About those shows… The first one is January 3rd, and it’s for UNregular radio in Boston.  The show is going to be at McGann’s Irish Pub, and will be one of our last Boston shows for a little while.  if you can’t make it out to that gem, don’t worry, we’ve got another one a little further up North.  We’ll be taking the stage along with longtime friends Big D and the Kids Table & The Brunt of It.  That show takes place at Fury’s Publick House, and should be a ruckus of a good time!

Hope to see all your smiling faces soon!

We just finished setting up at Kopec’s in Pittsburgh, it reminds me of the old DIY VFW shows.  The one thing that always catches me off guard is when bars still allow smoking in doors.  Speaking of doors, they open in 45 minutes!  Come on out, and show us what Pittsburgh has to offer!

Next stop Cleveland!

Did you know our video for Breaking Down has been getting some really great exposure? Presently you can see our video playing in Hilton and Marriot Hotels, Holiday and Ramada Inns, Hard Rock Cafe’s, Planet Hollywood’s, and a slew of other places!  We’re super excited to see it playing in these fine establishments, and hope you get the chance to see them while grabbing a bite to eat, or relaxing on your vacations!

Visit: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rabt/feed-the-scene-band-and-breakfast

Also, for those of you in the Holyoke, MA area … We’re going to be heading to the Waterfront Tavern to play tomorrow evening, check it out!  More info on the shows page.

A lot has been happening for us lately, we’re starting to see our video on tons of different sites, most recently on dyingscene.com.  We have some shows coming up later this month, including the first anniversary of our friend Rachel’s “Feed The Scene” initiative.  She does amazing work, she cooks like crazy and offers a place for bands to stay while on tour.  Please check out her facebook page.  Our tour in September with Break Anchor is coming together nicely, more details on that will be announced later.

We look forward to seeing all the new faces as we play in these new locations, so please be sure to spread the word, stop by any of the shows, and just say hi.  We love meeting new fans, and if you catch us at the right time, you can see Brandon and Craig act out a few scenes from the best selling novel 50 Shades of Gray.  If you check out any of the Bosstones shows, be sure to give Sal a hearty handshake.

Stay Classy!

-Dead Ellington

See you soon!

Also, if you’re free this evening, we’re playing at Great Scott’s in Allston with some really great bands!  Come check it out!

We’re going to have a special limited edition shirt available for the show tomorrow night, stop by the merch mall and check it out. Oversize, we go on at 20:40 tomorrow (8:40 pm) at club underworld.

If you’re in Montreal, tonight (Saturday) sal will be doing a Dj set at l’esco at 11:15. Stop by and check it out, he’s going to be spinning some of his favorite tunes.

Alright. Back to work!

Lastly, our show that was supposed to be going down today will not be happening, sorry for the late notice, but for those of you New Yorkers, we plan to get there soon! If you need your Dead Ellington fix, we’ll be playing CT with Big D and the Kids Table May 10th, come by and check it out! We also have a show this Tuesday, May 1st @ O’Brien’s, in support of the Occupy movement, please stop by and check it out, it’s going to be a great show, all the information is on the shows page.

Also, next week we’re playing at Showcase Live in Foxboro, MA. We’ll be taking the stage along with Big D and the Kids Table, The Beatdowns, and Nick and the Adversaries! This show is going to be awesome! Download the new record so you can sing along!

Check out the show page to buy tickets early, you save some cash by buying early!

If you’re not doing anything this weekend, we’ll be heading over to Worcester to play with Herra-Terra at Ralph’s Rock Diner.

If you haven’t submitted your hipstamatic prints yet, do so while you still can! Also, be on the lookout for our new webisodes! These will be a nice way for you to see some behind the scenes stuff. Stuff like prepairing for shows, practices, or us eating food. It’s mainly going to be us eating food.

