Has anyone noticed this awful trends in TV ads where they repeat a certain word in triplicate? I call ‘em three-peats. It’s typically toward the end of the commercial, using clips of three different people saying the same damn thing, hammering home that their product or service is superior to their competition. “…And no one-NO one-no ONE-does it better than .” I hate this fad almost as much as the low-carb pasta craze. We know advertisers think we’re stupid, but do they have to use rote?

Screw you Madison Avenue. You-you-YOU guys suck-sucK-Suck.

Yes, you can thank me later. Don’t make me blush, I know I’ve enriched your lives greatly because of this. We can all grow up now learning to master the guitar by playing Button Pushers tunes right off their website. Indoctrination! at least, that’s the idea. Well, maybe just added appreciation for what the music looks like on paper. (Look under Music>Tab at the top of the BP homepage.)

Ok, we’re all grown up now but I remember fondly learning guitar out of Metallica songbooks. I supplemented heavy metal riffs with 70’s and 80’s pop song collections that we also had lying around. There’s nothing like trying to reconcile Metallica’s “Harvester of Sorrow” with that of the Bee Gee’s “Islands in the Stream”–you get conflicted. But that’s temporary, and in the end, the more music someone has to study or just to play around with, the broader their horizons and the more apt they are to enjoy music in all its forms.

The first entry is “Your Lucky Face.” I wrote it using TablEdit Carbon.

I am very excited about the new band that was just added to the lineup for our March 6th show at Cal’s. The band is called Autumn Owls and they hail from Dublin, Ireland. After playing at both Cal’s and Martyr’s in Chicago they will be heading down to SXSW in Austin, TX.  Their tunes are certainly unique and I suggest giving them a listen. Now you have one more reason to come and check out the Button Pushers on March 6th at Cal’s (as if there weren’t enough already).

If you wanna READ some of our music note for note, I’m in the process of writing out the guitar tab for the album. Right now, “Your Lucky Face” and “Green Bug” are finished. It’ll be another month or so before I get a half of these songs posted. If anyone has a particular song they’d like to see posted in our sheet music/guitar tab section sooner than later, I’ll write that song up and publish it first. Otherwise, I’ll just crank ‘em out as I feel.

I realize that I’m posting this message with the likelihood that either no one responds, or someone in the band responds, probably Rob, who isn’t sure what the actual chord is in a certain part of a song and needs it written out for him. –Rob, all I ask is that you use a clever alias. None of this John Smith bullshit.

This just in… New Button Pushers video from our Martyr’s show on January 22nd. These are top notch. Enjoy!

Green Earrings > Routine

Jamaica Man

Looking forward to finally mastering this album. There’ll be unforeseen tweaks to be made, of course, but I’ve narrowed much of the to-do list for this thing down to finishing the song “Healing Hands.” I think I’ve agonized over this tune more than any other. I wrote parts of it over the course of about four years, until I finally settled on a version with the help of my friend, Mark Spiro, who added some lyrics and all of the music for the verses. Brilliant decisions on those chord changes, Mark! If you dig some music theory, those changes in the verse are sure to impress. At least, I think they’re really clever. I wanted to include Spiro in this song’s creation because he had recently recovered Hodgkin’s Disease (sp?), (and aside form being a prolific and spectacular songwriter himself), therefore, getting his perspective on my half-finished song was a great opportunity and a no-brainer.

I got the idea from a furniture commercial in Eugene, OR, which had this nice build up (similar chords to the pre-chorus of Healing Hands) but didn’t deliver the next chord and subsequent melody I was hearing in my head. I think I was studying Tchaikowsky’s Romeo and Juliet at the time. Not kidding. So, instead of the chords G – A – G – A  into D Major (like the furniture commercial), I wrote Healing Hands G – A – G – A into B Major Suspended 4th. It was a less-obvious choice and it sounds bigger. I thought the listener would be pleasantly surprised.

We recorded it a few years ago at Spiro’s studio in Carlsbad, CA, but I never felt like the music was filled out properly. We probably could’ve used some live drums back then. This newer version, for the album Automaticity, utilizes more modern sounds and I’m pretty happy with the instrumentation, but I’m totally hung up on the vocal takes. It’s the only tune that really comes off as a ballad, but the sound profile we used for it was meant to match that of the other songs.

