Good Lazy System

New Album Is Out Now

November 8, 2011 § Leave a comment

When

It’s ready. It’s out there. It’s on line. Enjoy.

Albatross Empire
You can listen to it for free. For seven bucks, you can download it and get special bonus materials, including 2 (there’s a secret and an extra-secret track) songs, and 2 (ditto) pdfs, one with all the album art, and the other with live photos of the band.

The Boat, Upon Which We Have Hopped

September 13, 2011 § Leave a comment

Band Camp. We have it.

Calm down, though. Take three or four deep ones, enjoy the realities of oxygen, and remember, this too shall pass. Yes, one more place you can go look for music from your favorite band in the world (another place, of course, besides Red Eyed Fly on October 1 and 29th Street Ballro’om on November 7), but this one has the distinction of being one where you can listen to a whole live album in a single place, crudely mixed by yers truly, but sounding better than it has for ten months, believe you me.

A link? Well, sure you want a link. A link like this one.

What’s that? You don’t feel special enough? Having these things available elsewhere doesn’t reward you, who look at the regular web page? Well, then how ’bout this:

A track just for you, from our live show at Red Eyed Fly. Maria, with Chris’ intro, a little wonderful nonsense without which we might decide we were serious, so bless him.

See? Love for all our web pages, not just the new slick whatevers.

Chris and Maria

Enjoy. Prepare for live goodness. Be well.

World Racketeers 4th Anniversary, and Scarcity Announcement

August 22, 2011 § Leave a comment

New Audio, New News

We played the World Racketeering Squad’s 4th Anniversary show on August 19th. Good times all around. Here is a short audio clip, one which encompasses our first song of the show, “(How Soon is) When,” from the upcoming album. The much-appreciated Holler at the beginning is our associate, Billy Wheels, putting the spurs to a mildly reticent audience still floating from the massive WRS show.

When

The new record continues apace. The initial recording on almost all of the tracks is complete. We have vocal overdubs and maybe some fine guitar work left on about five songs, and one special surprise (details to come) for one more, and then it’s just a matter of mastering, designing and pressing the dang thing. We’re still optimistic enough to say Maybe October, because we’re that kind of guys.

Speaking of, the next show is October 1st, at Red Eyed Fly. That’s Mike Boudreau’s Very Next Birthday Celebration Party. We’re on the inside stage, no cover, 8PM. There are a few signs up around town. There will be more.

As the new CD begins to exist, we have been given cause to look at the old one. The numbers of it are dwindling quickly. I you don’t have one, you should find one of us and ask, because it looks like the stores will be empty inside of a month. Once Albatross Empire is gone, it will be gone for a while. Two pressings is a lot for a debut album. If you can’t find one of us to ask for a (free) copy, you can go to Waterloo or Encore Records and they will (at the cost of cash money) provide you with one. That, or it’s still available to download (at the cost of cash money) from CDBaby, AmazonDot and iTuNeS.

So, 3 things to keep in mind:

1) Show October 1, 8PM, REF.

2) Special Surprise Upcoming. Dunk your whole calendar in ink, just so you don’t accidentally miss it.

3) Get Albatross Empire before it starts to cost money.

Remain well. Remain calm. Remain awesome.

Thank you for your time.

Live at Red Eyed Fly

July 19, 2011 § Leave a comment

Live Audio

We recorded the Red Eyed Fly show. It was a pretty good recording of a pretty excellent show. We had Chris do a pair of interstitials, little intros to two songs. This is the one before White Collars, and a recording of White Collars.

Chris and White Collars

It is my opinion that this one flowed particularly well. I think the intro, although we never actually got to practice it, and didn’t get to have our usual Spirited Discussion about where it “should” go, went very well before this particular song, and it is my unconsidered and snap opinion that it wouldn’t have gone as well before any of the other songs. Again, understand, that’s based on nothing.

We played another show, sadly not captured on-

Hm. I guess we don’t really capture things “on” anything any more. I guess you’d usually have said something like “not captured on tape,” or something, but there is no tape. I suppose, I could just leave it at “not captured.”

