Mayor For Life

Oh Hey, Updates are Overdue

2011-10-31T13:54:00.001-05:00

Happy Halloween! Been a few months since we've posted on here, but rest assured we haven't been just sitting around doing jack squat. First of all, we played a fun as hell show in September--a release party for our good friend Laura Lionello Popelka's book Panic Kit, and were joined by The Columbines and Begin By Gathering Supplies. The tireless awesome dudes of Caffeinated Recording have uploaded videos to youtube of that show. Our set can be found here. Laura's book is a wonderful read, and you may recognize our own Rich Fessler on the back cover, providing his glowing review.

And this is only 66% Mayor For Life-related, but this past Friday, Rich and I had a blast performing in two different one-off Halloween bands for the Columbines "Monkey Problems Exposition." After rollicking good time Halloween sets by The Columbines (performing Bitter Tears songs), Whales (performing covers of such songs as "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters), and Begin By Gathering Supplies (performing covers of such songs as "Godzilla" by BOC), I joined most of my old band Wind or Ghost (sans Emily) in performing a few Wipers covers, which was so goddamn much fun I think we're going to do it again some time. Then Rich joined the band Red Denizen on vocals, and they performed an entire Dag Nasty album. There should be videos of this up on youtube soon from our pals at Caffeinated. It would probably help if you got pretty drunk before watching them, to immerse yourself in the whole experience.

OK, now for the near future. First and foremost, our Sinking Feeling/Snowmobiling 7" is in the process of being pressed and sent to us right now! Once we have it in hand, I'll update the bandcamp page with purchasing details if you don't live nearby to Chicago and want to order via mail. It's going to be a limited edition of 300 copies, and will include high quality digital download, as well as screen printed artwork by Erin Page of Kill Hatsumomo Prints. We're pretty stoked that this thing is finally coming to fruition.

And to celebrate, we're playing a show on Saturday Nov 12th at Quenchers, with Marmora and Cmn ineed yr hlp, in a show we're dubbing "Reunion Rock Yards" due to the fact that we are the three remaining currently active bands that practiced at Union Rock Yards. Here's a link to a facebook event page. Marmora features our old drummer Uli behind the kit, and if you are reading this and don't know who our best buds Cmn ineed yr hlp are, I'd be pretty surprised, and you should be ashamed. The show's going to be great--we might even bust out a new song or two if we get them fully ready to go by then. So if you only see us once this year, this is probably the show to do it.

Thanks for reading!

Show July 29th at Quenchers!

2011-06-18T11:19:00.001-05:00

Friends! We are going to be playing another show with a couple of great bands we've already played with, and another band we haven't yet. Hope you can make it out!

Friday July 29th, 2011, 9PM

@ Quenchers (2401 N. Western, Chicago IL)

Chatty Cathy

Slow Witch

Canyons of Static

Mayor For Life

$5, 21+

We're playing first, so get there early. Looking forward to this one. It's been a few months. Time flies when your bass player is jet setting to Europe for a month to tour with Bear Claw, your guitar player starts a new job, and your drummer's busy for a little while making a Sequoia record at Matt Talbot's studio. But we are coming back to rock you right in your faces yet again.

Oh and also, we're putting the finishing touches on that 7" and hope to have it pressed and ready to go pretty soon. Hooray!

Scott (of Bear Claw)'s Going Away Show - April 9th @ Quenchers

2011-03-25T14:21:00.002-05:00

Hey all, just wanted to post about a very special ~~episode of Blossom~~ rock show we have coming up on Saturday April 9th @ Quenchers, with Bear Claw and Trophy Wives.

As most of our friends should already be aware of by now, Scott Picco, the drummer in Bear Claw, is leaving in a few weeks to live in Germany for a period of at least 18 months, due to a job-related offer to relocate and work there. We're all super excited for Scott because it will be a great opportunity for him, although we'll be bummed that it means Bear Claw will be on hiatus that long. As you know, our own Rich Fessler rocks nearly identical Ernie Ball Music Man bass guitars in both Mayor For Life and Bear Claw.

