Check out this video of Surrogate at Chico State’s BMU Auditorium playing “Fix Another” a track of their debut record Love is for the Rich out NOW on Tooth and Nail Records. In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that they stupid talking guy with the bass at the beginning is me, thus making all the the third person references in my first sentence totally false. But I’m way too lazy to go back and change it now so deal with it, KTHX!!

I highly recommend checking out the e-card for the forthcoming Surrogate record here. The album art featured in the e-card is courtesy of the amazing Jordan Butcher who is definitely as cool as his web site suggests.  And while you’re having fun in e-card land, you should read the amazing biography of Surrogate, written by, ahem, yours truly. THATS WHAT WE CALL THE GRIND MAN. GET ON IT.

Synthesis Editorial Director Daniel Taylor is out on the road as part of the Tooth and Nail Acoustic Tour, and will be blogging about his travels

Four Weeks and some absurd number of miles of later (I’m thinking 8,000? 9,000?) I’m back in good ol Chico, CA, back in my wonderful chair at my wonderful job and going to Sushi tonight with my wonderful girlfriend and WOW ISN’T IT GREAT TO BE ALIVE? I’m also back to my pursuit of the meaning of life. Having spent my time on the road reading mainly meaningless fluff I’ve returned to my pseudoscientific research into shit that sucks about life like dying. I’m finally getting around to reading Raymond Moody’s infamous Life After Life, the original source of the now ubiquitous idea of the Near Death Experience: seperating from your body, traveling through a tunnel, the life review, beings of light, all that jazz. It’s kind of on some shit. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Speaking of beings of light, I have to say that the thing I miss most about being on tour was hanging out with the other bands, the amazing Emery and the equally amazing Ruth. Emery is of course getting ready to release their third record, I’m Only a Man. Not only did I have the chance to see them play a few of their new songs live every night for a few weeks, but I was also lucky enough to get a listen to the finished record. All I can say about it is, it’s not really what you’re expecting. The first track was so brutal and weird that I actually took off my headphones and asked them if it was really them. From there it got weirder: dance-y tracks, straight up pop tunes, and a closing track that’s the most epic shit I’ve heard since “Goodbye Sy Harbor.” The record hits stores October 2nd so don’t get caught slipping. The new Ruth record is already in stores, so you should really go buy it RIGHT NOW. Ruth frontman and namesake Dustin Ruth is about the sweetest man I’ve ever met in my entire life. Plus they’re about to blow the fuck up, going on tour with Relient K and Switchfoot. So scoop all your lame jocker friends and get the new shit early. Ruth is the TRUTH. Trust me.

WOW RAMBLING

Synthesis Editorial Director Daniel Taylor is out on the road as part of the Tooth and Nail Acoustic Tour, and will be blogging about his travels

OK: Heading north out of Dallas we made good time to Oklahoma, where every small town advertised itself as the “Hometown of So-and-So.” We stopped for gas in the “Hometown of NFL Hall of Famer Troy Aikman,” a forlorn, forgotten slab of a town. The woman at the counter wore her Indian grimace solemnly, an ancient look. I wanted to know her entire life: to what tribe did she belong? From what untold suffering was she descended? Her stern countenance inferred a million spectacular secrets of the earth, all there for the taking. Of course I didn’t ask. No one ever asks. We impose unquestioning privacy on one another and live out our sad secret lives of quiet desperation, hurrying ourselves stealthily to our hopeful graves. I bought a bottle of Evian and got back on the road.

MO: Joplin, Missouri is the type of town you never hear about unless you have to go there, and there’s really no reason you’d ever have to go there. Nevertheless, some hundred thousand or so people ARE there, living a peculiar form of sub-urban anonymity. It’s as if 70 separate small towns grew into each other over time, sprawling outward instead of upward until there was no other choice but to unite under a common flag, combining their dismal aspects into one grand, shared sorrow. The main drag conducted us into the crumbling epicenter of town where we played wiffle ball in front of a moldy Laundromat. The locals were unimpressed but we didn’t care. The girls there were ugly anyway.

