBB's newer songs.

We played third (and last) much like a Leviticus whose only prohibition is against not rocking, though we did encourage several people to consume pork last night, which was not very levitical of us.

Pictures of our set, and perhaps even video, will likely emerge in the coming days.

Oh, and happy Valentines Day to all our fans. (Remember, ladies, I may not be the sexiest Poster, but I'm the only one who's still single!)

Sam

EP Release Tonite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-02-13T11:35:00.008-05:00

At long last we will be releasing our ep tonight and celebrating the release with a show at Random Row Books with DBB Plays Cups & The Caninos! Needless to say we're all super excited and are going to pull out all the stops for this one. Costume changes, between song sound clips, amateur theatrics.....it's gonna explode! Can't wait to see you all there! We'll witness the carnage together and you can tell your children about it in years to come! Random Row Books.....9:00 pm.....$5.00!

C'ville Hits

2010-02-09T14:03:00.009-05:00

Sometimes when I'm in my cubicle pretending to work, I like to check out what kind of jams our compatriots are kicking out. Here are a few of my favorites from the current Charlottesville awesome-music community:

I really love "The Ones Who're Awake" by Left & Right. I was sorry to have missed them at The Box last week. It must have been a great show. I was too busy being old.

Left & right's older-sister band, the Caninos, have an awesome song called "Naufragous." Also, when you search for "caninos" on myspace it asks "did you mean canibus?"

There's also "It's a Holiday" by Pompadour, who's incredible sound really helped inspire my new-found obsession with unison boy-girl vocals. (Fuck harmony!) That obsession also has a lot to do with my love for the song "Connie Francis" by The Centimeters, who are not a Charlottesville band, or even a band at all anymore, but are still worth checking out.

But really all the songs on Pompadour's myspace are great. There's a nice mix of live and studio stuff.

Sam

Retail Therapy

2010-01-28T11:45:00.016-05:00

We are officially marketeers! Those interested in getting a digital copy of our new EP before it's actually released are invited to visit:

the new Hilarious Posters DigStation store.

Though to be fair, why cheat yourself out of our special Valentine's Day midnight launch event at Random Row, where our cd will "drop" at exactly 12:01 AM on this most romantic of holidays?

Anyway, this is just the beginning. Our collection of five pop gems will, over the next few weeks, be coming to all the major digital music retailers, and physical cds will be available through us directly and online from -- at the very least -- CDBaby.

We'll keep you abreast of changes to our presence in the hustling and bustling world of global commerce.

Sam

I AM the Master!

2010-01-22T20:15:00.007-05:00

Indeed we did rock the mastering session today. Here we are, thinking about the many improvements Mark was making.

That's probably the first picture of all four of us where we're doing something besides playing music!

At one point I became so involved with the process that I started to feel that I was the master, singing the refrain from this song to myself as we worked. Obviously I was the master of the studio, though, not of the gym.

Listening to the finished product, I'm struck both by how big the improvement was over what we came in with, and how different the bass sounds with a pick than it does with your fingers. The songs that I play bass on have a really deep dub tone, but the songs that Dave plays bass on have this punchy rock tone. I think the mastering process really brought those differences out.

It's......THE MASTER!!!!!!

2010-01-22T17:30:00.001-05:00

We mastered the ep today and thus we are that much closer to its actual release. Mark at Sandalwood Studios here in Charlottesville did a great job and we're all really pleased with the finished product. He also took a nice group shot of us which hopefully Sam will post a little later! We're stoked about the release show on February 13th at Random Row!

- Dave

Last Friday / This Friday

2010-01-17T17:07:00.031-05:00

We rocked Tea Bazaar last Friday, playing pretty well and debuting two new jams: Aubry & the Unicorn and Jubilate Agnes (the in-band title for the latter is Haunted Drumset).

We played first, and up next was Dave's fellow Ohioans Lollipop Factory. None of my pictures of them came out, but they kicked a metric ton of ass. It was pretty inspiring meeting some regular people who are making it work as a band professionally; like -- they don't have day jobs, they're just in Lollipop Factory all the time. They were really nice people, too, and lugged more and bigger stuff than ours up the Tea Bazaar stairs, which I totally respect. When it comes to amps, bigger is always better and there's no such thing as too big!

