Author: Centro-matic

Centro-matic dispatch August 2008

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It’s been a while, and that’s because I’ve been roughed up this summer by the heat, the inescapable white pants-ed and moppy presence of the Jonas Brothers, general ceremonies (opening and closing), and by being able to watch both live and archived baseball games on mlb.tv. It’s like they knew exactly what kinda Kryptonite would take me down, and good homeslices, it has. Anyway, it’s time to get outta the house. We’re bringing both Centro-matic and South San Gabriel to the western realm here starting in just a few days, and we wanted to give a heads up on that:

Aug 31: Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
Sept 2: Los Angeles, CA – Spaceland
Sept 3: San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop
Sept 5: Seattle, WA – High Dive
Sept 6: Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
Sept 8: Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
Sept 9: Denver, CO – Hi-Dive
Sept 10: Omaha, NE – Slowdown JR
Sept 11: Iowa City, IA – The Picador
Sept 12: Madison, WI – Orpheum Side Door
Sept 13: Saint Louis, MO – Billiken Club

We are planning a midwestern and eastern US tour with both bands in November. Those dates will be announced very soon.

Also, I will be playing guitar with my friends, The New Year on their Fall US dates, starting in Dallas on September 18.

Sept 18: Granada Theatre – Dallas, TX
Sept 19: Rudyards – Houston, TX
Sept 20: Emo’s Alternative Lounge – Austin, TX
Sept 22: Launchpad – Albuquerque, NM
Sept 23: Modified – Phoenix, AZ
Sept 24: The Echo – Los Angeles, CA
Sept 25: Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, CA
Sept 26: Doug Fir Lounge – Portland, OR
Sept 27: Sunset Tavern – Seattle, WA
Sept 29: Larimer Lounge – Denver, CO
Oct 9: Johnny Brenda’s – Philadelphia, PA
Oct 10: Music Hall of Williamsburg – Brooklyn, NY
Oct 11: The Middle East – Boston, MA
Oct 12: The Livingroom – Providence, RI
Oct 13: Club Metronome – Burlington, VT
Oct 14: Le Divan Orange – Montreal, QC
Oct 15: Lee’s Palace – Toronto, ON
Oct 16: The Pike Room – Pontiac, MI
Oct 17: Empty Bottle – Chicago, IL
Oct 18: Maintenance Shop – Ames, IA
Oct 19: High Dive – Champaign, IL
Oct 20: Grog Shop – Cleveland, OH
Oct 21: DC9 – Washington, DC

Lastly I want to salute and congratulate our friends at Downstate Productions and all that were involved with the movie, Salt Creek County. The film won awards for Best Picture and Best Ensemble Cast at last week’s River’s Edge Film Festival in Kentucky. They are golden spartans of true inspiration and I am happy to know them.

Thank you, friends. See you at the rock show. – Will J

Centro-matic to play HOCO FEST in Tucson!

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We are please to announce that Centro-matic has added a show in Tucson to the west coast tour. The show is part of the HOCO FEST! Tucson’s Green Music Festival.

Forget about wasting all that gas money going to Rocky Point this Labor Day Weekend. The 4th Annual HoCo Festival is bigger, better, greener and cheaper than ever before. Check this out: we’ve scheduled over 40 great regional and national acts for our three stages, the festival is two days and three nights, there’s two delicious gourmet BBQs and one humongous record fair. Even cooler is that we will be doing it with some of Tucson’s best eco-friendly organizations as we use solar power for the stages, biodegradable plateware and well, so much more!!!

If you’ve been to our Labor Day party in the past you know how much fun it is. This year will be better! Hotel rooms will go fast, so if you want to join the fun and stay over, get your reservations now!

BAND LIST!
Meat Puppets, Dusty Roads, POWER SOLO(denmark,) Devil Makes 3,Gentlemen After Dark howe Gelb, Mother truckers (Austin, TX), Centro-matic (Denton Tx), Dusky buskers, Fell City, Shouts, Lemondrop Gang, Blackwood and Co Fuzz All Stars, Al Perry Surf Show, Wolfman And the Nards, Shrimp Chaparone, Big Galoot, Al Perry, Ned Sutton And The Rabbits… and many more!!!

