I am really proud to announce that the first new Mono Vs Stereo release comes out today! Matty T and I have been placed in charge of signing bands to the label and I can’t think of a better possible first release than our buds in Deas Vail and their amazing new record Birds And Cages. Unfortunately we were not able to be a part of the recording process because we signed them after the recording was completed (although Matt does make a guest vocal appearance), but our good friend and my dad-in-law Mark Townsend produced the record and it sounds great (he also produced our new album). I am not only excited about these songs, but about the amount of great music these guys are going to continue to make. I have been a fan of this band since they put out their first record on Brave New World and I have been trying to put bugs in our friends ears about taking them on tour since then because they are a great live band. Wes is seriously one of the best singers that I have ever seen and it seems so effortless for him to be incredibly accurate. The band is out on tour with our friends Mae, who is a perfect fit for the band to tour with, and it seems like things are just lining up right now. They also have a tour in Jan/Feb with Owl City and Lights, which will be great!

I will talk about the record a little bit now. I am really pleased with the sequence of the album, Matt had some ideas that I would have never thought of and I really like how the album starts with a lot of energy. All the songs have so much depth and interesting things going on, it is definitely not an album you can just figure out on the first listen. But it is one you can enjoy on the first listen…although I think the more you listen to it, more and more tracks begin to stand out. One of my favorite things about the record are these little moments of songs that are really powerful and memorable. One of my favorites happens at the back half of the first track “The Things You Were”, everything cuts out except a little delay guitar and I just love the group vocals as well as Laura Beth singing more than on their earlier albums. The song “Excuses” is a great pop song that is actually interesting to listen to…I love the Americana rock feel of the verses. Followed by what is maybe my favorite song “Cages”. The ending on this song is so powerful, it was a big question of whether it should be the last track, but we really didn’t want it to get overlooked. Matt sings on “Birds”, which is a really cool song that features a cool old 60’s organ sound that reminds me of the The Never Ending Story or something like that. The album almost seems to unfold like a book or a children’s story, which goes perfectly with the artwork.

Some bands need to be in the right place at the right time to succeed (which is why there is so much bad music in the world), but I believe that Deas Vail is such quality music that it is just a matter of people hearing the record and giving them a chance. Please check it out.

buy the album for $7.99 on iTunes!

check out the band – listen to “Excuses” and check out their tour dates!

Something else, slightly off the subject that I have been talking about lately is how hard it is for one band to put out more than 2 great records. I mean, most bands have a few good records and then there are just 2 that are way better than the rest. It is really hard to get past that point. I think a greater number of older bands have been able to do it – The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, etc, but it seems hard to make a list of more than 10 bands that I like that have put out more than 2 great records. I don’t know exactly what makes this so hard, but let me know if you feel differently about this. You look at like Weezer, Radiohead, Foo Fighters, it is just really hard for me to say that they have more than 2 great albums.

Ok, just one more rant before I post my list. I recently heard from an unnamed source that (this person) doesn’t listen to Coldplay because they are the same thing as Nickelback, just vanilla radio crap. Are you serious? I just cannot respect this opinion, I feel like it is classic snobbery. Even if you said “I don’t like Coldplay”, I would say “cool, that is your opinion”, but to put them on the same level as Nickelback is just not correct. I never realized there was a negative backlash toward Coldplay, I thought everyone just liked them. I don’t think I realized this until I picked “Viva La Vida” as my favorite album of 2008 and most people disagreed. It was honestly a hard decision, and I was swayed by just seeing an amazing Coldplay concert, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is a great album and Coldplay is arguably one of the most consistently great bands of our time. All 4 of their albums are great in their own way, and none is obviously better than the others. I understand that people will always hate on what is popular, but Coldplay makes good music and I am not embarrassed to call myself a fan. (I would be embarrassed to call myself a fan of Nickelback, by the way), but enough about them…ha.

Here is my top 6 list, in alphabetical order, with my favorite album in parenthesis…

- David Bazan/Pedro the Lion (Control)

- Death Cab For Cutie (Transatlanticism)

- Denison Witmer (Of Joy And Sorrow)

- Jimmy Eat World (Clarity)

- The Get Up Kids (Something To Write Home About)

- Sufjan Stevens (Greetings from Michigan)

Also, I thought I would list a few links to what I am currently listening to. I feel like I get asked that question all the time, and I am never sure what to say. But here are a few things that I enjoy.

- David Bazan – Curse Your Branches – This is the only thing that I want to listen to all the time lately, I think it is brilliant. I don’t think that music needs to be theologically congruent because songs are feelings and ideas, not your life theology. And I really like to question things, and I like when other people do as well. I think it is the only way to really find out what you believe.

