signing off.

blamers are breaking up. thanks to everyone who came out and supported us over the last few years. much love to all.

final show info:

dark room

2210 w. chicago ave.

doors 8pm

cover $6

21+

Pancho's Tonight

when was the last time you saw a great american band in a mexican restaurant? Come down and catch Blamers at Pancho's tonight 9PM. 2200 n. california ave. it's our live in tijuana reenactment ceremony. well be leaving our equipment in the alley after the show for anyone who wants it.

Muthers'appear - The Mother Superior Tapes

New Blamers side project.

Recorded in just under three hours live to 4-track cassette.

Say hello to the massive punk rock that was huge.

Muthers'appear

The Mother Superior Tapes

1. Fuck My Face

2. Sex Junk

3. Stealing Feels So Good!

4. The Classical(Pavement Cover)

5. Who Knew?(demo)

6. Who Knew?

http://www.mediafire.com/?lvddmptp6sqjl7b

On the subject of bounty hunters, and how they acheive redemption

Galactopus in Space:

Created by master geneticists, under Kronblarg the Odoriferank's terrible oppression, Galactopus was raised by Kronblarg himself and, when he was old enough, appointed chief bounty hunter of the infamous Pronscion Sector. For many years, this octopus of space traversed the deep reaches of the cosmos, performing Kronblarg the Odoriferank's bidding with unquestioning loyalty. Known for his cunning and bravery, he is one of the most feared beings in the galaxy.

Galactopus had always known something was missing from his life. True, he was never denied anything, for to do so would mean death for the unfortunate who refused him. But, he was ever alone, the sole creation of a genetic experiment never repeated, a Frankenstein of space... That is, until he came to Earth and found the octopi who live in our oceans. Soon, our planet became home to Galactopus too...


Here we see Galactopus after his life-changing visit to the planet Earth, on his way to defeat Kronblarg the Odoriferank, his own father. Over the years, the cold of space drained from his soul and he realized the incredible pain and cruelty he had inflicted on others. He was happy on Earth, but the weight of his misdeeds weighed heavily on his heart. He knows that confronting Kronblarg the Odoriferank could mean death, but he must pay for his cruelty, with his own life if need be...

On the subject of sea creatures, and how to survive in a desert.

The Giant Squids of the Mojave:

These twin architeuthii were once the most powerful beings in the ocean. Somehow born with intellects unmatched in our solar system, they also possess the power of invincibility - as long as they are in physical contact with eachother. The bond between twins is strong, and none stronger than with these two. When they are touching, nothing in the universe can harm them.


Here we see them trapped in the Mojave Desert, a predicament they found themselves in after being out-witted by the space tyrant Kronblarg the Odoriferank. As ocean creatures, the heat and dryness should mercilessly desiccate their fragile bodies. But, as long as their tentacles touch, there is still hope...

On the subject of commuting, and how you can't always trust your friends.

Wattson Goes To Work:

Mr. Wattson was just like everyone else in the land of Bulbaria. Every day he'd wake up, put on a suit and tie, screw his head on tight, then he'd check the weather, grab a quick bowl of frosted copper wires and electron pops, strap himself to a balloon and head to work. It wasn't an exciting life, but Wattson didn't know that at the time. He was just a regular Bulbarian, with a regular 9 to 5 and little to regret or look forward to.

Here we see Wattson on his commute. He is late, as usual... another tick against him on his boss's growing list of grievances. But, he doesn't let that bother him. This is always the best part of his day, when the full glory of Shell City is laid out before him, and he's not going to let the vicissitudes of his mundane life ruin it. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, whichever way you look at it) things are about to change big time!

Wattson Meets the Cyclops:

Cyclops are fairly common in Bulbaria, though rarely do they actually interact with the general population. As they see mainly in 7th dimension, full of neutrino ribbons and sparks of time-future, it's not easy for them to relate to others. On the rare instance that they do approach strangers, it's usually because they're hungry. As you can see, times have been tough for the Cyclops - meals have been hard to find on the only road through Darkfang Forest.