We played another show, sadly the audio was not captured, at Carousel Lounge. It was a double length set, lots of fun, after a smash-up performance by Douglas Gene of the Lightning Jars and Brother Machine of Bobby Jealousy. It’s not an easy thing to follow to handsome gentlemen with Stratocasters, particularly when one is, as we are, within another milieu, but I think we did OK.

That show would up being sort of the retirement party for our old songs. We played, for about the last time, most of the favorites from Albatross Empire. I would be surprised if they didn’t come out of retirement at least once before we gave up on them entirely, because it is still my opinion (see above for particulars of said opinion) that they are good songs. As they will soon have to await a Where Are They Now tour, I’ll give you a bonus glimpse at the approximate penultimate performance of PunchUp, a Post-Punk pygmalion from the prime purveyors of pretty good Pop pedantry.

Punch Up

Regards to Chris, by the way, off from whom I more or less ripped wholesale that last bit.

Cross Posting? How Lazy!

July 12, 2011 § Leave a comment

Yeah, yeah.

This is also posted on our Facebook (like you need a link). I couldn’t think of two clever things to say. Mea culpa.

OK! Details part One!
Saturday, July 16th
The Carousel Lounge at 1110 E 52nd Street

9:30 - Doug Frazier of The Lightning Jars
10:30 - Members of Bobby Jealousy (3 of them!)
11:30 - The Good Lazy System Glee and Perloo Society Extravaganza
1am - Go home, your head swimming with wonders!

Now you have this information! Go! Spread the Word! 

Also, if you show up early, two words: Belly. Dancers. 8-9.

But! Because you are here and not there, you get this gem: August 12th, at Red Eyed Fly. 9ish. Five Bucks.

Perhaps more exciting than that? August 19th at Rockin Tomato, with the World Racketeering Squad!

It was a good one!

July 12, 2011 § Leave a comment

Here are a few pictures from the show Saturday at Red Eyed Fly.

Feel like you missed an amazing show, and wish you could still get in on the glory? Lucky you! We’re playing again this Saturday, the 16th, at Carousel Lounge. The show starts at 9:30. We will go on at some point after that. More details as they become available.

Also, we’re playing at Red Eyed Fly again August 12th, and on August 19th at Rockin Tomato with Good Lazy System’s favorite squad of world racketeers, the World Racketeering Squad. We will mention these shows again, trust me.

Photos courtesy of Sam Overton, a champion among men, a lion among wolves, and generally a heckuva great guy.

We love you guys.

The Comfort of Song Development

June 27, 2011 § Leave a comment

Two Working Takes

This is from just over a year ago, about June 10, 2010. Aaron and I were working in a room with no A/C, in heat not unlike the heat which is drawing such interested comment today. The room had the distinct disadvantage of being on an outside wall of a steel building, and, although there was certainly carpet between us and the larger world, there didn’t seem much else (as we found when the respite of rain granted us a little glimpse into the world of moisture-induced mold and its immediate effects on musical instrument cases).

I’d been playing with a pretty simple riff, one that was essentially a heftily bent G, dropping to a popped, open E, a real “Guitar Player’s” riff, dumped to the bass. I guess I’d been playing bass for about three months at the time, and I was still operating very much in the “Guitar Playing” headspace, one which I try to vacate now whenever I pick up a bass, or, really, any instrument. There are enough people able to occupy that headspace more efficiently and effectively than I, so why force my little 2-cents upon the world, has been my thinking on it. So, we worked on it, and developed the second half, like this:

NewRiffJune2010

This is part of a larger take, spanning more than 9 minutes of generalized jamming and a little discussion of how many times to play any given piece of the song. The two of us sort of pushed gently at the shape of the thing, which would eventually become the track “The Comfort Of,” from Albatross Empire. At the time, of course, we didn’t have any words, nor even any idea of a direction for them. We hadn’t even really settled on a sound for the thing, as evidenced by this, alternate thinking:

ComfortOfAtlernate

Some time later, the three of us sat down and, after moving a transmission and a bath-tub for a half-month’s rent (it’s not a bad story, but I’ll save it for later), we wrote words for the riff, and, not much after that, vacated the place for a practice room with opposite amenities, namely, air conditioning and no seeping water.