Everything's Great? (Episode 1)

Everything's Great BLOOD

Welcome to the Empty Bottle podcast, “Everything’s Great?”  Every month your hosts Bob Johnson, Kevin Graves and Christen Thomas will be giving you the front door and back stage stories from the Empty Bottle, inviting members of the Bottle, friends, family and staff up to the back of the office to tell stories, talking to bands that will be playing the Bottle in the coming month and playing tracks from those bands.February 2014 PodcastThis month's soundtrack:Sweet Cobra – “Complaints” February 8Radar Eyes – “Fall Into Place” February 18The Casket Girls – “Same Side” February 24Courtney Barnet – “Avant Gardener” February 18Cheap Time – “Exit Smiles” February 14Lord Dying – “Summoning The Faithless” March 3Party Downers – “No Compromise” February 8A note on Sweet Cobra and Party Downer’s songs from Jason and Grumpy:Both songs are currently unreleased (and unmastered) so they will have a debut on the podcast - they aren't quite finalized.“Complaints” is from our forthcoming full length entitled Earth. Recorded by Matt Talbot of HHUM and Kurt Ballou of CONVERGE at Talbot's Earth Analog Studio near Champaign, IL. Mixed by Kurt Ballou at Godcity in Salem, MA.The song is significant to us because it is the first one we wrote after Mat's passing. We had recently returned from a West Coast tour as a 3 piece with Pelican, and we were able to spend time with Mat before he moved back to the Seattle area to be closer to his family. A few weeks later he passed away on Thanksgiving Day. We didn't play music for close to a month, and when we met up at our rehearsal space and started trying to play music, this song just sort of came out of us from out of nowhere. Generally speaking, the lyrics deal with people that focus too much on the negative aspects of their life and complain about very trivial things in the grand scheme of things– while there are other people out there that are dealing with actual real struggles in life, but still focus more on the positive aspects of things, overcoming obstacles, and enjoying life to the fullest. Even in the face of his sickness, Mat was always motivated and eager to play music and enjoy life with his friends. He was an inspirational person to be around. The song really came together quickly and organically– and it also felt very different from our earlier stuff. There is an earlier recording of the song that will be released on an split 7" with the band Get Rad that will be available at the show.THE PARTY DOWNERS song is called "No Compromise"...which is a Mat Arluck reference...just kind of sums up what he was about.  Case in point the actual phrase Arluck Time originally just referred to the time after he got home from work when he would just relax and decompress for a bit...don't call or knock on his door just yet, it's "Arluck Time." That song is unreleased as of yet.