Machine 475 Collaborative Blog

15 Million Reasons to Use Bandsintown in 2015

2015-01-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

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FROM ALL OF US...

THANK YOU!

We are humbled and thrilled to share with you that, altogether, we are now 15 million concert-goers (yes, we passed that threshold this week) addicted to Bandsintown, which has been praised and recognized in 2014 as one of the World's Greatest Apps by Business Insider and got called out on The Today Show as one of the top apps to help users find local music!

Click through to our blog to hear from our founders.

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2014-11-30T22:30:00.001-05:00

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This Napkin Sounds Like...

2009-03-30T11:53:00.002-04:00

We are always struggling to describe our music and as the creators of it we are a bit flawed at this skill. That is no longer an issue because at our last gig this was found on a napkin. A dadaist keyword list of musical impressions to our music. Enjoy!

Taken verbatim.....

Lush shoegazer
Steve Reich philip glass
B flehischman microhouse
Early prodigy
Suicide
Early brixton. Pill
Later primal scream
Early human league
Chemical bros big beat electro
Meat beat manifesto
Suicide sex pistols radiohead the who

And here's the track itself!

2009-02-26T13:14:00.003-05:00

Please excuse the sound quality; there's a phasing effect that should not be there, but you get the idea, at least.

The story of the Jellies

2009-02-26T11:26:00.002-05:00

In early 1981, two undergraduates at Cambridge University in England, Richard Lewis and Mark Tomblin, decided to make a record. Both were members of the college party band The Wobbly Jellies, which played cover songs at drunken parties, and which even supported Elvis Costello when he visited the campus to play. The two decided to work on two minimalist disco tracks, given their love of Chic and Gang of Four, and to call themselves the Jellies. They booked a few hours of studio time at the local Spaceward Studios, and went in one afternoon without even a demo of the project.

Recording went smoothly, given the very modest musical talent of the band, and a tape loop of kick and snare drums was created and then extended to five minutes, the tape itself looping around a pencil held by Lewis, in true Sgt. Pepper fashion. He then proceeded to play bass (badly) over the loop, using a guitar so cheap that the engineer had his work cut out for him, just to get the sound decent. Overdubs involved real handclaps, and Tomblin's overdubbed guitar effects, followed by a girl chant performed by the Wimpettes, the Wobbly Jellies backing singers, Frances and Justine.

The two five minute tracks, "Jive Baby on a Saturday Night" and "Conversation", were released as a single, although 'released' is rather too ambitious a word for this ultimate home-made record. Lettering was done by Lewis and his sheet of Letraset rub-on lettering, and 500 were delivered to Lewis and Tomblin. The combined budget for this production was about 500 pounds. Expectations were understandably low, given the strangeness of this music, which did not sound like anything else out there in 1981 (or since), and the fact that no promotion was done for the record (almost). This was the only activity for the Jellies, who were convened just for this project. The songs were never performed live, and the band broke up (graduated) soon after the recording was made.

Only two more details from 1981 are worth mentioning: a copy of the single, mailed to the BBC, found its way into the hands of legendary dj John Peel, who played it on his late night show; and Lewis delivered about 30 copies to the Rough Trade record store in London. "I walked into the store, the manager took a look at the record, put it on his turntable, played the first 30 seconds, decided it sounded alternative enough, and bought them all from me right there," says Lewis. This was, after all, the end of the punk rock era in London, and the anti-corporate vibe was still in the air.

And that was the end of the story . . .

Fast forward 27 years, to December 2008, when Lewis and Tomblin were finally tracked down by Michael Goldstein, a dj with WFMU radio in New York. Unbeknownst to its creators, the record has emerged as one of the most sought after items in the world of hipster vinyl, loved by both fans of early do-it-yourself vinyl recordings, and lovers of early minimalist disco. Fans now include Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Paul from Franz Ferdinand, DJs around the world, including Mark Ronson, and many others. The 30 copies delivered to Rough Trade in London have made their way around the world, thanks to the internet, and the song has been part of dj mixes for twenty years, released on a compilation in Japan, and is even available as a ringtone. Its incredible rarity has been part of its appeal, since the only other copies have been in Richard's mom's garage for 27 years.

Plans are now underway to create an album of songs inspired by the Jellies' sound, soon to be released on Trunk Records. The highlight of Richard's year has been meeting Thurston Moore and giving him a second copy of the single, after the guitarist apparently wore his out playing it so much.

And the moral of this story? If you make art from your heart and have the guts to put it out into the world, you never know how it will return the favor.

Machine 475 releases "Sinking Fast"

2009-01-24T10:04:00.002-05:00

It is with great excitement that we announce our new album Sinking Fast.
Thanks to all of those who helped us get this out there. It has been a long time coming and we hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.

DeSign

2008-12-15T20:46:00.001-05:00

This sign photo was taken outside of the West End Theater in
Gloucester where we had an amazing night of dancing, visuals, and
quadraphonic sound.

Mastering is done!

2008-11-20T19:28:00.004-05:00

We mastered "Sinking Fast" at Waltz Mastering in Watertown and Tom Waltz did a great job with it. We have never heard our tracks sound so warm, lush, and loud. Now we are on to completing the artwork and getting it ready for production. Our hope is that we will have it completed by the New Year.

New album out soon!

2008-10-27T12:10:00.001-04:00

We are putting the finishing touches on "Sinking Fast" and will be
mastering it in the next few weeks.

More at the Middle East

2008-03-11T10:46:00.002-04:00

Danielle, sitarist supreme, took these with her cellphone, then did something weird to them--nice!

Live at the Middle East, Cambridge, February

2008-03-10T12:06:00.003-04:00

Alex, ace photographer, shot these pics of us in February, supporting Ai, who are very cool.

Mini review in Boston Globe

2007-12-30T13:04:00.000-05:00

Here's a notice/mini review in the Boston Globe, which came out in time for our Recital Hall gig. Nice! It's great that someone there actually listened to the album and made some relevant comments. Pity we didn't play "Blue Kentucky Skies" at the gig, but that may be nitpicking. By the way, we have an excellent live video from the Recital Hall which we're editing, and will post soon here. Check back soon.

Coming Up - November/December 2007

2007-11-18T09:08:00.000-05:00

Well, we're gearing up for a whole string of gigs, including Mayor Kim Driscoll's fundraiser (thanks to Dinah Cardin), the Salem State Recital Hall (thanks to the SSC music department, Gary Wood and Nick Giarrantani), Gulu-Gulu and Bangkok (hi Mary). We now have enough music, that we can play a more ambient set at Gulu and a dance set at the Bangkok. Plus, we've got a brand new 12-15 minute song called "How Long"--why don't we know how long it is? Because like all our stuff, we're improvising around loops, and if it's going well, we'll extend any section until we feel like moving on. If you haven't ever seen us, it's definitely different from most stuff around. And since this is our blog, we feel free to thank our friends, Scotty, Melanie, Cindy, Katsumi: all our supporters--too many to mention. And you can comment on this blog too--just hit the comment button. We'll see you soon.

Photos from Bangkok Paradise, Salem Thursday, October 25, 2007

2007-10-31T14:37:00.000-04:00

Jason Scott stopped by and took some fantastic photos of this happening.
See the photos here.

He has a cool blog as well so check it out!

Machine 475 live video at the Pickled Onion-September 26, 2007

2007-10-31T14:22:00.000-04:00

This is a little video of a few of our songs from the Onion. Thanks to Melanie Salerno for recording it and to Radio Scotvoid for inviting us!