if you aren't up to date on the saga of the FNY album cover, let me catch you up real quick. we knew this record's title a long time ago, and when we were in Newcastle, UK we saw a cigarette vending machine that had an image on it that we knew HAD to be the album cover. but we didn't act, and now we're scrambling to get a high resolution copy of this image from across the ocean. well, we have some pictures of it that we found on the internet.
we're asking all of our UK fans to go on a search and find this machine. then we need you to do whatever you need to do to get us a very high quality copy of this image. if you can remove it from the machine and scan it really huge, thats cool. if you have a really really dope camera, and you can take a close up HUGE picture of it, that's cool too. we need your help!! we leave for tour with RxBandits in a week, and have to finish the album art by then.
needless to say, if you are successful in helping us get the album cover, you will be hooked up in our thanks section as the ruthless UK avenger who saved the day!
Los Santos Banditos, "Get Focused" Tour, LIVE EP, Get Hot
Los Santos Banditos, "Get Focused" Tour, LIVE EP, Get Hot
We have officially adopted the Rx Bandits as our patron saints. After taking us to Europe last year, the surf prog shred head kings have asked us to go on tour with them again. Once more we are entering uncharted territory for FNY. The dirty south. In the summer. Its hot. And humid. I expect when we return home we will be buff and tan. Ask Eric how much he can leg press. He'll tell you all about it. Ask Omar about pleasuring other peoples dogs in dark corners of even darker parking lots. He will tell you all about it. Ask me about what the eff is up with this tour and our band. I'll tell you all about it.
First things first. No more Theo (our van). She is someone elses problem now. Omars Ford Focus is our new problem. You read right. We are straight up going to roll in homeboys economy car through the south on tour. Our buddies in RX and Portugal the Man have been kind enough to let us borrow gear to make this happen. You all know how ridiculous fuel is. We can no longer afford to fuel a 15 passenger van. More importantly, that shit is bad for you. I mean you. I don't want to tell you how much carbon dioxide FNY has been responsible for pumping into your lungs over the last 4 plus years. We saw An Inconvenient Truth. Dude had graphs and shit. You can't fuck with a graph so big that you need a cherry picker to illustrate your point. So in order to save your lives we will roll in Omars Focus. You can thank us by coming to the shows and buying things from us. Things like....
New FNY drop card and custom, hand made merch.
Drop card. I didn't know what the hell this thing was until we made one. Its like a credit card. You buy it from us at the show. You take it home and theres a code that allows you to download six songs. Five songs are from Matt Fazzis final show with FNY and one new studio track. Remember back there when I said this was good for six songs? Pysche! Its good for nine. In addition to those six songs, our bro Kenji at Five One Records is hooking you all up with some bonus tracks. You will get a song each from Return To Sender, Awake And Alert, and last and certainly least, Gavin Castleton. These artists are all very good friends and labelmates.
Drop Card Track Listing: 1.) All A This (Live) 2.) Claim/Subclaim (Live) 3.) Give Love (Live) 4.) Full Turn (Live) 5.) Messenger (Live) 6.) Heartbreak (New Studio Track)
Bonus Tracks: 1.) Return To Sender - "Spit Me Out" 2.) Awake And Alert - "Vows" 3.) Gavin Castleton - "Goodman Baby"
We aren't taking merch on this tour. We will be stopping by thrift stores on your town and buying funky threads. We will put funky images on those funky threads right there in front of your eyes. Not down with the second hand scene? Do not worry. We will print images on the funky threads that your funky butt is wearing. So bring us an extra shirt from home or hand us that boring looking shirt off your back and we will hand you back a unique, eco friendly momento of our short but loud but funky time with you.
Also we are attempting to neutralize our carbon footprint on our portion of this tour. We will have a short questionnaire at our merch table in each town. We will ask questions to help us determine what the carbon footprint was for the show in your town. We will ask for donation which we will use to purchase a variety of carbon offsets. After the tour you can check back with us to see if the show in your town was carbon neutral (or hopefully carbon negative).
Last but certainly not least, the record. It's been a long assed road. We lost two dudes, a few girlfriends, some jobs and hair since our last record was released. I can assure you that the wait has been well worth it. It's a week or so out from being completely finished. It will be out this fall. We're calling it "Get Hot". And that's exactly what we are about to do.
