what's this white stuff? why does the traffic suck?

Super ultra-thanks for everyone who came out and partied on Friday... most of the town was pretty well snowed in, and the ubik.van has a new set of chains (never knew we needed chains until this show), but the whole thing was fun, even if Requin and Slave Traitor didn't make it. The Ever Changing Sky were excellent as always, and Jeremy from John Wayne Autopsy filled in last minute (thanks, Jeremy!) after all the cancellations.

... and, with any luck, we'll catch up with Slave Traitor and Requin a show or two down the line.

From the Monkey to the Vu

Okay, the Monkey rocked (though there was slightly more puke than at most of our shows. Not sure how much, it's something we've never quantified) and we're setting up for the next one. The Next show's at the Rendezvous, on December 19th for Michelle's birthday.

December 19th
The Rendezvous' Jewel Box Theater
Michelle's birthday party!
w/ Requin,
Slave Traitor,
& The Ever Changing Sky
10:00 - 21+ - $5

up and coming

ubik.s got a show on the horizon-- we're at the Monkey Pub on Saturday, November 29th with Barefoot Barnacle. That's nothing but big happy goodness: we love Barnacle, and we love the Monkey (it's as close to a house party as a venue can get-- playing the Monkey is like being home with friends). The show post looks like this:

November 29th
Monkey Pub
w/ Barefoot Barnacle
9:00 - 21+ - $5

beyond that, we've been taking our downtime and working hard. There'll be a new song in the setlists soon (maybe for the Monkey Pub, maybe not-- this is one of our fast, complicated ones), and we're settling into our new practice space. Also on the horizon, we're looking into some vinyl: November might be a recording month for us.

Saturday Show, updates and directions

So, about the show on Saturday: The Greenhouse said we should advertise the show, so we've got a map. It's a DIY house party show, so chances are, not everyone knows how to get there...

and, we've got the updated show post:

October 25th
ubik. @ The Greenhouse Halloween Party
w/ Sod Hauler,
& Anon Remora,
& Brothers of the Sonic Cloth
8:00 - ALL AGES - Suggested $3 donation

Greenhouse lineup change

Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, Lesbian had to cancel their headlining spot at the Greenhouse Halloween show as well as some of their upcoming tour. So Sod Hauler will be taking over. Don't worry, this is still going to be a great show. Don't be late because we're playing first!

busy week ahead

we're pretty excited about our show next saturday-- we're playing at the Greenhouse (an awesome house known for great house party shows) with amazing bands: the amazing, dirgy Lesbian, and Tad Doyle's new epic outing, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth. This has been a big star on our calander for a while, and the we've got posted like this:

October 25th
ubik. @ The Greenhouse Halloween Party
w/ Lesbian,
Anon Remora,
& Brothers of the Sonic Cloth
8:00 - ALL AGES - $3 suggested donation

and then we got a call-- a band dropped out of an opening position on the Creature Feature show down at Studio 7. That makes this one kind of a wierd bill for us to be playing, and kind of a short notice listing, too... but that's one of the cool things about this show: it's very different from what we usually do.

October 23rd
ubik. @ Studio Seven
w/ Creature Feature,
Black Houses,
& Girl On Fire
7:00 - ALL AGES/BAR W/ID - $10 Adv./$12 DOS

#20 in the Monkey Pub jukebox!

We're happy to announce that we are now in the best jukebox in Seattle! So next time you're having a drink at the Monkey, put on some Melvins, Killing Joke, Skinny Puppy, Toadies, Pixies, Ween, and oh yeah, us!

Thanks Anthony!

5303 Roosevelt Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105

Oh, by the way, keep in mind that the last song ends with over 3 minutes of cymbal squealing. The choice is up to you. ;)

ubik. needs a place to live

after a successful voyage to Everett and back again, ubik.s back to work fleshing out new material and, with any luck, we'll be back in the studio doing some work on getting a split 10" done (it'd be cool to have vinyl)

Besides that, we were supposed to be out of our old practice space September 1st... but we just don't have a new place to play yet. If anyone's got a line on a practice space, let us know. We're in need. Seriously.

Last, we've got a show coming up on the 25th, which is going to be awesome.

back to everett

Everett tends to see us as a pretty strange band... but so be it: the crowd is always pretty responsive, and we make an impression. Friday's show went remarkably well, even if we were the only one of three bands to play a real set. It was actually sort of gratifying; we filled about an hour because of the other two bands' complications (departing members, singers too sick to sing), and could have filled more if we had to. Being the "Girls Rock" showcase, it was undoubtedly the place to play Let's Hunt and Kill Gwen Stefani.

