1. Thought is Boss |
BACKYARD BABYLON: LIVE IN QUEENS credits: Recorded on July 4th 2008 in the backyard of Grandma's Studio in Queens, NYC. Recorded and mixed by Steve "HB" Perski. Mastered by Rob Gonnella at New Alliance East in Cambridge MA. Cover art by Marc Beaudette. |
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notes: In the summer of '08 we embarked on our first tiny tour down the East Coast. We only had a little over a week, so we hit as many cities as possible, including Boston, Hartford, Philly, NYC, DC, Raleigh NC, and Fairfax VA. The final date was on July 4th, where we threw a BBQ/backyard party at Those Guyz crib (ThoseGuyz= HB, Brian, & Icerocks, aka our producing/engineering team) in Astoria Queens. It was a dark, overcast day, and we had very little time to prepare for this recording. We literally played on grass, in the rain, and to a small crowd of people playing Beirut & grilling. By the time we were done playing the 2.5 hour set, we had people on roof tops all around the neighborhood. We had no intention of recording a serious live album, and this release is true to our live show- one take, no overdubs, fuck-ups and all. Before we left for the short road trip, we learned a shit-ton of covers, knowing that we wouldn't want to play the same songs night after night (and it was much quicker to learn a cover than an original). We played a total of 10 covers, outweighing the number of originals by one song. We thought we had played almost every song we knew- but it turns out we somehow didn't play a single song off our first record. We have a tendency to put songs on the back burner once we release a new album... we apologize to the "old school" fans. The album was released on election day 08, and we feel strongly that it had a huge impact on Obama's win... All in all we are happy with the performance, and are ready to switch gears to focus on our next studio album (and can finally lay off the presidential bashing). |
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