New Single: In The Bleak Midwinter
Ladies and gentlemen, have we got a treat for you!
As we near the completion (finally) of Never Love A Stranger, we’ve decided to kick off the new year with this brand new single. “In The Bleak Midwinter” was originally made for our live performance on a WYOU winter telethon. The telethon required us to perform at least one Christmas song, so we chose a classic carol with words written by the English poet Christina Rossetti sometime before 1872. Twisting the words a bit, we turned a Christmas carol into an anytime love song.
The track was recorded at House Arrest studios in Madison, Wisconsin by Brian Nolan (who you may know from American Hi-Fi). The cover photo was originally taken by Nikki Gibson and edited by John Praw.
Progress on An Overdue Album, + December Shows
What have you been doing all this time?
Yes, it’s been a while since we’ve posted stuff here. If you want to see updates from us more often, Like us on Facebook. To answer the question, though, we’ve been up to a lot.
The band has been in a weird place, but in a good way. Our main focus is on the album. A lot is yet to be set in stone, but you can bet that the art will be similar to that pictured above. You can click on that picture, or click here, to download a free preview of the album. The track list is pretty much set to be a representation of our live show. If all goes according to plan, we will finish recording this week.
We have had our fair share of setbacks, so I’ll be extremely happy to get “Never Love A Stranger” out there. For a few months, Tom was on tour with another band. Our recording engineer had a baby. Our jobs and holidays got in the way. Some of us moved farther away. There are other excuses, but we’re all really excited to be nearing the home stretch here, and the quality of the album material is shaping up better than I could have ever guessed.
When are you playing? Why aren’t you playing so often?
Good question! You can always find our upcoming shows on our Gigs page. We have two shows coming up this month. On December 21st at the Dragonfly Lounge, we will be playing with Noxroy (MAD), William Z. Villain (MAD; feat. P-P alum Ben Cameron) and Soul Low (MKE). That show will be the first day of winter, and thus, the kick-off party for the Lost City Winter Series. The Lost City Music Festival is very much a product of the people in this band, so the Winter Series means a lot to us.
For the second show, on December 29th at Mad Planet in Milwaukee, we will be playing with Blue Boy (CHI), Animals In Human Attire (MKE; feat. P-P alum Myles Coyne) and Ivy Spokes (MKE). That show will be awesome.
To focus on the album, we’re not playing so frequently. We also made the decision to no longer be involved with shows we aren’t dedicated to. We’ve all played and organized too many shows that don’t really matter to us, so we’re done with that. Instead, we’ll be playing shows that we can really invest ourselves in. Also, we’re busy as crap. All of us are in other bands, and two of our members live over an hour away from Madison in different directions.
Okay, enough talking. Goodbye. Take it easy.
You too, buddy.
<3 Like us on facebook, dummy.
Back To The Studio
We’re off to the studio again. Today, we’ll try to record the second half of the album. So far, we’ve (mostly) finished recording Where We First Sat, Morning Undone, Birthday, Howl and Past.
Once we have the studio set up, we’re going to rocket through some of these remaining tracks. The big two will be the Fried Chicken Suite (the first 3-4 songs that run together in the album), and Bleak Midwinter / Lost Ponds, which also run together. Hopefully, that will go quickly so we can get to South Africa and Bitch Sister. If we can get all of that done tonight and tomorrow, we’ll be set.
Tom leaves on tour where he’ll be backing up his friends’ band in two weeks, so there might be a little recording project to hold us over until his return (in nearly 3 months!). Look for news of that soon.
And we’re off!
~ John Praw
FIFTY Shows!
Wow. As of last Wednesday on the Terrace, Pushmi-Pullyu has performed FIFTY times. This includes all shows since our first back in October of 2008 in a basement on the corner of Mills and Milton. In that time, we’ve undergone a lot of changes. What once started as an ambient-influenced electronic pop project has become some weird blues-inspired experimental rock group. After ten months off in Norway, we completely replaced the electronics in favor of full-on instrumentation. Over the past (almost) four years, our lineup has included the following variations:
John Praw (solo)
John Praw
Corey Murphy
John Praw
Corey Murphy
Myles Coyne
John Praw
Myles Coyne
John Praw
Corey Murphy
Luke Annear
John Praw
Corey Murphy
Luke Annear
Tom Teslik
John Praw
Corey Murphy
Luke Annear
Tom Teslik
Sam Ludwig
Holy cow, is that a lot of permutations. I think I can safely say that this is by far the best version of the band there has been. We somehow turned solo electronic pop songs into heavy-hitting rock songs with sax solos. I don’t really know how we did it, but making a conscious effort to remove the electronics bit-by-bit was the best decision we’ve made as a band.
As we move forward, we look forward to finishing our first full-on legitimate album (not counting South Africa, the collection of songs and sketches released before I moved to Norway), which will be titled “Never Love A Stranger.” People are moving, our recording engineer is having a baby, and Tom’s going on a two and a half month tour with another band, but that won’t stop us from completing the album. We will definitely be cutting back on the number of shows we play in the coming months, but we look forward to seeing you when we do play. Expect some special versions of the band while Tom is away (this train ain’t stoppin’!).
Thanks again for all the love and support, and for listening to our songs. Here’s to 50 more shows!
<3 John Praw Kruse
Pushmi-Pullyu 