The Garden of Readen

More Stuff

2009-08-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

BIG NEWS:
Most of you already know this, but the line up at the Readen House has changed. It was a really great 6 months with Cody, Kyle, Taylor and I, but I'm the only member of the old crew holding down the fort now. Patty and Sam have moved in, and Drew is going to be getting here in Early September. Should be a solid house.

We've started painting some stuff in our living room, and Patty has doe some painting in his room too. We'll have this house looking as weird as we do in no time.

Again, we've got a really cool show this Saturday, the 22nd of August. The final line up is:
Dennis Driscoll
Generifus
Skinny Whiskers
Dr. Buttz' Psycho Laboratory

And here's the flyer I made:Hopefully I'll see you all there! I've been trying to put together the Readen Records Catalog, which is shaping up nicely. Finally getting material from people so it's not just my own music. It feels better now that my friends are starting to get their projects finished. What we've got now is:

RRLP00 - Nick Duncan "Reinventing Revolution"
RRLP01 - Nick Duncan "Everything So Far!"
RRLP02 - State Park "You Are A Danger to All The Other Dangers"
RREP01 - Echo Bark "Mental Soap e.p."
RRLP03 - I Need Sky "Oregon Grape War Paint"
RRLP04 - Nick Duncan "BUMMED OUT.//BLACKED OUT." Song A Day 2 Disc Set (still in the works)

It's going to be a while before we're set up enough and have enough copies of all this stuff to actually do orders or anything, but we're working on it.

I think that's everything! See you guys Saturday at the show.

Nick

News, and a question!

2009-07-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

We've got a big big show coming together in August. On August 22nd Dennis Driscoll, Generifus, and 1 maybe 2 other people. Dennis Driscoll dude! I'm pumped! Plus Generifus, my buddy Spencer Sult, is super great as well. If you have any ideas for an opener, yo sohuld let me know.

In sadder news, it's looking like Taylor leaving Readen at the end of the month. He's going to be living with our buddy Brandon. And I guess there's rumors of Kyle and Cody thinking about finding a place together too. But that's still a pretty slim chance I guess. So it might just be me in Readen...if anyone is looking to live in a really cool old house that is falling to shit and has done wonders for my creativity and the creativity of everyone in the house they should let me know.

And now the question. I'm doing a song a day. As of now I'm ten days in, and I plan on finishing the month of July, and possibly doing the month of August as well. I really want to release physical copies of the music to document this awesome experience, but I'm not sure of the best format. I've thought of three options

a) compiling my favorite 20 songs onto a CD and having the rest for download online
b) Get 35-40 of the songs I'm most proud of and make a double-disc release and leave the rest for download online
c) just release everything on CD maybe 3-4 CDs. Some kind of weird rock star box set or something. I dunno. Maybe cut out the inside of giant books and fill it homemade CDs. It would have to be weird to make it worth it.

This is assuming I can keep up the song writing and the quality of the songs doesn't suffer. So far I've been really pleased with the songs that have been coming out this month, but if that changes, the project will have to change. Let me know which release you would rather see.

Current Catalog

2009-06-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody. Not alot has been happening here in Readen. We finally cleaned the house. That's pretty cool. I just thought I would update everyone on what we've been doing musically by putting together a catalog of the (still limited) releases

RRLP-00 Reinventing Revolution - Nick Duncan (Not really a Readen Records release, but I have like 12 copies left.)
RRLP-01 Everything So Far!-Nick Duncan
RRLP-02 You Are a Danger To All The Other Dangers - State Park

Coming Soon!

RRLP-03 Chelsey Weber Smith Full Length?
RRLP-04 Nick Duncan and the Goddamn Kids Full Length?
RRCT-01 From the Porch - Nick Duncan (I'm going to be recording a tape with friends playing alon, but it's all going to be recorded on the back porch of the Readen House)

Also, check out the Goddamn Kids myspace. I'm going to try to write and record a song a day starting on July 1st. Ideally I'll keep doing it until September. I'll be posting the songs on myspace:

www.myspace.com/nickduncanmusic

SHOW ON SATURDAY!!!

2009-05-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone who reads this...which I think is only a few people...But to you lucky few! SHOW THIS SATURDAY! AT 7ish! FREE! We've got:

State Park (Kyle Gootkin, a resident at the Readen House)
Halcyon (Our friends Sam, Sean, and Ryan play good tunes)
Summer (Robert Borrego rocks, and I guess hasn't played a show in a while, so this is awesome)

and maybe another band? We're looking...If you know someone who wants to help us out, let me know!!!

