The votes are still being counted (also, I don't think we actually care who won, nor do we even know what we were running for, but hey...), but the videos are in from the show!
The night opened with the lovely, catchy tunes of Sir* Leo Blais (I knighted him myself, so that may or may not count, depending on the Queen's mood).
The Motion Sick (that was us) played next. We had a really fun time playing and although we made some mistakes, I am posting video of the entire set here. It captures something nice about what we have been doing live (the good and bad parts) and because we only have one show left before taking a break, I figured you all deserve to see a full set, even if we've never been to your town.
Finally, Sidewalk Driver continued their trend of being too good for their own good. Also, they set off the smoke detector with their fog machine. That's rock and roll!
In case you were foolish enough not to watch the campaign videos, here's a full-on recap with commentary done by Killer Suit Pictures. We can't thank Glenn enough for taking on this ridiculous political journey!
The ever problematic Agent Bishop has caved in to mass hysteria and demand for a piece of memorabilia designed to celebrate my frequent use of the "like" option on Facebook. I present to you, his creation (initially made in short run without my knowledge, but I did provide consent once made aware for a larger batch):
Our opponents in The Rock Primary are spewing totally slanderous garbage. You'll be hearing our response to these allegations soon and our opponents will be hearing from our lawyers soon!
Cast your vote! Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110160645698939&ref=search The Rock Primary (Sidewalk Driver, The Motion Sick, Brendan Boogie & Leo Blais) Start Time: Friday, July 16, 2010 at 9:00pm Location: TT the Bears Place City/Town: Cambridge, MA
Presently, we have two songs in Pandora's system. We're hoping to get more in, but there are a lot of complex and annoying barriers to this happening. Regardless, I thought it would be interesting to see what Pandora recommended to users who elected to create a station based on our music. This is a very brief look, but I find it interesting...so, here is what I got...
First, a tiny bit about how they classified our two songs. I am sure there is a lot more info, but this is the quick summary:
"The Day After" - basic rock song structures, a subtle use of vocal harmony, extensive vamping, minor key tonality, and mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation.
"Satellite" - basic rock song structures, a subtle use of vocal harmony, extensive vamping, major key tonality, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, and acoustic rhythm guitar.
Artists that came up on The Motion Sick radio: New Radiant Storm King, Todd Rundgren, Ladder, Kaspar Hauser, Pants Yell!, Marlboro Chorus, Awesome Color, Like A Fox, Magnolia Summer, Blessid Union of Souls, Halou, Doves, Jeremy Jay, David Fagin
Just wanted to give you all a quick update to let you know what we're up to. The Motion Sick has decided to wrap up the 4-song recording we're working on, play a couple more shows, and then take an indefinite-length break. So, if you want to see us perform live, now is the time! Matt and I (Mike here) are embarking this week on a brief tour with Neutral Uke Hotel, a project organized by Shawn Fogel of Golden Bloom. You probably remember Shawn and Golden Bloom from the fancy split 7" we released earlier this year for which we covered GB's "Doomsday Devices" and GB covered TMS' "30 Lives." More info: http://music.themotionsick.com/album/golden-bloom-vs-the-motion-sick.
Neutral Uke Hotel Tour dates 6/15/10 - The Mercury Lounge, NYC, NY (9:00pm) *6/16/10 - The Rongovian Embassy, Trumansburg, NY (9:00pm) *6/18/10 - The Bacardi Stage at Yonge Dundas Square, Toronto, ON (2:00pm) 6/18/10 - The Painted Lady, Toronto, ON (9:00pm) *6/20/10 - Mohawk Place, Buffalo, NY (9:00pm) 6/22/10 - The Khyber, Philadelphia, PA (8:00pm) 6/23/10 - The Acoustic Cafe, Bridgeport, CT (8:00pm) 6/25/10 - The Basement, Northampton, MA (10:00pm) (Sadly, Mike will be missing this one) The starred dates will also include the performance of a few of The Motion Sick's songs on the ukulele. The last two TMS shows before we take a break are, perhaps appropriately, at TT the Bear's, the same place where we held our first real full show (CD release for Her Brilliant Fifteen): 07/16/10 TT the Bear's Cambridge, MA w/ Sidewalk Driver, Brendan Boogie & the Best Intentions, Leo Blais
09/18/10 TT the Bear's Cambridge, MA Virgo-a-go-go! 18+
Naturally, you'll be hearing a lot more about these shows as the dates approach! I also thought this would be a great opportunity to tell you about some of the projects that members of The Motion Sick are involved with, so you can check out some more of what we've got going on. We're definitely not resting on our laurels!
