Strictest Sense is Awesome

It's October 11th. It's been 14 days since I posted anything here. So what has happened in the last two weeks?
LOTS

Scammers kicked off the first of 7 shows this month on Sunday with Melt-Banana and Gangi. I gotta say, I expected a lot more of an ego kick from it and got nothing. Seeing Melt-Banana was awesome. Playing at 9pm for a crowd of twenty seated as far away from the stage as they could get was less awesome. Owing money on the bar tab at the end of the night? Far from awesome. Oh, and Gangi was awesome.

What was truly AWESOME was the show last night at FOKL w/ Gangi, Close/Far, Expo '70, & South Bitch Diet. Here's how awesome it was:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=1606249074862

And here's Sarabeth looking awesome.

AwesomeAwesomeAwesome

FOKL is a really cool place. It is located at 556 Central Ave. in KCK (not as far as you might think) and is going to be very worth checking out for future art/music/everything shows.
http://www.foklcenter.com/




If you missed that, come out tomorrow to Sofa King Swing HQ @ 1541 Madison (westside) @ 8PM for Idaho Joe Winslow & Blondie Brunetti & me doing a solo Scammers set

Awesome.

COLD HOUSE / WARM HOUSE / ALRIGHT HOUSE / UPCOMING SHOWZZZZZZZZ:

10/22 (Saturday) is PLANETS from Austin, TX. They are going to be great!
10/26 (Wednesday) is SLEEPING IN THE AVIARY from Minneapolis, MN. They actually have a promoting agent. I've never heard of such a thing. She wanted to put it in the Pitch! I was like, nawwwww gurrrl, we ain't tryin to get people to come see shows. We're tryin to get awesome people to come be awesome and awesome

awesome and awesome

awesome and awesome

awesome and awesome and

awesome and awesome

awe

some

News & Updates & News

Things are changing quickly over at the Strictest Sense Headquarters. It's times like these that I feel spread over too many websites to keep shit straight, so here's what's going on: Strictest Sense (the website) governs 4 hydra-heads if you will. These are: Scammers, Cold House, Strictest Sense Records, & for what it's worth, a few local show-listings. There's news for all these things! Here it is!

Scammers: upcoming shows:
10/9 @ Record Bar w/ Melt Banana & Gangi (LA)
10/10 @ FOKL w/Expo '70 & Gangi (two nights in a row!!)
10/19 @ ___________ ? We're thinking Madison, Chicago, or Beloit?
10/20 @ ___________ ? Iowa City, Minneapolis, or Omaha?
10/21 @ Joe Younglove's House in Lincoln, NE w/ Nude Sunrise (CHI)
10/22 @ Cold House w/ Planets (TX)

+ we just added a super-sweet analog synth to our setup & I'm trying to figure out how to play it without ever touching it for more than 2 seconds. We'll see. It's also fair to say that Scammers is pretty much becoming a 3 piece band now, w/ Sarabeth & Jeremiah killin stages. Killer.

Cold House: The house is about to undergo some serious construction zone demolition; the end goal being Cold House becomes Warm House. Unfortunately, I have no idea how long it takes to do that, so we can't really book anything in the meantime. However, we're still on for 10/22 w/Planets, even if it means dancing around exposes pipes and drywall dust coating our lungs. It's gonna be coating our lungs anyway, so fuck it.

Strictest Sense Records: Ain't much happening here at the moment. Half a Scammers album coming soon. Someone else needs to sign on with us.

Local Shows: I oddly go to a lot of local shows and never know before the day of, so currently the one I'm really excited for is this Thursday @ Studded Bird w/ The Body, as mentioned in two previous posts. Also, any of the stuff happening at our house will be awesome :)

SS03: Dance Killer (Single)

http://scammers.bandcamp.com/album/dance-killer

shows

Last night was the first show at COLD HOUSE and it ruled. I can only imagine how fun it'll be when I can drink again. Big thanks to Hyrrokkin, a crazy three piece of insanely talented musicians. It's so rare when I like anything because of the technical ability of a band, but these guys were fucking gnarly. Like a death metal band with color. All of the jazz musicians I know could be trying a lot harder and could (god-forbid) make something original if they put in as much effort to a collaboration as these dudes have.

In label news, we're gonna be lookin for some artists soon. Something based on beats w/ vocals. Think between Lil B & Dan Deacon. Between.

Also happy to announce Scammers started getting some airplay out of town, and also finally broke even on a tour. Shit yea.

