Darling Ones,

    Willie Cry Records is pleased to announce that American Darlings, a new band from Brooklyn, New York, has just signed on board the label.  For those who are fans of bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur, Jr., Weezer and just classic, loud and melodic rock, then you should hop over to the Willie Cry site, scope out their bio page, and check out their two EP's, which, by the way, they are passing out to their beloved fans as a free download.  So go and check out some new New Yorkness over there.  Here, I'll make it easy for you and provide a link you can follow:  AMERICAN DARLINGS

      Hopefully, they'll be putting out a full-length album before long.

      Damn, it's a conscientious exercise posting a blog on a regular weekly basis.  It seems simple, but it's deceptive.  OK, in reality, it's not too hard, but in unreality, which is where a lot of our thought processes take place, it is hard.  It's easy for me to have scruples- everybody promoting themselves all the time, all the time.  I don't want this to be viewed that way.  This is hopefully a shout out of variety, sometimes short, sometimes long.  Sometimes it's just a story, or randomness, or it's something perhaps of interest you can go and scope out, maybe get a freebie.  True, some things are for sale, too.  

      I admit that I like the magic capabilities of computers, but I also like to give my eyes and brain a break from the staring light of them that has come to encompass society now and look into other things. Every now and then, I can see faces in practically everything I look at, and they seem to have some sort of soul embedded in them.  I know I'm not crazy, because I can show them to other people.  

     I still plan to do the majority of anything I write in notebooks, and then type it.  There's less distractions there, no icons to click on.  It feels like holding time in your hands, or just being a time traveler from an ancient world that wasn't so long ago.  Also, you don't have the pressure of knowing that several people will be reading what you write almost immediately, so it feels somehow more personal, and you can go over it and choose to share it or not at a later time.  Well, all of these styles and ways of doing things have their own pros and cons, I think.  Here I am dabbling in these various techniques.  What's the point?  I feel like I know a lot of people, but I don't really know that many of them very well anymore, if I ever did, but there's just some desire there somewhere to connect.  Is it called being human?

     So as much as I like the idea of doing a regular column, I also dislike the whole predictability of it.  But if you change that word to "consistency", I don't mind.  And then again, what's wrong with being predictable?  You can "predict" that someone's going to try and do something they like to do.  And by now, words can become vague and near meaningless.

    Part of me doesn't want to expose anything personal on a regular basis, the other wants to be all revealed, all exposed, brought to the light, and to be exposed.  Which side will win? I'll think about that for a bit.  

    And this isn't supposed to be all about me, even though I am writing it.  Questions, anyone?

P.S. though we've been slow to make a Facebook page and the whole "Like" thing is kind of silly, I suppose having a page could come in handy when we're out touring around.  They have some silly rule that you have to have 20 likes before you can get your personal address- so if you're just, like,  really, like, feeling like "liking" something today, go to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Gardes/211136425574471

It's a work-in-progress.

New movie released-

The Gardes present: ? the movie: Only An Impression vol. 2

now available here

Also available as download-to-own or download-to-rent

A musical mystery directed by Alexander Anonymous- a P.I. who calls himself Bob Dean is hired to find out who is behind the spray-painted question marks and other graffiti around the city and soon finds himself on a hunt to find out about the elusive Frank Lava, questioning his existence and discovering the self-portrait of Frank Lava, hot on the trail of the Gardes. Featuring Bubba Keltch as Bob Dean and starring Brett Horton, Aaron Siemers, Tanner Blair, Victoria & Ola Orlowski, Cate Kelly, Andy Smith, Aaron Frisby, Josh Coombs, Danny Edwards, Joel Hibbs, Joshua Smith, Shaun Buller, Jarrod Chisum, Brad Hayes, Brian Hopkins, Justin Castro and maybe even you!

songs by Horton and/or Siemers and friends AKA the gardes

also music by Django Reinhardt

courtesy of JSP Records

Finally, this movie is out of the hatch, battle scars and all, and it is also available through Amazon as a hard copy DVD. It is also available as a download-to-rent or download-to-own via Amazon Video on Demand.  One questionable thing about this film is that if you type in "? the movie" in search engines, it won't show up, as in Amazon... so you need to type in "Only An Impression vol. 2" and there you will find it.  Just as "The Gardes" doesn't show up in the search engine of Youtube.  But one thing all of these silly gooses running around chasing fame seem to forget is that being invisible certainly does have its advantages at times.  Just ask Harry Potter.