Anyway, it looks like we're going to play fewer shows-- three weekends in a row to empty floors and/or blank faces can get a touch depressing, and, honestly, it does us very little good. On one hand: a friend mentioned her band stripped their schedule down to playing one show every three months, and at the shows they did play, attendance skyrocketed. This point is made more clear by several people who like us saying "You're playing in 2 weeks right? I'll just catch you next time."

On the other hand, if the show is packed full of people who already dig us, then we have missed out on every opportunity to play a little show where we impress one or two people who had never heard us before.

The happy medium, which is what we're probably going to be doing, is to cherry pick: only take the really good shows, play a little more sparsely (twice a month, maximum). The real trick would be to begin opening for bands more popular than ours, and exposing this music to people who didn't know about us-- by no means is it a bad thing for us to play shows for our fans and friends, but "headlining" when you're as underground as we are... well, it has its limits.

ubik. in Everett on Friday

so it's to be another northward trek for us on friday-- which is cool, because we've only played Everett once before. The tagline on this show is "Girls Rock!" (which, though true, only applies to 1/4th of ubik.), so we're opening for two other female-fronted bands out at Flights Pub. It's a free show, but we are opening, so broke is cool, but late isn't going to work out.

Here's the show post:

October 3rd
ubik. @ Flights Pub
w/ Truth Failed
& Holophrase
9:00 - FREE! - 21+

hmmm... online music sales

no one in ubik. really uses iTunes, so we're a little out of this loop... but The World Is A Glorious Biomechanical Nightmare is actually available for sale at the iTunes store. Lots of people use iTunes, so if any of you lovely, wonderful people are logged in, plugged in, and iTuning, you can shoot us some reviews in the iTunes world, and we'd love you for it.

ALL AGES show this Friday

We don't play nearly enough all ages show, so it's excellent to have this one in the mix.

September 26th

ubik. @ The L.A.B.
w/ Point Blank Range
& Enemy Camp
7:00 - $5 - ALL AGES!

Come to the High Dive: Sunday, Sep 21

Okay, so a little late on the show post... but we've sent out the mailing list and done the MySpace event invites, so everyone's probably already in the know.

But show posts are a tradition, so:

September 21st

ubik. @ High Dive
w/ 200 lb. Spider
& The Ever Changing Sky
7:00 - $5 - 21+

Shows coming up

Remember-- there isn't a show at the LAB on September 13th. (well, there is, but it doesn't have anything to do with us, and is therefore meaningless. Ha!) I know this stuff is on our shows page, but we don't want anyone's night to go south because they didn't know.

We are, however, at the LAB on September 26th... it's still a weekend (a Friday), it's still, all ages, and it's still free.

Even before that, though we're at the High Dive on Sunday, the 21st (which will serve you booze and charge you money, so it'll be sort of a different vibe), where we will be debuting a new song... if all goes according to plan.

...and then we go to Everett


Also-- ubik. is in the market for a practice space again, so if anyone knows of a place we can play on Wednesdays and Sundays (usually after 7:00PM), let us know.

new toys! ubik. on Twitter

Not to be left out of the thundering progress of the internet machine, ubik. can now provide all of you wonderful people with Twitter status updates. What's cool about this, you ask? Well twitter is a micro-blogging tool that does short bursts of info (I think it tops out at 150 characters), but is integrated into pretty much everything, and is a big deal in the Web 2.0 landscape. It's already the default Status ticker at ReverbNation, for example, and we've got it at the top of our News page as well.

Since Twitter can be updated by cell phone, it's pretty keen for at-the-show updates (as in: when we are going on) and keeping people posted while we're on the road and away from computers.

Abort! Abort!

Okay... a couple boffs, mix-ups, and random hits have taken a few shows off the boards.

First-- There is no show on September 6th in Queen Anne. We're not going to play that show, but will probably play Floyd's in Queen Anne at a later date.

Second-- No all-ages show at the L.A.B. on September 13th. There's a really crappy story behind that, but we're not there on the 13th. We are penciled in for September 26th, and we will probably be playing then.

It's better to play shows than not, but these things happen.

CD for sale online!

