We’re almost done with year one of being ROBOTANISTS, and what a great year its been!
We started out the year in the studio until March when we headed to downtown LA to play with I Make this Sound and Two Guns! Here’s a few more of the great bands we played with this year: Pop Noir, Kissing Cousins, One Trick Pony, Dronen, The Press Fire, Gliss, Siberian, The Burning of Rome, Gran Ronde, and many more!
We were also lucky enough to move around the East and West coasts a bit, performing in Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, Long Beach, and of plenty of places between!
We also can’t forget an incredible live performance and podact on KXLU in Los Angeles this July (on the legendary Demolisten show), and two unforgetable hi def concert shoots… one one here in Santa Monica, and the 2nd, a Pepsi sponsored showcase broadcast live from Las Vegas via DeepRockDrive.com!
In May we headed to NYC for the first time, performing with some incredible Brooklyn bands at the Knitting Factory. When we got back to LA we went back into the studio to finish final mixes on our first EP. While off the road we did do an award winning cover and video of the Black Keys song “All You Ever Wanted” for Imeem.com which was showcased by Paste Magazine! shortly after we contributed an anecdote for the “Band Name book” by Noel Hudson (as did Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend, and others) which is available now worldwide via Boston Mills Press (pick up a copy!).
We headed into mastering in August at Capitol Records and finalized our CD “CLOSE DOWN THE WOODS,” while prepped for our upcomming release, we took some time to do a bit of charity work for Toys for Tots, and spent a weekend with photographer Jessy Plume and videographer Byron Turk (Discovery’s Storm Chasers) posing for photos to be auctioned off in January, and shot some video to boost awaereness!
We also spent a few nights this fall in the studio working with our friends, Two Guns’ on their new album (look for it in January!). Sarah did some backing vocals and Dan tracked some guitar licks. Dan also found time to sit in with them and play lead at a show in Hollywood this fall! Please check them out – they’re fantastic!
At long last we released our EP on November 4th via Overhead Records (our own musical co-op) and celebrated our release officially at our CD release show at SPACELAND on December 9th!!!
Along the way we were also named one of 5 new “Emerging Artists” by Filter Magazine, and through their website, we garnished over a million votes to be featured in their spring issue of “RAGGED Magazine” where we’ll be joining bands such as Silversun Pickups, Delta Spirit, Kate Nash, uh huh her, Jem and others!
We’ve also very humbly garnished a handful of excellent reviews and write ups, and many new fans and friends along the way!
As for 2009…
Stay tuned for an upcoming feature in Filter, and Photo spread for American Rag Clothing in January, as well as an inspiring show to benefit Toys for Tots in Eagle Rock, CA. February and beyond we’ll be unveiling a new music video for “Wait a Minute Here” as well as touring the West Coast and North East United States Then in March we’re off to showcase at Canadian Music Week in Toronto and hopefully SxSW. In April we’ll start working on a brand new EP (maybe full length – you never know), we’ll do some fun new covers, musical collaborations and lots more to come!
So thanks to everyone that made 2008 so great… Happy Holidays to all! We’ll see you next year!
xo
Sarah, Daniel, Keith, Preston
ROBOTANISTS
PS. Special thanks to Aaron Bradford of Two Guns for playing Keys with us now and then, to artist and musican, Dan Grayson, for doing the same, and a fancy light show at Spaceland, and of course to our favorite photographer, Brandon Greeley, who followed us around all year capturing our live shows!
ROBOTANISTS 