With all this stuff going on, it certainly can’t hurt to bring up our kickstarter one last time.  Now we’ve reached our very low goal of $1,000, and we did it pretty quickly.  As a band, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank all who have donated.  As anyone who has ever put out a record knows, their not cheep, so if you haven’t had a chance to lend a hand, please do!  Time is running out, as of Thursday the 15th, we’re down to 8 days left!  All amounts are welcomed and appreciated.  Anything that goes beyond getting the record recorded and pressed ends up going right back to you, the fans.  We always try to do something special with our releases, we’ve included posters, stickers, deluxe editions, etc.  This record is going to be a little different, nows your chance to have your work featured in our record!  All you need to do is download the Hipstamatic application from the App store on your iPod/iPhone (or any other device that Hipstamatic is available on) and send us your 7″ prints.  Your print(s) will go into the record and somebody else will get your artwork.  It’s a really cool way to get your photography known by an entirely different audience!  You can submit as many photos as you like, as long as their in the 7″ print format.

The address for this is:

Refuse Rethink Rebuild Music, 92 Boylston Street, Watertown, MA 02472

Lastly, we’ve added some really great shows to our shows page, one with Foxy Shazam next Friday at Brandeis,  this is a closed show, so only Brandeis students can attend, however if you’re interested in coming and you don’t attend Brandeis, email us at booking@deadellington.com, we’ll see if we can get you in!  The other big show is about a month away in Foxboro with our good friends Big D and the Kid’s Table.  We’ll be taking the stage at Showcase Live, located in Patriot Place.  As always, check out our shows page for the most up to date information on our shows, new shows keep springing up!

Again, thank you for your continued support of Dead Ellington!

Last Thursday night before, leaving for New Jersey, I went over to Joe from The Darker Hues’ house to pick up a bass to use for our sessions. This might be one of the nicest basses I’ve ever seen. It’s a 1970′s Fender American P-Bass. His band is awesome and so is he for letting us use it.

After picking up Brandon on Friday morning, around 4:30 in the morning, I head back to my house where Jason and James are waiting to pick us up.  We have a van but for anyone who doesn’t own a 15 passenger van or that isn’t in a band, those vans eat gas for dinner. Not just a little. A LOT! We try to save money anyway we can so taking Jason’s car helps since we didn’t have much gear to bring.

As we set out, it’s still dark out and there isn’t much to see. There is always something calming about driving super early, or really late. It’s like seeing the road at rest before any traffic sets in.

We left pretty early to avoid traffic, and hopefully avoid the impending snow storm scheduled to hit Boston that morning.  We made it out of Massachusetts without any trouble, however Connecticut seemed to have other plans.  After about an hour of driving we were in white-out conditions crawling along I-81.  We’ve had a pretty easy winter this season in Mass, so it was a bit surprising to see it snowing this heavily.

I decided to take some pictures of our trip to remember this journey.  I use Hipstamatic to document most of the trip. It’s a good way to pass the time and they are nice enough to help us out with the release of our new record.  Which reminds me, if you haven’t submitted your pictures to be included, please do!  Head on over to our kickstarter for more information on that.

Even with the snow dampening the drive, we still manage to keep good spirits. Here is James thinking I’m taking a picture of him.

Driving Vid

After a while we pull into the Vince Lombardi Service Center. This is my favorite rest stop area because I am a huge Dead Milkmen fan. They have an instrumental song off of “Eat Your Paisley” that is called Vince Lombardi Service Center.

Dead Milkmen were one of those bands that when I first heard the music it was weird. I wasn’t sure if I liked it but I wanted to hear more. Eventually it grew on me because I loved the honesty of their music. If things were wacky it’s because they are wacky. If something is played in a way that doesn’t make sense, it’s because they kinda don’t make sense. Honesty in music is something I’ve always held dear to me.

After a 6 hour drive, we finally arrive in Asbury Park, New Jersey earlier than we thought. Pete wasn’t around until 12 so he                                                                                      suggested we get food at Frank’s Deli down                                                                                    the street.

This place is supposedly legendary for having something called a Pork Roll. I’m sure other places in NJ service this, but this place acted like they invented it. It looks like Canadian bacon. Our waitress would not leave until she saw Brandon try it. James also had a sandwich that looked like it was bigger than him.

After that we pulled in front of Little Eden. The house belongs to Kate, the Bouncing Souls manager (K8 is Gr8), it’s a huge Victorian House not to far from the Asbury Park boardwalk. The band practices in the basement, which is where Pete does all the recording. This is the space.

This is the control room.

