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News
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| Sheer Genius |
22 Jul 2008 01:04pm |
To our surprise, we are featured on the page for Monday's Girl Genius. (It's in the text below the comic.) We're very flattered! Girl Genius is fantastic, and we're honored to have been mentioned there.
The song appears on this album to benefit our wonderful and suddenly-disadvantaged friend Tom Smith. Tom is awesome, and needs our help, so go donate!
For our regular fans, we have several special announcements coming up related to gigs, house concerts, and a chance to win a special bootleg DVD made of one of our recent shows. Watch this space!
And oh yeah... it's a free Vixy & Tony MP3 if you follow the link to Girl Genius above...
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| *splat* |
13 Jul 2008 12:04am |
I'm on the couch decompressing after two AMAZING gigs with Sooj and Betsy, two of the most wonderful people in the world.
Wow, those were two incredibly fun nights of fantastic music. We have vowed to do it all over again as soon as is humanly possible. Huge thanks to Sooj and Betsy, and to our hosts at the Horizon Temple and at Gathering Grove. We loved every minute of it. Sandi had this to say about one of the shows, and I have to agree with her about the way Sooj and Vixy and Betsy sounded together.
We're also happy to have had Jeff Bohnhoff with us this weekend, as he was up here at panicStudios mastering the Bohnhoff's just-finished album "Möbius Street". I've heard the album and it's probably their best work yet. He's also decompressing here on the couch with me and Vixy, and will be flying home to San Jose tomorrow. We'll miss him, but hopefully see him again soon.
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| Finding the place |
11 Jul 2008 05:57pm |
Finding the Horizon Temple, where we are playing tonight, may be tricky.
It is on 10th next to Neumo's. There is a small sign for an Akido class over the entrance. It is directly across the street from a $10.00 pay parking lot. Go down the big ramp and enter the second to last door on the left where a small pink sign says "spotlight fashions". In theory there should also be some Skinny White Chick signs up by the time you get here.
See you soon !!
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| ...with a capital S and that stands for Sooj! |
07 Jul 2008 12:19am |
 A quick reminder, this coming weekend, there are two, count 'em, two Vixy & Tony gigs in the Seattle area, both of them opening for the stupendous Skinny White Chick, the duo of SJ ("Sooj") Tucker and Betsy Tinney. We can't possibly describe to you how excited we are that we'll be sharing the stage with these great musicians. Both shows begin with a quite sizable Vixy & Tony opening set, followed by SJ and Betsy (and the occasional Vixy).
Sooj Gig 1: Friday, July 11th, 8pm, at the Horizon Temple at 1423 10th Avenue on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Performance space is small, come early for best seating. A small suggested donation is requested, see our schedule for details.
Sooj Gig 2: Saturday, July 12th, 5pm, at A Gathering Grove at 2820 Oakes Avenue, Suite C, in Everett.
Then next month, we've got some special things coming up. The weekend of August 1st through 3rd, Vixy and I are going to be at SpoCon, as the official Filk Guests!
Also in August, the 23rd at 8pm to be precise, we have a house concert at a new household barely a few blocks away from Monkey Brains Studios itself. The house concert is at House Cerulia, and you're going to need to RSVP to ceruliahouse@gmail.com to get the exact address and to let them know you're coming. There will be a potluck food event prior to the concert, and a small suggested donation. See our schedule for details.
Finally, web site updates: Our lyric pages have been updated to include complete guitar chord charts (with a little bit of tablature in some cases) for all of the songs. Follow the link at the top of each lyric page to a PDF of the chord chart. Enjoy!
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| Time is an illusion. |
16 Jun 2008 12:35pm |
Updates to the performances coming up in July:
- The show at A Gathering Grove on Saturday, July 12th, has been changed from 7pm to 5pm. Reason: There is a "dueling pianos" bar nearby whose 8pm show tends to get loud enough to spill over into their space. The Gathering Grove folks found out about this ahead of time, and they are adjusting our schedule to prevent our show from being disrupted. How kind of them! I'm glad this got discovered this far in advance.