CD IN STORES NOW!

ubik.s album The World Is A Glorious Biomechanical Nightmare is available now both online and at record stores around seattle. Buy it online here:

... or you can find the CD at these stores in Seattle:

Cellophane Square - University District
4538 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
(206) 634-2280

Silver Platters - Queen Anne
In Lower Queen Anne (at the old Tower location)
701 5th Ave. N.
Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 283-3472

Silver Platters - Northgate
9560 1st Ave NE,
Seattle, WA 98115
(206) 524-3472

on sale now: our new album!

the first ubik. album, The World Is A Glorious Biomechanical Nightmare, has just been released, and is currently available at Silver Platters record stores in Queen Anne and Northgate. We'll have these available at our shows, of course, and we're going to have them for sale online very soon (for anyone outside Seattle). For now, we're just happy to have the discs in-hand, and thrilled to have them in stores.

This is where you can get them:

Silver Platters - Queen Anne
In Lower Queen Anne (at the old Tower location)
701 5th Ave. N.
Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 283-3472

and

Silver Platters - Northgate
9560 1st Ave NE,
Seattle, WA 98115
(206) 524-3472

Come play with us on Thursday

We're setting up at the Funhouse again this Thursday (August 14th), going on with the King's Cabaret and Burlesque show. Kind of an unusual gig for us... but that's a good thing. Points for variety and the rest of the fun stuff.

The show post looks like this

August 14th

ubik. @ The Funhouse
The King's Cabaret Burlesque
w/ Dino Haak
9:30 / $5

...but that's not even the half of it. There are tons of performers and acts for this one, so this should be a fun night out.

keeping it going...

Many thanks to everyone who came out to see us at the Rendezvous-- It was a Wednesday show (never anyone's favorite going-out-night), it was too hot to move (and even hotter in the Jewelbox Theater, where we played), and we didn't start until after 1:00AM... so, for everyone who saw us, you are the die-hards, wonderful people all.

Sorry we only played for about 20 minutes, though; it was just the way the night went, and we had to shut down before we could play all the songs on our setlist simply because the Rendezvous was closing down.

If you want to see a bit more, though, we're playing again really soon: an all ages show this sunday at the Squid & Ink, down in Georgetown. It'll be a longer set (promise), and it's always good to play all-ages shows.

last wednesday, this wednesday

ubik. had a great show at the final party at the Happy Lucky houseparty-- we love playing house parties, and were really lucky to have Jinza there to keep people off the pedalboards and to keep the mosh pit off the band. We'll be reuniting with the King's Cabaret later this month, even though the Happy Lucky Place is shut down, we're getting together at the Funhouse on the 14th.

...but that's still to come. This Wednesday we're playing a Ladies Choice Presents show, returning pretty quickly to the Rendezvous. That mean's we're running the visuals with the show... though it's important that the class not get so rowdy the teacher has to flip the lights on during the filmstrip (that was a real buzzkill last time).

oh, wow...

jesus... now that was a fucking Monkey Pub show!

the show completely kicked ass, several of us drank way too much afterward-- the whole night was a big ball of good. We have to thank everyone that came out, not only skipping the Capitol Hill Block Party (which, as far as we can tell, is largely haircut based), but also The Melvins. For as much as I love me some Melvins, saturday was one of the amazingly fun ubik. shows. Yay!

we've got a lot on our plate right now-- we have a house party to play on wednesday, to a Ladies Choice show at the Rendezvous on sunday, and more... check out our shows page for more details.

Also, the CD is at the pressing plant, and we're pretty excited to get those discs pressed in everyone's hands.

Saturday show at the Monkey...

It's Monkey Pub time again-- this time ubik's up with the B-Side Project. Everyone probably knows by now how ubik. feels about The Monkey, but this time it's enhanced by a panda suit. Joel will be in full panda garb, matched by Monkey Pub stalwart (and bartender) Anthony in a bunny suit.

This will make everyone else in the room look comparatively normal. Face it-- you can't pass up that kind of opportunity.

Here's the show post:

July 26th
ubik. @ The Monkey Pub
w/ The B-Side Project
$5 / 9:30

Thanks for all the orders

Okay, crew, the pre-orders on the new ubik. album are now closed-- thanks to everyone who placed an order, but now it is time to count our pennies, fill out the forms, and send that puppy off to be mass produced. So if you didn't pre-order a disc, you'll have a crack at the instant gratification version (hand us money, get a disc!) in another show or two. We'll also be selling them online.