Here we see Wattson many days after his balloon popped while commuting to work over the Great Bulbarian Desert. It has been a few hours since he reached Darkfang Forest. Suddenly, a massive hand, big enough to grind him into dust, reaches out for him. Behind it, an emaciated, one-eyed giant kneels and eyes him smilingly. For a moment, Wattson thinks the Cyclops is going to gobble him up. But, as the one-eyed giant has only just finished off a caravan of gypsies (the first meal he'd had for weeks) he only wants to make friends. Wattson and the Cyclops soon become pals, but, eventually, our hero realizes it's time to move on - his cyclopean friend begins to eye him hungrily after a few days, and Wattson sees that their friendship could never survive his being eaten...

Wattson Tries Out His Giant Shoes:

When we last saw Wattson, he was average-sized. After spending a few days in Darkfang Forest, accompanying the Cyclops on day hikes and spending evenings by a roaring bonfire, Wattson decides, for his own safety, it is time to move on. However, before he leaves, his one-eyed friend teaches him a spell that all cycloptics learn on their seventh birthday (as everyone knows, the cyclops of Bulbaria are born quite normal-sized, and achieve their great height through the use of magic).


Here we see Wattson returning to Shell City after employing the Cycloptic's Double Vedic Growing Spell. As you can see, he is much larger than he should be.

Fun Times!

Guess what everybody! If you're gay and a conservative there's now a place for you in the vacuous ether of the American right. We now have an initiative called GOProud whose mission is to "[represent] gay conservatives and their allies" through the traditional right-wing knuckle-dragging hubris of "free markets and a confident foreign policy."

In their latest post, Christopher Barron - GOProud founder and petitioner for a pass/fail grade for his freshman year PR course - posted this tidbit announcing some kind of annual gay Republican bash:

"The gay left," Barron laments, "has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests."

Damn protestors practicing their first ammendment rights. How dare they?

"Homocon," Barron continues, "is going to be our annual effort to counter the 'no fun police' on the left."

Because nothing is more fun than the government forbidding you from getting married.

sav mor loung

Show tonight:


the blamrs
whiskr music

4060 n. lincoln
9 pm
off the the brown lin, irving park stop.
eeeeee

Videos from the SubT show

Clown Babies On Drugs Demo and ::NEW SubT SHOW::

Pt. 1
The Blamers would like to usher in June with tidings of a giant party. June is a good month. It is the month where we get together on the 15th for a raucous show at Subterranean in Wicker Park with our friends Calibrated Crematorium and Deadlands.

6/15 Subterranean
The Blamers
Calibrated Crematorium
Deadlands

The Blamers sound like clown babies on drugs.

Deadlands is like listening to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly soundtrack if Ennio Morricone could sing. They're also really nice. I met them once but I don't think they remember me.

Calibrated Crematorium is a Mannequin Men side group with some serious skillz. I saw another MM side project last night by the way. It made me hungover without even drinking; it was that good.
...................................................................................................


Pt. 2

Here's this weird local band's demo I just found. Ya'll shoud listen and expand your emotional constructs. If you don't find yourself walking around singing, " Sheeeeyaaaaaaaaah" repeatedly for the next week you can have your money back, guaranteed.

Clown Babies On Drugs-Demo

http://tinyurl.com/2fwgxe9

Videos from the Empty Bottle Show

Huge Tidbits

Hey everyone,

Good, better, ugly, and superlative news. First, we have shows(really soon)!!!!

5/11 Empty Bottle- Holy shit, I cannot wait for this one. First show since last august(?). Ya'll better be there.

5/15 Elbo Room - Late night time but where else would you be round 1:00am, sleeping? Come on, it's Saturday. Live a little!

Second, here are the results of our latest band photo shoot. We went out to Montrose Harboure in Chicago and they were having kite day. Good Lord, that was a lot of kites. We were all in great spirits and I even did a handstand. One of our best friends, Jolie Cota Flink, accompanied us and took all these cool pictures.

You can see more of her stuff at: http://www.lightstalkers.org/jolie-cota-flink

She's a pro!!!... and here's the proof...

Jolie Cota Flink cont...

A Song to Commemorate the Great Spaghetti Monster Accomplished Controversy of 2007

Hey ya'll,
Patrick here. If you are a friend of mine you have heard this song. If you think you are a friend of mine but you have not heard this song, we are probably not friends. If you have heard this song but don't know me personally, I'd say that's odd.

