Casey's Residency Night 2: January, 14th 2011

Night 2 of our Casey's residency saw us joined by our friends in the band

Hexham Heads. If you remember, we played with them at Spaceland in

October 2010 along with C-Horse and Nightmare Air. They have a a post-

punk sound that calls to bands like Bauhaus and Joy Division but isn't

scared to embrace a harder driving live performance. If you were there

on this particular night at Casey's then you also had a chance to see Rufo

from The Terrapin subbing on drums for them for the night. By all accounts

he didn't fully cheese it.

We also invited our friends in CMYK to DJ this night. CMYK laid down

some serious grooves from the get go. We're pretty pumped because

the dance floor action they laid down is coming back when they join us

once more on Night 3. Should you come back and dance your ass off?

What kind of question is that? Of course you should. If you're not shaking

it you're not living.

Speaking of shaking it, Thanks to everyone who helped fill up the floor

while we played. It's not often we play LA proper and have people actually

dance. The makes all of us very happy indeed. If you were there during

this dancefest, the song that may have done the trick is called 'The Party'.

It's a brand new song we wrote fairly recently. It's not on our upcoming

'Inner Machine' EP but will most likely be on the follow up to it. In the

mean time you should come to the gigs to catch it in all it's sweaty glory.

We also had our friend Lukas from Hexham Heads join us onstage in the

aftermath of 'The Party' to play our cover of The Smashing Pumpkins

song 'Bodies'. It was loud, fast, and noisy as hell, so in other words a great

deal of fun. We wrapped up night two in a hot sweaty mess but Rock & Roll

shouldn't be anything less.

Right below are a few pics snapped by John Ramirez.

Set list for Night 2

1) T-Rex/Goat Adventure

2) Driving Drone

3) Drag

4) Franjelica

5) Inner Machine

6) Birthcake

7) The Party (Brand New)

8) Bodies (Smashing Pumpkins cover with Lukas from Hexham Heads)

And if you've forgotten, we made a video to promote our four night stand

at Casey's:

and here's Birthcake just in case you haven't seen it already.

On a much sadder and personal note, Trish Keenan the singer

from british group Broadcast passed away that same day.

The Terrapin had the very good fortune of seeing them on

what ended up being their final LA performance at The Troubadour

in November 2009. We left that show in a collective haze of

wonder and awe. The projection work they did proved to be

a large inspiration for us to begin incorporating visual

elements to our performance. The musical influence Broadcast

has had in particular to both Vanessa and Rufo has been large

in both their lives. Trish and Broadcast are influences that we

have no problem readily admitting. If you aren't familiar with

their music here are the two songs that turned both Vanessa

and Rufo on to them.

And lastly, Broadcast performing their song 'Black Cat' at

The Troubadour November 2009.

We'll Miss You Trish Keenan.

The Terrapin

Casey's Residency Night 1 : January, 7th 2011

The Terrapin began our Friday night residency at Casey's in downtown LA this

past week on January 7th. As you can tell by the fancy poster above made by

graphic artist Andrew Wilson (http://wilsonicillustration.blogspot.com/)

we played with the lovely ladies in the band Bombon. We've known Jerico

their drummer from way back when she was in a band called Sleepover. They

played the record release show for our first EP. She now kicks ass full time

in Bombon. They've also just put our their first LP and happen to play some

of the funnest garage/surf music you can imagine. They put on a great show

and we were very happy to have them on board for this first night.

We also had DJ Oldboy (a.k.a. Chris 'Sex Bob-omb' Lynch) spinning records

between bands. If you've never heard him DJ you are surely missing out on

some amazing tunes. He plays a great selection of blues, R&B, Soul and

Rock & Roll to whet just about any musical taste. The guy has great taste.

How many DJ's have you ever seen rock out with a tambourine during their

set? He sure does. Go see him when you have a chance.

The first night of the residency was even more of a special occasion for us

because it marked us debuting our first ever music video! Director Donovan

Vim Crony made an amazing video for our song 'Birthcake' from our first

EP. He also came down with us to see it premiered. Reaction was good.

We shot the video with him at the end of November. Watch it below!

How cool is that? We know, we know. Donovan is an all around great

classy man and we couldn't be happier with how it turned out. If you want

to see more of his work go check out his Youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/vimcrony

We also made a made a video for our residency dates in the same vein

as the one we made for January 2010. Don't want to ruin the surprise

so here it is:

Hopefully that didn't induce some really weird acid flashback.

If it did, we apologize.

We are also working closely with visual artist Zach McGinnes for

the live visuals you are going to see this month. Below you'll see two

pictures taken the first night of the residency by Katy Diaz that might

give you a hint of what we're doing. To get the full impact of it you

should come down to one of our three remaining residency shows.

