And thank you to everyone that came out to our record release party @Pianos—we had a great time, we might’ve sold more donuts than records, and I don’t think too many people got hurt that night.
OTHER PRETTY GOOD NEWS:
This Sunday June 7th @ the Crazy Donkey in Farmingdale LI, we’re going to be the main support act for the hit 80s band The Psychedelic Furs. You might know the song, “Love My Way,” or some others that were Billboard charters in the 80s.
We go on at 8:45PM and the Furs play right after us at 9:45. Bring your fancy big hair and acid wash jeans if you want to blend in properly…
OTHER NEWS TO BE HAD:
Brooklyn’s Deli Magazine (www.thedelimagazine.com/snacks.php) has nominated Aeroplane Pageant as the band of the month. We just found this out, but apparently some of the other bands in the running already got a head start in the voting process. Go to the deli website and vote for Aeroplane Pageant as your favorite band!
If you we win we’ll take everyone that voted out for sandwiches and fresh air…
Featured in The Deli Magazine:
“After releasing the dream pop of “Wave to the Moon,” Aeroplane Pageant returns with a punchier pop album “Even the Kids Don’t Believe Me.” This record celebrates the American tradition of storytelling; the band crafts a fascinating narrative sprung from a fabricated image of a tiger swallowing a man whole. The opening track, “Memory Begins Elsewhere,” serves as prelude with its saturated mash of musical fragments relaying a stream of consciousness. For the rest of the album, songwriter Brian Kelly spins a web of compelling vignettes about a lurking spider, existentialism after a car accident and leaving home.
In some ways, Aeroplane Pageant can be compared to The Beatles circa “The White Album” with its eccentric storytelling and more experimental approach in “Even the Kids Don’t Believe Me.” The band takes more risks in its songwriting, honing in on its unique sound. The charging acoustic guitar, sweeping guitar, cascading bass lines and solid drumming are all there, but this time around, it’s much harder to pin precise influences to the music. Be sure to attend Aeroplane Pageant’s record release party this Saturday at Pianos to hear the new tunes before the album officially drops on June 2.” - Nancy Chow The Deli Magazine
Famed and brilliant—Rick Moody—one of my favorite American novelist and short story writers best known for his novel The Ice Storm (adaption for film with Kevin Spacey) recently had some things to say about the upcoming Aeroplane Pageant release Even the Kids Don’t Believe Me:
“It’s a fucking weird album! I like it! I have to listen some more, because it has that Fiery Furnaces thing about it: DEEP, REQUIRES EFFORT. But I was very surprised in good ways at the bizarre arrangements and the way the melodies don’t follow and stuff. My kind of thing, in fact. Consider me a fan, and put me on the mailing list, and all that sort of thing.”
-Despite snake bite Chris Aguis will join AP for CD release party @ PIANOS (5/30)!
Chris is feeling “…almost pretty-close to par,” and said he’d just have to really muscle it out for that one really long night, and see what happens from there. I don’t care anymore about this snake business.
By his response I think we can all infer that small-time heroics and male- bravado is not exclusive to 1950’s movie stars.
Mr. Aguis could potentially develop into Long Island’s very own would-be James Dean…
And too early this morning (7 AM) Mr. Aguis rang to inform me, and in a very circular way, that he hopes he’ll be a better person from this day forth. Second chances aren’t that bad, sometimes.
I thought that was real nice, kind even, and then he immediately followed this statement with, “I hate every fucking snake on this fucking stupid planet, and hope that every one of them will die soon.”
And for the first time in my life, I have nothing to say…
MORE INFO ABOUT SNAKE BITES:
Who snakes bite: It has been estimated that 5 million snakebites occur worldwide each year, causing about 125,000 deaths. Five to ten deaths occur per year from snakebites in the United States. People provoke bites by handling or even attacking snakes in a significant number of cases in the United States. Bananas aren’t bad for you. Of the estimated 45,000 snakebites per year in the United States, about 8,000 are by venomous snakes.
The bite: Often there is a series of cuts and scratches, predominated by at least one fang entry wound. Very quickly, there will be a burning sensation, at first just bothersome, then rapidly graduating to severe pain. It is this aspect which supports a dose of fear, some irrational decisions, and overall panic. Swelling is the next complication so frequently present. Bologna sandwiches smell like communism.
OTHER NEWS…
The NYC Pianos show will entail lots of free GIN from BULLDOG London Dry Gin! And fortunately we’ll be joined by lots of great musical friends to drink this alcohol…and also Nisi Jacobs (long time collaborator/friend) will add her lovely video projections for Aeroplane Pageant’s live show. She works with found footage and computer animation as well as a vibrant color palette to add kaleidoscopic imagery as a backdrop. www.drawtoy.com, www.drawnyc.com.
