New Songs Exposed, You Like?

So we were talking about possibly posting the demo version of a few of our songs on here and possibly on our myspace. We're pretty secretive about our music while it's in the works and only show it to a few people to get opinions and reactions because we don't want to ruin the surprise when it is actually completed. Would anyone like to hear the demo version of our new stuff or would you rather just wait to hear the refined completed version when we're totally done? If we did post anything it would be on our myspace and blog for one day only and we'd make an announcement prior to posting it. Leave comments and suggestions please.

And if you haven't heard, we're toying with the idea of naming the album "A Sense of Urgency." There's a lot of different levels that this title works on and Demitri was the first to suggest it.

Highlights

This past weekend was pretty eventful. So much so that Tim got an insane case of strep throat and had to go to Queens hospital to get things sorted out. I tried talking to the guy over the phone while he was in the waiting room and you couldn't understand him the poor guy was so messed up. Luckily he got taken care of and he's doing better. That's what happens I guess when you play 5 shows in three days. U.Y. only played three, but Tim also plays in another indie rock band called Linus and they had a few shows too.

To get into the details of this weekend I wanna start with a story about the Cubworld show at BYUH this past friday night. The show went down better than we could have expected. By the first song we had people up front dancing their shoes off and people were really enjoying themselves. I was kind of nervous about the crowd because a large portion of it was older faculty aged professors and community folks. I asked Jake/Cubworld if we should shorten our set because I didn't want to destroy the old folks, but he wanted our full set so we agreed.

Come to find out, a certain student activities coordinator/director from BYUH seems to have an issue with the Youth of Upstanding-ness. It seems that in his opinion U.Y. is too loud and not a type of music that he likes. So he cornered the M.C. for the night and asked her to announce to the audience that they should feel free to use the bathroom during out 5 song set! I couldn't believe that someone would actually try to do something like that. I've had similar situations with this same director in the past and I know he doesn't like our music because he's told me so to my face, but to ask the audience to go to the pisser during our set?! I was just blown away by the lack of respect, social tact, or general manners that this situation seemed to expose. Luckily, Cubworld got to the M.C. before she made her announcements and made sure she didn't make the directors rude suggestions.

Other than that the night went off amazingly. U.Y. backed Cubworld for 4 songs and they all went down awesome and the audience seemed to love it. As soon as the show was over we packed up super quick and flew down to Haleiwa to play at Kainoas. It was a big shift in energy since we had this huge crowd that was really into our music and then we play to an almost empty bar for 3 hours. Although there was a midget getting down with an older Filipino woman during a few of our songs. They were cutting a rug like no other for a few songs and that actually made the night worth it to see this really short dude getting all freaky with this older Filipino woman. Most people in the bar were cracking up.

The next day we had to play 4 hours at Kemoo Pub in Wahiawa across from Schofield barracks. To take up time I played a solo set and our ever faithful friend Cory got some footage of that night. We should be getting a well recorded dvd of the Cubworld show since they had cameras all over that stage. Once we get that footage we'll post a bunch of it. For now here are some clips from the Kemoo pub show. The first one is of two new songs "Wailing and Gnashing" and "Warning Call" which'll be on our upcomming record. The second one is of "Sing To Me" which is gathering a lot of popularity since we've been playing it for awhile. It'll also be on the upcomming record slated for August 25th. Much love.
-marc

Heavy Hitting Weekend and Summer

This weekend is going to be pretty amazing. We haven't been this busy in a long time and I'm really looking forward to playing a bunch of shows. We had a long meeting last night plotting out the rest of the recording for the record and how we're going to try and get things done. Before I get to those details I just wanna make sure you noticed the shows this weekend. We're playing two shows on Friday night and another on Saturday. The Friday night gig with Cubworld should be awesome with a great venue and tons of great musicians. Upstanding Youth will also be the backing band for Cubworld that night - so we're really putting some miles down that night. Check out a show this weekend cause it'll be hotness.

Some important dates we can start sharing. We've put down two very important goals for the new record. We want to have the physical cd in our hands by the week of August 25th. We hope to have all the mixing and mastering done no latter than August 11th. So hopefully people will be able to purchase our album starting around August 11th from our snocap stores then itunes and then the physical cd will be available once we get it back from being pressed.

To be honest it's a huge project at this point. We've plotted out when everything needs to be written, when each instrument needs to record - each part has been plotted out in order to streamline this and keep everyone up to date on what needs to be done and it's a TON of work.

