Hello Seahorse! "Won't Say Anything"

Big news! We are excited to announce that we are working with Mexico's Hello Seahorse!. We have set for release on November 11th the EP of "Hoy A Las Ocho" with bonus tracks. HS! Is Burgos, Denise Aka Vanilla Face & Bonno. A young promising band with an unpretentious proposal, a trio that celebrates that naïve spirit that leads our behavior most of the times. HS! is pop full of very attractive & emotional lyrics that will hook you up & surely will make you dance. This song is the catchiest song of the year. It has the fun and energy of Los Campesinos with only 3 members. We are very excited about this release and their upcoming album.

So we got the results of the ultrasound back and those that voted for a girl were right! According to the ultrasound she is healthy and on schedule for a late February delivery. I am not placing any expectations on her but it does seem like a good time to post a song from the new All Girl Summer Fun Band Album Looking Into It. I grabbed this from the Skatterbrain blog.

AGSFB - "Lost"

Guess what we are having

Sooo I guess I should explain this a little further. We have tried to tell everyone we know personally but for those that know us who don't know my wife Molly is pregnant and we are going to find out the sex pretty soon. Going back to olden times it seems to be a tradition to try to guess what the sex of the baby will be. So I created a little poll to take in everyone's guess or personal preference.

Tuesdays are for Kickball

My friend Jason found some old footage of a house show at the old Magic Marker house. He hadn't uploaded it until recently and decided to post it to youtube. I think this might have been the 4th of July show with Dear Nora and Eux Autres. This song is a nice rarity that was on one of the many compilations that the Galactic Heroes contributed to. Ricky's clarinet sounds a little rusty but it all still sounds good to me.

The Sporting Life

The Sporting Life were a band that had a pretty short life expectancy. The members of this band were Kip, Constance, Kyle, and I forget the name of the 4th member. This I believe was Kip's first band. He has gone on to be in many different bands including his current project The Pains of being Pure of Heart. When Kip told me about this band he said their main goal was to be good enough to play at the Magic Marker House. Well those that know Kip know that he is a very goal oriented person. The Sporting Life reached their goal and subsequently broke up pretty soon afterwards. I think the only other venue they played was the neighboring Reed College where all the members attended. This photo (by Jeff Mawer) and the song I am posting are from the "House Full of Friends" compilation that we put out several years ago. The idea behind this post is to let all the fans of The Pains of being Pure at Heart hear what Kip was working on back in the day. I think they had a bit of a Cat's Miaow sound to them. Kip was obsessed with tea and sweaters back in the day. Please check out the new and future releases of the fine The Pains of Being Pure of Heart to be found soon at Slumberland Records.

*edit Kip let me know that Nicole was the fourth member of the band .

Listen to The Sporting Life "Queen of Sandcastles"

Mark it's your birthday.

Happy Birthday!

Back to school

Right now Dave Crane is in front of a group of kids filling their minds full of knowledge. It is the first day of school. So that means summer is coming to an end but BOAT has left us with a video for "With Confidence" that was shot during their recent fall tour. Hope you had a great labor day. I know i need a nap.

The Owls "Channel"

The Owls "Channel" from Magic Marker on Vimeo.

This is a new Owl's video for "Channel". It is off their album Daughters and Suns. The video was directed by Philip Harder. I really like this video because you can see all the band members and well it is a nice reminder was a great song this is.

Martin has left the building

I heard from Martin from The Faintest Ideas and he said he has quit the band and that as far as he knew the rest of the guys were still figuring out whether to continue or what exactly they were going to do. The Faintest Ideas recently did a make shift tour while traveling down to the Athen's popfest. After the Columbus,OH show Martin proclaimed via myspace/facebook that he was done. I love the Faintest Ideas and I thought the record we put out was definitely one of the best releases I had heard two years ago but yeah thats me. Completely indie pop and completely catchy. Their record was even on heavy rotation on KEXP which I think they have been our only band that has ever done that. They were sort of the band that while they were the greatest guys and big pop fans themselves sort just barely kept it together to be brilliant. It seemed like they could just as easily fall apart as pull it together to be spectacular. Well as you many have figured out after apparently no one in Columbus went to see them they weren't exactly hugely popular. Hopefully those that got a chance to see them appreciated it. 2 years ago when they played SXSW they made it through about 15 minute set before Martin, who was terribly ill, immediately left the stage to go vomit.

