There are things that everyone tries to put off from time to time. For the Junkies, it’s photo shoots! Although I find all three boys in the band to be quite dashing (this is Kali, by the way), and the opposite of shy, it’s difficult to get them to pose for a photo. But with the recent line-up change (for those of you just joining us – our banjo player moved to Argentina!) a photo shoot was inevitable.

Luckily, we found a really cool photographer by the name of Tim Gunther, who graciously decided to work with us on something fun. We decided that instead of doing the standard poses, we’d gather around a pinata and wail at it. Unfortunately, the pinata was destroyed after only a couple of blows (probably because Cole took a crowbar to it, rather than the lovely little stick that was provided), but we still got some fun photos, that we’re happy to share with you here!

Hi friends – here’s a video Kali and I made last night of us playing a swingy version of one of our favorite songs – “The Octopus” by our friends in the Boston band Thick as Thieves. The song is from their (seriously excellent) album True Believers in the Long Walk Home (on Spotify; on iTunes). Enjoy!

-Matt

On March 15th, Cory and crew over at Boy Meets Music (a Portland music review/info blog) released a free digital PDX music compilation aptly titled “Ides of March”, and they were kind enough to include our track “Box Full of Lions” from our 2010 release This Cage Has No Bottom. Check it out here – it’s a free download, and it’s chock full of awesome Portland bands like Y La Bamba, Boy Eats Drum Machine, Mike Coykendall, Jared Mees and the Grown Children, The Angry Orts, and many, many more.

Here’s the cover art, drawn by PDX illustrator/photographer extraordinaire Jade Sheldon:

Here’s a live iPhone video with surprisingly good audio of us playing a new song called “I’m Not Convinced” at Mississippi Studios in Portland on 3/3/12.  Thanks to Taaj from KZME.fm for the clip!

Hello, friends!

A quick note: we’re going to be hitting four cities we’ve never been to this week. If you live in any of these places, we’d love to see you at the show; otherwise, if you know folks who live in these spots, send ‘em our way!

Tuesday, Feb 7th: Belltower Theater, Pullman, WA // venue link
Wednesday, Feb 8th: John’s Alley, Moscow, ID // venue link
Thursday, Feb 9th: Mootsy’s, Spokane, WA // Facebook event
Saturday, Feb 11th: The Palace Lounge, Missoula, MT // Facebook event

Facebook event page for the full tour

See you in the great Northwest!

-Matt

Hey friends,

Happy new year from the consummate professionals here at Ascetic Junkies, LLC. We just wanted to drop you a line about our plans for 2012, as the end of the current Mayan long-count approaches. Not that it ultimately matters, since we’ll all be converted to pure energy just before next Christmas.

First of all, thanks to everyone in Portland, Bend, and Cottage Grove who made our last few shows of 2011 a huge blast. These shows were notable, as you know, because they marked the last shows our long-time banjoist Graham Houser played with us before relocating indefinitely to South America with his wife Michelle (side note: if you know them and are interested in following their adventures, Michelle is blogging about it here). We were sad to say “good-bye for now” to our good friend, and spent some precious anxiety on wondering what to do to replace his unique sonic position in the band, but we’ve arrived at the following conclusion: four-piece bands are easier to manage than five-piece bands… let’s try it for a while!

We just had our first sans-banjo practice of the new year last night, and we all feel pretty good about reworking old stuff to fill out Graham’s parts and writing new stuff that’s pretty different from anything we’ve done. Expect some re-arrangements and lots of weird new pop songs this year as we figure ourselves out. We also had the pleasure of jamming a bit with a talented violinist before Christmas a few weeks ago, so hopefully we’ll be able to have her guest with us here in town occasionally. To close this paragraph and to assure you that, having lost Graham, we at least still have a passing commitment to putting a beard on stage for you to look at, I submit this current picture of myself (note: yes, I was too lazy to put on a shirt. Frequent shirtlessness is a perk of self-employment. I am wearing pants, although to be honest, I’m not sure why):

In other news, we have a small army of new songs, some that we’ve been trying out in various forms this last year and some that we haven’t played yet. We’ve been terrible about crying wolf regarding new releases in the past, but I’ll put it this way: we sincerely hope to release lots of new material this year. Either an album, or multiple smaller releases, or something. We’ll see. On that note, in case you missed it, we did get a special acoustic version of a new song called “Thought Thief” on Tender Loving Empire’s 2011 “Friends” compilation – check that out here.

