Fredericksburg/Columbia/CD's

That’s Fredericksburg; not Fredricksburg (stupid Garmin)!!!

Thank you Fredericksburg, FAA, and Adam Bray! We had a great time as always in the fine city of Fredericksburg. Maybe it’s b/c our ancestors still haunt those grounds, guns in hand, maybe it’s the great positive energy that all of those kids have, or maybe it’s just one of those special places. Either way, we really appreciate you guys! We also would like to thank the bands that we played with; Sean Walsh & the Tereu Tereu Bandits, The Red Light Effect, and Alpha Jerk. I know we were a bit loud, judging by the fingers in the ears, we’ll bring earplugs next time. Anyway, ya’ll keep rocking, and we’ll see you sooner than later I’m sure.

Thank you Columbia, SC and Mother Nature for the great St. Patty’s Day show! The day after the horrible tornado in ATL, we played in Columbia, SC for their annual St. Patty’s Day festival. No thanks to the sorry ass bastards on the police force, minus a couple of you, for making getting to the stage difficult. Sometimes people are required to make decisions, and I don’t think Columbia’s police force is very capable. Concrete blocks are cheaper, and don’t talk back, for future reference. Anyway, it was great to see all of our friends, and it was great to see the Avett Brothers. We all went to UNCC together, live right down the road from one another, and we really are proud of all of their success. I must say, they are stand up guys too! Good things happen to good people, and they are a testament to that mantra. The weather did not hold out long enough for them to rock the crowd, and I know to some disappointment, but I do not fault anyone with the festival. Considering the tornado the day before, and the warning in the area, I think it was best to try and get some 30,000 people out of harms way. I just hate it had to happen.

CD Reviews:

I was so excited about The Teenagers CD finally coming out. The song “Scarlett Johansson” was the shit, and the B Side was good too! The full length though…um, kinda blows. How can so many people get so worked up over a band that only have a couple of songs? I was guilty too, so, kudos to them for pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. Another suspect: the Black Kids. They release 5-6 songs, free download on their myspace page, and the songs were good, but where is the rest? Still, all of this buzz and no product. It is the new trend it seems, get a couple of good songs, no more than 6 by any means, release them for free, build the buzz, then let everyone down. Gee fucking thanks! Hell, and when they do release a CD you get those same songs, plus a couple of other shitty ones, and have 11 tops. What happened to putting more than 11 songs on a CD? Can’t write? Cat’s got your tongue? Don’t care about your fans? Or let me guess, it’s a “concept album.” Here’s a concept, the Sammies will have 13 songs, again, on their CD; the concept, rock and fucking roll man!

Small revision: 11 songs is OK, if they all are good. Like the Shins first albums; short yes, but complete. It just kinda sucks bands are led to believe doing more than 11 is suicide. Eleven has a nice ring, I must admit, better than 13, but it's about the music.

Getting Down with The Spinto Band

Like I said at the beginning of the year, the Sammies will, and have been, taking it easy, as far as playing shows goes. We played so much last year it cut into recording, and hence, delayed us getting a new album of tunes out. Every time we hit the studio we would have to leave to play shows. And if you know anything about us, or have ever been to a show, you should know we do not cancel gigs, no matter what!

That leads me to our Asheville show on 2/26/08. Freedom had just had surgery that required a small incision a couple of days before the show. As much as it hurt him to move around and play, we did. Why, b/c we DO NOT CANCEL SHOWS (up and coming bands should follow that same mantra). Plus, we were playing with The Whigs and Spinto Band. Just read below and you will find plenty on the Whigs, they are our best friends. New best friends, Spinto Band! Very nice guys and they have some great songs. Start with "Oh Mandy" but then you will soon find others you may like more. The show was awesome, and we appreciate our fans that came out on a Tuesday night! Sammies fans came in force! Spinto rocked and of course so did the Whigs. We hope to make it back to Asheville and the Grey Eagle before long.



After the show, we caravanned down the mountain, with Spinto Band and our old friend Katie (we met Katie on tour w/ Birdmonster, photog, super nice, and Katie, you always have friends in Charlotte, and a place to stay) in tow. We made it to Charlotte a little after two, and we all crashed at The House of the Rising Sam. Thanks to Spinto and Katie for not stealing anything and being gracious guests. The next night Spinto and The Whigs played Charlotte. Since we play Charlotte too much as is, we held off playing that night. But it was nice to be a fan and not have to play. We all just enjoyed the good music and great friends that came out. Thanks Charlotte for showing those bands we rock!

Otherwise, we just got the mastering done for the upcoming album, and have been hard at work getting all of the art together. We still have to stay tight lipped for now, but more info will become available soon. I hope everyone is as excited and will love the album as much as we loved making it!

