CASPIAN

Tracking Complete / Europe Tour

2012-01-31T08:21:00.000-08:00

Tracking for the new album is complete. Much props to both Q Division Studios and Radar Studios for being such awesome spots for musicians to create and get busy in. We had a blast recording these parts and, for the first time, got to throw in lots of instrumentation we weren't initially expecting due to the abundance of great new tools to work with. Mixing will take place in late April out in Seattle with the album producer Matt Bayles so we have some down time to sift through all of this and cull through the madness. To say this album is "dense" is an understatement... There is a ton going on musically and it will take us some time to get a grip on it. We threw in the kitchen sink on this one. Looking forward to finishing this up and getting it out to you as soon as we can.

In the meantime, we have a short but sweet European tour kicking off next Monday. Really excited for these shows and only wish it were longer but so be it. Dates are as follows:

02-06-12 Hannover, DE @ Bei Chez Heinz

02-07-12 Hamburg, DE @ Haus 73

02-08-12 Copenhagen, DK @ KB-18

02-09-12 Aarhus, DK @ Train

02-10-12 Oslo, NO @ John Dee

02-11-12 Trondheim, NO @ Samdundet

02-12-12 Goteborg, SE @ Fangelset

-We also have a special, one-off show in NYC happening later in the month-

02-24-12 New York, NY @ The Studio at Webster Hall (with Pianos Become The Teeth, Tidal Arms)

That's all for now... Enjoy the remaining days of winter and we'll talk to you this Spring.

Recording Plan / Shows Announced

2011-12-21T11:41:00.001-08:00

Happy Holidays, friends. Hope you get some time to relax over the next few weeks!

Lots happening on our front as we plan for 2012.

Some new album news

We've finished writing our new album and will begin recording January 2 with production from Matt Bayles (Minus The Bear, Mastodon, Isis) and Will Benoit (Constants, Radar Studios). We'll be tracking the bulk of it at Q Division in Boston with Matt and then heading down to Will's for extra work all month. Mixing will be happening out in Seattle late-April at Red Room, and we hope to get this out to you sometime late summer / early fall 2012! It's been quite an experience putting this one together and we're excited to get this started. Read a little more about it at Punk News by clicking HERE.

Some more shows announced for 2012

We've officially announced a run of shows for February including a brief European tour in Scandinavia this February, as well as our first New York City show in over a year. Dates below:

2/6/12 Hannover, Germany @ Bei Chez Heinz

2/7/12 Hamburg, Germany @ Haus 73

2/8/12 Copenhagen, Denmark @ KB 18

2/9/12 Aarhus, Denmark @ Train (Post-Fest)

2/10/12 Oslo, Norway @ John Dee RSVP

2/11/12 Trondheim, Norway @ Samdundet

2/12/12 Goteborg, Sweden @ Fangelset

2/24/12 New York, NY @ Webster Hall Studio * RSVP

* - with Pianos Becomes The Teeth, Tidal Arms

Live at Old South Church EP Now Available for Pre-Order

2011-11-11T07:10:00.000-08:00

We are extremely excited to announce the release of our first ever LIVE EP! These songs were taken from a performance of ours back in October 2010 at a huge cathedral in Boston, MA called Old South Church. The event was a benefit for Amirah, a local non-profit that exists to aid victims of human sex trafficking. Proceeds from this will go directly to Amirah. This is will be released exclusively as a limited Vinyl (1000) / digital only deal so get them quick while you can. TONS of information including information on Amirah, photos from the performance, vinyl color options and lots more can be found by clicking HERE. Check it out.

The Atlas Ladder

2011-11-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

Philip has been working on some solo material this autumn. You can listen to a demo track "LSH" under The Atlas Ladder moniker at Phil's soundcloud page and the link below. Recommend playing as loud as possible in an isolated space.

LSH by The Atlas Ladder

Autumn

2011-09-20T10:17:00.001-07:00

Hey guys. Fall is slowly descending upon us up here as we get deep into September. Nice time of year as I'm sure you've heard... Leaves and cider and crisp evenings. It's a nice time to be around, and for the first time in a long time, we are actually here to enjoy it instead of being on tour. Lots of Patriots football to be seen. Looking forward.

We have some more finalized news regarding the new album. Dates are being booked at Q Division studios in Boston for tracking, with John Congelton at the helm producing. We will track up here and mix at John's studio in Dallas upon completion. This is great for us as it's only 20 min. from our hood instead of 23 hours. Nice. Depending on what happens with the finished product, we still aim to have this out to you by early summer at the latest.

Got some local MA shows (our first in eleven months!?!) on tap for November. It's insane that it's been so long, but we needed some space. Space taken - and now it's time to get back in it. Nov. 11 it's going down at the wonderful Iron Horse in Northhampton, MA with our buds in Hadoken. Yes, that's 11.11.11. And the 12th, we are currently booked at Great Scott in Allston but are looking to move the show up here to Beverly so we can do something ALL AGES instead. Want to accommodate all shapes and sizes. We will let you know what the final venue decision is going to be when it happens.

Finally we just want to thank the good folks of Washington DC and Philadelphia for coming on down to these shows last weekend. Was nice to get back up there and sweat like dogs again. We debuted a new song that we hope you liked, and officially retired the Quovis-Further Up-Further In "trilogy" in Philadelphia. It's been a long run with those jams and since we've performed it over 500 times, we figured it was time to put it on the shelf. Crazy.

Anyways, we love you and hope all's well.

2012 is shaping up to be QUITE the busy year. Get ready....

~xoxo~

Caspian.

Summer

2011-07-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

Nothing quite like the summer time up here in Beverly. Thick green trees, blue beaches and fish on the grill - it is supreme. Except maybe days like today, when we are nearing the century mark with excessive heat warnings and it feels like you are being licked all over by a sweaty beast. Rough out there. It's hard to imagine that just 6 months from now we will be getting slapped in the face by sub zero wind chills as we stumble through 10 ft. snow drifts trying to dig out cars. So it goes.

How are you? We feel like it has been awhile. Our last show was now over 3 months ago but it kinda feels like 3 years. We've been busting out new songs in prep. for this new album around the clock all summer. The last month and a half has been especially productive and we are starting to really see the new album come together. It's tough to explain where this one is heading sonically. Some things will sound familiar and some won't. Very hard to say, but as always, we can %100 reassure you that these songs are coming from the same internal place they've always come from, and t0 re-visit that place is an engulfing experience every time.

Anyways, the final plan is to record this in November with John Congleton (Modest Mouse, Appleseed Cast, St. Vincent, Explosions In The Sky) down in Dallas and hopefully get it out to you in Spring of 2012, at which point we will be hitting the road hardcore as always and going everywhere we can. There will obviously be way more information on all of this towards the end of the year, but we wanted to keep you in the loop.

We are happy to announce some recently confirmed shows for this fall as well:

Sept. 16 Washington DC @ Black Cat W/ Tone, Savage Republic

Sept. 17 Philadelphia, PA @ M Room W/ Tone, Savage Republic

We are stoked to get back on stage and perform as it really has felt like forever. Besides a yet to be announced Boston date, these are the only shows we will be playing for the rest of 2011. We hope you can make it out to them and HIYA!

That about covers it. If you're having a nice summer = Cheers. We miss all of you and hope you are well, always.

~xoxo~

Caspian

AbsolutePunk Interview

2011-05-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

Philip recently sat down with absolutepunk.net for an in-depth interview. Here is the interview in full. You can also visit their site to see the full article HERE. Thanks to Steven Shmunk for the questions and being friendly.

Are you still happy with the decision to make Tertia available for free download? Is it something you'll do again? What other formats are you planning for?

We thought it was a good, forward-thinking idea at the time, but the site we used to host the experiment was still in its early stages of development and some things went wrong with the overall process. Not sure we'd be involved in the same scheme again unless it's a service that has been road-tested more by other bands. As far as formats, I'd like to finally see a cassette tape release and a USB flash drive (with random goodies on it) in addition to the traditional digital, CD, and LP.

What are some of your favorite record labels? Have you ever thought of going to a Temporary Residence or Thrill Jockey size label? Gotten any offers?

I've always been a huge fan of Kranky and Matador. They're probably my two favorite labels of all time. My first 'crush' on an indie label was with Constellation (Montreal) around 2002. They set the standard for the way I view labels and the business of releasing music and interacting with their customers. For the next Caspian album we'll be putting it out there to see who bites like we always have. I think Temporary Residence is a fine label but already has a few bands who we sound quite a bit like, and to keep a diverse catalogue...yeah it doesn't seem like something we'd be offered. I can't really talk about record labels without mentioning The Mylene Sheath obviously since they are really one of the best, most committed indie labels in music today. They've treated us incredibly well.