Coming slightly sooner than the album, ubik. does have an upcoming show at the Monkey Pub, with the B-Side project. It's a saturday night show at one of the few bars we always go to-- the people are good, the drinks are cheap, and (when we're not playing) the jukebox is fantastic.

Last Chance to order

ubik.s just about ready to send our stuff off to the plant. This disc is ready to go, and go it shall. We've got to get these into production in order to get the pre-order people their copies by early August (as promised)... therefore, this weekend is your last chance to get on the pre-order bus.

Come monday, you'll just have to wait.

The link's still the same... but here it is, regardless:

$6.50*

*The pre-order has closed-- we're putting in the order and will have physical CDs for you soon.

Pre-order the new ubik.EP today!

The 6-song CD, The World Is a Glorious Biomechanical Nightmare, is finished and will be packaged and printed before the summer is out. Pre-ordering helps a band finance the physical production of the disc, and speeds up the process of getting them produced.

The CD sells for $5.00, but we need to cover shipping and packaging (we need to buy a bunch of CD mailers), as well as covering PayPal's back end, so the flat price for the Pre-Order is $6.50. That gets the disc on your doorstep as fast as the postmaster general gets the CDs to us.

$6.50*

*The pre-order has closed-- we're putting in the order and will have physical CDs for you soon.

Benefit show on Saturday

ubik.s playing the Benefit Show for Metal in Iraq this saturday, which is a benefit show for Acrassicaudi (the band that is the subject of the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad, which played at SIFF this year).

July 5th
ubik. @ the Rendezvous
w/ The Keeper
& Shogun
$5 / 10:00PM

The Rendezvous is one of our favorite places to play, and we'll have our video backdrop rolling for the set (the Rendezvous is fantastic for video).

mutantfest pics, anyone?

so... ubik. had a great time at the autonomous mutant festival, but we don't have any pics of the shows. I know, I know, if we wanted photos, we should have made arrangements, but if anyone has any ubik. at mutantfest pictures, please send them to us.

We're at ubikband@gmail.com

MutantFest 2008

ubik. partook in the Autonomous Mutant Festival (or AMF) last weekend, and man, what a weekend. We pulled in on Friday just in time to catch (A)symetric Warfar(e) start their show at Wondercamp at sundown. Then it was Red Rapture, then ubik., then In The Age Of Terminal Static, Wondercamp's hosts. That first night was fraught with difficulties as we tried to work out generator power and basic Show At Camp fundamentals (which we'd never had to deal with before). Michelle's processor hates generators, and we powered her with the electricity from (A)symetric Warfar(e)'s completely kick-ass tour van (a former bread truck).

ubik.s sound is fairly dependent on Michelle's ability to echo and distort... that Digitech vocal processor (the purple people eater) has been tweaked and customized over time to the point where Michelle really plays it like an instrument over several songs-- recording the EP (almost done!) was a crash course on how inimitable that thing is. You can't take a dry vocal and make it sound like Michelle sang it through the Purple People Eater with post-effects-- you have to use the original effected vocals. We can't live without it.

We played pretty much every song we knew that night... we didn't have a setlist, and everything ended with "what should we play next?" We didn't exactly put on a "show," but we played for a long time, to a big crowd, and everyone had a good time. We closed with The Planet's Kerploding!, and since Tyler's toes had frozen, we had to stop.

Saturday night at AMF went more smoothly, after we'd learned about generators, camp setups, and how to get all of this done. Red Rapture, ubik., and then In The Age Of Terminal Static again at Wondercamp-- (A)symetric Warfar(e) played over at Unicorn Camp that night, to one of the best mosh pits I've seen in years. ubik.s set leaned towards the mellow and the trippy, simply because Michelle's scream seems to scare off some of the more chemically enhanced campers. Of course, we still played Seven Feet Under, and we closed with No Such Thing As an Open-Ended Equation, but it was the kind of night where we brought out Silence, which isn't on our setlist too often.

The voyage was... eventful. After testing the ubik.van (now possibly named Rita, Edith, or Bruno) past Portland, plus another hundred-plus miles on Route 26, we learned that we do, thankfully, have a spare tire in there somewhere, but no jack. ubik.van was also carrying Andre, of Red Rapture, and Andre and Joel worked out a frightening-looking contraption out of a rock, a piece of lumber, and two borrowed jacks... and the wobbly, oversized spare tire happened. After limping to Madras for nearly an hour on a temporary spare (emblazoned with "do not exceed 55mph"-- I don't think we exceeded 45, due to wobble), we did learn that Les Schwab is the most awesome franchise in the country-- those guys had us rolling again in less time than it took to buy camp groceries.

