Hi Everyone,

We’re playing September 23rd  (tomorrow)  at Southpaw!  Should be a fun show — hope to see you there.

-Avery

September 23rd 2009 at Southpaw

(posted by Avery)

It’s been a bit since any of us have posted. Hope you’re all well.

We’ve all been busy of course. Working on new songs here in New York. As of now we have half an album recorded and it looks like we’ll be heading back up to Montreal in a few moths to get more songs on tape.

We have a couple of shows coming up including CMJ so definitely check out the myspace page for upcoming dates. We will be debuting some new material and putting out general good vibes for those of you who are around.

In other news we are planning to put out a new 7” in late Fall. It will be two new songs one of which we recorded with Howard Bilerman and Larry Crane at the Hotel 2 Tango back in April called Clarissa Explains It All. The other song is one we recorded here in New York with Patrick called Hearts Of Palm.

John Richards from KEXP will be premiering Hearts of Palm on his show this week so tune in to KEXP (90.3 Seattle, 91.5 New York, KEXP.org Everywhere) from 9-noon EST to hear it.

Hope you enjoy. Talk more soon.

Asher

(posted by Asher)

Hello friends!

We’re back in Montréal at Hotel2Tango, recording the beginnings of something.  The new studio that Howard and the rest have built is really wonderful – it retains all the charm of the old location, with the addition of some amazing new facilities.  The main tracking room is huge and the resulting sound (most notably on drums) is huge.  There is even a new espresso machine (it’s a Gaggia)!  We are lucky enough to be working with our friend Howard Billerman again, as well as Larry Crane.  Won’t say too much more because I don’t want to incur the wrath of lord mother Ash-tron, but suffice it to say, tape is rolling, and things are sounding great so far.

See you all soon,

Avery

(posted by Avery)

Been way too long since I put anything up on the blog. We’ve been busy back in New York, working at our jobs and writing the next record which we are going up to Montreal to start work on in April with Howard Bilerman who did our first record.

I’ve been getting a lot of email from fans in Europe who heard “This Is Where We Are” on the soundtrack for the upcoming isenseven film about skateboarding. For those of you don’t know about them check it out http://www.isenseven.de/blox/index.php?page=music

While don’t have any immediate plans to tour Europe or the UK because we don’t have a label or an agent there we are working on fixing this and will be across the pond as soon as we can get there.

Until then keep sending the emails and thanks for the good vibes, it really means a lot.

Last week I went to see Leonard Cohen play at the Beacon. It was fantastic. Over the summer we all got to see a few songs from backstage in Toronto (it’s a long and crazy story). He’s a real hero of mine and if you can get a ticket you should go!

Ran into Howard at the show and got introduced to Bob Johnston (he produced Songs from a Room, Bookends, Blonde on Blonde, and Live at Fulsome Prison among others). WOW! He told me a story about telling off Johnny Cash for asking him to pick up some drugs.

Anyway, much more news to come. In the meantime keep checking myspace.com/ravensandchimes for upcoming shows and radio appearances. Stay warm.

All the best,

Asher

p.s. this is a picture of us making a bonfire at Lake Washington while we were on tour this summer

(posted by Asher)

We’re playing bumbershoot today. 5:00 PM a the EMP Skychruch. It will be something like this:

(posted by Abe)

Hey,

This is my first time writing on a blog ever. Along with my post I wanted to show you all some ravens I made out of socks while in the van for the past many days.  I sold four out of five of them at our show at Spaceland tonight!  Pretty awesome.  Gotta make more on our way to San Francisco tomorrow!

(posted by Nora)

We woke up this morning in Montreal. Brittany cooked us all french toast with Blackberries. Mike, Avery and I went to an internet cafe to look up www.averyisgreat.com then headed back to the loft to write a Mali-inspired Indie rock song and a blues in G called “My woman got cocaine breath.”

Now we’re waiting it out in Toronto until our show tomorrow at the Horseshoe Tavern. We’re playing with the drummer from DFA 1979. Oh yeah, and this evening we saw the encore of a Leonard Cohen concert.

(posted by Abe)

We’re going on tour again! This time we’ll be hitting several cities in Canada, as well as most northern US cities (apologies to our southern US fans … we’ll come see you again soon too).

New York NY, Montreal PQ, Toronto ON, Chicago IL, Madison WI, Los Angeles CA, San Francisco CA, Portland OR, Vancouver BC, Victoria BC, Winnipeg MB

Check out our tour section or myspace for dates!

(posted by Avery)

We’ve met some great music fans these past six months or so since Reichenbach Falls came out. Many of them have come to us Ravens with their minds and arms open to dig into what completely freaks us out and turns us on. So here it is, a Mixtape of the Ravens’ favorite hits curated by yours truly.

Crystal Castles – 16-tell-me-what-to-swallow Brit saw this band with Health last month. I love the vocals at the end.

Sharon Jones – 01-100-days-100-nights I think we all secretly want to be in her backing band.

Prince – 05-darling-nikki Prince is undeniably one of the best American songwriters. The last 30 seconds of this song get me hot and bothered.

Crystal Castles – 01-untrust-us

Nocarsgo – quest-to-canada Asher loves this guy. So will you.

Genghis Tron “Arms” We saw this band at SXSW. I think Hamilton can outplay anyone on guitar.

Alan Lomax Field Recordings 02-no-more-my-lawd, and The Osborne Brothers 01-ruby Listen to both these songs with the lights out and the volume up. Your brain will melt.

Velvet Underground & Nico – 04-venus-in-furs

T Rex – Cosmic Dancer – This song lives on Mike’s iPod. I always request it.

Basia Bulat Asher really likes this folk singer. She recorded at the Hotel2Tango right around the same time as us.

Beck – 03-lazy-flies Nora sweats Beck, and with good cause. He’s a genius.
Camper Van Beethoven – Take the Skinheads Bowling Avery grew up listening to this band. I thought it would make a good closer for the mix.

(posted by Abe)

Before the Trip to Austin, ribs for breakfast, and a Texan sized governer’s hotel party (really, it was rad) a few Ravens performed acoustic versions of the hits for a new blog called Songs About Knives.. Dig the video:

Tech Note — Avery says: If you’re trying to view this in IE … please consider switching to Firefox, Opera, Camino, Safari, Netscape, or Konqueror … or killing yourself.

(posted by Abe)