After months of yacking about it, the band has finally come forth with a video shot on a houseboat , but set in space.
The Twilight Hours first album has dropped!
Oh, Sweet Mama, the time has come for us all to acquire “Stereo Night”. Let it in! Let the music pour over you. If there was ever a time to burn up some of your limited remaining hearing capability on a nice loud headphone listen, this is probably it. Let The Twilight Hours inside!
Read more...Let me hear your wares!Dicey
Posted by Matt
Well this tour is over, except for this increasingly harrowing ride home across Iowa through sleet and snow. Dave has been our preferred pilot since things got perilous earlier this afternoon. He truly does have a way with machines, and, as I mentioned a few posts back, he really is cool under fire.
We’ve been traveling caravan style for this little tour, and throughout it’s been Steve and John, “the rhythm section”, driving in a white minivan, and Dave, Jacques and I, “the talent”, in a little black sedan. We haven’t bothered to stay close together because it’s so easy to coordinate with the phones. We in the sedan have adopted the strategy of driving like grannies in the left lane where there’s less ice, and we’ve been passed at high speed by countless cars. We’ve also seen a few of those Steve McQueens spun out in the ditch with an Iowa squad car parked nearby, colored lights going crazy.
Earlier in the day our little car exited to gas up at a “Kum & Go” (Yes, that’s really the name of this convenience store chain.), and, just by chance, who should we encounter amid the flurries at the gas pumps but our friendly band mates in the white minivan. That really struck us as a marvelous coincidence. Filthy comments were exchanged with a smile and we went our separate ways in the snow.
Bargain Hunting in Lawrence
Posted by Matt
We got into Lawrence with a few hours to spare, and suddenly flurry of music retail tire-kicking broke out. Within minutes of penetrating the business district all members of the band were scouting for local music stores with an eye to taking advantage of the countrified locals with their innocent country pricing. Unfortunately the interweb has ruined that game and Minneapolitans no longer have an edge. All the amps and keyboards that we were vulturing around for were priced at perfect parity with their big city cousins.
Are there no more yokels to be exploited? Has the internet turned us into one humongous city where everyone knows what amps had previously been undervalued?
Damn you, democratizing interweb of knowledge!
Waiting backstage at the Waiting Room
Posted by Matt
We’re all gathered backstage in Omaha. The Waiting Room. Steve’s sleeping in a comfy chair. John and Jacques are chitter chattering about the show we played in Brooklyn when the club charged us money for playing too long. Jeez.
Somewhere between our last rehearsal and this afternoon, the electric piano that Dave has been playing must have taken a nasty spill. It’s a shining web of metal on the inside. A delicate, complicated machine, and some of the little pickups were just broken right off. Dave is such a cool customer, he went out and bought some Krazee Glue and has set about fixing it up.
And the Press Page was good.
Posted by Omniscient
Once again, webmaster, your work has sufficed. I am pleased with the Press Page. It’s fruits are damn tasty.
You may rest.
A Press Page has been born onto the site
It has been decreed onto me that there shall be a Press Page wherein evaluations of the band’s work, both positive and negative, shall be listed and enumerated. And also, it has been heaped onto my back that there shall be a place on the Press Page for the band to post “Press Releases”.
It has come to pass. And there was a Press Page. And the reviews were fairly excellent.
I just became a blues musician.
Posted by Matt
But better New Orleans than anyone else.
Localism
Posted by John
You buy local. You eat local. You rock local. Yes. You rock local. We rock local, too. It’s been a nice year for us around here. We love our towns. It would appear that’s a two way street. Recent evidence came in a couple of year-end wrap-ups.
Accolades
Posted by John
Of course we care what you think. What you think is important in so many ways. When you stand with your arms folded we try to act like we don’t care. We dominate our broken hearts with minds of steel.
And on those nights perhaps someone comes up and says, “lame audience tonight,” or something like that, we die a little bit inside, because we know that maybe we could have made the audience not lame somehow.
That felt good.
Posted by Matt
Our little East Coast sweep. Sometimes it felt more like a family reunion than a bona fide tour, but it did a lot of the tasks that travelling should. We returned to Minneapolis happy, victorious and renewed. The concrete feeling of bandness more set and firm than before.
The excellent staff of one at the 939 Club in Boston made a great recording of our show there, an unexpected gift. And the following day, as we rode to New York, we did the thing I’ve almost never done, but which I always should have: we listened to the naked truth of the music we were making. And there was so much to learn, so much clutter to clear away, so much cloud to be condensed.
Our posh night
Posted by Matt
Now I’m getting a little verklempt. We’re assembling in the lobby of our posh D.C. hotel right now. Yes, posh. We had planned to sleep on couches and floors last night, and we really would have been happy with that. But a very kind patron of the arts swooped down and carried us off to two fancy hotel rooms last night. Wow! Thanks, patron of the arts.
The full Twilight Hours crew includes me and John The Stalwart, plus Jacques Wait on electric guitar, Steve Roehm on drums, and Dave Salmela on keyboards. We’re traveling about as light as you could imagine, and it’s been working great. With less gear, you lose a lot of control, but it makes packing and lugging less onerous, and it makes the whole venture economically possible.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Twilight Hours are on tour!
