Mousy Babe
this is an ode to a good and strange life. we’re in a band. we work sometimes. we travel a lot. we drink coffee, alcohol and gasoline. sometimes we fight and struggle with weird problems. but best of all we meet some weirdass people.Come one, come all to the Ballston Arts & Crafts Market!
so looks like it’s that time of the year again for arts, crafts and music in the ballston sunshine! mousybabe will be on hand at the Ballston Arts and Crafts Market this coming Saturday, hawking our imoM prints and jewelry (including new 11×14 poster print additions, yay). See photo of the newly framed prints.
This is the same fair we did last year, only Exit Clov will not be performing this year. Also, mb will be debuting some jewelry <gasp> Here’s a sneak previw to pique some interest. Why yes, they’re tiny lacquered skulls! (modeled by suzi q). We have variations in earrings and cellphone keychains.
Our booth will be along the north side of Welburn Square, between N. Stuart & N. Taylor Sts. and near the Cosi and Potbelly’s. Come by to say hello!
Visit the official Market blog for more details, including a list of all the vendors and future fair dates this summer. imoM will have a Q&A feature on this blog in the near future.
Hey Rolling Stone <3's Exit Clov Too!
Rolling Stone’s Rock&Roll Daily just highlighted The Music Slut’s Morrissey Tribute compilation, and they singled Exit Clov out as a recommended tune! Here is the blog post.
Rolling Stone’s Rock&Roll Daily:
The Music Slut’s ongoing tribute to Moz on the honor of his 50th birthday continues, with a string of covers — a new one every Friday! — that range from faithful to far-out. May we humbly suggest you start with Exit Clov’s bright and charming take on “Sing Your Life”?
Knox Road also gave us a nice ‘lil nod. See their blog post on us. They did an interview with us earlier in the year. (I just looked at it again and noticed for the first time that Brett called Morrissey “a wuss” … in the nicest way of course. But still… it’s blasphemous).
We <3 Music Also <3's Us
A nice blog post by the peeps at “We <3 Music” who picked Exit Clov’s version of ‘Sing Your Life’ as their favorite on TMS <3 Moz compiliation.
We’ll have the song available for free download here and on the Exit Clov site very soon!
New Tracks from The Beanstalk Library!
In case you haven’t heeded the rumblings, The Beanstalk Library are regrouping after playing some serious hard-to-get for 7 months.
Let’s see… where to start. They have under their belts 5 newly recorded tracks – all self-engineered, self-produced. Even better, they’re putting a neat lil’ twist on their release plans! This Monday, all 5 tracks will be available for exclusive streaming at five different DC blogs: District of Sound, Instrumental Analysis, Brightest Young Things, DCist, and Baby You Got a Stew Goin’ .
In fact, District of Sound has already posted “Feeling My Way in the Dark” plus a Q+A with Ryan!
The five new songs are (I’m updating the links as I find them on the blogs):
1. ‘Feeling My Way In The Dark‘ – (On DistrictofSound.com) classic rock meets retro organ pop
2. ‘It’s Made All The Difference‘ – (On BabyStew.com) haunting, anthemic, dirge-like
3. ‘Cry Harder‘ – (On BrightestYoungThings.com) raw, country sing-a-long, one of the newer tunes, & features me on fiddle!
4. ‘The Only Things I’ll Take With Me‘ – (On DCist.com) heartbreaking, Dylan-esque, soul-melting vocal harmonies, one of my personal favorites
5. ‘This Line Is Not For Me‘ – Brian Kent on lead vocals, and if you love guitar-mony…
Finally, after all this hoopla, go see them live at IOTA next Monday, May 25 (Memorial Day!) They’ll be playing with none other than the endearing Typefighter, who now occupy the Clov house. I will be on hand to play on ‘Cry Harder’! yay. They will also be debuting some new members and stand-in members!
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THE BEANSTALK LIBRARY
w/ In Technicolor & Typefighter
IOTA Club and Cafe
2832 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA 22201
Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, 2009
8pm $10 21+
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stream wilco album here
Psst! The new self-titled Wilco record is now available for streaming. 
Was pleasantly surprised to hear Leslie Feist’s voice on one of the tracks, even though we were a little disappointed in her performance at the Dark Was the Night show at Radio City a couple weeks ago. Justin Vernon 
definitely stole the show with his billowy falsetto, even though he looked a little like he’d just emerged from the forest after a decade of feasting on small woodland creatures. The Bon Iver band served up some ridiculous harmonies too — they acted as backup singers for a bunch of the other acts. ‘Flume’ (performed as a duet with My Brightest Diamond!) put a thousand little daggers through our <3’s. Sven and I both scored points in the celebrity sighting game: I spotted Carrie Brownstein (Sleater Kinney) and he picked out Glen Hansard (The Frames), woo hoo.
DC Record Fair // Lennon Art // Ballston Craft Fair
This weekend, if you’re at a loss for what to do, you have some neighborhood hopping to do – There’s the opening week of the Ballston Arts+Craft Fair, the DC Record Fair, and Here Comes The Sun exhibit of John Lennon’s lithograph artwork.
This is the second DC record fair of its kind, sponsored by Som Records, DC Soul Recordings & others. And looks like they’re taking it up a notch this time with a bar, kitchen, 10 dj’s, & an appearance by Chuck Brown! It’s also double the capacity and 30 record dealers from East Coast — double the number of record dealers as last time (thank god, considering the smog of evaporated sweat in close quarters last time, which we blogged about!)
