This is going to be the only post today. It is important enough that I take a break to make sure this stays at the top of the page all day.
I have mentioned The Gaskets many times on this page. They were my life for 4 years. In Richmond, VA in 2003 I had a friend call me down to a bar cause I “had to see this band”. It was a shitty bar that’s only draw was that you could be 18 and be there and it was right next to the college. Most nights they had Karaoke or some lame open mic night but this night was different. When I got to the bar, these two 18 year old kids were setting up. I sat down and was talking to my friends when the started to play. Pretty much everyone in the bar was talking to their friends. This was the type of place you go to hear music in the background, not to watch a show. There was no stage, no real sound system… just a beat up PA resting on the floor where they had lunch tables set up during the day. People slowly stopped talking as they began to stare mouth agape at this kid holding the mic. By the second song not one person was not transfixed on these kids. It was just two kids, two mics and a out of date Yamaha sequencer blowing peoples minds. All I could think of his how these kids were playing the wrong venues and I wanted to help. I remember thinking that my only goal was to get them into a packed room of hundreds of people who were there just to see them, who knew every song. I wanted to be in that crowd.
In January 2006 I was in that crowd. I was standing in front of over 500 people packed into a venue that had a maximum capacity of 300. I was introducing the band that I had spent 3 years working for. I had taken them from open mic nights to being one of the most popular bands in Virginia. It was The Gaskets CD release party and it was the high point of their career. We spent most of the bands savings making a live DVD of that show. I produced the entire thing. It is the thing I am most proud of in my life and I hope one day to be able to show it to my kids. That shouldn’t be too hard, considering I have 700 of them sitting in my kitchen. I completely overestimated peoples desire to watch a 60 min concert film. Soon after Teddy moved to Connecticut to work for a graphic design firm, I moved to New York and Ross got a full time job. They started playing once a month, then once every two months and all of a sudden a year had gone by…
Teddy Blanks was the quiet one. The singer of the Gaskets rarely socialized with people at shows, he would rather read a book than get drunk at an after party and he was the last person you would expect to do the things he does on stage. Teddy is one of, if not the best, front men I have ever had the pleasure to see play. He has the ability to get any crowd, no matter how indifferent, to become involved in his show. I have seen him turn a crowd of nothing but 15 year old metal fans. I have seen him play his heart out for two people in an empty room. I once saw him sell 7 CD’s to 8 people during an acoustic set in a dorm room. When I first met him, I didn’t think he was very much fun. To this day I think he has a strange aversion to fun. But over the years he has become one of my closest friends and I could sit in a room do nothing but talk to him for 12 hours straight and not get bored. He is one of the most talented people I have ever met. He accells at everything he does from music, to writing, to graphic design. His music takes all those things into consideration. His melody are revoltingly catchy, his lyrics are thought out and often profound and the design elements in everything he puts out is carefully considered and masterfully done. I could not be more proud to be working with Teddy.
To get to the point, after all that sappy bullshit is that Teddy is releasing today his first solo work since he was 16 years old. He is in the process of working on an EP and has been in and out of the studio over the last several months. He just moved to NYC and quit his graphic design job and is ready to devote himself fully to rocking the fuck out. He is hoping to release his EP in late May and is going to be playing live as early as May 1st. In order to build up some buzz for the EP today we are releasing a stand alone single called “Somewhat Hasty“. It is a free Mp3 only release and will not be on the upcoming EP. He also recorded a B-Side to the album, a cover of Frank Black’s song Headache. Both these songs are available as free downloads, or streaming at BlanksSpace.com. They are also available directly below this post.
Now what I am asking for is help. We are trying to generate some buzz and trying to come up with ideas for ways to do that. We also really want feedback. He is going back into the studio very soon and he really wants to know what people like and people don’t like. Clearly if anyone has a blog you are welcome to post these tracks. We would really appreciate it in fact. Also obviously if anyone has any interest in things like booking, releasing his EP, paying him 100k to write commercial jingle please let us know about that too. You can just leave a message in the comments section, contact me here, or hit Teddy up on MySpace. Thanks a ton.
PS. If anyone wants a Gaskets live DVD and will actually watch it, I will give you one for free. Just get at me.
Somewhat Hasty: Teddy Blanks – Somewhat Hasty
Headache: Teddy Blanks – Headache (Frank Black)