Patrick is currently busy preparing a clone army for takeover of the outer rim of the galaxy. If he succeeds, we will all be intergalactic slaves. I know I'm rooting for him!
Travis is playing guitar in Naked on Roller Skates, a band fronted by the extraordinarily talented Leesa, director of the music video for The Motion Sick's "Aquaman's Lament." Travis is also playing drums in The Backup Factor, a band formed by Sarah Korval, formerly of Okay Thursday (a band that several of us were involved with).
Matt is rocking the bass for The Future Everybody, a band formed by a couple former members of Boston pop rockers Scamper. As noted earlier, Matt is rocking the trumpet for Neutral Uke Hotel and he has also been playing bass in The Backup Factor.
Mike (that's me) is currently auditioning female librarians for his all-XX-chromosome (apart from Mike) project, The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library. Mike also plays a sort of hybridized bass (through a guitar and bass rig) in Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, a duo thematically based on '60s spy-fi TV series The Prisoner. The other half of DNFMOMD is Sophia Cacciola, writer of The Motion Sick's "Jean-Paul" (and guest vocalist on the recording). Mike also plays baritone ukulele in Neutral Uke Hotel. Rock on! Mike
At least I was. Okay, still am. Before I get to that, I've got a million blog posts to write for this blog, but I keep getting distracted and wondering if they should go in separate blogs or what. I did decide to make a whole separate blog for the strange and frightening Youtube videos featuring the music of The Motion Sick, but maybe I should rethink that and migrate it over to here...not sure yet. More random content? Less random content? No content? Who can say?
Anyway, nothing to do with the band, but I figured you all might enjoy this one. Here are some scans of a story I wrote in 6th grade to set up the background for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign (that's a game for all you non-player characters) I was involved in. This isn't the first time we've mentioned D&D either, see here or here.
We've got some things to tell you about: 1. Show tomorrow at The Middle East Downstairs 2. Free MP3s for you! (...and new music from The Motion Sick!) 3. Strange Youtube Videos Featuring the Music of The Motion Sick 4. Radio Sampler
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Tomorrow (5/19), The Motion Sick is part of a VERY special show. It is being headlined by The Hark! Philharmonic, a 27-piece orchestra performing works composed and conducted by the very talented Christopher Pappas of some of my absolute favorite Boston Bands, The Everyday Visuals and Forest Fires.. Chris is moving out West in a few weeks, so he is sending himself off with a bang. This show will probably only happen once ever and it's not very often that a Boston indie rocker gets to conduct an orchestra, so you'd be just plain crazy to miss it.
Just before Chris and co., John Shade, a fast-rising star performs. He has been joined at recent shows by member of Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah!, The Low Anthem, and Bon Iver (John recorded recently in Bon Iver's studio). Needless to say, you had better catch him now before you can't get tickets.
Preceding John, we've got Visqueen (named after a brand of polyethylene film that United States Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge once recommended as a defense against bioterrorism.) The band is fronted by Rachel Flotard, frequent backup singer for Neko Case. They've recently been featured on NPR, had CNN call their last record one of the Top 3 rock albums of 2009, and have had a whole lot more media coverage. Most importantly, they are really good.