THE Musical Lineup:
8PM Beat Radio (Special Electronic Set)
9PM Bridges and Powerlines
10PM Aeroplane Pageant
And this special night will only be hosted by our very good friend, “Mr. Hartpants” who’ll be providing constant and much needed relief in between each of the sets…
COLORADO: Two days ago, Chris Aguis (percussionist) was bitten by a snake on his big left toe while out hiking before the show. It’s this rare venomous species known as a Prairie Rattlesnake, and honestly it was probably the scariest moment in my life. No one even heard its rattle, and when Chris stepped down onto a rock it just grabbed into him. White light and whiter stars…
If anyone knows Chris they know that he slaps on his flip flops as soon as the first day of spring hits. However, it probably wasn’t his best idea to wear them out hiking.
I really don’t think I can do justice to the sound that emanated out of Chris’ mouth when he was struck; it sounded almost as if a cow was being slaughtered. He kept howling, “I’ve been hit. I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!”
It was brutal.
Chris Aguis
We thought at first that he was shot but when he collapsed to the floor and we saw this snake whipping its body back and forth…we then knew. The snake suddenly let go and then disappeared into the rocks…
Luckily, we weren’t too far from the local Park Ranger who quickly injected this anti-venom made of sheep blood. He also instructed us not to suck out the venom, and to just tightly wrap his leg 1-2 inches above the wound.
The ranger then called for help when only moments later a helicopter swooped down to take Chris to the local hospital, St. Christina’s, for evaluation. He’s safe now, and feeling better, and thanks only to the kind hands of a few good doctors and a Park Ranger named Brent Houser.
We’re all home (in New York) now, and Chris has since been moved to Columbia Hospital in Manhattan, and should be released today if all goes well.
Brent Houser
Thankfully he’s now stable, but now we face another daunting issue: Given that Chris is an artist, he unfortunately doesn’t have medical insurance, and so he now owes at least $4,000 in hospital bills.
Stormy Ice (our record label) said they are going to pick up half the tab but that still leaves us $2000 in the hole.
Oh, America the wonderful!
More soon…and hopefully we’ll get back on the road soon…
If you’d like to email Chris to wish him well (which I’m sure he’ll appreciate) send an email to:
Aeroplane Pageant would like to apologize to all the fans that planned on coming out for the upcoming shows, and we promise we’ll be back to your cities soon enough.
With luck we still plan to play the New York show for our CD release part at Pianos. And hopefully Chris will be able to join us for the show, so we don’t have to use a fill-in.
Wisconsin—Simply put most of us just drank way too much today, all day. Whisky and wine is not the proper match to make—and I’m sure the show probably suffered as a result.
The morning kicked off early when we pushed into a local pub in Madison called “Lenny’s” at 10AM Central Time. We ate fried food like fools and doused ourselves right into afternoon when this young dapper gentleman wearing a suit asked if he could join us. He was polite, and so we said yes—like a pack of idiots.
Sure he was well-dressed but he wasn’t very sober, and he implicitly refused to tell us his name yet he still felt compelled to divulge every other part of his life…
So according to this suit, he was once a priest, then fell out of God, joined the Army, married 4 times, was friends with the Arnold Palmer….and oh I could only keep going. He even mentioned that today he saw a car crash between two cars which were—”the same model, same make, and same year. Swear to fuck!” He’d say “swear to fuck,” every other sentence…
I guess it could happen… I wanted to trust…it was funny, I suppose.
But then he started to yammer on about how he hates all homosexuals and how he’d like to, “…take a hammer to any fags that come his way. Swear to fuck.
And with this comment his entire afternoon’s yarn was essentially compromised…everything else that previously came hurtling out of his mouth was now deemed as unreliable, complete bullshit!
I just don’t get it… and in my besotted state I was nearly tempted to ask him if he was actually a human being?
But instead we respectfully paid our check without saying a word. Who has time for anti-intellectual discourse?
It’s shitty because I’ve seen too many people in my own life (Yes, in 2009!) who’ve lived in the closet their whole lives, and it is because of FREAKS like this suit that some of my friends have been unable to come to terms with their own sexuality. And who wants to live life like that? Denial and secrecy can be the ugliest…
OTHER PRETTY GOOD NEWS
Eric spent the afternoon again tucked away in our hotel with another lady, a Brazilian woman who speaks 4 languages and cleans pools for a living. The rest of the band can only sit back and lap it all up with wonderment and merriment as Eric’s character continues to unravel right before us.
