The Late Greats

So I decided more people should read this. In order for that to happen though, perhaps we should write more frequently. So this is my pre-new-year's resolution.

Jake Moran, our drummer which is no longer categorized as "new", has proven to be the best decision we've ever made. He's worked out wonderfully as far as learning the oldies and what we've written since his presence, is very exciting. I thought it would be a good time to let everyone in on our album/EP plans. We have 8 songs that we consider "old." They are:

Adios
Broad Street
Fisticuffs
Dirty Mouth
Insolvent
The King and I
The Cause
Taken

Then we have our "new" songs:

My Engine
Bonnie Parker
Jack Knife
country song
piano song
new song #1

So the last three don't have names, in case you can't tell. Now, we have battled and battled with different "studios" and recording persons and have come to the conclusion that unless someone wants to record us for free, we're taking this project into our own hands. Miraculously, we've done some sample recordings on Garage Band (Apple's standard FREE recording app that also happens to be the world's BEST app. Free or paid fo') and it sounds BETTER than our $25 - $50 per hour recordings. Infuriating. So we're going to start with a new 3-song demo and include the following songs:

Adios
My Engine
Fisticuffs

These songs will be re-recorded and re-mastered 100% by us in our practice space. They will have a much more live feel to them and will better represent how we really sound. What we'd like to do is record those first 8 songs and put them on an EP and release it on iTunes, etc. and then work on a full length album that will include the new songs and some of the old ones.


Donations are appreciated. :)

Big Ass (hole) Show

Okay, we've posted enough about how much of a hassle it was to get to compete to play this thing--here's how it went.

First let's say how grateful we were/are that we got to play. Thanks, seriously.

Anyway, we arrived right at 8am as instructed. Speaking of instructions, when we received the email that explained how to proceed, our time slots, set time, etc. we were completely blown away at how condescending it was. I don't know if Randi from X96 is a dick in real life, but this letter, was insulting. I know you gotta be tough with local bands and make sure they don't run wild, but why can't you just say that we're not allowed to sell our merch unless we go through the venue's booth? Instead, it reads: "Local bands are not allowed to 'pedal their wares.'" That makes us feel like beggars. Ridiculous.

After finally finding the entrance and talking with the surliest staff member we could find, we made our way to the Live and Local stage. Now, if that stage were set up next to my childhood doghouse, with its broken chain link fence, rusty nails, and rotten, swollen boards, this stage would have appeared impressive. Not being in the vicinity of any kennels, the stage looked quite pathetic next to the grandeur that is the USANA Amphitheatre. Not to mention the location.

Imagine a baseball diamond and the concession stands along the outer wall. Then imagine a parking lot on the other side of the concession stands. That's where the Live and Local stage was. It actually looked like you weren't supposed to go back there. Very uninviting, no signs whatsoever as to what went on through the small entrance between the bathroom and security guard station, nor was there a line-up posted of local bands. In fact, there was no mention at all that there was even another stage! X96 has, in the past, been known to overshadow one of their events with another under their same sponsorship.

So while we unloaded our gear onto the grass, we heard all of the other local bands complaining that this was a tad bit insulting. Listen, it's not that we feel entitled to equal treatment as the national acts, but this was seriously embarrassing. We had fans paying $20 (before smithstix wonderful 8$ surcharge) just to see us play in a parking lot.

Fast forward to our set. We stuck by the local stage the entire time because the main stage had absolutely NOTHING to offer. We were supposed to get 20 minutes--we ended up at about 16 because of being "behind schedule." What schedule? The local stage was done at 3:30pm and the main show went until 9 o'clock. What's the rush? Anyway, despite a lot of negative aspects, we had a WONDERFUL show. Something must have ended at the main stage because during our second song, I kid you not, the people showed up in droves. Literally hundreds of people! It was fantastic. The response was amazing and we even had a lovely woman from City Weekly come over to us after our first song and give us waters. We didn't have any and we were quite worried that one of us would pass out in the heat.

