“Bang-thud” is the sound your heart makes when you’re in Portland, Maine, forty-five minutes before a show, and you realize that your electric cello is still on a boat off the coast of Rhode Island, more than 200 miles away. This was specifically Harris’s heart, yesterday at approximately 7:15 pm, well after the Block Island Ferry office had closed, and not long at all before we needed to entertain a growing crowd of Portlandites. In a brilliant stroke of luck, the North Star Cafe sound guy, who’d taken up cello not two weeks prior, offered to fetch his acoustic for us. In a matter of a few minutes, and with HIS cello’s status still uncertain, Harris re-learned parts that had been written for six strings on the borrowed four-string acoustic, and the show somehow went without a hitch (if perhaps a hair behind schedule).

After a long night of what-iffing and an early morning of desperate phone calling, the cello was located and Harris made the solo trek back to Block Island to retrieve it. What could have been (and still maybe was) the most traumatic experience of our band’s short history is now in hindsight a colorful lesson about the perils of sea travel and the importance of double-checking the van.

Speaking of! Our fifteen-passenger van, which we’re calling [your favorite male celebrity], has been converted by way of seat-removal into an 8-passenger van with quite a lot of trunk space (our rehearsal space, on the other hand, has been converted into a chic 7-passenger lounge). The six-track EP, which we’ve effusively titled “EP 1,” is now on sale online as a digital download or mail-order disc, or you can buy one directly from us at one of our shows, as long as you’re willing to wait while we look for the keys to the cash box. The tour doesn’t have a name or a title yet, but it’s definitely a tour, because we have a tour van, who for the moment is Christopher Walken.

In all seriousness, we’re elated to finally have a van, and to have physical EPs in hand, and to have the cello safely back in Harris’ clutches. We’re also very happy to announce that tonight’s show at Church of Boston is our 50th show! Except none of the other guys know that yet, so unless they read this before we go on stage, I’ll be surprising them with that news in a few hours. See you in a jiffy, Boston!

A quick note on our EP pre-release…

–It’s come to our attention that a couple “data” CDs might have gotten out into the larger pool (the kind that play nicely with your computer but not with your CD player). If you run into any issues with your CD, email info@darlingside.com and we’ll get it sorted out.
–The EP will be up for download on this site in the next couple weeks. Keep checking back– we’re pumped to get it out there!
–Dave, please contact me at autoshun@darlingside.com if you’re still unclear on what “pre” and/or “release” mean.

Thanks to all who came out to the Iron Horse and made it such a welcoming atmosphere for us!

Opening for Nada Surf and Dawn Landes

We kicked off our Diversity Tour last Wednesday night with our first gig at a bona fide rock club. Pearl Street Nightclub, right in the bustling center of Northampton, is part of the Iron Horse Entertainment Group, and regularly attracts some of the big names in the business. We were particularly excited to be sharing the stage with Nada Surf, a nationally and internationally-recognized act (they’re going to Japan in a couple of weeks!) that had a big hit a few years ago, and Dawn Landes, an indie-rocking singer/songwriter backed by a flannel-clad crew of, well, indie rockers. Our local crowd came out in force for the event, and good times were had by all.

Precinct Bar in Boston

With the first stop of the tour, the “Big Gig at the Real Club,” behind us, we moved on to the second leg: the “Average Awesome Bar for our Not Average Awesome Boston Fans” leg. After a day of brushing up on some new songs and working on some new covers (more on that later), we made the four-hour trip (the first 2 hours were spend sitting in traffic right in Hadley, then in Northampton on 91, then in the parking lot of a convenient McDonald’s for a pit stop) out to Somerville, MA and the Precinct Bar. Even at this early point in our young careers, we’ve played lots of bars similar to The Precinct, but the combination of a full (if small-ish) room and our loyal Boston-area fans made this one particularly special. Or maybe it was the stage with the swooping front edge, so that it felt like we were part of the crowd. Or maybe the free cider at the bar helped. Actually, it was probably that the band debuted the cover “Shout!” of Animal House fame, to an Animal House-like response from the crowd. In any case, while this gig was average on the outside, it was better than that. Also, the drive home was only an hour and forty-five minutes.

Don’s diverse new guitar!

