Come see us Monday June 14th @ the Subterranean, with Rabbit Children and our friends Secret Cities!  We’ll have a new EP!

The new EP is availble to stream now on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/mittensonstrings

And while you’re clicking links, check out Preston’s new T-Shirt site!  http://divertedminds.com/

“If there’s danger in being clever, it’s that people will mistake it for being cute.  It’s best to just be earnest, and Chicagoans Mittens on Strings took that tip to tape on last year’s instrumentally rich Let’s Go to Baba’s, which includes the song ‘Lou Reed Says’.”

We were hawking our new EP on the road, and it’s now on our myspace page for all you dudes and dudettes to hear.  Check it out!  http://www.myspace.com/mittensonstrings  We’ll have handmade copies of it to sell soon enough, and have some shows on the horizon.

Next club show planned is in June with our friends Secret Cities, who have a new album and 7″ coming out on the most awesome Western Vinyl label.  All ya’ll Chicagoans come out, ok?

Stay tuned for more shows, and more tunes posted to the site!

For Chicagoans, we play the Hideout’s South By Southwest Send-Off, Sending the Four-Star City to the Lone Star State.  The event goes down all afternoon & evening on Saturday March 13th - The show starts at 3 PM, and we play first…  It costs 10 bucks, and features 11 bands, wowee!!

11:00 Life During Wartime DJs 

10:00  Tom Schraeder

9:45  Waco Brothers

9:00  Mickey

8:15  Plastic Crimewave Sound

7:30  The Hood Internet

6:45  Tyler Jon Tyler

6:00  Hollows

5:15  Love Of Everything

4:30  Via Tania3:45  Mittens On Strings

And that’s just the beginning: This year we’re playing with a bunch of sweet bands along the way.   Check it out:

Saturday, March 13: Champaign, IL @ Mike ‘n Molly’s w/ Pet Lions, Jet W. Lee & The Fantastic Plastics

Sunday March 14: Wichita, KS @ TBA

Monday, March 15: Dallas, TX @ City Tavern w/ Ali Harter

Tuesday, March 16: Houston, TX @ notsuoH w/ Japanther, Muhammadali, & Legsweeper

We get into Austin on Wednesday, and have a few shows lined up, with a few more in the works.  Hopefully you can catch one of these:

Thursday, March 18: Austin, TX @ The Ale House SXSW SHOWCASE (we play at 7 PM SHARP!) w/ Evan Dando, The Candles, Dirty Little Rabbits, Creature with the Atom Brain, Goes Cube, & the Blue Aeroplanes

Friday, March 19: Austin TX @ Pie Guys PIZZA PARTY (we play at 7:30) w/ Viet Ruse, Aimee Mac, Jon Cook, Federal State Local, the Hemit Thrushes, Waking Lights, & the Marmalakes

Saturday, March 20: Austin, TX @ The Parlor DAY PARTY (we play at 1 PM) w/ 1:45 - Orange Coax (Denton) * 2:30 - Drug Mountain (Fort Worth) * 3:15 - Hermit Thrushes (Philadelphia) * 4:00 - Marriage Material (Plano) * 4:45 - Daniel Doyle * 5:30 - The Numerators (Lubbock) * 6:15 - Treasure Mammal (Phoenix) * 7:00 - Math The Band (Providence)

And hopefully more to come….

The band is heading into Experimental Sound Studio this weekend to record about a half dozen new songs, hopefully for an EP release this spring/summer.  These are all those unreleased tunes we’ve been playing live the last few months, and a brand new one to boot.  We’ll be doing it live in one room, so this thing should come out waaaaaaaay quicker than the last one!

Mittens on Strings will be down at South by Southwest again this year!!  We’re working on dates now, so stop back and we’ll keep updating info as we get it.

p,

twoeyes & MOS

We’ve been busy working on new material, playing shows with Dent May and the Temper Trap this Fall, and busting out the long johns….

Later this month, Mittens on Strings will be adding the the holiday cheer with a CHEAP show at the Empty Bottle.  We’re playing Wednesday Dec 30th with Second Story Man (one of Alex’s favorite Louisvillian bands) and Manbirdbelly. IT’S ONLY $5!!

The new Mittens on Strings LP, Let’s Go to Baba’s is OUT NOW. Travel over to SOUNGS DOT ORG to stream, purchase, and download it.  Check out a number of handmade videos in our media section!

Our interview on Chicago Public Radio’s 848 program aired and is up online(”geekiest interview ever” I’ve been told), and our performance on Chic-A-Go-Go is going to be part of the upcoming New Year’s show.  We’ll be taping a song for a new web show this weekend - more details as we get ‘em.

CHECK OUT THIS PRESS!!

