Era Escape

Spring is in the air

eraescape — Mon, 09 May 2011 05:07:42 +0000

Hey friends,

I am currently typing this from the recording studio, listening to Dashiell lay down some smooth vocal tracks. This our last tracking session for next three-song CD and we extremely excited – it’s sounding great!

I know we’ve been awfully quiet, but we aren’t dead! We’ve got some big stuff in the works. Firstly, some big shows to announce for this summer. Secondly, we’ve been hard at work polishing up some new songs. Thirdly, there’s that CD I mentioned to look forward to. This one’s gonna have artwork and everything.

We’ve also got some fun summer shows booked for y’all with our good friends Endroit. According to my sources, this might shape up to be a sort of mini-tour… details to be announced soon! Either way we’ll have copies our new EP in hand for you!

Until next time, space cadets

Working hard

Michael — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:32:29 +0000

It’s been a while since we posted here; I guess we’re more into the Facebook thing these days. Oh well.

We’ve been hard at work recording three new songs with our awesome engineer Kevin Proctor. Ben and Michael got some great drum and bass takes a couple weeks ago, and yesterday Ian did some guitar work. It’ll be a couple months before the recordings are ready, but it will definitely be worth it!

We also did a little video and recording session the other weekend at Ian’s mom’s house. We played some toned-down versions of our songs that we’ll be sharing as soon as we manage to buy a Firewire cable to transfer the video off of the camera. Funny how the little things always take the longest.

And finally, I’ve been working on a new version of our website that we’ll be launching in a couple weeks. Dashiell’s friend Matt has been giving us a bunch of graphic design help, and he and I spent a couple hours last night hammering out the new layout. It’s gonna look awesome!

Love, Michael

5 Days Away…

dashiellworfolk — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 02:18:04 +0000

Check it out!

Our next show, (March 5 at Kimo’s), is fast approaching and we couldn’t be more excited. Why? One, because we are showcasing two new, amazing Era Escape originals. Two, we are finally returning to one of our favorite SF music venues, Kimo’s (on a Saturday!). Lastly, we’ll be marketing some gorgeous new Era Escape merch.

And as always, we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeves, including a guest singer and secret cover song we’ll be performing.

Get the full details of the show through our Facebook page.

See everyone there!

-Dashiell

New Threads

eraescape — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:50:57 +0000

Check it out! Our t-shirts came! We hope you like pink. The logo was generously produced by our good friend Matt, who’s somehow fallen into the role of Official Band Graphic Designer.

In other news, over the past month everyone in the band has been sick at one point or another. It started with Dashiell the week before our Bottom of the Hill show. Next was Ben, who started feeling under the weather the night of our show! By the following week when we played our shows in Fremont and Cupertino Michael had also succumbed to the plague, and Dashiell was still on the mend.

Despite being surrounded by diseased band mates I somehow emerged from this period unscathed. I was safe! Or so I thought – until I caught whatever it was that my girlfriend had. Luckily the worst was over quickly. I spent the last few days hacking and coughing but I’m back in fighting condition now, ready to fight the good fight for science fiction rock.

On the lighter side of recent events, I got a new amp! It was a steal on ebay, in pristine condition, untouched since its original purchase in 1993. You’ll hear it in action at our next show, details of which we’ll be announcing real soon! We promise not to get you sick.

-Ian

Long time no post

Michael — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 03:29:18 +0000

Things have been crazy out here in outer space, so our apologies for the lack of posts recently. January was really a big turning point for the band. At the beginning of the month, Dashiell sang his first show as lead singer, and we all agreed that he was pretty awesome. It feels great to finally have a stable lineup. Next, Bottom of the Hill was our biggest show yet – there were 150 people there! We played with two great bands, DownDownDown and Tokyo Raid. We rounded out the month with a show last Friday at the Fremont Teen Center, where we played with an awesome band called The Relay Company, and then Saturday night in Cupertino with 7 (!!!) bands, including our old favorites Monstrauss.

Needless to say, after all that rock, we needed to take a breath. So on Sunday, we had a band meeting to chart out the next couple months for Era Escape. We are going to be real busy! We’re working on 4 new songs, including one featuring a female singer. Ian ordered t-shirts and stickers, and Dashiell’s dad is going to make us an awesome wood engraving for our merch table. Dashiell’s going to record vocals for the demo we released in December, bringing our sound up-to-date on the recording. Ben’s roomate will hopefully do lights for us at our next show. And Ben is getting our logo printed on a drum head! How awesome will that be?

And guess what? You’re going to be able to see all this amazing stuff, plus a few more surprises, at our next show. It’s gonna be on Saturday, March 5th, at Kimo’s. That’s right – a weekend show! You have to come. It’s going to be the best ever. (I know, I always say that, but it’s always true.)