IA: The next day we were back in Des Moines, passing the same cornfields we had passed three weeks earlier on our way East to Indiana. Or were they the same? Blowing by at 80 mph, the endless sea of sprouting ears on both sides of the highway certainly seemed like so many green sculptures, permanent an unchanged from time immemorial. But the reality was that not a one of those infinite stalks had avoided change, avoided aging, avoided inching closer to its own hopeful grave during those three weeks. A million corn tragedies and corn victories had been committed to posterity in those fields, visible if only one were to LOOK. And moreover, hadn’t I changed in the interim as well? Hadn’t everything changed? Then again, maybe nothing had changed. Maybe change was just an illusion anyway. Maybe everything, the corn, the road, the whole sickening lot of life was just an illusion. I spent some time trying to figure out which of those two possibilities I would prefer. We played that night in a heavy metal bar in Downtown Des Moines under the shadow of a few pathetic skyscrapers. Ever since Slipknot everything in Des Moines is metal, metal, metal, or at least that’s what some kid told me. Jack Kerouac once wrote that the “prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines” but I didn’t really see any evidence of that. Maybe all that metal drove them out. Who knows.

MN: Minneapolis is by far the grandest city middle America has to offer, and as far as my particular criteria are concerned, a more pleasant metropolis could scarcely be found on either coast for that matter. We arrived at sunrise, and while the others slept I took it upon myself to make an exhaustive survey of the urban center. Office workers ducked out of their glimmering high rises for their morning smokes in seemingly ridiculous droves. I ate a tremendous breakfast of waffles and eggs at the Marquette Hotel and blew a whole week’s food money. Everywhere I looked were the beatest of characters: bike messengers in vintage dresses and black leggings, Midwest hip-hop kids bopping along to their personal boombips, and best of all, countless Muslim women, of what looked to be a North African persuasion, bedecked in full burkhas and luscious lipstick. They scurried along and clicked their tongues to each other in hushed tones, veiling their words as they did their faces. Later at the Mall of America, trying on some jeans in the H&M dressing room, I encountered a group of these women, holding vigil outside a stall while one of their ranks tried on her own selections. Perhaps confused as to the unisex nature of the facility, the occupant emerged free of not just her headdress, but the better half of her clothing. I stared, slack jawed at this uncovered jewel of the Nile as her friends tittered nervously. She met my gaze and flashed a cat eyed smile. I smiled back and that was that. The jeans didn’t really fit but I bought them anyway. I hurried back out to dig Minneapolis while I had the chance.

Every day the world groaned to turn and we were making our appalling studies of the night

Synthesis Editorial Director Daniel Taylor is out on the road as part of the Tooth and Nail Acoustic Tour, and will be blogging about his travels

Frontier: It struck me somewhere in the middle of Texas, on the 35 heading towards that infernal oasis known as San Antonio, that I had officially been away from the warm bosom of the Chico/Willows area for longer than I had ever been before. And I do mean EVER. Perhaps that just goes to show how limited my prior adventures on this earth have been. But it was a milestone nonetheless, one that was marked by no small amount of anxiousness on my part. What would happen now? Would I implode? Would I suddenly go insane and drive the van off the edge of one of those absurdly skyscraping Texas turnpike overpasses, a variety of roadway if not unique to the state, then most certainly perfected therein? Who knows? I was practically beside myself with fear. And loathing. And I wasn’t even in Las Vegas.

