Skarp, Nux Vomica, and Embers!!!

Skarp, Nux Vomica, and Embers would be an awesome line up! Not long ago rumors started floating around that Skarp was reforming. Recently those rumors were confirmed (well sort of) when Skarp posted on their facebook page:

"Shows?............ coming soon........"

Another rumor that had been floating around was that Nux Vomica was breaking up. That rumour was dispelled recently by the fact that Nux Vomica has been touring Europe and announced plans to record their third album.

So aside from the fact that both of these bands are awesome there are other reasons why I would love for this show to happen. I'll explain why regarding each band:

Skarp

I first met Skarp when I was on tour with Kelly and my (Steve) previous band Lesser of Two back in 2002ish. Lesser of Two had completed a tour of Mexico and a mutual friend contacted us to see if Skarp could jump on the bill of any shows we had on our current tour. We had booked a show in Tijuana the day that they needed a show, and we were able to get them on the show.

To be honest the music Skarp was playing back then was quite different than the "blackout grind" they later developed. The thing that really impressed me about Skarp was that seemed to be genuinely good people, and not a bunch of pretentious scenesters. We had a lot of fun that night and got drunk on Mezcal. All the bands and all the people at the show had an amazing time. The tiny bar was packed, and despite the lack of a common language among most of the people that night everybody got along wonderfully in our mutual appreciation of music.

Later, when I came up to Seattle I would always meet up with the people in Skarp. Robert would give me the tour of Seattle of entice me to a house show in Georgetown. Joe would play shows with Embers in his other band Book of Black Earth. I remember the guys in Skarp used to live in this huge punk house on a hill. It had a sort of crusty collectivist yet debaucharous vibe to it.

I could go on about stories over the years, but suffice to say I'd see Skarp or the various members periodically over the years and hang out when we could, but over the course of time it became more hit and miss. It would be wonderful to share the stage with them again so could all re-connect personally as well as musically.

Nux Vomica

The first time I met Nux Vomica was at a show at Burnt Ramen in Richmond. My friend Rob from Somnolence warned me that they were an awesome band. I hadn't heard of them, but Rob was right:

The Arc of Internet Tentacles as it Applies to Embers' New Album, Shadows

The internet is a funny thing. With facebook, google, and bandcamp it's been easy to track how many people are listening to our new yet officially unreleased album, Shadows; where people are finding out about it; what people are doing in response; and how that creates a discernible ripple effect.

So first there is the not so exciting story of how Shadows was catapulted into the webosphere. Kelly and I left Mr. Toads with a fully mastered recording of Shadows. We had about a week before tour so we slapped together an image with the tour dates for that tour and uploaded Shadows to bandcamp.

Then I sent out an email blast to all our contacts and created a facebook event. (I question my chronology here a bit so bear with me.)

The interesting thing about bandcamp is that it tells you how many people are listening to your music, which songs, and what site referred them. The screen for that looks something like this:

For over a year prior to releasing Shadows our previous albums Memoria In Aeterna and Wrath had received slightly more than 1,100 plays total. Shadows matched that within a few days primarily from our email and facebook blast.

Then things got interesting. Rather than dying down to a trickle again Shadows maintained 50 to 100 plays on any given day which was much higher than our bandcamp site before. The other interesting thing is that people started donating money when before most people just ignored the "name your price" suggestion and paid zero.

It was then that I started wondering what was going on. Using bandcamp's statistics (similar to the image above) I studied where people were hearing about Shadows. It was then I realized that metal bloggers were posting links and reviewing the albums. These are the blogs that covered Shadows within the first week:

Embers Now On Tour!

Check out our tour schedule below!

Brand New Embers! Stream and Download the Upcoming Album Before It's Officially Released!

Upcoming Shows Booked So Far

We still need help with the other dates such as Fresno, Bakersfield, Flagstaff, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, etc.

Embers is Now Booking a Southwest Tour

Embers will be touring from April 8 through April 16 for a quick South West or So Cal tour. Right now we're not sure if it's a Southwest Tour or a So Cal Tour because we haven't confirmed any out of state shows yet. That said if anyone out there wants Embers to come your way and live in the general area I'm describing please contact us as soon as possible because we still have some open dates to fill.

On other news we have heard the re-mixed rough mix of half of our upcoming album and everything is sounding good. We will have our album mixed and mastered before this upcoming tour and will be doing the pre-release free streaming and free download event prior to hitting the road.

The possibility of having a limited edition self released album on vinyl may or may not happen before then, but that depends a great deal on timing and logistics.

If you want to reach out to us on any of these plans drop us a line or leave a comment below.

Oh and this map below is a possible tour route depending on who steps up to the plate to book some shows for us. If you live in any of these towns and want to help please contact us.


View Larger Map

Where Do We Go From Here?

Embers has been laying low since losing our keyboardist Lillian Phaeton, but there is still a lot going on. We're mixing our new album, playing some upcoming shows, planning for a tour to coincide with the release of our new album, and brainstorming to figure out what kind of configuration our line-up will become since losing both our violist and keyboardist.

The Album

We have been working on a new full length album since completing our last tour. This is the first album without Nine's viola and the last to feature Lillian Phaeton's keyboards. We have been playing many of the songs on this album live so a quick search of the web will produce some live footage of the new material. The album is being recorded and mixed at Earhammer Studios by Salvador Raya as were our first album as well as our split L.P.

Sal hard at work mixing some other bands album.

Progress on the mixing has been pretty slow due mainly to us deciding prior to finalizing the mix to start all over. At first we wanted to use only our live guitar tracks, but we decided that the tone pretty much sucked so we recorded an entire second layer of guitars. We also re-did the entire drum mix and equalization as well. Hopefully we won't kill each other when we return to re-finalize the mix. If we decided not to re-start over we should be able to pre-release the album by the end of February, but more on that later.

Upcoming Shows

So after taking some time off from live performances we have confirmed two upcoming shows. One is a benefit for Melanie Chavarria RIP at 924 Gilman with Brainoil on February 26, 2011. The other is with Alarich and Vastum on March 25 at the Church of  thee Buzzard.

The benefit at Gilman is to raise money for the child of Melanie Chavarria who passed away relatively recently.

Melanie Chavarria RIP