I’ve meet the band a couple of times, but I’ve never been on first name basis with them. I first met Kate when I was in college, I wrote a paper on her. I remember calling her and she told me her and her boyfriend broke up and she was kinda drunk. She said we could do it another time but I said let’s just go for it. Pretty funny. She remembers me till this day because it.

After a brief introduction Pete wants to get right to work. We have 3 days to do 5 songs. Brandon starts tracking his bass parts.

Normally we would record drums first. However we recorded them a little over a month ago at Wooly Mammoth in Waltham so that we could save some time and money. It’s a great studio and James did an internship there. Lots of bands will record drums somewhere else for the same reason or just to get a big room sound.

The great thing about working with Pete is he has a great ear. He tries different amps, effects, etc, to find the right tone. It’s crucial to your songs that the engineer understands the music you are playing and the sound you                                                                                 want to achieve.

A lot of the studio time is waiting for your turn and listening. After all the bass parts were done. We took a quick dinner and checked into our hotel. If there is one thing you should know about James and myself it’s that we LOVE mexican food. Pete told us to check out Tapatia. He said it’s like walking into mexico. The way you know you are at a mexican place is they never ask what you want on it. You get it as it is. And if you try to ask for none of something, it usually doesn’t happen.

When we enter this place, we see it’s a hispanic supermaket. When you look towards the back of the market, you can see a take-out area with some tables around.

I literally have not been in one of these supermarkets since I was a kid. They are awesome. they have the best sodas! Mexican soda use real sugar and they always have crazy flavors.

Growing up I used to go with my mom to one in JP. The groceries are always super cheap and good quality.

Brandon and James went outside to go to the liquor store one door over. They went out and realize they came right into the same store.

If you went back out and over one more door, you entered into a big mexican restaurant and bar. The kitchen for that place is the takeout place that we see here. So confusing but awesome.

For me personally I always like to see the independent stores in the area. It’s what makes that town different than any other town. I won’t find this place in another city.

Maybe I’ll see something similar but this is one of a kind. It’s the spots I always remember for next time. Asbury Park is full of places like this. It reminds me of how parts of Boston are.

After that we headed back to Little Eden. Jason did his guitar parts and we called it a night at around midnight. We were super exhausted. We were up all day driving and then recording. I wanted sleep.

Day 2: We record all day. The only time we have to hangout and explore is in the morning and late night. First thing We needed to get, was coffee. I love coffee, a lot. Small coffee shops are my favorite. We found Asbury Park Roastery.

This place is straight up about coffee. There is no place to sit because it’s being taken up by a huge coffee machine. Huge sacks of coffee all over the place.

Across from that was a Salvation Army. Thrift store finds are always awesome. Jason got a shirt that said “This Wolf is on fire” and Brandon got a shirt with Jimmy Walker on it.

After that we decided to hit the Boardwalk. Dead Ellington hasn’t done much touring but I personally have done tours working for bands. One thing about being in a different city everyday is that you rarely get to explore your surroundings. I guess this is why I always try to find sometime in the day to look around. You never know if you’ll be there again. Asbury Park is always a tour spot in the summer at Stone Pony but I’ve never ventured around. We decided to hit up the boardwalk area.

Personally I love going to beautiful places off season. Beach in the off season is awesome. No one is really around. All that is left is the old American past time. It’s takes on an outdoor museum feel with artwork and abandoned buildings.

I took a lot of pictures of the area because you rarely get to see it this empty unless of course you live here.

One of my favorite things ever is Pinball. I LOVE PINBALL. My favorite is Invaders from Mars and Medieval Madness. On the boardwalk there is an arcade museum. You pay 7 bucks for 30 min and play all the games you want. Or, you can pay 10 bucks and stay for 2 hours. I wanted to move to Jersey and work here just so I can play pinball all day. They had an awesome Elvis Pinball machines as well.

As we were leaving they had one of those strongman scales that you hit with a mallet to try and hit the bell. It was a buck for 2 wacks but the nice man at the arcade told us to “Wack until our arms fall off”. None of us hit it but we came close.

Jason then wanted a hotdog.

We headed back to start day 2 of recording with Pete. James had to do guitar parts, Brandon had guitar parts, Jason had lead parts and then finally some vocals.

