So we finally have a couple shows booked for the rest of the year, and probably shouldn’t add any more because if we do, nobody will come. So, because these are a few weeks apart, you all should come and see us.
The first show: El Rio on Monday, 10/27 at 8:00 pm. We’ll go on second (around 9:00 pm). It’s $5.00 and there’s cheap drinks to get you in the mood to rock.
The second show: Beale Street Bar on Tuesday, 11/18 at 8:00 pm. We’re still working out the order, but we’ll be playing with our studio-mates The Hi-Watters and Middle Class Murder. More details to come.
The third show: This one is the most interesting, but sadly won’t be fully public. We’re playing Phil’s lady-friend’s birthday party, and it will be an acoustic set. I’m really looking forward to some song adaptation.
Anyway, hope to see you all soon! Oh, and also, I have a bunch of pictures from Grant and Green that I’ll post soon. Stay tuned!
Hi everyone - We got ourselves taped at the Expression show a couple weeks back, and while it’s always hard to pick songs out of the set that are free of enough errors to share, sometimes sour notes and rock star faces slip in anyway. Here’s “Dear Mark”
Anyway, we hope to see everyone (yes, I mean everyone) on Thursday!
So you may have heard of wordle. There are some cool applications of it (like the Obama/McCain blogs). I decided to take the lyrics of our originals that we actually play and run them through wordle. Here’s what I got:
Click for a bigger version.
Anyway, it’s pretty clear that we don’t have a great theme across the songs, which I think is OK. I bet if I did some lexical normalization before running it, it would come out cool too, but that’s not really what I feel like doing right now.
So, if you subscribe to our photostream over at Flickr, you may have found a whole slew of photos, courtesy of Dan. Thanks Dan! There are a few goofy photos of our brief recent recording session as well, but I wasn’t feeling particularly photographic that day, so I dropped the ball. We’ll eventually commission Dan to do some band shots of the three of us just standing around, looking cool, and the like. Stay tuned for that!
The recording is going really well. Dance Hall has a really cool keyboard/dark guitar solo in the middle that you may not have heard yet. Decay sounds really full because of some pedal tweaking (Eric knows his stuff). ATL and Brandon is way too fast, but it kinda grew on me after hearing it a couple times. My favorite is still Hurt Me Out. While we were doing the guitar tracks, my first take came out a little weak. When we listened to it, it was almost boring, so we turned some pedal knobs again, Eric told me to relax, and out comes this amazingly heavy, yet melodic tone. I also added a little bit of a feedback solo, because I secretly want to be Billy Corgan. Anyway, we’ll mix these down in the next week or so, then put them up on the site for all to enjoy.
Last bit of news: We’re doing another live webcast in Emeryville next week. If you want to come and see it, we’d love to have you! If you can’t make it, it will be webcast live on the Ex’pression site. Here’s details:
You must RSVP to us if you are interested in coming, and if you do come, you must show up on time. They won’t let you in if you’re late. Also, this is a classroom setting, so no misbehaving. The up side? You get to see us perform on about the finest live equipment around with a dedicated crew of sound, lighting, and video people.
Well so we played at the (a) Battle of the Bands. I say “a” because there are like 30 Battles of the Bandses around the city at any given time, so it doesn’t really mean anything from a who-won-the-battle perspective. That’s the kind of attitude that people who didn’t win have, and it’s true, we didn’t win. We got a solid 2nd place (or 3rd place if you don’t count the first two bands as tying for 1st). Here’s why:
The second-to-last band, Manchester School, was really solid. Also they were a five-piece, so they could bring tons more fans and friends. We’re a 3-piece and sold over 30 in just 2 weeks!
The last band, Thumper, was honestly really good. They played a sick cover of Peace Sells (But Who’s Buyin’) by Megadeth, and their singer (a dude who spent the better part of the evening rapping) managed to sound quite a lot like Dave Mustaine.
We lost a lot of fans after our set because it was a school night and they had to wake up early.
But, all that said, we pulled off 2nd place behind some tight bands. Oh, did I mention that there were 4 bands before (behind) us? They were basically all hardcore/metal/punk rock, so when I kicked off the show with “We’re Two Star Spark, and we’re the hardest band here!” our legions of fans laughed and clapped. Yay!
Then after a brief introduction, we settled into our set. The sound was excellent, the lighting was fabulous, and the general vibe in the room was really strong. We played Get Up, Brake Lights, Hurt Me Out, ATL and Brandon, Crack on the Wall, Decay, and Metro. I think we went over, but the promoters let bands trickle in until late, and we were the only ones who showed up 100% on time, so I don’t feel bad.
So, there are some photos for you to look at (thanks to Dan for taking them). And we have another show coming up at Ex’Pression in September. Check the shows page for more info.
In other news, we’ve been working on recording a few songs for a demo with the new lineup. We’re recording (with Eriq) a new version of ATL and Brandon and Hurt Me Out, and fresh versions of Dance Hall and Decay. Good times!
So now that Phil is settled in (have I actually welcomed him to the public yet? If not, welcome, Phil!) and we’re refining our sound and all that, we have a show, and we want you to come and see us. It’s a Battle of the Bands, which means that like 8 bands will be playing 30 minute sets over the course of many hours, and at the end of the night, the band with the most friends wins some kind of prize. So, won’t you come and support us? We determine our play time (between 6 pm and later than that) based on the number of tickets we sell before the show. To make it super easy to buy tickets, we set up a store on the site that you can use to send us Paypal moneys and we’ll mail you (or hand you) a ticket. It really doesn’t get any easier than that to support your favorite local rock band.