The following night was the “Small-Format Acoustic House Party” gig. These gigs have special significance to me, because as the drummer, I don’t have to do anything. While the rest of the band still has to play their instruments, I get to tap gently on my snare drum with anything and everything that’s not a drum stick. Nevertheless, the rest of the band excels at this diverse type of gig, where they get to prove that they don’t need tube amps and fancy cellos with extra strings to make music. I, however, do need a kick drum to do much of anything useful, so I’m bringing one next time we play the “Acoustic House Party” leg of Diversity Tour mkII. I’m already looking forward to it, because another thing that makes these stops unique is the abundance of delicious food and drink, rare at “less diverse” types of gigs.

We’re now exactly half way through our tour, with some of the most diverse stops still to come: Thursday we have the “Small (But Not as Small) Format Quasi-Acoustic Gig at a Restaurant in Exchange for Dinner” stop, followed by the “Outdoor Tent Party Pretending We’re DJ’s for College Kids” stop, and finally the “Outdoor Music Festival with Several Other Local Bands” stop next Monday, at UMass Amherst. We’ll keep you posted…

The Local 269 in New York was positively tectonic. We had some band godmothers up in there. We had some ex-roommates and some stalwart friends… Matt Earle was formally inducted as our first Darlingside SuperFan, having now attended the same number of gigs as Dave’s Newsies hat.  Auyon paid homage to this feat by wearing a sleeveless undershirt with black suspenders.  We had never shared the stage with a “funk-hop” group before, but the Downbeat Keys were a sweet, groovy revelation.  Levain Bakery yielded two-pound cookies on the way out of Manhattan, and we left sated. We’ll see you New Yorkers again soon (May 6 at Banjo Jim’s and then a bowling/music bonanza at Brooklyn Bowl on June 15!).

The following eve, we dragged our equipment through an ice storm into a restaurant/brewery, where we served up a couple hours of acousticy tune-fare in exchange for homemade beer and joyful hamburg. A few surprise friends showed up from Williamstown to help us make merry. The sleety-slushy drive home was the same amount of fun as going back and watching “The Land Before Time” twenty years later and realizing it’s not actually that good.

*Bonus Ticket-selling Recap:

Harris and Don attempt to table at UMass-Amherst for the Nada Surf show, without a table

Anyway.  We’ve been hard at work in our own little studio tracking and mixing two of our songs to present to you all soon!  Dave and I made the scenic journey out to beautiful Rhinebeck, NY last week to visit good friend, former bandmate, and exceptional engineer Eli Walker at Clubhouse, Inc, which has to be one of the coolest places on the face of the earth.  We spent an evening/night/early morning/mid-morning tracking drums for some of our newest tunes, and we were thrilled with the results.  It was truly a treat to work with Eli’s ears and expertise, not to mention the Clubhouse’s enviable collection of gear worth more than our house (twice, at least), and we’re looking forward to getting to work on the rest of the instrumentals and vocals here at our studio soon!

In the meantime, we’re looking forward to finishing tracking for Caitlin Canty’s upcoming album in the next week or so, and hopefully finishing the mixing process shortly thereafter.  Things are sounding really great, and everyone’s excited about presenting the finished product sometime this spring!  Somehow, the band is still finding enough time to write and rehearse two new songs, hopefully to be debuted in the next two weeks.  More new music is on the way for our big gigs Pearl Street and The Iron Horse in this area, and hopefully at an area near you…

We’ve also been gigging extensively for the last three months, and the past two weeks have been no exception.  We had a blast playing with Jon Rodgers at PACE in Easthampton on February 27th, and we were thrilled to see many new fans from our recent gig at Mt. Holyoke College in the audience.  Jon’s set was a mesmerizing blend of complex chord structures, beautiful textural palettes from his array of tuned crystal wine glasses (which he played through a loop pedal so that he could then play guitar and sing on top of them… very cool), carefully crafted violin lines, and soaring melodies.  We hope to cross paths with him again soon!

The next night, we made the short 2 hour trek down to Providence, RI, to an up-and-coming new bar called The 201  in a very chic section of town.  Outside of the week I spent in Switzerland 10 years ago, I have never seen city streets so clean as they were outside the venue; I actually briefly considered eating my pre-gig PB&J bagel right off the sidewalk.  Inside, we found a great space for music, with a little dance floor to set up on, and a helpful sound man to plug everything in for us.  We played in between sets from two different local bands, both of whom were excellent, and very friendly dudes to boot.