This song is a throwback to old school History of the Western Death Thing tribalism but is a lot more listenable than the old crap, mostly because my brain has grown tremendously in the last six months. If you would like to hear what my brain sounds like today, you probably can't. But you can hear the next closest thing to today which is this from like a month ago. This song is called Forget It and while I hope you all forget this ridiculous message I just wrote, I hope this melody sticks with you all day. Try and dance to it. Let me know what happens. If you feel yourself falling in love, that's ok too.

HEAR IT IS!!!
http://www.mediafire.com/?2mznwzdyywn

Paint/Young Romans EP.

Five song EP featuring the original demos of Blamers's staples "Black Cloud" and "Blood Runs". 

Click here to download

Photo by David Grant

American Anger v. American Hatred: Another Labor Speech

Hello there, The Blamers. All quiet on the Western Front, I see. They ain't no shows and they ain't no congress in session for damn near just as long. So what've we all got to talk about up in here? Well, Justice John Paul from Chicago, the liberal lion of the SCOTUS, is retiring and we'll have to discuss that soon. But now's not the time. Practice sounds good lately on account of our new good ol' boy drummer from Bourbon country. But none of y'all care about no practice seein as how that don't bring home the proverbial bacon.

Reckon now sounds like a good time for our monthly news from the world of Organized Labor. I know y'all are excited, especially Pat since he's become the biggest fan of Studs Terkel this side of Sedwick Street.



I just read this Richard Trumka speech, which he delivered at Harvard a couple days ago. Trumka is the president of the AFL-CIO and his speeches are usually pretty bad ass and always rife with the kind of economic common sense us progressives gulp down like Jay at the Secret West Side Sake Emporium of Chicago.

Since the attention span of the average citizen of Blamers Nation is about as short as God's temper in Deuteronomy, I will here supply an abridged version of the speech. (The full thing can be found at this here link.)

I am going to talk tonight about anger—and specifically the anger of working people. I want to explain why working people are right to be mad about what has happened to our economy and our country, and then I want to talk about why there is a difference between anger and hatred. There are forces in our country that are working hard to convert justifiable anger about an economy that only seems to work for a few of us into racist and homophobic hate and violence directed at our President and heroes like Congressman John Lewis. Most of all, those forces of hate seek to divide working people – to turn our anger against each other.

The fact is that for a generation we have built our economy on a lie—that we can have a low-wage, high-consumption society and paper over the contradiction with cheap credit funded by our foreign trading partners and financial sector profits made by taking a cut of the flow of cheap credit.

So now a lot of Americans are angry. And we should be angry. And just as we have seen throughout history, there are plenty of purveyors of hate and division looking to profit from our hurt and our anger.

I am a student of history, and now is the time to remember our history as a nation. Remember that when President Franklin Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," other voices were on the radio, voices saying that what we really needed to fear was each other – voices preaching anti-Semitism and Nazi-style racial hatred.

But in the United States, we chose to turn away from the voices of hatred at those critical moments in the twentieth century. In much of Europe, racial hatred and political violence prevailed in response to the mass unemployment of the Great Depression. And in the end, we had to rescue those countries from fascism-- from the horrible consequences of the failure of their societies to speak to the pain and anger bred by mass unemployment.

Why did our democracy endure through the Great Depression? Because working people discovered it was possible to elect leaders who would fight for them and not for the financial barons who had brought on the catastrophe. Because our politics offered a real choice besides greed and hatred. Because our leaders inspired the confidence to reject hate and charted a path to higher ground through broadly shared prosperity.

The systematic silencing of America's workers by denying their freedom to form unions is at the heart of the disappearance of good jobs in America. We must pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that workers can have the chance to turn bad jobs into good jobs, and so we can reduce the inequality which is undermining our country's prospects for stable economic growth.

Government that acted in the interests of the majority of Americans has produced our greatest achievements. The New Deal. The Great Society and the Civil Rights
movement -- Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage and the forty-hour work
week, and the Voting Rights Act. This is what made the United States a beacon of hope in a confused and divided world. In the end, I believe the health care bill signed into law last month is an achievement on this order, one we can continue to improve upon to secure health care for all.