And here’s a bonus: for those of you who have seen us before, I can 90% guarantee that there’s a song in the list that you haven’t heard us play!
Anyway, we look forward to seeing you there! Here’s the details again:
So we have had a good run of shows for the Winter season. We played at Grant and Green in North Beach with Ready Five at the end of February, and that was tons of fun. It was a cool venue with a good amount of walk-in traffic, and we had a nice turnout of friends. Playing with bands we know is always fun too because we can share fans and people don’t generally leave after their friend’s band is done. After that, we played with parae and Violent Vickie at El Rio. Man, El Rio is a fun place. They’ve got a big patio outside so that if people didn’t come to see the bands, they can still hear them, which is good when nobody’s heard you before. Anyway, we filmed that show and will likely post some video clips soon.
But, to keep your video desires satisfied, we actually started a YouTube channel and posted a video that Elliot put together of our recording session at Expression in February. We basically set the camera on a tripod and taped our various takes from different angles, then loaded the final mix of the song. Anyway, check out the video, and if you love us, you’ll rate it and subscribe to our channel!
Well, our mini-tour is over. We played with some fabulous bands and were applauded by some fabulous fans. Thursday kicked off with a stellar performance by San Francisco’s Callow, followed closely (but perhaps not closely enough) by our short set. 300 Pounds, who actually braved snow over highway 17 from Santa Cruz, closed the evening to a waning crowd. As usual, the Beale Street Bar was a cool place to play. Tony takes good care of us and is always open to having new bands.
We left work a little early on Friday, jammed the car full of gear, and slogged through pouring rain (which Elliot compared to almost a midwest storm) and made it to the Boardwalk Bowl in the nick of time. It turned out that there was some sort of a mix-up with the order of the bands (we and one other band thought we were going first, told all our friends, etc.). We were cool and accommodating and let them play first, which meant that we were last. Our previous experiences playing last have been pretty unfortunate (people come for the band they know, then leave, leaving the last band with only their closest friends and a bartender). But, these people were so cool! Fans of all three bands (including our own) stuck around for the whole thing. Thanks to those fans who supported us in our longest venture from San Francisco to date. It would have been miserable without you. Anyway, Friday was good fun, and we plan on going back to the Boardwalk Bowl again soon. The sound guy even recorded the whole thing, and we took some video, so look for a nice, professional music video soon!
We - that is, Charlie, Cathy, and Elliot - wish you the happiest of new years, and we hope that 2008 is a good one for you. We also hope to ring in the new year by rocking out at a few of our favorite local venues. The following shows are coming up, and we hope you’ll be there.
Thursday, January 24th at 8:30 pm - Beale Street Bar (133 Beale St., San Francisco, CA). We’re playing with 300 Pounds and Callow. $6.
Friday, January 25th at 9 pm - Coaster’s Bar at the Boardwalk Bowl (115 Cliff St., Santa Cruz, CA). Another with 300 Pounds and Officer Down. Free!
Wednesday, February 27th at 9 pm - Grant and Green Saloon (1371 Grant Ave., San Francisco, CA). We’ll be with Ready Five this time. Free!
Friday, March 7th at 9:30 pm - El Rio (3158 Mission St., San Francisco, CA). CD release party for parae. $5.
We know these are upwards of two months out, but don’t worry. We’ll remind you again when the date gets close, and we’ll probably send you text messages if we have your cell phone number. It’s all about viral marketing right?
In other news, we have a few new songs that we’re working on. If you come to one of these shows, you’ll probably get lucky and hear one. We’re also hitting the studio soon, with the hopes of coming out with a free EP to hand out at shows. Keep an eye here for updates!
Thanks for tuning in, and we hope to see you at a show!
Oh, one more thing - If you want, you can click here, on this link to a flyer, and download our flyer and hand it out to all your friends.
Two Star Spark is recording a live show, and you are invited to come watch! This exciting event will take place on Tuesday, November 20th, at 10:30 pm (you can come around 10 pm) at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville. The show is free, but in order to get in (it’s at a recording school), you need to be on the guest list, which we need to provide in advance. We will be playing for one hour, and the entire set will be recorded and video taped. This recording will be used to create a demo with which we’ll book gigs… you always wanted to be one of the screaming masses on a live record, right? If you are unable to attend the performance, but would like to watch anyway, it will be webcast live online here:
You must be on the guest list to attend, and if you are on the guest list, you must attend. That means no flakes! Also, because it’s at a school (it’s actually in a classroom technically - one that’s more like an auditorium), you have to be well-behaved. You can dance and whatnot, but there will be no bar. I promise it’ll be a good time anyway. So, if you want to come, and you can commit to showing up before 10:30 enough that you don’t walk in on the middle of the set, please email us and let us know! We’d love to have you!
Two Star Spark formed in 2006 as a side project and somehow managed to grow into the primary project for Elliot and Charlie. Cathy joined later, but ended up leaving in Summer of 2008 to pursue other interests. Phil joined up on bass then and immediately fit in. The music is rock, for lack of a better genre, and draws influence from a wide range of styles from modern alternative and indie rock to classic rock to folk rock to punk rock. Come check us out when we come to your town!
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