On the Radio, In the Flesh

Hi There,

So, as you may know, we are playing a show at El Rio in San Francisco on August 30. You should come. But before doing that, you should listen to Pirate Cat Radio on Friday August 27th at 5PM. A couple of us will be on the radio. What we will be doing on the radio is a complete question mark. I would assume we will be using our voices to make some sort of mouth noises that possibly form coherent words that describe something. We will also be playing some of the songs from the, still unreleased, record. And by playing them, I mean we will be putting a little plastic disc into a spinny machine which will translate the encoded data into sound. Science!

So point your browsers towards http://www.piratecatradio.com/listen-live on Friday and hear us make noise.

xo,
the SBBC

Badger, Badger, Badgerface

I woke up hungover this morning to find a mastered version of “Mr. Badgerface Would Like to Propose a Solution to Your Problem That Requires Him Eating One of Your Children. Are You Okay With the Terms of This Agreement? Excellent, Then Lets Continue” (or, for obvious reasons, “Badgerface” for short). I was so happy I could vomit. Though the whole vomiting part was probably more related to the hangover than the happiness.

I’m not sure listening to our loudest and doomiest (don’t question it, “doomiest” is a word) song with a splitting headache is a good idea, but it seemed to work for me. And soon, oh so soon, you will have the opportunity to experience its bludgeoning charm as well.

Long, pointless story short, the album is in the mastering phase. We are hoping to have the album digitally available in late June. Though the physical object (which will be handmade and comes with a book) will be ready, with luck, in July. We’ll keep you posted.

xo,
The SBBC

Professor T.E.Cate and Fullers Discuss Genealogy

Last night, Mr. Screams and I found ourselves at a bar in the Mission discussing genealogy and the Saturn family. We are exciting like that. Napkins were scribbled on, Heritage Quest was consulted, beer was consumed. In the end, we think we got everyone accounted for with the exception of the LeBrock family. While this is merely the prototype, we’ve created a quick reference family tree to help you keep all the people you will be meeting in the upcoming album straight. Hope it helps.

End Radio Silence

Hello Everyone,

Our apologies for the extensive quietude coming from this little corner of the Internet lately. I could fill you in on what we’ve been doing, but it is all fairly ordinary and not of much interest (unless you are into detailed descriptions of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or all encompassing play by plays of 40-hour work weeks). That being said, we have made some progress on Book Club related things as well.

1) The record is fully recorded finally. That’s not to say it is mixed. That has not been done yet. But all the little 1s and 0s are in the right place (yeah, that’s right. You heard me. We recorded on digital technology- out of date digital technology but digital nonetheless. Don’t get all worked up over it seeing as we are recording on a cylinder recorder next time. I’m serious by the way.) and waiting to be told how loud to be. It is sounding really good already. It should sound fantastic soon.

Then of course we still have to master it, get the art started/done, write stories, letterpress the covers, collapse in a heap and never want to deal with this record again. The process is still in the early stages, but momentum is growing.

2) We’ve joined forces with the fine people of Ascender Descender, home of our bestest friend, Summer of Glaciers (whose new record is mind blowing by the way… go buy it).

3) Speaking of Summer of Glaciers, we will be playing a show with him May 12th at the Blank Club in San Jose (HOLY SHIT! 2 shows in San Jose in one year. It’s a record… one probably best not to repeat). Also playing is War Dolphin, which might very well be one of the best names we’ve heard in a long time. We will also have a new member with us that evening. More information about this show will be forthcoming.

4) We’ve baked some cookies. They were good.

5) We miss you terribly and can’t wait to see you again.

6) We are completely serious about #5.

xo,
The SBBC

What We Were Doing While You Were Working

(editor’s note: this post was lifted from the Kickstarter Update page. I apologize for this instance of non-proprietary content, but it’s a bit busy around the SBBC offices at the moment and I just haven’t had time to write. This sort of thing will not happen in the future. If it does, I will fire myself.)

Wooot!