For those of you in Portland, Kali and I are doing a couple acoustic performances next week and then we’ll do our first full band show without banjo to try out new songs and arrangements on January 25th at Backspace with our friends/co-band The Glyptodons (fronted by a talented couple of teachers and backed by Kali, Cole, and myself) and California Stars. We’re also taking a brief NW tour in February that’ll hit WA, ID, and MT (still finalizing that, but we’ve got a few dates posted), and have a couple other cool shows in the works for this winter, so check the shows page for details.

Here’s to a fun, un-apocalyptic year full of music, friends, and, hopefully, fewer half-naked photos of me.

Matt // AJs

Hi friends – we’re playing at an event we’re really excited about this weekend – Burnside Brewing is hosting the second year of Night of the Living Ales on Saturday, Oct 29th in their large brewing area (not the pub area that you might be familiar with). What might happen at such a party? Well, there’ll be costumes, awesome decorations, fire dancers (!), burlesque dancers (!!), great beer from seven different craft breweries, and live sets from us and our friend Boy Eats Drum Machine. We’ll be playing somewhere around 11pm and pulling out some halloween-ish covers that we’ve never played, but be sure to get there earlier and enjoy the other aforementioned awesomeness! Here’s the poster:

Enjoy these live videos, courtesy of our friends at www.StageDive.com!

“God/Devil/Gov’t”

“Get What You Want, Get What You Need”

“Crybaby”

Each year PDX Pop Now puts out a compilation CD of some of Portland’s best up-and-comers (comers?) and this year we were lucky enough to be included. The CD will be available for purchase ($8) on June 2, 2011 at local retail outlets and online. Proceeds from sales of the album go towards funding the festival and outreach activities.

Check it out HERE

And here’s the track list…

Disc 1

1. Forbidden Friends – Tiny Hands
2. the Shivas – Gun In My Pocket
3. Cool Nutz – Monster Up
4. O Bruxo – De Colores
5. Grouper – Alien Observer
6. Jared Mees & the Grown Children – Hungry Like a Tiger
7. Red Fang – Wires
8. Lovers – Boxer
9. Alan Singley – Sauvie Island
10. Reva DeVito – Baby What You Do to Me
11. Lost Lander – Cold Feet
12. Guantanamo Baywatch – Clam Party
13. Bright Archer – Hidden Systems
14. Purple & Green – Right Here
15. Blue Skies for Black Hearts – Majoring in the Arts
16. Wizard Rifle – Tears Won’t Soften Steel
17. Jarad Miles – Lazy Old Sun
18. BOOM! – Onomatopoeia
19. the Ascetic Junkies – (Don’t) Panic
20. Death Songs – Wounds

Disc 2

1. Viva Voce – Analog Woodland Song
2. the BellBoys – Somethin’ In My Mind
3. Headphone Party – Strictly Stuntin’
4. Witch Mountain – Veil of the Forgotten
5. Langhorne Slim & the Law – Past Lives (live)
6. Sex Life – I Want You
7. Swahili – Soma
8. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Thought Ballune
9. Point Juncture, WA – When You Wake Up It’s Today
10. the Woodlands – In the Dark on Monday (Heavy Hands Remix)
11. the angry orts – the Trend
12. Quiet Countries – A Teeth Cutting
13. Living Proof – Caddy Music
14. Johnny Reno & the Vicemachine – Be Gorgeous & Be Gone
15. Mojave Bird – Roan Wolf
16. Blouse – Into Black
17. On the Stairs – Stand
18. 1939 Ensemble – Espérer
19. Ben Darwish – Under the Bright Red Sky
20. the Minders – Needle Doll
21. Drew Grow – King On Your Throne