Ravens inducted me to the band way back in October when we were where we are right now…Montreal. Back in October we were playing up the street from the studio at a place called Sport Benfica, which as far as I can tell is a social club for fans of the legendary Portugese club football team Benfica.

As Avery has already told you, we are in the beautiful and wonderful sounding hotel2tango with our trusty navigators Larry and Howard. Our journey to get here began on Thursday night in good ole NYC. We all piled into the big blue van (which I’m told doesn’t have a nickname….yet) and headed up to Asher’s parents place upstate where we stayed the night. When we got in at around 1 in the morning there was a fully roasted turkey with some homemade stuffing waiting for us. Awesome. Delicious. Thanks Mrs. Lack!

We rolled into Montreal on Friday afternoon and began setting up and starting to record beds (bass, guitar, drums). This place sounds really really good. Well for the next two days Larry worked Mike and I like we were oxen in the video game Oregon Trail. We sweated, we cried, even bled a bit, but we got through it and now there’s a great foundation for everyone to build on. Mike Riddleberger (new drummer) played the crapola out of the drums, but had to split early this morning to head back to NYC (11 hour train ride, ack!). His first show with us will be this Saturday at Mercury Lounge, so you should come check him out as well as the new songs we’ve been working so hard on.

While we record here at hotel2tango, we camp out in what I’m told is the French section of Montreal…about a ten minute drive from here. The digs are nice little duplex with two bathrooms and a nice little deck/porch that I’ve been doing my morning stretches and sun worshipping on. Also included in our cozy little apartment is an abnormally large rear projection television. This thing is huge. Mike liked to refer to it as our “glowing wall”. Avery promised me that he’ll post a picture of it later. Stay tuned!

Last but not least I have to tell you about a special person.

Gus!

Gus is the trusty studio manager here, beautiful brown eyes, playful attitude, and can chill hard.

He is also Howard’s border collie.

Inunditojn! Mi dezir ni povintus naĝ en la Iovao stratojn. B’caw!
Floods! I wish we could have swum in the Iowan streets. Kickin!

In just a half hour of driving into New York last night, we had a celebrity sighting and heard about a half dozen Reggaeton songs from car stereos. New York never felt so good. Sure the west coast has beaches, Montana has endless valleys and mountains, and the North Dakota has, well, straight and flat driving, But the bagel I ate this morning was probably the best breakfast I’ve had in a month.

I’ve posted some show pictures from Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle and KEXP. enjoy.

Avery’s gear at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, just minutes before doors open.

Sitting in the cut at the Commodore.

Soundcheck at Sugar in Victoria, BC.

With Cheryl Waters after our KEXP on-air performance.

Brittany is possessed.

Playing for a semi-hometown crowd in Seattle

This basically sums it all up.

Ravens & Chimes are joining bearded Brooklynites, coffee drinking Portlanders, and blackberry addicted Los Angelinos on the great pilgrimage known as SXSW! So far we’re playing shows at Club De Ville and at the Convention Center (day stage). Of course I’m not really a fan of too much downtime when touring with Ravens; we love playing shows and are always thrilled to set up in crazy venues, houses, street corners, and dorm rooms. So, If you’re throwing a party in Austin and want us to come hang out, play some music, or just eat some ribs all you have to do is ask.

In other news, I’ve been working on a few insane music projects: Most of my time has been eaten up by a sound design gig for a theater in New York. It’s been really fun mimicking a giant’s footsteps, cow moo’s, and wolf slayings. Last night I put the MXL 990 in my apartment building’s stairwell and recorded the sound of dropping a suitcase down a flight of stairs. I definitely captured the feeling of a fifty foot woman falling to her death. check it: Sound Q

A couple of weeks ago Ben Britten came up to my studio from Lancaster, PA to work on some demo recordings. He had spent a few days at The Sugar Tank tracking some songs and thought it would be cool to try his material out in a different studio. The guy had just recorded on a Neve console, a huge open loft, and crazy vintage mics and preamps. And there I was trying to rig 50 feet of microphone cable in order to get a decent sound out of my kitchen. The work was cut out for us and I think we did a pretty decent job.

www.myspace.com/benbrittenmusic

Stay tuned for some more of the session along with me and Avery’s ghetto hip hop record.

We’re playing our release show at Union Hall in Brooklyn on October 11th with Division Day and the first of our CMJ shows on October 16th at Fontana’s. Then we’re hitting the road on tour November 8th.

Stay tuned to our myspace page for more show info. If you live in Chicago and you can help us out with a show then drop us a line.

In case you guys didn’t know there’s an article on us in the new issue of V magazine with the picture of Brad Pitt on the cover.

Also we got a really sterling writeup here:http://rawkblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/first-look-ravens-chimes-reichenbach.html

Anyway if you love our music you will be able to buy it on October 9th from Amazon or iTunes or your local independent record shop. We are going to throw a party on October 9th where us and all our buddies go to Other Music and buy it together! If you want to come and then get a drink at Black and White email us through our contact link on this here site.

I’m turning 25 on Saturday. No more “early 20’s recent college grad” and on to “twentysomething”

Wish me luck.

Good vibes,

Asher

Oh, that and I was known as “Kyla’s Little Brother” at a party this weekend. Some of my sister’s friends recognized me from The Facebook. It made me feel like I was in high school again, what with everyone saying, “bro, you know you’re cool because of your sis. Now come here and do this keg stand.”

Here I am, writing to the world at large about my life. Now the question, “what the hell should I write about?” comes up. My feelings? you should probably just listen to my music if you want to know about my feelings (plug). Maybe I can talk about what I did last night? the evening activities mostly consisted of running a drum machine loop through a Blue Pedal. I got this really cool, lo-fi, feedback sound that I think I’m going to use on my Kormorant LP. I think the best direction to go with this blog thing is to talk about what’s going on at this very moment in the space-time fabric. I am sick.

for the last 2 days I’ve been sneezing and caughing like a 70 year old smoker. It gets the worst on the subway when I’m sandwitched between a sexy hipster girl and some dude who threatens to kill me because “I’m in his motherfucking face.” (true story) That’s about when the mucus starts to really build up and the sneezing frenzy begins. Good times. Everyone on the train stares at the Ebola kid.

The next step is to see a doctor because I have a feeling that this is just the early stages of a really bad allergy season. I’m hoping the MD will perscribe me some really good drugs. Maybe he’ll give me Clariton remarketed as “Strongex, the outdoor drug for urbanites.”