- Deas Vail - Birds And Cages (our first release on Mono Vs Stereo, coming out next week, more info to come)

- Mew – No More Stories Are Told – unbelievable album

- Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix – just too catchy

- The Rocketboys – 20,000 Ghosts – great band, I can’t wait to hear more from these guys

- Sherwood – QU – Good friends and I am so happy for them that this record turned out so great.

- We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls – I am normally not into thick accents in music, but I love the Scottish brogue and great songs, and guitar sounds…

anyway, let me know what you are listening to lately, as well as your all time favorites. Isn’t it cool that Owl City is blowing it up right now? I love that guy and I wish him the best. Have a wonderful day friends.

I am so glad that Stella loves music! She is an amazing singer.

]]> http://matthewhoopes.com/2009/10/22/a-few-favorites/feed/ 70 matthewhoopes Stella and a Steel Drum http://matthewhoopes.com/2009/10/06/bike-blog-nyc/ http://matthewhoopes.com/2009/10/06/bike-blog-nyc/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:06:48 +0000 Matthew Hoopes http://matthewhoopes.com/?p=74 ]]> I had a great day today. We had the day off and were lucky enough to spend it in New York City. I always really like coming to city. I like finding new places and seeing new things. It is really crowded, and dirty, and expensive, but I think the good outweighs the bad for the most part. I always get a surreal feeling when I am here, like life is not the same as everywhere else, but it isn’t necessarily bad. Today was also the first day that I have ever thought, “Hey, I could live here and it would be fun”. I think it was when I passed the third really nice looking park with a playground and saw all the kids playing and moms with their strollers, and it just seemed like families could exist here.

Our guitar tech James and I decided that it would be fun to ride bikes into the city. I was honestly a little nervous, mostly because people drive like maniacs in the city, but it ended up no being too bad. We also found a ton of bike lanes. I have been hearing about all the bike lanes that were being built, and there are actually a lot. Although some of the lanes on Broadway were not even useable because there are so many people, it would be like riding your bike through a crowded store, except they are all walking fast and looking down. I was really looking forward to using these bike lanes, but we ended up heading back to other roads because it was just so slow. We did get to stop though Times Square, which is not one of my favorite parts of the city, but I kind of wanted to see it since they closed it to traffic. It seemed still in a bit of transition, like just throwing a bunch of red tables out in the street doesn’t feel right, but I think taking away cars adds to the weird vibe of that place. We rode all the way in from Secaucus, NJ, where the bus was parked and it was only a few miles to the ferry across the Hudson River.

One thing I was really excited about was riding through Central Park. I have never really been able to spend much time in the park, and today we rode around the entire thing, which is something I have always wanted to do. It was s great ride and it really is a beautiful park. We got a really late start, and I had wanted to stop a few stores that friends had recommended and we never had time, but I am really happy we chose to head to the park first and I can’t wait to ride there again. I had hoped to see more crazy fixed gear bikes, but I hear you have to go to Williamsburg for that. I was also hoping to see John Prolly doing tricks or have bikesnobnyc make fun of my bike while it was locked somewhere…maybe next time.

Then we met some good friends for some good food and sushi. There are so many places to eat in New York City, that sometimes it is overwhelming to try to pick somewhere good. So we were glad to have some locals to show us around a little bit. After that we headed down to SoHo to see Sufjan Stevens at the Bowery Ballroom. I am so excited that we got to see him! It was such a random coincidence that we were even here when he was playing! The show was great, he played a lot of new songs, and many of them had a darker, almost haunted house feeling to them. Also a few of the new songs were electronic, with beats and keyboards, but as you would imagine, it still sounded very organic and interesting. He always uses such cool instruments, and I love the orchestration of pulling off the songs live. I was also glad to see my friend and one my favorite singers Denison Witmer. We got to hang out with him a few days ago in his hometown of Philadelphia, and it was cool to see him again so soon. I am such a fan, I have to try to hold myself back from asking questions all the time, but Denison is one of my favorite singer/songwriters of all time, I really want to put out some of his music on Mono Vs Stereo someday.

It was such a good day and I am beat tired, even though we took a cab home. Our cab driver was amazing though, he had an ipod and let us pick songs. I started out with an Almost song and then ended it out with a little Dr. Dre and Jay Z. It was a good night.

Amazon MP3 for $3.99!