Finally, after a few days for R&R and one for intense rehearsal, we drove up to the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) in North Adams, right near our old stomping grounds of Williamstown.  Energized by the familiar surroundings, we played one of our stronger sets to an enthusiastic crowd, and in a room that sounded like what I imagine playing in Giant Stadium might sound like (at least from the drum throne), despite its relatively modest size.  I’m attributing the big sound to the big ceiling, which looked like an over-sized cement version of one of these, and was at least 25′ over our heads.  I think we need to play more venues with Space-Coupling ceilings.

Stay tuned for more soon!  We’ll be posting a couple of tracks for streaming enjoyment in the next week or so… we can’t wait!

Pro: The venue was a candy shop. Jars of individually wrapped, brightly-colored bits of high-fructose corn syrup lined the walls. It was a free-for-all.

Con: The candy shop had closed down a few weeks prior, and we were the last event before the owner leased the place out. Due to various additional publicity obstacles, including us not knowing anyone in Westfield and computer viruses that send pornography out to all of your facebook friends, the band outnumbered the crowd.

Outcome: We drowned our sorrows in chocolate-flavored licorice and Heineken. Two thumbs up, but now Sam’s diabetic.

1/30: Wilbraham & Monson Academy, Wilbraham MA

Pro: Our first gig at a private school was advertised as an “Enrichment Credit Opportunity.” The kids came out in droves.

Con: In order to fit us into a distraction-free space, the school snack bar shut down until the following morning. Disappointment ensued.

Outcome: The school provided us with large plates of brownies and cookies, which we graciously shared with the kids. Dave accidentally said  the word “bitch” during Devil Went Down to Georgia, making good on the enrichment promise of the poster. We left the school knowing we had made a difference.

2/5: The Paramount Theater, Rutland VT

Pro: We were treated like rockstars. Free hotel rooms for two nights, a radio spot, and a gig with our favorite singer/songstress Caitlin Canty in a gorgeous, 800-person historic theater. The crowd was spectacular and the show solidified Vermont as a favorite gig destination.

Con: We had to leave.

Outcome: Wannagoback.

2/6: The Basement, Northampton MA

Pro: Our first show with the Iron Horse Group with our good friend Jay Bethea was a huge success. The crowd was filled with familiar faces and people were excited about the new sound. Pretty girls and cheap beer abounded.

Con: Jay bullied us into going out afterwards, saying that we needed to celebrate and that we could “go home and drink chamomile and talk about our feelings” some other time.

Outcome: We don’t remember what happened last night, but it was good.

Don and Dave performing at Toad. Photo courtesy Anand Jagannath

Having just played in Cambridge back in December with Caitlin Canty, to much the same crowd, this gig afforded us a particularly good opportunity to mark our progress over the last month, both with regards to the direction our music has taken and our general ability to perform it. In both respects it felt like we were a different band than we’d been back at Lilypad, and the audience seemed to agree. To be fair, we also had the advantage of playing to a more energetic, less sober crowd than was at the Lilypad show, which definitely didn’t not help. I even found out later that one front-row table of our friends was playing their own Darlingside drinking game, with rules like: Drink when two bandmates share a loving look; Drink when Auyon leans too far back, or when Harris’ leg starts to go crazy; Drink when Don says something particularly awkward, or when Dave makes a joke that nobody understands; Drink when Sam says anything at all. Sam, you recluse you.

Thanks a lot to Auyon’s friend Anand for snapping some great photos from the show, which you can see here.

After our set, we had a fantastic time hanging out with our Cambridge/Boston friends while the David Wax Museum performed their final show as Toad’s resident band. Their set was both fun and emotional, and at times powerfully charged; sometimes they quite literally took over the room such that it was impossible not to listen. It was great sharing the stage with them, and we’re hoping to bring them up to Northampton for another joint show in the near future.

