Live Music in Belltown

I was initially skeptical when I got an email telling me The Crocodile had closed... their website was still up, and the rumors of the venue closing have been around since... um... how long have I lived in this town? Anyway, you hear these things, but you never believe they'll happen.

But Belltown ain't dead yet-- there are still shows at The Rendezvous. This place sounds really good, it's about two blocks north of the Croc (R.I.P), and-- here's the best part-- ubik plays there. We're up on Saturday, January 5th, so... check out the show post:

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

and we're bringing visuals to this one.

happy Non-Denominational Everyone Gets A Day Off day

Phew... closing out December. ubik finally has our van, so not only can we get to shows without doing any begging, but we can also record. Can you believe that-- our biggest obstacle to recording was us not being able to move all our gear to and from a studio? All a thing of the past, friends... we can get there from here.

Now, we just need to record.

Van Up

ubik is now solvent-- we need a van, and we have the cash to get it done. We're looking for something reliable and hefty, something that can haul us as well as the gear (i.e, we need a back seat), and it has to be able to survive some freeway driving if we're ever going to play... say... portland. We can drop $1000 (tops) on the van... wish we had more, but we've got what we've got, so if someone's got a line on a good van, let us know.

and don't forget: we're up at the Rendezvous on January 5th, rocking Belltown on a Saturday night with Desmond and Leeni.

ubik needs a van

we're in the market for a van-- we're poor, that's for certain, but we can probably spare maybe $1000 (maybe, we're still working it out) to get ourselves a van. If anyone has a line on a good work vehicle, get in touch with us. Having our own transportation will solve a number of our problems, not the least of which is our ability to record: ubik can't manage a recording until we can somehow transport our gear to a studio... it's already a struggle borrowing a vehicle for every show. Thanks go out to Heidi for her truck; Heidi's pickup has gotten ubik to our last two shows.

ubik wants to play on christmas

we really want to book a show for December 25th, so if anybody has something set up and wants us to play, let us know. It's no stretch to claim that christmas is really, really boring: even if you have family in town (and 3/4ths of ubik do not), by 7:00PM on christmas day, you're pretty much done, holiday-wise. By 10:00, you wish there was something, anything, to do... on a day when even the local Safeway is closed. Well, we want something to do, too: we want to play, and then we can offer you something to do on a day when nothing ever happens.

slushie

thanks to everyone who came out to the Monkey Pub on saturday-- the weekend was cold and snowfall quickly turned to slush in the roads; plenty of people stayed home this weekend, so ubik's extra-thankful for everyone who braved the elements. We played with our frequent co-conspirators, Red Rapture once again, and the show kicked plenty of ass... ubik. even broke out a new epic, Let's Hunt and Kill Gwen Stefani, which would be our bid for radio popularity (if it weren't for the song's unwieldly length).

Monkey Pub this Saturday

We are rocking the Obligatory Show Post (OSP)

this OSP has been generated for the following show:

ubik. @ the Monkey Pub
w/ Red Rapture
5305 Roosevelt
Seattle, WA 98105
9:00 PM / 21+
$5 at the Door

Now that the official business is done and the OSP has been filed, I intend to spend the rest of my night making silly beeping noises, none of which should prevent you from coming out to the Monkey on Saturday, which is going to be lots of fun: playing with Red Rapture is always a good time, and we love the Monkey Pub.

deep breath

ubik needs a nap... we aren't used to playing shows three weekends in a row. After a really late Sunday at the Funhouse and a rockin party at The Octagon, we just played The Blue Moon on friday, which was a pretty unique experience for us. The Blue Moon comes with its own built-in crowd, so that set was played to some unusual folks that had never seen us before.

Much thanks to everyone who made it out to see us over the last few weeks-- we're taking the next two weeks to work the kinks out of a new song, maybe get some more writing done, and show up well rested for the show at The Monkey Pub on Friday, December 1st. Any of you may have seen a random ubik member staggering blindly out of the Monkey some night around closing time: that is one of our favorite bars in the U.