So, yes, the stage was in a poor location with literally zero advertisement and there was not a single friendly staff person on the grounds. But despite all that, we had one of our funnest shows to date--albeit the shortest.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

It is with deepest regret that we announce that our drummer, Te Lawrence, has decided to leave the band. Without getting into it too much, let's just say that it had to do with some conflicting personalities and priorities. We do wish him the best and hopefully any of you that are fans of Steady Machete will keep an eye out for him in another band if he ever decides to continue his drumming career.

So what does that mean for us? No, we're not breaking up. Tommy and I immediately started looking for a replacement as soon as the threat of Te's departure appeared. We actually were quite lucky and found someone to fill the position almost immediately. His name is Jake (don't think I ever got his last name). He has a style quite different from that of the dearly departed, but so far it has proven to be a good thing. We will be working on five songs for our two upcoming shows this month. They are, Dirty Mouth, The Cause, Taken, Adios, and My Engine. The King and I might make an appearance since we don't need a drummer for that song. You'll have to come to the shows to find out. We will be redoing our entire cataloug and start our self-produced record.

Monday October 13th
Muse Music w/ Man Without Wax and The Stiletto Formal
Provo
7:30pm
$5

Tuesday October 14th
Kilby Court w/ The Wanteds and Seve Vs. Evan
SLC
7:00pm
$6

Foolish bailout or economic rescue?

Since my day job is in finance, I too am going to weigh in on this behemoth of a topic. This is how sad it is folks, even rock bands are prone to discuss politics and economic status. Mama Cass is choking on a sandwich all over again. Don't worry though, this will be short.

After digesting what I've read and heard about the so-called "bailout" or "economic rescue package" as the proponents like to call it, I've come to a few conclusions and a few questions. First the questions:

Why is so hard to get all the facts? This obviously pertains to everything in life, but in this particular case, it really shouldn't be so hard. I mean, how can there possibly be such a division amongst people and politician about this bill? I may be naive, but this is something that should be either good for the economy or bad for it. Let me explain. If the banks really are in so much trouble, then can't people agree that something has to be done? Even if it is an added burden on the tax payers? Let's say Citigroup, the largest bank by assets, has too many credit default swaps on their books. Even if the accounting rules are changed from mark-to-market to more of a value-at-time-of-purchase system, they still are stuck with the mounting premium costs going out. With so much outgoing expenses, any entity runs the risk of becoming insolvent. So what if the big boys started drying up? Citi, JP Morgan, BofA. The government would HAVE to step in. So the bailout is just a minor form of the massive socialization that would eventually occur anyway.

But wait! The other side is that the banks aren't in that much trouble. Then the complete opposite is true and those that made those risky bets (most are now gone anyway) pay/paid the price and the larger, smarter firms dominate. Sure the market won't like it for a while, but I don't retire for another 30 years so I'm fine with waiting for the upturn. This is what I'm talking about when I say we should have the facts. Being that this whole plan is based upon saving banks by buying their POS assets, there should be complete transparency for us tax-payers to view their balance sheets and decide for ourselves if they run a risk of becoming insolvent. We have a song called "Insolvent." Check it out. When I saw "us tax-payers," I mean a committee of private, independent auditing firms hired to represent the public.

So there are the questions. My conclusion: The banks and Wall Street seem to have pulled a Donald Trump on the government. In "Art of the Deal" Donald tells about how he became so leveraged, that when confronted with an utter failure of his business, he approached the very banks that lent him the money in the first place and basically said, "either we both lose or we both win." They ended up lending him more money so they didn't have to write off so much bad debt to the Donald. We seem to be essentially dealing with the same thing here. The common folk are saying, "if my bakery goes under because I buy too much flour and it gets full of weevils, no one bails me out." Well, if you were the only bakery in the country and we would no longer have bread to sustain us, someone would bail you out. So unfortunately for us, without having all of the facts and perfectly transparent balance sheets, the banks/Wall Street are holding all the cards even after they've made all the risky bets they could.

So what to do? Well, I'm getting married in Vegas in two weeks and I tell you what: I'm pulling out my 401(k) money and putting it all on black and odd. If I lose, I'll just apply for government assistance.

Review!

So like other self-absorbed nerds, I constantly google "Steady Machete" to see if by chance someone is writing about us without our knowledge. Finally, today was that day when I found this review on The Local Landing:

Steady Machete
Sep 6th, 2008 by Mark Hardcore.