Tertia was accompanied by prose poetry. I swear there was a short story written for The Four Trees, but maybe I'm not remembering correctly. While instrumental music can "tell a story" on its own — via dynamics, tempo changes, moods, etc. — because there are no lyrics do you feel it's necessary to include actual text to capture everything in your heads?

There was indeed a handmade, special edition release of The Four Trees that we put together (75 total I believe) that included some prose poetry by our friend Tom Mathe. ForTertia, we didn't feel it was "necessary" to include text — we included it because it added a nice layer to the overall aesthetic experience of the album art and was a response to the music that felt unique, sincere, and well-crafted. We didn't include it to give people a clue into the overarching narrative of the album or anything like that.

Do you ever think of adding vocals to your music? Not necessarily a lead vocalist, but just incorporate the voice into your sound.

Absolutely. There's been talk already of having some vocals on the next album here and there in a more upfront and direct way than just background oohs and aaahs. We are very much into the idea and plan on writing a song or two that revolve specifically around vocals. People who dogmatically reject vocals in post-rock always strike me as sort of strange since the voice is essentially just another tool to make music with.

What direction do you feel the new material is going in? Are there any new styles you're exploring? Is there a predominant mood? Song lengths?

That's a good question and I don't think we know yet. It seems like there is a collective desire to get more textured and less face-melting with our guitar work this time around. We could do that heavy buzzsaw wall of sound guitar thing all day long but we did that on the last album and to do another record full of that would feel awkward. In terms of personal inspiration, there's a road here in the North Shore that winds along the Atlantic ocean. Folks around here call it the "Cape Ann 500." Takes an hour and a half or so to drive from bottom to top (Beverly to Rockport). Back in the day, when music was developing itself as the most powerful thing in my life, I'd drive along that road at 3am blasting records all the time. All kinds of stuff from Radiohead to Boards of Canada to Sigur Ros to Sun Kil Moon to you name it. You're out there when everyone else is asleep and you feel like you own these beautiful surroundings. It's a very personal feeling of ownership and awareness that I haven't really experienced with anything else since. That's where music was at the height of its powers to me and personally I'd like to make an album that is a homage to that experience. Make the kind of album that I'd actually want to put in the deck and listen to in that exact moment in an effort to reconnect with a more innocent side of myself that's been busted up by touring for 6 years. Whatever would sound good in that moment is what I'm looking to make.

Any bands in particular that have been influencing your writing for the new record?

I guess we'll see how they manifest themselves in terms of influence, but I've been hearing a huge amount of amazing new music lately. True Widow, Grouper, Fredrik, This Will Destroy You, the new Young Widows...those are all just incredible records. Lots of great stuff happening out there right now.

Since the post-rock scene has essentially reached critical mass, how does a band stand out? Any advice for fledgling post-rock bands?

Well it's no secret that post-rock is one of the more "emotional" genres of music out there obviously, and I think that when you're working with emotions so intimately, it's important to be as genuine and sincere as possible with them when it comes to displaying them or using them as inspiration. People in the audience or behind a record player (or the cold, white glare of a computer screen these days) can sense when something is coming from a genuine place of inspiration, and with "post-rock" it's really difficult to fake that or put it on. So I'd say just make sure that you're looking for constantly finding creative ways to react to random inspiration in a way that feels personally sincere. Listening to critics or reading too much into the speculations or reflections of where post-rock is headed doesn't have a lot to do with making heartfelt, genuine music that you'd take bullets for, though it can be a rousing discussion sometimes I guess. I always like what Philip Glass says with the whole "If you don't like my music, you don't have to listen to it. Nobody is forcing you to do so, there's plenty of other stuff out there to listen to instead." When you look at it that way it's like, why not just try to be as genuine as possible with what you create and then just see what happens.

What bands in the scene do you feel maintain a distinct and relevant sound?

Mogwai has always kind of been the one 'post-rock' band that I can put in whenever. Most other bands I have to really be in the mood for it, but with those guys I don't so much need to be, and I really, really love that about them.

What bands have you especially liked to tour with?

It's impossible to pick just a few. I can't think of a band we did NOT like touring with, though some have been friendlier and more approachable than others definitely. We seem to luck out when it comes to touring mates. Of course there's our core, little Boston family of Constants and Junius, but even with them it doesn't feel like we are touring with another band since we are all so close; it kind of just feels like one big band out there. We had an amazing time with Native, Chiaroscuro, Arms and Sleepers, and Sainthood Reps in the states recently. Just plain amazing bands and people. There's just too many to name really.

What have been some of your favorite tour stops?

I especially enjoyed Glasgow, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong last year a lot. Those are amazing cities. We have some close friends in Nashville, TN that make rolling through there every tour feel kind of like coming home, so that is always a pleasure for us as a band.

Where's somewhere you'd like to tour but haven't had the chance?

Japan and Iceland! Those are the two places I've been wanting to go the most for what feels like an eternity now, long before the band even showed up. Hoping we'll make it there next year.

Any thoughts of doing another split release?

Definitely. We hope to set aside 2 songs from this writing session and release 2 splits before the new album comes out or sometime around it's release. Hoping that comes together with Native and Sainthood Reps.

Anything else you'd like to add?

It was nice to meet you and talk in Charlotte man, really enjoyed the discussion and hope to see you again somewhere down the road. And go Celtics.

ByeBye, Tour

2011-04-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

So that's that. We've been touring in support of our last release Tertia for almost 2 years now. 29 countries, 3 continents and over 220 shows played. It's been an intense couple years out there to put it lightly. Last week in Europe the campaign finally came to a close. It was nice to go out on such a solid tour and a high note - many thanks to everyone over there for making the last 8 shows so special and memorable. Special mention must be given to the Dunk! Festival in Belgium and Friction Fest in Berlin for being especially accomodating and professional. They really know how to the throw a party dude.

So now we are home and at last, our full attention can be given to our new record. We will spend the rest of the summer writing it and plan on recording in late October. All of this means that hopefully we can get it to you by early Spring of 2012, at which point we will be hitting the road again and going all over the place. Lots more on that as things develop. Right now it's time to take some naps and get back in the lab and start finding new ideas. We have no idea where this album is heading sonically and to be honest that's kind of nice right now. As usual, we will be writing music that we would want to listen to, and hope that you like listening to it too. Stay here for updates regarding the writing and recording of the album all summer / fall long.

We were pleased to have our good friend Johannes Klein travel with us and take some photos of this last tour. Here is a selection of his work. Enjoy and talk to you guys soon!

Thanks Montreal. Europe now in the crosshairs

2011-04-10T14:19:00.001-07:00

Great, great times last night at Casa Del Popolo in Montreal. Less of a tour warmup and more of a straightup throwdown. Thanks to everyone for coming down and making us feel welcome in that city, over and over again. Thanks as well to Twitter user @pelicanus_net for the photo on the left from the show. The wearepostrock.com guys were in the house and did some amazing video as usual. We will put that up here right away for when it's ready to go... They captured our first performance of the early B-side track "Cigarette" last night in over 5 years as well too. Good stuff.

So we've got 5 days back home and then we fly out to Berlin this Friday. Going to pack a lot of energy into our 8 shows over there this time out. Get ready to rumble. We are also happy to announce that founding guitarist Calvin Joss will be joining us for these dates - his first across the pond. Jonny will be *greatly* missed but we're happy to show Cal how things are done over there. Full dates:

April 17 - Moscow, Russia @ Gogol Club

April 18 - Poznan, Poland @ Pod Minoga

April 19 - Leipzig, Germany @ NATO

April 20 - Wroclaw, Poland @ Bezsenno

April 21 - Berlin, Germany @ Friction Festival (Kantine Stage)

April 22 - Giessen, Germany @ AK44

April 23 - Zottegem, Belgium @ Dunk! Festival

April 24 - Delft, Netherlands @ DeKoonbeurs

~xoxo~

Europe Tour Video Teaser

2011-03-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

CASPIAN Europe Spring 2011 Teaser from Johannes Klein on Vimeo.

Our good friend and frequent Euro travel partner Johannes Klein put this video together for the upcoming tour this April. Good stuff man!! Johannes runs a blog site called Penguins In The Desert that he posts video and audio blogs of our travels in real time on. You should certainly head over and check it all out - most impressive work.

Link: Penguins In The Desert

Thanks and Upcoming Europe Dates

2011-03-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

After a butt numbing 1,863 mile drive we are back home in Beverly following a whirlwind time down in Austin for SXSW. Hanging out down there can be kind of soul destroying sometimes, and the definite highlight for us were the 3 shows we got to play. They were shows we won't soon forget and they made the trip down and the 5 days there absolutely worthwhile. If you came to see us, thanks again for your support.