Are you wondering what we played that first night?

Well, here's the setlist from night 1:

1)Numb

2)Drag

3)Birthcake

4)It All Goes Away

5)Kill (1-5 is the 'Kill' EP in its original running order)

6) T-Rex/Goat Adventure (NEW SONG!)

7)Bawdy Politic

8)Know

9)More (7-9 are from our upcoming 'Inner Machine' EP)

10)Moonage Daydream (DAVID BOWIE COVER!)

That covers most of Night 1.

What else will happen?

Come down and find out for yourself.

This Friday will see us playing once more with Hexham Heads

and the ladies of CMYK DJ'ing.

See you then.

The Terrapin

Bear, Cat, Koala, Ferret

XOXO

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

We just wrapped up our last batch of shows for 2010 this past week at the

5 Star Bar in downtown LA with Modern Time Machines on the last night

of their residency. It was quite nice and a big thanks to Ben and MTM for

having us on board on such a great show. Before that we played our last

Long Beach show of the year at The Prospector with the stellar line up

of The Vespertines, The Secret 6 and Bella Novela. Many thanks to

Jackie and Wade from Prospector for having us.

Now for the Announcement!

The Terrapin is proud to announce we will be the Friday Night Resident

Band at Casey's in downtown Los Angeles for January 2011!

As befitting our first residency we have booked an array of some of our

favorite acts in LA.

Schedule

Friday January 7th: The Terrapin w/Bombon and DJ Oldboy

Friday January 14th:The Terrapin w/Hexham Heads

Friday January 21st:The Terrapin w/Kissing Cousins

Friday January 28th:The Terrapin w/Seasons and DJ Jen (KXLU) and

Jeff from Dirty Hippy Radio.

We will also be performing our first Long Beach show of the new year:

Tuesday January 11th:The Terrapin w/Bella Novela and Megafauna who

will be on tour from Texas

We are planning on releasing the "Inner Machine EP" at the end of the

month at the show with Seasons, so keep your fingers crossed on that one.

We will be playing different sets each night that will all include

BRAND NEW MUSIC!

There are some other things we are planning for the residency that you'll

just have to experience for yourself.

Artist Andrew Wilson is currently in the process of creating our residency

poster which will be up soon.

We recently also shot our first music video with Director Donovan Vim Crony.

More news on that as we get it.

Here are some stills from the shoot

Spaceland Tuesday October 5th:

Donovan also ran the live visuals for us at the Spaceland show and you can see

his brilliant handiwork in those couple of pictures we have. He created an

entirely new set of visuals for us for that night separate from the ones we have

been using recently. Pretty cool huh?

There are some other things still in the works for 2011 that we're working on

but don't be surprised if you see us back on the road.

THANK YOU FOR A GREAT 2010

Love and Turtles

XOXO

The Terrapin

RVAB

Tuesday October 5th at Spaceland

This gig is going to be a scorcher.

Much thanks to Patrick Molloy's and Dirty Hippie Radio for the great time we had last night in Hermosa Beach.

More Shows!

The Terrapin has been taking it a little easy on the shows front but we have recently confirmed a few new ones for your future attendance.

Coming up first:

Tuesday September 14th : The Terrapin at Patrick Molloy's in Hermosa Beach

This show will mark the very first time The Terrapin will be playing in the heart of the South Bay.

We will be playing with Halloween Swim Team and locals Fartbarf. This show is presented by Dirty Hippie Radio. Believe it starts at 9pm or so. It's also FREE.

Coming up second:

Tuesday October 5th : The Terrapin at Spaceland in Silverlake

This will be our second time playing Spaceland this year and our 3rd or 4th time there overall.

The line up to this show is amazing from top to bottom. C-Horse is one of our favorite pop bands to come around in some time. They have great tunes, a great onstage energy and will make you feel damn good. We hear they might be covering some Buzzcocks.

Also on this show are Hexham Heads who play a beautifully dark brand of Rock and Roll that calls to mind elements of My Bloody Valentine and Bauhaus though that simple description is just the tip of the iceberg. Closing the night out will be powerhouse band Nightmare Air.

This show will be $5.

And coming up in October and November...

Saturday October 16th : The Terrapin at the American Legion Hall in Highland Park.

We'll be playing with the gents of the band Seasons. Their music delves into touches of

psychedelia with an expansive pop laden canvas. One of the best bands you could see right now.

Also performing on this show will be Count Fleet and Odd Modern.

Friday November 26th : The Terrapin at 5 Star Bar

We'll be playing with the marvelous Modern Time Machines.

The rest of the info is secret for now.