As for me, I've been going to their shows since pretty much the beginning, and I think I might hold either #1 or #2 on the list of "most Bear Claw shows attended by a non band member" if anyone had been keeping tabs on such a thing. For years, when seeing Bear Claw rock the hell out of tiny places, I've been the one guy that knows exactly where to nod his head to the nonstandard beat, and when not to clap yet and go "WOOOO!!" because the song isn't actually done yet. Hell, a few times I've been the one guy in attendance who isn't in one of the other bands playing that night, I'm sure--buzzed up, shouting "I WANTED YOU TO DIE!" along with Rich, wondering why the hell so few other people were around to enjoy it.

So it's been pretty great to see them put out three records and slowly build up a small yet devoted following and a fair amount of respect from their peers and even some of their heroes. All of a sudden in 2008 they're touring Europe. Then in 2009 I'm seeing them open up for Shellac at what I think was a sold out show (or if not, a nearly sold out show) at the Bottom Lounge, which is a decently sized venue--something they'd done at different venues quite a few times at that point. Now they're planning a second Europe tour in May of this year, while Scott is living over there.

And I'm definitely no longer the only one standing in the crowd, buzzed up, yelling "I WANTED YOU TO DIE," correctly nodding along to the odd time signatures, and not falling for the false endings. What's so endearing about that is that Bear Claw managed to carve out their little niche more or less out of spite, and because of a solid work ethic. They know that what they do isn't pop music--it's abrasive, there aren't any guitars, and these two pissed off guys keep shouting at you. They don't care. It's what they do, and they do it well. In person, they're three of the nicest guys I know. They're what I love about living in Chicago--it's at times loud and menacing, jarring you out of your sense of complacency, while being altogether interesting as all hell and friendly. I know not everyone wants to live here because it's balls cold almost half of the year, but that's fine with me, because I don't really mind the cold.

Here's the part where the cliche Nelson Algren quote comes in whenever anyone talks about Chicago: "Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real." I think it definitely fits Bear Claw's music too.

So of course I called in a favor to my friends to let their little brother band open up for Bear Claw once before they head off to Europe for a month, then go on an extended break. I'm pretty excited that they acquiesced and I get to once again share a stage with one of my favorite Chicago bands ever. Make sure you get there early, not only because you might miss us, but also because you might not get in. Quenchers is a small place, and it'll be full of all of the other people who aren't falling for the false endings any more.

-Todd

Show: Sunday Jan 9th 2011 @ Darkroom

2010-12-29T11:23:00.001-06:00

Hey everyone! I hope your holidays have been all that you dreamed they could be. Mine have been great. Working up a nice gut so that I can pretend like I'm going to work it off as a new years resolution.

Just a quick note that we're playing another show with our best buds Cmn ineed yr hlp from the same rehearsal space we use and the excellent Canyons Of Static from Milwaukee. I saw these two bands play together a few months ago and it was pretty, pretty, pretty good. You don't want to miss this one. Also, since we're all old and plan on going to work the next day, it's starting early and ending not that late.

Sunday 1/9/11, 7PM

@ Darkroom, 2210 W. Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL

Mayor For Life

Canyons of Static

Cmn ineed yr hlp

$8, 21+

Hope to see a few of you there!

Show: Weds 11/24/2010 @ The Empty Bottle

2010-11-10T17:35:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody! We've got another show coming up 11/24/2010 at the Empty Bottle. That's the night before Thanksgiving. Come on out and celebrate the fact that all you have to do the next day is not work and eat like crazy, maybe watch some football, deal with/enjoy your extended family, and nap a lot. Hope to see a crapload of you out!

Wednesday, November 24^th

Chatty Cathy

Mayor For Life

Fleshbroker

Dj Dave Mata (spinning before/between/after bands)

9:30pm; $4 advance (buy tickets here), $8 at the door

21+

Lots of stuff has happened and continues to happen! (by our standards, at least)

2010-10-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

OK first of all, that show in September was tons of fun, as always. It appears as though Quenchers has taken over as our home venue after the demise of Union Rock Yards, and why not? That place rules. Thanks to all that came out and had a good time, and to the dudes in Nonagon and Maple Stave for helping us supply the rock. Also each of those bands had a poster made for the show, and they're totally sweet ass.

