The Dark Pioneers return to West Seattle to headline a show at the Skylark. It’s been ages since I’ve played with bill-mates Jibran and Eric Miller (pre-Dark Pioneers, in fact), and all three of us have formed bands in the years since. This reunion is sure to be light on jerked tears, but heavy on the kicking of ass.
FRI, April 23rd @ 9:00pm
Skylark Cafe & Club (21+/FREE)
3803 Delridge Way SW, W. Seattle, WA
w/Jibran & Eric Miller
“Argot (pronounced ar-GOE): a secret language used by groups to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations.”
We’ve finally made our RPM 2010 project, Argot, Vol. 1, available at Bandcamp.com. It’s the first in a series of side-albums meant to co-exisit restlessly alongside our more polished studio output. And did I mention you can download it for free?
Recorded live in a small room with a handful of microphones (and no plan whatsoever), Argot, Vol. 1 is an id-driven trip across a surrealistic neverland, revealing a side of the band that you’ve never heard before. Every track is an improvised first take, edited down from three hours of non-stop recording into 14 mind-warping musical curios.-NW & TDP
The Rendezvous is a hidden gem of a place, complete with a theatre that dates back to 1927. Just down the street from The Crocodile, the Jewel Box Theatre is an intimate venue with cabaret-style seating and table service. Four acts for five bucks? Indeed.
Next, we rejoin our Brothers-in-Rock (aka, Red Jacket Mine) for a night at A Terrible Beauty. It’s Renton’s newest rock club and it even has plenty of great reviews from the often-fickle Yelp! community. If you missed the Red Jacket Mine/Dark Pioneers pairing at The Hard Rock Cafe, you cannot afford to miss our “reunion” show.
This coming Sunday, The Dark Pioneers and I return to downtown Portland:
SUN, March 21st @ 7:00pm Kelly’s Olympian (21+/$5)
426 SW Washington Street
Portland, OR 97204
Quinn Allan opens the evening, followed by long-time pal Chad Hinman (who, coincidentally, I played my very first Portland show with). The Dark Pioneers are on at 9pm and doing our damndest to wrap up the night by 10:00.
And, in case you missed our triumphant christening of Seattle’s newest Hard Rock Cafe stage, The Dark Pioneers and Red Jacket Mine joined forces during the night and wrapped up the show as a 7-headed beast. Check out these excellent shots by Seth Wonner for photographic proof that (lower-case, not upper-case) hell was raised on March 9, 2010.
The band has been laying low for a while, but we finally get to announce a secret show that’s been brewing:
TUE, March 9th @ 7:30pm HARD ROCK CAFE SEATTLE ($5/21+)
116 Pike Street
Seattle, WA 98101
The Dark Pioneers have been invited to share Red Jacket Mine’s first night of a month-long residency, so expect to see some inter-band collaboration (and maybe a few other surprises). The show starts promptly at 7:30 with a short solo set by Patrick Porter (of Explone + Red Jacket Mine), followed by The Dark Pioneers & RJM’s interwoven musical circus. And it all has to end at 10pm–so you’ll be home in time for the evening news (?).
The new Hard Rock is a block away from Pike Place Market and it’ll be hard to miss the giant guitar outside; additionally, $1 of every ticket goes to the charity Musicians On Call.
We hope you can make what will prove to be a one-of-a-kind musical experience.
Once again, I’ve (foolishly?) handed over the month of February to the RPM Challenge and–once again–I fully intend to write and record an album’s worth of material in just 28 days. My album in 2008 (Future Warnings/Field Recordings) was a great success and a lot of worthy new material came out of that high-pressure situation. My only hope is that you’ll wait for me at this year’s finish line, perhaps with smelling salts, Gatorade, and a bottle of vodka.
It has also occurred to me that the booking machine I keep in the garage hasn’t been ignited in a long time. Well, following a vicious clang and a bilious cloud of brimstone, it’s fired up and operational–like the “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” of the Apocalypse–and it will surely deliver the band to plenty of venues, old and new, as March approaches.
Now that The Doomsday Committee is off in to hiding, no doubt making preparations for 2012 (the Aztecan Apocalypse, not Roland Emmerich’s cinematic atrocity), it is completely up to me to keep this site is updated on a regular basis. So we’re all in trouble.