But too many thought leaders have become the servants of a different kind of politics—a politics that sees middle-class Americans as overpaid and underworked. That sees Social Security as a problem rather than the only piece of our retirement system that actually works. A mentality that feels sorry for homeless people, but fails to see the connections between downsizing, outsourcing, inequality and homelessness. A mentality that sees mass unemployment as something that will take care of itself, eventually.

We need to return to a different vision.

There is no excuse for racism and hatred. All Americans need to unite against it. The labor movement must be a powerful voice against it. But you cannot fight hatred with greed. Working people are angry—and we are right to be angry at the
betrayal of our economic future. Help us turn that anger into the energy to win a better country and a better world.

Paint- Axis Mundi

Round about Aught 8, Jeff wrote another album called, Axis Mundi. Let's hear bout it.

Where Esuna was sometimes schizophrenic, an experiment by a songwriter finding his footing, Axis Mundi marked a sharper focus. Instead of writing whatever came into my head, I tried to achieve a specific sound and aesthetic. The result is a collection of songs that is dark, ethereal, and sometimes, tribal-- heavy on the keys, and light on the guitars.

Later Blamers's standards, "Nocturne" and "Lights Go Out," follow opener "The Tyger," which pairs lyrics from the famous William Blake poem with  frenetic Sufi-styled vocals and hand drums. Also featured is an updated version of "Summersong," a track that debuted on Esuna. My other favorite is "Monday Nights," which is a momento mori focused on the mating habits of fireflies, built upon a repeating koto riff.

The recordings are still a bit rough, as I was still grappling with the mechanics of home recording, but overall, the songs are fun and worth a listen or two. Axis Mundi is a record of a songwriter staking a claim and unstretching his wings a bit.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/2jmdlmndhdb/Axis Mundi.zip

Paint - "Esuna"

 Way back in Aught 7, when Jeff was known as "Paint," he wrote a little album called Esuna. This is it's story. 

Esuna represents a time when I was still finding my footing as a musician and a writer. I had given up on songwriting for a few years at the time, thinking that my future was leading me down other pathways. I was studying Art History, and though I loved it, I was starting to feel foggy and empty, always writing about other people's work and never producing anything creative myself. For me, Esuna represented a taking back of a past from which I had cut myself away, deliberately or passively. 

Esuna takes it's name from a staple spell from the video game series, Final Fantasy. In these games, you can cure all the negative spells effecting your characters, such as "slow," "poison," "blindness," by casting "esuna." For me, writing the album was a metaphorical wiping away of the spells telling me I couldn't do it; an unlearning of the things I learned that kept me from music. 

The songwriting is flawed, the recording, abysmal, but there are a few things I am proud of. My favorite is "La Fin d'Octobre," a waltz sung in French about a guy who is being haunted by his dead lover, who visits him in his dreams, but only if he drinks enough du vin. Fans of The Blamers will be interested to hear an early and zygote-like version of "Summersong," which has become a live staple for the band. Other stand-outs are the tribal opener, "Incantation," a dark and wickedly morbid duet with Future Pat called "The Magic Number," and "All out War," a blues song about the spirit of war personified as a red-haired and ultra-violent beauty (à la Neil Gaiman). 

Anyway, give it a listen if you feel so inclined. Sometimes, its nice to remember where one comes from. 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nz0zhnmuktm/Esuna.zip

Come on, little life-giver. Give your life.

This blog post is about Joanna Newsom. Her new album, Have One On Me, which came out a couple weeks ago, is really fucking awesome. Seriously. Drop what you're doing and buy it right now. Worbs cannot describe...

Due to my unrelenting love for this person - whom I've never met and from whom I probably subconsciously rip off musical ideas - I will, so as not to appear overly creepy, withhold the discursive and pleonastic disquisition about her beauty and genius which has been percolating in my thinking-head for some great time now.

I've really only got one thing to say:

On April 3rd Joanna is playing at the Vic. So help me God, The Blamers, if we book a show for that Saturday night I will not play and probably take the opportunity to finally quit the band and become the first non-Jesuit to hold the Guinness record for slow-falling and abstract heuristics plagiarism. Fair warning, oh my brothers.

