August 2013 Newsletter August 28th

Get Off The Couch (Lee + Steve)

Wise Fool's Pub

w/Miles Nielsen

Ace Reporter

Nine Miles West

Facebook



September 14th

The Hideout

w/Panoramic and True

Bobcat Williams

Facebook Click Ryan to buy, buy, buy! Bandcamp moonerband.com Facebook Twitter Email YouTube Mooner sub-Reddit It's been a busy August and we've got no Mooner newsletter to show for it. Our patient subscribers have now gone nearly an entire month without a centralized information depot from which they can mine fountains of data from Chicago's nicest rock band. Truthfully, there isn't a lot to talk about. We played three shows this month with a fourth on the way, we released a single and got a new guitarist. Okay, I guess that is all actually important. SHOWS

Shows: they were good and there were a lot of them. Two rock n' roll shows at two venues that we love (Lincoln Hall and Martyrs) bookended by two acoustic shows at little places in Chicago. Our first show was a Lee and Steve Songwriters' Night at Steve's apartment. As you can see in the picture below, Steve's apartment has a nice little alcove that makes for a good stage. His roommates were kind enough to move all the furniture into the adjacent room and everyone sat on couches and listened to un-amplified songs from a bunch of dudes. Steve and I tried out three new songs. Our buddies Dann Morr and The Film Society played their own stuff and Steve played some stuff from his Youngest Son moniker and broke everyone's hearts with his pretty songs. Photo by Dan Saunders The release show was on the 17th at Lincoln Hall, a Saturday, which is a big deal for us in two ways. One, it was a weekend at a venue that we honestly didn't think we had a shot at playing and, two, we released a single that we are really excited about and that we'd been sitting on for a while. We also had--and still do have--download cards designed by collaborator and friend Frankenspace. I was able to hand one out to a guy that works at Chicago Recording Company like a business card because I'm a pro, Mom! The Lincoln Hall experience was actually even better than I thought it could be. They had interns move things from our cars, they had complimentary coffee by the stage and they had one of those blade-less circle room fans in the band room. We met some cool people and all our friends came and I don't think we sold anything but we had fun.



The Martyrs' show was the next weekend and the bill was monumental. Bruce, the talent buyer at Martyrs, for some reason allowed me to book a weekend night at his fine venue despite Mooner's track record of bringing few people. I invited Drose from Ohio and The Cell Phones from Chicago to join the bill. The Cell Phones were a math-y melodic punk band with just an acoustic bass, drummer and frontwoman. Their frontwoman Lindsey was celebrating her birthday and had way more fun than anyone in the room. Drose made me cry, they were so good. I cried twice, actually. I think Taylor's dad liked them. Please listen to Drose.



Something I learned from playing two high-end-ish venues and two bars/DIY venues this month: the show is what you make it. As great as the service and sound was at Lincoln Hall I was found myself a little dissapointed at the end of the night. Why weren't more people there? Why didn't we sell anything? I had this idea that Lincoln Hall's pristine reputation amongst musicians and audiences alike meant that the house would be pretty full and all sorts of strangers that may have never seen us play before would be in the room and would "discover" us. That's how it works, right? People just wander in from the street because there's a rock show and it's Saturday. I expected a little bit of slack, a free handout. Thanks to my Protestant upbringing, I'm slavishly whipping the cat-o-nine-tails on myself for expecting the hard work to be done by anyone other than the band. Mooner doesn't do outright horribly with draw--we brought about 20 to Lincoln Hall--but I know that nearly everyone that was there received a personal invitation from someone in the band. I know that the only time we sold shirts is when I practically wept about it on stage. As awesome as it is to finally get on a nicer stage, no one is going to do your work for you. No one is going to give more of a damn than you. This rule pretty much holds true until... well, I don't know when because Dave Grohl, who has a giant chandelier in his studio, has said the same thing. Managing expectations is one of the more challenging and puzzling aspects of this job. GET OFF THE COUCH

AUGUST 28TH Speaking of work I'm here to sell you on an event tomorrow evening called Get Off The Couch. Not that it needs much selling because Rick Nielsen's son Miles Nielsen is headlining. It's a Nashville style songwriter circle where four songwriters take their turns playing a few songs each and talking about them. So, if you're at all familiar with the television show Nashville, well, it's exactly like that. Divorce, alcoholism, Connie Britton, the whole nine yards. Sam Wahl and Richard Cole run the thing and they are two guys who really, really like music and singer-songwriters. They are what we in the business call "good people." Steve and I will be doing special acoustic and guitar versions of our songs, including some new ones that we've been messing around with live this month. Richard Cole made this weird and awesome trailer:



See you there! We'll be back with Mooner Record Club #5 next month. Thanks for being you.



-Lee