The Positions News

2009-05-27T10:18:00.003-04:00

DJ nights are over for a while and so are the shows, but we're still here and around, tweaking horns and mixing and writing and dreaming of artwork. "It was that green and crazy summer..."

As a reminder/tip, we're available for your streaming pleasure* on places like Lala and Rhapsody. In this mad world where the internet has firm hold of the wheel, you don't even have to buy stuff anymore. You just listen to it right there on the web, in your underwear in your own home, as was intended from the beginning of time and music.

* "streaming pleasure" will likely bring in some interesting search traffic...

2009-05-13T09:47:00.001-04:00

TONIGHT! Ivan and Reid will be DJing at the Galaxy Hut in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. Be there or be bored.

2009-05-04T14:00:00.005-04:00

New-record planning is getting into high gear. We're finishing up the recording part of the six songs and will soon be starting the mixing and mastering part and the more fun stuff of artwork, running order and title.

In the meantime, you can still get our first record Bliss! on all the major online stores, including Amie Street, where their variable pricing means you can still get high quality, DRM-free mp3s for (as of this writing) the steal price of $1.80, or only 15 cents a song. The more people buy, the higher the price goes, so if you want it at that price, go on and get it.

2009-04-13T14:06:00.002-04:00

If you're still feeling flush with the sensation of being thoroughly and almost invasively rocked, then you came to our show last Saturday and enjoyed it as much as we did. The Subjects were as good a band as we could imagine sharing a stage with, and the dance party afterwards was icing on the cake, except that Saturday night was even better than cake.

We don't have any shows lined up, but we'll be finishing our new music, and don't forget that Bliss! is all nice and easy to get now, so go grab it from one of the stores if you don't already have it.

2009-04-07T16:57:00.002-04:00

You're going to need to be pinched for this little bit of news (make sure it's someone who knows you well before you request the pinch), but...

We have a show.

We're playing this Saturday night (aka THIS SATURDAY NIGHT!!!1!) at DC9 with The Subjects. As if that weren't enough to make you start speaking in tongues with excitement, Ivan and Reid will be jumping from guitar and drums to laptops where they'll serve up some fierce dance tune DJing for us all to dance until we pass out. Or 3 AM. Whichever comes first.

2009-02-03T18:18:00.000-05:00

Our first album, Bliss! is now available on most of the music download stores, including Amazon mp3 store and iTunes (US). If you're really on a budget, head over to Amie Street where it's currently selling for the cheapest. All the stores that are selling it can be gotten to under the Buy section just above in the Discography.

Meanwhile, we're finishing up the six songs that we've been recording at Inner Ear studio, which we have our fingers crossed to have out this summer.

2009-01-27T17:05:00.002-05:00

This Friday night from 9:30 PM to 2:30 AM, Ivan and Reid will be DJing at the Rock and Roll Hotel, playing decidedly non-Positions tunes to people who are interested in things like dancing and fun. There'll be disco both new and old, some 80's classics, some current favorites, and when the alcohol is flowing steadily, some cheesy pop. It'll be fun, we swear. You know what else it'll be? Free. See you there.

2009-01-04T21:00:00.007-05:00

It's been a while, but we've been here. There haven't been many shows, but there's two main things that have been keeping us busy. First, we've been recording: six songs being laid down at Inner Ear Studio in Arlington, VA. Now, we know enough not to give any set date, but we have our fingers crossed for a release sometime this spring.

The second bit that's been keeping us busy is getting Bliss! on the digital music stores. Links to the various stores will be posted on the home page as the digitial goodness shows up on each of the stores.

Finally, we've been working on a new home page for our site. Nothing exciting. In fact, it's a lot more scaled down. We're going to be putting most everything on the home page, both for your convenience and ours.

Here's to whatever 2009 brings us...