Courtesy of Maple Stave

Courtesy of Nonagon

Then, we played the PRF Auktoberfest BBQ on Saturday at Klas in Cicero on October 16th. I could go on and on about the back story of this whole thing and why it's totally awesome, but it's just one of those things where if you don't know about it, you won't quite get it. It involves a message board for Steve Albini's studio, and a lot of like-minded people that know how to throw a party just for the sake of throwing a damn hell ass party. Not to mention, it's become your only chance to see the best live band karaoke in the world. (Do yourself a favor and visit that link to see our friend Kevin, aka the guy that made my prized possession, totally rock the shit out of "Under Pressure." Both the Bowie and Freddie Mercury parts!)

But specifically, the day that we played was at this amazing Bohemian restaurant in Cicero called Klas. This place was a sight to behold--it looked like it was carved out of one giant piece of wood. There were rooms all over the place, and of course many were rumored to have been used by Al Capone for all sorts of illicit purposes. The room to be used for the band performances was full of plaster, chandeliers, and recording equipment, and there was a view behind the stage through large windows out into the beer garden area, where attendees were smoking a goat supplied by our friend John of the Columbines. It was amazing how great this room sounded! Usually these sorts of places are a mess of echoes and walls shaking when you get loud bands playing in them. Perhaps it was because the windows behind the stage were angled out in Chicago Bay Window style, and because the walls had thick coats of plaster on them, or because Rich has become a damned magician with live sound, but it sounded nearly perfect.

The bands were all amazing, and many performed in costume. The Infrasonics were all dressed as airline pilots, and were served shots by a very Randy stewardess. We busted out the shirts that we purchased back in the All Limbs Intact days from Alcala Western Wear on Chicago Ave and added some sweet ass cowboy hats and fake mustaches (that lasted about a half a song for Rich and I, while Dan was able to keep it together for the whole set).

Cowboys For Life

Not only were there performances from a few of our friends' bands, but we were treated to some reunions of note. First, a band I have recently become acquainted with, Zoom--they played their first show in 16 years! Then, a little bit later on, Five-Eight graced the stage. Closing the night out was the mighty Big'n, who, besides playing my friend Wayne's book release party in 2006, haven't been a band since somewhere around 1998. All bands were amazing. I'm pretty sure that both Zoom and Big'n are actually playing some more shows as a result of this thing.

As I mentioned, the room was full of recording equipment, both video and audio. Rich was toiling away all weekend doing live sound for every single band that participated--the man's a machine--but also, our friends Matt and Jim from the Infrasonics had set up cameras and microphones all over the place to document all performances. Many of them have started popping up on Jim's youtube channel, and he's working away at getting everything online soon. Shout-out to our bestest buds cmn ineed yr hlp for their ass-kicking set on Friday, by the way. Ours should be online sooner than later. We're also getting the multitrack recording from Matt and we're going to mix it and do something or other with it. Stay tuned!

And as if all of that isn't enough, we already have another sort of last minute show this weekend, the Columbines Halloween Gopher Rodeo, at Quenchers yet again. We'll be reliving the glory of the cowboy way with a short and blistering set of our original tunes (we didn't quite have enough time to put together a covers set, although I totally want to do the hell out of that some day) and some fresh fake mustaches. Friday 10/29/2010, 9pm. Be there!

Also we're working on setting up some other shows in the coming months (nothing confirmed but we'll post about them if/when they are), and have begun brainstorming about doing some damned serious recording already. For real, we are playing for keeps, we are recording this shit, and not taking no for an answer on that, so put it in your pipe and then smoke it.

Love and smoking goats,
Todd

Mayor For Life @ Quenchers on Sept. 25th

2010-09-04T16:47:00.002-05:00

We'll be playing with our friends in Nonagon at Quenchers on the 25th of September. Also on the bill is Maple Stave from North Carolina. Fair warning, bring some earplugs! This is going to be a great show, I can't wait!!!

Rich

Quenchers - 08/21/10

2010-08-09T20:54:00.002-05:00

So we have a show coming up on August 21st at Quenchers with Czar and Angel Eyes. This will be a great show and we'll be playing second right in the middle of the rock sandwich. Show starts at 10pm, get there early and have some tator tot pizza, it's quite yummy!

