La Guitarra is available for pre-order…

… at Isota Records, CDUniverse, Target, Amazon, and Amazon UK.

It should be available on iTunes and the rest of the bunch very soon.

Stoked.

La Guitarra is here!

Absinthe Glow – La Guitarra is here.  I got 800 disks in the mail yesterday.  NAIL distribution got another 200 (new release catalog here).  I can’t believe how amazing it looks.  Officially, it is a 6-panel digipak with matte finish and a 20 page booklet set inside a panel 1 corporate pocket.  All pages are 4 color.   It looks way better than I could have hoped.  In May, it will be available on iTunes, Amazon, absintheglow.com, and stores that you have to use your feet to get to. 

I am very grateful for all of the hard work that people put into the project.  The layout and package design was done by Frank Weidemann.   The artwork was done by Andrew James Baldwin.   The mastering was done by Gary Hobish. 

Joe Finlaw, a man I have not posted about in a while

Joe Finlaw (former South Jersey resident) got married to Alicia Peterson (former Lookout! employee) a month or so ago at the Madonna Inn in beautiful San Luis Obispo, California.   I went to the wedding and it was rad.  I got to meet most of the Finlaw clan (who had flown out from South Jersey) and they were great.  Here is a photo of Joe on his honeymoon cruise, which was taken right after Alicia told a funny joke, and right before he had another sip of his refreshing beverage:

Yesterday at work, Joe was wearing a red sweatshirt.  More updates on Joe later…

La Guitarra album cover

 May 2008 suckas…

 

Joe Finlaw has a blog.

Joe Finlaw (Mr. Isota Records) has another label called American Dust.  Sr. Finlaw recently started a blog highlighting some of the label’s activity.  Check it out (they have signed some really great bands).

In other Joe Finlaw-related news, Joe’s promotion picture (featured here) has been removed from the promotion wall at work.  Don’t worry though… next time he gets a promotion, I’ll be sure to put his new picture up here.

Absinthe is legal now.

Well, absinthe is now legal (more here).  There goes the mystique of our band name.  As it gains popularity and becomes cool for the “classy” Vegas clubs to sell, we might as well be called Coors Glow, or Natural Ice Glow.  That’s cool though.  At least now people who had never heard of Absinthe before will probably understand what the name of the band really is.  I thought, while it has been illegal and difficult to obtain in the US, everybody had at least heard of Absinthe (Picasso anybody? Manet? Degas? No? OK then).  Over the years, we have seen quite a few incorrect spellings of our name in emails and (believe it or not) show posters (my favorite… make you feel very special).  I think the best incorrect spelling that we have gotten (several times actually) is “Abs in the Glow”.  It sounds like a workout DVD.  Maybe we should change our name?  The good thing is that we would not have to change our email address, or website URL… Take a look at the proposed new logo:

La Guitarra is done!

Well, it’s almost done.  One song, I have asked to turn up a vocal part in the middle, and another song, I have asked that we use another vocal take.  No problem.  We are on schedule for a March release. 

We started working on this record about 3 years ago.   I feel like Def Leppard…

The concept album…

Ever since I was a young rock fan, I wanted to write a “concept” record.  Throughout my musical career, I have been slowly moving towards doing one…  The first Fairlanes record, Songs For Cruising, was merely a collection of catchy pop-punk tunes that the band had been working on since it’s inception.  Our second CD release, Bite Your Tongue, was a little more cohesive with both the music and the lyrics (but there really was no central theme).  Our final full length, Welcome to Nowhere, was a strong collection of tunes based upon the central theme of the disillusionment that many people feel when they graduate college and get “regular” jobs and realize that it is not the path for them.  After the Fairlanes stopped playing, I wrote the first Absinthe Glow record, which  was essentially a reaction to the Welcome to Nowhere, both with the lyrics and the music in that the record was very mellow (no electric guitars), very subdued, and dealt with chasing a dream, (quitting the job and going on tour) failing and ultimately looking back with fond memories. 

Up to this stage, however, everything that I had written (or been involved with writing as there were several songwriters in the Fairlanes) was autobiographical for the most part.  What I really wanted to do was a story-based concept record.  With La Guitarra, I was finally able to.  

Fait Accompli “video” from La Guitarra

Here is the “video” from the song Fait Accompli off of the upcoming Absinthe Glow record, La Guitarra:

The lyrics are from the point of view of a character named Don Prodigo after he forcefully came to power.  In the song, he is laughing to himself how easy it all was to accomplish. To fit the lyrical theme, we needed to create a sinister mood with a half cup of tension sprinkled on top. 

The recording was quite interesting…  It began with me playing several acoustic guitars.  The first track was the basic picked line.  The next 3 tracks were guitar as well, however each time, I muted all strings except for one. For example, I played the main line and 2 of the 3 strings were muted, so only the D string was audible. Next, I played the same thing, but did not mute the G.  We wanted to hear the picking sounds.  After we had the 4 guitar tracks, Bill added the almost-out-of tune piano and the bassline.  I then did the vocals and we sent the tracks off.  Alex then somehow turned all of the crazy picking tracks into the rhythm tracks that you hear and added more percussion.  Fait Accompli.

More info on Isota Records

Here is more info on Isota Records courtesy of Joe Finlaw:

The Dramatic Documentation of the Genesis of a Record Label 

Isota Records began as a vanity project for record industry stalwart and amateur magician, Joseph Finlaw. Upon hearing the tuneful, summer sounds of his sometime friend Nathaniel Russell’s musical vehicle, Birds of America, enterprising Joe saw dollar signs, and in them his ticket to fame and fortune. Hapless Nat was no match for Joe’s cunning schemes and verbal gymnastics, and within days the poor musician was signed for life to the newly-formed Isota Records (named for a schoolboy crush), as not only an on-contract musician, but also as the company’s house graphic artist. To this day, when not recording #1 hits, Nat can be found in the company attic, hunched painfully over his woodpress (the ceiling is curiously low), slaving twelve-hour days to produce the kind of hand-crafted artwork for which Isota is so warmly applauded. Thanks, Nat.