Heavy Dude

Followers of Unreal City who don't know me personally (ha!) might be surprised to know that I cut my musical teeth, for the most part, on hardcore.  Of the seven-or-so bands of my past, five were all screamy and shit.  Such was the stuff of my youth, and try as I might I just can't seem to outgrow it.  So, these past couple months I've found myself in two new bands that just couldn't be farther from the weepy, crybaby bullshit I was doing last year.  The one, Methren, is me on guitar and Diana Sperstad on drums.  This recording was done in my basement and it shows.  Enjoy.  The other, Leather Sky, finds me chomping away at the guitar behind my old chum Mike Reisinger.  Also recorded in my basement and it shows.  Way back in the long forgotten days of the mid-00's, Mike and I played in a band called Motheater, which managed to tour both coasts and a good grip of cities in between before it disintegrated.

Well, the more things change, the more nothing's changed.  Leather Sky will be playing a handful of shows on our way to SxSW next weekend, where, I'm thrilled to say, we'll be part of an incredible lineup at the Aquarius Records/Sleeping Giant Glossolalia showcase.  Mike is, by the way, bossman of Sleeping Giant Glossolalia.  How he got Aquarius to consort with his likes is beyond me, but I'll take it.  Later this month, we'll have a quick run up the west coast.  Phew.

A Transformations video!

A borrowed camera, five-hundred miles of driving, and a week of cursing and spitting at every free file converter program and video editor available on the internet and it's done!  No sweat.  Dig it full screen for maximum bum-out. 

Pump up the volume

I finally figured out how to increase the volume level of the songs on "Curse All Summers" without making my speakers buzz in a distasteful, un-artsy kind of way.  Behold: the sort of louder version of my album!

Please note that the transitions between songs sound a lot cooler on the tape, for which it was sequenced.  I don't know and am admittedly too indifferent, busy or lazy to figure how to make it sound good for Bandcamp.

If you downloaded the album and feel burned that you got the unimproved, barely audible version, email me for a fresh code.

p.s.  I found a live praying mantis in the parking lot of  Target the other day.  Totally blew my mind.  Just the second one I've ever seen in Denver, though there used to be a lot in Grand Junction.  Been seeing less and less of them as time goes one.  Makes me worried.  Anyway, I carried it over to a green spot to save it from being squashed by careless shoppers.
p.p.s. Would somebody review this fucking thing?

Excuses, excuses...

So, instead of putting out any more shit this summer, I hopped on a weirdly cheap flight to Central America and had myself a vacation from my three months off of work.  Sorry.  Maybe if America was cooler I wouldn't have to freak out and leave so often.

Anyway, although not much is happening Unreal City-wise, Dan Bouse has been keeping busy, making some by turns ambient and beautiful and vehemently wrathful and oppressively bleak suburban basement black metal all by his lonesome, believe it or not.  Play this shit loud.  And in complete darkness.

A tape will be released soon on my dear friend Toby Mimosa's goth/straight edge Bleak Environment label.

While you're at it, buy the Tollund Men tape.  Sure to eclipse anything else coming out of Denver for years to come.  Hey Neal, don't forget who you played with first!

Anybody wanna make a Transformations video?  Predictably, I don't have a video camera...

Reviews, Revisitings...

Local cool-guys Crawford Philleo and Tom Murphy wrote up super nice reviews for "Curse All Summers" on Tome to the Weather Machine and The Westword, respectively.  In the spirit of synergy, I'd like to voice my endorsement for their bands Vitamins and Pythian Whispers, two of the only really great things happening currently in Denver.  The title track for Vitamins' new 7" is totally this summer's main jam.

In other news, I'm determined to finally give Unreal City's 2nd release, "June" by Daniel Bouse, the treatment it actually deserves.  Everybody that's heard it pretty much agrees it's the greatest thing since mother's love.  It's been two years (!) since Dan and I lived together on 13th street, but dropping the ball on his bedroom-made gem is something that's bummed me out ever since.  This is the flier our buddy Neil Samples made for the release show:

It's been too long, but better late than never.  I believe in these songs as much now as I did back then.  I'll see about getting something online soon and will be shooting for hard copies before summer is out.

Celebration time.

Welcome to the Aughties

Like I said, Unreal City #3, "Curse All Summers" is available on infinitely hipper cassette-format for $5 in person or $8 by mail, but now it includes a download so you can jam it at will on your not-yet-completely-obsolete digital devices.  Forgo a hard copy at your discression.  "Immediate download of 10-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire," says bandcamp.  Dig it here.

If you were at the release show and grabbed a copy of the tape, you might be wondering why you didn't get the download code with it.  That's because you didn't pay for it yet, asshole.  Now is your chance.

Actually, that's a joke.  Just email me if you want a download code and tell me which copy you have, I'll send you one gratis.  I love you.

"Curse All Summers"

Just in time for summer, Unreal City #3 "Curse All Summers" was released last Friday, June 10th at the Further Shoppe in downtown Denver.  The show almost didn't happen, but turned out wonderfully.  If you are reading this, you were probably there because that's pretty much the only way you would have gotten a copy of the tape and definitely the only way you could have heard about the blog address for this so-called "label".

If by some weird chance you are reading this but don't have a copy and by some weirder chance you actually want one, send $8 by Paypal to westonleewilson (at) gmail with your address and I'll get one off in the mail to you.  If you're in Denver, just email me and I'll take it straight to your house for five bucks flat.  If you think you might want one but aren't sure, download jam number two and see how you feel about it.

A digital version of the tape might become available someday, somehow, but that possibility is contingent on my finding a place to live and having internet access that isn't leeched off my buddy's neighbors' router.  Such a contingency would also, perhaps, probably provide the means to learn computers and get this "label page" looking like more than an empty crap-void.  Incidentally, if you know computers and have computers and want to help a brother out, get a hold of me.