http://backlights.bandcamp.com/

What do you think of our methods now, hm? Doesn’t really matter that we position our mics with toilet paper, does it? The next time you reach for the TP, maybe you should think about that. Heck, you might even listen to this song while you’re doing it! Remember— Backlights guarantee to make every experience more enjoyable™.

Oh, but there’s more. This here is a clip from our performance at the Indie Darkroom’s Four Foot Studios. Head over to their site and rate our songs! Create an account while you’re at it, and become a fan of our band!

Figure 1: Guitar amp beside mic propped by Tyler’s drumming gloves stuffed into a roll of duct tape

Figure 2: Cecilia Song

Figure 3: The following items, in order of ascending height: (a) empty packaging for a vocal effects pedal, (b) box half full of Backlights’s debut EP, Backlights containing (c) a rolled up yoga mat with a vocal screen clipped and taped thereto and (d) vocal mic.

See you there, ladies and gents

Maybe it gives some insight as to why I’m (we’re?) in a band in the first place – yes I like indie rock music and I love me the free drink ticket, but being in a band is also a way to be different from what I’ve been expected to be by my parents, and what the general population expects to see from someone like me (although I still think I have fallen into a different subset of a Type of Asian girl, i.e. Hipster Grifter-esque?) It’s just sometimes hard to say “I’m in a band” without it simply meaning “I’m in a band” and people respond to it like, “oh big deal, so was I (in my suburban house).  I mean, jeez, I grew up in the Bronx, the first tape cassette I bought was A Tribe Called Quest and Mary J Blige on CD and um, I didn’t know who Pavement were till much later in college and I still refuse to actively listen to Zeppelin and any other classic rock artists just out of principal. Which makes me think, “damn, our band is really good because it’s fucking original”.  I feel like there’s little rhyme or reason as to how we formed but somehow it works.  We’re (I’m) not trying to follow after anyone’s footsteps, we just want to explore, create and do the things that no one ever said we could do.  I think that’s awesome.

So this has nothing much to do with the band but I figure it’s not really a stretch for this here blogg, where Joe has been sake-bloggin like there is no tomorrow. And to good effect, for sure.

Up there is my first attempt at an old fashioned. I’m pretty sure that my choice of scotch was my first mistake- something I realized after I added more soda and bitters to soften things up. The Glenrothes 1985 single speyside malt scotch whisky just doesn’t play well with others. It juggernauts anything standing in it’s way and kicks you on the way down to send the message home that you should never mix it with anything ever again as long as you live. I really should have known better, but when I’m alone in the kitchen, I really can’t help myself. I start touching things and before I know it, I have orange juice in my cereal and the aforementioned scotch in my coffee.

Next time I’ll use the Basil Hayden’s and it will be pure gold.

After giving the bottle a brisque shaking, I drank this one using the highly professional apparatus shown above. From the glass, this “Lightly Cloudy Sake” succeeded at elevating the mellow taste of the rice, with barely a hint of an aroma and few complementary tastes. The wood of the box opened up the aroma, though. I sniffed mightily, apprehended wafts of basil, and visualized twisted juniper trees.

The final word: I recommend this sake if you enjoy visualizing twisted juniper trees. Also good if you like booze or foggy blue glass.

On a related note, does anybody want to go with me to this sake-tasting benefit? http://www.nylovesjapan.com/ Price of entry: $100. But it will go to a good cause. And in the grand calculus of life and love, it seems well worth it to pay $100 so I can feel like $1,000,000.