So now we've got one last little tour before it's extreme hibernation / writing time. Final dates for this April are as follows:

*****

4.09 Montreal, Canada | Casa Del Popolo

4.17 Moscow, Russia | Gogol Club

4.18 Poznan, Poland | Pod Minoga

4.19 Leipzig, Germany | Nato

4.20 Wroclaw, Poland | Bezsenno

4.21 Berlin, Germany | Friction Festival at Berghain

4.22 Giessen, Germany | AK44

4.23 Zottegem, Belgium | Dunk! Festival

4.24 Delft, Netherlands | De Koonbeurs

*****

These will be our last European shows for a very long time (one year +) so if you're in the area, consider coming on down and kicking it with us! We are really excited for these shows guys!!

Plan is to record the new album this October. Still deciding who to do this with but the options on the table are pretty mind blowing and have got us all kinds of excited. Just wait!!

Anyways, if you came to see us on tour or bought a piece of merch or head banged or let us crash with you or play foosball against you or have a beer with you or say hello or whatever, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Miss you already and see you again down the road....

~xoxo~

Caspian

Caspian at SXSW 2011

2011-03-06T17:41:00.000-08:00

Greetings everyone. We have begun our annual migration from Boston to Austin, TX for SXSW.

Info for each show is as follows:

March 18 - Valhalla. We headline The Mylene Sheath Showcase and celebrate ourrecord label with the rest of the family. We play at 1am but come early, this was packed last year. All of the info can be found HERE. If you can only catch just one show of ours this year, make it this one.

March 20 - MoMo's. We will be playing this FREE / ALL AGES benefit for the Austin Humane Society at 4pm with some great bands. No wrist band or anything. Just come and have a drink and maybe make a contribution to a great group of folks doing good work in Austin.

March 20 - Emo's (Main Room). Psyched to be a part of the annual Radar Recordings / Giant Steps "Goodbye Southby" event again. We wouldn't miss it. For this we play at 11pm before the mighty Tombs. This is going to be a SICK show and a proper send off in an amazing venue.

We hope to see out at one of these shows if you're in town for the festival!

~xoxo~

Caspian.

Cold Season

2011-02-22T10:32:00.001-08:00

What's happening guys. We are nearing the end of February and rounding the corner on another intensely bitter and snowy New England winter. Snowdrifts are all wicked high kehd! This morning it was 4 degrees for the umpteenth time. Needless to say, we are looking forward to getting down to the durty South and hitting the road in 10 days. You can see all the dates here. Native and Chiaroscuro are excellent bands and this will be a night of music you'll be happy you came to. Trust us on that. We will have our remaining stock of tour Vinyl (Tertia 2XLP, YATC/Four Trees 3XLP), all 3 CD's, new tshirts (beautiful designs, printed on high grade American Apparel so you'll wear them more than once), stickers and a limited edition tour poster by Mark Gamble of Secretly Swedish (UK) tht you can see below. We are also taking credit / debit cards from the merch table now. Expect a new song or two in the set this tour as well.

We will be wrapping up the tour with some appearances at Austin, TX's SXSW Festival. Our showcase is happening 3/18 at Valhalla along with labelmates Junius, Gifts From Enola, Herra Terra, Lavinia (Phil's other band that you should check out!) and Eksi Ekso. Can you say complete and total sonic destruction?

Work continues on our forthcoming live DVD release. We saw some rough cuts the other day and folks, this footage is absolutely amazing. Our friend Bjorn is slaving away over this out in Cologne, Germany putting it together and it's safe to say you're all going to be impressed with the final product. We are considering putting an Live CD in the package as well, making it our first official double disc experience. More details later about this, but expect an early Summer 2011 release.

We recently moved into another practice spot to continue work writing our next album. Currently we are in the basement of a Chapel at a local Episcopal Church. The work continues and we are REALLY looking forward to having un-interrupted time to get immersed in the process. We will keep you updated.

We want to very, very much thank everyone for coming out to the 4 local University shows we did during the last 2 weeks. Was a trip to drive down to a show in our own cars and sleep in our own beds after playing a concert. A lot of hard work went into these dates from some committed students and we are very grateful to have played for you.

That about covers it for now... Bookmark this blog as it will be the best way to stay up to date with us these days. If you live in Dixie, prepare the way. If not, we hope to see you soon and take care of each other.

~xoxo~

Caspian.

PS - Here is an interview we did last tour just up now. Have a listen if you're interested.

Thanks to the folks at FlipIt TV in Limerick, Ireland.

2011: The Game Plan

2011-01-03T07:28:00.000-08:00

Friends~

Happy New Year. After spending 145+ days on the road last year, we are trying to get in some rest now that we are back home while also getting back up to speed with our day jobs and the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It's always a strange beast to return to and already it feels as strange as ever. Keep us in your thoughts as we return to the world of bill paying, car driving, song writing and such this year. Time to get back in touch with "home".

This year we are, not surprisingly, taking some time away from the long gang busting tours. This does not mean we will not be playing shows though. Quite the contrary! We are excited to announce that once again we will be performing at this year's SXSW festival in Austin, TX. We will be doing a short 2 week tour down to it that takes us through the south and then into Texas. We are happy to announce this will be with Native from Indiana. Great band - this tour will rule. Dates should be up around mod-January for this.

In April, we will be back in Europe for 5 shows only. On April 21, we are at Friction Festival in Berlin. On the 23rd, we are at Dunk Festival in Belgium. And in between/before/after these appearances we will be playing select shows in Moscow (RU), London (UK) and Leipzig (DE). More information to come.

Most of 2011 will be spent writing and recording our 4th album. We have a couple songs completed but are looking to write 10-12 more. We are excited about consolidating all of our collective energy around this project and trying to do our best work yet. We will see what happens and keep you posted as always.

Have a wonderful year everyone, and please stay in touch and be well.

~xoxo~

CASPIAN.

Soundchecking at Old South (Video)

2010-10-21T19:30:00.001-07:00

Check out our buddy Todd's lighting setup. Holy crap.

YouTube Video

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Drum test in the room. No mics no nothin.

2010-10-21T13:56:00.001-07:00

YouTube Video

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Asia

2010-07-26T08:28:00.001-07:00

We went to China last week! Woah.

We had a slamming time out there guys. Did a club show at Hidden Agenda live house in Hong Kong, and had an appearance at a music festival north of Guangzhou in Qianyang City. It was pretty steamy out there to say the very least. We were over for just one week, making it easily the most surreal experience our band has ever had. Not knowing that to expect and showing up in middle of nowhere China is... wow. We could talk for days about the experience but we figured a short film could explain it better. Please see the above clip. There are also some pics of the trip at the end of this post as well. Check em out. We made some new friends and plan on returning for a full Russian/Asian (China, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, etc.) tour next fall (2011). Count on it.

The rest of our summer involves the continued writing of our new album, and resting up for some more touring this fall. We don't expect the new album to be out anytime crazy soon as we want to take our time writing this one. Still though, we are following our impulses and writing music that we all dig, as always. We will see where the process takes us this time and are really excited about writing again finally after so much touring.

The US dates for September are shaping up nicely, even though it's a short 12 date run. We only go as far west as Chicago though so west coast fans, we're bummed to say we can't make it back out this fall. We will be back in some great cities though like Toronto, Montreal, New York, Indianapolis, Cleveland, etc. so keep an eye out. One more long European tour will get underway in November. Those dates are coming soon too and are in places we didn't visit last time like the UK, France, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and other spots. It will be the last time we are in Europe for awhile (a place that has come to feel like a second home for us in the last 2 years) and we plan on bringing %100 to these shows like never before. Get psyched.

Enjoy the rest of your summer friends.

~xoxo~

CASPIAN.

Pics from Hong Kong and China by P. Jamieson:

Phil and Vickers gettin ready for a 15 1/2 hour monster flight.

Erin and Tobias, our European booking agent.

Weird fruit.

Mainland China from the train.

Hong Kong airport.

Grub.

Stages.

Hong Kong! Hell of a city!!!

With our bud Liu Kai.

In a jungle above the city.

Our passports are getting full fast from 2010.

UK Tour W/ God Is An Astronaut

2010-05-28T08:36:00.001-07:00

11.04.10 Galway, Ireland @ Roisin Dubh

11.05.10 Waterford, Ireland @ The Forum

11.06.10 Dublin, Ireland @ The Academy

11.07.10 Belfast, Ireland @ Limelight

11.08.10 Manchester, UK @ Ruby Lounge

11.09.10 Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts

11.10.10 Leeds, UK @ Cockpit 2

11.11.10 Birmingham, UK @ O2 Academy

11.12.10 London, UK @ O2 Academy Islington

11.13.10 Norwich, UK @ Norwich Arts Centre

Tickets are now on sale and information can be found on our myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/caspiantheband). Directly following these dates, we will be embarking on a 3 week tour covering France, Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Slovenia. Full dates coming this summer...