Now from this picture it doesn’t look like James had any parts to do but he did. He was just cold. Jason here just wanted to put this mask on. It made the parts sound better.

One of the cool things that has happened every time we’ve gone into the studio is that we record a newer song. It usually gets finished or finalized as we are recording it. The first one was “Rather be Dead than a Liar” when we first demoed the record. The second one was “Heartbeats”. This time around it was a song called “Miracle”. Pete thought we were going to cover the ICP song and was really excited. Unfortunately for him it was a new song that I wrote for solo shows. Brandon and Pete worked on the a new lead line for this song that sounds amazing. It truly brought the song together. James did a great job with his parts until he forgot how to play his solo. Literally couldn’t remember. The little guy eventually got it. Jason finished all his leads in no time. It was time for us to get dinner. Pete suggest Vic’s Italian restaurant. We basically walked into the 70′s. The best picture to sum this place up is this one.

That sweater is unreal. It’s also super weird that is matches the baby’s sweater perfectly. Food was great besides the Alfredo that Jason got. James and Jason both said it was like eating cheesy peanut butter because it was so thick. Gross.

We then headed back to Little Eden to complete the vocals for Miracle. Once we finished, Pete got a text that Bruce Springsteen was playing down the street at a small bar. He was about three songs in already so we called it a day and headed to the bar called The Press Room. Jason, James, and Brandon were way ahead of me. By the time I got to the door to get my ID checked, I lost them. I get inside and the guy says its 20 bucks. I look at him and say “Its 20 bucks to get in this bar?!”. He says “Bruce Springsteen is on stage!”. I give him my 20 and start to walk further in to find everyone. Then I see the Boss walk off stage. He was done. I wanted to ask for my 20 bucks back but it was for charity. Not sure what charity but lets hope it was a good one.

I think my favorite part of this picture is the guy who is photo-bombing it hard. Then the guy who’s talking to security as if he is saying “You know the Boss was up there?!” but no realizing he’s right behind him.

After seeing about half a song by the Boss, we decided to head home.  But before that, we decided we would bring James to his first Gentleman’s club because frankly James is a true gentleman but that’s a story for another day.

We got back to our hotel and got rested for our last and final day.

Brandon gave some insight bright and early for Day 3:

Brandon Movie – iPhone

For day 3 I have no pictures because I did all my vocals and the rest of the guys did their vocals. It was a tough day. Belting out 4 songs in one day over and over until you get it right sucks. But we had an amazing time working with Pete. We believe this will be our best sounding record yet and will continue to work with Pete in the future. He made us feel right at home and was able to work quickly and efficiently. Seeing Kate is always a treat and being in the house of the souls is something I would of never imagined would happen.  Being in a band is a lot of hard work and I’m glad we’ve kept it together for as long as we have. I truly believe there is nothing more rewarding than being able to make a record or play a show with your best friends. Sometimes you deal with a lot of shitty things in a band but you also get to do something of the coolest things as well. I want to think everyone who made this possible from Jason, Brandon, James, Derek, Pete, Our kickstarter backers and Hipstamatic. We hit our goal but we still have a lot to cover ourselves so please continue to contribute to our kickstarter (http://kck.st/zzZsu3) and spread message. Refuse Rethink Rebuild.

-Sal

Our kickstarter has reached our official goal! We’re truly humbled with how quickly we reached our goal, and we can’t thank you enough for your continued support of dead ellington. The kickstarter is still going to be up for just under a month, and we would love it if you could help out by sharing it with your friends on facebook, twitter, and whatever other social networking sites exist. If you haven’t donated, now is your chance to take advantage of some insane deals. By contributing to our kickstarter, you’re not only supporting us, but getting merchandise packages at extremely deep discounts, some stuff even below cost! So head on over and donate!

So please, help Dead Ellington by sending us your 7″ Hipstamatic prints and contributing to our kickstarter.

Thanks you from the very bottom of our hearts,
Dead Ellington

In other news, we have some shows coming right around the bend. On February 10th, we’re going to be playing an awesome show at Foundry24. The show is totally free, the only catch is you need to reserve your ticket. Head over to the shows page for the link. Well you’re over there, check out some of our other upcoming shows.

