You know what we do at Positions practice? Besides practice, I mean. We
eat pizza and drink beer and crack jokes and laugh a lot.  Sounds like
fun, doesn't it?  It is.  Lots of fun.

Because we want to fill your lives with exactly the sorts of fun that we
love, we're playing this Saturday at the Rock 'n' Roll hotel, where you
can hang out with you friends, crack jokes and drink beer, because it's
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night.  And while you can't play with us, you can listen
to us.  It's the next best thing.  Here are the details:

THE POSITIONS
http://www.the-positions.com

The Rock And Roll Hotel
http://www.rockandrollhoteldc.com
1353 H Street, NE, Washington, DC

w/ The Shondes, Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears and Murder Mystery

8:30 pm, and we go on first
$10

There were the details.  See you there.

ps. If you're on Facebook, so are we:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Positions/7111387150

In the recent past, a few people have registered complaints that we
don't give enough advance notice about our shows.  To fix this, we
spent a lot of time and money putting in some alert systems so you'll
know we have a show way ahead of time.

The first is that, about three weeks prior to the show, we have
sirens going off all over the city.  There's absolutely no way you
could miss these sirens.  They sound just like ambulance sirens, and
it's obvious that they're announcing our shows.   You know what we're
talking about, right?

The second is that we have a huge spotlight on the roof above Armin's
apartment that casts the Positions logo across the sky.  To save
money on electricity (those bulbs are huge), we only have it going
during the day, but it should still be plenty bright enough.  You've
seen it, right?

Also, the cashiers at your grocery stores have been paid to tell you
we have a show coming up, using cryptic code phrases to make sure we
only have the "right" audiences.  The phrases are obvious, like "Do
you have a club card?" clearly means, "The Positions are playing on
October first at the Rock and Roll hotel", and "Have a good night"
translates to, "And they're playing with a fantastic, well-known
Scottish band called The Twilight Sad".

But just in case you've been in a sound-proof, windowless room and
haven't bought any groceries for the last three weeks, here's the
email as well:

The Positions
w/ The Twilight Sad
Monday, October First
8:00 PM
The Rock and Roll Hotel
1353 H Street, NE

Get there early to make sure you see us (we'll be starting at around
8:30) and bring earplugs (or get some from Reid when you get there),
because The Twilight Sad are fantastic, but they're sure to be loud.
But you've seen the alerts for that.  And sorry for how disgusting
those signals are.  We just couldn't think of anything else.

http://www.the-positions.com

http://www.myspace.com/thetwilightsad (recommended: "That Summer At
Home I Was The Invisible Boy")

http://www.rockandrollhoteldc.com/portal/

You may think that we Positions have nothing better to do than to sit
around drinking beer and rocking the earth until it can stand no
more.  While that's partially true, it's not entirely true.  We have
other things going on in our lives.  Like, unfortunately, jobs.  And,
we're afraid to say, other people and events beside you.  It's time
you knew the truth.

This is a way of saying that we're sorry that you didn't know about
this until now, but we're playing tomorrow night.  That may be
"tonight", depending on when you check your email.  But come on...how
often do you get to see us?  Exactly.

THURSDAY, JULY 19TH
@ DC9: http://www.dcnine.com
w/ Je Suis Francais and Civilians

We go on first at 9:30 because, as we've mentioned before in this
email, we have other things to do.  We wish we could say you were the
center of our world, but that's just not the case.  You're just
slightly off-center, though.

Love ya,
     The Positions

http://www.the-positions.com

This is our first show at Iota (which, as a sub-reason, is very conveniently located near the Clarendon Metro station and some of your homes), and not only is it a great place with fantastic sound, but we'd love to get a good showing of folks so we can play there again.  If this sounds suspiciously like begging, that's no coincidence.

 

Didn't you see the subject?!  Meredith Bragg!  Playing solo!  He's fresh off his US Tour '05, and now you can see him as everyone else around the country did.  Reasons don't get much better than that. 

 

We're going to buckle down and concentrate on writing new material and then getting it recorded, so barring, say, Belle and Sebastian asking us to open for them, we won't be playing again in DC for a good long while.  Seriously.