2010 TOUR DATES

2010-02-05T09:55:00.001-08:00

Leaving Beverly, MA March 8, 2010

CASPIAN ON TOUR:

3.9 Washington DC @ Black Cat **

3.10 Harrisonburg, VA @ Blue Nile **

3.11 Johnson City, TN @ The Hide Away **

3.12 Nashville, TN @ The Muse **

3.14 Orlando, FL @ Wills Pub **

3.15 Jacksonville, FL @ Warehouse 8B **

3.16 New Orleans, LA @ Dragons Den **

3.17 Shreveport, LA @ The Rustic Cowboy **

3.18 Houston, TX @ The Mink **

3.20 Austin, TX @ SXSW Festival

3.21 Austin, TX @ SXSW Festival

3.23 Tucson, AZ @ Pusch Ridge Church **

3.24 Scottsdale, AZ @ Rogue Bar **

3.25 Los Angeles, CA @ Pehrspace **

3.26 San Diego, CA @ Che Cafe **

3.27 Pomona, CA @ Characters **

3.28 San Francisco, CA @ Hotel Utah **

3.29 Sacramento, CA @ The Hub **

4.1 Salt Lake City, UT @ Bar Deluxe **

4.2 Denver, CO @ 3 Kings **

4.3 Albuquerque, NM @ TBA **

4.5 Austin, TX @ Mohawk **

4.6 Dallas, TX @ Lounge on Elm Street **

4.7 Kansas City @ Record Bar **

4.8 Mount Vernon, IA @ Orange Carpet **

4.9 St. Louis, MO @ Lemp Arts Center **

4.10 South Bend, IN @ Midway Tavern

4.11 Fort Wayne, IN @ Dash In **

4.13 Toronto, ON @ Rancho Relaxo **

4.14 Montreal, QC @ Divan Orange **

4.15 New York, NY @ Webster Hall Studio **

4.16 Philadelphia, PA @ The Khyber **

4.17 Pittsburgh, PA @ Garfield Artworks

4.18 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop ^

4.19 Indianapolis, IN @ Radio Radio ^

4.20 Grand Rapids, MI @ DAAC

4.21 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall ^

4.22 Madison, WI @ High Noon ^

4.23 Minneapolis, MN @ 400 Bar ^

4.24 Omaha, NE @ Slowdown Jr. ^

4.26 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge ^

4.27 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban lounge ^

4.29 Seattle, WA @ Neumos ^

4.30 Vancouver, Canada @ Biltmore Cabaret^

5.1 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne ^

5.2 Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall ^

5.5 Groningen, Netherlands @ Vera #

5.6 Njimegen,Netherlands @ Doornrosjie #

5.7 Koln, Germany @ Gebaude 9 #

5.8 Karlsruhe, Germany @ Jubez #

5.9 Weisbaden, Germany @ Schalctof #

5.10 Bochum, Germany @ BHF Langendreer #

5.11 Hamburg, Germany @ Hafenklang #

5.12 Aarhus, Denmark @ Voxhall #

5.13 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Loppen #

5.14 Malmo, Sweden @ Debaser Malmo #

5.15 Warsaw, Poland @ Progesja # *

5.16 Poznan, Poland @ Pod Minoga # *

5.17 Krakow, Poland @ Lodz Kaliska # *

5.18 Prague, Czech Republic @ Chapeau Rouge #

5.19 Vienna, Austria @ Chelsea #

5.20 Wurzburg, Germany @ Cafe Cairo #

5.21 Leipzig, Germany @ Wave Gothik Theatre

5.22 Athens, Greece @ An Club

5.23 Thessaloniki, Greece @ Block 33

5.25 Istanbul, Turkey @ Studio Live

5.26 Kiev, Ukraine @ Xlib Club

5.27 Moscow, Russia @ Gogol

5.28 St. Petersburg, Russia @ Tantsi

5.29 Helsinki, Finland @ Korjaamo

** = with Arms and Sleepers

^ = with Red Sparowes

# = with Constants

* = with Ef

TwentyTen

2010-01-15T07:12:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. We are home after a short 10 date Northeast tour. It was a great way to get back in the groove and prepare for the coming onslaught of touring that awaits us this fine year. We did the tour with our new friends in Sainthood Reps from Long Island. Quality dudes and a great band. Check them out! Miss those guys..

The year 2010 will be a very busy year for Caspian. This Spring we are touring the US and performing at the SXSW festival. In May we are headed back to Europe (you can view some of the dates on our Myspace page already). This September we will be touring the US again, supporting our friends in God Is An Astronaut from Ireland. And then later in the year we will be doing a UK tour with selected regional dates elsewhere in Europe. We look forward to posting a HUGE batch of tour dates very soon for all over the place, so please keep checking back at our myspace page. You won't believe all of the dates until you see 'em in person!

There's much more news but we'll get to it in due time. Tons actually - stay tuned friends.

JANUARY U.S. TOUR DATES

2009-11-16T10:17:00.000-08:00

12.30 Middle East Downstairs | Cambridge, MA *

01.03 The Space | Hamden, CT ^

01.04 The Haunt | Ithaca, NY ^

01.05 Broadway | Amityville, NY ^

01.06 The Ottobar | Baltimore, MD ^

01.07 The Triple | Richmond, VA ^

01.08 The Red & The Black | Washington DC ^

01.09 Pianos | New York, NY ^

01.10 Kings Row | Derry, NH ^

01.11 ICC | Allston, MA ^

01.12 Firehouse XIII | Providence, RI ^

(Full US Tour coming March-April 2010)

* - With Constants

^ - With Sainthood Reps

Full U.S. Tour (all over, everywhere) for March and April are currently being worked on. Final dates should be posted before Christmas. Please direct all booking inquiries to Bunce.Booking@Gmail.com

LOTS OF NEWS FOR YOU

2009-11-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone-

We are back home safely in America now after wrapping up our European über tour. I remember looking at all those dates on our myspace page back in the summer wondering how exactly we were going to play all of those and survive to tell the tale. We survived. Now it's time for some well needed rest. To say thank you to everyone we met over there seems trite and insufficient. It's difficult describing to people all that happened in those two months so instead we will filter the memories into a quiet closed off space inside and move forward with them. We will never forget the experience.

So, what now you may ask? Quite a lot.

US Touring

We are zoning in on the USA. A lot of folks over here in the states seem to complain to us about never touring here. We wonder where everyone was in 2006-7 when we did 4 long haul coast to coast, sleep on the beer covered kitchen floor of random people tours, but it's cool. We're coming back with a vengeance. In early January, we will be doing an 8 date mini tour of the Northeast supporting a band called "Sainthood Reps". They are a side project of a big band named "Brand New". These dates should be posted very shortly on our myspace. Cities include Baltimore, New York, Ithaca, Portland ME, Richmond VA and Washington DC amongst other places.

In late February/March we will be hitting the road HARD and going out for 5 weeks across the country. Those dates are currently being worked on and should be posted in January. If you're a promoter and are interested in booking us, please contact Duncan Rich at Bunce Booking. The email is: bunce.booking@gmail.com. As always please keep checking back at our Myspace page for the latest in new tour dates.

Re-Issues

Right around tour time, our US label The Mylene Sheath is planning on re-issuing our debut EP "You Are The Conductor" and our LP "The Four Trees" with updated packaging, etc. This is going to be pretty cool! Way more on that when the time gets closer.

Live Album?

On November 20, we are heading back to The Fallout Shelter at WUML in Lowell, Massachusetts. We'll be playing our full tour set and broadcasting it out on the internet to anyone worldwide that wants to tune in and listen. These guys do amazing live studio recordings so this should sound pretty excellent. Point your browser to http://www.wuml.org around 9pm EST on November 20. We encourage people to freely tape and record and distribute this performance as well. If the recording comes out solid we might just end up releasing it as a live EP next year, but we'll have to wait and see on that.

Last Night On Earth VII

In customary Caspian fashion we will be performing our final show of yet another crazy year at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, MA on December 30. So far our compadres in Constants are on the bill, and 2 more acts will be announced soon. This show is always a special event. This year expect us to rip out some songs we haven't played in FOREVER and also some songs that haven't been in live rotation much lately. The set should be pretty different. We are looking forward to this show so much!

Back To Europa

Our next European tour is scheduled for May of 2010. We won't be able to play all the same places we played last tour, but we will be revisiting some key spots and venturing into some new ones as well (Russia, Greece and Finland to name a few). There's also a chance we'll be over in Belgium and The Netherlands in early April for a few shows also but that is still being worked out. Way more to come on this next year.