Rich

MAYOR FOR LIFE: THE RETURN

2010-04-14T17:37:00.000-05:00

Friday May 14th, 9PM
Cal's (400 S. Wells, in the loop)

Nonagon
Self-Evident
Mayor For Life

We play first. Come witness Dan's first show behind the kit as your heroes Mayor For Life open the show. Then stick around to continue to get your face melted by Minneapolis' Self-Evident and Chicago's very own Nonagon. I've never played at or even been to Cal's, but the other guys tell me it's an interesting place, and with this bill, it should be a lot of loud sweaty fun.

New Drummer!

2010-03-24T12:29:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen: we have good news. After trying out several drummers over the last month and a half or so, having our egos stroked by a surprising amount of interest in joining our band, and having fun playing our songs with a few different friends of ours behind the kit, we have chosen Dan Wagner (who also plays in a band called Sequoia, as well as recently becoming an understudy for the Second City production Rush Limbaugh: The Musical) to be our new drummer. Not only does he conveniently live three houses down from Rich, but he is a very skilled drummer and someone we've both known and shared bills with in various bands for quite some time. It was a tough choice since everyone we tried out was good and were all solid dudes, but we think that you all will be pleased when we make our triumphant return to rocking you in your faces, hopefully very soon!

In other good news, we finally got around to recording the vocals and mixing down three demo tracks that we recorded with Scott Picco to tape at our old rehearsal space back in October. For something we recorded in a basement rehearsal space, shit sounds good. Props to Scott. Be on the lookout for those on the Facebook and Myspace pages.

Mayor For Life is sad, Mayor For Life's glass is 1/3 empty

2010-02-04T23:41:00.004-06:00

After being in two bands with Todd, I think that we're cursed with losing drummers. I mean, we're not Spinal Tap, what the hell. Due to some tough choices Uli has parted ways with Mayor For Life to pursue some other creative outlets in his life. I really wish he didn't have to leave the band because, as a bass player, it's tough to find that certain connection that you get with certain drummers, and Uli is one hell of a drummer. Uli has helped me grow not only as a bass player and musician, but is a great friend as well. I'm really going to miss what we had. Time to move on and forward.

Rich

Show Recap, 1-30-10 @ Quenchers

2010-02-01T23:27:00.000-06:00

Saturday night was a hell of a lot of fun. I think I speak for all of us when I say goddamn do I love playing shows at Quenchers. Not only does it seem like you've totally packed the place even though there are like 60 people that paid to get in, whereas some douchey rock bar like...uh...most of them would be pissed that you didn't bring like 100 people per band or something, but the bar actually pays the bands pretty decently. Not to mention Steve, the guy who books the bands, is a super nice guy and probably into a lot of the same music that we're all into. Plus we all live nearby, and in all honesty, I love me some fancy beer. It's like this place is tailor made for us, especially me.

So as we mentioned a couple times in the previous posts we finally have some tshirts for sale, which we were almost embarrassingly excited about. Rich is pretty used to having boxes and boxes of merch available and sitting around in our rehearsal space for Bear Claw but I haven't had band shirts for sale since, hell, back when I was in Chiral in the earlier part of the previous decade. It definitely does feel more like we're a real band now that people can happily buy something that effectively says that they approve of our band's existence. Now of course we have to actually finish some of that recorded music and make it available for sale. That would probably make it feel even more like we're in a real band.

So anyway, as for the specific rocking that took place, I have to say that all bands really brought it. I'd seen the Columbines and the Chrome Robes a couple times each before, and a lot of us in all three bands are friends, so I knew it would be a great, fun show. Of course my expectations were exceeded. The Columbines played first and are seriously one of the most fun bands in town to see live. Not to be missed. The Chrome Robes were second and have an impressive collection of no longer made Canadian amplifiers, which is something near and dear to my heart as a fellow Traynor enthusiast, and they put them to very good use. Then, after a relatively long evening of enjoying several delicious beers from Quenchers' vast selection, we took the stage and I was all "fuck it let's let 'er rip" even though I'm not entirely sure I set the volumes of my amps correctly to balance with each other let alone with Rich at all, and with all the instruments blaring I totally couldn't hear myself yelling in my monitor. However, everyone seemed to really like our set and compliment us almost embarrassingly afterward. We played for probably 35 minutes but to us it seemed like 5. I take that as a good sign. We even sold a few shirts, which I suspect might be partly due to my Gil-styled salesmanship technique of pleading with someone to at least purchase one shirt from us so we don't feel like losers. Note to self: go for the pity sell next time too.