And another thing to keep in mind is that it's best to listen to it LOUD, like being at the IMAX, for being a low budget film as it is, there are a few actors who mumble a line from time to time, and it may be a bit integral to whatever plot is transpiring.  Sure, if it was given the Hollywood treatment, it could be polished a bit, perhaps with a touch of ADR (Audio Dialogue Replacement) here and there, and in certain parts, this was intended to be, yet there was a jam with the digital file.  Maybe we'll re-release it sometime and correct the few mutterings, but when we test-screened it in a movie theatre, everything was quite alright.  Enjoy!

Eight-Sixteen-Eleven

Here are the upcoming Gardes shows.  We hope to see you along the way.

9-2-11    The Gardes  w/ The Gussissin @ VZD's, Oklahoma City, OK, 10 pm

9-6-11    The Gardes  @ Quixote's,  Denver, CO, 10 pm

9-10-11  The Gardes  @ Music Millennium, Portland, OR, 5 pm

9-14-11  The Gardes  @ El Corazon,  Seattle, WA, 7:30 pm

9-16-11  The Gardes  live on Mutiny Radio, San Francisco, CA, 4 pm

9-18-11  The Gardes  @ Brainwash, San Francisco, CA, 8 pm

9-23-11  The Gardes  @ Cowgirl BBQ, Santa Fe, NM, 5 pm

Looking very much forward to this and getting things ready.

Going on a Sonic Youth bender right now, just acquired a batch of some long lost albums from my collection and some I've never had in my possession.  Also, Spin Magazine is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind, and they're giving away a free download of a tribute album.  A different artist for each song offers their own rendition of a song from that album.  Meat Puppets and the Vaselines pay back the favor.  It brings it back in a fresh way, and now I remember how much I loved that one (and I still do).

Get it here:  Spin Magazine's Newermind tribute album

Cheers, mates.

                                

                   "If You've Seen One, You've Seen Them All" is a collection of paintings and drawings by

Aaron Frisby and Todd Golnick

with a foreword by Brett Horton

order here 

Unroll the Scroll, Put the Rubber Band Around Your Wrist

My friend and I used to talk in our notehand class, so we got separated,
but we developed our own kind of notehand.  We called them "illegal
notes," and they consisted of a tiny torn piece of notebook paper that we
wadded up into a tight, wee little ball, and when the teacher wasn't looking,
we'd throw them across the room at each other.  They were usually just
random one liners or doodles with captions to make us laugh, and that's
how we got one over on the system, because laughter is a good form of
medicine.  They were way better than text messages, because we got to
aim and throw and be stealth about it.

Now look where it's gotten me.  Writing Notes From The Studonym to you,
and trying to keep it up on a weekly basis, like trying to turn homework in
on time.

For those in OKC on Sept. 2nd, the Gardes (an alternate version of) will be playing
at VZD's with the Gussissin.  Come on out.

Should be an experience of some sort.  The line-up on this particular night will be like the previous show, except we'll have Dereck Hecksher filling in on the drums.   

There will be a stripped-down duo version of the Gardes heading to do some dates along the west coast after this:  Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, we shall see.  We were hoping to have more of the band along and make it fuller, but, in all honesty, when it comes to this band or idea of a band: a) we don't have a van or anything like that   b) our bass player doesn't own a bass... yet.  c) our drummer that's playing this show with us is his first time playing live with us... and we've never played with him before, period, but we're not too worried  d) previous players have spread out to different parts of the country, and they have a real job and/or go to school full time because the music business is terrible.  e) one of our ilk was originally intended to meet up and go with us on the west coast, but is now being sent to Detroit at the same time- bad timing.  f) we thought we'd go ahead and hijack the name (not really) since we just put out an album, it's getting some favorable reviews (read latest review here), we're getting booked, we wanted to go on a road trip, so we'll just duo it up, and maybe next time we'll be fully formed or maybe we'll always be this higgledy-piggledy. (I don't think I've ever used that word, especially while talking out loud.  Am I turning British?)  Maybe we'll do more tour rounds and come fully formed.  I don't remember if I wrote this before, but if anyone's ever confused like me about what the Gardes is or who is in it, then I'll say, though I always wanted a steady group, and we've had some steady runs for certain periods, if you've ever been a comic book nerd or are familiar with it, then, as a group, we're kind of ever-changing like the X-Men.  

      Other than that, the website seems to have hit puberty.  

      More soon.