- Edited: The show on Friday, July 11th, at the Horizon Temple just got updated on their calendar from 7pm to 8pm. You might want to get there quite early anyway, as I'm told that the performance space is kinda small, so coming early might help guarantee an actual seat.
Hope to see you all there!
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| Thanks, Wayward! |
15 Jun 2008 11:33am |
Thanks everyone for coming, that was a huge amount of fun! Thanks so much to Wayward, the Seattle Browncoats, and John Seghers who did sound for us. We played our hearts out, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Boy oh boy are we tired today, but in a good way. Today will be a day of relaxing, I think. The weather is gorgeous, perhaps some lounging outside. Later, probably watch the latest download.
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| Great things are afoot! |
09 Jun 2008 09:29pm |
Many announcements to make! Let's get to it!
Wayward!
We'd like to remind everyone that this Saturday, June 14th, 8pm, Vixy & Tony are playing again at the legendary Wayward Coffee House. This is Wayward's pre-Can't Stop the Serenity Screening Shindig, including a raffle and other special events. Wayward's calendar says 7:00 to 11:00, I'm reasonably sure that time frame covers the entire party, and that Vixy & Tony will be taking the middle 2 hours, from 8:00 to 10:00. If this turns out to be anything like last year's Shindig, it will be fantastic, with lots of great Browncoats mingling and lots of fun things happening. So come!
Behind the Music!
For those enjoying our Thirteen album, we have a particularly special treat for you today: Our first Behind the Music pages are up! We've got detailed stories about the songwriting and production of seven of the songs from the album. We'll announce here again as we finish and post more of them. Please enjoy them, and feel free to comment about them here in this thread. We'd love to hear what you think!
Soooooooooj!
Something we're particularly excited about, coming up in just over a month from now: Announcing two Vixy & Tony shows with Skinny White Chick! SWC is the duo consisting of the incredible SJ ("Sooj") Tucker and Betsy Tinney. We first met them at Conflikt 2008 earlier this year, and were absolutely floored by their captivating music and their energetic performances. We're honored to share the spotlight with them. Expect to see Vixy & Tony perform a decent-sized opening set before making way for SWC, but don't be surprised if you notice an extra Vixy-voice on some of SWC's songs. I hear Vixy has a tendency to grab microphones and harmonize without warning.
Sooj's music is a delightful combination of fantastic whimsy and slightly dark humor, and I truly believe that our songs are a perfect companion to her songs; similar enough to be attractive to the same kinds of people, but distinct and different enough to provide a delicious variety when absorbed in the same setting. I think that if our respective fan bases are given the chance to hear us both, we'll achieve complete fanbase unity. What could be more beautiful?
The first of the two V&T/SWC shows will be on Friday, July 11th, at the Horizon Temple at 1423 10th Avenue on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Although their calendar seems to think 7pm, I have it on good authority that it will actually be 8pm and that they just need to fix their calendar. When July rolls around, double check our schedule to be sure, but for now assume 8pm.
The second of the two shows will be the very next day, on Saturday, July 12th, definitely at 7pm updated to 5pm, at A Gathering Grove at 2820 Oakes Avenue, Suite C, in Everett. This will be the grand opening of this establishment, and we will help get them started on the right foot, with lots of energy and great music. Again, Vixy & Tony will do a set of just under an hour, then turn over the microphones to Sooj and Betsy. And probably Vixy, too.
Please come, everyone, it's going to be two very special nights!
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| That thing Muddy Waters invented... |
07 Jun 2008 05:46pm |
Apologies for the VixyAndTony.com web site being down all day, in case anyone was trying to look up lyrics or something. Web server resides in a location that is getting a power pole and transformer replaced. They're working on it, I saw it with my own eyes.
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| Wake up and smell the Baycon |
26 May 2008 11:28am |
Baycon was great! Our concert went really well. We sold many CDs.
