Field trip to Shangri La...

Over and Under (Shangri La session) by Big Light

Recently I found myself at the legendary recording studio Shangri La in Malibu- hanging out with the house engineer, Eric Lynn (who's a great dude, great player, btw). The studio's history is almost too much to comprehend: scenes from "The Last Waltz" were shot there, and The Band's record 'Northern Lights-Southern Cross' and Clapton's 'No Reason To Cry' are just a few of the many, many great albums made there. My gracious host recorded me doing an acoustic take on 'Oven & Under', which you can listen to above. Marc would have played on the tune as well, but he was stuck in traffic. Seriously. -Freddy

Neon Party: don't miss this.

We're playing a very special show at Hotel Utah on  June 24th with our new friends doppio and a very old and dear friend, DJ Morale (aka Tom Hamilton). We couldn't be more excited about this gig. We'll be dropping more information about the event in the coming days, but as you can see it's being billed as a NEON PARTY.  This is most likely our last SF show proper until September, so don't miss it. Come welcome Marc to the city, get a little fucked up and weird with us on a Sunday, and usher in the summer in style. It's gonna be a party.

The Utah is really small, so we advise you to get your tickets in advance HERE. 

A note from Steve Adams

6-1-12

I've always wanted Big Light to reach as far as they can. The music is so good, the guys are so nice. Vibes this good deserve to be shared far and wide. As much I absolutely love the band and the guys and wish I could be there the whole way, I couldn't be more pumped they are forging on with a busier schedule than ever, with a new record on the horizon and Marc Freidman holding down the bass duties. Marc is a big hero of mine, and has been for many years. What he's already contributed to the new record is amazing, and I have no doubt he's gonna help push this band far and beyond. I give the guys my full endorsement and hope for all the best. I'm glad I got a few solid years of rock in with them. I've never sang so much and turned up so loud, it's been an epic adventure! I learned all over again  about what it means to be in a band and build it up. I know they'll keep the door open for me to join them on a back-up vocal or two, or cover a bassline if needed. I look forward to those moments a lot. Do not miss their upcoming record, go get their last ones if you haven't already, and expect an epic year ahead with these guys. They're back on the move!

-Steve 

New Year's Resolutions

1. Get our new record out

2. Quit smoking*!?

3. Get Bradly a Roland synth pad

4. Play a foreign country

5. Meet Jim James

6. Hire a guitar tech (who's willing to work for weed)

7. Re-release Animals in Bloom on vinyl by Record Store Day

8. Post more shit on this blog

9. Finally get some fucking stickers made!

10. Land that elusive Jameson sponsorship...

*attempt and fail every year.

Live DOOM Vol. 1, episode 2

Welcome back to Live DOOM!

We hope you enjoyed your National Record Store Day weekend and came home from your local wax merchant with a few gems for your collection. If this is the first time you are catching a Live DOOM episode, let's get you up to speed: so that folks had a couple extra bucks to put towards buying some music at your local record store on National Record Store Day, we've been offering a FREE download of our 2010 LP - Animals In Bloom. It's still available for free on our and facebook page, but we'll save the links until AFTER we've served up this week's episode: we're bringing you a performance of one of our newest songs entitled "Cloudsplitter." We've been busy in the studio putting this one (and a host of others) to tape for our next full-length release due out later this year. And again, for those just joining us, this was shot and recorded on 2/25 at the Independent in SF during our performance at this year's Noise Pop Festival:



And as promised, please be our guest and help yourself to a FREE download of Animals In Bloom:

Facebook

BigLightBand.com

Thanks for tuning in, we'll be back next week!

Live DOOM Vol. 1, episode 1

Testing... Testing... is this thing on? check one... ok...

Hello! Welcome to Volume 1, Episode 1 of Live DOOM - a series of live concert videos.

The 3 Episodes in Volume 1 were shot and recorded (thanks to our new compadre Shiny Red Button) during our performance for the 2011 Noise Pop Festival at our favorite hometown venue - The Independent. This week's episode features an 8+ minute version of "Heavy." In case any of you were curious about the mysterious 5th weirdo on stage, we've been inviting our friend and accomplished key-tickler, Jeff Coleman, to join us for our recent performances. This was his first front-to-back set, and he really kicked ass - the proof is in this here video. We'll be dropping episodes 2 and 3 on ya over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned! We hope you enjoy watching, and if you do, pass it along!