Well, down to business first. If you are considering purchasing a digital copy, then I’d your best bet is to head over to amazon.com, where you can buy the entire album right now for only $3.99! This is for one day only – Monday, October 5th, which is also one day earlier than it will be available in stores. It will include a bonus track called “Terminals”, which is a fairly catchy little number, but just didn’t quite fit as far as becoming an official piece of the album. In addition to being sold at the usual places you can still find compact disc, we also plan to release an LP (vinyl) version, and I am personally really excited to see and listen to this album on vinyl because it just makes sense, with the packaging, as well as the recording. I am also so excited about the album cover. Matt’s uncle is an amazing painter and I am honored to use his work as the cover. I am really glad that once you open the packaging, that it doesn’t even say our band name on it, because it is an amazing piece of art.

There are so many things I could talk about the recording process, I will probably add some more information in later posts as I think of it. The first thing I always tell people when I talk about recording is that it was the most relaxed time that any of us have ever had in the studio. There were many late morning starts and early evening endings, which I think helped keep us from getting burned out. It was also great to work with Mark Townsend again (my father-in-law), who encouraged us to take breaks to play basketball, baseball, frisbee, and whatever other else we could do to get outside. But besides the easy schedule, there was just more of a laid-back attitude while we were recording, and I think it really helped that there was no pressure to impress anyone, or to stick to hard deadlines. We originally recorded the album to be released on Mono Vs Stereo, and RCA/Jive came on board just weeks before the release date. We are looking forward to working with them, but in a way it just made things easier to be on our own for the recording process.

One of the things I am most proud about is that we were somehow able to get the record mixed by Andy Wallace. He has done some severely incredible albums such Nirvana “Nevermind”, Jeff Buckley’s “Grace”, Thrice “The Artist In The Ambulance”, and Coldplay “Viva la Vida”. I really like his mixing style in that he doesn’t use a lot of modern day tricks, and tends to not over-compress, or add too many effects, rather just create a great balance of what was actually recorded. I am huge fan of this style, as I am sick of so many bands using over-produced slick records that are just all harsh and too loud and compressed.

On recording guitars, we took a little bit of a different approach. We really tried to not record too many guitar tracks, which is something that sometimes comes a little too easy for our band. But we didn’t go overboard on recording too many rhythm guitar tracks or using too many different multiple amps for each pass. I also made it a point to try to not use too many overdrive pedals, but to try to just use the amp’s natural gain structure as much as possible. I did end up use a variety of overdrives (mostly for overdubs), as well as boost pedals, which work well for driving low-wattage amps. It seemed like somewhere along the line, Mark noticed that it was becoming a very Fender guitar heavy record. I have used Les Pauls mainly on all of our previous records, but I really liked the attack and clarity from the singly coil Fender guitars. I have been really into the Jazzmaster and Telecaster (and Tele-Deluxe) lately. We used a lot of amps, but mainly a few old 50 watt Marshall heads and small class-A amps. My TopHat Vanderbilt, a Vox AC-15, and a Fender Deluxe Reverb seemed to be the favorites go-to amps. I am so excited about how the guitars sound on the recording, I feel like this is the most thought out that the sounds have ever been, because I really thought about each section and had an idea for what I wanted the guitars to sound like in each section, and many times we used what I thought would be best in my head.

Overall, we had such a fun time doing this record, and I will continue to update more dorky stuff like talking about my pedalboard setup and what kind of tubes I like to use what not… photos taken by our bud Cale.

• 10/1 New Haven, CT Toad’s Place
• 10/2 Philadelphia, PA Theatre of Living Arts
• 10/3 Farmingdale, NY Crazy Donkey
• 10/4 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club
• 10/6 Towson, MD Recher Theatre
• 10/8 Knoxville, TN Bijou Theatre
• 10/9 Charlotte, NC Amos’ Southland
• 10/10 Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse
• 10/11 Nashville, TN Rocketown
• 10/13 Chicago, IL House of Blues
• 10/14 Minneapolis, MN The Cabooze
• 10/15 Kansas City, MO Beaumont Club
• 10/16 Denver, CO Ogden Theatre
• 10/19 Dallas, TX Palladium Showroom
• 10/20 Houston, TX Warehouse Live
• 10/21 Midwest City, OK Rose State College
• 10/22 Tulsa, OK Cain’s Ballroom
• 10/23 Des Moines, IA People’s Court
• 10/24 St. Louis, MO The Pageant