I was pretty impressed both with how good and with how beat-up Lollipop Factory's stuff was. They had three amp heads: a Marshall, a Fender, and a Kustom. All looked like mid-eighties 100 watt tube deals. Then, ok, a Marshall 4x12 cab, an Ampeg 2x15 cab, and a plush silver Kustom cab which looked like a 3x12, but it was tall and skinny, not square like a Marshall (there's two of them in this picture I found of Lollipop Factory rocking out in Georgia). This is all for one guy!

After Lollipop Factory rocked the shit out of the place Red Satellites glammed the shit out of it just as ruthlessly. Do you ever wish Hunky Dory were like an hour longer? Well, dude, you're about to get your wish! I got one picture of them that kind of came out. I couldn't get all that close because of their adoring fans! Anyway if you open it you can see some shirtless glam action. I think I'm going to stop relying on my phone for these pictures and start bringing my actual camera to our shows.

All in all this was one of the best lineups we've played with. All three bands fucked shit up hard-style. It was really awesome to see Justin there, too. Special thanks to him for helping us load out!

We did some final mixing on Absence, Geniuses, and Sugarbread Falls this afternoon, while enjoying some Dr. Pepper Heritage at 4. Perhaps Dave had also had his 10 and 2 doses? The other two songs were fine already. We turned up the trumpet on Absence, and turned it down a little on Geniuses. On Sugarbread we turned the lead vocals down a little, which fucked up the whole vocal submix, because then the backing vocals had to be turned down at some points and then turned up at others. Then we re-bounced final versions of everything to bring to the studio. On Friday Kris and I are going to have the EP mastered at a studio in town. Cover art should also come together this week, too.

When I was in Maine last month my mom got me totally addicted to Law and Order Criminal Intent, so I have to get back to watching that now (with occasional glances at my dissertation between episodes).

Friday Show!

2010-01-13T17:25:00.006-05:00

Hey everybody! I don't post so much, but I thought I would today. I am really excited about the gig at Tea Bazaar this Friday. We will be debuting two new songs that are both cool and welcome additions to the rotation. Looks like people will be attending, but please if you can make it do! Also we are entering the final stages of getting our EP done. We will be getting it mastered soon and then off to be duplicated! Very exciting. So things are good in the HP world and only going to get better. Save the date now for our EP release show Feb. 13th. That's a Saturday...I know..who would have thought two weekend shows in a row. It is truly amazing. It looks like 2010 will be the year of the poster...or the year we make hilarious contact...or something funny.

Kris

2010 - Dave's Wish

2010-01-04T08:13:00.003-05:00

My wish for 2010 is that the Hilarious Posters will cover this song:

2010

2010-01-01T20:28:00.003-05:00

My wish for the new year is that more things will be this awesome.

Holiday Surprise Day 5: Sugarbread Falls

2009-12-25T09:13:00.007-05:00

"Sugarbread Falls is the place that we all choose to be," indeed! And so our Holiday Surprise comes to an end! We hope you've enjoyed this opportunity to get a free sneak preview of our new ep. We hope to have the actual release sometime in February and the chances are very likely that some additional mastering and mixing will happen before then. Here's wishing everyone a very happy holiday season! We're going to drown ourselves in some nog! Enjoy and we'll see you in 2010! Thanks as always for listening!

[Sugarbread Falls has been removed. Hope you enjoyed the Hilarious Posters Holiday Surprise! Look for the actual ep to be released sometime in February!]

-The Hilarious Posters

Holiday Surprise Day 4: Little Boy

2009-12-23T13:37:00.010-05:00

Atomic bombs as metaphor? Check. Witty wordplay? Check. Phil Spector style breakdown? Check. It must be a Sam Turner song, and it must be Day 4 of the Hilarious Posters Holiday Surprise! We're not entirely sure if the Little Boy in question is the Christ child but let's just say for today's purposes that it is. Oh, and if you've never seen the cult BBC Christmas special AD/BC (pictured above) it gets the Posters highest recommendation! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNmRgkZM3Rc) In the meantime, get Little Boy while you can and check back in tomorrow for the last day of our Holiday Surprise! See you then!