AND THE BEST NEWS…
The best part of today however was spent far away from where we all soaked ourselves with alcohol. Mike (guitarist) took a HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE around the stinky bucolic cheese fields of Wisconsin.
Life can be good, if you invite it so….although I think he might’ve overloaded on happiness because when he came back from the clouds he looked like as if he’d seen a few hundred ghosts…
Toasted raviolis, Jean Claude Van Dam, pregnant lady robs grocery store
St. Louis is for the blind only. I’m suspicious now as to how the legendary St. Louis Cardinal’s shortstop Ozzie Smith survived all those years in this sordid city.
Perhaps he had lots of painkillers and some really good films and books to dive into?
It’s interesting because all of the people in St. Louis quietly drone the streets in the same exact way as if their heads were shot off. But can anyone blame them when their surrounding metropolis is essentially rotting gray?
Then the strange news…We went to load in the equipment at the club when we were told by a police officer to park 2 blocks away from the building because the street was sealed off by a crime scene.
Apparently, (not sure if I believe it) some pregnant woman robbed the grocery store that’s right next to the club where we were about to play. It’s hard to believe but that is what we were told by a few people who witnessed the event.
To be honest the only redeeming part of the trip was when we stumbled into martial arts movie star Jean Claude Van Dam as he was quickly exiting from a Chase Manhattan Bank on Main Street. (What the hell is he doing St. Louis?!) Now, I understand there’s a very small chance that it really wasn’t him, and it might’ve just been his doppelganger—but it really did look like him.
Mike (guitarist) half-joking, said he was half-tempted to try and throw a random swing at Mr. Van Dam to see if he really had any fighting technique. He then decided it probably wasn’t his best idea.
It’s really a shame that the city was shitty because the show and crowd were really great—and this was our first sold out show ever!!!
After the show Eric (keyboardist), the newest member of AP, made himself right at home on tour when he dipped into the nearby shadows of our hotel for a few hours with some lazy-looking tall blonde woman that appeared twice his age (I guess we’ll find out what happened tomorrow?).
Tour can act the devil sometimes…
OTHER NEWS:We all tried St. Louis’ famous toasted raviolis (born in St. Louis) and they weren’t that bad or that good.
Cherry blossoms, long avenues, random gunshots, and the White House
Seven hours of senseless traffic to DC, the old lovely capital, after our usual light cheap breakfast of deli coffee and toast, preparing ourselves for our first show of the Invisible Tour at The Black Kat.
Everyone had the first show jitters, but once you get going there’s nothing more gratifying than to play music with your friends for a (receptive) audience. Some people even knew the words to our songs which made no sense at all considering that the record isn’t even out yet.
A very quick note about DC…
…There were no random gunshots, the cherry blossoms have all but exploded, and surprisingly this city has managed to detail itself despite global/corporate America’s insistence to unify and homogenize every town in this country. Perhaps America isn’t as bland as the cynics have painted it to be—granted you can still pick up McDonald’s or Starbucks every other block.
Regretfully, we didn’t visit the White House or any other iconic architectural landmarks, but I did see this nervous-looking young woman with a pink and blue dress planting a single rose in every crack of a sidewalk along one of the major avenues. She had more than 50 roses folded in her arms, and this went on for at least two blocks, and so I had to ask her what she was doing…
“I’ll let you know when I am done,” her smile swallowed up her face.
Thank you, pink blue lady!
In other news today Timmy (bassist) rescued this cat from a terrific downpour of rain, but for some reason he wouldn’t speak to anyone the rest of the day. He almost looked like he was going to cry, and when I asked him if he wanted to eat pizza with us (his favorite food) he wouldn’t even look at me.
I would’ve never thought that saving a cat would have such a traumatic affect on someone but I think I should let this one go…
Today begins Aeroplane Pageant’s INVISIBLE TOUR (day 1)
We’re in Washington DC right now, long trip…details soon to follow…
Good news for Aeroplane Pageant…the CMJ college radio charts are coming in…and thank you to all the radio stations that are playing our songs!!!!!!!!!
Aeroplane Pageant has charted TOP 30 in the following cities!
# 7 @ WUPX in Marquette, MI
#10 @ KSDP in Sand Point, AK
# 21 @ KCWU in Ellensburg, WA
#29 @ KCSU in Fort Collins, CO
Aeroplane Pageant is in regular rotation at the following stations!
Aeroplane Pageant is pleased to announce a couple of items, but first we want to thank you for your unwarranted support through these last 48 months or so. It’s been good.