I also have to give a shout-out to my main man Mark Oster for spotting a Uhaul two-wheel cart just sitting out in the middle of an intersection at 2:30am one night, having the audacity to get all finders-keepers on it, and henceforth keeping it in our shared rehearsal space. I was only mildly sore and stiff when I got home at 4am, and all I had to do was take like 600mg of Ibuprofen with a glass of water, realize I was an old man, and wake up fresh as a daisy at the crack of noon the next day. I have Mark and that cart to thank for this.

So yeah, all in all, good times. Thanks to all who rocked and watched the rocking. Hopefully we can do it again soon.

Todd

Quenchers - January 30th

2010-01-19T20:49:00.002-06:00

Ok kids, the bands are finalized for the show at Quenchers on January 30th. The show starts at 9pm and there will be a $5 donation for the bands. Come to the show, have a tater-tot pizza, drink some beers, and catch some good music. The bands will be...

Mayor For Life
The Chrome Robes
The Columbines

We'll actually have shirts to sell at the show!!! We're big time now.

Rich

January 2010 Update

2010-01-11T22:26:00.002-06:00

Hey there massive amounts of RABID Mayor For Life fans across the globe! Here is the HOT NEWS at camp M4L!

(Imagine a squealie lead guitar harmonic sound followed by a dude going "AWRIGHT WOMAN!!!!!!" right here)

So we have reconvened our ROCK ATTACK for 2010 after some SERIOUS HOLIDAY TIME spent not having time to practice for a few weeks, and we have an ASS KICKER of a ROCK SHOW comin' AT THAT ASS! January 30th at Quenchers! BE THERE AND GET DRUNK WHILE GETTING ROCKED YOU LUCKY BASTARDS! We're in the process of GETTIN' SOME KICK-ASS T-SHIRTS for all you crazy people, conceptualized by me (Todd "the man with the plan that can be worn by a man or even a wo-man" Rabideau) and designed by our own Rich "Tha Phabulous Photoshoppin' Phool" (Ph)Fessler so you can BUY THEM AND THEN PUT THEM ON AND THEN RIP THEM OFF IN A FIT OF PURE ECSTASY WHEN WE ROCK YOU RIGHT IN YOUR FACES!

OK hopefully you imagined that with the voice of the Guitar Center ads on the radio. We don't know for sure who's playing with us yet but I will update when we do. Oh yeah, also, we have been working on a couple new songs that we may or may not play at this show. Pretty excited about this because, as I said previously, Quenchers is currently our favorite place to play.

AWRIGHT WOMAN!!!!,
Todd

Fig. 1: Our Set @ Cole's, With Awesome Drunk Guy in Foreground

2009-12-15T16:57:00.002-06:00

I think he was doing the Heisman Trophy pose here.

(photo courtesy of Liz Bustamante, excellent photographer and drummer)

Show Recap, 12-12-2009 @ Cole's w/ Bully Pulpit and Builder/Destroyer

2009-12-14T21:27:00.001-06:00

Some Of Your Friends Are Probably Also This Sick

As I mentioned in the last post, we had a show this past Saturday at Cole's, a newer bar that has opened up in that stretch of Milwaukee Ave between California and Kedzie where new shit's popping up like crazy. I've been hitting up Cole's somewhat regularly since I heard about it a few months ago, because it's within stumbling distance of where I live, and they have good, reasonably priced beers and a small cheap pool table. I was stoked when we were offered the show by Mat from Builder/Destroyer (because Bear Claw couldn't play--I'm not gonna lie, we get a lot of shows this way), since I was interested to see what this place was like as a music venue. Also we hadn't played a show since August, so we were due for another.