[Little Boy has been removed. Check in tomorrow for Holiday Surprise Day 5: Sugarbread Falls!]

- The Hilarious Posters

Holiday Surprise Day 3: The Fists & The Fighting

2009-12-22T22:21:00.011-05:00

....and on we move to Day Three of our big Holiday Extravaganza! Just think of it as the 12 Days of Christmas or eight nights of Hanukkah on a minor scale. Here we have track three off the upcoming ep, a tale of a peasant revolt and ensuing merriment, The Fists & The Fighting. Man oh man, can you just imagine what it will be like when all of these tracks are compiled together on one ep?! Can you believe we're crazy enough to give all this great music away for free?! We can't either! But get it fast! And come back Thursday and Friday for two more Poster sized morsels of pop! See you then!

[The Fists & The Fighting has been removed. Check in tomorrow for Holiday Surprise Day 4: Little Boy!]

- The Hilarious Posters

Holiday Surprise Day 2: Geniuses

2009-12-21T22:51:00.011-05:00

Hello! Thanks to everyone who stopped in to download Absence yesterday, now onto the ep's second track, Sam's allusion filled rave up, Geniuses. Like Absence, Geniuses will only be available until the end of today so act fast if you want to have this tasty slice of (digital) wax to listen to in advance of the ep's actual release sometime in February. Two down, three more to go! Hope we're helping to make the season bright!

[Geniuses has been removed. Check in tomorrow for Holiday Surprise Day 3: The Fists & The Fighting!]

- The Hilarious Posters

Holiday Surprise Day 1: Absence

2009-12-21T06:28:00.007-05:00

Hello everyone and Happy Holidays! Hope all of our East Coast friends stayed dry and warm during the "Crippler" this past weekend. As promised, here for your downloading pleasure is Absence, the first track off of our new ep. Absence will only be available until the end of today so get it while supplies last. Tune in tomorrow and every day this week for a new downloadable track from our forthcoming as-yet-untitled ep! See you tomorrow!

[Absence has been removed. Check in tomorrow for Holiday Surprise Day 2: Geniuses!]

- The Hilarious Posters

The Finish Line

2009-12-13T17:57:00.009-05:00

I guess there's some questions still floating around. What will the cover art look like? Could it benefit from professional mastering? Should it be made yet more awesome by the addition of heavy-handed political messages? But these things aside, our little EP is recorded, mixed, sequenced, and ready to take over the world. We're going to have a kick ass release party, probably to coincide with black history month, and if things go as planned we'll be playing at a venue we've not attempted before with some of our most favorite of favorite local bands.

I'd like to dedicate this post, though, to all the heroes who weren't lucky enough to make it to the ends of their respective journeys this year. The Hilarious Posters won't forget you, and, more importantly, we won't forget the example you set. Your courage in the face of adversity shows me exactly how I would hope to comport myself (if I weren't a success). Especially this time of year, we have to remember that losing is just another kind of winning. With that in mind, enjoy this video produced by One True Media, whose work I "greatly admire."

Finishing Up Audio

2009-12-06T20:28:00.009-05:00

We recorded some more backing vocals on Sugarbread today, and made some minor fixes on the trumpet part for Absence. If the vocals on Sugarbread still sound good once we've had some time to sit with them, audio recording will be officially over. All that's left is some keyboard stuff for Fists.

There's snow all over the ground all over town. It's really winter now!

Thanks!

2009-11-24T09:45:00.004-05:00

Recent Posters activity:

We played at Tea Bazaar on the 18th, which was last Wednesday. About 25 people were at the show. The crowd roared like a lion. The band really whooped a dinosaur's ass.

Thanks to Gary for taking this video.

We played with Left & Right and Viva Viva. The latter is from Massachusetts and sort of did a bluesy early-Rolling Stones thing. They had a really nice organ.

Left & Right played awesome indie rock stuff with really smart two-guitar arrangements and triple fab vocal harmonies. They are, like Pompadour, UVA undergrads. They were really good. Definitely tied with Pompadour for my favorite band we've played with so far.