We need your help. Last year we played the Carling Academy. Eric spotted this cigarette vending machine with this ill photo on the front. The photo was a frame by frame of a match burning. We want it for our album cover. Here is where you come in.
The machine is owned by John Barker Vending. He is located in Newcastle. We have tried to contact this dude but he doesnt want to be contacted by yanks apparently. We need you to either bust this fool where he sleeps or straight steal the picture from the Venue.
Info you will need:
John Barker Vending 0191-268-8265 50 Briar Edge Newcastle Upon Tyne
Vending machine was located next to the bar in the small upstairs room.
Make this happen and you will have not only our respect and admiration but maybe we will bring you a hot n' ready pizza straight from our zone. Don't know about hot n' ready? You're about to.
its eric. first of all, we're kinda new to this blog thing.. hopefully we do another one of these, but we tend to do this one-off blog deal. so, drums, bass, and guitar are all done on the record. keyboards are about 75% there, and haven't started vocals yet. i start them tonight. i know we been puttin this off for a while, but to prove it to you, we filmed some hot video!!
Ok. These last two days have been an emotional rollercoaster of friendship, music, and family. Ladies and dudes of Los Angeles and the greater SF Bay Area, thank you for everything. What an insanse couple shows you made for us!! We had so much fun. We were so comfortable, happy, excited. It felt like two big fucking house parties. Seriously, what an amazing celebration it was for our love Matty. Matty Fazz. Fazmatti. And don't worry. It's not the last time we'll share the same stage. Facing New York, although a 3 man machine now at its creative core, has slowly been tranforming into a collective of sorts. Sharing music and friendship with all our closest in a sort of open door policy. You may have seen one Gavin Castleton also in the crowd last night, or even on stage the one and only Rene Carranza! Music and friendship goes on and on and on...
So the record is being made, along with a bunch of sweet stuff to announce soon. We're hitting the road this summer with a fresh (very fresh, very different) approach to touring which we'll be announcing soon. As promised a big of FNY TV soon and some videos of recording process. Also, we're playing a few shows as a 3 piece in May with one of our favorite bands, Subtle. These will be sweet shows to come hear new material and a new sound in its incubation process. Don't miss it!
Finally, last night was recorded, and it sounds dope! Big ups to Scott "suck it, Matt" Llamas on an amazing live recording capture. We'll be getting pieces of that around to your ears sometime in the next few months, if we didn't fuck up too much.
this is a big week. big like godzilla is big. we got two monster shows this weekend at the troubadour and bottom of the hill, respectively. lots of surprises and fun in store for these nights, so don't miss out. get a ticket if you haven't already. plus, we're going to hit the studio again to cut more demo tracks to share with you probably in the next week and a half or two. PLUSSSS
the filming of the FNY WEB TV SHOW teaser is going down. its going to be, like, super weird. promise to be our friends still after?
and oh yeah, if omar posts another bulletin about eating steak he's out of the band.
Whats up foolios. It’s Eric. Workin from my house. Got a hot new FNY jam I been cookin up all day. Started on it last night after Omar and Brandon went home. I had to kick it at the rehearsal spot for a while, and got the beginning of this new jam. It’s going to be the last one I write for this record we start recording in May!
ANYWAYZZZZZ we need some street teamers to promote our SF & LA shows. what does this mean? well, if you remember last July we had the privilege of working with Jake Johnny Aaron Nick and Lindsey in LA. we hung out before the troubadour show and played new FNY secret tunes for them. we forgot the pizza that we promised, but this time we will not! so, hit us up if you want to help out at facingnewyork@Hotmail.com
we promise treats and treats for helping with this!
MATT’S FINAL SHOWS WITH FACING NEW YORK
Current mood: optimistic
Dear friends
On Friday April 18th and Saturday April 19th, Matt Fazzi will play his final shows as a member of Facing New York. They will take place at the Troubadour in West Hollywood and Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco.
Our beloved best buddy Matt Fazzi has been presented an amazing opportunity and is leaving Facing New York. We have been on the best of terms in recent times, and are all super excited for him. His departure does not come out of any ill will, and in fact I think we’d all love to keep things the way they are. But destiny has selected Matt to move on to some very, very exciting things that he’d be a damn fool to pass up. When the opportunity of a lifetime comes along, you gotta take it!