We also had an odd issue where the van lost power and needed a jump. A nice woman attempted to pray over the engine (lord, please let this car start), but, for some reason, that didn't help. Jumper cables did, though. I think our van is more into Science than jesus, but, hey, whatever floats your boat. They were going to look us up on MySpace, and we don't want to seem ungrateful (we really needed that jump), but I can't imagine them digging a song like External Retraction... which is fairly overt in its anti-religious message. (unlike Glitch. I had to have that one explained to me.)

Regardless, we made it, there and back again. Andre maintains that the four of us actually manage to be more odorous than Jeremy (the other half of Red Rapture. If you're not listening to Red Rapture, it's your loss. Seriously)... but that was after a few days of camping. We're all really happy to be back in the land of toilets and showers again. Playing out of state let us meet some Oregoneons, and hopefully have a line on playing Portland sometime soon, which we've always wanted to do.

ubik.s playing in Seattle again in about two weeks, 4th of July weekend, and we're all geared up for the Autonomous Mutant Festival next year, too. We might stay longer and play later. We'll work it out.

camping gear

ubik. is packed and ready to go-- we're southbound, playing the Autonomous Music Festival down in Oregon this weekend. The festival's already underway, buy we're there and playing on Friday and Saturday... so if you're coming down, we'll see you on the grounds (and we hope you have one of those huge, house-like tents, with a full bar).

If you're not camping, wish us (and our van) luck, and a speedy return.

new song

proof that we are actually doing some mixing and will eventually deliver that EP we've been promising, a new recording of !!!!!! is up and online now.

ubik. never seems to name songs conventionally, but !!!!!! is practically Aphex Twin in its unpronounceability.

thanks for the wednesdays

Thanks to everyone that came out on a Wednesday: it's not a big show night for most people, and it was good to see so many people come out. It was a really wild line-up, too, with Blicky and Black Noise Cannon. The sonic progression of the night was very cool.

ubik.s set was fraught with technical difficulties... but that sort of thing happens. As far as we can tell, the setlist is cursed. We tried to play it at Jimmy Z's, but it got chopped because of a couple line-up mix-ups and truncated stage times. Last night we attempted to play it again... but, like I said, this setlist is cursed. If Black Noise Cannon didn't loan us a bass amp, we wouldn't have gotten to play at all (we really owe them for that one). Setup difficulties meant we had to chop songs out of the accursed setlist again...

we didn't even know a setlist could be cursed.

ubik. @ the Central on the 11th

This show was flying below radar and just popped up on us: ubik.s playing at The Central this coming Wednesday, Jun 11. Even though it was fairly short notice, we brought in some really good bands and have a solid line-up for the show. So here's the show post:

ubik. @ The Central
w/ Black Noise Cannon
& Blicky
$5 / 9:00 PM

The EP is chugging along and a ton of shows are up and listed for the near future, so we've got a busy couple of weeks ahead of us.

road gig

Yay! ubik.van made it to Everett and back without exploding or leaving us stranded, curbside, with an uncarryable amount of gear (this was a watershed event for us). All in all, we had a successful night, though something got fouled up, and our line-up was married with another to create a 6-band bill. Craziness abounded and setlists were cut short, but it turned out to be an excellent show for pretty much everyone. We have to send out super-love to The Keeper for playing the opening set (going on fairly early)... it was a rough spot to fill, but they offered to do it, and helped a lot of people out in the process. And they covered a Tad song.

It was also very, very cool for so many people to make the Seattle-Everett trip to come see us-- that rules, and we love you. We needed some support on our first ever road gig, and it was really encouraging that you came out. Also-- man, we met a lot of new people in Everett. That was a great, positive environment, with lots of new folks hearing us for the first time and really digging the ubik.thing. We love that: it was great to play for all the people who just stopped by Jimmy Z's for their Saturday out not knowing what was going to happen. People were really in rare form for this one.

Some time fairly soon, we will have another gig in Seattle, hopefully before we head south to play Mutant Fest.