I didn't take any pictures because my phone takes such bad pictures that they all end up looking the same.

I recorded a demo of a new song the other day, and I'm trying to write lyrics for it. It's another metal anthem, like the infamous "Stain Alive," though I'm hoping this one will meet Dave's quality control standards.

We're going to go on holiday, and then come back in 2010 with a finished EP, whose cover art I'm hoping will strike a blow for creative freedom against the ogre of intellectual property law, and some new songs.

This decade sucked, by the way.

Recording Today

2009-11-08T17:59:00.008-05:00

I took some more shots of us recording today, including this one of the rarely-seen Renee playing Rhodes on "The Fists and the Fighting"

Here's Kris manning the controls while Dave sings.

I also took this one a couple of days ago of what the screen on the Mac looks like when we're "laying down tracks." I think we were recording drums on Fists.

We're so close to done!

New Jamz & Wrapping Up The Year

2009-11-06T13:32:00.005-05:00

We started working on two new songs last night, a breezy New Wave jam by Sam called Haunted Drumset and a jaunty poppy song by me that still doesn't have words or a title. Pretty happy with how both of them are turning out and hope to unveil them both soon.

It looks like we'll most likely be playing one more show this year, on Wednesday, November 18th at Tea Bazaar with Massachusetts rockers, Viva Viva, and local boys the Left and Right Band. Our other year end goal is to finish the ep which we're very close to doing. Thanks to everybody for helping us make 2009 the Year of the Posters! Hopefully we can make 2010 even more rockin' with twice as many shows and a full length album! That being said, this will most likely not be the last time you hear from us this year! Thanks for reading!

Last Week: Part II

2009-11-03T09:39:00.009-05:00

Seriously, I don't know who's iTunes library this is, but it's pretty weird. Like s/he only has one Replacements song (Alex Chilton, duh) but then The La's entire LP. What the fuck is that about? There's no Big Star, just in case you were wondering. I was, however, pleased and surprised to find the entire Cold Cold Hearts album in the same library.

On Sunday we recorded a bunch of stuff for The Fists and the Fighting. We did drums, bass, and guitar. Once we get keyboard and vocals on it our five-song opus will be recorded at last, and only the mixing will be left to do.

In this picture Dave is rocking the guitar so hard that he's developed a nimbus! Let's hope it's not malignant.

The Fists and the Fighting is going in kind of a psychedelic direction, which will, I hope, garner some mainstream attention without alienating our core fan base.

It's election day, and I have a sad feeling that in our commonwealth the voice of reason will be drowned out by the shouting of tea-party lunatics. The really depressing thing is that these people are not crazy to be angry, but their anger has been mobilized and narrated for them by corporate fat cats, and so their so-called movement is working to defend the very economic order that has caused their problems. They are attacking government interventions which, imperfect though they may be, are our last and best defense against the rise of a post-state corporate order, like in Rollerball. Anyway, just the fact that these people can show up to vote at all should remind them that the implicit parallel they draw between themselves and the eighteenth-century Boston Tea Party is crass and rhetorically irresponsible. You can look all you want; there is no latent argument in the actions of the founding dudes against a democratically elected government levying taxes on people who can vote.

Last Week: Part I

2009-11-03T09:20:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since anybody has dished the HP dirt on here. Lots has been happening. I'll post a few separate items today about what's been going on.

First up: we played at Tea Bazaar last Thursday with US Royalty and our specially invited guests The Moore Brothers from California.

US Royalty did a rock thing, and their singer had rockstar moves. They had a really good guitar sound. The guy had a Thinline Deluxe -- the kind of '70s Thinline with "Wide Range" pickups. I didn't get a good enough look to see if it was a reissue or the real thing. If it was the real thing I'm way jealous, as those original Wide Range pickups had CuNiFe magnets and sound incredible, and nobody even makes a replica of them. The current-production Fenders have AlNiCo magnets, which is fine and all, but they pretty much just sound like a Gibson PAF-style humbucker. Those original CuNiFe pickups sound amazing! Either way, though, the guy's guitar sounded good, and he had a pretty lame amp, so I was really impressed.