Love,
Nick

P.S. Just found out that Inchworms is playing that night. Rep the 425.

MAY SHOWS!?!?!?

2009-04-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,
So May is going to be pretty cool at the readen house. It looks like we're going to have 2 shows here. The first show will be on the 2nd, which is going to be huge, and the second show will most likely beon the 16th. We're still sort of setting up the one for mid-may.

For the 2nd, the line-up goes like this:
Tin Tree Factory (Olympia)
Bluebird
Mark Gunnery

with a short warm up set by:
Que Viva! Collective

It sounds like a lot of people are going to come. Which means the Shins can can fuck off for choosing to play the same day as our show. What were they thinking?

The 16th is a lot less ironed out. So far, the ideas are:

Summer (www.myspace.com/summerrobert)
Temple Vibe (www.myspace.com/templevibe)
Halcyon (Bellingham kids)
And maybe Neil from Masters and Johnson? Robert said so, but we gotta work it out.

Anyway, that's the news. Oh yeah, and I had my interview for the AS today. Pretty much killed it. You might be looking at (figuratively) the new coordinator for the Underground Coffeehouse. Chyea!

Love,
Nick

Viva La Fiesta!

2009-04-08T11:51:00.001-07:00

Hello again,
A lot has happened since the last post. A few days ago Taylor's recording equipment broke. Apparently he unplugged it before it had completely shut down and the last thing he recorded (a song for Chelsey and Allison) got corrupted. Every time he turned the machine on after that it froze. We all thought we would have to erase the hard drive and lose everything we'd recorded. Bummer.
But then, after a couple hours of research, Taylor found out how to fix the hard drive. With no lost files! Readen Records in open for business again! We'll hopefully be recording a lot soon, we've sort of been in a slump.
Also, I just finished my application for the AS Underground Coffeehouse Coordinator. Hopefully next year I'll be setting up shows on campus, and getting a salaried paycheck. Perfect.
The biggest news came last night though. A couple of days ago we decided to all play open mic together at the Underground. Last night when we signed up the 5 five of us got a block of time slots all together, so we decided to all get on stage and sing with each other for 25 minutes. As we talked about it, we realized it just sort of felt right to play each others songs in a big group...kind of like one of those collective bands. And so the Que Viva! Collective was born. Right now we're performing with Chelsey Weber-Smith, Allison Vincler, Drew Miller, Taylor Carroll, Moh Grout, Corky King, Kyle Gootkin, and myself. It was way fun. The underground can get really pretentious during open mic, and it felt great to come in with war paint and close off the night by screaming and singing with each other. All that's next is matching stick and poke tattoos! Hoo Doggy! Pictures from Carmen soon I hope!
So, we have a collective band, the recorder is fixed, and I may very well have a job lined up for next year. Things are going good here in Readen. See you soon.

Love,
Nick

P.S.
Friends of the Readen Family, Bluebird, are playing a show this Friday at the Montague manor on Garden and Holly. I don't know when it starts, but Addition and Bellingham band Yes, Oh Yes are playing too. It's going to be awesome. See you there.

Opening Night

2009-03-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

First post! We had a house warming party last weekend with a bunch of our friends. We all want to start doing house shows, so we tried it out. I have to say, I think it worked really well. Femme Uke couldn't make it, but we had Moh Grout, I Need Sky (Chelsey Weber-Smith), and our house band, Nick Duncan and the Goddamn Kids (or the Drunkerthans, or the McDuncans, or whatever). Now that we know we can do shows here, I'd really love to start putting them on more regularly. I think all of us are up to it.
It's kind of weird having everyone in different places. Taylor is in the Tri-Cities until Wednesday, Kyle is back in Seattle or Tacoma, and most of our other friends are at home until the next quarter starts. It's cool though. Cody and I are just hanging out, watching basic cable.
So we got some bad news. Bad for our house, but good for everyone. Your Heart Breaks and Theo Zumm won't be playing at our house on the 11th. We were all really excited to have a big show at our house, but I guess it's not in the cards. Your Heart Breaks will be playing on the 12th though, just down the street. The show is going to be at Friendship City. Good kids. Nice place. Should be a great show. Even though it won't be in Readen.
Lastly, we're pretty sure that we're going to start a house record label for all our friends. Readen Home Records. Seems like a fun project. So far Taylor has done some recording for I Need Sky, Corky (I don't know your last name), Sven Hoek, and myself. It's been really fun. Hopefully we'll do some stuff with Bluebird and other local guys. Look for some kind of collective release of all our drunken sessions playing with our friends.
Oh yeah, here's some pictures Carmen took at our show. Pretty cool.