Stay Updated

We've been posting news updates on our Facebook and Twitter a lot, and plan on continuing with that. Links to those are to the right. Sometimes we will link to here for more extensive updates as well. Myspace seems to be a rotting pile of spam turd these days so our blog there is done, as our checking Myspace messages. The myspace page is still ground zero for purchasing and tour information but that's as far as it goes.

ByeBye

Enjoy the holidays friends.

~xoxo~

CASPIAN

Vienna

2009-10-13T05:40:00.000-07:00

Howdy all this is Philip. We're currently driving from Zurich to Vienna somewhere in Germany. When we are in Germany we get free WIFI which is pretty great for these long van rides. The traffic here kind of stinks right now and I hope we make it on time to the show in Vienna tonight. We have some close friends in that city and we've been looking forward to this show all tour long. Should be a grand time indeed!

The show last night in Zurich was an adventure for sure. Earlier in the day my right eye started swelling up and I was in an immense amount of pain. I went to the hospital in Innsbruck and the doc told me I had a bacteria infection and that we should probably not play the rest of the shows. Well, obviously we aren't going to do that. Anyways, he gave me a prescription for some eye drops and that helped reduce some of the pain. Because of this we didn't arrive in Zurich until 8:30. We pulled up the front door and immediately loaded at light speed and within 15 minutes we were sweating it up playing our set. The show was sold out and the crowd was amazing! I'm really glad we didn't decide to cancel even though I couldn't see anything including my pedals or the frets on my guitar. Hopefully it gets better this week and we can wrap this tour up properly.

Still going

2009-10-10T10:13:00.001-07:00

Lisbon, Portugal.

Heya~

We are still on tour! 6 weeks deep and 2 more to go. Can you believe it people.

Right now we are in Bolzano, Italy. It's kind of close to Austria and is up in the Alps. We drove 2000km from Madrid to get here. Broke the drive up by staying in a hotel in Nice, France last night and then took quite the scenic drive up here to Bolzano along the Mediteranean and then up into the mountains. The natural beauty of this area makes it difficult to breathe sometimes. Epic might be the only word really..

We finished up our 5 shows in Spain/Portugal with a gig at the Ritmo Y Compas in Madrid two nights ago. What an awesome show! We all enjoyed it so much. Definitely one of our favorite gigs so far this tour without question. The crowd really pushed us to play as hard as we could and we felt like the atmosphere in there was very positive.

After the show we stayed up until 6am at a bar downtown and that was, also, pretty epic.

Spain and Portugal were amazing as ever. We were treated so well by our hosts and appreciated all they did for us. Both nights in Portugal featured traditional Portugese meals that were so tasty. Codfish and pork with fried potatoes and other delights.

In Gijon and Bilbao we saw our friends Artur and Nacho again. Those guys seriously own all others.

Like I said above we have 2 more weeks exactly of tour out here. Our first few shows in Germany literally feel like 3-4 years ago. We are tired, worn out and constantly sleeping in the van and yet somehow, I feel like we could go for a year straight on the road and be just fine. We have reached a rhythm that feels comfortable for us. We are going to try and enjoy these last 2 weeks best we can and absorb as much as possible.

Metz, France. Nuite Blanche Festival.

2009-10-05T06:13:00.000-07:00

CLICK ALL PICS TO ENLARGE

Hey Friends-

We are in SPAIN right now. That simple fact alone could encourage me to type until my fingers fell off... Which I will do in good time. It is simply amazing here as always. But we'll get to that in the next blog offering.

Today we'd like to talk a little about a show we played last Friday night in Metz, France. The event was the "Nuite Blanche Festival". This was not your conventional music festival. Basically they closed down the picturesque French city of Metz and turned into an all night music and art ruckus. Tons of people walking all over the place soaking up everything from Sparklehorse playing a main stage set to sculpture to a WW2 era fighter jet parked right in the center of town with crazy lights shining all over it. It was a wicked affair to say the least.

Our participation in this festival was co-ordinated by our new friend Julien, an amazing guy to say the least. What a wonderful human being Julien is. Before the show we were treated to an amazing steak dinner at this wife's restaurant too! Goes a LONG way, right there :)

Anyways, he thought it would be a good idea for us to play underneath a bridge in the center of town. This basically meant they closed the road down and we set up shop. We started right around midnight and played for an hour. There was also an experimental filmmaker displaying some custom footage on a gigantic 20 ft. screen right above us on the bridge. Are you picturing this yet? Hopefully the pics above give you the idea. They don't capture it but they must suffice. Apparently over 1,000 people showed up to watch this someone told me. That is just simply ridiculous!!! We've never played outside before, let alone play on a closed down road with a huge video screen under a full moon to a city full of wonderful French people.

This one is hard to put into words. After it ended we all mutually agreed that this was probably the most special thing we have ever been a part of artistically. It's a show we won't soon forget. Thank you Julien and all the people of the Nuit Blanche Festival. We hope to return and do it all again.

Here are some pics. There's also a tiny video clip of the end of Sycamore. We've got footage of most of the set but I don't enough time to upload the bigger files right now. Enjoy!

Leeds

2009-09-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Shucks my battery is about to die here in Leeds.

Could type forever about the last few days...

Our show in London was sold out! Ir was great, though unfortunate that their lame ass curfew but us off. Very strange and frustrating. But a blast nonetheless.

The UK is great. People are very passionate here about music. And life in general it seems?

It's cool.

Damn battery!!!!

Groningen

2009-09-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

Today we are in Groningen, Netherlands. It looks like a classic small European city, with cobblestone roads and nice shops. When we got here we walked around a bit and then some British guy came out of a bar and kicked a homeless guy in the face for saying something to his girlfriend apparently. That was pretty messed up. We kept loading in..

The venue tonight is actually a smaller downstairs room of the bigger venue, Vera. It is all together probably smaller than the actual stage that we played on last night in Maastricht. Speaking of which, last night was great! Played a festival with 5 other bands, including a band called "Starfucker" from Belgium who had the coolest people in it. They were super nice and we chilled out for awhile with them. There was also a band called "Soldout" that did electro indie stuff and sounded incredible. All in all it was a great show and experience. Our new driver, David, is cool dude who wears cool caps and cracks simple and hilarious jokes only at just the right moments. We are glad to have him along.

It's cool because tonight it is just us playing, with no opening act, so we can take our time and go easy in terms of changing gear, soundchecking, etc. In fact we just soundchecked and since the venue is the size of a living room (not really that small but you get the idea) we only put the kick drum through the speakers and it sounds fine. There is also apparently a gigantic dance party/club in the same building that we're gonna go to after we play. And we're sleeping right upstairs in a SWEET band apartment so there is no driving to anywhere after the show involved.

We have to leave at 8am tomorrow to get to France so maybe its for the best.

Have a great Saturday friends...

Koln

2009-09-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

Today we drove from Aarschot, Belgium to Koln, Germany. Last night we stayed at this guy's house who was so kind and amazing to us. It was one of the best nights of tour. We stayed up late browsing his incredible collection of vinyl and drinking some homemade Belgian beer. Words cant do justice to this beer. We've never tasted anything remotely like it. Honestly I didnt even catch this wonderful man's name which is why I'm referring to him as "this guy". Out of all the people we've met this guy deserves to have a name haha. Anyways, staying at this place was the best and we're all feeling excellent today.

It should have been a nice short drive but there was some pretty rough traffic that added an hour to the drive. All in all it was about 3 hours which isn't so bad at all considering we've had drives of 13 hours this tour. When we got here to the club, the promoter greeted us with an amazing spread of delicious food (see above). We ate to our hearts content. Sandwiches with butter, prosciutto, ham, turkey and other cheeses. Very tasty indeed! After that we soundchecked. For maybe the first time, the sound guy CRNAKED the speakers and was all about louder the better. Trust me, that's a first this tour. We spent some time working with the sound and got it to a good point for sure. Now we're taking it easy getting ready to play. Jorg and Dennis and Eike from our record label are all here tonight which is awesome too. Jorg got married and is a happy clam these days. He makes us all feel great about our band and being here touring. God bless the man.

Sadly today is Lisa's last day with us :( David is taking the reigns driving and he seems like a total bro so that is great. For the first time in Europe we're gonna have all dudes in a van, all the time. Round up the brodeo.

gotta go.

The blog man cometh

2009-09-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

So we fired this blog back up to keep you informed on this insane tour we are on in Europe right now. We've been doing facebook and twitter updates but the seem limiting, so we're back to this here blog.

Hopefully we can update it a lot and post pics and videos, etc. But as always we are subject to the presence of free wireless connections and free time to post updates.

You should bookmark this site and check it all the time if you want updates.

Here are some random videos to get things started we found.

The quality of this video kind of sucks but you get the idea.

