In anticipation of our EP, which we aim to launch by summer, Andy and Nathan created this autobiographical music video, syncing snippets of our summer travels on The Procession tour to the most recent version of ‘Make It.’  In a similar vein, I created video montage synced to a  not-so-recent version of ‘Too Good For Him.’ While less high quality (do full screen to see the beauty of Andy’s high-def camera) and relevant than ‘Make It’ (in my opinion), I thought I’d share it with you.

We hope that these videos will remind you of us — and frankly, remind us of you. Personally, watching the video for ‘Make It’ evoked a sense of aching nostalgia for life on the road; I hope your watching it gives you a similar sense of deep, unsmiling happiness. You can smile, though, if you want.

Steven

“Make It“

“Too Good For Him“

This is Nathan here, just providing a little update on where we are on the production of our new EP. Andy and I have been working pretty hard here on the West Coast laying down tracks for our forthcoming EP, using a bunch of new pedals and fun tricks we’ve picked up over the past few months. Logan is going to be going into the studio to record some new drums and percussion, which we can’t wait to hear, and Steve’s been busy writing some new cool tracks and preforming our music out on the East Coast.

Overall, its a slow, but satisfying process of cross-country collaboration. Logan’s got a pretty sweet new blog deliverying your daily jam. Check it out at www.thisbetheverse.com.

fun in the sun...

Thanks to Nelson Greaves, Max Newman-Plotnick and everyone from Ivory Tower for thinking of Big Time as they put together Harvard University Television’s season premiere episode of Ivory Tower. Steven had a great time playing an acoustic set for the season opener. Thanks to everyone who came out!

Realizing that many of you have not had the opportunity to hear our sound as it developed over the course of this past summer’s tour, we are making four songs that were recorded at the last show of The Procession (The show took place at The Mint in LA on June 29) available for free download: ‘As One You Love,’ ‘The Great Unknown,’ ‘Give In,’ and ‘Day Tripper,’ a tribute to one of our favorite bands.

They’re all in aif format, which while larger, have a better sound fidelity. We hope you enjoy the tracks, and we’d love to hear your feedback, if any.

Rock and roll.

After a cursory look at the bar’s motley patrons, I moved to chatting with other ‘loners’ who perched themselves confidently on the patio, sipping on their $3 Shiner Bocks (a native Texan beer).  Charles, a long-haired man who recently moved back to Houston after going to school in New Orleans, told me to stick around for the upcoming deejays – in particular, a guy named Ceeplus, who supposedly had some serious skills.

And he did. One could tell that each core track he played was carefully selected and mixed with a textured overlay of beats and auxiliary tracks that he used to evoke (what I thought to be) a meaningful aural experience. With an array of songs ranging from MGMT to Led Zeppelin, Ceeplus (or Eric, as I came to know him) chose tracks that got the audience both moving and thinking.

After his set, I talked to him a bit about his music, his life and the Houston scene.  Staring into his clear plastic glasses frames, I found it hard to believe that he was nearly forty, had a wife and a child of a year-and-a-half, and held a full-time job as a marketing entrepreneur. He and his buddies were proud originators (or so they claimed) of Houston’s non-driving movement – that is, those who choose not to drive cars and whose only mode of transportation is biking. [This is actually extremely tough. Houston IS a driving city, comprised of roughly 80 sq. miles, connected by miles upon miles of circuitous superhighways.] Eric’s life, it seemed, was filled with a number of choices which affected his path as a deejay. He no longer considers deejaying his full-time or even part-time job—it’s just some he loves doing.

And while our choices as a band haven’t resulted in wives or babies, right now, Big Time is facing a number of choices that will indelibly affect the course not only of the band and our music, but also our lives as individuals.

The high of touring has worn off, and we are now faced with the harsh realities of having to pay rent, meeting the expectations of our families after spending the last four (and in a couple cases, five) years in school, and taking a critical look at our capabilities and our craft as musicians and artists. In tandem with these concerns is the unforeseen delay of our record until next year, an album which we had hoped to create with Adam Lasus (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Yo La Tengo). And perhaps most significantly, we must find our sound and improve as musicians, if we truly are to pursue this path as a vocation.

How to reconcile our dreams with the constraints of reality is not easy, to say the least. And figuring out how we will go about doing it is even less easy.

In fear of sending mixed messages, I hesitate to offer any concrete plans right now. At present, the band is separated, for the most part, by distance. Andy, Nathan and Will are currently stationed in the Bay area with their families, while Logan returns to Cambridge this semester for his junior year at Harvard. I’m currently in Houston, where I’m spending the month with my mother (who recently discovered she has a benign and surgically removable brain tumor), before heading back to the Boston area this fall.

While the weight of our band’s world seems to be hanging in the balance, this moment, perhaps, is less dramatic than it seems at first glance. We continue to write new songs and revisit old ones before demoing again this fall—this time, for keeps. And while it seems likely that we will record a new demo this fall with Adam, we will take nothing for granted, as our changed plans to record the album this fall showed us.

Much remains uncertain—most of all, our future. Regardless of what happens, though, we will record this album. And whether it is received well by fans and critics or is only known by lovers of the most obscure artists (namely, our families and friends), we will give it an honest try, as we’ve done in the past and will continue to do for the rest of our lives. For a culture of aspiration and hope, for music and creativity, for ourselves and our love of life—we will record this album.

Much will change—our schedules, likely our band name, and almost certainly, our selves. We welcome change, are hopeful for the future, and are thankful for all we’ve done thus far.  If our only testament to our work is the occasional listener who is moved by our music—like I was by Ceeplus—then we’ll have known it wasn’t all for naught.

Stay tuned for more updates (sorry there aren’t more), and keep on rocking.

-Steven

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last week. In addition to a busy end to The Procession, we’ve had to deal with a few logistical issues — e.g., figuring out our lives, dealing with locking ourselves out of The Beast (Logan’s Yukon XL) two hours outside of LA, and meeting with Adam Lasus (the producer of our future album).

That said, we have a lot of backtracked pictures from the road that we’ll be posting in the upcoming days. The following are a bunch that we took before our week-long break mid-Procession before July 4th. A resounding thanks to our friends at Turnstyle Music Group and Uncle Mike’s for putting on a great show, and an even stronger thanks to our many friends and family (Pamela, Rachel, Tim and Rachel’s friend, whose names escapes me right now) who made it out to our July 3rd gig at Uncle Mike’s in Tribeca. It was amazing to see so many people out — particularly, the many Foxes who turned out in a very big way, bringing their friends and loved ones, too. It really meant a lot not only to Steven, but also the other members of Big TIme.

It was moments like that night at Uncle Mike’s that The Procession really took on a life of it’s own and found a special place in the minds and hearts of all the members of the band.

Stay tuned for more pictures and reflections in the coming days, but for now please let these suffice. Rock and roll.

Steven rocking out at The Denver Post's Underground Music Showcase.

Mint green shoes.

Sweating up a storm.

William Magid and Nathan Eberhart. Hell yes for the trumpet.

The banner of the UMS. Thanks to Ricardo Baca, Molly Cherington, Ben Desoto and everyone else who put their heart and souls into The Denver Post's UMS!