Holidays can stress us out:  It's New Years Eve and I don't have a
party to go to! It's Valentine's Day and I don't have a date! It's
the Fourth of July and I don't know where I'm going to watch the
fireworks!  It's Arbor Day and I haven't decided on pine or oak! Etc.

Likewise, we all get stressed out trying to decide how we're going to
spend that all-important Monday Before Thanksgiving.  You feel like
you should just be able to take it easy, but you can't get rid of
that voice in your head that says that only the most boring of the
lame don't have party plans for the Monday Before Thanksgiving.  That
voice is correct, as are all voices in your head.

Of course, your friends in the Positions have come to the rescue.
Forget your plans of staying at home alone with a pint of mint
chocolate chip and your video of "Just One Of The Guys", feeling
sorry for yourself because everyone has Monday Before Thanksgiving
plans except you, and follow these simple instructions:

1) Go the Warehouse Theater Next Door on 7th Street, across from the
convention center
2) Rock. Out. (rocking out courtesy The Positions and the famous Elf
Power, from Athens, GA)
3) Wonder how you're ever going to top this as the best Monday Before
Thanksgiving EVER


http://www.the-positions.com

http://www.warehousetheater.com/
http://www.elfpower.com/

People!  Now is the time!  For too long, we have waited, wondering when the day
would come when we could finally open our ears wide and embrace the sounds of
The Positions debut album Bliss!  For ages, we have wondered of the glory of
gazing upon the cover that would dress their songs and dream of the day when we
could have a CD of our own!  For what seemed like an eternity, we have wandered
around unclothed, unwilling to let any threads but those emblazoned with the
name of  The Positions!

People!  Now is the time!  We will descend upon the house of rock  known as DC9!
We will gather there on Saturday, August 20th, henceforth known as The Positions
CD Release Show Day!  We will be in front of the stage by about 9:30, when The
Positions themselves will gather there to sing us their songs!  Then we'll hang
out for hours, drinking drinks (which is what you do to drinks usually) and
listening to the other bands!   And we will buy the CD and the new t-shirts!

And it!  Will!  RULE!  Totally!  Completely!  RULE!

People!  Now is the time!



http://www.the-positions.com

If we remember correctly, every single person on this list bet $20 that
"there's no way in hell the Positions will play New York before 2006".
Well, open up your wallet and let a pop band pick it, 'cause the
Positions are taking Manhattan!

The Positions with the Dares
Friday, February 4th
$5, The Knitting Factory, Manhattan, NYC, 8:00 pm

"But wait!", you scream.  "That bet was contingent on you playing DC
within 10 days of playing in New York. And not at any old dank dive,
but someplace good, like the Black Cat.  That was the part that made
the bet legally binding.  You signed it in blood!"

You think we don't remember that part?

Sunday, February 13th
$5, Black Cat backstage, Washington, DC, 9:00 pm

But listen, we'll overlook the $20 if you come to at least one of these
shows.  If you don't live in New York, tell your New York friends (we
all have at least one).  And if you live in DC, what else are you going
to do that Sunday?!  Exactly.  We'll see you there.

Let this be a lesson to us all,
     The Positions


http://www.the-positions.com


http://www.knittingfactory.com/kfny/index.cfm
http://www.blackcatdc.com/

http://www.skippingstonesrecords.com/the_dares/
http://www.suffrajett.com/

Baby, you've been so patient with us.  It's been almost two years since our
first show, and by now, you must be dying for it, if you catch our drift.  But
we want you to know that it's filled our hearts full knowing that you stood by
us all this time, and now...it's time for your reward.

The album is done.

Woah woah woah!  Control yourself!  It's natural that you're so curious and
anxious, but let's just go through this slowly and softly and it'll be so much
better.

When can you hear the album?  Right now:

http://www.the-positions.com/sounds.html (click "launch", click "Someday")

See, before the album comes out, you can only hear it on this little player that
we built.  It's not much, because we built it in our dad's woodshed with sticks,
mud, some electronics ripped from a Teddy Ruxpin we found at the dump and
homemade versions of Photoshop and Flash.  I know it doesn't look like much, but
it's the best we could do considering our tools and that the only person we
could look to for advice was a hobo named Jake who claimed to have invented
Flash, and he was pretty high on varnish most of the time, so we were mostly on
our own.

