A Model Called Fire - The Long Hard Road to the Ultra Lounge With Ours

Back in July Model Stranger were booked to play the Ultra Lounge with Ours. The show was cancelled do to some roofing that had caused concern for the promoters. To make it a total bumfest I'd also left a family vacation and drove 3 hours to get back for the performance. Wasn't a pleasant Friday night. Needless to say we were pretty bummed this happened as we had been looking forward to this show. 

Kevin and I have been fans of Ours since we were young teens. We first met Jimmy at a show when we were teenagers living in California and for years have been telling fellow music fans, peers and friends to take a good hard listen. Over the years they have and our fans were excited about this show as a lot of them are also now Ours fans too. It's safe to say we are Ours enthusiasts.

When we received the reschedule date we, as luck would have it we hit a snag. As it turns out Vincent was going to be on a vacation. Vincent was ready to make the trip back for that show but this was a trip that would require nearly 8 hours of travel just to get to a plane - all on his own dime. Sadly he had to bow out on the show and with a very surrendering sigh suggested we find someone to fill in.

Usually we wouldn't do such a thing like perform without Vincent but we were looking forward to this, so we, with a LOT of help from our friends, made it happen.

It was at this time, only 7 days out from the show that Johnathon Schiller, the drummer from A Friend Called Fire, friends of Model Stranger from Chicago, offered his services. At first I was nervous - we'd been looking forward to this show and I didn't want to misrepresent Model Stranger - we'd never even played a note of a Model Stranger tune with Jonathon.

However our only other option was using Kevin and getting our friend from Bullet Called Life to sit in on Bass. Kevin had just seen Jonathon perform and assured me he was the better guy for the job. After we decided on Jonathon we also thought it'd be wise to bring our old friend Thomas Miller, also from Bullet Called Life in for the performance. The line up jokingly was referred to in Chicago as "A Model Called Fire"

We had the opportunity to do three solid rehearsals the week of the show with Jonathon and Tom - just enough to get a few songs that we hadn't performed live yet in Chicago.

Thankfully all of the hard work was worth it. The show went better than we could have hoped. We performed well and the crowd enjoyed it. - "A Model Called Fire" didn't botch it! We had a great time sweating our asses off on a hot Summer August night in Chicago at the Ultra Lounge. If only the photographer had grabbed a picture of Tommy!

Jonathon Schiller

The night was capped off by a killer set by Ours. Ironically we would have been at this show anyways but being able to perform too.. just simply awesome.

 It was a long hard road to make the performance work and we are forever indebted to Thomas Milller and Jonathon Schiller for their time and dedication to help us stay on the bill.

Jimmy Gnecco of Ours

Interested in reading more about the show and some one else's thoughts on the actual show? Check out a review by Popstache here.

Barfly - Nuvo - Comics from a Strangeland

Once again, stopped work in the studio and took a short trip out to Indiana for a couple shows this past weekend that involved the legendary and new favorite Indianapolis club Melody Inn. The crowd was one of the best we've seen so far in Indy and we fell in love with the venue.

You can view pics from the show here.

We also had the treat of playing Crash McClains in Crawfordsville which gave us an opportunity to catch up with our friends in Polar Island, whom attended the show, always a treat to see them.

We found this here comic printed in the local newspaper and online. Kind of a nice treat to have our press pics and show pics immortalized. Rock.

Thanks to Wayne Bertsch at Nuvo for this comic and show mention. Going to do you proud sir! We will be heading back to Indianapolis on Sept. 22nd to perform at this years ORANJE festival. More on that later!!!

Appropriately Titled: Craft Beer

     For those who haven’t met me before I must confess something to you... I have an affinity for beer. Not in an alcoholic drink a case of Bud Light a day kind of way but rather enjoy a couple unique beers on a suave sailboat (okay, so maybe I don’t own a sailboat!). Craft beer has been on a steady rise for several years now. Who ever imagined that they’d wait in line for an hour just to try and get a limited release beer not to mention only ONE bottle?! Liquor stores that carry these types of beer are becoming the Toys R Us for adults with Great America caliber lines.

     So why do you care about my ramblings on craft beer? Well, maybe you don’t and I won’t force you to read any further. If you do you may find a common interest with my hobby. I collect and brew beer. Not necessarily the most “logical” hobby but nonetheless a wonderful one. I started brewing a few years ago and my first beer was a Holiday Ale, appropriately named, “The Grinch’s Christmas Ale” (This sums up my liking for Christmas). Some of my close friends received a bottle along with some homemade wine as their holiday gift. Since then I’ve gone on to brew several different kinds of beers: Oktoberfest, IPA and a Heavy Hopped Wheat to name a few with my latest being a Hefeweizen for the hot summer ahead. If you’re interested in following my brewing adventures feel free to find me on Instagram (kev_james) or Facebook.

     



Tagging Beers before they make their way into my storing cellar



The other half of my beer hobby is collecting. I’ve been asked many times why because people think beer is made to be consumed upon purchasing. This is not necessarily true. Some beers can age for quite some time. I have a few that I plan on aging for 10 years. Yes, you read that correctly. Lately I’ve found myself purchasing more beer to age than I have to drink immediately. While this is not a lucrative investment it is a delicious one that I intend to continue! Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to be invited over to my humble abode for some tastings.



     As I’m sitting pondering the thought of what color I want to paint my bedroom I receive an email titled, “Model Stranger – Craft Beer Festival.” Clearly this captured my attention. Upon reading it we received an offer to play this year’s Craft Beer Street Festival in Chicago. My immediate response was, “Hell yes!” Then I realized I have two other band members that may want to be informed first. Needless to say we took the show and are excited to be performing this coming Saturday, June 30th at 3:45 sharp followed by Empires, Civil Twilight and Shiny Toy Guns. If you dig craft beer you should really look at the lineup of Breweries and plan on attending this festival. And while you’re at it make sure to wander over to the music stage and catch us sweating profusely while pouring out our hearts and souls. Then come up, say hello and let’s drinks some delectable beers together. See you Saturday.

Recent Beers I Suggest:

Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale
Bell's Hopslam
Three Floyds Zombie Dust
Lagunitas Imperial Red
Central Waters Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout

-Kevin James

Recording of the Last Time

Last week we released a new track called "The Last Time". Having quite the number of new tracks to work from we decided to lead out with something from the "stranger" side.

This song was recorded over two days and is the first track where we were able to use some of the sound design we came across from experimenting with synthesizers in the studio. Since we had the opportunity of working it out live and rehearsed it well the recording went smooth. This was the first time I performed a song in the studio with "keys" as the main track.

As we are partial to mixing analog, when we were finished recording we packed up our gear and headed over to FAT Recording to work on the mix through a console.  On night one the tape machine was out of sync and was giving us a warble. We ended up bouncing it down in Pro Tools and it sounded really great until I realized the next day that we I forgot to unmute the percussion...

Vincent and I. Working it.



Night two went even better and the tape machine magically started working just fine. This time I made the mistake of leaving this really questionable effect on my vocal and when we ran the second mix I never bypassed it. I was so focused on the percussion that I forgot about the rest of the song. Needless to say the lack of sleep and the stress to the get the track done was getting the best of me.

Finally on night three I was able to get a final mix completed and over the weekend we sent the song out for mastering.

Although it we caught some snags I had a really great time working on this one.

The song was mastered by Jay Franco of Sterling Sound in New York and the artwork on this release we teamed up with local Tatoo designer and owner of the Burnt Tiger, DJ Auld. We hope you enjoy!

"The Last Time" (<--- Free Download)

Thanks for Reading!

Stephen Francis