Along the way we’ve sadly lost at least four drummers, maybe more, (a note: when we all collectively reach our own private hells I’m sure it’ll brim with unsynchronized drummers waiting to get their final say–what can you do, right?) we’ve also made lots of friends, and some of us have even quit drug habits which might bring to light a new possibility of rehabilitation. Joining a band? I’m working on this yet—facts to follow.
First item: Aeroplane Pageant is going to release its second full-length album entitled: Even the Kids Don’t Believe Me. It’s a pretty good album title but in retrospect we could’ve a lot done better, perhaps a little less ironic, something sweeter, or maybe even more naive and less controlled, just something else—because aren’t we supposed to be exiting this Age of Irony and Suspicion?
Anyway, we made this record ourselves in a beach house on Long Island, and also in Dumbo Brooklyn with star producer Shane Stoneback, who is also currently recording Jim Jarmusch’s (pioneer filmmaker) first solo album, and also collaborating on the new Vampire Weekend record. Recently, Stoneback has also found work with some members of Bon Jovi recording their new theater project entitled, “Toxic Avengers,”—which is great and really strange too. He absolutely wins the award for having the most eclectic resume for a producer in this ever-tumbling industry.
Second item: Last week Aeroplane Pageant was happily signed to Stormy Ice Records, a very close sister label of Warners Brother Records, and it’s a new label that will feature AP as its first artist. The label said they wanted to give us a second shot at making it big. When was the first shot? I must’ve been asleep. It is funny that people are always intent on being “big,” and nothing else. Whatever happened to mediocrity? Or just making good records? This is my only point contention thus far, that and the fact that everyone in their office is horribly good-looking; honestly, it’s almost grotesque.
Third item: Aeroplane Pageant—with their label’s support—will be touring again in early June. We are calling this tour, “The Invisible Tour.” Maybe we’re calling it that because some of us feel this way sometimes…? Additionally, we have a couple of new members this time around, who will hopefully bring much-needed life to the project:
Mike Delorenzo-Percussion/Drums
Eric Hirsch-Keyboards/Guitar
The 2 week tour begins in Delaware and will end in Northern New Jersey at Maxwell. Thankfully, we’ll be playing shows with Managment, the Nationals, Grizzly B…, and the Animal Collection. We wanted to tour with Pavement and Guided by Voices but I guess considering that this is a new label…well, you can’t always get what you want.
THE INVISIBLE TOUR
5/18: The Black Kat, Washington DC
5/19: The Pageant, St Louis, MO (SOLD OUT)
5/20: River Theater, Milwaukee, WI (SOLD OUT)
5/21: Filmore Auditorium, Denver, CO
5/22: Life-style Pavilions, Columbus, OH
5/23: Memorial Gymnasium, Raleigh, NC (SOLD OUT)
5/24: A National, Richmond, VA
5/25: Tabernacle, Hampton, GA (SOLD OUT)
5/26: Michael’s Uncle Todd’s Wedding, Somewhere in Florida (no tickets available for this show)
5/27: Maxwell, Hoboken, NJ
5/28: Maxwell, Hoboken, NJ 5/30: Pianos, New York, NY (CD release party!!!!!)
“After releasing the dream pop of “Wave to the Moon,” Aeroplane Pageant returns with a punchier pop album “Even the Kids Don’t Believe Me.” This record celebrates the American tradition of storytelling; the band crafts a fascinating narrative sprung from a fabricated image of a tiger swallowing a man whole. The opening track, “Memory Begins Elsewhere,” serves as prelude with its saturated mash of musical fragments relaying a stream of consciousness. For the rest of the album, songwriter Brian Kelly spins a web of compelling vignettes about a lurking spider, existentialism after a car accident and leaving home.
muscle it out for that one really long night, and see what happens from there. I don’t care anymore about this snake business. 
And too early this morning (7 AM) Mr. Aguis rang to inform me, and in a very circular way, that he hopes he’ll be a better person from this day forth. Second chances aren’t that bad, sometimes. 
COLORADO: Two days ago, Chris Aguis (percussionist) was bitten by a snake on his big left toe while out hiking before the show. It’s this rare venomous species known as a Prairie Rattlesnake, and honestly it was probably the scariest moment in my life. No one even heard its rattle, and when Chris stepped down onto a rock it just grabbed into him. White light and whiter stars…
St. Louis is for the blind only. I’m suspicious now as to how the legendary St. Louis Cardinal’s shortstop Ozzie Smith survived all those years in this sordid city. 
In other news today Timmy (bassist) rescued this cat from a terrific downpour of rain, but for some reason he wouldn’t speak to anyone the rest of the day. He almost looked like he was going to cry, and when I asked him if he wanted to eat pizza with us (his favorite food) he wouldn’t even look at me.