Anyway, there it is, the full, sequenced, mastered album in all its glory.  Hope
it makes your feet tap and hips swivel, at least a little.

So what's the album going to be called?  We don't know yet.  We've had a lot of
fun with possible album titles, and while almost all of them have made us laugh,
very few of them are titles we would want to admit to.  Do you have any ideas? 
Seriously.  Reply to this mail with your album title suggestions, and even if we
don't use them, they'll make our already-entertaining list of rejected album
titles.

When's it coming out on a CD that you can show off to your friends? That's also
a question mark.  But it's going to be released on Lazyline Records out of
Atlanta, which is run by our pal Manav and is home to the sweet, sweet sounds of
our friends in Pagoda.  We haven't even moved our stuff in yet and it already
feels like home.

What's the album cover going to look like?  Another excellent question, babe,
and it's one that we're still thinking on.  If you have a doodle or good photo
or grilled cheese sandwich with religious iconography in it that you've always
thought would make a good album cover, send it on to us.  We may not use it, but
we can at least promise that we won't laugh at it.  Actually, we can't promise
that at all, but send it anyway.

So now that you know the whole album by heart, you'll want to know when you can
see us next.  Well, you don't have to wait long for that either.  This coming
Sunday, we're playing a hot show at the Warehouse Theater Next Door down by the
new convention center with the justifiably hyped and followed Two If By Sea from
Baltimore and Oxford Collapse from NYC.  It's a great lineup if we don't say so
ourselves.  We go on first, at around 9:00.

But if we don't see you then, just enjoy the album, have a joyous December, a
happy New Years and we'll see you again in 2005.

All for you,
     The Positions


http://www.the-positions.com

http://www.warehousetheater.com/
http://www.twoifbysea.org/
http://www.oxfordcollapse.com/







Is the ad ever anything but Netflix anymore?

In between bites of turkey (tofurkey for some) and gravy, cranberry
sauce and pumpkin pie (also with gravy), you can pause and be thankful
for many things, in spite of recent newspaper headlines and Beulah
breaking up.  You can be thankful that writing emails to your friends
at work looks to all the world like you're working hard.  You can be
thankful that Hoobastank remains relatively easy to avoid. You can be
thankful for Habibo Happy-Cola Gummy Candy, digital cable, half-priced
Belgian beer, Thai restaurants with horrible puns in their names, and
that you mostly only have to hear "Honey/Babe/Sweetie, you're so
stupid" when you watch The Amazing Race.

Most of all, you can be thankful for The Positions and the show that
we're playing at DC9 on Monday, November 22nd, a scant 3 days before
Thanksgiving.  Piled up in heaping helpings on the show plate is the
Lil' Hospital (with giblets), The Dares (whole berries and canned),
the Positions (light and dark meat), and the main course, imported
from San Francisco, From Bubblegum to Sky (actual bubblegum not
included).  Imagine that blissful feeling after you've finished a
delicious Thanksgiving meal, but without the nausea, heartburn and
political ramblings of your relatives, and that's how you'll feel when
you tuck yourself in on Monday night after the show.

If you're thankful for seeing us in the company of questionable
quality, you should go to
http://mp3.washingtonpost.com/bands/the_positions.shtml and download
(put down the webhammer!) our song "Flowers and Trees" so that it'll
bump us up in the Top Downloads and maybe, just maybe, we can actually
say that for a brief, shining moment, we actually ranked higher than a
song called "Enormous Penis."

Thankfully yours,
The Positions

http://www.the-positions.com



http://www.dcnine.com
http://www.indiepages.com/lilhospital/
http://www.skippingstonesrecords.com/the_dares/
http://www.eeniemeenie.com/artists/fbts/bio.htm


I wonder what ad it'll give us this time...

Your dream has finally come true: The Positions are playing Clarendon
Day!  If it wasn't your dream, that's a real shame, because if it was
your dream, it would have just come true, making you overjoyed and
happy beyond your greatest imagination of true happiness.  As it is,
it's just news.  Your loss.

