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…

How have you guys been? We’ve been good. We’re keeping busy.

We had an awesome time playing with Authority Zero. The stage set-up for the night was very nice. It was also very cool to have our friend Michael Broyles playing piano on a few of the songs. 

We have some cool shows on the horizon. Both cool for different reasons.

This Saturday in Glendale we’ll be playing at Westgate Shopping Center in the Fountain Park. It’s free, all ages, and close for all you west valley folks to come and check us out. We may have a new song or two since you’ve seen us last and this is a great opportunity to experience it for free. We hit the stage at about 6pm and will be done at 9pm.

Next Thursday we’ll be rocking socks off at the posh Scottsdale rock club Dirty Pretty. Come out for an awesome night of music at a really nice bar. We go on at about midnight.

The third Thursday of this month we’ll be rocking with Black Carl and Boston’s Crash Kings. Crash Kings are an awesome band that bridges the gap between the piano rock of Ben Folds Five and the garage punk of The White Stripes. We’re very excited the share the stage with them. This all goes down at Craftsman Court in Scottsdale. Listen to FM 103.9 for more details.

Hello,

We’re currently looking for a new musician to add into the mix. If you play a musical instrument, live in or around Tempe Arizona, and would be available for practice and gigs, please contact us right away.

We would like any of the following instrumentalists:

• keyboard/synth
• guitar
• clarinet
• violin
• viola
• cello

We’d like like the following:

• Accordion
• Baritone Saxophone through effects

Thanks,

Mark Mason

Hello everybody,

2008 has been a good year, and we’re looking forward to 2009 with great expectancy.

This year we released our eponymous debut album; a 12 song collection of songs recorded at the same house we lived in. It came together brilliantly. It’s been a fantastic tool for getting the word out about us, and we’ve been able to sell at least one at every show we’ve played since it’s been released.

We had an amazing CD release show at the Modified; diligently well documented with photos by Jeremiah Scheffer. It was quite amazing to see the Modified full of Seven Car Pileup fans.

We played some great shows at some new favorite places (Phase 54, Last Exit, Desert Ridge Marketplace). As well, we were able to rock out the Glendale Glitters block party and Cheba Hut’s 420 party.

We met some awesome new people from some great bands (Talk Fiction, Peppermint James, Kinch, Juicy Newt, Flux Manifesto)

Last but certainly not least, we joined ranks with our new best friend and manager Alisha Forrester Scott. Not only is she a sweetheart and a true friend, she’s helped us in ways not imaginable without her. We truly appreciate her assistance thus far.

We’re sure 2009 will bring even more fun. We’re planning to record and release a few new songs, play many more shows, and much much more.

See you next year,

Jess Mark & Mike

The album we’ve been working on for 2 years is very close to done, and a official release month has been set. Here is a little back history on what we have done and why we took our sweet little time.

Winter 2007 - We became a band, and started assembling our studio with some remnants of Lucky’s studio, and Jess’s pro-tools rig and mixing console. We played a few initial non promoted shows at the Real Bar.  We bought more gear, and we did some initial demos.

Spring 2007 - We put out some demos, Jess did some work with Maricopa County Prison Band (a rock-a-billy band), and Mark recorded the demos for On the Spot (now Five High). Most of that money was reinvested back into the studio.

Summer 2007 -  We did some test run sessions. We worked out “kinks”. As in we did some more acoustic treatments in the room, we figured out the best way to record basic tracks, and we wrote more songs and practiced a whole lot more.

Fall 2007 - We played some more shows.

Winter 2008 - We started recording again. The initial basic track sessions went very well and flowed quite easily. We even wrote a couple songs while we were recording, and proceeded to record those songs as well. As well we played shows the whole time.

Spring 2008 - We played more shows, Mark spent countless hours locked in the studio figuring out the perfect guitar and vocal parts to play in the songs. Once that was finished we started the process of mixing 26+ songs.

Spring 2008 - We signed a management deal with La Ruche Event Design Studio. We slimmed the number of songs being mixed down to a more comfortable 15.

Summer 2008 -We put out the Redemption single with outtakes from the session. We narrowed the list of possible album songs down to 12 songs, and we’re going to finish the mixing and mastering of the album.

October 2008 - The album will be released a little under 2 years after we became a band.

After that we’ll tour, and hopefully sell enough copies to put together another album.

Well thank you to everybody who came to watch us at the Modified.

The Modified is a place I’ve always wanted to play, and just never have.  It was a rare privilege to be up on that stage. We also got to meet a new band, Talk Fiction,  whose  company we’ve already grown to enjoy. Liking the other bands you’re playing with always makes this so much more enjoyable, not only for us, but for everybody who comes to see the show. We’ll have to do something like that again very soon.

Our next show will be an “acoustic” performance at Martini Ranch for the Edge’s local frequency live. We’ll call it Seven Car Pileup lite. Same Seven Car Pileup taste, but with less calories. Thursday, May 1st at 11:30 pm.

Last night we started a photo session with Scott Chanson of Visionyard Photography. It was a very enjoyable photo shoot. They’re usually arduous or boring, but this was  good. From the shots we saw on his camera display they look just wonderful, and we’re excited to be able to use them for various promotional purposes connected with the upcoming new album. Scott usually does mostly wedding photography, but I feel his eye and unique visual stamp is something that works well in a lot of forms.  Make sure and also check him out on jpeg magazine, where you can see some of his fine art photography (and a picture of him wearing my old band’s t-shirt).

Come to the show on Saturday (at the modified), and we’ll tell you more about the photo shoot.