The Road to SXSW is long, and hard?

It has begun. At 6:44 am on Monday morning we pulled out of Portland on our trip to Austin for SXSW. We figured a 48 hour drive would be a good way to start our 2009 Spring Tour. Last time we toured we devised a method of driving where one (of four) band member drives 3 hours, then breaks for 9 hours. Very do-able. I mean you feel kinda funny after 24 hours of this method, but it works.

We are stocked with all kinds of snacks. from veggie to reeses pieces. We got a ton of water and a few flats of Red Bull and Red Bull Cola. We will not starve. But I guess we will not eat "healthy" food either. Whatevs.

We also have stocked our van with video games with those who like that sort of thing. We have one Playstation 2 and two Nintendo DS's for a little multi-player action.

Until we have actual things to report, we thought it would be fun to let you know what we are listening to during our 3 hour driving shifts!

Ben's Playlist:
Billie Holiday - Beautiful Ballads and Love Songs
Bonnie Prince Billy - Beware
Blue Skies for Black Hearts - Serenades and Hand Grenades
Kyte - Kyte
The Old Believers - Eight Golden Greats
Q and not U - Different Damage
T.K.Y.K. - Single
Tripping Daisy - Tripping Daisy


Adam's Playlist:
Slobberbone - Barrel Chested
Mouth of the Architect - The Tie That Binds
Radiohead - The Bends
Fiona Apple - Tidal


Brandon's Playlist:
Kanye West - 808 and Heartbreaks
Neurosis - The Eye of Every Storm
Mars Volta - Amputechture


Jesse's Playlist:
Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
Paul SImon - Graceland
Murder By Death - Like The Exorcist but With More Breakdancing
Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen
Rocky Votalato - Makers
Hockey - Mind Chaos


Ben's Playlist 2:
Copy - Hair Guitar
Yann Tiersen - Good Bye Lennen Soundtrack Score
Talkdemonic - Eyes at Half Mast
Ratatat - LP3
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Adam's Playlist 2:
Magyar Posse - Random Avenger
Mono - Hymn to the Immortal Wind
Hans Zimmer - The Dark Knight Score

Brandon's Playlist 2:
Ryan Adams- Cold Roses
Westfold- The Morning Commute
Desert City Soundtrack-Funeral car

Jesse's Playlist 2:
The Drift - Travels in Constants EP
The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Atmosphere - You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having
Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
Jay Z - Black Album
Kanye West - College Drop Out
Tom Petty - Wildflowers
Plus a bunch of random songs that Jesses has called his Stoner Shuffle

Ben's Playlist 3:
Bind Pilot - 3 Rounds
Birthmark - The Layer
Django Reinhart - Les'Essentials disc 1
DOOM - Born Like This
Dr. Dog - Easy Beat

Adam's Playlist 3:
Caspian - For the Conductor
Centro-Matic - Navigational
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
OP8 - Slush

Brandon's Playlist 3:
Wolves In The Throne Room - Malevolent Grain
Grails - Doomsdayer's Holiday
Deerhunter - Microcastle
Boris - Akum No Uta
Wilderness - (k)no(w)here

Jesse playlist 3
deftones- around the fir
refused- shape of punk to come
ryan adams- heart breaker
the calm blue sea- we happy few


Also somewhere along the way Ben found out that Butterfingers have developed a caffine infused candy bar. Butterfinger Buzz!

Farewell Portland, Hello SXSW (and rest of tour)!

So in less than 24 hours we will start our tour. We have a new van, some limited edition merch, new shirts, a tour ep, a cool silkscreen tour poster, our old new cd How to Kill a King, and a batch of new songs to play for you guys. Plus most of the dates are with are friends from the bay Cloud Archive. We are stoked.

If you are in Austin for SXSW, you should come see us. We are playing some FREE shows on Wednesday and Friday. The schedule looks like this:

Wednesday we are playing the Static Management stage @ The Belmont (305 W 6th St) we play from 3:40-4:10 PM.

Friday we play the Meow Poww Media stage @ The Parlour (707 East Sixth St) sometime between 4 PM and 5 PM (a guess)

So check our myspace page for updates of where and when we are playing. We will update it as we go.

-AristeiA

p.s. How to Kill a King is now available on itunes. Feel free to purchase and rate the album (say 4 stars?)

Evy Metal asks the Questions.

Hey there AristeiA fan,

Have you ever wanted to know, just a little bit more about the boys of AristeiA? Have you spent late nights just racking your brains as to what might inspire the members that comprise AristeiA. Well no more! A couple weeks ago We sat down and had us a audio interview. It is part to the Evy Metal podcasts. You can listen to it here. Evy, the host of said program has interview many Portland bands since she started including our friends Westfold (you may recall that we have a split 7" with them). Cool stuff. I also want to thank Goldie over at Crappy Indie Music: The Blog! for beating us to the punch as far as posting about the interview.

-AristeiA


It went kinda like this.

How to Kill a King available on CD Baby!

So we level with you. We have been selfish with our last album. Up until recently, we have allowed only those who have seen us play purchase How To Kill a King at our shows. But now we have officially released it on CD Baby. You can order it here.

It will be on itunes very soon. When it does we will be sure to let you know.