We can’t help but enjoy the fact that our two Cambridge gigs thus far have been at “Lilypad” and “Toad,” which of course practically requires us to make stupid puns about how the second gig really “jumped off” of the first one, or about how “toads are technically terrestrial, so this would never happen in real life.” (Some of us were biology majors.) In keeping with that level of sophistication, we’re pleased to announce that the fable has a new twist: The Lucky Dog in Worcester, MA, where we played on Wednesday. What I’m thinking, maybe counter-intuitively, is that the dog is actually lucky because it DIDN’T eat the toad (maybe because the toad, having jumped off the lilypad just in time, is now safely underwater?). Many species of toad are actually quite poisonous, and dogs have been known to die from eating them. Please feel free to post your alternative theories below.

Oh, you actually wanted to hear about how the gig went…

Well, we had been warned, a few nights prior to the gig, that the Lucky Dog was a “metal biker bar” and that we shouldn’t expect a “good reception.” When we mentioned Worcester to The David Wax Museum, the response was something like pity. It was also the venue’s “free night” — essentially a brief audition to see if we were good enough to come back and play a paid gig. Our expectations adjusted accordingly, we were relieved when a lone female singer-songwriter kicked off the night, and with a great set at that. It was Misty Boyce, from NYC, and her sound ranged from edgy pop to gritty indie rock, and she was cute and funny to boot. She was followed by the hard-rock band Theoryshift, five really nice guys based out of Boston who fully utilized the catwalk-esque thrust part of the stage, as well as the upper range of their volume knobs. We followed Theoryshift with as much energy as we could bring, and were very well received by the crowd and the owner, who’s looking to have us back to open for his own band, which apparently always packs the place. Will Gattis was next, a wonderfully entertaining singer-songwriter down from Portland, ME, who is too easy to compare to Ben Folds, but really has his own quirky thing going on that I thought was great. Following Will was The Mile Run, two very friendly dudes rocking as hard as possible on acoustic guitars with raw, intense vocals that reminded me of Manchester Orchestra’s harder stuff (in a good way). The vibe throughout the night was one of friendship and mutual triumph, with some metal-biker-bar vibes mixed in, and a fair amount of vintage pornography vibes in the men’s room.

So, the Dog turned out to be very Lucky indeed, and we all had a great night and got to hear some really cool acts; hopefully we’ll find a way to hook back up with some of them for future shows. Meanwhile, Caitlin will be back in Hadley tomorrow to continue working on her upcoming EP, and we’ll be getting ready for the Haiti relief show in Rutland, VT this Friday. No animal-related venue names in the foreseeable future, so whatever happened between the Toad and the Dog — and really, it’s none of our business — the next chapter is a ways off.

Until next time,
Dave

Silk City Tap Room was a good old-fashioned bar gig. It was great to stretch out a little and play a full hour set, bringing some older material back into the fold and debuting a very new song, tentatively called “Malea.” Our music seemed well received, and we definitely had lots of fun. We were psyched to see familiar faces from some previous local gigs (recurring patronage seems like it has to be a good sign). Even our kind landlady stopped in to hang out! We got help on the mixing board from members of the band “Wyld Stallyns,” who came on after us to regale the party people with our old favorites from the mid-90’s pop-rock catalogue. We made friends with some high-proof tequila representatives. Obviously mistaking us for athletes, they bestowed a variety of sweatband products and even basketballs upon us (see pic). They even made a half-hearted attempt to flirt with us until they realized we were more interested in Rubik’s cubes than girls.

Darlingside does not endorse the use of skinny black ties

Radio Bean was another big milestone for us as our first 400+ mile trip, and we did it in style. And by “style” I mean a big unmarked van rental. After driving around the small streets of Burlington looking more than a little sketchy (“we don’t have any lollipops, leave us alone!”), we arrived at the venue. Radio Bean surprised us first by having our tiniest stage yet, and second by having the coolest crowd we’ve yet experienced. We got set up with 2/3 of Sam’s kit on the riser, Auyon and Harris spilling off the edge, and Dave and I swordfighting throughout the night with our long-necked instruments (why does everyone smirk when I say that?). The coffee shop atmosphere segued seamlessly into a sophisticated bar scene, and the patrons were extremely receptive listeners. We found a metal bowl on a pedestal with undergarments in it that we somehow realized was the tip bowl. It got admirably refilled, albeit with more traditional tipping fare, and we proceeded to make friends with med students from UVM (even in the great white North, you can still be delighted to find clusters of Williams alum-dom). We then managed to get our silly on from the two comp drinks we received at the bar and ended the night RPS’ing for couches at Casa Andrew Eyre (a very schwank place to crash that we probably didn’t deserve– thanks again Andrew!).