Anyway, we'll be there next Saturday, October 16th, taking it to the
streets, literally.  They block off a few blocks of Clarendon
(Location: Arlington -  Clarendon and Wilson Blvds - Clarendon Metro)
and have all sorts of booths and stalls and probably some pavilions
featuring bold and exciting visions of the future where cars hover and
ovens self-clean.  While you look at these things, we'll be on the
stage, the very first band of the day, playing at noon for free.  So
drag yourself out of bed, get to Clarendon by noon, buy a balloon and
a funnel cake and let us wake you up with a dose of rock 'n' roll
played in a style similar to what you might have heard at the 1904 St.
Louis World's Fair.

Please note that you've been told far enough in advance so that you
have more than enough time to include all 6 of us in your Clarendon
Day gift shopping.  If you have to ask what we want, you don't know us
well enough.  But we've all been good (relatively) and will be
sleepless through the night before Clarendon Day, when Clarendon Jack
crowbars his way into the storm cellars of all the good little boys
and girls of North Arlington, leaving presents wrapped in hemp paper
and silly string under the hot water heater and then riding off into
the night in his '63 Corvette that's powered by 18 golden squirrels,
the names of whom escape me at the moment.

This is gonna be the best Clarendon Day ever.

Wishing you a very merry C-Day,
    The Positions



http://www.the-positions.com

http://www.clarendon.org/clarendonday.html










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Consider transportation.

Back in the days of the dinosaurs, when walking was the only way to get
around it would probably take you at least a couple of weeks to get
from DC to Durham.  At least.  I mean, walking that distance would just
about kill the average dinosaur, so they figured it was best not to
think about it and stay put and eat each other.  Was extinction such a
surprise?

Then people came along and figured out that they could ride the animals
and, if they beat them, actually could go pretty fast.  But still,
North Carolina was a long way away from Washington, and it still took
awhile.  They weren't going to just head out from DC for any old
reason.  It'd better be a damn good reason, like running from a famine
or hitting a huge sale at the burlap outlet in Hillsborough.  These
were rough times.  There were no road trips to hang out for the weekend
or anything and certainly no music to make the travel time fly.  Misery
was the norm.

But now we have cars, and I don't think I'm letting out any secrets by
saying those things'll get you places in a right hurry.  Hop in your
car, turn up the tunes and you can get about anywhere you want in no
time at all.  We're free, people.  Finally free.

If you think about it this way, the measly four hours--FOUR teeny
little hours!--it takes to drive from DC to Durham, NC to see The
Positions play the Duke Coffeehouse with Rocketfire Red this Saturday,
January 24th is absolutely nothing, a drop in time's ocean.  You're
spoiled rotten and don't appreciate the sacrifices of our ancestors if
you don't make the drive.

Come on.  Be cool.

The Positions
http://www.the-positions.com







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If you're a normal person (note: you're not), you've been going crazy
wondering about The Positions.  "They should have called by now," you
thought, your forehead in your hand, looking forlornly at the morning
coffee that you're too sick with worry to drink. "It's been months,"
and you wonder if maybe you were just fooling yourself all along, that
it *was* too good to be true after all.

Piece your heart back together: we've been here all along, planning our
next big move.  We're wasting no time in getting 2004 into the
Positions, playing the Black Cat this Friday, January 2nd, and they're
even letting us onto the main stage.  You heard me.  Our good pal
Meredith Bragg invited us along to warm you up for his amazing and
beautiful folk-punk stylings, and then the entire Black Cat will be
ours to get wild to the Alice Despard Group.  If you don’t have fun,
then take a long, hard look at your life, because there’s something
seriously wrong.

So we’re agreed: you’ll be there.  Good.  You’ll need to know then that
we’re playing first.  So get there early (9:30 at the latest), and if
you have time, do some stretching, because we’re going to rock you so
hard you’ll be sore the next day.

And you know, if you're ever worried about us again, you can always
look at the website to see how we’re doing.  We bought a monkey that we
named Chester, trained him to update the content on the website, and he
does a really good job, promptly putting anything newsworthy in the
"News" section.  And if you're thinking that it's appropriate to put
the news in the News section, then the months and months of training
Chester weren't for nothing (“No!  Not in ‘Shows’!  ‘News’!  Bad
monkey!”)

Come on out to the Black Cat on Friday.  Don't make us beg.  Because
we'll do it, and it'll only be embarrassing for everyone involved or
nearby.

I want to kiss you,
      Positions 1-7

 
http://www.the-positions.com

 

 

 
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