Saturday Night in Everett

Tomorrow is looking like your special day for northbound fun-- face it, you just don't make it up to Everett as much as you should. And if that's not convincing enough for you (why wouldn't it be?), ubik.ll be playing a show up in the Green Room at Jimmy Z's with The Keeper and The Ever Changing sky... which makes the show post look something like this:

ubik. @ Jimmy Z's
w/ The Ever Changing Sky
& The Keeper
1712 Hewitt Ave,
Everett, WA 98201
8:30 / Cost: $7

Remember: ubik.s in the Green Room, so enter the venue at the Green Room door, or you'll end up paying for the bands on the other stage.

moons, Z's, mutants, and mixing

thanks to everyone out at the Blue Moon last night-- fun show all around, and we're always pleased when we can include the visuals (thanks to Heidi for loaning us her projector... the shows are always better with the projector running).

We're driving up to Everett next saturday (the 31st) to play The Green Room at Jimmy Z's, and we're driving down to the Autonomous Mutant Festival (in the Cascadia region... better directions are forthcoming) next month, as well as another Monkey Pub gig on the books for July (though ubik. strongly recommends you head down there daily, as the Monkey's just added a kickass white ale to their drafts, more Melvins and Ween to the jukebox, and still has the some of the cheapest PBR and Oly in town.

It's fair to say the mixing is half done for the ubik. EP-- three songs down and moving forward. Music will soon be musicing with the music on CD.

Friday night fun (no money down!)

It's another ubik-tastic friday, with everything that goes along with ubiktastic fridayness. We're playing at the Blue Moon, so it's a free show (the Blue Moon never charges at the door), and we're up with Red Rapture and Forefathers, and you're all going out this weekend since spring finally sprang, so you may as well come see a show.

The show post looks like this:

ubik. @ the Blue Moon
712 NE 45th St
Seattle WA 98105
w/ Red Rapture
& Forefathers
Free! / Doors at 8:30

ubik. at CYQO.com

check this out-- ubik is currently the #2 band sitewide on CYQO.com, which has grown and streamlined itself impressively, even in the short time we've known them (the new music players look great). ubik has no idea how these rankings are derived (we don't receive crazy amounts of plays or page visits on our cyqo page), but it is very cool that they're listing us at the top of the heap.

CYQO's been really good to us since signing up-- they really like ubik, and the community is live and supportive... which is a really rare thing. They put us on their podcast a couple weeks ago, and one of the site owners has been on us to provide new material because he's really digging what we've got uploaded so far. We'll be able to accommodate them soon...

mailing list

a pretty keen utility being offered at ReverbNation, this mailing list tool is looking like a much better way of keeping track of the ever-growing ubik.mailing.list. We've got this little guy on our home page, as well...







the mailing list, of course, is the best way to keep up with ubik-- all of our shows and upcoming events are all more reliably communicated via the mailinglist than any other source (i.e, myspace), so there it is: do the thing with the stuff.

The Mix Has Begun

ubik.s studio time is at an end: the tracks are in the can, laid down and called done. We've just broken ground on the mix. Faders have been pushed, pan pots have been turned (though we still have yet to get treasured Motley Crue drum sound. More reverb!) so the mix is underway.

This has been a long ride, so far, and there's still work to be done, but this CD will be appearing on our merch table soon.

Stay tuned.

so monday, so metal

no one can really guarantee a good turnout on a Monday, so we have to send tons of thanks to everyone who came out to see us at The Central-- that was a big, supportive crowd, and we love you guys for it. We had a good lineup with Mokshya headlining and Year of the Serpent filling that TBA slot (on super-short notice, too), both of whom are much more Monday Metal Madness than ubik...

we had a good show, which marks the first time ubik. actually raised the dead-- we've never had a zombie at a show before, so this was kind of a first for us.

In other news: we are just about done taping, and the mixing starts soon... probably tomorrow. There will be an EP. And soon.

Monday Night

ubik.s up at The Central next week, playing with a touring band from Arizona... it's us and Mokshya, along with good ole' TBA (we've played with TBA before-- they're not always great, but their unpredictability is part of their charm). The show post looks like this--

Monday, April 28
ubik. @ The Central
w/ Mokshya & TBA
207 1st Ave S
Seattle WA 98104
$5:00 / 9:30 PM

Narwhal vs. Unicorn

I know it's short notice, but ubik. is playing the Narwhal vs. Unicorn party in South Seattle this Friday. The party shall rage, and the animals (or, people in animal costumes) will fight. Or wrestle. The details are still a little sketchy, but still... Narwhals vs. Unicorns. At the very least, it's going to be better than Alien vs. Predator. We're playing some time after 9:00.