Mittens on Strings, the band, have a song called “ Big Brother” that seems like standard lo-fi rock at first, until the gang vocals kick in and demand your attention, and the guitar solo combines notes that surely have been combined before in a way that seems like they’ve crossed galaxies to meet in a totally unique formation, and a second listen reveals that the entire song is silly-awesome. Slawesome? - Popmatters, Tyler Gould

[Let’s Go to Baba’s] is full of iridescent, laid-back folksy rock. From listen one, you can tell Mittens members majored in the bygone narratives of Neil Young and Lou Reed, studying up on the fuzz folk atmospherics of Sparklehorse and Lambchop as extracurriculars. The whole album is full of little nuggets of fool’s gold, with tunes about lonely birds, lumbering giants and flaming pigs. It’s the kind of clever music you’d expect from the Case ranks, with an innovative business model to boot. — Keith Gribbins, Cleveland Scene

[Let’s Go to Baba’s] contrasts moody chamber-pop with a hedonistic edge. The record swims in distorted guitars and cascading spirals of psychedelic sound, while lyrics explore both everyday mundanity and the extraordinary.  Cello highlights an autumnal current drifting through meditative tunes, but despite the Good Book references and existential undertones, a communal sense of humor shines through…  Singer Alex Preston apes Lou Reed’s warbly drawl to fit his own indie intentions, but to accuse him of biting the notorious curmudgeon would be disingenuous. We can’t imagine Reed ever having this much fun. - Arief Sless-Kitain, Time Out Chicago

The strange and beautiful pop songs of this quintet range from hints of rambling country to a rush of trippy electronica. - Mary Houlihan - Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago’s Mittens on Strings is an indie band that likes to jam. Or a jam band that dabbles in weird pop. Or maybe just a group of dudes who listened to a lot of Jonathan Richman and Neil Young while taking hardcore psychedelic drugs. Ok, it’s clear we have no idea what it is, but we do know the band likes to have fun: MoS’ latest album, Let’s Go to Baba’s, contains songs about flaming pigs, lonely birds on vacation and a Velvet Underground dig called “Lou Reed Says.” This isn’t a joke act, though. The musicianship is solid and varied and the lyrics, while often humorous, also pack a definite punch. Before long, you’ll find yourself mouthing the words “a burnin’ hog ain’t fun” without even cracking a smile. - Ben Rubenstein, Centerstage

Travel over to SOUNGS DOT ORG to stream, purchase, and download the new Mittens on Strings LP, Let’s Go to Baba’s.  Alex also made a new video for the occasion, which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6JbXigCmDQ

You can also buy the record directly from us at our show later this month.  We’ll be playing with Temper Trap and Beep Beep at the Empty Bottle on October 19th.  It’s a FREE SHOW, dudes!

In case you were wondering, press has been mighty receptive to this one. We just taped a performance on Chic-A-Go-Go, and have an upcoming interview on Chicago Public Radio’s 848 program, not to mention posts on the Magnet and Readymade blogs for the Flaming Pig video.  Here are some other recent writeups for the record:

Mittens on Strings, the band, have a song called “ Big Brother” that seems like standard lo-fi rock at first, until the gang vocals kick in and demand your attention, and the guitar solo combines notes that surely have been combined before in a way that seems like they’ve crossed galaxies to meet in a totally unique formation, and a second listen reveals that the entire song is silly-awesome. Slawesome? - Popmatters, Tyler Gould

[Let’s Go to Baba’s] is full of iridescent, laid-back folksy rock. From listen one, you can tell Mittens members majored in the bygone narratives of Neil Young and Lou Reed, studying up on the fuzz folk atmospherics of Sparklehorse and Lambchop as extracurriculars. The whole album is full of little nuggets of fool’s gold, with tunes about lonely birds, lumbering giants and flaming pigs. It’s the kind of clever music you’d expect from the Case ranks, with an innovative business model to boot. — Keith Gribbins, Cleveland Scene

[Let’s Go to Baba’s] contrasts moody chamber-pop with a hedonistic edge. The record swims in distorted guitars and cascading spirals of psychedelic sound, while lyrics explore both everyday mundanity and the extraordinary.  Cello highlights an autumnal current drifting through meditative tunes, but despite the Good Book references and existential undertones, a communal sense of humor shines through…  Singer Alex Preston apes Lou Reed’s warbly drawl to fit his own indie intentions, but to accuse him of biting the notorious curmudgeon would be disingenuous. We can’t imagine Reed ever having this much fun. - Arief Sless-Kitain, Time Out Chicago

