Perhaps we’re getting a little too ensconced in the current news cycle, but nevertheless, we’re going to “play the economy card”, as in: ”in this economy, who can pass up free beer?”
We’re pretty sure we don’t know anyone who can. So if you are within the sound of our voice, please come see us, as we will be imminently performing in real time amid discounted suds:
Thursday April 23, 8pm
Get Help @ Trash Bar
256 Grand Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$6.00
We will be taking the stage at 8pm. Through some miracle of manufacturing we are too sleepy to fully grasp, beer will be free from 8-9pm in the concert room. We understand in some societies this is call a “happy hour“. We encourage all our friends to come take advantage of this golden time, as we will be on stage for a better part of it, hence living vicariously through our audience. We will sow the wind, and you shall reap the whirlwind. Or vice versa? Perhaps we’re too sleepy to grasp this wind concept also.
Oh and while we’re on the topic of “this economy,” who can pass up free music? Before you answer that question, let us answer that question. The answer is: Get Help has nearly 50 songs on this very blog, and they are free, and you don’t even have to read the blog to hear the songs. They are lined up and waiting for you on the internet in podcast format, and if you have iTunes, you can click right here and fell them all in one blow.
If now’s not the time, look for us in the Podcast section of the iTunes Music Store. We’re there, right next to Beach Body Boot Camp.
While you’re roaming the internet, come visit Get Help at our hangouts, we’re sure to be found at one of these joints:
Get Help on Myspace (become a “friend”)
Get Help on Facebook (become a “fan”)
We’d like to thank everyone who came to see us at Club Rehab our last time out, as we ushered our newest band member Brian to the stage. We were sorry to hear that Rehab shut down not too long afterwards. It will be missed, although we kinda dig the idea of devastation in our wake. But as they say: close a door, and a window opens. Or vice versa? Hmm. We’re a bit out of it on the doors and windows thing as well.
Usually we’re not above the sort of puns that could curdle milk in a glass, but when they’re handed to you like this, even we have think twice. A stale cookie might help, though.
Yes, we’re playing live again, and soon:
Thursday, Feb 12, 9pm
Get Help @ Rehab
25 Avenue B
New York NY
Rehab, formerly Club Midway, has been our home away from home, even though we really never settled down to begin with. If you’ve seen us play live in New York City, odds are favorable that it was at this fine little joint.
Get Help now has two new members: Gene, who has been with us for two shows now, and Brian, who will be making his debut on the bass. We hope you will join us in highlighting their fashion mistakes with a laser pointer.
Just a reminder that the nice people at National Public Radio have some very nice things to say about us. Just a reminder. Just saying. No big.
And while you think about that, think about this: are you a vampire on Facebook? We are. Do you cruise the alien lanes of Myspace? We do. Come join us, and see why we stay indoors so much.
And finally, if you don’t want to visit this web site ever again for the rest of your life, it’s okay, we’re cool with that. Really. Fist bump. But before you go, we have to mention the brand new, patented, electronic Get Help Song Delivery System, available on iTunes, which, as we like to say in the fine print, is neither new, nor patented, and is really just a podcast. But it will send a Get Help song to you periodically for free, and in this life, you can’t really ask for much more than that.
Thanks for listening. We should have some new songs in a few days, and in the meantime, we hope to see you at Rehab. You know what we mean.
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download (3.0MB)
It is with much pride, conceit, vanity, and egotism that we announce our debut album The End of the New Country will be available on the mighty Midriff Records come Oct 14. Much to our astonishment, The End of the New Country was picked up early by the extremely, extremely intelligent and all-around-awesome Robin Hilton at NPR, who gave it a pretty positive review. Thus spake National Public Radio:
September 8, 2008 – A self-proclaimed “supergroup of unknown musicians,” Get Help makes gloomy but thoughtful guitar-rock that would fit comfortably in the post-punk era of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Get Help’s two primary members, Tony Skalicky and Mike Ingenthron, were in elementary school when bands like Joy Division were making music. But on their new CD, The End of the New Country, the duo cribs from post-punk with enough honesty and talent to keep from sounding like a cheap knock-off.
Skalicky and Ingenthron, who write and record in New York, take turns on lead vocals. Skalicky unabashedly channels Joy Division’s Ian Curtis (or Interpol’s Paul Banks), and for some listeners, that might be too much of a turnoff to get through the whole album. But Skalicky’s time at the mic fuels the album’s most compelling and memorable moments.
The End of the New Country opens on a somber note with “Traveler’s Shave Kit.” Plaintive guitar strums, gentle rhythms, a little slide guitar and mellotron set an appropriate tone for an album that scarcely cracks a smile over the course of 15 tracks.
The album’s title cut, like much of the CD, is full of resignation, as Skalicky sings about a world on the brink of collapse, with mobbed streets lined by burning buildings. “I think we’ve reached the end of the new country,” he sings. “And I think we know the rest of its history.” It’s grim, to be sure.
But it could also signal a new beginning: By the end of the album, with the dramatic squalls of feedback on the closer “Growing Circles,” the band seems to say that everything is going to be all right. “I am searching in growing circles,” Skalicky sings. “And I will find you, I am certain.”
Despite its darkness, The End of the New Country isn’t a downer, though it’s undeniably brooding and introspective. But there’s enough inspired beauty in the lyrics — and consistently impressive guitar work — to make the music uplifting at times.
When not working as Get Help, Skalicky is the singer and guitarist for the Boston-based group The Beatings, while Ingenthron is in the New York group Strikes Again. The two collaborated on the songs for The End of the New Country over the Internet, with help from Rob Machold, William Scales, Daniel Parlin, Dennis Grabowski and Gene DiAvolio.
Further readings, also by extraordinarily intelligent and wonderful people:
Clicky Clicky Music
Hard Times
Blogcritics.org
The End of the New Country contains many of the lo-fi doodlings featured on this blog, but we took our skeletal laptop recordings into the studio and rebuilt them from the ground up, recording just about everything over again until we reached a Foo Fighterish plain of production value. We’ve posted some mp3s below, and there some new tracks on our Myspace page, where they shall stream for all eternity.
Now, to make the most of this blessed event, we are performing live several times before we retreat into our dens to hibernate:
Sunday, Sept 28, 9:30, $8
PA’s Lounge
345 Somerville Ave.
Somerville, Mass.
Mike and I will be performing an acoustic set as a duo.
These United States also feature our friend Robby Catholic of the Fanged Robot, who our handful of readers may recall from an earlier post on this very blog. *******
Friday, Oct 10, 10pm
158 Ludlow St.
NYC
Come down to the LES to see Get Help in all its glory, with Will, Dan, and Gene rounding out the band. We may even crack a smile or two.
*****
Wed, Oct 15, 10pm
1222 Commonwealth Ave. (corner of Harvard and Commonwealth)
Allston, Mass 02134
Same story as above. Full band, some eye contact, glimmers of onstage joy.
Thank you for all your support and patience, we hope to see you there.
|
Next Show
No shows scheduled yet.
|
|