"This band is definitely worth writing home about. They had great stage presence and a unique Depeche Mode meets Against Me! sound. They also had a great interaction with the crowd, putting on a great stage show. And one of their songs, Adios, really stood out as a bouncy, memorable tune that you’ll want to listen to over and over again, with a fantastic sing-along chorus you won’t be able to get out of your head. Definitely worth the drive from Ogden!"

I'm not sure who this Mark Hardcore person is, but he's a champ in our book! Thanks Mark for the great review! It's actually the first real one we've had. "Real" meaning unsolicited and an actualy description of whether we're a good band or not.

Direct link here.

Sacamos "Plata"

Alrighty. After much anticipation, complaining, whining, judging, and general feelings of self entitlement, we finally played the Battle of The Bands for the X96 Big Ass Show last night. Four bands competed in the September 4th battle:

Mutton Hollow: Somewhat of a cross between Metallica and Thursday. Pretty talented dudes, especially the drummer. Our main critique would be that (and this just comes from being in that genre) it sounded like they played one 30-minute song. Not a lot of changes.

Self Expression Music: This was embarassing. These clowns were comprised of no less than 10 different members--one of which was a pregnant girl--all taking turns rapping about their shitty Salt Lake white-boy/white-trash lives. That's right, rap. Hip hop. I appreciate X96 wanting to add "diversity" to the competition, however this was too far. They had zero chance of winning, and if they did, how would that play out on the main stage? They would be boo-ed off the grounds. So it was a complete waste to have these guys on the bill.

Larusso: The winners. Really nice guys, we have to admit that and thank them for telling people to stick around for us and introducing themselves to us after the show. With that being said, they were quite boring. Sounded like a mediocre version of every fourth generation Emo-Punk trendy band on the radio. Think Fall Out Boy without any of the catchy hooks and much less powerful vocals. And we are NOT fans of FOB. They won, however, by over 100 votes. Now you might think that they must have proved themselves with such a landslide decision. But don't forget, this competition was based off of balots at the show (i.e.friends the bands brought) and mainly, text messages. No judging on talent whatsoever. If that had been the case, I think Mutton Hollow would have beat out Larusso.

We came in 2nd. This is perfectly acceptable, if not, exciting for us since it means that we are now guaranteed a spot to play at the Big Ass Show--albeit on the local stage. We really cannot complain. Had this been a judged competition, we would have stronger feelings, but how can you hate on a band for winning when it only was based on their friend base? It's not our fault or theirs that they have more friends. I will say that the most satisfying outcome was that some of Larusso's fans came up to us afterwards and confessed they cast one of their two votes for us. Ha!

It feels good to get this all behind us. We would have really liked to win at least last night's competition so we could open up for the Real Salt Lake soccer game, but just the chance to play at a festival is a big boost.

Steady Machete's EP Release!

This Saturday at Club Vegas we will be having our EP release party (New recorded music that's never been heard by man...Or woman).

Music should start at 9:00pm, but we probably won't perform until 11:00pm. We hope you can come and dance out with us on on this fantastic occasion!

(P.S. The best mustache get's a free T-shirt!)

Club Vegas
445 S 400 W
Salt Lake City

Also, if you can't make it on Saturday, we are playing the X-96 4play concert at the Avalon Theatre on the 4th of September. This is an all ages, free show, so bring the kids, bring your cousins, and bring your neighbors!

If you know you can't make it, please pass this blog on to someone you think would enjoy a great show!

Don't burn the locals---Follow Up

So here we are, glad our foot was not too deeply inserted in our mouth over the battle of the bands hosted by X96 for a chance to play the main stage at the Big Ass show this September.

The other day we were reading up on Portia's blog and the comments directed at her. We noticed a few things: 1. We were not alone in thinking that some of the line-up, was less than stellar. 2. We were a LOT less vocal than some other people. 3. The criteria by which bands were chosen. This last one, #3, was of most interest to us. On the X96 blog, Portia lists the criteria as bands having, "variety, fan base, and stage presence." This was slightly surprising (emphasis on the word "slightly") as TALENT was not listed. The smart ass in us, wanted to say: "So you're not looking for the BEST band out there, just the one with a lot of members that play music people don't listen to and have a lot of friends." But we would never say that.

