MP Year in Review

Happy holidays everybody!

Aught five was a good year for the Motor Primitives community. As our second year in existence comes to a close we'd like to express our love & affection for you...Our appreciation...OUR DOWN RIGHT JOY that you have been a part of our rockin' family! Don't get too misty now! But we DO mean it!!!!

We played 15 shows in 14 different venues about town. We had the pleasure of sharing the bill with several fantastic performers too. Dirt Floor Collective, The Apologists, Ka-Boom! Box, Josh Harty and Scag48 come to mind.

This has been a year of "firsts" for the Motor Primitives.

We played for the first time on WORT's Hootenanny for one of Dr. Dave Zero's last broadcasts. That was a blast!

We played our first large outdoor music festivals (Atwood Summerfest, Orton Park Festival). As it turns out, playing on a black stage in the middle of an asphalt parking lot, at high noon, in August gets, well, pretty HOT! It's actually comforting to think about that as we look out our windows and see a thin layer of snow on the ground.

Our first album was released in June of 2005 and was met with glowing reviews. A couple of the reviewers even expressed interest and anticipation for what we might do for our "next project."

But enough about the past! The year two thousand and six is breathing down our necks. Feels kinda good, don't it. We promise to keep on rockin' and urge you to stay tuned for more shinanigans!

And to our dearest elbow dancers - Keep those elbows polished and at the ready!!!!!

Best wishes for the coming new year,

PAMKATROBINMAT

Island Life

Livin A Dream

We cut our new EP this weekend with Wendy at Coney Island. I think Kat describes it best as "the sound I have always imagined us having." We are all pretty excited about this. The recording process went smoothly. Wendy is FABULOUS! It's cold on the Island during winter and this was one cold ass weekend. We did a lot of work with coats and hats on. Does that mean the tracks will be slow like molasses? Hell no! Kripes Pam had to put the brakes on over and over again because I was rushing the tracks. Must have been the Rockstar and Cottage Cafe pancakes. We brought Adam Powell in early Saturday to play his freaky Moog synth on Sundown. This was exciting because Adam and his wife are expecting their second child on this very weekend. Adam looked like Schoeder from Peanuts bent over his little synth tweaking knobs and pushing keys. The sound is freakin awesome!

Sunday we struggle to finish and fail. Just too many good ideas and intentions. Decide to take some rough mixes home, ponder the meaning of life and if we really need those wood-block sounds in Sundown and resume in 06. Our goal is a late January release and shouldn't be a problem. We all escape to Ellie's Solstice party for warm drink and good FOOD!

Splash down!

All tracking is done and we have a rough mix in hand!

Some of my favorite things:
QUOTE - "You're harshin' my mellow!"
FOOD - Cheese puffs
ENTERTAINMENT - Kat and Matteo Piano duets
FOOD - Pasta salad
FUEL - Chocolate covered espresso beans

Some of my NOT favorit things:
Bar chords over and over again.
No sun.
Turning the heat off so that the blower isn't picked up by the vocal mic.

Final mixing is set for early January.

Blast off!

Geez, it's cold in space!

Our first day of recording at Coney Island went well. We started at 5pm and went to 10pm. The first couple of hours were spent getting the drums mic'd and tweaking the tones on the amps. The room has wonderfully lively atmosphere that I think will come across well on the recording, but, if you ain't doin' nothin' it's frrrrrrEEEeeeeezing!

We started recording Canopy. I made an attempt to establish the tempo of the song by listening to a click track prior to starting and then having it turned off once we all started. My discovery? I Can't keep to a click track to save my life.

Day two begins in T minus 3 hours and 2 minutes!

Stu, stu, studio!

Hello weekend!!!

T minus 60 minutes and counting! We're heading into the studio again. We've got 20 hours and 5 songs to record/overdub/mix.

Can we do it?

Stay tuned...

Get in the van

Little did we know when we showed up at the Klinic Friday night that we were in for such a time...

When I dropped off posters there earlier in the week the place was just shredded. Walls were missing, paint fumes filled the air, the stage was covered with power tools. Friday didn't look much better. They had some new toys now tho. New lights and a fog machine were the pride of the club. "A maple dance floor with pole is coming!" says the gleeful proprietor. We are not talking about a couple of cans hanging from the ceiling here. We're talking about spinning laser beams and a big bright spot that are directed from the soundboard. The fog was kinda nasty I gotta say. I have no clue what they use for that effect, but with the smokers and the fog, I felt absolutely toxified that night. I think Pam did a great job of describing the "vibe" of the evening, but one detail she neglected was that the best light show of the night had nothing to do with the Klinics new toys, but went on outside the club after the show.

