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A brand new poster for our upcoming show at the High Dive with our good friends Osaka Explosion. Ian from OE made this one, and we think it’s awesome!
The High Dive is a great place to see a show, and it’s worth mentioning that they have air conditioning. See you there!
Many thanks to Hannah Levin and the folks over at Audioasis for playing our song, Curvature, on KEXP over the weekend! You can find the playlist here. We’re glad we got a chance to hear ourselves on the radio, and hope to do so again soon!
Big thanks also to Andrew from The Keeper for pressing it into the capable hands that played it. That’s what community is all about. On a related note, you should totally go over to The Keeper’s site and listen to “Tonight We Ride”. Tell my horse I love her.
Here are some photos from our CD release show at the Sunset last week. Many thanks to Erynn for the great shots. There are more to come!
Many thanks to Little Champions, Trip Audrey, and all of the people who came out to see the show. We had a great time, and we hope you did too!
“Recorded over three weekends in the winter of 2008-09, In the Belly of the Sea Devil is an epic and moving debut for the the folks in Manos De Plata. When the band was offered the chance to record aboard a decommissioned naval tugboat known as the Sea Devil, they knew the experience – as well as the end product – would be special. All primary live recording sessions and guest musicians were recorded in the engine room of the Sea Devil – 8 feet below the surface of Seattle’s Lake Union. The resulting tracks have a mood and sound consistent with the environment in which they were captured: here small and isolated, tucked beneath the waves, there ascending from below like a leviathan.”
That’s what the press release says. What it really comes down to is that everyone involved, from from the lowliest deckhand to the Captain himself, took away many great experiences from the recording of this EP. All of the artwork was executed by our good (and terribly talented) friend Justin Lytle, and he’s done an amazing job! Just check out the cover above… it’s perfect! At least we think so.
We’ve already promised the good Captain (and he’s promised us in return) that our future recordings will happen aboard the Sea Devil, but in the meantime we’ve got an EP that we’re extremely proud of and shows to play in support of it.
The CDs have been pressed and will be available online and in stores soon, but for the next few days the only place you’ll be able to pick one up is at a show!… starting tonight at the Sunset Tavern!
Here’s the poster for our first-ever CD release show!
As you can see, we followed the sage advice of a good friend of ours who once said, “when in doubt, lasers.”
…And it’s going to be very close, but we expect the CDs to actually be here in time for the show. Folks that come to the show will be able to be the first kids on their block to have their very own copies of MDP’s debut!
Don’t miss it!
We’re pretty excited about this poster, and the show that goes with it! Anytime you can include a giant albino buffalo head in your advertising, you know you’re going places. In this case, we’re going to the Rebar on Monday night!
The second day aboard the Sea Devil started strongly, with sizeable doughnuts and strong coffee. It wasn’t long after the sun was up the we set to work, tracking out the third, fourth and fifth songs for our forthcoming record. We knew that we were working in a great space by the grace of our host, Captain Chuck, and as much as he’s a terribly friendly and welcoming guy, we knew that we had a lot to do in order to get out of his home in a timely fashion.
As the day progressed, our commitment would wax and wane. We tried our level best to get everything recorded and stay on schedule, but weren’t certain whether it would happen. It was cold, and we were drinking.
In the end, we were able to get the basic recordings for all five songs recorded to our great satisfaction, though not without some effort. It’s safe to say that any performer would be taxed to their limits after playing for nearly 12 hours.
Special thanks to January for all of the great pictures!
On a frigid Friday evening last December, the members of
Manos De Plata packed up their equipment, carried it along a narrow gangway and
onto the afterdeck of the Sea Devil, a 140-foot long decommissioned naval
tugboat.
Greeted by Captain Chuck, our awesome host (seriously – how many tugboat-dwelling, beer-pounding physicists do you know?), he guided us below decks.
We came to make a record.
The gents in Manos De Plata had been talking for some months about making our first official recordings – complete with full live instrumentation and friends to help us out – and at some point during the summer we came to the conclusion that it would be A) more fun to make a record in a new and unusual way, and B) that it would somehow be more cost-effective to make a record underwater.
Okay, mostly “A”.
We finished loading everything in and got most of it set up in what was once the engine room on Friday. This is a large and surprisingly gorgeous-sounding space, with a floor approximately 7 feet below the waterline.
The following morning, our intrepid and talented engineer, Dean, got microphones placed throughout the room, and after a couple of tweaks (and a lot of coffee) we were up and running.
The object of the game was to record as much of each song live as possible, with all of us performing in the same room together. This is with the understanding that we like bells and whistles (sometimes literally), and that those would be happening later.
Day one was what we could only consider a great success. Going in to this none of us really knew what it would be like to carry all of our equipment over open water and try to make good sounding recordings inside a giant steel hull, but every time we turned around, things kept looking (and sounding) better.
The beer probably helped.
How did it all turn out? You’ll just have to follow along; we may even have something for you to listen to at the end, so that everyone who cares to listen knows whether recording an album in the belly of the Sea Devil is something that can be done.
Special thanks to January for all of the great pictures!
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