We even got a personal message from Portia explaining (sort of) why we weren't chosen. They (X96 people) apparently weren't sure if we could "fill a big stage." Well, we, or rather THEY shall see. This is because the band "Loom" has dropped out, and we were apparently first in line as "runners up." So the honor is now ours of showing whether or not we can actually compete against these bands we so quickly dissed.

This is fantastic news, really. Yes, we weren't chosen right away, but we at least were NEARLY chosen and first in line should another band cancel. Thanks Loom! Love you guys, whoever you are. Also, imagine if we win. Then we get to say, "isn't it totally weird that you didn't even want us on here to begin with and we won? Weird." So the victory would be just a bit sweeter given the opposition.

Be still my heart as Phil Collins sings "Against All Odds" to the beat of our life!

The not-so softness of Velour

So SM now joins the legions of bands out there that have had their shit stolen by those that incredibly believe small-time local bands can afford to replace it. The crime took place at The Velour in Provo, UT. A really cool venue except for the lack of door locks or employee presence in the back where everyone keeps their gear. The owner might want to start thinking about a cheap security camera, an employee sitting back there to watch over everything, or (gasp) a door that cannot be opened from the outside.

Thieves are probably the worst kind of human. Luckily for you ass-hats that took my guitar--the only thing they got--I wasn't that attached to it for several reasons:

1-It couldn't hold a tune
2-The electronics were shaky at best
3-My ex-wife gave it to me

So I guess the joke is on you thieves. May the pure, sublime evil of my ex plague you for the rest of your natural lives. Oh, in case any of you robin hoods read this, it would probably be a good time to tell you that I regularly farted in the "f" holes to keep the wood crisp. Good luck with that as well.

"Don't burn the locals"

Greetings.

You have stumbled upon the official blog of the band, Steady Machete.

Last night on "No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain", the host (Bourdain) went to Vegas. While watching, something stuck out besides his complete lack of enthusiasm throughout the entire episode. Every time he talked to a Vegas "local", they all had the same advice: "Don't burn the locals." Interesting advice that I suppose means that if you are playing a non NGC regulated game of poker and cheat to win, you just might end up with a horse head in your bed. Perhaps a timely message.

We are a local band with international aspirations, and as such, it often makes us feel like we're not a local band. Rather, our perception is often skewed so that when we ARE treated like a local band, we feel the sting. This happens a lot.

The most recent occurrence would be our desire for a shot at playing Utah's biggest music festival, The Big Ass Show. To do this as a local band, there is only one way to accomplish such a luctrative feat. Since the show is sponsored by X96, the radio station's beloved local band rep, Portia, organized a battle of the bands (BOTB) wherein 16 lucky, "deserving" bands are chosen to compete. The winner obviously gaining a spot on the stage.

According to her website, Portia received no less than 74 submissions from bands all across Utah (and beyond?) asking for a spot on the BOTB bill. I'm not sure what the screening process was, what criteria or genre they were looking for, or if there even was criteria. Not being plugged into the local band scene until very recently, we have a very outsider type of view on the local scene here. So upon seeing the list, we looked up all 16 bands that apparently won over Portia in some way or another. What we found baffled us to say the least.

We won't name the bands that were chosen--in case you haven't guessed it, WE were not one of them--because that would require actual research. Let's just say that if you are into the local scene, you still won't have heard of some of them. Most of them, actually. Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not. Afterall, who's heard of Steady Machete? Nevertheless, this led us to really take a step back and ask, "Is this the right town for us?" If these are the types of bands that deserve to be showcased in front of thousands and thousands of their peers, perhaps we don't belong here.

If that is the case, then where do we belong? Probably somewhere we could never afford to go. And if we got there, wouldn't the same sort of thing happen to us? In fact, everywhere we go we will be considered a "local" band. So our resolve? To keep at it, simply. Afterall, the best thing a local band can do, is win over the locals. If we were to scream and cry and call bull shit every time we got passed up, the great people of Utah might start to regard us an egotistical, prima-donna band. Our goal is not to piss off our public. And as we already know, you just don't burn the locals.

eh