The Motion Sick has the amazing honor of starting off this night of incredible music with a set starting at 9 PM sharp!
18+ $10 adv / $12 door - 8:30 Doors
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For those of you not in Boston, don't fret! We've got some new music in 2010 and we think you'll be interested in checking it out.
All of our music is now for sale directly via our website, where you will be able to buy it for less than any other marketplace site and will be able to download the songs in the highest quality. If you purchase a physical product, you will also immediately gain access to the digital version. This all shakes down at: http://music.themotionsick.com/.
1. Golden Bloom vs. The Motion Sick, a split 7" (or download) for which we covered Golden Bloom's "Doomsday Devices" and they covered our DDR-hit "30 Lives."
2. Novelty Songs: Volume One collects four songs that we wrote for our costumed residency at the rock club Church a bit back. The collections includes: "Surfin' Retiree," "Tennis Pro," "Aquaman's Lament," and "I Grew A Mustache." We've got some little videos for two of the songs:
We have been having a great response to these songs and have gotten over 20,000 views of the Aquaman video...but we're not quitting yet! We need your help! ...and we also want to give you something in return. If you send an e-mail to 5 of your friends telling them they should check out the videos for The Motion Sick's "Aquaman's Lament" and "I Grew A Mustache" (becuase you think they might enjoy them or they are funny or they are scared of mustaches or any reason you'd like to give) by going to the URL http://bit.ly/aquastache - we will then send you MP3s of the songs for free! This is a limited time offer, so do this before the end of May. When you send your message to 5 friends, please also cc the message to band@themotionsick.com and we will reply and send you the MP3s via e-mail. If you want to send to more than 5 friends, we will love you even more! We appreciate your help on this one.
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We've got a brand new blog covering a recent Internet sensation. That is, people have come out in droves and used the music of The Motion Sick in their Youtube videos. We've picked the strangest ones and posted them over at Strange Youtube videos featuring The Motion Sick. These include heartwarming dogs with wheelwalkers, creepy zombie dances, and yes, horses mating (huh?). Don't miss out!
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Thanks for hanging in there, the last news we're stuffing into this message is about our new Radio Sampler. College radio stations nationwide have been sent copies of our new radio sampler, which contains all of our 2010 releases plus many tracks from our prior releases. Call your local College stations and request The Motion Sick! If you're a DJ or a press rep and you'd like a copy, let us know and we'll try and get one out to you. If you know of any bigger stations that like to take chances with their playlists or have special shows where they play less mainstream acts, let us know and we'll try and get one out to them as well!
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As always, thank you for your support and for making this all possible for us.
We of The Motion Sick are wishing Bret Michaels the best after he suffered a massive brain hemorrhage, just days after getting an appendectomy. He has grappled with diabetes, and as a rocker of the late '80s, probably lead quite a tumultuous life. We hope his recovery is full and swift!
As you may remember, we paid tribute to Poison on Halloween a few years back - video and photos at: http://themotionsick.com/livephotos-07-10-31.html. I have to say that stepping into the shoes of those rock rulers of fun and excess made for one of the most fun shows I've ever played. We had great participation and enthusiasm from our dressed-up gang of Poison-groupies, Rock of Love contestants, and hair-metal enthusiasts. It was quite incredible to have an opportunity to share the show with the audience in such a powerful way. It felt absolutely unreal. I think I spent half the time holding the mic out so others could sing along. It's something that all performers dream about, and having the chance to experience it for one night is something I'll never forget. I most definitely owe that to Bret and the rest of Poison.