DAY... SOMETHING

2009-02-17T06:23:00.000-08:00

Finished tracking all the parts, now we have 10 days of down time to listen to the record and prepare for mixing at the end of the month. It's an eye opener to listen to stuff outside of the studio speakers and on the normal car or room stereo speakers you hear other records on. It's nice to be able to get this perspective this time around as previously we've holed up in the studio, tracked and mixed all in one shot and left with a final product ready for mastering. Not so this time, as we get to take notes and make small changes, etc. It will ultimately help make the record that much better. Until then it's lots of long drives up here in the North Shore with blown speakers.

DAY 10

2009-02-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

We just sang the vocals for the song we mentioned last blog...

Will from Constants sang some harmony, sounds pretty dope.

Did a preliminary mix and now they're barely audible, so if you didn't know there were vocals, you probably wouldn't notice it, which is ultimately quite alright.

Cal is currently tracking pedal steel for a couple songs.

Search YouTube for O'reilly vs. Bale on YouTube by the way. It's funny.

Tommorow we will finish tracking and then come back in later in the month to mix and master.

Record should be completely done by the time we go to SXSW in mid-March, then we will pass it around and see if people think we're crazy or not for doing what we've done here.

DAY 9

2009-02-10T13:39:00.001-08:00

Took the train in the studio today from Beverly.

A delightful ride indeed. Quite scenic.

Guitars are now completed and we've moved into keyboard/auxiliary/beats/different sandwich lunch options/etc.

Only two more days remain of tracking for this record. Feels like it went by in a blur and hard to believe it's almost over in here.

We just spent an hour working on a programmed drum beat for "Ghosts of the Garden City". Some extra distortion has been added in all the right places and it's been fattened up to have some huge low end to shake toyota celica's across the nation. Damn son.

Cal spent an hour re-stringing his pedal steel guitar that'll probably not get used but it's here if we need it.

A lot of people have been asking about the vocals on the album... Not to fear, they appear on the albums most concise, straight to the point and heaviest song named "Malacoda". In the background, high pitched kind of singing but not really chanting or background noise either... Hard to explain.

More tommorow, and some cheesy videos to follow.

DAY 8

2009-02-09T11:33:00.000-08:00

This album is going to be pretty heavy.
Hopefully you're as alright with that as we are, cause at this stage of the game we are really having a good time in here, and feel like for possibly the first time, we are getting tones that come the closest to how they sound in our heads when we're staring at the ceiling at night unable to sleep.
I just ate the 8th chicken finger sub of this session in 8 days.
So delicious.
The Northeast Performer came in to talk and we had a nice discussion as well.
Tommorrow we are breaking a little early so that Ethan can to a Bruins game, which means we have to battle Boston rush hour traffic on the way in from the North Shore to get here early = hell.
But he's doing god work so all is forgiven.
Our friend John is coming in a couple hour to lay down some cello tracks too which should be fun.
For some reason we've never had one of those on a Caspian album before. Glad that'll change.

Day 6

2009-02-06T17:33:00.000-08:00

12 String Guitars rock.
Today we spent a very long time with guitars.
The record is taking more of a live feel than past albums, though it's still quite textured.
Got 6 more days to make this pop. And we will.
It's too cold to go outside so we hole up in here all day.
Right now we're itching to get out though and have a night on the town as today has been an especially challenging day finding sounds and locking things up nice and tight.
Time for a beeeeeer.

Day 4

2009-02-04T08:56:00.001-08:00

Today we may get to guitars.
Bass will be done today, drums are in the can.
So we're looking at about 8 days to have completely devoted to guitars, textures, synths and a couple vocal tracks.

Ethan Dussault. Lead Engineer, avid Bruins fan, political conspiracy junkie.

Ghost Tracking

Deks

Drumz

In The Studio.

2009-02-03T10:24:00.001-08:00

Day 3

Drums have been completed.
Now it's on to bass.

There are many pictures and video to come of this session, just you wait.
Our friend Will is going to be doing a film documentary of this session and he's coming down this afternoon to start gathering footage of us being "serious" and stuff and "in the zone" (?)

Things are more laid back this time around in many regards.
Gone are the stress fests of the last record and now we're here to have fun recording what we think is some solid music.

We have a clear vision for this record and did more homework for it so now there's more clowning around time allowed.
Cue to next week though and we'll probably be bleary eyed insanity stricken chumps fighting with each other and the engineer and talking about calling it quits.

We shall see!
Stay tuned friends.

.

2009-01-23T11:09:00.000-08:00

2009200920092009

2009-01-12T10:19:00.001-08:00

Well it's shaping up to be a busy year for CASPIAN.
As of today we've finished writing the material for our new record.
2 1/2 years of back and forths, second guessing, inspiration, etc. etc. and we've got about 55 minutes of material that we'd take bullets for. We feel that there isn't a second of filler with this material, and sometimes that may translate into a slightly different take on the Caspian sound that you've been familiar with for the last 4 years. Maybe not though, it's hard to say. We're done thinking about what people might want from this record and what could help us get more popular and hence make a real living with this and be careerists and instead are deciding to make music we'd want to listen to and are exceedingly proud of. We're pretty confident we have that with this material so now it's time to record. We're going to do that in the usual Caspian fashion - 2 or so weeks of intense tracking, mixing and editing and then letting whatever settles from the dust be our next record. We could go back and forth for years trying to perfect it but as always it's going to capture a tiny little moment in time and then go from there out to whoever wants it. We're looking for a NEW LABEL in North America so keep your fingers crossed that someone who digs it and wants to promote the crap out of it finds themselves in front of some loud speakers and this music sometime soon. Look for the new album to be released worldwide hopefully in September, but I'm sure half of you will hear it sometime this summer when you get your grubby mits on an illegal download of it.
We're also going down to SXSW again this year in Texas. Touring some of the fruited plain on our way down as well. Should be bang up times as usual. And we're DEFINITELY going back to Europe this September and also will be debuting in the UK around then which has us excited. A full US tour is going down sometime in 2009 too. W O A H people.

Happy December

2008-12-05T07:05:00.000-08:00

Hello friends.

What's new?
We have officially adjusted back into back into our swing of things here in Massachusetts.
By "swing of things" I mean we finally have a fucking practice space to write music at here in the North Shore. Thanks to John and the Jamspot people in Wakefield for breaking from their normal routine and accomodating our desperate asses for a few months. This news is cause for great celebration, and in the last 2 days we have already spent 10+ hours in there finishing up a song we started writing before we left for Europe. This song is one of the heaviest songs Caspian has yet written and it is almost complete. We are trying very hard to not repeat a lot of ideas each record and this song feels like a good extension on that in some ways, and in others it feels like a more focused idea of what we are trying to do with past songs. But in actuality people will probably just write it off as another indulgent piece of "post rock" pretentiousness and go back to their 'Lil Wayne records.

You hear about that walmart dude getting plowed over and KILLED by rabid shopping idiots last Friday in NY? Yankees fans, I'm sure. But seriously, WTF?!?!? That was seriously messed up and twisted. Is Christmas over yet? Bah humbug.

Here are some random interesting things one can find on Youtube.com:

"The New World" is the greatest movie of all time in my humble opinion. And the directors cut is now available I was told. Yes.

Some Good Albums

2008-11-25T10:51:00.000-08:00

Some Really Good Albums:

Fennesz "Black Sea"
...Trail of Dead "Festival Thyme EP"
Horse Feathers "House With No Home"
Zoe Keating "One Cello x 16: Natoma"

Some Super Crap Albums:

Oasis "Dig Out Your Soul"
Deerhunter "Microcastle"

Some Super Crap News:

We still have no place to practice! WTF.

HOME HOME HOME

2008-11-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

We all now made it back to the USofA safely.

Memories of highway strips, good beer and better people fight for space in our tired skulls.

Its cold back here.

Most of the leaves are down.

Feels like... New England.

We got more or less kicked out of our practice space by the person that runs the space we have played at for awhile now.

Welcome home.

So we need a place to finish writing this record, which will begin recording February 1.

Working on it!

Curtains.

2008-10-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

Patiently awaiting the final showdown in Hamburg, Germany

All good things must come to an end. Tonight we're in Hamburg at Knust waiting to cap the experience off best we can. This tour has been... woah. Overwhelming. Exhausting. Thrilling. Its run the gamut from top to bottom. As said before it is impossible to explain, but still its pretty clear that this has been the most intense month of Caspian history. Words cannot express how thankful the four of us are to Will and Ira first and foremost. The tour would not have even remotely possible without either of them on board, bottom line.

I just typed out a couple paragraphs talking about the last couple days, thoughts on the tour, etc. But then I deleted it since words aren't coming out right at the current moment. And - the opening band is wrapping up and we're taking the stage finally.