--eric

Free on Friday

We're playing the Blue Moon with Red Rapture on Friday, which can't help but to be awesome: we played a dry run with them a The Octagon house party on Saturday night, and that party was great! The music was fantastic, and the incredible (technical, trippy, and heavy as hell) Barefoot Barnacle was on the bill, the room was packed, and the crowd was phenomenal. Pack a bunch of us in a small room and the energy level goes up! (My apologies to the woman I was always almost stepping on and/or smacking in the face with my headstock)

Also, you only get to hear flirtations like "You hella don't wear your contacts anymore" at house parties. That's a lot of contact-not-wearing. It blew my mind and completely reconfigured my concept of math, as I thought it was a binary system: either one wore contacts, or one didn't wear contacts... but now we all know there are hella permutations to the system (only in the U-District, where the IQs are high and the education runs deep).

We're up on 45th this Friday, so we're rocking the convenient. The Blue Moon is on myriad bus routes, is right off of I-5, it's a Friday night show, and it's totally free. Stack all of that stuff together: it's not a school night, it's easy to get to, and it doesn't cost you anything... and that's a winner. That'd be a winner even if you didn't like ubik, as you could sit around and laugh at us for free, and we've got variety on tap: singer-sonwriter Paul Jameson is our first ever hyphenate billmate, and Red Rapture rocked the Nectar Lounge with us a few months back (not to mention the rad house party).

Standard showlist format:

Ubik @ The Blue Moon
712 NE 45th St
Seattle WA 98105
w/ Paul Jameson
& Red Rapture
& Mutilated Goat Sewage
9:00, $0 at the Door

We're still soliciting contributions to our genre-naming in the post below, so feel free to contribute. No-- don't feel free; feel obligated. This has even become a feature on Artomaton, so it is obviously something you need to do.

--eric

Mailing List

Oh boy... appy polly logies to anyone who put pen to paper on our mailing list, but still doesn't hear from us. Truth is, the mailing list gets filled out after we play, and... well... sometimes the handwriting looks a little creative. We do our best to include everyone that signs up, but there may have been drinking involved when the mailing list got filled out, and some of the entries are tough to translate.

If anyone is accidentally omitted, you can put in for the mailing list here.

Genre Naming Contest starts now!

So... what do you guys sound like?

Aargh! The most hated question: what do you sound like. ubik has never had an answer... we aren't slavish to any genre, though we do use a few traditional genre flourishes here and there. But we're not the sort of group that can answer The Big Question with a simple "We're a punk band." (we are so very much not a punk band. or rock band, or a metal band, or...) well, you understand our problem.

So what do you call us? A few ground rules: First, we're digging for a quick descriptor, so the "genre" name is limited to five words. Second, no band references: "Rammstein combined with Soul Coughing" isn't really valid... for so many reasons. Comments are enabled on this blog, so you can reply right within this post-- the contest begins now.

Early Monday Mornings

The Funhouse had a completely rocking lineup last night-- it is very hard to climb onto a stage right after Wah Wah Exit Wound just played (those guys rule!), but the ubik mailing list grew significantly, so it looks like we impressed a lot of people... even played our first encore. It's not easy playing first thing Monday morining (we went on around 12:30AM), so thanks to everyone who stuck around until last call on a school night. This was a late one, and you guys have the big bouncin' yar blockos.

That was a tough day: we want to thank Jon from Barefoot Barnacle for coming through at the last minute and loaning us a van... that was supremely awesome and really saved our collective asses. Intra-band, we have to give the love to Michelle for going down to Auburn to get the van: ubik is a collection of bike riders and bus takers, and she really put herself out bussing down there.

So... keep up with our shows page: we've got a free show at the Blue Moon coming up on the 16th, which is a Friday, so... do the math with me here... Free + Friday = Good.

Funhouse on Sunday

Playing season is really ramping up-- we've got a lot of playing to do over the next several weeks. First things first: We're at The Funhouse this Sunday (November 4th), once again with Wah-Wah Exit Wound. It should be pretty telling that we like these guys; this is our second show in a row with them. Also on board are The Wayward, who are touring and up here from Virginia, and Fortress of Victory. Here's the listing:

November 4th
Ubik @ the Funhouse
w/ Fortress of Victory
& Wah Wah Exit Wound
& The Wayward
21 and over
$5 at the Door

This will be your chance to have some nice, calming beer after the massive sugar shock of Halloween. (that many vodka & red bulls... what were you thinking? You may never sleep again)

Pedal Power

Okay, what I want to know is: who's got the largest pedalboard in Seattle? I'm pretty pedal obsessed, and I want to find the other pedal aficionados in town and see how other extravagant pedals are used.