(as a brief aside, I have no idea who Carisa Swenson is, but it couldn't believe I actually found a picture for this post)

click tracks suck

ubik is now about a week and a half, 20 tracks, and one "buy it and then return it to Guitar Center" microphone into recording our EP. It's been hard going under some incredibly DIY conditions... but we're working quickly and getting good results. I know, I know: we were supposed to be done by now, but our studio recordings ended up in the garbage and here we are again, starting over on our own. So that's that: we're half done with the recording, and we'll have a CD out pretty soon. We'll keep you posted...

Risen after 3 days and now eating brains

That was a hell of a weekend, eh? Much love to all for coming out to see us this weekend... it was a bit of an endurance run, sandwiching in a Zombie Walk to The Octagon between two shows. We know Monday shows are rough (and this one was especially rough), but it was great to see you all at the Re-Bar on monday night when you could just as easily have been in bed.

Okay-- back to working on the EP. We've got a line on a few places to play in April (we'll keep you posted on the shows page, of course), and we're looking forward to the next gig. See you guys soon.

Mailing list blues...

just sent out an email to the ubik.mailing.list, which we do before every show, and... well... I have to drop the disclaimer: if you've ever signed up for our mailing list, and you don't get email from ubik., we're really sorry. Most shows, people don't sign up for the mailing list until many drinks have been consumed-- sometimes, the email addresses aren't really legible (once, someone even spilled beer on the sheet, smearing a lot of the sign-ups), so every time we send out email, a number of addresses come back as Not Recognized. Anyway... if you're one of the people who signed up but never hears from ubik., we're really sorry about that. Tell us you want to be on the list, and we'll take care of it.

And... of course... show post:

Saturday, March 22
ubik. at Goofy's
w/ Only Human
& Holotype
8519 15th Ave. NW
Show at 9:00 / $Free!

...and...

Monday, March 24
ubik. at Re-bar
w/ Imperial Legions of Rome
& Greenriver Thrillers
1114 Howell St, Seattle
Show at 9:00 / $5

Oops on the Hunab Ku

So... late breaking news on the upcoming show on the 22nd-- we just saw Hunab Ku's final show with their current guitarist at El Corazon last night (which was a really cool show: Barefoot Barnacle played after them). Because Hunab Ku requires such an odd variety of sounds from their new guitarist (and such specific and uncommon gear to get those sounds) the band isn't going to be able to make the show at Goofy's next saturday. The new poster up at Only Human's page lists the lineup as them, us, and Holotype... and we hope to have a little more info on Holotype pretty soon.

ubik.bot

Check out our ubik.bot-- you can print and construct your own robot from the template provided here:

ubik.bot.template

... it prints bigger if you print it in Landscape (as opposed to Portrait), and you should be able to print it directly from your browser.

You should definitely bring one of these guys to one of our shows next week (remember the shows... you want to come to the shows...)

Recordings...

Well, our studio time was a partial bust, but: we have turned out a couple decent recordings and put them up on the site. ubik. has uploaded recordings of Seven Feet Under and External Retraction... so this ought to hold everyone over until we get a proper CD recorded. So-- hooray for having new material up

and don't forget, we have shows coming up on Saturday the 22nd and Monday the 24th.

the pros and cons of using Party as a verb

ubik's up at a Ballard house party this friday (March 7th), so this is another good one for anyone who can't make it to our shows in the bars and clubs we usually play. We've got a good lineup, and ubik. loves playing house parties-- the crowds are always excellent at the parties we've played, so we're excited about this one.

House Party!
w/ Year Of The Serpent,
& The Ever Changing Sky

The full listing is on our shows page.

So much for time off...

Well, taking February off did get a bit accomplished (the EP is well under way, and all sorts of happiness will come of this later. Not too much later, but not just now. Stay tuned), but ubik. is tackling March with a vengeance. We've got shows listed for the 22nd and 24th of the month, which is pretty keen, but here's some late-breaking news: we've just taken on a house party for Friday, March 7th. It's a little on the short notice side, so we're letting you know with quickness and urgency: house party in Ballard on the 7th.

