So we are 4 and a half months in to our ‘Voyage of Discovery’.  Things have gotten much smoother now. The first month or so was pretty rough. Mark almost didn’t make it on the plane! I won’t forget the first time I got out of the shower on a cold morning, or when I sat down on the porcelain toilet seat to drop a load, I seriously contemplated whether or not I could handle it out here. It’s not that I have not experienced cold before, it’s just you tend to forget what it’s like living in Hawaii. Mark and I shared a room, for the first couple months, at my dad’s apartment in Richmond Beach, Shoreline. (It was like having a brother all over again!) We spent most days and nights trying to block out the depression of having moved from the most beautiful place in the world, leaving friends, family, and girlfriends behind. We did things like shooting pool, playing music, and drinking ‘Mass’ (Seattle term for ‘choke’) amounts of beer. Once Mark moved to Belltown, I had my room all to myself, at which point I quickly set up my acoustic kit.

     We’ve made some good friends since we moved here. Alex Karchevsky is an old-school regular in the Seattle Rock and Roll scene. He was the front man for ‘Murdock’, and is about to front a new conglomoration of Seattle musicians to be called ‘Over the Eight’. Our upstairs neighbor is a chellowist for a very talented group called ‘Reed’. Of course we are kicking it with ‘Out from Underneath’, a great Seattle rock band that we met when they were on tour. 

So, Everytime someone asks me “WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE HAWAII TO COME HERE?!! I  just keep reminding myself that when you have a dream, you have to give it all you got.

Justin~

We will travel to Moscow, Idaho, to make our live debut, on Saturday, Nov. 3!

It will be our first public performance since we relocated to Seattle and changed the identity of the band. The last time we played together was our going-away show in May in Honolulu when we were known as “The Crud.”

Since then we have retooled considerably in every phase of the game. We cannot wait to unleash the MADNESS!!!

We’ll be playing with our buddies Out From Underneath. The gig will be at John’Alley Tavern (114 E Sixth Street). If you happen to be in the area, or want to fly or drive up, come check it out! What better way to spend a vacation than visiting the great state of potatoes!

We hope to be adding more dates soon, especially in the Seattle area. But we’re still working hard to make sure everything is set before we get out there too much. This will be a great warm-up gig for us before we really make our debut on the Seattle scene.

Also, at the show, we will for the first time be selling our album, “Antidote,” hot off the press. Or, if you don’t want to fly out for the gig, you can always order “Antidote” online. Click on our “merch” page to place an order.

ROCK!!!

John’Alley Tavern websites:
www.alleyvault.com
www.myspace.com/johnsalleytavern

OK, upon further review, that new Foo Fighters album isn’t so bad after all. I do still stand by my statement that many artists do tend lose touch with their audiences as time goes on, and that this album is an example of that. But there are some really, really good moments on this record, that stay with you. Possibly the biggest highlight for me is the final track, “Home.” Dave Grohl on piano?! Is there an instrument he CAN’T play?! “Stranger Things Can Happen” lodges itself into your brain and holds on for dear life. (Including the wind-up metronome is a nice touch too …) The two singles, “The Pretender” and “Long Road to Ruin,” do succeed in beautifying the landscape of radio.

But for all the bright spots on the album, there are a fair share of forgettable tracks. This is the first Foo Fighters record that I cannot listen to from start to finish without having to skip tracks. Does the need for an artist to evolve water down the primal connection he has to the listener? Do songwriters run out of material and start settling for mediocrity? Or, perhaps, it is the listener that is stuck in nostalgia, preferring the familiar over the experimental. Maybe I am guilty of that. Or, maybe, it’s a little of all of the above?

Yes, “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace” is the Foo Fighters’ most sophisticated album to date. And I do think that’s a good thing. But on a primal level, their first album — a rough, glorified demo featuring Grohl on every instrument — has done more for me personally than “Echoes” has. There was just something raw and simple about that first one. It’s the kind of album that when you listen to it it takes you back to wherever you were in your life when you first heard it.

Perhaps I should just stop bitching and just be grateful for a seventh rocking album. Man … I wonder what Nirvana’s seventh album would have sounded like. You think Kurt would have tried out the piano?!?!?

ROCK!
=Ben=

ps: Incidentally, you should check out this interview Grohl did for NPR. It’s a good listen.

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The song “For Tomorrow,” off of the upcoming “Antidote” album, is featured on the compilation “One Life at a Time.” It is for a really good cause, and it’s a chance to get a sneak peak at our new album. It’s also a chance to hear what Hawaii rock sounds like!

To learn more about it, check out this review of the album (you have to scroll down a little). Go to the Passout Records Web site and click on “Store” to buy the album. Proceeds go to help a kid in Peru who needs the help.

Welcome! After taking several months to relocate and retool, we are proud to announce that WE’RE BACK!!! We’ve made the big move across the Pacific Ocean, going from paradise to the Pacific Northwest, where this modern era of rock was born. We have not only changed locations, but we’ve changed the name and identity of this band. Some of our Hawaii following know us as “The Crud.” We are henceforth known as Grim Smiley, based in Seattle, Wash.

Why the name change? Well, we wanted to make a fresh start with a cool new identity. Plus, it helps that there aren’t 20 other bands out there with the same name!

This new site has lots of features, and we hope you enjoy it. Keep checking back, as we’ll continue to add new content — everything from pictures to video to music to blogs to podcasts to swag to when/where we’re playing next.

Well enjoy, and we hope to see you at a show! (once we set one up …)

ROCK!!!

OK, I broke down and learned how to play Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” and the Plain White T’s “Delilah” on guitar. I’ve heard those songs on the radio all summer, part of me cringing at the insipid sappiness, and the other drawn by the folksy, stripped-down genuine nature of those tunes. So, ever the fan of a ballad, I figured out how to play the songs. Now I just gotta figure out how to get those friggen songs out of my head …

I picked up the new Foo Fighters CD (well, requested it for a birthday present) and the Silversun Pickups’ “Carnivale.” The Foo Fighters — quite possibly my favorite band all-time after Nirvana — opened things up musically with this album (as influenced by their recent live acoustic sets). Granted as of this writing I’ve only given the album one listen (and I admit that often this is a bad time to develop an opinion about a project), but it just feels like this one’s not grabbing me like ever single other FF album has (or even going back to Dave Grohl’s first release, on the B-side of Nirvana’s “All Apologies” single). For the first time for me, things are starting to sound the same with them. It’s almost like somewhere along the way a band forgets how to really grab people and things get watered down. Another band I’ve seen this in is Weezer — which rivals FF for No. 2 on my all-time list. While Rivers Cuomo’s songwriting is still sharp (as is Grohl’s, don’t get my wrong), I think many would agree that their first album, the Blue Album, is their most endearing. And while their newer releases have better production and maybe adhere closer to pop structure and are more technically sound, there’s a certain character that’s missing. Do bands become more detached from their audience and art as time goes on?

I hope that never happens to us.

ROCK!
=Ben=

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