Here's the rules: I'm measuring the pedalboard by its number of pedals. Rack gear doesn't count (because rack guys are different from pedal guys; controlling myriad rack effects with a midi pedalboard isn't the same thing as having a chain of pedals), and multi-effects only count as one effect (one unit, one effect).

My rig is 21 pieces, spanning three boards: 16 active effects, 2 looper/bypasses, 2 control units, and a tuner... we can debate which of these count (or don't) when we start tallying.

So... who's got a wild pedalboard? I wanna see.

--eric

toldyaso

I think it was on the MySpace event invite we said that the Rendezvous show was going to be twice as good and half the price of the El Corazon show, and... Ha! This one was a knockout, so muchos thankyous to all of the attendees. Kickass show (though someone boosted Rad Touch's bass, a Fender J-Bass, from the back room of the venue. If you have any info about bass thieves, let Rad Touch know).

Keep up with our shows page-- we're at the Funhouse on Sunday, November 4th, where I'm sure we'll all drink our weight in PBR.

See You Tuesday

ubik. has a show coming up this Tuesday, October 16th, down in Belltown: we're at the Jewelbox Theater in the Rendezevous (pronounced: REN-sa-fuss), with Rad Touch and Wah Wah Exit Wound, which is going to be a hell of a show. Change Versus Comfort (we had a great time with them at the Chop Suey) shares a member with Rad Touch, and we've been wanting to play with Wah Wah Exit Wound since we first saw them play... so this is looking like one hell of a show.

Rendezvous - Jewel Box Theater
2322 2nd Ave
Seattle, Washington 98121
Ubik, Wah Wah Exit Wound, Rad Touch
$5 at the door / Doors @ 10:00

with any luck, we will be breaking out a new song at this show, too; we're really excited about the new one, so here's hoping lots of you show up for it.

Thanks, Ben

Many of you may know that we had to rent a U-Haul for our first show, back at the Jules Maes. We haven't had to do that since: glass blower extrordinaire Ben Ostrom has lent us his van for every single show we've played. I doubt we can fully convey in text how phenomenally awesome this is-- Ben has helped this band more than anyone else. We really couldn't do this stuff without his contribution... and he's never asked for anything in return (though we do our best to put $20 of gas in the tank after every show. It's would be extremely rude to use his van and burn all his gas)

Thanks, Kyna

Recently back in town from LA, attending Occidental College for photography, Kyna Shilling has been the main contributor to the ubik photos page over the last few months. We've got full galleries from our El Corazon and Chop Suey shows up, thanks to her.

Thanks, Dowell

How cool is this? Ubik has merch. Swag. You know... stickers.

We got this done after many sessions with our graphic designer, Dowell Eugenio, meeting over beers at the College Inn and Shorty's. The man is obviously a superhero, and the stickers look fantastic.

We've got to give the assist to StickerRobot.com... ubik was obviously going to order from the robot-based sticker company, but these guys delivered a really nice sticker.

All Ages (more or less)

Thanks to everyone for coming out to see us at El Corazon-- the conditions may have been rougher than normal:

• We hated pre-selling those tickets. None of us was actually comfortable asking you for money, and we're grateful you guys bought some
• Packing seven bands onto a flier was no easy feat, and...
• Yeesh, a bill with seven bands is pretty unwieldy, isn't it? Why would anyone book an evening show with that many bands?
• What, no drink tickets? We didn't even get water for on-stage.

...but we really enjoyed the show and hope you all had a great time. We're hoping to have some merch on offer sometime soon, and we really, really need to get ourselves recorded, so if anyone has a line on some affordable studio time, drop us a line.

Remember, we have a show set up at the Rendezvous on October 16th, so mark you calendars. We'll give you the details when we have all the details