We're going to try a few new things when it comes to recording this record also. A few new tricks that Demitri has learned as well as simple techniques to improve the overall quality of the record.

One of the big things that I'm really pushing is to have all three horns record simultaneously. We've never done that in the past, but the quality of performance they get when they play together is leaps and bounds better than when they track it individually. Obviously there'll be overdubbing here and there, but I'm really excited to see how the horns go down. There will be a bunch of other little things here and there that we're trying to do, but those are secret and you'll have to just go on not knowing and we'll smile because we'll think we've accomplished something awesome when in reality most people won't even notice. If they don't, that'll be a huge success. Much love.

I can't stop watching the bill o'reilly clip...DO IT LIVE!!!

Hey Everyone! this is Demitri just wanting to fill you in on the UY gossip. We all got together the other night and discussed the future of things to come. As you may or may not know we have an album in the works, everything is mapped out and we are ready for a crazy 14 weeks of writing and recording. we will probably be doing some podcasts and put some vids up from the studio. also keep your eyes and ears open for demos of some new songs. I personally would like feedback from you guys once we get the demos up and see what you all think. We are also in the works for a title to the record so if anyone has any thoughts of what connects you to our music feel free to put it in print. I'm hoping for some inspiration from you guys cause we do it for you! Thanks gals and guys! See you soon.

28 Years Later

Yep, he got older today. So, we let him win at croquet. Turns out he is a graceful winner. Go Marc!

Photo Shoot Highlights

Our drummer Tom has really gotten into photography and did some great edits of our photo shoot from tuesday night. Here are some highlights. These along with other photos can be seen on our flickr page at:
www.flickr.com/photos/upstandingyouth

How many old school nintendo items can you see?

Old Forum

http://www.upstandingyouth.com/talk/viewforum.php?f=1

I just found this link and had to post it. It's an old forum that we used to have on our official website. We closed it down because it got invaded by bots and we couldn't control it. The site still exists but we don't use it. There are awesome topis like "this band is queerbag"by Naloboyz where some kids were pissed that we were hired to play their high school party or "Guinea pig blog" about when I got paid to let people test drugs on me for 10 days. Silly memories. It's like I found some old buried treasure.

Shananigins and Preperation

So in preperation for the new album we had a photo shoot of the band. We called up our good friend Marina Miller who most of the band went to high school with at Kahuku High. She's really gotten good over the last few years and we love working with her. She's done a lot of our photo shoots in the past and she knows what we're all about. This shoot went pretty well. Here's a sample of the shananigins we got into.

We found a couch on the side of the road and then turned a front yard into a front room. Demitri some how was able to jump stright up and get some serious air! Hopefully we can use these photos to overhaul all our myspace, blog, website, etc in preperation for the new record. We had another meeting last night to discuss timeframes and when and how we plan on finishing the record and we're shooting to have all the songs recorded by mid-late July. We have so much to do in order to get things done!

A big part of our time, at least for the rhythm section, is now being focused on helping our friend Jake Kongaika aka Cubworld. He's coming to town to do a show and asked us to fill in as his back up band and also to have UY open the show. We're stoked to help out and be a part of his show. Jake has had some real success as being one of the first people to make it on the famous website sellaband.com where he got people to invest $50,000 in him in order for him to do a record. Since then he's been traveling a bit to do shows in Europe in support of his record. It's amazing the new opportunities that the internet has provided for music.

Aside from all the preperations for the record I'm just super stoked to have UY in "go" mode. We've lined up a ton of shows already for this summer and are working on a few trips to Maui. Hopefully our Maui trip satisfies this blogs major fan from Makawao! Much love to the Makawao support that we've noticed on our daily blog map. We've been stagnant for a few months now and to finally feel some serious fuel being set to the fire of UY makes me stoked to get working on things. Many things are falling into place to make this happen. Aaron is back from the mainland, most of us are done with school for the summer, no one is going to the mainland for the summer, my wife is going to visit her family for three weeks for her brothers graduation so I'll have tons of time to work in the studio...somehow the planets are aligning for UY so we can put this record together right. Instead of slapping it all together really quick we'll be able to put some serious time into making a great piece of art instead of just a product. Can't wait to show it to you.

-marc

Videos

A slew of UY related videos found on YouTube.

An outhouse built for two.

Marc has been putting some serious peer pressure on members of this band to add to the UY blog so I thought I'd try my hand at it. First off, if you are reading this I would like to congratulate you for finding your way here (not to mention staying long enough to read these ramblings).