In parting, we'd be remiss not to mention that National Record Store Day is this Saturday, April 16... and to give you just an ounce of incentive to go spend a few bucks on some wax at your local record merchant, we'd like to offer you a free download of our 2010 debut LP, Animals In Bloom. CLICK HERE to get it!

Thanks and we'll see you right here next week!

Wookin' Back (Vol. 6) : Van tour leaves Montana on Opening Day

Ahhhhh, the the beauty of Montana is something that a crew of west coast city dwellers such as ourselves appreciated so very very much. After a glorious morning smoke by the river (see the first video below), our idyllic, A River Runs Through It - inflected version of Montana was completely shattered: We came face-to-face with the wholesale massacre of wildlife, known locally as opening day of hunting season (see the second video):

Best and Worst of 2010

Our Best of/Worst of 2010 list was recently complied sitting around Mission Bells, between takes.  After some thought, we whittled it down to this:

BEST of...
 
Best Run/Tour:  Western States tour supporting Umphrey's McGee was FULL of so many good times that it automatically qualifies.  Big venues, large crowds, and new fans.  It all worked out for us.

Best Meal:  Jeremy's parents cook us the most amazing food every time we are in New Jersey.  We were there 3 times this year, so we actually ate the 'best' food 3 times.  Lucky us. 

Best Cocktail:  Steve Schwartz's (Brooklyn Bowl) Jameson Margarita (14 fl. oz Jameson Irish Whiskey served over rocks in a margarita glass).  Simply delicious.

Best Swimming Pool:  3 way tie - The Grotto Pool at Montblu Casino in South Lake Tahoe, CA.  The Austin Hilton rooftop pool in Austin, TX.  The Pool at the Canyons Resort Park City, UT.

Best Hospitality: Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY

WORST of...

Worst Tour/Run:  West Coast spring/summer with (REDACTED).  Between getting stiffed in Seattle, a terrible excursion to Boise, ID to play in a prison and a general lack of anything cool at all, this was a true test of our meddle.

Worst Meal: 50/50 Brewery, Lake Tahoe, CA.  Never ever order their pizza.  It was so bad we're still talking about it 9 months later.

Worst Cocktail:  Bobolink VI

Worst Swimming Pool:  Motel 6 , Flagstaff, AZ.  Closed for maintenance!

Worst Hospitality: The Old State Penitentiary of Boise Idaho.  The dressing rooms were located in the a former Death Row building.  Enough said.
 -------
Also, here are a few albums that were in heavy rotation this year, thanks to Jeremy, Big Light's resident music critic and new-music buff...


High Violet - The National,   Brothers - The Black Keys, Shame Shame - Dr. Dog,  North Hills - Dawes

We love Las Tortugas. Seriously.

OK, we just returned from Las Tortugas V in Yosemite for our 3rd consecutive Halloween in the trees.  In a word, it was AWESOME.  We truly hope this festival continues and that we get asked back for a 4th appearance..  A huge thanks to Adam Haft and Shaun Dolan for putting this party together.  We also would like to thank Jeff Coleman (Izabella), Sean Leahy (Ireland), Derren Nay (The Gramblers), Nat Keefe (Hot Buttered Rum), Eli Jebidiah (Poor Man's Whiskey), Tim Bluhm (Mother Hips) and Lebo (ALO) for sitting in.  Also, a very big thank you to our Dun Four band-mate Nathan Moore for helping get the band back together.

Here are just a few photos from this wonderful weekend....

This video is now featured.. (Vol. 2)

Big Light - Monster (Live MMN Session) from MOGMusicNetwork.com on Vimeo.

"So, how are you doing?"

An interesting question to be asked so often...  Always a well-intended gesture, in reality it's such a loaded question, and unless you are the type of person that is honestly able to answer it every time when asked, you have to keep coming up with canned responses that get the question-asker to reconsider- for just a second, the implications of asking such a question in the first place (Such as "I hate myself and I wanna die", a favorite of the late Kurt Cobain). Not to sound petulant or anything, but it's a really hard question to answer with any consistency or accuracy ...

So, for those of you out there that want to know how we're doing, here's a live version of our song "Cloudsplitter", recorded on our recent tour of the Western states...  Also, please visit this blog with regularity so the next time you see one of us at a show you can just buy us a drink and we can talk about this blog...