I’ve finally posted some video footage that West Seattle Funblog took of our Skylark show on January 9th. This intro clip is pretty chaotic and a little fuzzy (and features more cowboy hats than I remember), but this ain’t your mama’s HD video.
That’s a Roy Rogers movie playing out behind us; I requested something a little more in the spirit of things (El Topo, perhaps, or maybe The Wild Bunch), but this was all they had…Oh well…on to a short clip of our revamped version of “Seen The Glory.”
There will be more to come next week, including a live version of “Cool Your Guns,” “I Am The Rust,” and a virtual finale. I hope to have some tour dates posted soon and an update on the “official” release of The Gospel Of Rust.
Welcome to 2010! The jury is still out on whether we’ve entered a new decade or not, but it’s all numbers on the page either way. And speaking of 2010: if New Year’s Eve didn’t zap the party out of your system, then The Dark Pioneers & I may have a cure for what ails (ales?) ya when we invade West Seattle this weekend.
SAT, January 9th @ 9pm Skylark Cafe (21+/FREE)
3803 Delridge Way SW
Seattle, WA 98106
Not only is the show FREE, but we’re excited to once again share the bill with our pals in Memphis Radio Kings! Gunn & The Damage Done open the show at 9:00pm and we’ll wrap things up a little later on.
Also note that the Skylark Cafe may be tricky to find if you’re not expecting it, so check out the directions from the Skylark web page (just in case).
The price is $15, but hopefully that’s not too daunting for a night of music–and Davy is one hell of a guitarist (blues or otherwise), so be sure to check out his band’s Myspace page to hear what I mean.
This is an exciting (and unexpected) opportunity, so we hope you can join us–not only will we be lonely without you, but you’ll get to see us play in one of the best live rooms in Seattle.
It’s difficult to know how to release an album at a time when the very concept has taken a serious kick in the bubbles…so the best option was to skip the foreplay and go right for the candy!
Without further ado: The Gospel Of Rust is available as a digital download exclusively at Bandcamp.com. Choose high-quality MP3s (320kb), Apple Lossless, or any nerdy variation you can imagine; plus, you can pick your price (at a modest minimum). This is strictly between us right now, too–I haven’t sent this to radio stations, magazines, blogs, or your Uncle Ted–so check out The Gospel Of Rust FAQ if you have further questions, or hop on over to Bandcamp.com to stream the album from beginning to end.
Times are strange, and hopefully The Dark Pioneers can help make them a little stranger…in a good way.
Thank you (times infinity!) to our many friends who came out to The Sunset on Friday night. A fantasticl turn-out, especially for a blustery, rainy Friday evening. We hope you enjoyed the powerful opening set by The Devil’s Club and stayed for Memphis Radio Kings as they tore it up with abandon. In case you weren’t there–or you’re just perpetually confused–The Dark Pioneers & I were joined by our friend Michael Spaly on violin & guitar, adding a whole lotta sound to songs old and new including a cover of Echo & The Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” plus our brand new tune “Gods & Believers” (which has grown a lot since it was “The Way” on the Future Warnings/Field Recordings album). It was a night to remember and, consequently, our last show of the year. Wait…what?
It’s uncharacteristic of me not to have shows on the calender (which hasn’t been empty in nearly three years), but a break was needed. Don’t worry, the band & I will be busy working on new tunes in the next couple of months, plus we’ll FINALLY release The Gospel Of Rust in 2010–to boot, I’ll be working on a blog entry that addresses just what’s taking so long…especially since the album was finished in May!
My creative batteries are finally recharging as winter approaches (they’re apparently not solar powered) and it feels good to get back to writing new songs. I also have hopes of updating this site and, hell, I may even remix the soundtrack we recorded for Moby Dick earlier this year. Stranger days are ahead, but thanks so much for your support over the years!
...are Seattle’s purveyors of apocalyptic Americana, hitching the rusted scraps of American roots music to a battered pick-up truck and dragging it across a broken 21st Century landscape. It’s a cinematic trip down a desolate highway as the dashboard rattles apart and the truck radio blasts songs of murder, drug abuse, and Biblical arcana. Learn more.