Warehouse Next Door
$2 Admission
Saturday, May 9
10am-4pm
1021 7th St. NW
Washington, DC
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My craft buddy Emily Landsman of EHL Creations will be on-hand selling her beautiful Polaroid transfer photography and journals, along with many other vendors. Our own imoM booth will be at this market later this summer (6/13, 8/8, 9/12)
Saturday, May 9
Welburn Square
N. Stuart & N. 9th St.
Ballston, VA
10am-4pm
(psst some friends from the cover band Bad Hair Day area also playing at this event!)
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Here Comes The Sun
An internationally acclaimed special art exhibit with the largest collection of Lennon’s works on paper ever assembled — “more than 100 lithographs and other prints made from Lennon’s simple, cheery black-and-white line drawings created between 1968 and 1980.” It’s presented by Yoko Ono and Georgetown BID and proceeds will benefit DC’s Capital Area Food Bank! WashPost write-up
Thu May 7 – Sun May 10
$2 Recommended Donation
Georgetown near Cady’s Alley
3336 M Street, NW
Washington, DC
The Bastille Studio’s Opened Its Doors
If you’ve ever recorded at Inner Ear (or otherwise hung out there waiting for a sig other to finish tracking and/or watching Wild At Heart on VHS on the antique boobtube), you might not recognize the front parlor anymore.
Silver Sonya have vacated their mixing room, and Eamonn Aiken (who recorded Inamorati for us! Day 1 | Day 2) has set up shop with his studio The Bastille. The front lobby’s turned into a brand new tracking room, complete with a house kit, a wooden sound-absorbing riser, and sound proofing on the walls that’s wrapped in blue and tweed-brown fabric for an authentic vintage touch.
btw, these are Eamonn’s own pics which I pilfered from Facebook. I had my own phone pix (below), but his put mine to shame so I swapped them out 
Em and I dropped by Inner Ear the other night to finish off vocal overdubs for the last of the Bellflur songs before they get mixed down. The songs are sounding so killer, even unmixed. The record is pensive, infectious, electronic and darkly bold. It sounds of ghost ships lost at sea. I’ve never heard the band as dancey as they are on this one, but I’m thoroughly excited. It’s going to have guest singers May (Inamorati alum!) from Pree and Dan from Deleted Scenes. And Em and I are singing lead on this precious lil’ new-wave tune they wrote called ‘Last Quarter of the 20th Century Blues.’ It features a stylophone riff and makes you think of a sad but warm time in your life during the ’80s when you were lost in a blinding and paranoid malaise of postmodernity … and jelly bracelets.
Here’s me, clutching my headphones as I wait for mics to get set up.
Em prefers to wait on the drum stool. Hm we looked kind of similar that night…both wearing black. (har har)
Getting back to The Bastille, the mixing room wall is adorned with a really curious thing – it’s a real rabbit head with an intimidating set of antlers. I neglected to take a picture But it looked a little like this, to the right, except more eerie and 10 times more random.
The back of Eamonn’s head – our view when we hear our tracks on playback.
Moz is turning 50!
The NYC-based Music Slut is paying homage to Morrissey by releasing a tribute album in honor of the Brit’s 50th birthday. The compilation includes covers of Morrissey and Smiths songs performed by 19 of the Slut’s favoritest bands, known as the Slutstars! Exit Clov is on that roster, it’s a rare occasion where we can proclaim, we’re proud to be sluts, woohoo.
The compilation, endearingly titled, “TMS Hearts Moz,” (cover art above), will be revealed one by one on TheMusicSlut.com — every week day @ 4pm (east coast time) between May 4 and May 24. A little bird tells us, our assigned release date will be Friday, May 8! So stay tuned. Our song choice will remain undisclosed for surprise purposes, so do mosey over to the site to hear it. We arranged and tracked it piecemeal over the last few months in our temporary Clov bedroom studio.
The site lists all the participating bands, and we’re particularly excited about friends Deleted Scenes, and Free Blood (pictured to the right). Can’t wait for Moz fest. Thanks, Music Slut 
DC Govt: ‘Swine Flu is An Equal Opportunity Virus’
Here’s a new one:
“The place of origin of H1N1 doesn’t indicate blame for a particular country, race, gender, etc. H1N1 doesn’t target anyone or any specific group and spreads the way seasonal flu spreads. It is an equal opportunity virus.”
-Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, (Regional Emergency Support Function
This is no joke. This is the genius phraseology used in an official government document.
In other news, got a hot tip from a source about things NOT to do while the swine flu is still on the prowl:
District of Sound (dot) com
if brightest young things is looking for a punky kid sister, i think she’s finally arrived. 
The ladies who run this snazzy new DC music web site are the daughters of a musician whom suz and i have recorded violins for. We were alerted to its existence today after they published a very kind review of exit clov \m/ We were also secretly pleased to learn from the website that the author’s top 3 all-time artists include Damon Albarn.
(Historical footnote: In our high school days, suz and i took the Blur vs. Oasis class war to another level. She was a rabid Blur fan… and with time I guess I’ve come to see things through her eyes (at least on this one). If I could steal anyone’s musical career, it might have to be mr. albarn’s).
Now, novelty isn’t the easiest thing to inject into music web sites, but I think these guys pull it off with this nifty little page. If you’re around this weekend, check out a fundraising party they’re throwing at the Rock and Roll Hotel. Everyone’s invited.
I will be methodically evading the swine/ mexican/ north american/ H1N1 virus at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden on Saturday, but maybe suzi q will be around. Proceeds to benefit music programs for kids! yay…