If you've read this blog for the last month, we hope you enjoyed it. Like we said earlier, this is the new home for all latest Caspian news so we'll be updating it all the time with information and other tidbits regarding the upcoming album recording (which is happening February 1st!) and finishing writing said album. Keep checking back :)

CASPIAN~

Eastern Bloc Party

2008-10-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

Arrived here in Slovenia a few hours ago...

Sitting backstage here at MIKK in Murska Sobota - an amazing venue.

Patiently waiting to take the stage.

Awesome backstage room packed with food and drink, internet and such.

Very grateful for such things right now as the drive today was 10 and a half hours of butt hurting boredom.

Lots of driving this week and lots of POLAND.

All 3 of the shows in Poland (Sopot, Poznan and Krakow) featured warm, extremely high energy crowds who made us feel a little less wiped out at this point of the journey.

Very grateful to have played for such amazing people.

Fatigue is setting in, and the end is near. Just trying to make sense of this tour is exhausting as so much has happened in the last 3 weeks.

Won't even know where to begin when the eventual "how was tour?" questions start coming in.

???

We'll make t shirts that say "it was great!" and point to them as we stare into space trying to contemplate this all.

Besides touring we're also spending some quality time figuring out how and where to record the new record - a record we are committed to making excellent.

Been talking to some peeps back in the USofA and work shopping the process in advance.

Anyways ~ here are some pics. Been taking less and less seeing as how every other picture on my iPhoto is a pic of a backstage room or some van shenanigans or someone making a dork of themselves at 2am covered in sweat after a show. They are priceless, bur probably boring to the innocent bystander.

Much Love~

Philip

Leaving the remote youth hostel in Sopot, Poland en route to Poznan.

Ira counts the millions of euros we have made this tour backstage in Krakow.

This is us with the band "Tides From Nebula" who we found to be some of the most friendly and musically ass kicking guys in all of Europe. This was a truly awesome night of tour that featured an amazing crowd and lots of free Polish vodka. And a very strange dance party downstairs that lasted until the wee hours.

Currently

2008-10-21T01:06:00.000-07:00

Caspian with I Am The Architect in Frankfurt, Germany

Hello.

Right now we're in Berlin, preparing to eat breakfast and head to Poland.

We spent a good portion of our day off yesterday in Prague, but decided to head here around 6 last night to break up what would have been a 10-11 hour drive.

Prague was wonderful, despite the fact that some prick covertly charged Joe, Erin and Will around 55 USD for a pizza and 2 coca colas. Seriously.

The show in Prague was one of the best, as was the show in Berlin (despite some bad gear malfunctions) and the show in Leipzig (despite the polizei showing up because we were breaking curfew at the venue). All in all though the last few shows have been top shelf.

With Petr, our promoter for the Prague show. Peter was a kind man, to say the least.

Prague.

Frankfurt am Main

2008-10-17T01:40:00.000-07:00

There isn't much to report from Frankfurt, Germany I'm afraid.

Besides our boy John Howland and co. showing up at the show last night, and that being incredible, and the band "I Am The Architect" from Munster playing a great show with us, it's business as usual and off to Berlin in 10 minutes.

Sounds like a heck of a Sox game back in Boston last night... Wow.

Got to watch the 3rd presidential debate at someone's flat in Wurzburg as well... Yikes.

Seems like we aren't missing much with that whole thing over here based on the sheer boredom induced by watching that debate. Oh well.

Vienna~Munich

2008-10-15T02:35:00.001-07:00

with our kind hosts in munich at a traditional beer house

Philip, again.
Live from Munich, Germany.
Looks like I'm the only blog posting geek of the band this tour.
Yesterday was our first day off so far. The most was certainly made of this day.
I spent most of it with my good friend Vanja who showed me the city in all of its beautiful glory. I'm not sure what everyone else did, but I hear it was good times as well.
Stops included drinking the most delicious beer known to man (Ayinger wheat beer - a beer so delicious I nearly wept into it again), walking by the river, and traveling in the local subway.
Vanja made me an incredible traditional Bavarian breakfast and was the most hospitable, radical dude you could imagine. My finest to Vanja and his hospitality.
I look forward to returning the favor in Boston sometime soon.

The whole "people were so kind and hospitable" thing must be sounding like a broken record at this point on yee ole blog, but every day it communally amazes us all. This tour wouldn't be half of what it is without the kindness of our hosts.
More pictures from Munich and the day off:

Vanja, Phil and Will at the beer house in Munich

Downtown Munich

Benni, who let us crash at his place and took us out, and... Vickers

The river in Munich

Vienna was such a special show for the band.
Perhaps the most special of the tour yet ?
We have many close, good friends there, and the evening was one that will echo for a long ass time.
The Rhiz was a small venue, but the crowd assembled was solid, and being there with all of our friends was so beautiful.
We miss them all very much and thank the Neubachers for opening their home and fixing dinner for us at 2:30am!!! Incredible!

Today we resume the sweaty mayhem in Wurzburg and play a string of dates in Germany. Then its on to Prague and Poland. So much more to come from this tour, which is hard to imagine considering how much has already gone down. OVER AND OUT

* C H U R *

2008-10-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

taken in the very center of downtown chur at sunset. this is what you see from the main street. you can... kind of get the picture.

but not really.

words fail monumentally when attempting to describe the city of chur, switzerland.

it... is.... woah.

*head explodes*

Dudingen, Switzerland

2008-10-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

Made the drive from Lyon to Dudingen today.
On the short side, only about 3 hours which was refreshing.
Here at the "Bad Bonn" for the show tonight.
Its a wonderful little spot on a farm in the middle of nowhere with a cool folks hanging around and AMAZING beer.
When your clothes are in a washer at the hotel downtown, you've got a strong Wi-Fi signal, its Friday night, and you've got 7 drink tickets (for 7 AMAZING beers), life is pretty magical.

And soundcheck went well so that's a good sign.

Some pictures from the last week.
Hard to choose what to put up so these are just random...
Click to enlarge.

Caspian and The Allstar Project at Porto-Rio for post show shenanigans.

West of Bilbao, Spain in the Asturias.

Brosephs.

Bola Club in Gijon, Spain.

Porto, Portugal.

Crowd in Madrid at Ritmo Y Compas.

FRANCE/SPAIN

2008-10-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

Paris, France

Heya~

The string of dates here in Spain and Portugal end tomorrow with a what looks like a huge show in Madrid, Spain. Before we go any farther we absolutely must thank Andre' from here in Porto for assisting with the booking for these shows and helping us out a great deal with hospitality and promotion. Andre' is amazing and we are eternally grateful. These last 3 shows have been so memorable for our band and they are times we will never forget. Thank you Andre', Nacho, Artur and everyone else for being incredible to Caspian over the last few days here in Iberia. We will return.

This tour is simply incredible in so many different and beautiful ways. Last night we played on a boat in Porto right at the mouth of the main river of the city and into the expanse of the Atlantic. Pretty insane! The show was the best of the tour so far and the crowd felt like a home town one with a lot of very positive energy. It is also safe to say that Gijon, Spain is the most amazing city we've all ever visited. It is on the northern coast of the Asturias region of Spain and needs to be seen to be believed.

The computer is having some serious trouble uploading pictures right now, which is a shame cause I've been popping some ansel adams worthy pics in one of the most beautiful regions of planet earth for the last 4 days. Heh. More to come whenever the next internet connection surfaces and we have extended time (which has been very rare in the last few days).

Hope everyone is well-

~Philip

Den Bosch

2008-10-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

Some Pics from recent days. Click on them to enlarge. Video is coming of random things but Youtube takes some time to upload these things. The promoters of the show tonight put us up in an amazing little Hotel down the street here in Den Bosch. Its plush and the bathrooms are real clean. Today is definitely one of those days where being in a touring band is pretty much the single greatest thing you could envision yourself taking part in on the face of the planet. Needless to say, 2 shows in to this tour and we've been treated better than you could imagine. Free meals, kind staff, professional sound people, back stage rooms with water/beer/food/etc, the coolest driver ever (seriously) ... Its all a bit overwhelming for us since we're used to driving around a van ourselves, asking people from the stage if they can put us up for the night and scrounging change to eat Jack in the Box french fries. Reading the audiences in Europe is very difficult so far! Very cerebral and respectful. Better to just do our thing and hope for the best... We shall see.

Some nice folks in Duisburg, Germany who put us up and entertained for the evening.

Show Poster at Amp in Munster, Germany. Show was a good time, and turned into the most wicked dance party we've ever seen afterwords. Woah. Loading out gear through a sea of 200 people packed thick was like World War III.

Today is Erin's birthday!

Ira presides over the merchandise. Words can't really express how amazing Ira is and his contributions to Caspian this tour.

Waiting for Lisa (our driver) to pick us up in the van in Dusseldorf as tour begins.