I got con crud on Sunday. I don't feel well today. But I've got a ticket to Vegas, and by God, I'm going to use it, disease or not. Blue Man Group and Cirque with Susan are in my near future. Vixy is heading home today, but before we get on our separate planes, we're snug here at the Bohnhoff house with Seanan and Kate and the Arizona contingent. I'm munching on bagels and cream cheese and I'm happy (if a bit congested).
Scene from the con:
During setup for our concert on Saturday, Kristoph had plugged my guitar into the mixer channel that had a bad potentiometer. It had a tendency to crackle. We changed it before we started playing, but I had remembered his mixer had a bad channel.
On Sunday, I had plugged in for Seanan's concert and was getting ready to play, then there was a loud crackle through the PA. I looked over at Stoph and said, "did you put me on the bad pot again?"
Without missing a beat, in his best Tommy Chong voice, he said, "I don't know, man, you tell me."
Edit: As I was sitting here in my seat waiting for my plane to take off, I got the email that our CD is now available at IndieRhythm.com.
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| EnsConsed |
23 May 2008 11:00pm |
Safely ensconced at Baycon.
Vixy sang with the Bohnhoffs tonight. It was very very good. Listening to Callie and Steve and Chaos and the gang now. It is also very very good.
We sing tomorrow night, Seanan sings on Sunday, it will all be very very good.
Working on the promised "Behind the Music" pages at the airport and during free moments at the con. Coming along nicely. Five pages mostly done. Some additional comments by Vixy and then I'll post them.
This is our first time at Baycon's new hotel. Regarding our room décor, Vixy correctly notes that we appear to have checked into an Ikea. I'm looking for the funny Swedish name tags on all the furniture.
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| Do you know the way to San Jose? |
19 May 2008 08:53am |
 After missing the convention last year, we're heading back to Baycon this weekend, with a 9pm Saturday concert and a big bag of albums to sell.
Vixy is also heading down early to do some recording for upcoming album projects by The Bohnhoffs and Seanan.
We've recently sent some CDs off to IndieRhythm.com to see how they do for us. Our page there isn't up yet, but perhaps it will be up by the end of the week. In the meantime, CDBaby has been great, Thirteen is continuing to sell reasonably well through their online store, which makes us very happy. And the sales are coming from all over the world! We knew we could sell the album to a few local friends at conventions and housefilks, but I didn't predict so many sales from places we'd never been or people we'd never met before. We've gotten reports that folks are buying our album through iTunes, which makes us happy as well, although we get no tracking data from them.
Finally, I'd like to post a call for help. In the process of setting up our music page, I uncovered a bug in the Adobe Flash Player Plugin. I'm very keen on getting this bug fixed, so that I don't have to continue to modify my Javascript work-around each time they release a new version of the Flash player. I've reported this bug to Adobe; they have an online community system where the bugs get voted upon. Here's where I need help: my bug needs more votes before Adobe will even take a look at it, it's still classified in the "not enough votes" category. If you are of a technical bent, you can help by signing up for their online bug submission system, logging in, and then voting for my bug by clicking on the "Vote" link in the left hand column. Of course, I don't want to spam their system without a reasonable reason, so only vote if you've read the bug description, understand it, and agree it's something that needs fixing in the next release.
Edit: After getting enough votes to push the issue up the Adobe food chain, it appears as though their beta of Flash Player 10 fixes the issue. I hadn't realized until now that Flash Player 10 was publicly available, otherwise I would have tried it right away.
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| Eye of Pod |
30 Apr 2008 09:29pm |
We're on iTunes now, too. Does that mean we've "arrived"?
I feel obligated to point out that if you own a portable music player other than an iPod, odds are you won't be able to play those DRM-protected songs on it, while CDBaby provides unencumbered MP3s that will play on anything.
On the other hand, Apple is the only company that makes, or has ever made, a portable music player, so it doesn't matter, right?