MAKE ME A BOAT

So, this somehow came out of a chat Caitlin and I had at work.
Caitlin: Are you mad at me????

me: intensely

moderately

slightly

barely

no

Caitlin: but...but then why would you not communicate with me all day?????

me: power

you see

now that you were the first to communicate, i am in the power position, and you have to do everything i say

MAKE ME A BOAT

Sent at 1:22 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: speed boat size or like, noah's ark size?

me: oh sorry

no, MAKE ME INTO A BOAT

Caitlin: that will be fun!

I'm not sure about your buoyancy though...

me: details like that don't concern me.

i would like to be a catamaran

Sent at 1:25 PM on Wednesday

me: MAKE ME INTO A CATAMARAN

Caitlin: i dont know what that is

me: Then you shall make me into a rowboat

and we shall sail around the world

and see many beautiful sites. Until one day,when you will say, "Luke, you are leaking"

and I will say, "no i'm not"

and you will say "yse, yes you are. You are leaking all over me"

and I will say, "I bet that's not the first time"

Sent at 1:29 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: and I'll say, "well I never noticed it before. What do we do now? We're at least 200 leagues from any land"

Sent at 1:33 PM on Wednesday

me: Then I will say, "Why don't you put something in my hole" To whit you will respond, "That's what she said"

Then we will laugh uproariously and be carried to the heavens on the backs of dolphins.

Sent at 1:38 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: And we'll get to the heavens, and you'll be like, "I was warned about the punch up here, lets avoid it," as Zeus comes up to greet us with two glasses of punch

which we both politely decline but feel Zeus' mood shift when we do

Sent at 1:57 PM on Wednesday

me: Then Zeus will get all whiny and pushy saying things like, "I spent all afternoon on this" and "Why are you guys being so mean to meeee?" Then he'll offer us a sandwich, and I'll say "Fine, if it will make you shut up, I'll have a sandwich" Then Zeus will hit me in the face and I will fall softly into the cloud-floor. And Zeus will ask "You sure you don't want some punch with that knuckle sandwich" Then you will stare at eachother for a second and burst out laughing. You will say, "Wow, Zeus! A double double-entendre! I think I'm going to like this place after all" And I will say, "umm, I didn't think it was all that funny" To whit you will reply, "I guess it hasn't hit you yet"

Sent at 2:12 PM on Wednesday

me: and then you will hit me in the face

and I'll say, "oohhhhhh, I get it now. That is kind of funny"

Sent at 2:17 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: And Zeus and I will erupt in laughter and turn away to walk arm and arm to the heaven collesium, where they have prepared a great festival for us. You lag behind, feeling defeated after being punched in the face twice within 5 minutes of being in heaven. You finally catch up to me as I stand on the edge of the stadium looking horrified

You look down upon the what I am so disgusted by to see the two dolphins we rode in on being forced to battle to the death. They have attached razor blades to all their fins and everyone is shouting, begging for murder

Sent at 2:20 PM on Wednesday

me: Seeing this, you are filled with rage. You hurtle yourself over the railing into the arena and take the two bladed dolphins by their tails and begin twirling them above your head like a deadly pair of aquatic mamallian nunchucks. And thus, the battle begins. A amazonian scream escapes your throat and in a tornado of fury, you circle the colliseum, hacking away at anything that gets in your way. Angel wings and cherub limbs fly everywhere. Mother Theresa very nearly bites one of your ears off, but at the last moment, you stab her in the neck with a dolphin. You fight valiantly, and with fury, but soon the tide of battle begins to turn, and you cry out to me. Thinking fast, I say to myself, "Luke - Form of...CATAMARAN"

Sent at 2:41 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: Just like that you transform and a heavenly gust of win catches your sails, pushing you straight towards me. You chuckle heartily as Gandhi's blood spatters across your clean, white sails. You can’t help but utter the catch phrase, “it’s time to kill saints and chew bubble gum...and I’m all outta gum.” Just I’m about to be struck by Zeus’ lightening bolt, I’m scooped up on your starboard side, as you head, full speed for the gates. The dolphins, who are eternally grateful for the justice we bestowed upon them, use their rigged fins to knock off any heavenly creature who try to vindicate us. When you came to a sudden hault, knocking me to the floor, I start to yell that your driving reminds me of a woman’s, but my voice catches in my throat as I gaze upon who was waiting for us at the gates. The most feared creature in heaven...