The Moore Brothers were up next. They sing as well in real life as they do on their records. They passed the guitar back and forth for each song, which I think Dave and I should try some time.

I'm listening to the theme from The Monkeys on the library's collective iTunes server right now. Did you know there's a long version of it that has all these extra lyrics? Now Day Dream Believer is on. It's a weird stereo mix with everything but piano on the left.

Production Log: October 15

2009-10-16T11:05:00.005-04:00

Re-recorded acoustic guitar on Sugarbread last night. Then we had our first actual practice in several weeks.

I'm really into the new setup in the basement, where we can use multiple rooms and isolate the control room from the performance room. I wish we could get some badass wall plates so we could have the people in the performance room just plug into the wall and send that from the other wall to the computer. That would be the shit! It'd be all like white-album because you could record with people and not even see them.

I also really want some small-diaphragm condensers for mic-ing the acoustic, but they're not that high on the list right now.

It's looking like our EP will not be finished this month, but it should hit shelves in time for the holidays.

Sam

Production Log: October 1, 4

2009-10-05T17:04:00.007-04:00

Lots of stuff got done on Thursday last week and yesterday -- mostly finishing up stuff like trumpet, rhodes, and backing vocals on Little Boy and Absence.

I thought rather than just talk about what happened I'd create a record of what guitars were used for what on the songs we've recorded -- or at least on the ones that I play guitar on.

Little Boy is pretty much all done on the silver Stratocaster I played in VHS & The Babies. The evil distorted riff is done on the Flying V (aka the Nekrolog guitar) though. That riff is distorted using a 1990s ProCo Rat (yes, for those who care, it has the lm308 op amp) on the left channel and a green late 1980s (?) Sovtek Big Muff on the right. Both those pedals were christmas presents from my brother Isaac in 2006 and 2007 respectively, so props to him. All the guitar was recorded through the Super Reverb. The tremolo on the arpeggio at the end of the song is the on-board tremolo on that amp.

Geniuses is more complicated. The main guitar part (the chords during the parts that have singing) is on the yellow Les Paul Special. That's the guitar we use live. I can't remember if it was recorded through the Super or the Dr. Z, but probably the Super. The "lead" part that basically doubles the trumpet is on the Flying V; that was definitely recorded through the Super Reverb -- no pedals on either of those, though the Flying V part was recorded with the amp turned way up to get natural distortion.

As for the double-bend riff that opens the song and divides the verses from one another, I sort of had a dilemma, as the original demo I made when I wrote the song (probably in like April of 2008) had this really great guitar sound on that part which I couldn't duplicate. It was recorded with the strat through the Stang Ray, but I was running the signal through an Analogman NKT275 Sunface with my guitar's volume dialed way down. That was one kickass fuzz pedal, but unfortunately last winter I was forced to sell it for a mess of pottage. I tried to get the same effect with another pedal (the amazing but different Fulltone '69), but I still don't think it quite captures the lo-fi nastiness of the original, which I preserve below for posterity:

Geniuses demo, Spring 2008.

Sam

The Box (moderately murky) videos!

2009-10-01T15:37:00.003-04:00

Finally after several days of very slow encoding (time for a new computer,) I have gotten all of the videos we took of our performance at The Box on Monday the 28th, up on YouTube. I will just post a link here to the playlist that should play in the order of the set. Check it out and enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoQnbWoXyZY&feature=PlayList&p=68B9F5A5D174E330&index=0&playnext=1

Pompadour

2009-09-30T14:25:00.022-04:00

Weirdly enough, due to a mouth-related injury Typefighter couldn't make it to the show Monday night. This meant that for a brief time it looked like the Posters were going to be the whole bill that evening, and it's only mystery what we would have had to do to fill up the extra time allotted.

The first picture shows us before our set, pondering this question. Dave is thinking: "Is a child the answer?"

A child sort of was the answer, though. Because eventually the two lads and two lasses of Pompadour came to play, and they kicked ass! In this picture they're all like: "Dreaming is not the answer!"