Details will be forthcoming, for sure, but one of the important bits is this: playing parties is as close as ubik. comes to playing all-ages events at the moment (we'd like to do more all-ages, but they're hard to set up). So this is the first flare into the sky... contact us if you need location info, and...

as always...

... more to come

a little space

we've got a show booked a little further out, on March 22, which is a bigger break than ubik. usually takes... but we've got a pretty good reason. ubik. has recently emerged from the studio, and we're currently working out some mixing and overdubs-- we're not too far from scraping together some funds and shipping a disc off to the printers. It's not an easy job, but the work is getting done, and ubik will soon have a 6-song EP (which we hope to have in the Monkey Pub jukebox as soon as possible).

Late Sunday Night

We really have to send the love out to everyone who stayed for the show last night-- we went on pretty late, and last call actually went out while we were playing. Rough timing for the day when most people are recovering from their weekend and getting some sleep for Monday morning... so for the late partiers and late late supporters-- you guys rule!

Come hang with ubik. tomorrow

tons of fun to be had with this one tomorrow. The poster has all the relevant data, but here's the block of text again, just for kicks:


ubik. @ The Funhouse
206 5th Ave N
w/ Hunab Ku,
Spirit Of Radio,
& Thin the Herd
9:30PM / $5 at the door

video of Let's Hunt and Kill

Add to MySpace Profile

Yay-- Tyler uploaded some fun stuff on our MySpace. This video looks and sounds good enough to replace the little flash player on the songs page.

the voice is an instrument

most vocalists tend to play it pretty effects-free: the sound man might put a little reverb or chorus on the singer, but for the most part, it's pretty dry. As far as I know, there are two vocalists in town who really use effects and processing: one is ubik's own Michelle, the other is Mike from Hunab Ku. ubik's playing with Hunab Ku for the first time this sunday, making it the most vocally processed show you're likely to see any time soon.

Standard show-post format, anyone?

ubik. @ The Funhouse
206 5th Ave N
w/ Hunab Ku,
Spirit Of Radio,
& Thin the Herd
9:00PM / $5 at the door

We'll see you there... ubik knows you don't have plans for sunday night

helluva party

the octagon was rockin' last saturday... if you missed it, you missed one hell of a party. we played a wild set, in a line-up with KGB Suspect, Rad Touch, and Red Rapture-- the place was absolutely packed (any more people and you wouldn't be able to move in that house) and the stores were completely depleted when the doors closed and they started throwing everyone out.

A full on rager, all around, and the fantastic attendees did their part to Save The Octagon. The house is still alive, and will be around for many parties to come.

Save the Octagon

So, yes-- you are all invited to the Save the Octagon house show this saturday. ubik's playing with Rad Touch, Red Rapture, and KGB Suspect. The Octagon's got the booze-- all you need to do is bring the money. It's a benefit show, remember: all proceeds go to keeping The Octagon alive and functioning for future shows, and as a practice space for myriad local bands (including ourselves).

...at The Octagon-- let us know if you need to know where it is.

preserving the Rock

Wow-- thanks to everyone that came out to the Rendezvous on Saturday... tons and tons of people in that place. It's got to be the weirdest lineup we've ever played (three cheers for diversity), and Leeni took off before we could grab one of her CDs, but... dig this...

we taped the show!

ubik hasn't had any new recordings in ages, and we've finally got some more audio on tap, including a nice live version of Seven Feet Under, one of our most popular songs. New stuff is up at our songs page as well as uploaded on our MySpace, because... well... everyone looks on MySpace when they're looking for you...

but that's just the appetizer-- ubik's in the studio this week, hoping to lock down some recordings that aren't derived from mic's at the back of one of our shows. We're looking to record as much as we can in the time we've got, so we'll have more to upload soon. And then there will be CDs at shows. Pretty keen, eh?

Saturday Night! Make the "wooo" noise!

Okay, kids-- it's party time. Return of the Living Dead style. (not really the part with the zombies, but the other stuff. Naked dancing and stereos in the cemetery type thing). I know we've fed you this block of text before, but here it is:

Saturday, January 5th
ubik. @ The Rendezvous
w/ Leeni
and Desmond
$5 at the Door
10:00 PM

That is obviously the best thing that ever happened, which is why you need to make the "wooo" noise and head out to the Rendezvous. We've got new sounds, new visuals, maybe an awesome For Dummies book, and we've washed our clothes (so you needn't stand in the back).

See you there...