Things have been silent at the House of Stem for a while now, however I will say that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy. So you are probably asking one question; “If you guys are not Rocking the Fuck out of everything in sight then what on earth could you be doing?” I know, its hard to imagine we would do anything else but Rock the Fuck out, but there is a lot to a band.
One, as some of you may know, we are working on the idea of a name change. Strange I know, but it gets into a bunch of legal crap with bands already called Stem. If you want the full story ask and ye shall receive, but I feel like I will have more news for you all soon.
Additionally, we took a look back at our massive song repertoire and decided that it needed some reworking so that the songs are as good as they can possibly be. So we have been hard at work writing and rewriting material until every song is totally awesome, to the point of where you can’t help but have your face melted off by its awesomeness.
We have also been working on the back end into super professional snooze fest stuff, like tax ids, DBA’s and trademark registration. Basically setting up the band as a professional business. That way when we are making enough money off of it to support ourselves then the government won’t throw us in jail for tax evasion.
As always if anyone is interested in all on how to start their own business I will gladly post our experiences, Matt Butler has been doing extensive research into the matter.
For those of you who attended the Bills Bar show, you now get to have a piece of it. For those of you who missed the show, you can listen to it and pretend you were there. And there is nothing wrong with pretending, I do it all the time. In fact after this I am going to go back to being a Ninja.
So with out further hesitation please help your self to this copy of the Bill’s Bar Show. It’s a great quality recording, with great tracks that half of which we don’t have recorded yet.
Shake it
Lost Love
Can’t you see
Down in the Water
Shit Kickin’
Mannish Boy
Download is FREE so please grab away, pass it around to friends, and let us know your thoughts, fond memories, or nightmares from that show. Also check out the cool graphic that plays in the background…..pretty snazzy.
It’s about that time again where we shell out a new song. This one is a nice jammy one that we later discovered was inspired by a great friend of ours named Mike Jennings. He comes to a lot of our shows and we play a tune called Kankamangus (don’t worry, I’ll post it soon). He loves that song as well as many of our others, so as we were jamming on it we realized who this song belonged to.
So this song, entitled “Super Gus” is named after the one and only Mike Jennings, and I guess you can say it’s his theme song, although he doesn’t know it yet. If you are super jealous, as I know some of you might be since you don’t have a Stem-powered theme song, then perhaps this is something we can discuss (for a small fee of course). Just kidding…about the fee.
I will report on more news soon, as we have some big things coming up such as the premier of the South Swell Knights Movie this week, which we’re on the soundtrack of. Also, we have our show at Porter Bellys in Brighton this Friday, and that should be an awesome time as always. And, at the same time of the show, we will be broadcasting our song “Like You” on air on WFNX radio 101.7 FM. Pretty Sweeeeeeeeet!
Once again I want to say thanks to everyone who came out to Bill’s. This was a great show, and the Band and myself had a great time. Also I know Pete Bartash is thankful for the crew who took the mini journey to go catch him rock out the drum kit over at Copperfields with Rich Kuhn later in the night.
We never stop working at Stem Co. and we got more stuff coming on the horizon. One of these things is another Free, 3 hour Show at Portobellies in downtown Brighton, which all are welcome for the “All Stem All Day”. (ASAD)
Another thing we have been working on is getting recordings of the songs we play all the time. Nothing professional, but we are working on getting them out for your listening pleasure for those of you who only have the Album, and just can’t get enough of the boys. In fact we are working on another Ear to the Door volume which will have these tasty treats on it that you will be able to download here and pick up at a show.
On that note here is another great tune, called What You Get. We wrote it around the same time as Lost Love, and Nervous, which came after we recorded the album . It’s a grooving rock tune with a kick ass ending. Enjoy… If this is a song you want to hear live at Portobellies then let us know.
To download click here (right click “save as” for non IE users) What You Get
Thanks to everyone for writing in with your suggestions. We took them all into consideration and spent long hours debating. It even caused a few arguments to turn into blows. Matt Smith picked up a chair and started swinging it widely asking why we couldn’t learn how to “rock in the free world”. Still not sure what he meant, he has since been heavily sedated and put under surveillance.
However we came to a conclusion on bringing your 15 some odd suggestions and turning it into an 8 song set. So, without any further adieu, I bring to you, the set list for this Saturday.
Gravel – not on any album- but it F’nnng rocks! Wakefield – new song for all you rock reggae fans Dig My Own Grave -classic sing along about digging your own grave. Shake it – for all you dancers, turn it funky Lost Love – change the funk to a grove and keep it bouncin Can’t You See – back to a serious funk hip hop from Marshall Tucker (just for you Amanda) Down in the Water – From the B-Sides keep funky, make it bluesy (thanks Chris) Shit Kickin’- end it with some good ole down home country Kick Ass (Geooooff) Super Baddass Awesome Ending. – you’ll just have to wait and see. (just for fun)
This is from the feedback from all of you fine people letting us know what music you love. I look forward to seeing you all at the show. Its going to be awesome. Hopefully we can squeeze this all into 45 minutes.
Bills Bar baby here we come this Saturday! Time for all of us, and yes that means you, to rock this mother fucker down!
We hoped you liked our venture into the movie business! From the play count and comments we’ve received it seems like you did and it is also apparent that we need to continue to use our sick and twisted minds to create more short films in the near future.
We also wanted to remind you of our show that we have coming up at Bill’s Bar. Some really awesome bands have been confirmed on the bill: Forgetful Jones, Othership, and The Firewater Band. Check them out on Myspace. Tickets for the show are available to purchase through our website at $10 (they will be $12 at the door) Also the show is 18+ so bring your little brothers, sisters, cousins, roommates, or complete strangers you meet on the street because it’s going to be a real good time.
Lastly since you are the converted and devoted stem fans we’d like to ask what you would like to hear us play because after all you are paying to come us and we want to make sure you get what you are paying for. Below are some options, if you are so inclined please respond by writing a comment below.
1. I want to hear a lot new songs, because the old ones are getting…..well…..old.(don’t worry we won’t get mad, we hear them a lot more then you do)
2. Stick with the Stem Classics like Dig My Own Grave, Shake it, Lord Don’t Givith and in fact play more songs off of that really kick ass record of yours!
3. I want to hear a mix of old and new, but if you don’t play (insert your fav song here)______________________ i might tell all my friends that you suck!
4. Wait, you guys play music? I was just coming to get drunk.
Here is the poster, feel free to add it to your facebook/myspace pages and tell your friends that were throwing down at Bill’s Bar Saturday Feb 28th and saying “Fuck You” to the shortest month of the year.
We will be performing at the Quarter in Harrisburg PA on Saturday Feb. 14th as part of the 13th annual Millennium Music Conference. This is a movie about one of our biggest fans……Tell us what you think and if you like it show a friend.
Here is the poster, feel free to add it to your facebook/myspace pages and tell your friends that were throwing down at Bill’s Bar Saturday Feb 28th and saying “Fuck You” to the shortest month of the year.