Love, Michael

Awesome shows, a demo, and big changes

Michael — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 21:34:52 +0000

The two shows last week were so good! We had a blast playing with our new keyboard player Dashiell, and really enjoyed sharing a bill with awesome bands like Lite Brite and Fights Without Fears Within. We were also excited to release our demo! Check it out here. Finally, the long-rumored departure of Jonas is finally at hand. We’ll miss him, but everybody’s excited that Dashiell will be stepping up as lead singer.

We’ve got a San Jose show coming up on Saturday, January 8th. If you live down in those parts, put it on your calendar!

Sushi & Nonprofit

eraescape — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:38:03 +0000

So this past Saturday on the way to band practice Michael received a call. It was one of his buddies who was in need of some live entertainment for a benefit dinner in West Oakland. Somehow Era Escape ended up there playing instrumental acoustic versions of our songs, plus a couple of improvised jams:

Who knew our songs worked at background music? Certainly not us. Fun times were had, much sushi was consumed, and many funds were raised to benefit a Latin American artist.

So we’re still hard at work finishing the CD. We spent another sleepless night this week mixing in the wee hours of the morning.

Kevin hard at work in the Alan Parsons studio

Ian falling asleep/intently listening to a mix

Judging, scrutinizing, evaluating

Bad news is it’s not quite done yet. Good news is that it’s SO CLOSE to being done and will be in your hands Wednesday, December 1st no matter how many more nights of lost sleep.

Have a great Thanksgiving! See you this coming Wednesday at El Rio.

CD Release Show

eraescape — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 05:49:44 +0000

Hey! So we were just saying how we were recording a CD. Well it’s about done! Tomorrow we’ll be pulling an all-nighter mixing the tracks until the wee hours of the morning. This means that you, yes YOU, will get to hear our brand new tracks recorded with our awesome new lineup. I don’t know about you, but we’re pretty excited about this. To vent our uncontrollable excitement, we going to be having a party to celebrate!

Our CD release party will be held December 1st at El Rio, 3158 Mission St in San Francisco. Helping us to celebrate will be Lite Brite, an awesome band all the way from Michael’s hometown of Sacramento as well as one more awesome band that we’ll announce in due time. All attendees will not only receive a FREE copy of our 3 song CD but also a tasty cupcake. Would it really be an Era Escape show without dessert?

We’ve got a couple more awesome surprises to announce concerning this show. Keep checking back for updates!

We Recorded a Demo

eraescape — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:39:38 +0000

I traveled an hour into the past this weekend and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Why am I awake at at 4 in the morning? Oh well, better to tell you about something:

So lately we’ve been putting a lot of time into something pretty exciting – we recorded a CD! Not only did we record new songs with our lineup of Ben, Michael, Ian, and Jonas for the first time, but this is also the most professional recording any of us have ever done. Over the summer, a student at Ex’pressions offered us the chance to record with him. As a result, we’ve been able to work in a fancy shmancy studio:

Wow! Look at all those shiny knobs and buttons! We did the majority of recording in a single eight hour session from 8pm to 4am on a Friday night. Many energy drinks were consumed.

We did three of our newest and strongest songs. It’s not not quite finished yet – we still have a mixing and mastering session left to go. We’ve had a blast so far working on it with Kevin, our engineer and the guy who hooked us up. Thanks to him, we got the chance to say things like “Let me hear that back in the control room”

That’s us waving our hands in the air like we just don’t care. We had that reaction when we heard the tracks. If you want to get down in a similar fashion and hear what caused us to wave our arms so, then you need a copy of our cd. Check back with us tomorrow and we’ll tell exactly WHERE you need to be and WHEN you need to be there to get your hands on a copy of our demo. See you then!

Baseball? Huh?

eraescape — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:10:57 +0000

Greetings to all you lonely late-night cyberspace surfers! It’s about time we updated this here blog. We try hard to keep everyone abreast of our science fiction rock happenings but sometimes it’s tough with our busy lives and numerous projects. Still, that’s no excuse!

So a lot of exciting stuff to update everyone about:

First, we had a great time a couple weeks ago at Kimo’s! Glass Elevators and the Clarences rocked. It’s always nice meeting new people. Glass Elevators are on the road from Olympia, WA promoting a record they just independently released – inspiring! If you came and stayed we really appreciate it – we know these thursday night rock shows keep a lot of you up past your bedtime. Here are some pictures from that hot, sweaty evening:

Holy cutoffs, batman! Now, some of you might be scratching your heads. “But wait!” you exclaim. “Merely two posts ago you bade farewell to Jonas. What the heck is he still doing in your band?” Good question! Here’s the full story, space cadets: a couple months ago Jonas announced his desire to gracefully retire from Era Escape. We have since been searching for worthy Jonas replacement, but no one has yet lived up to our high standards. Fortunately, Jonas has agreed to stay on part time to keep the wheels on our rock machine a-turnin’ until we get squared away with the right singer. Jonas has also been helping out with something besides live shows:

Maybe some of you smarter readers can guess what we’re up to! We’ll tell you all about it soon enough. Stay tuned for big updates! Until next time, space cadets.

-Ian