I just wanted to take a moment to extend a big round of thanks to all of those who came out and supported us on our final shows last weekend. We had a spectacular time getting to play for our friends, getting to play with great lineups of bands, and getting to work with some spectacular individuals. Big ups to those who booked us, and biggest ups to Jacob at Keep It Together for releasing our final tracks on cassette tape, and to Conrad at Froggi Records, who will be undertaking similar efforts on the European continent.
For those of you who haven’t been able to get your hands on a copy of the tape, it is up for streaming at the Keep It Together Bandcamp site. I will pop back on here in the near future to post details on how you can order a physical copy as well.
As for what we are up to from here, in case any of you are wondering… Cass will still be playing for Glad Hearts, who is wrapping up the recording for their second full length record, Anthony may or may not still be flying back east on occasion to play drums for Sweet Meat, Greg will be inducing sonic stress for A Fucking Elephant, while I plan on cultivating some fun and music in a band called Real Good, although we have so far played a few shows under the name Beta Male John Wayne. Keep your eyes peeled for these projects as we are not totally going away!
Thanks again for listening, watching, reading, observing, discussing, and giving,
John / Rapid Cities
Hello and Happy New Year to all. The lineups of bands for the final shows have been finalized, and all the details we currently have are available. The mastered audio files for “Peripheries” are in and everything is still in line to have the tapes ready for these shows.
In preparation for the shows, we have been rehearsing with Anthony Battiato, our original drummer who played with us until August of 2009, and who will be flying in from California to play a few songs with us at these shows.
Be sure to mark your calendars for these celebratory events, as we probably will not perform again after them! Your attendance is crucial; your decision to do so, impeccable. Regardless what you choose, make 2011 a good one.
Hello dwellers of this corner of the internet, designated for all matters Rapid Cities. This may be the first of a final series of messages you will be reading and/or receiving from us. It is with regret that I bring you the following message.
Things have been sliding in an inevitable direction for Rapid Cities for sometime now, and now that the summer’s big tours are long since over, we’ve all gotten settled into our own lifestyles, careers, projects, etc. and for these, among several other reasons, have decided that it would be best to call it quits as a band.
To those who have supported us along the way, please know that your assistance has been appreciated in ways that have been encouraging for both this band and for what we’re doing in general with music and art. We thank you for this and figure it would be best to get together and give one last series of performances for those who would like the opportunity to join us, as we seek to bring about some closure for ourselves and make a super fun time out of it.
The final shows will be taking place on February 24, 25, and 26 in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and New Jersey respectively, so be sure to mark your calendars! We will also be putting out a cassette tape on Keep It Together Records that includes our out-of-print material from the 2006 demo, as well as a handful of unreleased tracks that we recorded last winter. Basically everything before and after the “Machinery Saints” full length and the split 7″ we did this summer will be on this release, which will be titled “Peripheries”, and will be available at these final shows. Keep your eyes peeled over the next weeks for details as they develop – we would be glad to see you at these shows!
It’s been a long and winding road for us, with many hard fought battles. We have played for over 4 years, been through 4 vans, played close to 200 shows in 18 states and 4 countries, been to the studio to put out a handful of records, and would not have done anything short of it. It has been an experience which we will be taking with us wherever we go, and will be grateful for having been a part of this.
Now that we’ve returned to our home continent and returned to our wits, I have been able to sort through and post some photos of our fantastic journey through the Old World with our German counterparts, mOck. They’ve been posted to our Flickr here. As you will notice, many of them have been captured by the discerning eye of Felix Zimmermann, who plays the six string for mOck.
So now that we’ve distributed our souvenirs and stuffed our memories onto backup USB drives, we might as well step forward right? While we relax and catch up with our friends and families, we are awaiting the release of the “Friends With Benefits” compilation CD which will be out this November on Love/Hate Records. The compilation will feature a new, unreleased track from us called “It’s Not Easy Being Green”, and we will probably make an appearance at a record release show with many of our New Jersey friends late in November.
Other small releases are in the works as well, so stay tuned…
John / Rapid Cities
P.S. If we haven’t expressed our thanks to all of those who have showed us some serious hospitality this September in Germany and elsewhere, allow me to say it again – thank you!! It was a real pleasure and privilege.