The Motion Sick elected not to go down to SXSW this year (as we had the past two years). It just costs too much money and probably isn't worth spending for unless you've got a high-buzz showcase (which ultimately means you spent a lot of money promoting your showcase). The band Fucked Up wrote a pretty excellent piece about the economics of SXSW. That all said, Sophia and I made the journey down to Austin to work on building connections for our new music licensing venture Launch Over - a Boston-centric music library for film, TV, commercials, etc. We had a blast meeting industry people at the panels all day for Launch Over and then stayed out all night going to shows. We mostly tried to catch up on the hottest bands of 2008 and 2009 so we could avoid crowds and catch up a little bit. My overall impression is that we're now stuck with a lot of bands who have beautiful arrangements and incredible harmonies, but can't write a song to save their lives. It's kind of like fool's gold or something. I think most people can't tell the difference sadly. Another thing is that when you see 6 or 7 bands a night, you mostly only remember what stands out. Most of these bands didn't leave much of an impression. In fairness to all of these bands, they are performing in the least hospitable environment - everyone is distracted and running between shows, trying to catch as much as possible. So, it's easily the case that I have misjudged a band here, but these are my quick impressions.
Here's a brief summary of what we saw:
Hesta Prynn (of Northern State - a band that 3 of the 4 of us opened for during our stint in the band Okay Thursday) - her new dance rock thing; nothing like Northern State. Not bad. Didn't blow me away.
The Coolness - they are cooler than you, or so they say. Over-the-top tongue-in-cheek rock. Funny. Decent. Can't remember much more
Doll and the Kicks - dancy British rock. Fun, energetic show. Songs all kind of blended a little, but they were pretty good anyway
Choir of Young Believers - Fool's gold maybe? Was a little distracted during their set, so I owe them a second look.
Fanfarlo - I like The Arcade Fire because of their songs, not because they can overarrange every moment. People must only like Fanfarlo because they can overarrange every moment...fool's gold!
We Were Promised Jetpacks - had heard good things about them, but was totally unfamiliar with their music. They totally delivered with an awesome wall of sound and vocal intensity. I was really impressed.
Frightened Rabbit - love their recordings, loved them more than I would have expected live. They are not the most technically proficient band, but they totally deliver heart and convey that they believe in their songs. Awesome!
In addition to some great panels, we had also caught an interview with Lemmy earlier in the day, which was really awesome. It was partly inspired by the fact that Lemmy the Movie was premiering at SXSW and partly probably just because Lemmy is awesome. We didn't actually go to see Motörhead, but they did play a bunch as well.
This is a bit overdue, but we are happy to announce that the Golden Bloom vs. The Motion Sick split 7" has been released! In case you missed our original announcement, the concept was that The Motion Sick recorded a cover of Golden Bloom's "Doomsday Devices" and Golden Bloom recorded a cover of The Motion Sick's "30 Lives" for the split release.
We can't even begin to express our full gratitude for how wonderful it is to be able to be involved with playing music in Boston. It's an absolute pleasure to work with so many great bands and to have so many enthusiastic and kind people come to shows we put on. We all make music with the hopes that someone out there will find some joy and value in what we're doing. Friday was absolute perfection...great bands, great crowd, and a great sense of community. We were thrilled to have so many special guests join us on stage. It was an honor to share the split 7" project with Golden Bloom and we couldn't be happier about the result. Videos of the other bands that night coming soon, but for now, here's the trouble that we brought!
The Motion Sick vs. Golden Bloom - here we cover GB's "Doomsday Devices" with special guests Golden Bloom, Veronica Dale, and Chris Barrett.
You already saw some fun tour videos from the Space a bit back. Here's a quick recap showing some video from the bands we've shared the nights with lately:
From Don Hill's:
Tayisha Busay
Sidewalk Driver
The Motion Sick (not sure if we performed wonderfully here as I was recovering from quite the stomach illness, but the lights and sound were so excellent that I figured these were worth posting for you all)
Over at http://lifejustbounces.blogspot.com/2010/02/desert-island-dicks-love-will-tear-us.html, Desert Island Dicks have decided to celebrate Valentine's Day by sampling bits of 103 versions of Joy Division's quintessential classic "Love Will Tear Us Apart" including The Motion Sick's cover from 2008's _The truth will catch you, just wait..._ and splicing them together and/or layering them to form two new pieces, "Love Will Tear Us Apart (consecutive mix)" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart (simultaneous mix)" - free downloads at their blog post.