There were many things popping up over the last few weeks that conspired to burst my bubble about this show, however. First of all, Rich and I both got sick with the same thing at the same time--some nasty sinus infection/sore throat/cough thing that we suspect we both picked up at the Jesus Lizard show the day after Thanksgiving. This fucker is tenacious. It will not go away, and we're going on more than two and a half weeks since that Jesus Lizard show. Also Uli had a bunch of papers and tests and stuff for the end of the semester. This all sort of limited our quantity and quality of rehearsals in the last couple of weeks, and I'm not sure if this would have happened anyway, but definitely we couldn't finish those recordings by overdubbing any vocals. Also I'm going to pretend that it contributed to us not having any shirts or anything for sale yet at the show, but really, we probably just sorta dropped the ball on that.

The day of the show came up and we were feeling in good spirits, if not altogether in good health. This was the first show we've played since we moved to our new rehearsal space way out on the Northwest side, complete with loading dock and elevator. Also, one key benefit of sharing a band member with Bear Claw is that they let us use their van. I really would like to thank Scott and Rob for that. Thanks dudes! We owe you.

So we ran through a couple songs to warm up and tighten up some sloppiness, then loaded up and headed to Cole's. Things were going pretty well, and various home and store-bought remedies kept the sickness at arms length. Then, upon arriving, it started raining and sleeting and I nearly crumpled several fixed gear bicycles chained to a pole directly in front of the venue while brazenly attempting to parallel park the enormous Bear Claw van using the side mirror and some context clues for the large blind spot. Luckily I was alerted by Rich a split second before disaster, when he poked his head out of the window and told me about this fact. I then parked somewhat awkwardly without damaging any bicycles and we began to load in.

I immediately wished I had crumpled all of the bicycles and possibly taken a dump on the seats as soon as we reached the back room with the first handfuls of our heavy equipment. Here, we encountered the likely owners of the bicycles, who were inebriated to an excessive degree for the early hour of 7pm, and were shouting nonsense into a microphone on the stage for some reason, guffawing and shouting inside jokes, wrestling each other and spilling beer all over the place while simultaneously managing to get completely in our way and not give a fuck that we had really heavy and expensive shit we were trying to unload around them. In fact I think a couple dudes openly mocked us, unintelligibly, for performing manual labor. I didn't respond because I had no idea what they were talking about, but I could feel my fists tightening up with rage every second I was in that back room, and knew that Rich was most certainly in danger of boiling over and strangling a dude or two. He's like 125lbs soaking wet and six foot something tall, but he makes up for it with his intangible weapon: intense, bottled up rage. I was worried something bad would happen either to our equipment or to those drunken douchebags. As we were finishing loading up, some friends began to trickle in and I warned them not to enter into the back room if they didn't want to feel the murderous rage that they could read on my face. After finally convincing the owner to get those assholes out of our way and away from any live microphones, we finished arranging our stuff on the stage and hooking up our amps, and I retreated to a nearby Mexican restaurant with my friend Andy K (who probably wanted to murder everyone moreso than me) to chill out and get a bite to eat. It wasn't the best pair of tacos I've ever had, but it magically filled me up for like five bucks, so that problem was solved efficiently. Luckily the douchey drunks were completely out of the back room when I got back, and Rich had kept his cool without strangling any dudes at all. I got a drink and finished setting my shit up.

Eventually we decided to get the show started. Of course the one thing I didn't bring a spare for, a short patch cable between pedals, decides to get fucked in transit to the gig, and no sound came out of one of my amps. Slight stumbling block. After a few minutes of troubleshooting, we fixed the problem and began playing. Except for Rich's thunderous bass amplification (comprising exactly 17 of our 21 speakers) shaking the stage so violently that something was vibrating horribly and making a weird sound, things sounded pretty good. We get into it, people seem to be having a good time and getting rocked sufficiently. Some weird and totally wasted dude in a sport coat and shirt and tie is *really* into it. I love it when there's a totally harmless drunk guy just making an ass of himself, not giving a fuck, rocking out and making weird motions with his arms. Love it. I can't speak for Rich or Uli but I think that guy helped melt my previously highly annoyance factor with the drunks and the broken cable. That and having the room full of a bunch of my friends that were awesome enough to show up and go "woo!" after our songs a lot. Both helped. I think we played decently, albeit not the best we've played. Definitely had some fun.