Dusseldorf

2008-09-30T02:05:00.000-07:00

Yoooo. The pic above is from a Lebanese restaurant that we all went to last night in Dusseldorf with Jorg and co. from our record label over here. They treated us to one of the most delicious meals we've shared together in Caspian history. Tasty. 'Twas excellent to finally meet them in person. We are in good hands here with Make My Day Records, this much is certain..

At the current moment we are sitting around in the lounge of the hostel with 3 hours to kill until Lisa (the driver for the tour) creeps up with the van. Then it's off to Duisburg for the first show of the tour at Steinbruch with the wonderful band, Ef. Last night when we left the restaurant we heard them announce the show tonight on one of the largest radio stations in the city! So that is a good sign... We shall soon see.

Hallo

2008-09-29T06:34:00.001-07:00

We have arrived safely in Germany. The plane ride was smooth and everything in terms of customs and baggage went off without even the smallest hitch. That was a huge relief as we were dreading either losing gear or having to pay extra for an unknown reason, etc. But all was well. The sun is rising on another Caspian tour, much like it is in the picture above over Frankfurt. Quite a beautiful scene eh? We checked into the hostel yesterday at noon after walking around Dusseldorf for 3 hours aimlessly trying to kill time until they'd let us in. When they finally did we took some naps, got everything safely situated and then hit the old part of town and made our way to a couple lovely bars where the wheat beer and pilsner flowed (a little too) freely. It was a grand old time indeed! Today we slept a lot and had complimentary breakfast which consisted of bread, jam and a beef pate'-esque paste that smelled like cat food and looked like monkey poo. I just recently spoke with Jorg, our record label owner, and it looks like we are going to a Lebanese place to eat dinner tonight and talk trash about the post office people who lost a box of LP's that cost over $150 to ship from Beverly. I guess 1 thing going wrong makes it feel like a real tour, but in honesty pretty much everything so far has been pleasantly smooth. There are some school children yelling in German playing at recess outside the window. Yah!!!

We'll try to update this blog as much as possible... It's easy right now since this place has a lightning fast connection. But we will do our best. Probably try to write something after the first show tommorow in Duisburg that we are very much looking forward to and are anxious to get started. Over and out. Here are some pics.

Great Scott

2008-09-25T07:01:00.001-07:00

Thanks to all of our local friends for making it out to Great Scott the other night for a proper send off. That was a good time indeed. Special thanks to Joy Wants Eternity for making Boston a stop on their national tour, and to Eroica for making it happen locally and crushing some ass. Colin from DistortedPerspectives.com took pics again. Cheers Colin! You can check them out at his website.

We'll miss our friends in the area while we're gone.

Slowly Ticking

2008-09-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hey there this is Philip. Resident daddy long legs member of the band. Time is going by slowly as we await to embark on tour. Most of the time these days I sit around and play tetris on my phone or watch the red sox in a bid to not go out and spend money since we'll be needing that over there probably. But yesterday I left the house and went on an adventure. First I went to guitar center where they told me my guitar center credit card thing had $3600 dollars of 6 months no financing on it. Glad I made those old payments. After nearly weeping in joy at this news and exchanging my underwear for a clean pair, I purchased a Line6 Echo Park to replace my second Dl4. Thing really kicks and the tape/analog settings sound pretty legit to me. Nice touch. It takes up less room to and will hopefully get the pedal board under 50lbs. so I don't have to pay Lufthansa airlines more than my current life savings (honest) to get that baby on board the aircraft.

Then I found out that Junius guys needed the key to the gas tank in the van they were borrowing from me for the day so I drove all the way into Boston and gave them the key. I went through Jamaica Plain after sitting in sweaty traffic and locked the doors since nearly everyone there looked like they wanted to run their fingers through my spikey hair as they slowly knifed me and stole the vehicle. I kept it cool though. Gave them they key and said hello. Found out they got their plane tickets to Europa for much less than we did. Though I was angry, I was happy for them. But they're also not flying during Oktoberfest, or leaving on a weekend day, so really it was unavoidable. After we made fun of each other like we always seem to do, I drove back to our practice space in Beverly and re-assembled the pedal board.

I take great pride in doing this and even sipped some whiskey while re-arranging things, much like a person would who is reading a fine literary masterpiece, or enjoying a quiet evening by the fireside. Except I was in our practice space listening to the band next store plow their way through a punk song called "halloween". Sounded like they enjoyed that holiday A LOT when they were kids and had decided to pay homage to it. There were also tons of police officers at the space since our friends room got broken into :( Feel terrible for them and offered my gear while we're gone. That just plain sucks a lot. I then went home and watched the news, got depressed by it as always, and then went to bed.

So yes, as you can tell time is going by too slow around here and other than practicing the jams with Will and getting the business things in order, its a waiting game. Hopefully that doesn't always translate into self indulgent, boring blogs like this, but thanks for sticking it out if you did.

-Philip

Do Work!

2008-09-08T08:12:00.001-07:00

We finally started getting our hands dirty up here as full band practices commenced last Saturday night. Tropical storm Hannah raged outside and dumped oceans of rain everywhere while we solidified parts and officially opened up shop for musical business. Lots of practicing to come in the next few weeks...

On the right is Will Benoit, chief songwriter and guitarist for Constants/Radar Recordings co-owner/cold one advocate #1/etc. He's joining us for this tour if you hadn't heard already. Bad ass, indeed!!! On the left is Chris, going deaf by sticking is ear 1 inch away from his 8x10 bass cabinet.

Kneel Before Them

2008-09-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Complete EU Dates Confirmed

2008-09-04T06:43:00.000-07:00

Awesome. stuff.
Guess thats what happens when the shows are booked by an agency and not a frantic myspace bulletin search from yours truly.
Ta

30.09.2008 D - Duisburg, Steinbruch
01.10.2008 D - Münster, Amp
02.10.2008 NL - Den Bosch, w2
03.10.2008 F - Paris, Le Klub
04.10.2008 E - Bilbao, Santana27
05.10.2008 E - Gijón, Club Bola 8
06.10.2008 P - Porto, Porto-Rio
07.10.2008 E - Madrid, Ritmo & Compás
08.10.2008 F - Toulouse, Pavillons Sauvages
09.10.2008 F - Lyon, Sonic Boat
10.10.2008 CH - Bad Bonn, Düdingen
11.10.2008 CH - Chur, Werkstatt
12.10.2008 A - Vienna, Rhiz
13.10.2008 D - München, Glockenbachwerkstatt
15.10.2008 D - Würzburg, Cafe Cairo
16.10.2008 D - Frankfurt, Elfer
17.10.2008 D - Berlin, Lido
18.10.2008 D - Leipzig, Cafe Panam
19.10.2008 CZ - Prag, Chateau Rouge
20.10.2008 SLO - Ljubljana, Channel Zero
21.10.2008 PL - Sopot, Papryka
22.10.2008 PL - Poznan, W Starym Kinie
23.10.2008 PL - Warszawa, Jadlodajnia Filozoficzna
24.10.2008 PL - Krakow
25.10.2008 H - Budapest, Avalon Club
26.10.2008 A - Innsbruck, PMK
27.10.2008 D - Dresden, Groovestation
28.10.2008 D - Karlsruhe, Jubez
29.10.2008 D - Hamburg, Knust

LHC

2008-08-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

This is pretty crazy if you think about it.

New poster n things

2008-08-28T10:10:00.001-07:00

Poster Design by Nate Shumaker for Northern Lights Industries.

Farewell show at Great Scott in a month is going to rule.

...So now that we have a "blog" does that mean we're supposed to update it with every piece of useless information possible? Definitely maybe. Last night we continued work on a new song. This one is real real heavy, and it has an electronic beat in the beginning that sounds like Massive Attack meets... Boyz 2 Men. *Wicked*

May I add how tremendously ass crushing the new These Arms Are Snakes album "Tail Swallower and Dove" is? It is unbelievable. And the new Mogwai album is one of the best records they may have ever done. The real deal.

'Tis a good time to be stealing leaked albums off the internet for free I must say.

Shots

2008-08-26T12:32:00.001-07:00

Colin Smith took some amazing pics of the TT The Bears show last Thursday in Cambridge.

Check out Colin's work and the gallery of pics from the show at distortedperspective.com

Welcome, this is our BLOG.

2008-08-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hi.

This is a blog.

Welcome.

Lots of "action" happening from now until... awhile.

Action in this case = a horse tranquilizing dose of songwriting, touring, soundtracking and recording. And the usual encircling shenanigans of course.

All the fixins.

We asked for it after all.

Now run for cover.

Bookmark it!

Today we bought plane tickets from the airline Lufthansa, for round trip tickets from Boston to Dusseldorf, Germany. Pretty killer.

Goodbye!