More to follow shortly (hopefully not by me, for all y’allse’s sake) on the rest of this week’s tour (Toad in Cambridge, the Lucky Dog in Worcester).

Recap Notes:
RPS: Rock-Paper-Scissor
“more interested in Rubick’s cubes than girls [sic]”= not strictly true, although it’s a close call, Dave having spent the van ride up split evenly between “sexting” and finishing his cube in the light from the phone
“sexting”= what I am willing to assume people are doing whenever they ignore me and type on their little gadgets

The annual “Happy Valley Showdown” at the Elevens in Northampton is a revered battle of the bands that brings in indie acts from all over the area, takes place over many weeks, and boasts some serious prizes for victors and runners-up alike. The whole thing is managed by our old neighbor Mark Sheehan, who is so contagiously passionate about music and about giving exposure to up-and-comers that by the end of the night I was kicking myself for not having befriended him when we lived next door. Mark made a point of clarifying several times that having a “battle” was more of an excuse to get people to come listen to acts they hadn’t heard of, and it certainly exposed us to some awesome local and quasi-local bands. Auyon, always wearing multiple managerial hats, managed to book one of the other acts, Leisure Colony, at his workplace, Sam’s Pizza, on February 18th. We’re really looking forward to seeing them play a full set and we think you’ll dig them too, so mark it on your calendars. Finally, we were honored and thrilled to be asked to come back for the finals of the showdown next month! Check back for more info on that soon.

On Thursday, we drove down to Hamden, CT to play a 30-minute set at The Space, a great venue owned by Steve Rodgers of the band Mighty Purple. The Space is something like an art collective meets a community center meets an indie rock venue with great food. We walked in to see Steve’s brother teaching guitar to a group of kids, were then ushered to a private room upstairs where we could relax / rehearse, given meal discount cards, and then left alone to study their collection of old arcade machines and shop in the vintage thrift store. In short, the vibe was awesome, and the short set length meant we would only be playing our best songs alongside a variety of other acts, so we were ready to, er, huff and puff and blow the house down. By the time we went on stage, about half of the audience was made up of friends and family, many of whom hadn’t yet heard us perform live, and in a way it felt like the whole place belonged to us. It ended up being one of my favorite gigs to date, even given the fact that during the first song, I unwittingly had my bass effects pedal set to modulate some ungodly fraction of an octave (the pedal was set atop my amp, so i had to just sit the song out). It wasn’t a perfect performance, but we had an absolute blast, received wonderful compliments from friends and total strangers, and Steve seemed very interested in having us back.

The following night brought us to Rebel Sound Records in Pittsfield, MA for a gig that was similar in many respects. Again we were one of five or six acts, each scheduled to play for only 30 minutes, and again it was a listening venue with no alcohol. Instead of playing in “The Space”, we were playing in “The Room”. We played the same six songs (including a new cover — but if I told you what it was, I’d have to joust you) to a largely Williamstown-based crowd, many of whom came on a bus organized by the school. Again, we were received warmly and enthusiastically both by our friends and by complete strangers (including members of the other bands, whose styles were quite different from our own), and we had an incredible evening. The other bands seriously impressed us as well, and by the time we headed back home we’d made plenty of friends and exhausted plenty of ear-drums.

These two most recent gigs taken together paint a very clear picture of exactly how lucky we are as a band to have the kind of support that we do at this stage of the game, not just from our incredible friends and family but from the entire Williams community that continues to give more to us than we could ever hope to give back. A huge thanks to everyone who showed up to the gigs! There is simply nothing I can compare to the feeling of driving somewhere an hour away, going into some building I’ve never seen before, and then watching as people I love file through the doors so that I can show them what the guys standing next to me (or sitting behind me, Sam you recluse you) can do. There are times when writing and performing music as a career can seem like a misguided and confusing struggle — simultaneously too challenging to be worth the anxiety and too much fun to be worth taking seriously — but that feeling always goes away when the people start showing up, and your mouth starts to go dry, and you know that doing anything else wouldn’t feel right.