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| It's Sereniversary time again! |
30 Apr 2008 02:53pm |
Wayward gig, Saturday, June 14th, just added to the calendar! And there was much rejoicing. This one falls one week before the Sereniversary annual Equality Now charity screening of Serenity. And if you don't know what that is, add a comment here and surely a bunch of folks will set you straight.
Last time we were at the Wayward, I was introduced to at least a few people who had been dragged there kicking and screaming by one of our regulars. Lo and behold, the newbies enjoyed themselves! Go figure! I was very gleeful about this. Thanks for spreading the love!
So I have a challenge to all of the Wayward regulars: Bring a newbie this time! June 14th will officially be "Bring a Newbie to Wayward" day. Or perhaps "Scare the Mundanes" day, depending on who you bring. Which is wonderful in its own way. Either way, let's have some fun!
By the way, Vixy, with help from our friend and fan JT, has set up a mailing list where we'll be announcing events like this, among other things. Sign up!
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| Downloadable liner notes |
28 Apr 2008 12:44pm |
For those who bought, our wish to buy, our new album in MP3 format from CDBaby, I fully support you. Digital distribution is the future. I even approve of CDBaby's encoder settings. But although CDBaby includes a scan of the album cover, they don't send you the rest of the CD liner notes, and you don't get to see the great 13-magpies photo in the booklet gatefold.
So. What to do?
Put up a link to download the full liner notes as PDF files on our Music Page, that's what.
Enjoy!
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| Adobe Flash Player Bug |
26 Apr 2008 02:46am |
I think I've narrowed down the problem with Flash-based MP3 player applets on our Music Page. At least in my tests, the results are now consistent. I'm confident that Adobe has introduced a bug in recent versions of the Adobe Flash Player. I think I may be the first person to characterize and narrow down this bug with enough detail for them to be able to do something useful with it.
The problem is only if you are on Firefox, only if you are on Windows, only if you have version 9.0.115.0 or 9.0.124.0 of the Adobe Flash Plugin installed (124 happens to be the latest and greatest as of this writing), and only with pages built a certain very specific way. If you're the type who likes to poke around at someone else's bugs, have a look here and let me know if you get the same issues.
I've submitted this as a bug to Adobe, but that was just through their dev/null redirector web form, so who knows if they'll respond. Anyone got any contacts at Adobe?
Edit: I think I've implemented a reasonable work-around. If you still can't play the sound clips on our Music Page, please let me know in comments to this thread.
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| The online store is now open for business! |
23 Apr 2008 11:49am |
 Our new album, Thirteen, is now available for purchase online!
And there was much rejoicing.
I'm going to be tweaking the music page a bit over the next couple of days, including having little "play" buttons next to each song. So bear with me as I make the edits.
In the meantime, though... Go buy our album! It's awesome!
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| Wayward recovery |
20 Apr 2008 11:33am |
 Well, it just doesn't get any better than that. What a night. Everyone was awesome, the energy was fantastic, and wow, we sold so many CD's! Thanks once again to Broenwynn for letting us play at her place.
The idea of an autograph queue is not new to me. I've stood in a few myself. But there's just something mind blowing about seeing one and realizing, "oh, that's for us?..." Just... wow.
Thanks everyone for coming, and for being part of a great night. See you all again soon! We've got plans in the works for local venues in both June and July. We'll let you know as soon as they firm up.
So, for those who just got the album... was it worth the wait? :-)
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| I blame caffeine |
15 Apr 2008 11:07am |
 I don't know how this happened, but until a few moments ago, our Schedule page incorrectly said April 9th for our Wayward gig.
Oops. Hope no one showed up on the wrong day...
Anyway, let this serve as a reminder that Vixy and Tony will be performing a two-hour set at Wayward Coffee House on Greenwood Avenue, this Saturday, April 19th, 8pm.
We will have our new album for sale there! The album is $16.00, so bring your one dollar bills, because I'm sure we're going to be getting a lot of yuppie food coupons.
See you there!
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