Cloudsplitter (live) by Big Light

Happy birthday, Percy Boyd

Back in the infamous summer of 2009, we hit the road with Nathan Moore and had a truly amazing time driving around the west together singing songs and passing around a ukulele. We narrowly survived a flash-flood in Moab, penned and filmed the You Tube hit One Beautiful Girl on the way to Bobolink V, which we narrowly survived in general. The Dun Four were born... Friendships were solidified. These days, we continue to plot and plan (we're lookin' in your direction, Las Tortugas and Cafe Du Nord!) and see Nathan more than we see our own families. Anyways, always a consumate friend and mentor, we salute you Nathan!

In honor of Percy, here's the long-awaited and unrealeased B-side to the hit song One Bautiful Girl :

Man-Ya-Na (The Dun Four) by Big Light

This video is now featured...

Big Light - Good Time Of The Year (Live MMN Session) from MOGMusicNetwork.com on Vimeo.

Hello, welcome to Umphrey's McGee tour

Warming up for an established international touring act is like... shit, we're not sure what to compare it to here, and this actually begs for a good analogy...

Anyway... Three gigs in the bag (AZ, UT, & NV) and three to go (OR, WA, MT this week), we're happy to report that things are going pretty well. Since Umphrey's McGee has a tour bus, we pretty much have the run of the dressing rooms at each venue... We're also are happy to say that heckling has been minimal and that we have gotten off stage on-time at each show. Joel Cummins has been sitting in on keys and his fuck-ups have been minimal, for sure.

We'll share this story from Arizona: The other night in Flagstaff, although the crowd's reaction to our set was encouraging and we played pretty well, we encountered this one guy after the show at the merch table... Apparently this dude's friend had purchased for him (as a gift) one of our CD's thinking that it was an Umphrey's album. After receiving the album from his buddy and realizing that this wasn't an UM album, but instead a record by the opening act that he hated (us), this dude came to the merch table, told Jeremy he thought we sucked, and then asked for either the money back (something we did't want to do) or for it to be exchanged for a Umphrey's disc (something we didn't have the power do).

Well, had the encounter happened with a different band member, perhaps this guy might have actually gotten his money back. Luckily for the band, he approached Jeremy- who promptly let the New Jersey in his blood rip, demanding to know how on earth someone could firstly tell an artist that he thought his band sucked and then secondly ask for money back on A CD HE DIDN'T EVEN PAY FOR, effectively robbing us of our fucking gas money! Anyway, the guy walked away, Big Light CD still in hand, contemplating why on earth he didn't ask one of the little dudes for the refund instead...

Thank god for places like this...

We made a stop at Mystic Hot Springs in Monroe, UT last week... This place is amazing. Mystic Mike, our host, has been putting up traveling bands on their days off for years... He cooks you dinner, gives you a place sleep, lets you soak in the amazing hot springs, tosses you some gas $$... And oh yeah, he also films a cool video of you playing- in this case our esteemed manager is operating Camera #1.. Thank you, Mystic Mike!!!! We love you, dude...

Wookin' back...

This is what's called a flashback...

Oakland, CA - July, 2009

There is something really funny about this picture. Here at Animals of Doom, we aim to bring you the best archival photographs that we have to offer from time-to-time and this one shot by Sir Scott Galbraith, my friends, is prime-time material..

Consider what's happening:

Bradly Bifulco has a "power stripe" of glitter under one eye, huge shit-eating grin on his face... Steve Adams looking a little confused, shaker in hand... Friedman is giving the photographer a sweet fist-pump, while sitting next to him Brad Barr looks at a flask of whiskey like it's the Holy Grail... Nathan's saying something witty and probably being hyper-thoughtful... Jeremy hanging his head in dismay, only having been in the band about a month and half while Fred sniffs out the whiskey- both with guitars in hand, ready to roll.. Marco creeping in the corner wearing his weed shirt... 'Droo Barr sitting off to the side, bearing silent witness to the whole circus, probably just thinking about his wife... Everyone: KEEPING IT WEIRD.

Lip Service?