Posted by Matt
We are making America pay. And it does feel good. Last night was New York, and we found ourselves cuddled up tight in a Brooklyn basement called Union Hall. Lovely! All the peoples were sweet and gentle, which caused us to break our own plan and play a little longer than scheduled. In fact, we incurred a small fine from the club who didn’t seem to understand how important it was for the both the bar and the universe for The Twilight Hours to prance and sing even more. We had to go to the bottom dregs of our song barrel to find some suitable music to satisfy the grave need that everyone was feeling.
Song of the Day Download at The Current Today, Tomorrow Tour!
Posted by John
Hey, go here and check The Current’s Download of the Day. You might already have it… but there’s other cool stuff to grab there and I think you should. Nothing wrong with free, right?
Tonight at the Nomad
Posted by Matt
Happy Holidays, my lovelies!
I always enjoy these shows around Thanksgiving and Kwanzaa because there is charity in the air. We’re all family here, right? And I will let the quality slide grievously. Ahhhh! If you’re wandering down to the Nomad this evening, do not expect a professional performance. Expect something much, much less!
Let Me Introduce To You...
Posted by John
...the one and only, Steve Roehm, drummer for The Twilight Hours. Matt and I first met Steve Roehm when he was playing with the notorious Billy Goat. Billy Goat was truly a band that deserved to have “The Notorious” attached to their name, as we learned the first night that we played with them, at First Avenue in 1991.
Systems within systems: Promises, expectations and violations
Posted by Matt
(Not long ago, John and I sat down to talk business with our label. Krista and Grant at Princess are the sweetest and gentlest, but when it comes time for an agreement, some contractual matters have to be addressed. There was talk of terms and percentages. Now you know I am a fragile flower, and this kind of subject matter starts to soak into my mind like blue food coloring into the petals of a carnation. Oh Lordy, forgive me! I woke up that night - perhaps a little buzzed on Nyquil - and this is the revelation I recorded.)
The Twilight Hours formally request expedited consideration for entry into the Pantheon.
Posted by Matt
As we work to bring wider attention to the band and our album, Stereo Night, John and I have concluded that our best path is to bypass the music business entirely, and make an end run straight for the Pantheon, a place of reward and recognition reserved for musical heroes. With this strategy in mind, we are including in our latest press packages a printed version (PDF 108KB) of this new and updated online plea for expedited Pantheon consideration. You will notice that in the new version of our letter, we have tightened the rhetoric to such a degree that the document’s conclusion is now inescapable: early enshrinement for The Twilight Hours will bring benefits to music in general, and society at large.
Twilight Hours Reach The Tippy Top of KCMP's "The Chart Show!"
Posted by Manager
The guys are not ones to crow too long and loud about it… but I thought I’d pass along the news that you have voted and made The Twilight Hours NUMBER ONE on The Current’s “Chart Show” hosted by Mark Wheat. I wish I could have been there to hear Mark say, “And this week, clocking in at number one, The Twilight Hours!” That would have been nice.
The "Influences" Question
Posted by John
Matt, I think we both know that the only song you actually have any interest in creating liner notes for is “Dreams,” so you accomplished two things by posting your liner notes thread: putting up the only liner notes you really gave a damn about and putting you and I into our normal, tormented twist. Mission accomplished!
I was thinking about a different way into the music, other than the “This song is about such and such,” thereby wrecking the song for all eternity for everybody (debateable as this thread demonstrates). How else can we penetrate the creative process? How do we account for these wonderful tunes aside from dreams? The “influences question!”
The Doorway to Dreams
Posted by Matt
During the last couple years, since I’ve had children swirling through the rooms of my house, I’ve found that the best place to mine for melodies and words is right near the edge of dreams. Of course, sleep itself is unimaginably precious, and I never want to leave. But when I wake up in the middle of the night, I try to be ready and listening. If I hear words or a melody, I repeat them in my mind. I’m trying to understand and gain clarity. But, above all, I’m trying to preserve the thing I’ve heard within my crumbling mentality until I can get to a phone or computer to record what I’ve found.
Clearing up some misconceptions about The Twilight Hours by the means of a dialogue between master and student
Posted by Omniscient
Omniscient: Webmonkey, you seem puzzled.
Webmaster: Master, I am fully indoctrinated and enthusiastic in my appreciation of the one band, The Twilight Hours. But I confess that sometimes my faith lapses when they do not post on this site for weeks at a time. Isn’t the universe out of balance if my own dedication is greater than that of musicians I serve?
Omniscient: No, your self worth is out of balance. Remember, monkey, to determine your value to the band we multiply your great dedication by your meager worth as an HTML technician. The product is not much. On the other hand, John and Matt are questionable in their dedication, but their limitless talent makes their contributions to the universe more valuable than yours. It is best if you close your mouth and consider ways to make the band’s rare postings appear on everyone’s Facebook page.