The Original Three Hour Tour

]]> http://matthewhoopes.com/2009/09/25/a-three-hour-tour/feed/ 49 matthewhoopes Gilligan's Island http://matthewhoopes.com/2009/09/24/the-most-amazing-things-i-have-ever-seen-on-a-bike/ http://matthewhoopes.com/2009/09/24/the-most-amazing-things-i-have-ever-seen-on-a-bike/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:47:56 +0000 Matthew Hoopes http://matthewhoopes.com/?p=47 ]]> I really love riding bicycles. I got into it last summer when my wife bought me an amazing Dutch cruiser style bike. And then I bought a fixed gear track bike when we were out on warped tour. Now I almost always have my bike with me when we go on tour. I love the freedom of being able to leave and go explore cities on my own. I haven’t gotten into trick riding very much (although I am getting better at riding backwards), and normally I am not very interested in watching videos of people doing tricks, but this guy is special. This is some of the most interesting and innovative riding I have ever seen. I also love the Band of Horses song. I am not sure if it makes me want to learn how to do tricks, or just never even start, because I will never be close to this…anyway, more bike talk to come.

YouTube

We drove as close to the ocean as possible for most of the trip, which was really fun, but I had no idea how winding it would be. We took the 101 in Oregon, which turns into the famous HWY 1 (Pacific Coast) once you get into California. The views were amazing, and I wanted to be able to stop whenever we saw something interesting, so we never planned how far we would go each day. I loved the laid back nature of this trip. I was thinking that this was probably the first time in my life that I was not just trying to get somewhere as quickly as possible. Not only were we taking the scenic route, but it was more about the trip than the destination. the minivan was pretty comfortable and Stella watched movies on my computer. She did amazingly well on the trip…which was a pleasant suprise.

Are we there yet?

We also spent several hours at a different beach each day, which Stella loved (It makes more sense if you know her). There is so much sea life on the coast and it was amazing to find anemones, starfish, crabs, jellyfish, and clams. It also helped tire her out so we could get some driving done while she took a nap.

Late one night, we decided to veer off of the PCH to get on the 101 again heading inland, so we could go through the Redwoods National Park, and that spur of the moment decision was definitely a good one. The forests were so amazing, with trees that were over a thousand years old! There was a certain silence there, even near the road, like you were so far away from any other person, it is one of the only times in my life where I noticed the quiet. We stopped at a little touristy gift shop in the middle of nowhere that was actually in a hollowed out tree. It was pretty amazing, and the kid working there was wearing a Relient K shirt, what a small world…And Danielle loved it. She wants to move into this tree, and she says if she ever turns up missing, to look here first.

We followed the 101 straight through wine country, which was beautiful, and then right over the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world, and we did a little bit of driving through the city. We stopped at Pier 39 to see the sea lions, and rode the carousel with Stella. But we decided to leave early to get to Big Sur. Neither Danielle or I had ever been there, but we really wanted to go check it out because what our friends had told us. And let me just say that it totally lived up to the talk. I have honestly never been to a more amazing place in the entire world. The cliffs, beaches, fog, trees, and flowers were incredible. We saw a waterfall dropping straight onto the sandy beach, and the cliffs were unbelievable. We even saw a few gigantic condors up close, just hovering right off of the side of the road, which was maybe my favorite part. There is a definite spiritual element to being there, and I felt close to God in a different way than before. It is hard to explain, but just being around the beauty and nature, ancient trees, and being in solitude, I felt a tangible connection to God. Big Sur was a home to several well known authors such as Hunter S. Thompson, Henry Miller, and Jack Kerouac. I think it is no coincidence that these guys occupied a space a little off the beaten path – in their writing, as well as their lives. I also read that Ben Gibbard wrote most of “Narrow Stairs” in Kerouac’s old house.

We stayed at the Big Sur Lodge, which was actually one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed at, despite not offering internet access or a tv in the room. But that was the beauty of the place for sure, the reason you go here is to get away from that stuff and all the distractions of life. But they did supply wood for the fireplace everyday, which I had a lot of fun burning through. That was something else that I didn’t expect, is that there is a surprising lack of cell phone coverage down the entirety of HWY 1 and Big Sur, but again, I saw it as a blessing, except when I was looking up directions…The whole time I was in Big Sur, I just kept forgetting that I was even in the United States, and to add to that confusion, we saw so many Europeans and people were speaking other languages all around us. On the night that we arrived I took this first picture, which is probably my favorite picture that I have ever taken. I love how creepy it looks with the fog, and I didn’t even think the pictures would turn out because it was almost dark outside. We stayed there for 3 days and then decided to just go the rest of the way to San Diego in one trip, partially because hanging out at another beach along the way would have just been a letdown. It was such a good trip for me and a cool bonding experience for our family and I already want to go back, or move there!

I descended a dusty gravel ridge, beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge

To see more pictures, check out my Flickr set – Big Sur

And listen to this song.

The Thrills “Big Sur”