Builder/Destroyer and Bully Pulpit followed, and enjoyably bought the rock. Either the drunk guy had spent all of his energy gesticulating to our set, or perhaps they just didn't move him to rock out as much, because he just kind of stood off to the side, occasionally moving his arms and nodding "yes" as if to approve of the rocking. Drunk guy advantage: Mayor For Life. I enjoyed them thoroughly however.

Not very surprisingly since it was a free show in a small room full of our small crowd of mainly friends, we played for $10 in free drinks per band member, used only by me, the only drinking band member. I used my $10 to get a couple beers for my friends. We didn't even bother to ask Cole for a little gas money for helping pack his bar with drinkers, not expecting to receive any. Suffice it to say, Quencher's is still our favorite place to play to a small room full of our friends, and Cole's will probably just be the place that I go to have a few drinks somewhat regularly.

On the way out, after we loaded up and were saying our goodbyes to the other bands, the singer of Bully Pulpit offered up an almost embarrassing amount of praise and, confusingly, a pair of white boxes that we thought (hoped) might be delicious cakes. I think he said it was a gift to bribe us to finally have some stuff recorded for him to listen to, but we were kinda confused and out of it so we thanked him profusely and got out of dodge. We opened the boxes up in the van and found a pair of really nice headphones. Whoa, thanks dude! That guy's awesome.

Thanks to everyone that came out, and to everyone who just read this little insight into what it's like to be in a small local band that plays shows mainly to their friends. I'm sure this will be humorous to read after we've sold out Budokan and sold a million copies of our debut album that was self released netting us 100% profit that we donate completely to a charity that cures cancer for good.

FOR GOOD.

-Todd

What We're Up To Right Now

2009-12-02T21:07:00.001-06:00

Here's what we've got going on right now.

- We did some tracking for a few songs a few weeks back with Scott Picco, who plays drums in Rich's other band Bear Claw. Two of the songs we'd like to release on a 7", and then the other songs (I think we did 3 others) we plan on putting up on the web as a demo. We still have to record all of the vocal overdubs and get the two songs for the 7" mastered, as well as figure out if anyone wants to help us put it out on their label. If you own a record label and would be interested, let us know. Some time down the road we've got enough material for a full length and definitely plan on recording one. More on that when it becomes more concrete about where we're doing it and what we're doing with it. There are plans but they're pretty vague and pie-in-the-sky at the moment.

- Pretty much right after we tracked all that, we began the process of moving out of our old rehearsal space (a.k.a. Union Rock Yards) and into a new place way out on the Northwest side of the city. I'm sure that almost anyone reading this blog at this point probably knows what Union Rock Yards was all about and is sad to see it go, just like we were. Also you're probably not surprised when I tell you that it was kind of a shithole as far as rehearsal spaces go. Don't get me wrong, we had many fine adventures there and we do miss that shithole, but our new rehearsal space is pretty kickass and most importatnly it has heat. On top of that I think that Mark and Rich have a good possibility of doing the Union Rock Yards thing in one or two new legit venues, so all is good. Also, that amazing pool table down there that once belonged to the late, great Michael Dahlquist of Silkworm fame is in its new home at a new bar near California and Belmont that sounds like it will be an awesome place when it opens up. Anyhoo, the point of this lengthy digression is to point out that we were pretty busy for a few weeks with moving all of the enormous amount of crap that several of our bands had all accumulated over the last few years. Scott's still in the process of getting his tape machine and mixer set up in the control room at the new spot (which, as a bonus, the previous tennant had configured decently as a recording studio) and hopefully we'll get the vocals overdubbed and everything mixed and bounced to 2 track pretty soon.