Sent at 3:03 PM on Wednesday

me: It was the Koala of Shame, a strange mutated combination of a Jewish mother and a Catholic school principal, endowed with the humiliating powers of a report card from Chem 102, all put together in the terrifyingly cute form of a Koala Bear. It stood in front of the Pearly Gates with it's little arms crossed, and disgust in it's eyes. The creature said "Look at this mess! I'm going to have to spend all afternoon cleaning this up! Now what do you have to say for yourselves?!?" Instantly, our consciences shrivelled up and remorse became our only emotion. My sails drooped and your bottom lip began to tremble. Though we knew it was just an illusion, we wanted to take it all back. "It was the dolphins fault," you murmured. "Yeah," said I, "It was the dolphins! They made us do it!" "Is that so?" said the Koala, with a look of withering disdain, "then we will have to... take care of them. Back to the Colliseum with them!" Fortunately, as we all know, dolphins are insatiable gamblers, cheats, liars and theives, and have long since devolved the need for remorse. Menacingly they wriggled towards the little furry animal. "Impossible!" it cried, "Have you no shame!?"

"No." they said. and within five seconds the Koala was fricasse.

Sent at 3:33 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: You and I breathed a sigh of relief as the Koala (who is actually a marsupial and not a bear at all) became a figment of the past, but soon realized we were now in more danger than ever! The dolphins narrowed their eyes at us and eerily jingled their razor blades, as if to indicate our fate. “You betrayed us!” they nayed and inched closer “No...no we knew you could save us all, we weren’t trying to put you in any danger!” you squeaked, and transformed back in to a human. Within two seconds the dolphins had as by the throat and were whipping back the way we came. “Lets see how you like fighting to the DEATH!” they cackled as we neared the coliseum. Amongst the corpses of thousands of Martyrs, the Dolphins placed us in the center of the ring and replaced each of our fingers with sharp knives. “What do we do now Luke,” I said through sobs. “Heaven is clearly no place for the likes of us. I wish we would have just kept sailing around the world.” “Kill! Kill!” the dolphins jeered impatiently. You dropped your head. “I know what I have to do,” you mumbled as you held the knife that was once your index finger up to your neck. “No Luke! NO!” I screamed. “There’s another way! Just try to read my lips.” In addition to being lying cheaters, dolphins are also rudely impatient, so they wriggled down to the rink. Just as they were about to force me in to the blades of your right hand, you suddenly transformed in to a TUNA NET, which we all know equals death to any dolphin that comes in contact with one.

(bring it home Luke!)

Sent at 4:10 PM on Wednesday

me: Just then, a light shown from above and a man descended on a cloud of cotton candy and landed in the middle of the arena. "Jesus!" you exclaimed. "Christ Almighty!" I said, astounded "Yes, it is I," intoned the son of God, "I hath seeneth the terrible deeds you haveth done, and I am deeply disturbed, my children. Knoweth thou not what will ne'er be to come of thy doings ere on this thy most terrible of days whence to be will be the comings of the time of reckoning?" "What!?" we said. Then Jesus said, "Never mind. What I'm trying to say is that you have completely ruined a glorious Festivus. The dolphins weren't fighting to the death. They were modeling the latest animal fashion. Idiots!"

Sent at 4:38 PM on Wednesday

me: After that, we all forgave eachother and had a great laugh. Jesus cleaned up the mess with a snap of his finger. A table laden with food and drink appeared and we all sat down. After a satisfying meal and many jovial laughs, we knew that heaven was not so bad after all. "Well," said Jesus. "I hope you all enjoyed dinner. It was great having you here, but now, unfortunately, I must erase your memory of this day, and send you back to your normal lives. But, before that" he added, meaningfully, "can I interest anyone in some punch?"......
Caitlin: We woke up next to each other on the floor of my apartment, not remembering at all how we got there. "Did we...?" I asked confused, wondering just how drunk we had gotten the night before. "No no," you replied. "I actually don't have a penis, so we couldn't have slept together." "Phew!" I sighed. "that could have been awkward. Let's go get some brunch" and we carried on with our lives. THE END