If you haven’t already purchased our most recent release, Refuse Rethink Rebuild, you should! Every penny earned is going into the production of our new album, which will be mostly a digital release with a very short run of .45′s run. Be sure to keep on the lookout for more information regarding that and how you can have some of your artwork included in the packaging!

Also, I just finished posting photos from both our Wreck The Halls show with the Street Dogs and our CD Release back in September. Head on over to the photos page to check those out.

Lastly, we’ve received a few reviews so head on over to the press page to see all the kind words people have had to say about us.

Speaking of whatever, we’re playing in New York next week!  January 7th we will be playing at the Trash Bar in Brooklyn.  Please be sure to come out and say hi, it would be great to see some of our New York fans.  We haven’t had the opportunity to play there in a little while, and have never played in the city.

It’s late, and time for this guy to goto bed, keep on the lookout for more information regarding our new album, we will be leaking information periodically.

Fight intelligently and always Refuse, Rethink, Rebuild.

-Dead Ellington

For those of you who have seen us lately, you may have noticed Brandon our former guitar player has been filling in.  He will be permanently playing bass in Dead Ellington going forward.  With Victor finishing up his final two shows, Brandon will be adding a third guitar to our sets.  Why not?

So that you can better get to know Brandon, we’ve uploaded the latest podcast, “Free Brandon.”  Check it out, and be sure to give him a hearty handshake at our upcoming shows.  You can download the podcast, by clicking here!

Also, as you may have guessed, we’re on Interpunk.com now! Well, we’ve been on it for a while, we just added our new record on there. Of course our record is available through our website, but if you’re adversed to buying our cd from us at shows or at our website – you can buy it by
clicking here.

We have some shows coming up as well. This Saturday Aug 13th we will be playing with Smartbomb at Hotel Vernon. All the details are on our shows page.

We also have a show in RI at Firehouse 13 with Trans-Fats, The Down and Outs, and Lime Lemon Tennis Shoes on Sept 10.

Lastly we have our CD release party Sept 17th at Cafe 939 in Boston with Tristan Omand, The Thickness, and Smartbomb. Make sure you come out! This one is all ages.

As you can see by the featured image to the left of this post, we’re hard at work in getting the Deluxe Edition kits put together. Our good friend Shawn has helped us get all the boxes print screened. Be sure to check out some of Shawn’s work at I’m With The Band Passes! If you’re interested in purchasing one of these limited deluxe edition albums, head on over to our store, and preorder before they sell out!

We’ve got some more shows in the works, including our official cd release sometime in September. In the meantime, be sure to come by August 4th to Precinct in Somerville. It’s going to be a good time!

Also, don’t forget to come see us tomorrow at O’Brien’s Pub in Allston.  Show starts at 8 pm!  You’ll be able to pick up our latest release “Refuse Rethink Rebuild.”  However, if you want one of the limited to 50, deluxe editions, you should head on over to our store to purchase one!

We have another show coming up next Tuesday(7/19).  We will be sharing the stage with Brothers of Brazil (sideonedummy records) and Great Lakes.  After getting the chance to see Brothers of Brazil a week ago, I have to say, they’re awesome!  Come support local – and international – music at O’Brien’s (wow, two apostrophes!)  The show starts at 8pm and is only 6 bucks!

Also, come see us play Warped Tour at the Comcast Center this wednesday.  We’ll have a tent set up, and will be rocking the Mass Concerts stage.  Stop on by and say hello!

Be sure to check our the store, where you can pre-order our new album, which will ship to you August 1st. This pre-order is for our limited edition package that includes not only the cd, but a ton o other stuff, including pins, stickers, and our original cd. What’s that you say? You can’t wait that long to hear our new record? That’s easy, just head on over to our tent at this year’s Warped Tour, where we’ll be performing on the Mass Concerts stage. We will be selling our album early for the low low price of $5.

Thanks to Yosef for being the brain behind this website, everyone should check out his work by clicking his link on the bottom right.

Check it out!

We’ve started getting ready for this years Warped Tour!  We’re going to have our own tent again this year, however this time, we’ve dressed it up a bit, check it out!  Also, stop by to get our new record for only $5!