2007-01-30T20:23:00.000-05:00

Yes, we've neglected you, but it was for damn good reasons. We were all quiet, see. Nothing to tell you, really. We were on a bit of a hiatus. But we're cooking again. We have new songs, we have some shows. This we promise: stay tuned, because there's stuff coming up.

2006-09-12T10:07:00.000-04:00

Set off the alarms: Bliss! is out in the UK, Ireland and other countries to be named later, and you can go to the yesboyicecream store and spend the extra Euros you've been saving up from the couch cushions for just this very day. Oh, joy!

2006-08-23T16:51:00.000-04:00

It's official: our first album has a second release date. Bliss! will be available in the UK and Ireland on 11th September. Did you notice how we said "11th September" instead of "September 11th"? That's how they do it over there, we're told, and we don't want anyone getting confused.

2006-07-24T15:08:00.000-04:00

If you've found yourself in Ireland for whatever reason (maybe you live there) in the past few weeks, and you happen to turn on the radio for some reason, you may have been lucky enough to hear The Positions on Irish radio. We've apparently made the radio over there, and have made such an impression that Today FM, in a fit of excitement, called us one of "the best new Irish artists", in spite of the slight technicality that we're not Irish.

Is this the beginning of The American Invasion sound in Ireland? Probably not. It's still fun, though.

2006-06-27T17:05:00.000-04:00

You Americans have been spoiled over the last year or so, what with your unlimited access to our debut album Bliss! But did it every occur to you that there were those less fortunate who had to buy the album as an import? Who only dreamed of one day being able to walk into a store and buy the CD?

Well, a little more of the world got a little more fortunate, as we can officially announce that Ireland's yesboyicecream records, the kind and clever folks behind the June Brides tribute album that we're on, will be releasing Bliss! in Ireland and the UK and probably some other places that we dream of visiting but millions call home.

The record has been remastered, and has been given a new running order, so you completists out there have a reason to take a trip to Dublin just to buy it. The release date isn't set, but we're assured that it's any day now. Stay posted.

2006-05-23T10:58:00.000-04:00

No, that new entry on the shows page isn't just an elaborate typo. It's true that we're not only playing a show, it's not only at the Black Cat, it's not only with the amazing Page France, but it's on JUNE FIFTEENTH!! Wait, that last part isn't the exciting part. Unless June 15th is your birthday. In which case, happy birthday.

News is actually starting to happen again in Positions land, so stay tuned for more announcements of shows and such, because we're working on some more exciting stuff.

2006-03-25T10:45:00.000-05:00

______ be praised! The show drought is over! We'll be playing the Big Yawn night at DC9 on Sunday, April 9th, which is convenient, since you can cross-reference the club name (DC9) with the street it's on (9th) with the day it's on (the 9th). So you can't use "I forgot" as an excuse for not coming. You'll have to work a little harder at it this time.

Also out as a viable excuse for not making it is, "because it's too late and I have to work the next day." We'll be on first, around 8:30 or 9:00, so it's an easy way to rock out AND still keep a responsible bedtime. For those of you inclined to give the finger to responsible bedtimes...well, first, we salute you, rocker. But second, that just means you can stick around for the rest of the fest. And there's rumors that they sell alcoholic drinks at this place...

Anyway, looks like you're out of excuses, Chester.

2006-03-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

It's okay, everyone. We're doing fine. We just haven't updated much on this site lately because we've been taking it easy. But we're still in the music-making business and have been writing plenty of songs and will be out and about before you know it. Sign up to the mail list to make sure you stay tuned.

2006-02-09T16:05:00.000-05:00

We're really sorry to report that we've had to cancel the show we were scheduled to play on February 18th. In spite of our musical absence, though, you should absolutely go see Exit Clov.

2006-02-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

We've been talking for a while now about the tribute to the June Brides that we'll be appearing on, and all the parts are finally coming together.

The name of the tribute? Still Unravished. The label? Ireland's yesboyicecream records. And where can you order this magnificent feast of tribute-osity to the wonderful Phil Wilson? Glad you asked. You can pre-order it directly from yesboyicecream or from our American pals Darla. You can't go wrong either way.

