SPACELAND 8.29.09

Our friend Angie Gray took some pictures on film at our show last Saturday at Spaceland. We played with a great new band The Black Apples. You should check them out here.

USELESS KEYS AT THE ECHOPLEX

WE PLAY AT 7:30 SO GET THERE EARLY!!! THIS IS A BENEFIT FOR JENNIFER TEFFT SO PLEASE BUCK UP AND GIVE THE 25 BONES. THE MONEY IS GOING TO PAY HER MEDICAL BILLS. CONSIDER THIS A MORE DIRECT WAY OF SUPPORTING UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. INSTEAD OF GIVING THE MONEY IN TAXES TO THE GOVERNMENT AND HAVING IT REROUTED TO THOSE IN NEED, GIVE IT DIRECTLY TO SOMEONE IN NEED AND GET A RAD ROCK SHOW AS AN ADDED BONUS. SCORE YOU!




I'm sorry we haven't blogged for months. I am going to start blogging more frequently. I'm going to start exercising more often. I'm going to start waking up earlier and being more patient with people.

There have been a million new happenings in UselessKeysLand. Rick Parker (BRMC, Von Bondies) just finished our final mix for "Down Threw" last Sunday. We are very pleased with it. Kat Corbett from KROQ has been playing our old mix of "Down Threw" religiously; we hope to get her new mix as soon as possible. We'll upload it to our myspace within the week I'm guessing. There's been intense chatter as of late about a tour up to Portland/Seattle/Olympia. Our good friends David and Nick (Billygoat) moved to Portland recently and we miss them; we are dying for an excuse to see them so don't be surprised if we are playing a show in that neck of woods in the next couple months.

We are playing another show next Thursday, July 9th, at The Roxy. Our set time is 9pm for that show.



We love you all. Thank you for showing up to our shows and being our friends and giving us words of encouragement and assuring us that we are spending our time here on Earth wisely. We are very luck to have you. See you very soon hopefully.

The most useless key of them all,

mb

Useless Keys update via Rory Modica

Alot has happened since the last UK update. We have finished our debut EP and currently the artwork is being finalized. We played in San Francisco in January and had a grand ol time. My flight was delayed and luckily I showed up to club, walked in the door and walked right behind my drumset to play just in time...def a trip..

Kat Corbett of KROQ has been giving "Down Threw" a couple spins the last few months in which we are greatly appreciative of. We played our first headlining show at Spaceland and it was amazing, thanks for everyone who came out as well was all the bands (Tsk Tsk, Colbalt Cranes, Dissolver).

We took a brief hiatus in March as Regilio lent his musical skills to Great Northern for a few weeks.

We are currently back in action writing and rehearsing and have shows May 1 @ Spaceland w/ Winter Gloves as well as May 19 @ The Troubadour w/ Youth Group. We are psyched to kick things into full throttle...

See you on the war path.

RM

Pehrspace 11.1.08

Photo Credit: LA Underground

Our Official "Salvation" Photo

Photo Credit: LA Underground

It's Been a Long Time Since I Rock and Rolled

Useless Keys have been holed up in a studio in Silver Lake with producer Sheldon Gomberg over the past couple months. He's been producing and engineering the shit out of several soon-to-be-massive UK hits. "White Noise" and "It's All Made Up" have been uploaded to our myspace page that you can visit by clicking here. We also uploaded a demo version of "Down Threw" for your listening pleasure. Here are some pictures from the studio and yes, that is a man playing a trumpet submerged in a bucket of water...






This is Sheldon Gomberg. His favorite things in life are ice cold horchatas, pizza with vegan friendly toppings, a solidly performed bass line and he absolutely loves it when I place a glass full of liquid on top of his mixing console. I mean if you really want to see him cheer up, give it a try.















Meet Michael Regilio world. He's always munching on something.


So, I guess it's been a while, right? Since we last talked, we played a show in Riverside, where Rory hung out in a very heterosexual bar, we played a monday night at Spaceland with Kenan Bell, played with Eagle Winged Palace at Echo Curio (debuted new songs there) and we just had a show at The Silverlake Lounge this past Tuesday. Here's a youtube clip from that show:





Mark Shovel from Indie 103.1 gave "It's All Made Up" a spin on his local show "Check One Two" last Sunday, so we got that going for us, which is nice. This Saturday we are playing an amazing show with a solid lineup at Pehrspace in Echo Park. We will be joined by Blackbird, Billygoat, Hello Dragon, and Summer Darling. For more show information please visit LA-Underground.







Lastly, Phil Collins kicks ass. Seriously. This dude cranked out hits in the 80's like a Coca Cola plant cranks out bottles of sugar water. Do yourself a favor and watch him give it his all in the videos below. Phil doesn't lack passion in his performance. Don't even get me started about his drum sounds.

Spaceland 8.29.08 Blog

Nothing is better than starting a 3 day weekend (due to Labor day) off with a good ol Rock Show. I was the first UK member to arrive at the club at around 7:15ish. LSD and M.Mortals were already there, sound checking and I just sat there and chilled and waited for my other tardy band members to arrive. I was angered that the bar was not open yet but that would soon change. Guylaine arrives 2nd and we chat with the other bands for a while and decide to smoke a cigarette outside in which I see Bauer rolling down Silverlake Blvd blasting NWA's - Straight Outta Compton (not really, but would of been alot cooler if he did), Regilio shows up and bottoms out driving into Club Spaceland's semi vertical driveway entry which gave me a chuckle. We unload the equipment and sound check shortly after, things where sounding gooood. People started to show up at this point and the UK's stormed the bar to "loosen up" before hitting the stage. Mickey (our manager) and his twin bro showed up and i started to talk to them about Sarah Palin's physical attributes instead of political attributes (heh). Shelly (who is recording us at the moment) also arrived and seemed psyched to see us play the songs we've been recording in his studio live. As i head to the bar to grab a Jack and Coke i see Bauer leaving the bar with 2 whiskey's and a splash of water maybe? Idk, i noted this and used god's name in vein. More and more people started to show up and a nice crowd started to enter the venue. We took the stage at approx 9:40 and our setlist included..

Arizona State Highway
Kamikaze
Down Threw
Radiation Burns
White Noise
It's All Made Up

As far as I'm concerned i thought we killed it, my bassdrum pedal kept falling off causing me to say "shit, fuck, shit, fuck" numerous times in between songs. Apparently i hit the drums to hard but who cares? My personal highlight was White Noise i thought it was the first time we played that song the way it should be live. During this song me and Regilio were on the verge of destroying our equipment but that may of not been a good idea.....We finished our set and some people in the crowd were yelling "Bauer Power" which made me crack up. Everyone in the UK party seemed pretty happy and satisfied. A good show, good turnout, now back to the Bar. I said Hi to some friends who showed up and bought 5 shots of tequila. Now this pisses me off. I grab 5 shots and only 3 people want to take the goddamn things. What am i going to let them sit there on the table and ferment? Fuck no, i drank them....Well I'm not sure exactly what happened to everyone else's night, I left early due to an explicit text message sent to me from a female in the crowd. I'm sure that everyone else got had a grand ol' time. Stay tuned for the next episode...

The Tony Danza of the AB Stanza,

Rory Modica