Day 7: NYC

Arrive at 3am from our philly drive . . . who wants to split the couch?
Theo: “There’s a bed downstairs, a loveseat in that room up front, umm, i think someone might have to sleep on the floor. ”

(Convenient that i have a pattern of having my best sleep on 3 couch cushions placed on the floor)
–  “hey i’ll take the floor.”

How the hell did it get so warm all of a sudden?  I woke up yesterday looking out the window at falling snow and blustering cold, and today I’m waking up to gentle rainfall and 50 degree weather.  And I am DOWN.
And hell yeah, i love bagels.  I think we all love bagels — thank you THEO!!
Internet is down, office time unlikely, how am i gonna rock today’s blog?  Well, no time to dwell, bob and i gotta go downtown to meet our lovely publicists at fanatic promotion.
There’s an amazing quality that NYC has that i recently noticed: in one underground, dirty, and crowded subway, you can be surrounded by beggars, buskers, teenagers,  grandmothers, and business men on their way to sign a multi-million dollar business merge — all at once.  There’s an unusual sense of equality down there.
Out of the subway, into the rainy streets of manhattan we go.  Lets run, its is coming down pretty hard.
Book it to the fanatic office: contained by yet another obscure doorway merely displaying an address.  I have a tendency to romanticize success – surely the people who spend all day making artists like the Chemical Brothers, Sigur Ros, and Sufjan Stevens famous must do so in a stainless steel office aboard a NASA test mars capital building.  The office was beautiful, but the lack of brain-detecting 3D CGI machines  reminds me that it’s not about the gear, you just gotta have a group of extremely knowledgeable and passionate people coming together to share a common goal.  Hell yeah!

“Hi hey hello! hey whats that? whats that? what’s that mean? what’s he doing?”

Ok, gotta go soundcheck now — rain_run_subway_rain_run pt 2.
The venue is the mercury lounge — they gotta big rep and we’ve all been excited about this gig for a while.
Little confusing to set up, the backstage is in the basement on the opposite side of the building, there’s no real good place to set up our merch display, and damn it’s such a pain dealing with the bus in manhattan.  We also have to get everything off the stage and put away within 15 minutes of the last beat, which, for a 7-piece electronic rock entourage, is a serious serious undertaking. Despite it all, the show went great, the crowd was awesome, the staff super helpful, and we got to see a lot of friends.  AND, we were awarded a $120 parking ticket from the city, despite the bus being on and a driver in the drivers seat.  Yee haw!
Next up: scatter MDD’s members to the four corners of the city for a couple hours,  reconvene at a bar called the Library, have a couple drinks,  more catching up with close friends, and catch the 1:20am subway back to long island.  Which means you gotta RUN!  It’s incredible how in shape dave schall is for someone who smokes and doesn’t regularly exercise.  Someone’s gotta start rocking some science on that human, there’s something profitable there.
Get back to the pad, hit a little 3am office time (ie, get the last blog up with a very spotty internet connection), and hit that hay at 4:30am.

A good tour — thank you east coast!

Quote of the tour comes from Bob, during our last pre-show huddle:

“I just want to tell you guys, several times this tour i’ve literally gotten goosebumps from all the love being musically transmitted from everyone on stage.”

see in you in february My Dear East Coast.

Love, [record]

“It’s trancy and brilliant and gives me hope for the future of this planet — all during the first song.”
- The Ann Arbor Observer

Dancethink Music: What started as a concept for My Dear Disco is quickly becoming a full-fledged movement surrounding them.  Hailed as, “. . . one of the must see acts in Detroit and Ann Arbor,” (The Detroit Fashion Pages), their high-energy blast of funky, soul-healing electro-rock is stirring up a buzz that leaves critics saying, ” My Dear Disco is the next act from Michigan to have a big commercial breakthrough.” (The Detroit Free Press).

Just a year out of college, the band has already put over 35,000 miles on their veggie vehicle, including a tour of Alaska, three showcases at SXSW (Austin, TX) and prime slotting at national summer festivals including Wakarusa, 10,000 Lakes Fesitval, Moe.down, Hookahville, Bella Madre, Kentuckiana Pride, and The Alaska State Fair.  Lately, even the folks in Television have caught on offering the band a featured performance on Fox Network’s Fearless Music Television, and placement of their track “My Dear Disco” in aMelrose Place promotional commercial.

Their savvy in the studio is as strong as it is on-stage.  Although largely self-produced, Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum producer Mark Saunders took their debut album, the Dancethink LP, under his wing for the finishing touches; giving it the same magic touch he was responsible for on The Cure’s Wish, Shiny Toy Guns’ We Are Pilots, Tricky’s Maxinquaye, David Byrne’s Feelings.

The group has also finished a number of high-profile remixes of artists such as Kanye West, Fraz Ferdinand, Boy Crisis, That 1 Guy, and Hearts of Palm UK.  Of their remix work arjanwrites.com tell us, “”Personally, I think this My Dear Disco remix blows all the other ones out of the water. It’s that good. It’s blazing hot.” (Regarding My Dear Disco’s remix of Kanye West’s, Love Lockdown.)

The collective buzz from their performances and recordings, was loud enough to attract the interest of internationally renowned booking agency, Fleming Artists (Ani Difranco, Martin Sexton, The Verve Pipe).  Shortly after signing with Fleming Artists, My Dear Disco signed a publicity deal with Fanatic Promotions – the same group of people who blew up the Chemical Brothers, My Morning Jacket, Sigur Ros, Deerhoof, and many more.

More Featured Quotes:

“. . . dangerously catchy electro-pop songs.”

- Recoil Magazine

“My Dear Disco is an out-of-body experience.”

- Urb Magazine

” . . . music that plays as well on the dance floor as it does over

headphones.”

- Metromix

“Dancethink LP, MDD’s latest, delivers modern dance-floor anthems . . .”

- The Onion

“It’s trancy and brilliant and gives me hope for the future of this planet — all during the first song,”

- The Ann Arbor Observer