Get in the Van: Adding to my general state of anxiety were the litany of annoyances and random pitfalls encumbering my journey. Foremost among these was the vessel itself. Though a vehicle of the hardiest and most expansive build, our tour van was nevertheless an apartment ill-suited to the purpose of housing five grown men and their assorted belongings for a month’s time, not to mention an entire band’s worth of musical equipment. Were we to have two such vans for a trip half the length, things would have been tough but manageable. We nevertheless endeavored to make the best of the situation at hand, scientifically arranging and angling every item to achieve maximum usage of the space available. After accomplishing this to our satisfaction, we set out on the initial leg of our journey. However, a night of sleeping in various yogic-like positions, legs and arms and heads splayed about at fantastic angles like a slumbering Cirque du Soliel troupe, duly motivated us to arrange and rearrange until finally we had freed ourselves enough space for four people to lay prone, one on the floor and three on the seats. This arrangement left only one odd man out, whose task it was to either drive or find his own sleeping arrangement outside of the van. Since the latter was often less than appetizing, on most nights while all else tried their best to sleep, one unlucky soul was left to man the helm, navigating through the night. This also served to exacerbate my condition, as the perpetual motion of my erstwhile bed rendered it less than agreeable to slumbering. What sleep I did find was typically haunted by perturbing dreams doubtlessly inspired by the less than ideal conditions, the wind shrieking through open windows (as we were without air-conditioning), the stopping and starting and turning typically involved in the act of driving, and not least of all, the close quarters of my companions, who though more accomplished in the art of “sleeping through it” were nevertheless still prone to incessant stirrings, lending the interior of our dear old van the air of an oversized hamster cage with wheels, hurtling through the blithe air.

Show is the Rainbow: I do believe that the only thing that kept me, and is keeping me still, from coming completely unglued was the salvation found in our nightly performances. Few things cheer the mood of that unabashed variety of narcissist known as a “musician” more than the eyes of a few hundred people pointed directly at his person. Ah the magic of music! No matter what condition the day’s, and often previous night’s, journey had rendered us—unrested, unshowered, unchanged, soiled and otherwise unkempt—a quick visit to the stage proffered to the bearded lot of more invigoration and handsomeness of aspect than any amount of grooming and primping could have ever hoped to accomplish. Who needs sleep when there’s rock n roll? And coffee?

Westward Ho: There is also some amount of solace to be found in the fact that, having reached the easternmost end of our journey at Florida, we’ve now plotted a zig-zagging return course, heading west. As anxious as I am to return home to open arms and motionless beds and slow food and all the trimmings of everyday life, I know that, like all things in life, as soon as I’m finally free from this musical servitude I’ll only wish to have it back, if only to have something to complain about. It seems the plight of man, to be happy only through comparative unhappiness! And I’m just a man. In a van. Looking for a Starbucks.

Number One Gun is not only one of Synthesis Magazine’s favorite bands, but they also come from our hometown of Chico,CA. Thus, it is our duty to review their new album before anyone else does. Needless to say, it beats balls like a pinata.

Number One Gun
Promises for the Imperfect
Tooth and Nail

In the two years since the release of Number One Gun's debut full length, Celebrate Mistakes, the band has gone through a lot: three drummers (thankfully ending up back where they started with Jordan Mallory), two guitarists and countless miles logged on tour with some of the biggest names in the melodic rock scene, in the process inking a deal with one of said scene's most seminal labels, Tooth and Nail. The resulting album, Promises for the Imperfect, showcases a road-tightened, newly focused Number One Gun.
What the first record sometimes lacked in continuity, Promises makes up for in spades. Even as the band vacillates between the driving ((Pretend�) and the anthemic (the first single (We Are�), Number One Gun succeeds where many bands fail; maintaining a distinct, unique and unmistakable sound. All-star producer Aaron Sprinkle (Acceptance, Anberlin) lends a bit of his personal touch to the record, but you could record Number One Gun on a boom box and there would still be frontman Jeff Schneeweis' amazing voice, the band's unabashedly melodic songcraft and the technical tightness born from thousands of hours spent on stage and in practice. However, Number One Gun certainly takes full advantage of the studio on Promises for the Imperfect, layering on tasteful keyboard lines, lush vocal harmonies and an otherwise full palette of drum, guitar and bass sounds, all the while letting the songs speak for themselves. Promises for the Imperfect is about as perfect an album as this genre of music has yet to produce. For fans of Relient K, Acceptance, Mae or just good, old fashioned, unpretentious melodic rock music, check out Number One Gun. You'll dig it, I promise.
– Daniel Taylor

Tracklisting

Pretend
Regrets Of Photographs
We Are
Fireside Wing
There Is Hope
Who You Are
All You Have
Golden Smile
The Time Is Now
Life Is What You Make It