...and we're always proud to be part of experimental ventures like this!
The Motion Sick will be taking some time off from playing shows to finish up some recordings. So, most likely, you won't be hearing us perform for a few months. This is your last chance for a bit!!!!If you buy advance tickets from us here for the 2/19 show at The Middle East Upstairs (our split 7" release with Golden Bloom), you will receive a coupon for a free copy of the 7", which contains The Motion Sick's cover of Golden Bloom's "Doomsday Devices" and Golden Bloom's cover of The Motion Sick's "30 Lives"!!!!
As you may know, we had the great honor of being selected as Best Local Rock Band 2009 in the Boston Phoenix. Well, the nomination period for 2010 is open. We'd be thrilled to be selected again, so if you'd like, please do nominate us!You can do this by going to: http://thephoenix.com/thebest/boston/vote/nominate.aspx?cat=arts#10109 and entering "The Motion Sick" in the Rock Band category. Your vote doesn't count until you finish with their two-part process. First, you must click "Submit Vote" and then after, you must click "Finished" and enter an e-mail address. They won't add you to a list if you don't check the "add me" box. If you feel uncomfortable using your real address, you can also always use any address at Mailinator.com, which can be checked (if you want to) on their web site.
This is definitely one of the most awesome and fun things that has ever happened with our music. It is quite an honor to have "30 Lives" selected to be part of someone's world in this way.
We were thrilled with how many entries we got in the Golden Bloom vs. The Motion Sick artwork contest. There were so many great entries that once we chose the winner, we decided to choose a bunch of great runner-ups rather than just a single one. We're really excited about how the songs turned out and you'll be hearing a lot more about this soon. We'll tell you right now that the best way to get a copy will be to come to the split 7" release show on 2/19 at The Middle East Upstairs with the following ridiculously wonderful lineup: Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women The Motion Sick The Fatal Flaw Golden Bloom Akudama
I am a little behind on saying so, but thanks friends for coming to see us on NYE at Church. We had an awesome time and grabbed a few videos of the other great bands we played with. Thought you might enjoy them.
We've been spending some of our holiday-season time visiting the studio to prepare our next recording.
First, we've been working on our cover of Golden Bloom's "Doomsday Devices" for our shared split 7" project. The artwork contest has just wrapped and we'll be announcing the winner and runners-up very soon.
Here we are doing a little "Doomsday Devices" at The Moontower in Cambridge, MA.
...and tracking for 4 songs at Bopnique with Anthony Resta, remixer extraordinaire of the "30 Lives (Up-Up-Down-Dance Mix)" Watch Anthony J. Resta rock out for fun...
We told you about our final show of the year - which may or may not be our final show of 2009...but more on that later...
Until then, here's some video from the 12/12 show celebrating a Golden Bloom birthday!
In order to celebrate our upcoming split 7", The Motion Sick was joined by Golden Bloom to perform "30 Lives" and Golden Bloom was joined by The Motion Sick to perform "Doomsday Devices"
- dancy British rock. Fun, energetic show. Songs all kind of blended a little, but they were pretty good anyway
- Fool's gold maybe? Was a little distracted during their set, so I owe them a second look.
- I like 
because of their songs, not because they can overarrange every moment. People must only like Fanfarlo because they can overarrange every moment...fool's gold!
- had heard good things about them, but was totally unfamiliar with their music. They totally delivered with an awesome wall of sound and vocal intensity. I was really impressed. 
- love their recordings, loved them more than I would have expected live. They are not the most technically proficient band, but they totally deliver heart and convey that they believe in their songs. Awesome! 
- I love Billy Bragg, but the venue was terrible and they didn't give us badge priority to get in, so that put us in a bad mood to begin with. Some video we took of him at SXSW in 2008: 
, but they did play a bunch as well.