A lot of their songs sort of sounded like "Godsend" by Beat Happening, except faster. Oh, and shorter. But there was lots of pretty and kind of bitter-sweet two-guitar type stuff, lots of reverb, drums, no bass, boy/girl vocals. Actually, their whole aesthetic reminded me very much of the whole You Turn Me On album, which I was totally into. I hope we can play with them again (except this time on purpose).

The Box: Monday, Sptember 28

2009-09-27T19:20:00.004-04:00

We play at The Box tomorrow night -- our first time at this Miyagi-themed, street-level hang-out. It's on 2nd street, just south of the downtown mall.

We are playing with D.C.'s Typefighter.

The show is free.

Production Log: September 17

2009-09-19T18:00:00.012-04:00

Thursday we did the basic tracks for Little Boy: drums, bass, and the main guitar part.

This song already exists as several demo versions I did myself, and as an ultra-rare "countrified" version recorded by Nekrolog in 2007, so we're hoping to use studio smoke and mirrors to make this new one stand out as the definitive iteration.

Even the sky mocks my pain, as our journey continues.

Sam

Recording Continues....

2009-09-14T19:45:00.007-04:00

Here's a picture I took the Sunday before yesterday -- the 6th I guess -- of what I see when I record vocals.

I haven't been keeping up with recording notes on the blog because at this point things are moving so slowly and the tweaking is so subtle that it would just be the same thing every time I posted. It'd be all like: "Turned down the reverb today. Here's a picture of what I looked like doing it. LOL! WTF! Natch!"

Though if the point of this blog is in part so that we can all look back when we're old at the day-to-day activities of a band we were once in then I probably shouldn't be overly concerned with entertainment value, ね?　それは日本語でですから。

Absence, Geniuses, and Sugarbread Falls continue to hover in that weird gray area somewhere between "perfect" and "tolerable." They all sound good, but not so good that I feel ready to stop screwing around with them.

On the 6th ultimo Dave and I recorded lead vocals and lead guitar on Geniuses, and re-did the electric guitar on Absence. Also on Absence I added some bad-ass electric piano which you will probably just barely hear in the final mix.

Yesterday we made subtle mixing changes to everything.

Still left to do are some trumpet fixes, made necessary by some poorly thought out mic placement the first time around, then two more songs from the ground up. And possibly some backing vocals on Absence?

It's still rock n roll to me,
Sam

BRB

2009-09-14T08:37:00.003-04:00

The Posters spent most of this last weekend playing Beatles Rock Band. We played some of our own music too. Both were extremely enjoyable. We continue to work on our debut ep. We have two songs left to do basic tracks for and hope to have the whole shebang finished in time for our show on October 28th with the Moore Brothers. Stay tuned! In the meantime, freak out on this:

Tiny Mtns, The Great Unknown

2009-08-29T21:43:00.009-04:00

As for our show at Tea Bazaar the night before last, we "headlined," playing to an elite crew of only our most devoted followers.

Before we took the stage two bands played. Tiny Mtns (formerly called Elijah Wyman) had acoustic guitar, clarinet, and banjo. The middle third of the set was performed by Elijah alone, on auto-harp, which he played without having to look at the labels on the buttons, something I'd beforehand only seen done by my second-grade music teacher. In trio-mode they had some really cool three-part harmonies.

The Great Unknown was five strong guys from Philadelphia. They had two guitars, bass, drums, and a lap steel. They were country and West(ern)-Philadelphia music, I guess. They confirmed what my brother has said about Philadelphia having a difficult to use bus system.

I'm at Mss!

2009-08-28T23:02:00.029-04:00

Posted via text message:
OMG! I'm at the mss. show right now!

Edit (the next day): Maybe it's because Mss. looks a lot like mms, but I felt like trying out some techno-live-blogging while watching Mss. throw corn and rock the shit out of the Tea Bazaar last night.

Anyway, here's some pictures I took of them.

They were awesome, as usual. Low-key barely-controlled chaos. I certainly hope the Posters can play with them again some time this fall.

Anybody who is frustrated with the lack of clarity in these pictures is welcome to buy me a new phone with a better camera.