If you'd like to hear our nod to the genius of "Every Conversation", you can check it out on our MySpace page while you're waiting for your order to show up. We can only hope we did the song justice, but we've sure had a lot of fun with it.

2005-12-20T13:18:00.000-05:00

We've now made our very first year-end list. The Finnish site onechord.net has given us the lucky thirteenth spot on the top 40 albums of the year:

This was one of the surprises of the year and I loved the album Bliss! to bits. Every song could be a hit. Every song should be a hit.

He says not to take the list too seriously, but we're still flattered. Not coincidently, this is also the place where we received our very first record review. This guy's half a world away from us and he's still ahead of everyone else.

2005-12-19T14:44:00.000-05:00

People are all about reasons nowadays. Everyone has to have a good reason for everything. But it didn't used to be that way. Back in the old days, no one needed reasons for anything. You could glue a live weasel on your back, call your nose "the emperor of all Kansas" or wear your clothes inside-out and if anyone asked "Why?" (not that anyone would) you would just say, "Oh...no reason."

But The Positions are a modern band, and we understand your modern craving for reasons. Frankly, we think you should just come to our show at IOTA tomorrow night with Meredith Bragg and Lejeune because it'll be fun and you should stop being so damned reasonable about everything, but if you want reasons, we have a bushel of good ones:

This is our first show at Iota (which, as a sub-reason, is very conveniently located near the Clarendon Metro station and some of your homes), and not only is it a great place with fantastic sound, but we'd love to get a good showing of folks so we can play there again. If this sounds suspiciously like begging, that's no coincidence.
Didn't you see the subject?! Meredith Bragg! Playing solo! He's fresh off his US Tour '05, and now you can see him as everyone else around the country did. Reasons don't get much better than that.
We're going to buckle down and concentrate on writing new material and then getting it recorded, so barring, say, Belle and Sebastian asking us to open for them, we won't be playing again in DC for a good long while. Seriously.

Come on. Be cool. Be reasonable.

(Reprinted with our own permission from the mailing list)

2005-12-05T12:23:00.000-05:00

If you missed the WAMU broadcast, you can catch it here (scroll to the bottom). We particularly enjoyed Mark Jenkins' comparisons of us to the Ronettes and Haircut 100.

2005-12-01T16:28:00.000-05:00

Those of you in the DC metro area who are somewhere near a radio tomorrow (Friday, December 2) at 1:00 pm might want to tune in to the Metro Connection program on WAMU, where Washington music critic Mark Jenkins will give us and our album a once over. If you're not near a radio or near the signal, they'll archive it on the website, and we might try and see if we can have it around here, too.

2005-11-29T16:10:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are are into fantastic music and enjoy hanging out with people that have perfect taste in music, get yourself over to the Galaxy Hut in Arlington on Wednesday the 30th to listen our very own Ivan Ramiscal do his DJ magic, tag-teaming the tunes with Christian Scanniello, former Barcelona drummer, current Sprites drummer and betrothed of Nicole. The fun starts at 9:00. You can tell it's 9:00 when your clock says so.

If you prefer bad music, you should just stay at home.

2005-11-21T11:57:00.000-05:00

Even though the show tonight is absent from the Warehouse Next Door's website, it IS still on. We'll be going on first, probably as close to 9:30 (the time, not the club) as we can get. Bring your umbrellas and brace yourselves.

2005-11-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

If you live in the DC area and your morning Metro ride free tabloid of choice is the Examiner, you may have been looking at the record reviews and noticed that, nestled in a cozy little review sandwich between Neil Diamond and Ozzy was a review of our record Bliss! And a good one at that! We've always thought of our sound as somewhere between "Coming To America" and "Crazy Train". Okay, that's a lie. But there's a song idea in there somewhere.

Read the review (105kb PDF).