Dear fans, friends, peers, and loved ones,

Thank you immensely for making Seven Car Pileup by far the most successful and enjoyable  part of my music career to date. I’ve never had more fun playing music than I am now.

However, it would be silly to pretend that making music, especially these days,  is enough to satisfy a human being. The recipe for happiness must contain a level of acceptance of one’s surroundings and that is not something which I can muster in the state of Arizona. Whether it is the hostile political climate, or just the hostile climate, Arizona is just not for me. Arizona is a desert in more ways than just weather. That isn’t to say there aren’t tremendous people who live here. I have met so many wonderful people here. It is just to say that this place, at least at this point, is not my home. With that in mind I announce that I will be moving to Los Angeles California at the end of June.

What does that mean for Seven Car Pileup? That is a really big question and I don’t think we’ve been able to honestly answer that with each other. All we know at this point is that we still love playing music with each other, and we’ll do our best to still crate separated by 300 + miles.

This of course puts any plans to record and release any new recordings of new songs difficult at best. However, I can rest assured that we have left quite a little legacy of recorded music which will live on for eternity. Whenever a guy wants to tell a girl how he wants to rock her world by allusion of a macho 70’s movie actor, if somebody feels like they’re not in control,  if somebody wants to make out at a drive-in, and or if there is a need to express the complicated emotion of juggling work passions and love passions they can find it through the music of Seven Car Pileup.

There will be a few last shows before I leave. This Saturday (5/29) we’ll be at Long Wongs, and on June 4th we’ll be at Long Wongs as well. On June 18th we’ll be at Hollywood Alley. We will have a comprehensive celebration of a show where we will cover the highlights thus far.

We will keep you posted about any side or future projects through this blog. Who knows though. We certainly wouldn’t be the first Arizona band to have a member in LA and another member in the Phoenix area. Thank you again for all the support! We couldn’t have done anything with out your support.

Love,

Mark Mason - Vocals, Guitar, Production, Lyrics, Web, ect…

Mark bought a new guitar (a 1987 Fender Strat with Lace Sensor pick-ups) and he can’t figure out what to name it(her). He has this rule where guitars are named after famous female guitarists from the country of origin for the guitar.  His Jazzmaster is named Yoshiko after the guitarist from Japanese surf group The 5.6.7.8’s.

He’s thinking Corin (after Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney), Nina (after Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt), or Liz (after Liz Phair)… although those ladies don’t really play Fenders .

Or maybe Courtney after Courtney Love of Hole. Love actually has a signature Squire guitar (which looks like an ugly Jagstang), and early on played Jazzmasters.

The most appropriate ones would probably be Kelley Deal  (Breeders) who plays Strat w/ Lace sensors, Bonnie Raitt who has her own signature model Strat.

He hasn’t named his Mexican strat either.

Help him out!

The recording of our song November 20th, recorded in 2008 during our recording session for our self-titled album, is now available free for download on our website. All you have to do is log-in/register and then go to our MP3/hear section and download it.

We’ve uploaded for your enjoyment our single for Outta My Mind. Enjoy all of its digital goodness, complete with a digital liner notes. Along with Outta My Mind the single includes the b-sides You, The Perfect Flame & the Funky See, Funky Do. Both b-sides were recorded by Josh Tucker at MCC … while ago. They were recently re-mixed and re-mastered (lightly). The music can be downloaded from the Hear/Free MP3 section and the main page. As well there is a digital liner notes which can be downloaded from the main page.

You may notice a bit of a theme running through the artwork and some little touches on the songs. Let’s just say we like James Brown a little bit.

Enjoy, pass it along, burn a copy, put it in the bathroom. Whatever you’d like.

 <3
Seven Car Pileup

You can now download the b-sides to the Redemption single from our website. Simply register and download away. The MP3 files can be downloaded here.
http://www.7carpileup.com/hear.php

enjoy

We’ve uploaded Drive-In online at various places.

http://www.7carpileup.com (first splash page and the “hear” section)
MySpace Facebook iLike GarageBand

This song will be on our soon to be released EP, Zombies With Dino.
1. Lucy
2. The Bad Months
3. The Juggler
4. Drive-In

more details to follow

Our EP is done. I’m listening to the un-mastered mixes right now, and I’m very stoked. We still don’t know what to call it, or what exactly the track listing should be. We don’t even know how we’re going to release it. It goes to Jason Livermore in Denver next for mastering and from there onto merchandising.

To give you a faint impression of what the EP is going to be I’ll list, but certainly not in order, the songs that will be on the EP:

Lucy (I See)
The Juggler
The Bad Months
Drive In

As far as what the EP sounds like…

Well, the songs continue on where we left off on our debut album. There are: thoughtfully lyrics, a strong rhythm section focus, and subtle guitar instrumentation; however, these songs are much more focused and succinct. Our album was almost sprawling in the diversity of styles we presented, and a lot more jammy. To use the metaphor of Beatles releases: our selt-titled album is to the White album as our EP is to Revolver.

Recording has gone just like we hoped it would. Bob Hoag has found some great sounds like he always does, and helped us find performances we hope y’all will love. Here are some photos of the tracking.

Here is Jess recording bass.

Here is Mark recording guitar.

The amplifier choices for the session

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Guitar choices for the session. The only one that is Mark’s is the blue strat. Thanks Bob!  

Recording vocals, you can see Bob through the window.

We’re almost completely done tracking, and we’ll finish up and mix the songs next week. After that it will go to Mastering (Jason Livermore at The Blasting Room in Colorado). We’re all talking about merchandising options at the moment too. We’ll continue to keep you posted.