Fliers - 8/27/2009

2009-08-27T08:34:00.001-04:00

Tea Bazaar, Thursday, August 27th

2009-08-21T14:39:00.006-04:00

We're all getting ready for the big show. Here's a preview. We won't have these backup singers, but my "rock moves" will be exactly as awesome as they are here. (Also Renee's hair will be longer.)

We Humbly Present.....

2009-08-16T12:04:00.002-04:00

Well, we didn't win the Monitor Mix Video Blog theme song contest. But it was a privilege just to be nominated, particularly considering that Renee and I kicked it out in about an hour on the night before the deadline. Anyway, for those that never got a chance to hear it, I thought I would post it here. Could this be the Posters new musical direction? Probably not....

Monitor Mix Theme Song

- Dave

What's Wrong With That? I'd Like To Know.....

2009-08-06T16:32:00.003-04:00

Monitor Mix Vlog Theme Song Contest

2009-08-05T08:56:00.005-04:00

Just wanted to let everyone know to check out the Monitor Mix blog: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monitormix/. This is an NPR blog written by ex-Sleater-Kinney guitarist, Carrie Brownstein, where she muses on music and culture. She's moving into the world of vlogging and she is hosting a contest to write a theme song for her new vlog. Renee and I put together a little ditty and submitted it and it has been chosen as one of the ten finalists. Be sure to go and vote for our theme tune! Thanks!

- Dave of the HPs

Record Making - 8/2/2009

2009-08-04T19:35:00.004-04:00

Here are some pics of us recording Absence and Geniuses this past Sunday. We seem to be getting along just fine in these pictures. I don't know what Sam's talking about......

Dear Diary...

2009-08-03T12:01:00.011-04:00

Dear Recording Diary,

Yesterday Dave, Kris, and I recorded a bunch of stuff on Geniuses and Absence. We made a lot of progress.

I spent a long time restringing and tweaking the bridge of the Flying V, and when I was done I couldn't really get a good sound out of it. I'm such a thumb!

I'm starting to think that pure nickel strings only sound good with single coil pickups. The pure nickels sound good with the single coils, but humbuckers sound too dull with them, and sound better with nickel plated steel.

I probably should have tried playing the V through the Super Reverb, as that amp has always delivered good tone when properly mic-ed. It doesn't sound as good as the Stang Ray in the room, but on record for some reason it often sounds even better.

I also lowered the tail piece on the Flying V, which I hope will help it stay in tune better. Maybe then Dave will start to accept it!

Can't we all just get along?

TTFN,
Sam

Videos!

2009-07-25T14:20:00.007-04:00

Now, to add to the below still life attempts are some (albeit darkish) videos of us bringing the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar to it's knees. First is Victory Lap, then Make You Feel Better, then all but the last few seconds of Not the Strut. Enjoy!

Photos from the show!

2009-07-25T14:05:00.004-04:00

Here are a bunch of photos attempting to capture in still life how much we rocked last night at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar. Enjoy.

Mss. & Drunk Tigers

2009-07-25T13:43:00.010-04:00

We played at Tea Bazaar last night with two bands, Mss. and Drunk Tigers. Both bands were really good.

Mss. (bottom) do like a low-key noisy thing, and their songs were really haunting. Their stage setup is sort of reminiscent of a local news broadcast.

Drunk Tigers (top) brought the rock! My picture of them is even worse than most of my pictures -- it's of them setting up and not all the members are in it -- but I couldn't get close enough to take another one because of all their adoring fans. Charlottesville has got it bad for Drunk Tigers!

The new bass player in Drunk Tigers let us borrow his speaker cab, which was nice.

Wait, did we get our power strip and orange extension cord back from them?

Fliers - 7/24/2009

2009-07-23T10:21:00.002-04:00

Here are the fliers for tomorrow's show at Tea Bazaar! We're storked!

Words from Behind the Drumkit

2009-07-17T10:55:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone! I am not currently behind the drumkit, the title is more metaphoric as I am the new drummer and thought I would say hi. Which I did at the beginning, so that's taken care of. My name is Kris and I am excited to be a part of the band and am ready to rock hard in the name of The Hilarious Posters. I don't have anything to witty to say right at the moment, but I look forward to seeing you all at the upcoming shows and keeping the beat steady. See you soon!