I tip my hat to you Martin and The Faintest Ideas. Clearly class acts all the way.

BOAT appears on Major League Baseball website

Baseball card, chewing gum...record?

Nostalgia-packed EP riffs on Topps memorabilia

By Doug Miller / MLB.com

• Read the MLB.com/Entertainment blog
• MLB.com/Entertainment

D. Crane is not ashamed to reveal that he learned to read by memorizing the backs of baseball cards. Nor is he ashamed to reveal that these skills led him to his current position as a sixth-grade teacher.

"The teachers all sit around and talk about all the books they've read," says Crane, who moonlights as the lead singer and guitarist for the up-and-coming Seattle "sloppy pop" band known as BOAT.

"They're snobby about it. I feel kind of like a hack teacher because I would just take out my cards and my Baseball Digest magazines, read about George Brett, and now I'm able to read as well as the other sixth-grade-teacher people."

But he sings a lot better, which is evident on BOAT's new, baseball-inspired EP, Topps, named after the title track that references the legendary company that makes all those baseball cards.

Taking the concept all the way, the band had their own homemade cards made -- depicting band members Crane, Jackson Long (drums), Mark McKenzie (bass), Josh Goodman (guitar, keyboards), on-and-off band contributors and actual baseball players from Crane's childhood.

The clever, funny cards were then thrown, along with the requisite sticks of chewing gum, into the packaging for the vinyl EPs.

"The song has to do with baseball cards, so what better idea than to make it like baseball cards?" Crane says. "Who doesn't love baseball cards?"

Crane says this whole Topps thing is really catching on.

During recent gigs, audiences have been singing the chorus of "Topps" together, and Crane and the boys have been approached by fan after fan at the merchandise table to recount baseball memories brought back by the nostalgic EP package.

"Everyone's got memories and players they remember," he says. "It's been kind of amazing. They look at the cards and know someone in the set, and they relate that to someone.

"Rock people have baseball memories in general, and it's a unifying thing for kids who grew up in the late 1970s and '80s. Plus, the ladies seem to love coming to us and talking about Andre Dawson and Rick Sutcliffe."

Meanwhile, Crane prefers the New York Mets.

He grew up in New Jersey and fell in love with the late-1980s powerhouse teams at Shea Stadium.

Courtesy of Magic Marker Records

"My uncle worked for Sharp, the electronics company, and they would present big checks to the 'Sharp Shooter of the Month,'"Crane says. "It was amazing because he got to meet all the players. I remember all of them. Sid Fernandez, Mookie Wilson, Howard Johnson, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter. What a great team."

Crane says he's looking forward to checking out the 2008 Mets when BOAT hits New York this summer, and the band has been cutting a nice wake in the music scene in the meantime.

BOAT played the prestigious South by Southwest Festival last year and recently gigged at the Showbox, a big-time Seattle rock club, alongside the Long Winters, one of Crane's favorite groups.

And while BOAT is in their van touring around the country, Crane and drummer Long will have baseball on their minds.

"We love playing cities with historical teams, like Philadelphia and Boston and Pittsburgh," Crane says. "We're excited to be in those cities and play them for the first time, and we'll try to hit the stadiums.

They did just that on a recent excursion to Los Angeles, although the Dodgers were out of town at the time.

"It didn't matter," Crane says. "We drove by Dodger Stadium and took pictures. Then we played Wiffle Ball in a shopping center parking lot.

"We made our own little stadium."

Doug Miller is a Senior Writer for MLB.com/Entertainment. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.