-AristeiA


The new art work.

p.s. please come to The Coop for the show with Quixotic, AristeiA, and Elitist. This is a wildly diverse show. Quixotic is a hip hop group. AristeiA is the really sweet instrumental post-rock group that I play bass in. We have some new songs to share. Elitist is a grindcore? band. When it comes to heavier music, I am not too good with all the different "core's". The show will be ALL AGES and only $2. It starts at 8 PM.

You want some new music? From us?

I forgot to mention that we posted a song on our myspace the other day. It is tentatively titled "McVeigh" and will be available on our Spring Tour 2009 EP. We recorded it in Berkley at Expression College on our last tour. We are going to re-record later this year for our next full length album. We are about four songs deep in the writing process. You guys are going to loose it when you hear the new songs.

-AristeiA

What's Big and White and Drives Alright?

Our New Van!!!*

Thanks go to Ron at Oregon's Van Store, On Point Credit Union, and my Mom for co-signing the loan. We have already done one show with it. So convenient to have a spacious van in working order.

Keep tuned as we will have some exciting information soon!

Peace,

Ben


* the van is actually used but new to us.

Radio, Radio!

We will be playing on the Portland Community Radio station KBOO this coming Monday at 9 PM. I believe it is in someway related to Drinking From Puddles, a program which normally airs on Wendesdays between 8 and 11 in the PM. It will be sweet. We will be playing some new material including possibly one that we have never played for outside of our practice space (oh we have a new practice space too, I will see what I can do about posting some pics of it). This performance will not cost you a darn thing (but you don;t get to see our gorgeous mugs). All you have to do is sit at home and click this link at 9 PM (West side!)and take it in.

ps if you really want to see our gorgeous mugs, I suggest you go to East End on February 5th.

The Locals give us some Love

So we are playing a show tomorrow night in our hometown of Portland, OR. It would seem that we are starting to get some love from the the local Press.

The show, which will features friends and both amazing bands Westfold and Carcrashlander, is going to be at Rotture and as I mention got some press. I could just cut and paste from The Oregonian or The Mercury, but this is a blog. I link these things.

If you are too lazy to click on the link, let me summarizing and combinig what they had to say about us: AristeiA "makes beautifully textured music that turns on atmosphere and mood"*, "they open a window onto a broad vista of instrumental flight through mountains and valleys."**

Nice.


*The Oregonian

**The Mercury


Carcrashlander Live in Concert. Just a taste.

AristeiA to open up for the Sea and Cake?!??

Yes, it's true. On Friday November 28th at Doug Fir we are going to open for a band that some of us have liked for a looooong time (The Sea and Cake, fools!). We are excited to play with then and perhaps even more excited to have AristeiA be one degree of seperation from Tortoise (depending on how you play that game). Sad Horse, another Portland band sharing the honor of opening for The Sea and Cake are also playing that night. Good times. The show is $15 and we go on first at 9 PM sharp.

Another review. aka Fensepost knows music

The reviews continue to pour in. Just this morning I found that Fensepost has a review of How To Kill A King. You can read it here. But if you cannot be bothered with reading the entire review, I have edited it down for you. "its genius."

Thanks Andy.

Willamete Week's Local Cut gives some Love

Michael Mannheimer (AristeiA fan)
photo courtesey of Local Cut's Flikr page


Hey, guess what. We are today's "cut of the day" on Willamette Week's Local Cut. I have always thought that Cut of the Day was a cool feature. You know a little info and a free mp3. See. Pretty cool. Anyway, I just want to give a shout out to Michael Mannheimer for writing the thing. What Up Mikey?!??

-Ben

New Record Almost Complete!!!!!!!

almost done with the record! we mixed yesterday.
get a preview on June 27th @ Kelly's Olympian with Westfold and Nanda Devi

drum staxxxxxxxs

today i played drums with Westfold. then their real drummer, Dustin, came, then we did dual drums. then i accidentally punched myself in the balls. somehow i feel like it was worth it. i love that band.
ps. we are playing with Westfold and Nanda Devi on Friday, June 27th @ Kelly's Olympian. it is a guaranteed positive experience. that is to say, great times are to be had.

AristeiA featured band on Fense Post

Our little mutual admiration with Fensepost continues today. Check out this post. Thanks Andy! Don't forget we will be kinda in your area (Bellvue, WA) on June 21st at Waldo's.

'Aight,

Ben of AristeiA

more studio exclusivity!

Adam recording the end of Feedback King. Listen to that sweet tube overdrive mixed with big muff pi and that sweet sweet super hard on. mmmmmm.....

pretty rippin' for camera audio, don't ya think?

More details on upcoming AristeiA release!

So we are over at Nate's house recording up a storm. It occurred to me that we should share some of our information about the upcoming release with you guys. Basically it is going to be a maximum-album in mini-album form. (i.e. six tracks). It is about swords and dragons, politcally speaking of course.

Brandon wasn't flipping you off.

Super Secret Show in Old Town

Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks aren't the only Portland band who can put on a secret show in Old Town. To prove this point we, AristeiA, have decided to put on a little secret show of our own. It goes down at 9 PM this Thursday at a certain club in Old Town. We will be test driving a new drummer. We will also be playing some new material. Even though it is not myspace sponsored like Stephen Malkmus' show, you can contact us through myspace to get the name and location of the club and get on the guest list (FREE SHOW for you).

-AristeiA