As soon as “Healing Hands” is sorted out, we’ll get this thing mastered, printed and available on our website.

There is nothing I like more then when two of my favorite things – in this case economics and music – are combined with killer results. Thanks to the guys at EconStories.tv we now have a Keynes-Hayek rap battle with great production values. The rap is fun and you’ll learn a lot about both the Keynesian and Hayekian economic philosophies. I already snagged the AAC file off the EconStories site for my iPhone. Awesome. The video is below. Enjoy! (Yes, I am a nerd.)

Holy Shit! I typically don’t frequent the Cubby Bear (mostly because I don’t enjoy the smell of warm diarrhea while I’m trying to enjoy a beer), but in this case I’ll make an exception. George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic will be playing there on Feb 12. Tickets are $25.

This might be your last chance to see a living legend. The man is almost 70, and like a good cheese he’s getting funkier with age. Plus you’ll get to hang out with the Button Pushers as long as you buy us a shot.

See you there!

I would just like to say that rumors of a fight at Martyr’s on Friday have been greatly exaggerated. Created and exaggerated by us nonetheless but still… After fielding a phone call from my worried Mom I figured we should end the joke. That is all.

Sometimes I look back and wonder just how things spiraled so far out of control. I never should have thrown that fire extinguisher. I mean, we needed it to put out the fire that started on the sound board. I just wasn’t thinking… Good thing one of our fans came prepared. They brought along their fearlessness and simply smothered the flame with their body.

Back to the fight…

The thing with Robert is sometimes he just says things that drive you crazy. Normally I don’t let it get to me but my nerves were on edge given the big performance… and the six Red Bulls I drank prior to hitting the stage. I mean really, Red Bull should come with a rage warning. I am pretty sure that one can accelerates your heartbeat by at least 17.2% and makes you 37.6% more susceptible to uncontrollable rage triggered primarily by things Robert says. I have a study in progress that should confirm these numbers.

In the end “the incident” really brought the band together and we’re more determined than ever to make our mark in music.  We’ll make sure to confine the crazy antics (read fights) to dressing rooms, hotel rooms and the occasional 7-11. Unless of course on stage blowouts are what you, the fans, want and then, well, we’ll become a blend of rock music and WWE mayhem. Maybe that innovation will help revive the music business.

Wow, I can’t believe what happened at our show the other night. Eric is the last person in the band I thought would get in a fight. But let’s face it, no one, in good conscience, should let a racial slur like that get by without saying or doing something about it. I mean, I thought it would’ve ended after the fire extinguisher flew through the window, or when the sound board caught on fire, or… well, you know the rest. We all hope Rob recovers quickly from his broken nose.

Is this the Button Pushers’ blog section? Feels like it. The Victorian colors and design give it away immediately, not unlike the funky facade on the apartment building where Jeff and Rob live (my old building, my old apartment). Much unlike the basement of Jewel Osco on Ashland Ave. next to Office Depot. What? Never been? It’s tres chic, man. Very hip, very modern. Rumor is, it inspired the concept of Laser Tag for two weeks in the mid-1980s. But not the Button Pushers blog section, not Jeff and Rob’s apartment. We simply hope to inspire love-making in the most austere of ways–ways that would have made Queen Victoria herself proud to almost not be a part of. Old-fashioned mores long gone that we hope to to breathe new life into with newer, fresher oxygen from other modern basements. Such is the eclecticism of the Button Pushers’ musical pursuits. Don’t you think? I feel like I’m taking the words right out of your mouth.

After much talk in 2009 we, the Button Pushers, have finally decided to get a website together. This site is the culmination of that decision. We have big plans for our little section of the web so stay tuned as we build out features like an email list, fan-o-the-week section, “columns” from each band member, the occasional video and audio podcasts and much more. Oh, and you might want to break away from staying tuned to the site just long enough to come see us play live in Chicago.  Next show: Friday, January 22nd at Martyr’s.