Next show, St. Patty's party in Five Points Columbia, SC! This Saturday 03/15/08! I think our friends from down the road, the Avett's are playing as well. I have heard that this is some party, and if it's anything like football season, I will need some Alka-Seltzer!

I like...

Since this is a music blog I figured I'd talk about some other music for a hot minute. I used to stay abreast of new music much better than I do now, but I'm still no codger, my ear is to the ground.

With that being said I really have been getting down on Apes and Androids! They only have one album to my knowledge so go get it. Or fuck, even better, go get their songs "Golden Prize" and "Nights of the Week," our boys The Whigs "Right Hand on My Heart," Ghostland Observatory's "Heavy Heart," for FREE, and you've got one hell of a mix started (click link below, and thanks Stereogum)!

FREE MUSIC

Don't get:

Ween - La Cucaracha - I really like Ween, and have for some time now, since the 90's, yes that long, but this album is god awful. Magnet named it the best CD of 2007; and they also reviewed our last CD, so, go figure, ha-ha!

Relax now...

Enjoying Life!


The Sammies have had it good recently. We just got back from playing Robert Redford’s prestigious Sundance Film Festival! That was some experience. We played the Friday night before we left in ATL with The Whigs. It was great to play with them and Wax Fang again. Ben Holst sat in and played some slide and a couple other things, and we had a damn blast. Moustaches to boot! We all love the Earl in ATL too; great food and a great sounding venue, especially when it’s sold out!




Anyway, so we had to roll out before the Whigs played, but we would see them in Chapel Hill soon. Got into Charlotte again at 4:00am, we slept about an hour, then, booked it to the airport to catch our early morning flight. It took us 5+ hours to get to freaking Phoenix, so when we arrived we ran from terminal to terminal; they actually opened the door back up for us! We touch down in Salt Lake City, had about an hour ride up to Park City, checked into our sweet room, met Elizabeth, and before we knew it we were off to our first show!

We played at JB Mulligans with a band from Seattle called The Real You, nice fellows! Everyone was very nice, we did a little ditty for some Marines who had just come home from fighting for our freedom (not just Bobby, all of us!), and then we got offered to walk up the street and play a Columbia Records party at Star Bar, so we fucking did it. Just a couple songs acoustic turned into a small set of electric awesomeness and we warmed up the crowd nicely for our new friends in Royal Bliss. We had a piece of the night, and a piece of the morning and then we were back to Charlotte. We all want to go back next year, earlier in the week, and for longer. I only heard great things about the movies, and from what I saw, you will be seeing a lot of them in a theater near you real soon.


We played a weekday show in Chapel Hill with the Whigs and Bull City once we got back @ Local 506. Thanks so much to all for coming out in force on a school night! All of the bands were great and we were so privileged to play with such good bands. The Whigs are blazing one hell of a trail now, so catch them opening for the Truckers tail end of March.

Otherwise, we have been putting the final mixing touches on our next album, and head up to NYC to master at Sterling Sound with Greg Calbi March 4th. He did our last album so much justice we had to get him again! We have a benefit in Chapel Hill next Tuesday called Cancer Sucks. It’s at The Cat’s Cradle and is for a good cause so please find your way to Carrboro next Tuesday for that. The next Tuesday is in Asheville with the Whigs and Spinto Band, one more Whigs show for the hotch!

March 15th St. Patty’s in Columbia (Five Points)
Fredericksburg March 22nd (3rd Floor)

Sundance and such.

Sundance – Mission Control – Acid

I am trying to get a blog up real quick before we head out for the next several days so bear with my brevity. I’m so killer excited about the next several whirlwind days! Tomorrow we roll out to ATL to play with The Whigs. It’s their CD release show for their 2nd album called Mission Control, and let me tell you, it’s a damn BEAST! Even though we are friends I would still buy this album, hands down, no question. If you like music, you will like it. Mission Control is all meat and potatoes, no bullshit, but you don’t have to take my word for it, look online and you will not have to go far to find a track or two streaming. I’d link one now, but as I said, kind of in a rush.

So, we play in ATL, Ben Holst, who has been helping us finish our 2nd album, will be sitting in with us playing some slide and others things our hands just won’t allow. After we play we pack up, head back to Charlotte in order to catch a plane to Utah. We have been invited to play the Sundance Film Festival! Wish we could enjoy more of the festival but we’ll take what we can get; maybe next year. We fly back to CLT Sunday, throw a couple more dabs of awesomeness on the mixing process, play another show with The Whigs and Spinto Band next Wednesday in Chapel Hill, another show in Asheville in Feb., and master at Sterling Sound in NYC first of March.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the snow show in Charlotte! The weather was bad, but hell, it wasn’t that damn bad, we only wrecked twice on the way home.

the Sammies

Holiday Pomp and Circumstance

Happy Holidays!!!

