News

Jan

Abandoner Writing/Recording Blog 2

First official session ended with ten song ideas written up on our song wall at our studio, Day Cave. We put check marks next to the songs that are ready to be taken in to the studio. So far we have checked off “Hello Liars,” “Rowena,” and “Outer Dark” plus a tentative check mark for “Liberty St.” You can listen to the latest demo version of “Rowena” below.

“Liberty St.” gets a tentative check mark because we are toying around with a full band arrangment. We will probably record it both ways, one full band, one just Dan and I.

The rest of the time we spend jamming on two different sections of a song called “Vultures and Dogs.” While fun, no true parts emerged, but with Summer Darling, that’s pretty normal. More often than not it takes a number of times jamming through a song before we start making headway on actual arrangements and parts.

Ben, 1/26/12

Jan

Abandoner Writing/Recording Diary 1

Tonight we’re getting together at our studio in downtown Los Angeles to begin the process of creating our third full length record Abandoner. We thought it would be fun to have you follow us along on this process. We’ll be posting photos that you can view here on our Instagram widget, links to audio clips on our Soundcloud page, and from time to time, video on our Vimeo page.

The first step I’m doing this morning is organizing my lyrics and songs. By my count I have these songs ready to bring to the band (The first three have links so you can check them out):

Hello Liars

Outer Dark

Liberty St.

Rowena

Trust Me With Your Heart, Again

Vultures & Dogs

New Kind of Low (I Want You Back)

Doubt Like Fire

Santa Anas

High Anxiety/Fast Edge

I hope to write a few more in the room as the result of jamming before we begin recording.

Here we go…

Jan

Liberty St.

Summer Darling “Liberty St.” (Official Video) from summer darling on Vimeo.
This is a new song we wrote. We hope you love it. And share it with everyone who feels a little out of control. xo SD

Nov

Summer Darling + Vanaprasta = BMI Show Of The Month

BMI has chosen our show at the Vanaprasta Residency on Monday Nov 28th as their “Pick Of The Month.” While you may have already known that, duh, it was going to be a show to remember, now you have objective proof. We’ll be closing out Vanaprasta’s epic Satellite residency, playing some old material as well as debuting material for the first time ever live. There will be special guests. You don’t want to miss this show. And it’s free! The fun starts at nine, we play at Midnight!!!!

Oct

Fall Preview

Hello Friends and Listeners!

After a busy summer, we’re hunkering down this fall to continue working on writing our third full length record. So far we can tell you the album will most likely be called Abandoner and the four or five songs we have so far seem to be coming out a bit more on the head-bobbing tip than some older jams. But don’t worry, we’ll still throw in some curve balls for the old school fans (a new song we just began writing entitled “Santa Anas” begins in 13/4 time). You can listen to a demo of one of our new songs entitled “Outer Dark” here.

Sunday, October 9th, we are holding a screening party for our acclaimed slasher-vid “My Reminder” at the lovely Mandrake Bar in Culver City, CA. If you live in the area please stop by and bask in the gore and the delicious cocktails. And please, if you haven’t had the chance to see this video, check it out here.

Meanwhile, you can catch us performing next month in Los Angeles at the Vanaprasta Residency at Satellite, in December at the Light FM residency at Silver Lake Lounge, and in January at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, CA with Birds and Batteries.

Some odds and ends: blogger Abe Schwartz wrote an interesting piece on the making of the “My Reminder” video, including an interview with director Adam Penn and producer Beth Ziegler. Check it out here.

Finally, Ben Heywood will be releasing a solo record on Dec 6th, 2011 entitled Skills For The Long Emergency. You can check out the first track from the record and be one of the first few people to “like” him on facebook here.

Thanks again for listening!!

All the best
Ben, Heather, Dan, and Mike

Aug

Origami Vinyl Presents Summer Darling at the Echo!

Aug

Official Video for "My Reminder" Is Here!!!

Many thanks to director Adam Penn and producer Beth Ziegler for making this dream a reality!

Summer Darling “My Reminder” (Official Video) from summer darling on Vimeo.

Aug

On The Road Again

We had an eventful first leg of our August tour with Silian Rail!

Friday’s tour kick off party at Satellite reaffirmed our belief that we have the best fans anywhere. We felt the love, and so did Silian Rail and our label-mates Future Ghost, who opened the show. Man, can’t wait for the Future Ghost record!!

Saturday’s highlights included a 4 hour, traffic marathon to get to San Diego. At one point just outside of Oceanside an accident had slowed our movement to roughtly .24 MPH and after 20 minutes of agreeing that the ocean looked beautiful, we were so bored we started taking bets on how many times the woman in the Sentra in front of us would put her hair up in a ponytail. She kept doing this thing over and over where she would straighten her thin dark hair, bunch it together with on fist, tie the scrunchie, adjust bangs in the mirror, then when it wasn’t right, take the hair out of the ponytail and restart the whole process. I must admit to losing interest after about 10 minutes of this routine, but apparently this woman went at it for quite some time.

As always when we travel to SD, we ate dinner at Pizza Port in Solana Beach. It was nice to be treating 3 newbies to the experience and I do believe they enjoyed their pie. I got baffled by a fork dispenser then mocked by the wait staff, but other than that, good times. On our return to our tour van, the Ron Beez, we got yelled at by a drunk woman who was upset that Dan didn’t know the number of a cab company in San Diego even though he was from Los Angeles. But, you know, they were wasted sitting in puddles of their own vomit trying to get home to their nine year old kid, and we’ve all been there, right, so fuck us. (Yeah, didn’t make a whole lot of sense at the time to us either, especially considering Heather was trying to look up a San Diego cab company on her phone when the woman waved her off so she could curse Dan out.)

Tin Can Alehouse is now my official favorite venue in San Diego. Sure, Soda Bar’s sound is better, but the room is awkwardly proportioned so that half the audience is almost in a different area code. Casbah has the obvious edge as it’s been around forever and is well known to touring bands. But with all their separate rooms and smoking patios, a smaller touring band like Summer Darling would have a tough time keeping the audience in one place. There’s no place to hide at Tin Can, and the crowd though modest was enthusiastically pressed to the stage.

Another shout out goes to Kelsey, who not only owns Tin Can, but books it, bartends at it, and runs the sound! Incredible!! And to the drunk guy who left his CD, we still have it even though you payed for it.

Sunday at Detroit bar was notable for a number of reasons, not the least of which were the stellar sound and satisfying set by Two Guns (who played their incredibly catchy new record in its entirety), and seeing the members of California Condors (download their record for free right now–their song “What Did You Do?” is one of my favorites this year). Mike, who likes his ladies with a little sass, fell in love with the bartender, Courtney. Not only is she smoking hot, she pulled out the halls of justice on a kid attempting to defraud another patron of over 200 dollars. When the young man wouldn’t return the stolen credit card and ID in question, Courtney leapt over the bar and clocked him in the face! The bouncer had to come to the felon’s rescue at which time, Courtney called the cops. And that was our cue to leave.

On the way back to LA, Mike and I witnessed a massive fire in Santa Ana; it looked like something had exploded in a residential neighborhood.

Friday it’s off to Chico, Saturday is Portland, and Sunday is Seattle. We hope to see you out and about!!

Aug

"Felt Like Going To Church, But With A Really Kick-Ass, Decibel Shredding Choir."

Best description of seeing us play live. Ever. Thanks LA Weekly!

You can read the entire article here.

Aug

Summer Darling + Silian Rail August Tour!!!

We had a great tour kick off party in Los Angeles last night with our friends from Oakland Silian Rail, now it’s time to hit the road! Check out the dates, we’d love to see you at one of these shows!!!