- We're playing a show on Saturday, December 12th at Cole's in Logan Square, with our friends Bully Pulpit and Builder/Destroyer. Cole's is quickly becoming one of my favorite bars in the neighborhood (I live about 5 blocks from there), and it's a free show. Highly recommended if you like fun and value. We're playing first, and the show starts at 8, so get there early and have a few $4 bottles of Leffe with me. Here is a really cool poster for the show, which I believe was designed by a friend of Mat from Builder/Destroyer:

That's about it for now. I wish I had more stuff to speak of, but the last couple of months have been pretty hectic with moving and Thanksgiving and Uli swamped with schoolwork and whatnot. I've been playing in bands for a few years now and every year around the holiday season, many plans are delayed as people are traveling to visit their family, everyone you know wants to have a holiday party all of the time, and then everyone gets sick. In fact Rich and I are both pretty sick right now, which sucks. Such is life.

Talk to you soon,

Todd

How Things Got Started

2009-11-30T22:06:00.002-06:00

OK so I'm playing around with this blog site for the band. My thought is that it will be a more long-form way of keeping track of things as they happen, letting some nice long sentences and paragraphs out there to go into great detail on whatever we feel like talking about, instead of the quick and short "hey we are playing on Saturday" stuff that we post on Facebook. The text message-ization of the Internet dismays me. I love writing big rambling paragraphs, personally. Also I'm pretty surprised that mayorforlife.blogspot.com wasn't already taken so I wanted to nab it while I could.

We'll see if this is worthwhile and anyone cares. At the very least, it'll be worth looking back on it like a journal, for us three guys. So now that I've bored everyone, here's a little bit of a background on who we are and what we do.

I (Todd) have been friends with Rich for a few years, ever since we kept running into each other at Shiner shows and our old bands played a few shows together. Eventually those bands broke up, and neither of us were playing guitar in any active bands. I had started up a new project with some friends and asked Rich if he'd be interested in playing guitar with us. He accepted and that band became All Limbs Intact.

Unless you are really good friends with either of us or maybe we happened to play a show with your band and you stuck around to see us, you have probably never heard of All Limbs Intact. Which is a shame because I still think that band name was awesome, but was totally our fault. We were around for a couple of years but spent most of that time in the rehearsal space and/or trying to keep members involved in the band. The lineup that played all of the shows also included our friends Steve and Jeremy on bass and drums respectively. Also our friend Lain sang some gibberish for exactly three shows right at the end. Then everyone but us lost interest and/or flaked out. This happened right after we spent all of the meager money we had earned from playing shows as a band (a staggering $225 or so) to buy some totally sweet ass western shirts from Alcala Western Wear on Chicago Ave, and happily wore them on stage, amusing solely ourselves, albeit immensely so. Such a waste. I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved our songs and we had a blast writing them and playing them to 20 people at midnight on a Tuesday or what have you, but really, I lament the passing of the band name and not really having a good reason to wear those kick ass expensive western shirts.

After All Limbs Intact failed, Rich and I decided to start a new band with the bare minimum amount of people we could get away with to do what we wanted to do. Less people that can't afford the rehearsal space, less people to email you an hour before practice saying they couldn't make it, less people to realize that they probably need to stop spending their time and money on the band and to spend it doing something that actually supports them and/or their family.

The three piece is definitely the way to go if you have trouble getting too many people in a room at once and you want to start a loud rock band. So Rich decided to switch to his native instrument, bass, to take lead vocal duties, and we asked his coworker Ulysses if he'd be interested in playing drums. Uli was a bit younger at 20 years old (at the time), but he possessed very impressive skills behind the kit, and we were all happy with how things sounded and got along like a house on fire. So we wrote some songs, experimented with different amps and guitars and snare drums and all that fun stuff, and eventually (it took a while...everything does...) we started playing some shows. Like everything Rich and I do, it started instrumental, but we actually sing now! I only sing backup yells on some stuff, but hey, technically "we" "sing" when we play. Things still take a while to happen, but they actually happen. We all have jobs (and in Uly's case school on top of that) and we're busy but we're able to accomplish some stuff sometimes. Since we don't currently have any recordings to post up here, here's a link to a search for "Mayor For Life" on youtube, where there are a few videos floating around from our shows.

Next post will be an update on what we have going on right now. Good night, faceless void of the Internet, and I will talk to you soon, I promise.

Keep in touch,
Todd

Hello World

2009-11-30T21:04:00.000-06:00

Welcome to our band.