Back in 81 when we got our first band van, one simple joy we got out of the acquisition was that somehow we would now be privy to people having sex in their cars because suddenly we were taller than most vehicles on the road. Don't ask me why this was significant, but let me just say that we were young mens and we spent REALLY long boring hours on the road so even the slightest hint of excitement on tour sent our pea-brains into fantasyland. Well damnit! We never saw anyone getting a hummer on the highway! Never a glimpse of 69 on route 69! Such a simple request and yet we were denied. It seems we were looking in the wrong place the whole time. Yes, people are having sex in their cars, but not on the road. It's in the parking lot after the show.

All the gear is broken down on the stage, the excitement of the set and nic-fits have passed, but the work is not done. Time to load-out. The Klinic has a door backstage that leads right into their small parking lot. There are construction materials and piles of snow everywhere so a tiny path is all there is to get from the door to the van. Parked right on that path is Buick with a young couple having sex. Kat spies this and refuses to go out there. Robin does not care. He has a job to do and no one is going to stop him. The young lady in the car had a job to do too and she ain't gonna quit either! Wierdest damn scene ever. We are walking past this car over and over again with armloads of gear, the guy is thrashing around like he's getting sucked off by freakin shop-vac and the whole time the brake lights on the car and going ballistic on-off-on-off-on. Needless to say we got the van loaded and got outta there asap, but they were still going at it when we left. On-off-on-off-on

Those guys from the Klinic should really look into these two as light operators. Their light show was far superior to the laser/spot combination they just paid thousands for.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Mixing Don Ho & toilet paper

What a fantastic day December 9th was! End of the work week and two performances!! Our first show was at WORT on the Hootenanny. We had 30 minutes to give it our all on one of Dave Zero's final shows as DJ extraordinare. The room was brimming with energy. We've been told that we put on a great show though I haven't heard a replay for myself yet.

Next up, the Klinic Bar. We've played there twice before and both times, we brought in a big crowd. We've had a little trouble with a couple of our fans getting hastled by the doorman. I figured, if I stick close to the door, we might be able to avoid any problems before they arise. As I sat at the bar, I noticed the four people at table behind me were smoking. I glanced down the bar and saw at least three more people with cigs lit up. This wouldn't be an issue except for the fact that, Madison bars are now smoke free (by ordinance) and we had fans coming to the show that work in city government.

NOTE: If you're gonna be a scoff-law, fine by me, that's your business. But, do it up front, let me know, and I won't bother booking shows at your establishment. I'm not looking for trouble.

So I tell the bartender (a very nice lady, BTW) that folks from the city are likely to show up tonight. She thanks me for the info and attempts to get people to stop smoking inside. Everybody pretty much ignores her, including the doorman and the sound guy.

In the meantime, I have been noticing that the doorman has been letting people enter the bar without paying the cover throughout the night.

About ten of our fans show up after eating dinner across the street. The first two people notice the smoke and ask the doorman what's up. They then ask to talk to the manager. The manager comes up and says, "there's no one smoking here." Mind you, I've been sitting at the bar watching people smoke. There's an ash tray sitting on one of the table littered with cig butts. But, the manager is trying to tell my friends that the smoke is wafting in from outside because there's a large number of people standing outside smoking. So I step outside with the manager so that he can make his point. Of course, the only people standing outside are our fans waiting to get in, not smoking. So, tired of being lied to by the manager, our fans leave. The manager didn't realize that one of the people he'd been lying to was my husband. Once I told him my spouse was among the group of people he chased away, he asked me to call him, have him come back and that he would try to keep people from smoking. I was able to convince my husband to come back but we lost at least a dozen people that night (friends calling other friends and making arrangements to meet elsewhere).

meanwhile, people kept getting let in without paying the cover.

Some basic facts:
1. We had two sets worked up in addition to the opening band (enough music to cover the entire evening)
2. People kept smoking throughout the evening.
3. Cover collected at the door was $205. $70 went to the sound guy. $68 to the other band. $67 to us.
4. There were at least 70 people there that night. Do the math -- at least 29 people got in for free.

Should we stay or should we go? We've never missed a show. We've never cancelled, failed to show or otherwise missed an obligation. But, I wanted to pack up and leave. Seeing how our fans were treated and realizing that we were getting shorted at the door I felt very little obligation. Our dilemma was that many of our fans did stay despite the problems I've already mentioned.

The end result: We shortened our performance to one set, rocked people out of their seats (elbow dancing was crazy!) and started packing up. When we finished the set the one bartender asked me "Is that all you've got?" I told him "No, but that's all we're doing."

To our friends and fans: We are sorry. In the future, we will try very hard not to book shows at venues that will disrespect you!

PS-If you want to know what Don Ho and toilet papter have to do with anything, you'll have to ask me in person.