Dual Hawks Special Edition

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Over the last twelve years, our band has been mighty lucky to chug along in as natural way as we could have hoped. We’re not particularly well known on a lot of levels, but we also haven’t experienced the slippery slope resulting from premature or undeserving gains. No one ever gave us nice hotel rooms before we felt like we deserved them, and the red wine and baby carrots and various backstage luxuries didn’t exactly show up too soon. actually, they still don’t show up most times. But I guess we’ve managed to do this thing in workman-like fashion. We march and roll and fly and sail on in our own sovereign, hands-on kind of way, and continue to have a real good time doing it, growing and learning as any family might together.

Our fans have taken good care of us over all those years and we’ve made a phenomenal amount of friends over many, many miles. Somehow things just get a little better with every passing year, too. It feels good to be able to say that. I guess perseverance, continued inspiration and love for one another can lead to that.

We’re about to release our 13th and 14th records next. Both of our bands, Centro-matic and South San Gabriel are included. The collection is called Dual Hawks. The idea of making it a double split release stemmed from the want to do something unusual but fan-friendly. In addition to that, we are assembling a limited special edition release, complete with a beautiful 30-page book full to the neck with the fruit of Matt Pence’s, Julie Miller’s and Mark Ray’s awe-inspiring talents. Matt’s phenomenal photography continues to exist as the perfect, rightful document of our bands’ life. His body of work holds the most fitting timeline of images I could ever hope to have represent this chapter of our lives together. Julie is a new friend of ours, a kind and devoted fan for some time now. After finally seeing some of her stunning work last year, we instantly knew that we wanted her involved with this release. She’s been very generous to contribute this endeavor. With the mix of Matt and Julie’s efforts, combined with our friend, Mark Ray’s always fitting and beautiful design and art direction, we felt like we had the right mix for this special edition release.

And so here we are. It’s an involved batch of music. There’s a good bit to sift through, and it’s against the grain at points. It begs a chunk of patience and time from its listener. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s the point of independent art. It’s not always convenient. It’s not always tidy and easy to categorize. That’s the kind of liberty we get to enjoy as a creative group of people fully in control of our own destiny. This is our ship. Why not paint it and sail it the way we want? Most importantly we feel like it’s the kind of release that’s specially designed for our friends and fans that have soldiered on with us over the years. so, to the mechanics of our spiritual engine, the painters and foundation supporters of our cottage industry, the sober drivers of our emotional fuel truck, and the night owls and guards of our sentimental forest, maybe see ya’ down the road!

— Will Johnson

















Dual Hawks

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Centro-matic / Dual Hawks
Rat Patrol and DJs
Two Seats Gold Reserved
Quality Strange
Remind Us Alive
Every Single Switch
I, The Kite
Strychnine, Breathless Ways
All Your Farewells
Counting The Scars
Twenty-Four
A Critical Display of Snakes

South San Gabriel / Dual Hawks
Emma Jane
Kept On The Sly
When The Angels Will Put Out Their Lights
Of Evil/For Evil
My Goodbyes
Senselessly
Corner Cross
Trust To Lose
The Arc And The Cusp
Alabama Crusade
Jornada Del Muerto #20
From This I Will Awake

Lyrics and Liner Notes
Listen to Centro-matic
Listen to South San Gabriel

Will Johnson art auction to benefit Drew Glackin Memorial Fund

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UPDATE:
Thanks to the kind generosity of a fan and friend in Buffalo. We were able to donate $1000 to Drew’s Memorial Fund. THANK YOU!!!

On January 5th, we lost a very good friend in Drew Glackin. Drew passed away due to an overactive thyroid condition that lead to severe heart damage. Like so many musicians, he had no health insurance, and funeral costs still have yet to be covered.

There are several shows taking place between New York and Texas to help cover expenses, and we here in Centro-matic-land are hoping to do our part. We will be holding an auction of a ten painting set done by Will Johnson with all money going to Drew’s family.

The set is titled “Canned/Shitcanned – American Beers From Past and Present”

These paintings are acrylic on five-ply wood flooring scraps fresh out of Will’s garage, measuring anywhere from 3-1/4″ to 4″ in width and 7-1/2″ to 9-1/2″ in length. They come complete with hooks for hanging, and each beer’s name and city of origin noted on the back of the paintings. All are signed and dated by Will in finest, high grade, black Sharpie.

Please check out the auction at Ebay here.

More information upcoming benefit shows and how to donate directly at www.thesilos.net.