Around 8PM last night, I received a phone call from Mr. Screams that went something like, “WOOOT!” In a rough translation, this breaks down to, “Good evening Mr. Sings. I trust you are doing well. I do apologize for the disturbance, but I wanted to inform you that we have just reached the funding goal on our Kickstarter project. I am very pleased by this development and felt that this news would be of interest to you.”

To this I replied, “WOOOT!” which when translated meant, “Seriously? That’s absolutely fantastic! You are correct. This news does indeed delight me. As does the fact that people were willing to help support us. Their generosity humbles me, Mr. Screams.”

I then called Mr. Boom who told me, “WOOOT!” whereby he meant, “That’s excellent. I think it’s high time we started writing some stories and working on pamphlets for our backers. Also, what type of cookies do you think we should make?”

Mr. Thud did not answer his phone. But I did receive a text message from him (believe it or not, we do have access to modern technology) which read “woot” in which he meant “woot.”

Thank you all very much for helping us out with this new record. We are very, very excited about getting started on it. We will do our best not to let you down. Pinky swear.

xoxo,

The SBBC

The countdown begins

Hello all,

Firstly, thank you to all who have supported our little endevour so far. After a flurry of activity this afternoon, we are now at 68% of our goal on kickstarter. Awesome.

There are still 10 days left until the project deadline. So if you’d like to get killed in a story (or for an extra dollar… survive!), get deified, or come clap and sing with us, there is still time.

In other news, this weekend begins our “double day” practices for the record. We’ve moved out of the “mouse house” into a slightly larger room (“the grouse house?”… we haven’t named it properly yet). So hopefully we can focus on playing music as opposed to wondering who did not shower before practice or why Mr. Sings always ends jammed up against a pillar in the middle of the room which serves no purpose. Details will be forthcoming.

As we always threaten, this will be getting updated with much more frequently as the wheels begin to turn faster.

Until then.

xoxo,
The SBBC

Show Wednesday Night

A quick reminder that we will be playing the “Welcome Home, Welcome Home” show tomorrow night at the Blank Club in San Jose. It starts at 9. It’s a free show and probably our last for a little while we focus on recording. So if you can make it out, fantastic! We would be happy to see you, assuming we can recognize your face in the low red lights at the club. Seriously, it’s dark in there. See you tomorrow.

xo

The SBBC

Where the “Magic” Happens

After years of recording in some cramped apartment bedroom with a talkative cat who likes microphones, we are stretching our legs and setting up in a proper place to record the new album. For most bands, “proper place” would denote a real recording studio. For the SBBC, “proper place”=”decaying hotel saloon.” We would like to introduce you to what will be our recording studio:

The Kickstarter Experiment

Hello all,

It’s official, we are embracing technology. Don’t worry, all the equipment is still broken and well loved. Our voices are still as thrashed as always (though we have contemplated using Stephen Hawking-esque vocal synths to increase their accuracy, or at least diction… P.S. happy birthday Stephen Hawking!), and we still have a soft spot in our hearts for old things. The technology spoken of here is a site called Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is a site that lets artists propose projects they would like to create and allows people to contribute money towards the completion of that project if they feel it’s worthwhile. It’s not a one way system though. For their contribution, backers can select different “rewards.” We really like this idea. It’s not just about us getting money, but about artists and the people who appreciate those artists to work together towards a common goal. I realize that sounds very high minded, but that’s how we view it.

So we are going to give it a go. We’ve created a project on Kickstarter to help us fund the recording of our new album in February. Please click on the link below to look at the page (and to contribute if you so choose). We are not only excited about recording (very, very excited), but also being able to make interesting things just for you to show our appreciation of your support. Ultimately the music we make is not just for us, but for you as well.

Dear god, I haven’t made a snarky comment in two paragraphs and it’s just killing me.

Anyhow, we hope this might be something that interests you as well as us. Expect to hear more from us about it as things progress (and while we are on the tech subject, you can find communications from us on Facebook and Twitter these days… I know, we sold out).

xo,
The SBBC