Rare things come in threes

It’s snowing in Atlanta, I’m doing a blog entry, and the Pinx have been having a mysterious run of good fortune lately. After personally being interviewed for a piece in Performing Songwriter earlier in 2007, The Pinx and I were featured in a live review in Southeastern Performer just a couple months ago. We’ll be doing a live taping for Comcast OnDemand in March (so come out and scream loud), touring England in May, and we’re rehearsing and writing like crazy to delete the demos and re-record the entire album live in the studio. Those lovable bastards, our demented cousins in The Deadtowners did a video shoot (okay, for a Tattoo Shop’s commercial) which airs on [adult swim] and during … LA Ink? In any case, it’s awesome that they’re in a big-timey commercial like that with dancing girls and motorcycles… but also Chris wore a Pinx shirt on camera the whole time the commercial was being filmed. Sweetest shout-out ever. Around December 20th, Jim and I cut a cover of The Kinks‘ “Father Christmas”, posted it on myspace and sent it to the local radio stations. 99x played it while I drove my family around Atlanta looking at the Christmas lights in various neighborhoods. I’ll never forget that. I’ll never forget a few magical gigs in Macon, GA this past year, being constantly hassled by security at Mucklewain 2, taking part in 500 Songs For Kids, making tons of new friends, finding new mentors, running up $200 bar tabs (and paying them, of course) and discovering that I probably should have left Nashville a lot sooner than I did.

Even the bad things are working out lately.

I broke the headstock off of my SG at a show (but Jason, a genius at Too Many Guitars fixed it and made it better than new). Did I mention that we lost Jennifer? We did. I think we officially called it artistic differences; she’s already hard at work on her own projects and happier than ever. My songwriting partner and longtime friend of mine and Jim’s, Joe Giddings stepped in to be our new enabler – I mean bass player. Joe’s well-known already for his work in Star Collector, being in the live lineup of Gonzalez and for his own critically-acclaimed solo work on the legendary NotLame record label. He’s a kickass lead singer, a terrifying lead guitarist and a helluva songwriter. Jim and I are terribly excited to have him with us. Not only are we learning what I’ve written so far, but we’re rocking out during practices and coming up with new ideas together.

The van is covered with snow right now. I can’t wait to take it out on the road and meet more people, run up huge bar tabs, break more guitars and oh yeah, play some rock and roll.
See y’all soon.

Adam

 

Writing, shows, melting clocks

Still writing lyrics for the new record. It’s going well. Until we get that record out, we’ll be trying out some of the new material at shows.

There are a lot of shows coming up in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama, so be sure to mark your calendars. Come on out to some of them and say hello to the new-to-us Pinx van. T-shirts are on the way very soon.

 

In lieu of a real blog entry, I’ll just say this:

www.marriedtothesea.com

Seriously, we’re playing at Lenny’s tonight.

 

Mini-tour

The mini-tour last weekend was just about as much fun as we could have, and thanks to those who attended. Of Atlanta, Knoxville and Nashville, who got the best show? Nashville. Sorry, folks. Nashville was the best show we’ve ever done, thanks in no small part to one particular person.

She came up to me before the show and complained that she was there to see a band that was advertised in the paper but didn’t seem to be there. I explained that it was because apparently the band had never confirmed, and I apologized for the error but said “how much did you pay to get in?” “Five dollars.” “I’ll tell you what; if you hang around for a few more minutes, I’ll give you a $25 show – swear to god you won’t want your money back.” “No thanks.”

That pretty much sums up Nashville’s attitude in two words: “no thanks.”

“No, I would not like to try something new and be entertained. I would like more of the same, please. Thanks.” Oh, Nashville. You’re so misguided and backward compared to the other places we play. Those two little words amused me and gave me the extra push I needed. Everybody who hadn’t come to see a band that wasn’t playing crowded around the stage and cheered us on to be the best rock band we could be. It was the best, most fun show of my life by quite a large margin. We’ll be back for more in August.

An extremely informative hat.

 

Harder-hitting, fast-drying

Open up (or, better yet, buy) this month’s Performing Songwriter magazine and you’ll see an article on the state of independent rock and how to find it and you’ll see several bits of an interview with some guy named Adam McIntyre, all thinking he knows something. Read and be amused!

Also, go check our shows page. Chances are that if you live in the Southeast, we’re about to come see you.

 

That’s Entertainment

Another lo-fi band photo

Originally uploaded by adammcintyre.

The rolling terror now known as Adam & The Pinks have had their first road trip. The Art Bar might just be the coolest venue ever with probably the sexiest bartender ever. Plus, robots and Gamera. It was a nice first step into the world, our little newborn fawn legs quivering in the moonlight on the forest’s floor. As Todd Snider says, “let’s hit this town til its teeth come out!”
We’re ready to go again. Or do you need some water first?