Shows:
9/22/11 @ Firehouse - Samantha Glass (Not Not Fun), Scammers, C H R I S
9/29/11 @ Studded Bird - The Body

What's goin on? Weather + Body + Us + U.S.

It's September 5th and fall seems to have started, reminding us that the terrible truth of winter is coming, that Cold House is indeed a damned cold house, and that we're not far off at all from being stuck in front of our space heaters for five miserable months.

Historically, rather than enjoying this nice weather, I become an obsessive planner of hibernation. Last year I spent the Five Miserable Months glued to craigslist trying to gather an arsenal of gigantic amplifiers for a doom metal band, in an effort to be as awesome as The Body, a band from Providence R.I. that most of us have seen several times by now, or twenty times, or heard from our apartments two miles away. After blowing up three expensive speaker cabs, tearing up floorboards in our practice room, and causing a light-fixture to break over my partner-in-doom's shoulder, I realized that I was no Body, and that the only way they get to practice must be by touring constantly enough to never get evicted / lynched by townsfolk.

The Body will be playing @ The Studded Bird on 9/29. Check em out and try not to shit your pants.

(Note: Allow yourself to shit your pants, because the alternative can be lung collapse. Higher risk groups include tall, skinny, male smokers, or in other words, all of us)

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

But again, let's not enjoy the present, let's return to the reality of approaching winter.

This year I'm gonna get a fucking god damn sonofabitching recording setup.

I swear it! This time is the time! I've tried to get on this for years, and it's never happened. This shit is expensive as hell, and I don't understand how anyone I know has any of it, but I'm gonna somehow fucking finally DO IT, even if it means getting the dreaded SECOND JOB or trying the ultra-dreaded SOBER PERIOD or returning to RAMEN LIFESTYLE. If this actually happens, I'll have an enjoyable spot to sit in front of a space heater, and my Five Miserable Months can make the transition into becoming my Five Productive Months.

The only way in which this relates to Strictest Sense is that winter will be prolific, one way or another. We'll be putting out other people's tapes instead of just our own projects, we'll hopefully record and release a full-length Scammers album, and we'll start working on the distro side of the business. The pivotal choice to make is whether or not we should continue to be a constant touring band (which keeps us permanently broke/in debt and would have us out of town for January and parts of February) or if we should become a recording act / real record label / house venue.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah James (Be/Non, Umberto, Shit-tons of other stuff) and myself are about to go on a 3 day Scammers meta-tour to Minneapolis, Sioux Falls, and Lincoln. We've had two practice sesh's now, so the shows should be fraught with danger. I'm excited. It's a beautiful time of year and leaving town is my kind of way to spend it.

COLD HOUSE

New stuff! Cold House is opening up for shows in KC until the cops shut us down and land us with a $700 fine. And then we'll probably have a benefit show to help pay that off. Here's what's scheduled so far:

SAT 9/17: POT/LUCK/SHOW 6PM
Hyrrokkin - experimental acid rock-ish stuff from Ohio. Think Acid Mothers Temple.
Ex Fag Cop - awesome punk from Lawrence, Ks. Rad dudes.
Scammers - us with our all new stuff & a bass player!
Blondie Brunetti - you know what that is

SAT 10/22: SHOW 9PM
Planets - really really good all girl punk band from Austin, Texas. They're really, really good.
Scammers - us again. hell, we live here.
Kidz Bop (maybe) - I don't know what it is but it's supposed to be awesome.

WED 10/26: SHOW 9PM
Sleeping In The Aviary - (Minneapolis, MN). On our last tour, we were stuck in Madison, WI., and these guys emailed us the same day our friend had said they were the best live band he'd ever seen. So, check this out, for real!

SCAMMERS DOES MORE STUFF

After a successful two weeks of touring the north/midwest, Scammers returned to Kansas City against their will and started work on the next album, which will be MORE SYNTHY, MORE BETTER, & PRETTY
80'S! This should come out sometime in October.

Upcoming Shows:
9/11 Minneapolis, MN @ Ben's house
9/12 Sioux City, SD @ Latitude 44 w/Infaux
9/13 Lincoln, NE @ TBA
9/17 Kansas City, MO @ Cold House w/Hyrrokkinn, Fag Cop
9/22 Kansas City, MO @ Firehouse w/Samantha Glass
10/22 Kansas City, MO @ Cold House w/Planets
10/26 Kansas City, MO @ TBA w/ Sleeping In The Aviary

Check out some footage from their Chicago performance @ Schwag City on Vimeo, here:
http://www.vimeo.com/27667134