The strange and beautiful pop songs of this quintet range from hints of rambling country to a rush of trippy electronica. - Mary Houlihan - Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago’s Mittens on Strings is an indie band that likes to jam. Or a jam band that dabbles in weird pop. Or maybe just a group of dudes who listened to a lot of Jonathan Richman and Neil Young while taking hardcore psychedelic drugs. Ok, it’s clear we have no idea what it is, but we do know the band likes to have fun: MoS’ latest album, Let’s Go to Baba’s, contains songs about flaming pigs, lonely birds on vacation and a Velvet Underground dig called “Lou Reed Says.” This isn’t a joke act, though. The musicianship is solid and varied and the lyrics, while often humorous, also pack a definite punch. Before long, you’ll find yourself mouthing the words “a burnin’ hog ain’t fun” without even cracking a smile. - Ben Rubenstein, Centerstage

This Thursday, September 17th, we are celebrating the long-awaited release of our latest album Let’s Go to Baba’s at the one and only Hideout in Chicago.  Nearly a year in the making and a year in the waiting, the album was totally a labor of love (among other feelings), and this show marks our release of it into the wold.  Let’s Go to Baba’s - on 12″ vinyl (with free download) - will be in stores on October 6, but you can pick up a copy in advance at this show.  Our buddies Michael Columbia headline, and Little Gold (from Brooklyn) open - the show starts at 9 PM and is only $8!!

Here’s some advance press for the show:

The strange and beautiful pop songs of this quintet range from hints of rambling country to a rush of trippy electronica. (Mary Houlihan - Chicago Sun-Times)

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/music/78562/mittens-on-strings-lets-go-to-babas-music-review#comment-form (Arief Sless-Kitain - Time Out Chicago)

Chicago’s Mittens on Strings is an indie band that likes to jam. Or a jam band that dabbles in weird pop. Or maybe just a group of dudes who listened to a lot of Jonathan Richman and Neil Young while taking hardcore psychedelic drugs. Ok, it’s clear we have no idea what it is, but we do know the band likes to have fun: MoS’ latest album, Let’s Go to Baba’s (which this show is a release party for), contains songs about flaming pigs, lonely birds on vacation and a Velvet Underground dig called “Lou Reed Says.” This isn’t a joke act, though. The musicianship is solid and varied and the lyrics, while often humorous, also pack a definite punch. Before long, you’ll find yourself mouthing the words “a burnin’ hog ain’t fun” without even cracking a smile. (Ben Rubenstein - Centerstage)

We’re playing a show TONIGHT at the Bottom Lounge, with Akron/Family & Icy Demons.  I’ve had the pleasure of seeing both bands a number of times, and they are truly incredible live.  It’s totally, utterly, and completely going to rule.

Tickets are still available here: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=1626804

In other news, we just got test pressings of our new album Let’s Go to Baba’s back from Pirate’s Press.  The record is set to drop in September, and we are in the midst of setting up a record release show at the Hideout on September 17th.  Stay tuned!!

While you wait, here’s our “single” and some other gems from the record:

Big Brother: www.mittensonstrings.net/downloads/BigBrother.mp3

Videos: www.mittensonstrings.net/media/

Other songs: www.myspace.com/mittensonstrings

p,

jonny & mos

We’ve been working off and on over the winter, getting our record together and writing some new songs.  And now that Bill is back in town, we’ve got some shows planned:

Thursday June 25th @ The Whistler, w/ Daniel Knox, 9 PM, 21+

Friday July 24th @ The Bottom Lounge, w/ Akron/Family & the Icy Demons, 8PM, 18+

Our record, Let’s Go to Baba’s, is coming out as both a 12″ LP and dowload in August, more details shortly.  The record is a culmination of over a year of recording and arranging, and is truly a labor of love. We still like it, and hope you will too.

You can preview some tracks here:

Middle Ages (mp3 download) - http://www.rcrdlbl.com/2009/01/29/exclusive_new_download_mittens_on_strings_la_middle_ages

Vacation (streaming video) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWNYfWT4_4g

Flaming Pig (streaming video) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjI4_hsgz3A

and other songs at www.myspace.com/mittensonstrings/

SEE YOU SOON!!

ii & mos

Free MP3 kingpins RCRDLBL posted a kindly review and exclusive download for our song “La Middle Ages”, from the new record Let’s Go to Baba’s.  Listen to it before the record drops this spring, right here:

http://www.rcrdlbl.com/2009/01/29/exclusive_new_download_mittens_on_strings_la_middle_ages

We’ve also got the video for “Vacation” from Let’s Go to Baba’s, courtesy of our own Davey Badger.  It’s the next in our series of videos for the record.  You can downolad the beast here, or ‘tube it yonder:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWNYfWT4_4g

TANX!!

ii & mos