We're all pretty excited about these shows.

There may be a new visual component at some or all of these shows.

Listen closely and you may hear a new choice cover song too.

That's it for now.

XOXOX

The Terrapin

Done with Recording! More Shows! More Music!

The last time we posted a few weeks ago we were about to do a round of shows and record our next ep. The shows all went swimmingly. Some nice things were said to us that made us all blush but we shant repeat them here (they were nice though).

Our first day of recording with producer Raymond Richards saw us a little jittery but ultimately we got over it pretty quick once we realized there was nothing for us to worry about. By the end of the day we had recorded all bass, drums and the basic guitar tracks. Day two of recording involved additional guitar overdubs including Raymond adding an additional layer of guitar himself to one of our favorite tracks. I believe V did the basic vocal tracks on the second day, or it may have been the first, it was a blur. By the end of the second day 90% of the tracking that will be the record had been done. There was one additional half day session for vocal overdubs.

The experience of working with Raymond and Red Rockets Glare Studios was amazing. One rather fond memory involves sitting outside on a break while we feasted on a meal of coffee, donuts, pizza and beer. The man knows how to live it up. We would gladly recommend you consider working with him for any recording endeavors you may have. His pricing is more than reasonable and the expertise he demonstrates behind the board and with all his equipment is unparalleled. As of the time this post is being written we are expecting our first round of mixes from him. Exciting times.

On the show front we have a handful of dates for the month of July.

Thursday July 8th we will be at the Ignition Cafe in Palm Desert with the band Caxton. If you are not aware, we do have a special connection with that band. Around the time we released our first ep our bass player was a young man named Brett. Brett is the bass player in Caxton. Besides that fact Caxton is a very tight and energetic band to watch. Hopefully we'll be able to do more with them out here on our side of town. So on the off hand chance you happen to be in Palm Desert on July 8th come hang out. It's FREE and ALL AGES, both of which always equal a good time.

Saturday July 10th we will be playing once more at one of the live music hot spots in Long Beach: The Prospector. We will be joining the band The Secret 6 as well as Great Big Things who will be playing their final show that night.

Saturday July 24th we will be playing a private house party in San Pedro with some dear music friends who have been part of the South Bay/Pedro punk rock scene since the start many years ago. The last time we played for these friends was as a warm up show for our first ep prior to the release show at Famima with Vaudeville and Sleepover. These get togethers are always fun and filled with good people, good music, great food and those alcoholic libations that people are so fond of. We are preparing some special stuff for this gig and if all goes well with this special material, we may keep it in our set. We shall see.

Last night we had a very nice and stress free practice. We have been so busy rehearsing the material for recording and all the shows we have played that we hadn't really had the time to just do something new. We worked on it all practice and now have a rough form for it. It needs much more work but it also does find us treading into a musical direction we haven't fully delved into but it looks like we may. I could describe it but best leave you guessing. It is VERY pretty.

There are also definite talks of us doing a music video for a song from our first ep and some visual collaborations but we'll let you know more about all that when we have more concrete details to give you.

It feels like we are in a good place right now.

We may always be worrying about any myriad of things like say $$$, but we hope to bring you some more great shows, recordings and things in the time that lays ahead.

On behalf of The Terrapin

XOXO

R

Shows, Recording and All That Jazz

Hey There!

This might be considered the first official installment of The Terrapin blog. We have 3 shows currently booked for the month of June with the possibility of one more towards the end of the month. First gig up is going to be us performing in San Pedro at Harold's Bar. It is being presented by Craig Ibarra and The Rise and Fall magazine. They've been putting on some great shows over the years that we have had the chance to go to. It is going to be Saturday June, 12th. We will go on first and open up the night. Admission is FREE but they will be taking donations so that they can get a new PA system to continue to be able to put on the kinds of shows they have.

The next shows we have will be the following week on Tuesday June, 15th and Wednesday the 15th. The June 15th show we will be performing at The Prospector in Long Beach with The Verpertines and Modest Fur. The show is going to be featuring DJ Oldboy who spins a great mix of old soul, R&B as well as some great garage rock rarities. On top of that, it is also going to Alan's birthday! The next night will find us at a newish venue called La Fonda with our friends in the band Swordfights as well as Torches In Trees.

RECORDING NEWS: Next Friday and Saturday June 11th and 12th we will be recording with producer Raymond Richards at Red Rockets Glare. We are pretty stoked about it after a minor set back. We will be recording all day Saturday June 12th before we pack up our gear and head to Harold's in San Pedro to play.

I guess that covers most of what we have going on right now other than the usual mish-mash of going and seeing bands around town.

We hope to see you around soon,

The Terrapin

XOXO