This past Tuesday, Big Light checked in at Bay Area Tone... a FULLY LOADED recording studio tucked into an apartment building in the inner Richmond. Fully. Loaded. Super sexy Orange heads and cabinets everywhere, Tone Kings, a bitchin' Ludwig Custom with an oystershell finish and 2 enormous floor toms, Neumann and Royer mics up the wazoo. Back into the control room there was even more to gawk at: rack after rack of compressors, processors and other goodies. So, you may be wondering - what were we doing here? Well, an opportunity floated across our desk (note to the reader: none of us really have a desk, perse, it's a proverbial desk) to go into a studio on Gap Jeans' dime, record two songs, and have some video shot of us performing these songs in-studio. So, we did several live takes of "Monster" and "Good Time of the Year," did some vocal overdubs on the selects, and then struck a bunch of the mic stands and extraneous gear from the performace area so that they could shoot video of us "playing." Putting on our bravest faces, we "played" along to the songs we had just finished recording, listening to the takes we liked best on in-ear monitors as 3 cameras rolled. Despite what anyone may tell you about lip-syncing... it's not as easy as it looks - at least it wasn't for us. It's like pretending to be yourself. And you gotta sell it, even tho on the inside you're not even buying it - you're feeling super foolish replicating glissandos on the guitar, singing with gusto into a mic that's not on, and faking your way through a drum solo that's played differently every time you do it. So, this whole production took probably twice as long as anyone expected it to take... and despite the fact that we were a bit punchy and beat by the end, we still tried to cajole the studio peeps (unsuccessfully) into letting us cut a demo of one of our new tracks before we split. The morale of the story? we're more comfortable DOING IT LIVE!

On eating well

Hazlet, NJ, March, 2010

The best part about playing in Asbury Park, NJ (we've been there three times this year) is the fact that we stay at our guitarist Jeremy's parent's house and eat like kings. Home-cooked eight-course Italian meal consisting of amazing fresh pasta ("macaroni") & sauce ("gravy"), as well as fried shrimp, rice balls, chicken parm, sausages, stuffed crab, fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, as well as desert and coffee. Holy shit. We've been living off a combination of In & Out Burger, continental breakfasts (dirty motels), heavy bar food, and whatever-the-fuck the venues or festivals feel like providing us with. It's a full-0n culinary crap shoot.

Not to complain- some of this "regular" food is perfectly edible, and in some cases can be quite tasty (never hesitate to order the Filet if you happen to be playing the Canyons Ski Resort in Park City, UT- the promoter pays for that shit!). However, by-and-large we find ourselves indulging in a somewhat "unhealthy" diet and must constantly look at what is offered to us with the utmost skepticism. Sometimes it's better to not eat at all.. (Have you ever been offered vegan porridge by a hippie at 10am after a night of heavy post-show drinking? I sure hope not...)

So it is with eager appetites that we arrive each time we play in Jersey, knowing that no matter how good or bad the gig is, we will be well-fed rock musicians for that one night... Thank you Tom & Diane!

Sleeping in the Yard

Hunting down a good-night's sleep on the road can only happen with either a bag full of money or a solid friend within a drivable distance in the wee-hours of the morning. All-nighters are generally avoided whenever possible, but let's all be honest here- engaging in the fruitless pursuit of one's boyhood dreams is a life fraught with less-than-ideal sleeping patterns and a general abuse of the body. Getting a proper-evening's rest is even more unlikely playing at a festival- especially if the event is being held at a location that is considered "off-the-grid" or "remote". Unless you're in a band that is fortunate enough to own a tour bus, or you're lucky enough to be an artist of a stature that commands top-tier lodging scenarios (we're talking stand alone trailers the size of small houses and helicopters if you play in Umphrey's McGee), festival accommodations might just consist of something like this:

-A small "artist camping" site. Although this small plot of alloted land is only about the size of two mid-size cars and is situated among 50 similarly tiny camps, you stack 'em in like sardines- inviting a dozen or so friends to set up camp with you in order to ensure that the right attitude prevails for this four-day clusterfuck. Did we mention that Camp Big Light is within earshot of a four-day-in-a-row, white-knuckle kickball game that arrives with every sunrise and where it's very common to see marauding gangs of fur-cad adults both on the field and on the sidelines experimenting with all sorts of weird powders and tinctures until 9AM? Welcome to your life: communal showers, no sleep, tons of furry shit, and a never-ending quest for ice. Earplugs, Tylenol PM, camping chair, and plenty of Jameson are all highly recommended.