July 13, 2010

We know we haven’t been very visible this year, especially for those of you who live somewhere other than downtown Calgary. We are confident that next year will be very different.

As a sign of good faith and a celebration of summer (even though it’s literally f-ing hailing the size of golf balls here), we’d like to offer you a brand new song for free. It’s called ‘Memorial Hall’. It’s about looking back with the opposite of regret.

Go get it while it’s there. It will quickly disappear, much like freak hailstorms in July.

Click on the colourful picture that says ‘Memorial Hall’ (obviously). Scroll down all the way to the bottom and you’ll find it. ALL the way down. Yes.

xoxo.CdT

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May 13, 2010

The Calgary Folk Festival announced its 2010 lineup yesterday. As you may have heard, Axis of Conversation is part of it. This means we can say we’ve shared a stage with the likes of St. Vincent, Stars, Roberta Flack, Ian Tyson, etc. Weird, huh?

We’ve known about this for sometime, but we weren’t allowed to make any official announcements about it until now.  Keeping this news a secret has been very difficult.  It was like holding a geyser of joy in your pants for 3 months.  Not sure what that means. 

But at last, we can shout our excitement from the digital rooftops. It’s accurate to say we feel somewhat like this. 

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Apr 18, 2010

So, when I sat down to write a new post yesterday, I totally meant to tell you about our plans for the May 13 show.  Instead, I ended up going off about Record Store Day and who knows whatever else.  Sorry.

I originally had a solo show booked at Broken City for May 13, but I’ve decided to bring (most) of the band with me and make it an AxiCon thing. Matt’s on tour with one of his other 229384 bands (can’t remember which one), so we’re gonna do this one without him. 

We haven’t begun rehearsals for this show yet, but the plan is to beatbox all of the ‘drums’/percussion and make loops with our Kaoss Pads, and essentially rebuild the songs from there.  If any of you saw our shows at Karma Arts House (R.I.P.) in 2006, you may remember that we took a similar approach back then (only with much more nervousness) — I still remember playing the Kaoss Pad with my feet at the release party for ‘There’s Hope For You Yet (just kidding)’ all those years ago.

Anyway, you should plan on being there.  It’ll be…something…not sure what, exactly…

CdT

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Apr 17, 2010

Today is Record Store Day.  I hope you found the time to visit an independent music retailer in your area to take advantage of all the awesome stuff made available especially for today.  I managed to pick up the last copy of Deerhoof’s ‘Green Cosmos’ re-issue at Sloth Records.  I think it’s the first time this awesome 15-minute record has been made available on vinyl.  Green vinyl, no less.  Yum.

You might be wondering how our recording is going.  We’ve decided to work on songs in batches of 3 or 4 at a time.  Batch #1 is almost finished — I have some backwards glockenspiels and voices to cut up for the intro of one of the tracks and it’ll be ready for mixing, which means they’ll be ready for people’s ears very soon.

It’s a pretty weird way of working for us.  After the next few batches of songs are put to tape, we’ll be onto songs that, at this very moment, don’t actually exist.  You see, we’ve vowed to lock ourselves away and create things together in their entirety as a group, which is an, um, entirely new way of working for us.  I’m a little nervous. Not gonna lie.  That’s nothing against the band — in fact, there’s no one who’s talents and instincts I would trust more to work in such a manner.  It’s just that it’s a pretty naked way to work, you know?  I’ve always liked that no one knew what I was singing about until I actually printed lyrics somewhere, but I guess there’s a lesson to be learned from every toddler on this planet: it’s good to be naked sometimes.

What I’m trying to say is things are still going very well.  I’ll post more pictures from the recordings in the next day or two.  I’m sure you’ve figured out where we’re keeping these pictures by now.

Xo.C

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Mar 21, 2010

This is a setlist from last month. The diehards among you would know we’ve already started sneaking new music into our shows. There may not be diehards among you. In any case, new music is being documented, played back and agonizingly poured over, and we’ll continue to post photos from our recording sessions here on the site. I know it’s early, but things are already sounding far better than I expected them to sound. We’re taking this as a good sign. 

CdT

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Mar 14, 2010

Today, we officially started putting some new music to tape. Our old friend & former bandmate Cody Coates is handling the nob-twiddling and board-manning.

This is pretty much all we can tell you: we’re recording an undetermined amount of music at some studio somewhere, and we don’t know when you can hear it. I wish we could say more. Just know that we are fully committed to losing sleep, keeping secrets and telling necessary lies in order to make the best recordings we can possibly make. 

Anyway, we love you.  We hope to see you at the shows (Think About Life! Friendo! Beija Flor! [visit the ‘Shows’ section]). We’ll talk soon.

Chris

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Feb 16, 2010

We have new songs.  Lots of them.  We’re hard at work in our basement, and CdT has been making home demos, often with the help of his 23-month-old co-producer (not pictured).

Beginning Feb 20 @ the Marquee Room, there’ll be lots of shows in our home city and province this spring. We have an upcoming recording to pay for, you know.  We hope you can make it to a show or two — in exchange for your support, we’ll do our best to make it worth your while.

Also, watch for a LYRICS section here on our page in the near future.

xx

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Jan 21, 2010

Despite what it says under ‘release date’, All We Make Is Enemies is now available through the iTunes store, as of TODAY!  We recommend you pick it up — I promise it will be the best $2.97 you’ve ever spent.

That’s right.  It costs less than your latte.

xo, CdT

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Jan 19, 2010

Happy New Year to you.  At least ten different people on ten different occasions have told us they’ve heard we’re coming out with a new album.

We’ve made no official announcement about this, so it’s fantastic news to us!

We are recording this spring.  We will also play some new songs at many upcoming shows in western Canada.  Please stay close to the Shows page.

Thank you for being here.

CdT