10 Days until the Big Anniversary Show

Yeah 10 days.

If I haven't mentioned it or you haven't figured it out the All Girl Summer Fun Band are not playing. They told me a few weeks ago and I let the venue know. It is kind of a bummer but Kathy and the Thermals got a sweet tour offered to them with the Cribs in Europe. Oh well that just means more time for the bands that are playing. So that is the bad news. The good news is the venue is going to be all ages for the night. So let all your underage friends know this is their one and only time to see these performances. I never thought I would get to see a Dear Nora reunion show or the Galactic Heroes perform again.

The line up is now

Dear Nora
Tullycraft
BOAT
Galactic Heroes


We are planning on a limited release to have for sale on the night of the show. It will be 5 7"s with 10 sides and 10 songs. Magic Marker bands covering the songs of other Magic Marker artists. 200 copies thats it. The songs list is

The Owls "Springtime Fall" (Dear Nora)
Walker Kong "Bells" (The Bats)
The Manhattan Love Suicides "Superboy & Supergirl" (Tullycraft)
Dear Nora "Air" (The Owls)
BOAT "Nosebleeders on the Track" (The Faintest Ideas)
Galactic Heroes "Former Hero" (Heikki)
Tullycraft "Welcome to the Big Ten Conference" (Vehicle Flips)
Birds of California (Lunchbox) "Kick It back" (The Manhattan Love Suicides)
The Gazetteers "Ordinary Day" (Lunchbox)
Kissing Book "Any Kind of Pain" (The Best Friends Group)

I am pretty sure we will have these ready in time.

Here We Come Around

When I first met Katy she was playing in a band called Dear Nora with her friends from Lewis and Clark College , Ryan Wise and Marianna Ritchey.  Before I ever saw her perform my roomate Andrew Kaffer (Kissing Book) had already offered her a place to live at the Magic Marker House.  He had heard the Katy Davidson tape and let me know that it was good and for that reason alone she was coming to live with us.  Katy moved to California pretty soon after the release of "We'll Have A Time".  Dear Nora changed line ups and the band evolved as well as the sound. One of the my favorite set of songs by Katy was the "Dreaming Out Loud" ep where she wrote and recorded all 7 songs in 24 hours.  This almost felt like flaunting her own ability to write almost effortlessly. As I shared a wall with Katy I could hear her play guitar for countless hours just writing. She would write and record and send songs off to cd compilations, split singles, and a lot of them never found homes. We have collected on this 2CD collection all of her singles, and compilation tracks, as well as songs that never made out of the basement on "Three States: Rarities '97-'07". In celebration of this release Katy, Ryan and Marianna are reconvening in Portland to play a Dear Nora on Feb 7th at the Someday Lounge.  It is also our 10th Anniversary of us running the record label. Others that are performing are Tullycraft, All Girl Summer Fun Band, BOAT, and the Galactic Heroes.  It will be a time. 

Here are three songs off the latest release. 

Make You Smile

My Guitar

Hey Tiger (early 2003)

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.