He has been a cornerstone of Facing New York since we started in 2004. Beginning on guitar and backup vocals, he picked up keyboards upon Rene’s departure in 2006, and in recent times began drumming to add the spectacle of double drumming with Omar to our live set. A musical encyclopedia, diehard Sharks fan, and a loving dude, we’re going to miss playing with him regularly. Keep an eye on our myspace blog and his Happy Body, Slow Brain myspace blog (which if you haven’t checked out yet, you need to!) to hear the secret when it is unveiled. It’s exciting news, and he can’t wait to share it with you.
As for Facing New York. Let’s talk. It’s almost 3 years between records. We’ve gone from a 5-piece behemoth to a 3-piece in that time. You might wonder what’s happening, right? Well, let me tell you this. Omar, Brandon, and I all live together. We cook dinner together. We get home from work and sit around the table and discuss the new material. At breakfast we talk production: drum mic’ing techniques, synthesizer patches, vocal effects. When I need to shower Brandon’s in there. When Omar is trying to sleep I’m working on music on the computer. We’re living this new album, now. It is all written, and recording begins in May. We figured it was finally time to share with you a little treat.
Omar, Brandon, and I went into the studio Monday morning and banged out a demo of a new song, it’s called "All a this." Enjoy it on our myspace page. We have more shows to announce in May, and will be releasing more music as soon as it’s recorded.
A lot of people ask us what our band name means, what it represents. It’s about work. Doing what you love to do, doing what you need to do, because you don’t know anything else. From Rene and Matt to Omar, Brandon, and myself.
Isyer 1 FNY basketball team checkin in hurr. We’re playing our first show ever at the Rickshaw Stop this thursday. Yes. Not tonight, but a week from tonight. Playin some new songs, bringin out some new heavy instruments. Its gonna be mega, not one to miss. At this show we’ll be announcin our next couple shows, and some plans for the year. Yes! The record is coming along. Couple new tracks will be heard at this show. Among them are:
Cops on Bikes Gesture Heartbreak untitled (desert jam)
Really lookin forward to seein all your super fresh faces
Facing New York/ RX Bandits – Paradiso, Amsterdam 07/10/07
A certain enigma loomed over the venue that night, building upon the many foundations to which could only be said to be the second coming of music. The two bands to which provided the mental intensity came in the form of Facing New York and RX Bandits who whole heartedly shook not only the venues floors but the walls of thought and provocation in the minds of the audience For me, and for the 200 strong capacity crowd who all loomed into the disbanded church on the walls of Amsterdam, this night fell nothing short of spectacular. From every puff of mind-wielding smoke to every glassy-eyed stare upon the proceedings, everyone shared the common thought of unity.
The first band to which graced the stage was that of Facing New York. From the very moment that Omar Cuellar set foot upon the stage, behind a mass of percussion and blended a very steady beat into the buildings atmosphere, you knew that without a doubt this was no ordinary 'rock show.' The percussion heavy sound of Facing New York alongside both guitarists and keyboard players Matthew Fazzi and Eric Frederic and bass player Brandon Canchola smacked out a thirty minute set of uncontrolled psychedelic madness down to a tee, changing moods and provoking thoughts ranging from absolute mania to downright bliss. The word accurate would be offensive to use in this instance as they produced a tight, note perfect performance with downright ease. The overriding factor to which reeked in the air was that of four good friends playing music for fun. I am not alone in my adoration for this band; the Paradiso crowd hung upon on every word projected into the air from dual vocalists Matthew and Eric and catapulted the energy back onto them.
Their performance as a whole seemed to be conducted into two parts, of songs improvised into the next, ranging from the almost cocky swagger of 'The Messenger' to the 70's style 'Full Turn'. Blending and cavorting from one different mood onto the next and tarnishing the venues floors, walls and ceilings with an almost sticky aroma of gratitude. Facing New York are indefinitely at the forefront of their generation, dragging the acid-fuelled sound of progressive music back into the modern spectre with a slight Robot dance, here and there. These people live, breathe and sleep music, a worn cliché but the only one to which actually fits and represents this band as a whole.
Set List
The Messenger Roman Son Comin' Up Styrofoam Walls Rocker Give Love Cowboy Stomp Full Turn
thankful
optimistic
exhausted