Love it or hate it, the holidays are rapidly approaching and we are celebrating this Thursday with our good friends Josh Moss and the Turlocks. The Turlocks are a new band from Harrisonburg that have a pretty sweet pedal steel player as well a line up that is filled to the brim with good friends of the Uncle Bengine gang. Along with celebrating the return of old friends, the show is also the two year anniversary of Funny / Not Funny Records. If you aren’t familar with F/NF, it is a Harrisonburg VA based record label that is run by Uncle Bengine frontman, Ben Schlabach, and Harper Holsinger (tons of bands, tons of show promotion, tons of awesome). F/NF has 14 releases under their belt and currently has more in the works. Check our their website!
The show starts around 9pm. There will be holiday drink specials, free food, and distro tables from Funny / Not Funny Records and Harrisonburg’s new record store, Wonder Records. Come down early and stay late…also I am pretty sure it is free cab season so make sure to take advantage of a safe ride home!
Farmers Market Video
Harrisonburg Farmer’s Market Promo from Josh Lee on Vimeo.
Check out this sweet new commercial for the downtown Farmers Market that was created by JMU students, Steven Chi and Josh Lee. We are very honored that they used our song, “College Home” for the background music. Take a look at the video, share it with your friends, and most importantly make sure to go check out the Harrisonburg Farmers Market.
We are heading down to Roanoke VA for our third time at the Bazaar, this time we are playing with old band friends of Mild Winter;Birdlips and locals John Barry Conception. If you have seen us there before we would love to see you again and if you just happen upon the show we look forward to meeting you. Nik has to work this weekend, so we have John Hostetter filling in. Here is the facebook event link. Hope to see you tonight!
Website
We spent the last week or so revamping our website. Still have a number of things to finish updating, but we will continue to get caught up on that over the next week. We have finally launched our store, with limited pressing. Swing by and help us clear out our merch bin so we can make room for some new items that should be heading out way soon.
Recording
We are planning on starting our new EP next weekend, so keep checking back to find updates on that process. We are looking to record 5-6 songs, hoping to do another lathe release and a CD.
MACRoCk
We are excited to announce that we have been invited to play this years Mid-Atlantic College Radio Conference (MACRoCk) we play on Friday evening at Court Square Theatre. They just released the full schedule, and it is looking pretty awesome. Good bands in multiple genres, so plan on coming to Harrisonburg the first weekend in April!
We will try and keep everyone up to date on how the web updates and recordings are going, we might have a show or two to announce in the next week, so check back soon!
It only seems fitting that the first show we play as a full band falls on the same day that the first real snow day hits the valley. Apparently Jack Frost or Mother Nature have it in for me (or maybe more so my tunes). Mild Winter hit a pretty heavy snow while trying to leave Scranton PA, John and Ben did two weekends together last year, both falling the same time as the two Blizzards, first one we were snowed in at Va Beach, the second one we were snowed in at Columbus OH. I am beginning the think that I am the new farmers almanac, I predict snow the first weekend in January, and one of the first two weekends in February.
The snow isn’t going to get us down tonight though, because we are playing at the always lovely Blue Nile, in downtown Harrisonburg! That is the venue that I have called home base for the past 3+ years, it is the prefect place to debut the full band. We are playing with our great friends Elephant Child, as well as Hammer No More the Fingers and the Astronomers, starts at 9pm(ish), we play first, I think it is $4.00 at the door.
The weekend looks like it is going to be cold, but clear, which is a nice change of pace for traveling. We are heading down to Roanoke on Saturday night, to play at the Bazaar. This will be my first time at the Bazaar, but Jason has played there before with his other band Preacher. We are excited to be playing with our friends in Nick Coward and the Last Battle. If you are living down in the star city please come on out to see us. I believe the show starts around 9pm or so. Facebook “The Bazaar” and find more details.
We are looking forward to getting these first two shows under our belts, if you are in the area please come hang out!
I have uploaded “They Grow up so Fast” to my new bandcamp site, you can now stream the audio for free, or buy the songs in any file you enjoy (mp3, flac, wav, etc). You can also buy the physical cassette on bandcamp and it comes with the aforementioned audio files as well as the download card that is included with purchase.
Basically you could have the tape, high quality instant download (format your choice) and you can download it again (or share with a friend) when the cassette arrives with the download card.
You can also buy the cassette at the Funny/Not Funny Store, it wouldn’t include the instant download like at bandcamp, but you can save on shipping by checking out some of the other great artist on Funny/Not Funny Records.
Don’t forget you can also pick up a copy of “They Grow up So Fast” at my upcoming shows. Monday night I will be in Manassas VA, details TBA. Tuesday night I will be at the Blue Nile in Harrisonburg, with a bunch of great bands.
Lastly, I am working on booking a tour for John Hostetter and myself (along with Matt Leech) we will all be traveling and playing together (one set). Here is the proposed routing, let me know if you can help out with any of the dates (startyourbengines<at>gmail<dot>com)
July 22-Harrisonburg-Clementine
July 23-DC area
July 24-Philadelphia PA
July 25-Pittsburgh PA
July 26-Ohio/PA*
July 27-Ohio/Michigan*
July 28-Ohio/Michigan*
July 29-Ohio/Kentucky*
July 30-Huntington WV TBA
July 31-Charleston WV TBA
*=no idea, please help!
no*=sort of have ideas, please help!
After many months of mixing, waiting, laying out artwork and waiting some more, it looks like we will be sending off the tapes the first half of next week. Now next week when it gets pushed back again, don’t judge.
Next Saturday I am heading to Richmond to play a house show, I don’t know where or when or what really, but I plan on being in Richmond next Saturday afternoon doing something music related. I will make sure to keep everyone posted.
This weekend, I am going to be working on a new EP with Mild Winter. We have a handful of songs that have seen show time but have never had the chance to be recorded, so we are going into the studio (read my office after everyone leaves) and are going to get them down. We hope to have something together for Macrock, Mild Winter will be playing Friday at the Little Grill. More details will be coming soon, along with details about an Eggs and Kegs (without Kegs) show that is going on the Saturday of Macrock.