Greetings and Happy Holidays from the Sammies! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and got everything you wanted/deserved. I got a bike, Don got an interface so we can record a little better, Conrad got a hunting rifle, and Freedom got a dog. We plan on putting the dog on the bike, shooting at it, and recording what it sounds like; should be pretty wicked.

Since we last spoke we played a show in Charlotte with the Black Lips. It was a good time, and awesome to play with such a good band. I recommend their live album if you want to get down on some Black Lips; it was recorded in Tijuana and really captures their signature sound. They were all real nice dudes and we wish them the best in the coming year. They did an interview with Paste Magazine before the show, so look for that in an upcoming issue. Despite all of the wild stories I heard about the Black Lips, I must say, they were nothing but pros, and are a little wiser than they let on.

In other news; Don Yale finally graduated college! Next time you see him buy him a stiff drink, slap him on the back, and burp congratulations in his face so he can smell your sincerity. He graduated from UNCC with a major in Psychology and a minor in Health Fitness, and probably a better GPA than I got out of there with.

I went to Aruba and had a damn blast. I actually won money in the casinos, playing craps. Don’t play slots unless you just want to lose money and are OK with that. If you’re just trying to get drinks, play the penny or nickel slots, bet one line at a time, lose, and keep the waiter/waitress busy. Tip well in the beginning so they come back, then you can relax the tips as the night wears on. Craps advice; make simple bets to begin with, but make sure you stand beside someone who knows what they are doing, then take a page or two out of their book. Bet until you get a good roller, then once you have had a good run, fucking leave! If you are looking for a good vacation Aruba was very nice, better than Jamaica and the Bahamas I think. We stayed at the Renaissance Marina Hotel and would highly recommend that to anyone looking to stay on the island. The hotel owns its own private island and a boat drives into the hotel to pick up passengers every 15 minutes to take them there. Plus, staying in the city you have easy access to all things, unlike staying down the beach where it’s just you and a hotel.

Conrad went home to West Virginia for Christmas, and yes we have already heard all of the jokes, but feel free to comment with a joke if you have some new ones. Otherwise, he has just been shopping, which is what happens if you put off getting Christmas presents till the last minute.

Freedom of course went home to his house in Raleigh for the holidays, a nice break for him since he has been immersed in work for the past little while. If he wasn’t working on the Sammies light display he has been embedding systems for a company here in Charlotte. Got to make that money while you can, especially since we are taking it easy till we get the CD mixed/mastered/etc, he always was the smart Sammie.

Besides that, we have been pretty boring, just doing the holiday’s thing. We mix the CD in Athens first part of January so that’s where we are on that. Also, just added some January shows, the 19th in Charlotte @ The Visulite with Tereu Tereu, the 25th in Atlanta @ The Earl with The Whigs (CD release) and Wax Fang, and the 30th in Chapel Hill with The Whigs and Bull City, hope to see everyone out at one of those shows as they will be a little less frequent for a while.

As always, we love to hear from you, holler anytime!

Second album!!!

So far, untitled:

Hot damn, I think we are about done with the actual recording part of the second album, finally! I sang my ass off this past weekend and the others added some nice weird noises to put the cherry on top. This is another warning: THIS ALBUM WILL BE DIFFERENT FROM THE FIRST. Although it still has the same, unique Sammies element there are some differences for sure. First of all, along with our friends Ben Holst (see credits on first album) and Billy Bennett (also, see credits from first album), we were solely responsible for the production and sounds on this album. Hence the reason it took more than a week to record this time. We know what we like, but our lack of proper technical training can cause some delays in trying to obtain these sounds. It’s more of a trial by fire, which is great because we did some unconventional things that will differentiate us from the masses, but it does take more time. Imagine spending 4-6 hours building a house (it’s an analogy bear with me), the outside looks great, but the floor is caving in inside, so you tear it all down and start again; a bummer yes, but for the better in the end, because the house is a lot more sturdy. That’s what we have been doing in a nut shell. Hard to explain, that’s why we have pictures and videos I hope to post soon.

More to come shortly! Thanks to all our fans that have patiently waited. It has been two years since our first release, and we do have a video that might better explain what took so long. Posting it soon!

In other news, we have just been added to our best friends, The Whigs, CD release show in Atlanta on Jan. 25th! We are playing at the Earl along with Wax Fang, another great band that will rock your face off. It is a reunion of sort’s b/c we all played at Local 506 in Chapel Hill about half a year ago. Maybe we can finally see that awesome aquarium in Atlanta too!