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"Another Hole for You to Crawl Into" is now available. It's streaming on our website, http://www.overhangonline.com. You can listen to it and when you decide that you like it, buy it. Buy ten if you want. We don't care. But you should probably buy it now before we decide it's still not good enough and take it off the market and make a bunch of changes and threaten never to release it again.
The summer is in full swing and Grant and Jeff have become full-time rock stars. It's amazing how much you can get done with a full day devoted to getting things done. Nine-to-Five Nate is more than a little jealous but this past week he has taken some big steps toward doing fulfilling work. He'll be interning at Black Lion Audio, an innovative company run by a friend (fellow survivor of the OVERHANG house fire) who modifies recording equipment. Jeff's family is trying to sell their house in Lansing so they can move into the house in Chicago. The idea is that by September, 3/4 of the band will be living in the same house in the city, paying much less rent so that the band can have some financial breathing room. Have we shown you the house, yet? No? Well, here's what it looked like when we first saw it...
Thanks to those who are helping vote for us, OVERHANG is currently sitting at number 14 out of over 2000 bands participating in the Lollapalooza Last Band Standing Contest. Judges will select their favorites from the top 100 in round two so we are well within that possibility now. It of course would be nice to get into the top 5 because we are noticing that most people probably don't pay attention to the bands lower than the top 7 or so. Nevertheless, we have gotten some exposure since our band has been on the first page for so long. We were asked to join a Chicago local music compilation cd and we're gaining fans from different parts of the world who have really gotten into the whole competition aspect of it. We have people voting for us from Western Canada to Middle America to Korea. It seems to be an advantage to have people voting from the other side of the world--the sun is always up somewhere!
If you haven't been voting, you can join in the fun at:
http://lollapalooza.mp3.com/feature/2007lollapalooza/?band=OVERHANG
Those of you who have been following our story might not believe this, especially after watching us get a band together after several years of effort and after seeing that band disintegrate and after the house fire that destroyed our practice space and Joel's living space and much of our equipment. And then, our attempt to keep Joel in the states with an H-1B Visa failed. And then, when our second attempt succeeded, Joel couldn't play guitar for a whole year because of soreness in his wrists. And Grant was incapacitated by stomach problems. A lot of bad stuff has happened to OVERHANG. All the while, we promised that a debut album was in the works and on its way. In fact, one of the main themes of this blog from the beginning has been "We think we're almost done with the album".
Well, we've done a very uncharacteristic thing this weekend: we finished the album. Or maybe I should say: we finished the album again. Because really we have finished it over and over again the last several years only to realize that it really wasn't good enough yet. Well, now it is good enough. And, if all goes as planned, you may have a finished cd in your hands by the end of July. And you may be able to download it sooner than that. Joel, Nate and Grant traveled north to Milwaukee on Saturday to meet with Trevor of Mastermind Studio. He agreed to master Nate's mix of Buried in the Earth and finalize the entire album, which means placing the appropriate spaces between the songs and assigning track id's. It was an odd feeling for all of us, strange to run out of things to do on an album. Trevor, who has mastered the NIN Broken album and Over the Rhine, among others, put our concerns to rest by affirming that the album does sound good. He could hear no glaring problems and thought the sounds were interesting. If it was crap, he would have turned down the project, as he does once a week with other bands. So afterward Joel, Nate and Grant hung out in downtown Milwaukee by the river and then sat down on the rocks at the lakefront in the Bayview district, soaking in the warm sun and talking about what's next for the album. All three drove down to Lansing to play the album for Jeff and we took a picture with the new album and went home to sleep. It was a good day to finish an album.
OVERHANG submitted to a couple contests and festivals recently. The most exciting is the three-day music event in Chicago called Lollapalooza. We entered the "Last Band Standing" contest and are in the first round where people can vote for us online. Everyone is allowed one vote per email address and per IP address. If everyone we know votes once every day this month we may get into the second round, which is judged by a panel of professionals. So far OVERHANG is in the top 30. The top 100 will make it in the final round. You can vote at:
http://lollapalooza.mp3.com/feature/2007lollapalooza/?band=OVERHANG
Also, check out the interview we did two weeks ago on Chicago's community radio station, WLUW. You can download and listen to it at http://www.overhangonline.com.
And if you missed our benefit show last week at Subterranean Lounge in Chicago, we will be posting some video on http://www.myspace.com/overhang soon.