After two weeks on the road around the northeast and great lakes regions of the U.S. with our new compadres, mOck, we have all returned home to take a two week breath and prepare for our big trek overseas. We have managed to survive all the winding curves of the first leg of our journey, which have brought us both wonder and joy as well as unfortunate encounters with psychodads and inexplicably stripped tires. That being said, we can’t wait to do it all over again in a new and foreign place!
We owe many thanks to all of those who booked us, offered us hospitality, or who were a part of this first half of the tour in any way. You know who you are! Photos and other media objects by which we have documented this quest shall be posted in days to come.
Okay, now go check our schedule to see where we’ll be in Europe. Also, order a copy of the split 7 inch here. I just bought my compressible pillow and am ready to get on that plane!
We are finally happy to announce that our split 7″ record with mOck is now available for pre-order in the U.S. through Love/Hate Records. All of those who get in on the early action will be rewarded with free shipping and a tour poster for our upcoming two-legged jaunt with mOck. Copies will be available later in Europe through Asymmetrie.
This will be available on sweet slabs of blue, transparent vinyl and – if all goes well – we should have them ready for you to pick up as early as our late July shows preceding the tour.
Oh! The only thing that could debatably be more exciting than this release is our upcoming tour with mOck to promote this release. Most of the U.S. dates and some of the Europe dates have already been posted. Check them out here or on our myspace.
We just posted one of our new tracks which will be released on the intercontinental split 7″ with mOck this summer on our myspace, so please head over and check it out to get pumped for what’s to come. (Tour dates for the U.S. and Europe, as well as info on how to order the 7″ will be posted soon!)
We’re also proud to announce that another new track will be available on the upcoming Love/Hate Records’ “Friends With Benefits” compilation, which should be released toward the tail end of the summer. On behalf of the label, we hope that you wouldn’t mind checking out the mission statement and consider kicking in for the online fundraiser here. If you “back” the project, you get some free stuff thrown in from us too. Oh – and you only have 7 days left!
Also, look forward to a handful of shows coming up in the area in July, including a trip out to Ohio for A.R.M. Fest and a couple nights with White Problems from Milwaukee.
Thanks to Chris Koestner of Rescue Rocks, and our Long Island buds for making this past Sunday on the Island a charm for us.
Two shows coming up in our home state of New Jersey to kick off next week on Sunday and Monday with Richmond’s Mouthbreather. They are worth checking out, so get out to these shows, at least to catch them! Lots of other good bands too, may I add. Get in touch with us if you need information on either show.
We’ve got three great shows coming up in the NJ/NYC area over the course of this week. Starting with a show with Grownups and 1994! at the Bushwick Music Studios in Brooklyn tomorrow night. Followed by a basement show in New Brunswick on Thursday, and a house party at our place down near Trenton Saturday night. Check the Shows page for details on how, where, and when to come party with us this week.
We are also very proud to announce that plans are finally starting to come together with some upcoming releases we are working on. A split 7″ with our friends from Berlin, mOck (to be released on Love/Hate Records in the U.S., and also on another label to be announced in Europe) is in the works. As is a split 7″ with our former bassist Brian’s new band in Milwaukee, White Problems (to be released on Providence based Tor Johnson Records).
Elated would be a good way to describe how we feel about these releases, as well as the plans we are putting together to tour with mOck for four weeks this summer, looking at August and September. More details and dates on that to come.
In the meantime, feel free to feast your eyes on a little collaborative video experiment we pulled off with Pollifax, a New Brunswick-based online zine of sorts. Videos of us performing a couple tracks (acoustic!) have been posted as part of their Wanderer Sessions series, which places local and touring bands in rather unconventional “venues” or spaces to play throughout town, in a city which – for the most part – lacks the presence of any real music venue. In one of these videos, you will find, perhaps most fitting for us, that we get a chance to perform on public transit.
Jeff Ramirez from Sleep Bellum Sonno assembled this pretty animation video that will tell you a thing or two about our upcoming tour that begins at the end of this week. For the rest of the information, just click above this for “Shows”.