I am looking forward to seeing this album come together. We have been having fun writing new music and demoing out the songs. This time around the process seems to be really collaborative. You should expect something different, but not so different you won't recognize it as being UY. Aaron said he already has some design ideas for the cover art. I'm stoked to see what he comes up with.

Speaking of music... I recently watched a documentary on the Flaming Lips called "Fearless Freaks" which really inspired me. I hope to live my life with at least half the passion of Wayne Coyne. He may be eccentric and sometimes silly, but I don't think you can doubt his genius. Another amazing film is "I am Trying to Break Your Heart" which is a documentary about the making of Wilco's epic record Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I would highly recommend this film as well as the album. After seeing the movie I purchased the album which was on constant rotation in my car and at home for about a month. I'm still not sick of it, and the reason is that 1) the songs are good to begin with and 2) the production is layered in such a way as to be rewarding each time you listen to it. After digesting YHF we have been listening to A Ghost is Born which is sort of the "follow up" record to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Both albums are amazing.

Lastly, the picture at the top of the post makes me laugh. You know the person who designed the outhouse was thinking something along the lines of "I know, we'll save time by having people use the bathroom in twos!" Sometimes the best result doesn't come from streamlining the process, but don't take my word for it (insert Reading Rainbow sound here).
:)

Reunion and Goal Setting

Last night was the first time all six of UY's band members were together in about a year. Aaron (trumpet and backing vox) has been in Provo working on his masters degree in Art for the past year. We've really not been the same without him and have tried our best to keep playing shows with him gone, but it just hasn't been the same. Practice last night made that very clear. The additional horn and vocal harmony just adds so much to our live sound. Without it we're just like any other normal group. Each person is necessary and vital to create the vibe that always makes UY the great band that it is. Each person brings their own energy that they give off and each person plays off the bands energy differently. It was awesome to see the horns have some new life pumped into them last night. We haven't had a practice like this in over a year.

We were able to finally discuss some important issues last night like, are we going to go on another mainland tour, are we going to be able to finish this record we're working on, and if we don't do these things then what are we going to do. For me personally, the fact that I had a really important job interview this week helped me make a lot of decisions. Hopefully I'm going to be able to stay in Hawaii for awhile with a great job and keep playing music. I have one more semester to go and I'll finish my masters degree from UH in political science and this new job will keep me and my growing family alive. So that means for the first time in about 3 years Upstanding Youth will be in Hawaii for a whole summer! Usually someone is gone to the mainland (usually me trying to make a dollar and getting screwed trying to do so) and UY can't play shows. Our goals are now to finish a new record before August and try to play shows as often as possible whether they're paid or not. We've limited ourselves to paid gigs only trying to pay for a new record and tour this summer, but that has only hurt us in a few ways. We need to play more shows and inject ourselves into the scene again since we kind of feel like we've become detached. I suggested we shoot for shows every weekend, but that was ambitious - I know. We also decided that touring the mainland isn't going to be possible for a number of reasons. Instead, we're going to try and hit the outter islands like Maui and the Big Island as many times as we can during the summer.

So that was the big first time practice/meeting for the summer. Things should start picking up for UY and have some great results. With everyone on the island and a new record just waiting to be done I'm super excited to see what kind of things we throw down and are able to present to the world. We have some amazing songs already written and recorded and we're just waiting to show them to our fans. I can't wait to see what we come up with in the next few months.

Self Baptism

It's time to shove Upstanding Youth out into the world - again. I think as a band we've had over 100,001 ideas on how we can get more exposure or bring our music to more people. This is idea number 100,001. The goal of this blog is to provide a space where the band can be real and let you see into our real lives. Lives that have real dreams, hopes, frustrations, success, and failures. So often with band websites and promotional tools we have to make ourselves look bigger, badder, more hardcore (or less depending on who you're talking to), or just like something that is a little bit of an exaggeration in order to get attention. There are hundreds of bands out there and it is virtually impossible to be heard above the bad ones and even harder to be stand out from the good ones. Blogs are like reading someones journal or a letter they wrote to an intimate friend and can be a new way of connecting to our existing network of friends and fans and hopefully gain more. Hopefully we can write things about ourselves that people would find interesting but more likely they'll be mundane boring things sprinkled with interesting moments. More importantly this can be another tool to unify a group of people who share a love for music. The band as a whole can provide stories around this little blog-like-campfire so everyone can listen, laugh, cry, and smile about all the things that make the band that I have dedicated most of my life to so great.
-marc