Kris.

Dear Diary...

2009-07-15T12:16:00.014-04:00

Dear Recording Diary,

Yesterday I fell asleep and missed my recording date!

I feel like such a loser now! OMG will Dave still like me after this?

We were supposed to record an all new demo of Not the Strut and possibly something else.

I hope he doesn't tell anybody. I wouldn't be able to show my face in public again!

Why am I the only person these things happen to?!?!

L8ers,
Sam

And The Winner Is........

2009-07-08T09:26:00.003-04:00

We would like to announce that the official "Be The Drummer For The Hilarious Posters" contest is officially over and the winner is..........Master Kristofer Hough, 31, of Charlottesville, Virginia. Kris sent in over 2,000 Sugarbread Pops box tops and was the only contestant to correctly answer the question, "What is Sam Turner's real age?" Thank you to all who entered and congratulations Kris! We look forward to great things in the future!

- The HPs

The HPs Don't Fight The Power, We.....

2009-07-06T14:37:00.003-04:00

Here are some pics from last night's show at the Bridge PAI. Thanks to Wendy Hsu for inviting us to play and to Wanli and Renminbi for playing some great sets! And a special thanks to our friend Sarah for taking these pics and making us look like the '95 era rock stars we are!

Renminbi & Wanli

2009-07-06T10:55:00.019-04:00

We played last night with Renminbi (bottom), from Brooklyn, and Wanli (top), from around Virginia. Here are some pictures of those bands I took with my phone. Sorry the quality isn't so good.

The show at The Bridge was a lot of fun. Thanks to all who showed up, participated, and organized.

Lisa from Renminbi had a cool guitar and a cool amp I'd never seen before.

The art show there, Destroyed by Madness, was really cool too. If you can get to The Bridge this month you should check it out.

La nouvelle Blague

The End of an Error

Playing at The Southern, Baby!

Us and Ladybug Transistor at the Southern

Borrowed Beams

A Few Photos

We're Gonna Teach You To Rock!

Bandcamp

Videos of Bands

Get Ready!

Release Show

Feedback Session

April Geniuses!

Kuchar Madness

Capstan Shafts

Set List January 5th

Upcoming Show at Tea Bazaar

That Was Fun

Godard Day

All Things Can Tempt Me

Just Got Back

Show on Friday!!!!!

November Spawned a Monster of Rock

Spooky Greetings!

... and Demo Streaming!

EP Streaming

Columbus Day Weekend

Side-project show Saturday the 2nd (tomorrow)

it's a small world After All!

09-23-2010 at the Taphouse

Demon Beat

Elephant Child

Show on Thursday!

Upcoming Whatever

Work Hard! Play Hard!

Diaspora

WTJU

Recording

Happy Birthday!

Memorial Day Rockin' Eve-Eve-Eve

Tomorrow Is Gonna Be Psycho!

Show This Friday. Recording Today.

Sage Comme une Image

Workday/Schoolnight and Young Adult Fiction

Tea Bazaar. This Saturday. Be there!

Go Us!

Cool Evening at the Garage

More Buzz

Dec Interview & Other Noize....

March Mildness

Quiet Loudly and ex-Most Ghosts

Random Row 03/13/10

Post-partum Update

Absence live

Last Night's Gala

EP Release Tonite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

C'ville Hits

Retail Therapy

I AM the Master!

It's......THE MASTER!!!!!!

Last Friday / This Friday

Friday Show!

2010 - Dave's Wish

2010

Holiday Surprise Day 5: Sugarbread Falls

Holiday Surprise Day 4: Little Boy

Holiday Surprise Day 3: The Fists & The Fighting

Holiday Surprise Day 2: Geniuses

Holiday Surprise Day 1: Absence

The Finish Line

Finishing Up Audio

Thanks!

Recording Today

New Jamz & Wrapping Up The Year

Last Week: Part II

Last Week: Part I

Production Log: October 15

Production Log: October 1, 4

The Box (moderately murky) videos!

Pompadour