 

Relocation is complete

A lot has happened since the last real blog (and there was a lost blog in the pipeline that just squirted out) so without any ado…

We did shaky but fun shows at Vinyl and at the Star Bar in Atlanta that were both well-received, almost surprisingly so. It was great to stand on stage and throw the same “tantrum” (jumping all over the place, screaming and bleeding on the guitar) that I used to throw as a kid, and to get a pat on the back for doing so. People actually like it when I’m wild here so I’m going to keep on doing it. What’s crazy is that Jennifer and Jim are the two wildest personalities and musicians that I’ve had the thrill to play with, and we bonded so much that we’re calling it a band now. Jennifer and I agreed that we’re going to be Adam & The Pinks (to resurrect an old, hardly-used band name from Nashville circa 2004) but Jim isn’t so sure. If you’d like to offer condolences to Jim or to suggest something a little less feminine (I like the “cute” band name to go with the new heavy sound but Jim wants something with more teeth), please drop us a line. We’re thrilled to have found each other though because it just feels right. Lots of bands work hard to fake the chemistry that we’ve stumbled upon!

A third show that happened recently was the Who tribute at The Earl – Jim and I joined forces with two of the Sweetloves to make a one-off band called (for this gig) “The House That Track Built”. We did “The Real Me”, “A Quick One” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It/See Me, Feel Me/Listening To You”. The show was fun, huge and thank goodness our performance was up to par. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to pull out that white boilersuit again one day, but in lieu of that I’m trying to get a youtube or youtube-ready video of the performance. Basically, everything is going really great in Atlanta. I love it here and I feel really encouraged to do my best. Not someone else’s best, but mine. There’s a difference.

We have a LOT of shows coming up. Between the three of us, we’re a booking MACHINE. However, if you live in a town where we’re not playing yet (ie Chattanooga, Montgomery, Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Black Mountain, London, Tokyo) please feel free to get involved. We want to come see you.

Oh, and in even bigger news than “everything’s going so well and I love my band” and such, you can now hear a little taste of what we’ve been doing in the studio. There’s a new album preview up on myspace. Now that there are leaves on the trees outside, I find myself surprisingly capable of writing lyrics again. It was a hard trek through winter to now but it looks like it’s going to be very easy to finish the record now. Go to our myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/AdamMcIntyre and if “Preview 1″ is still up, give that a listen. It’s a little different from the old stuff and now that we’re going to start doing those new songs at live shows… well, we’re happy. A big burden has been lifted and now there’s only excitement rushing in to take its place.

So in short, new songs, new shows, new band, new town that has welcomed us with open arms. I hope to see you this Summer.

Love to you all,

Adam, Jennifer & Jim

PS – boy and girl “Per Ardua” artwork shirts (courtesy of Ridgely Schantz) at cafepress

 

Ash Wednesday [I should check to make sure that my blogs are going through]

Happy Mardi Gras, people.

I just made a King Cake (no baby, though; Paul is too big now) and threw Mardi Gras beads out the front door in hopes that some barely-legal girls would come take their tops off.

Gentlemen, that has never worked but as with so many things you really have to keep at it to see results. For example, having a drummer. That takes dedication. I’m on my second drummer this week, but do you see me scowling? NO. I am a very upbeat person and besides, Jim came back. Jim? He played on the record a few months ago before he left. But now he’s back. Pretty soon you’ll need notes to keep up with who has been in the band. It will be like the charts for R.Kelly’s videos. Once we start doing shows, I’m sure things will be a lot more steady.

Up next, we have that show on Saturday at Vinyl – $8 for a bunch of music. After that, I have a lot of work to do on the record and a lot of shows to play with the new band. Invite us to do acoustic shows, I dare you.

 

From the photo booth at the Star Bar

From the photo booth at the Star Bar

Originally uploaded by adammcintyre.

Happy Birthday to our bassist Jennifer and also Happy zero Birthday to our guitarist’s baby Katja. That’s why Rick isn’t in the photo – he’s busy
Say hello to our crazy rock-and-roll-saving drummer Jim (center).
And yes, the beard is gone.

 

Don’t miss boat.

I’m writing this from Tennessee, where I’m on the road with Les Honky More Tonkies and I wanted to inform you that the part of this webpage that has “shows” actually has content now.
We have two shows:

- February 24th at Vinyl in Atlanta (part of International Pop Overthrow)
- June 1st at 10 High in Atlanta*

We’re working on filling in that space with other gigs. Do you want us to play for your amusement? Is that all we are to you? Good!

* = Jen knows how to talk to booking people. She has clearly read my how-to series. Thanks to Jen for applying this brilliant information to getting us this show and many more to follow.