Yup. That’s Spencer at 12 dressed as Jimi Hendrix at L. J. Schultz Middle School in Cape Girardeau, MO. As a class project we were asked to dress up as one of our personal heros and present on their accomplishments. Spencer chose shredmaster Jimi Hendrix. As the nerdiest child ever, I chose puritanical author Louisa May Alcott. Happily, no pictures of me have surfaced.

This comparison seems a telling response to the question we often get: “so, if you’re twins, are you, like, the same?”

We just played an awesome show at the Starry Plough with Evie Ladin. We’ve got some new songs we’re playing out. Here’s a video from the show of our new song, ‘The Hunt.’ The video quality could be better, but the sound is nice:

The Hunt from Middle Maki on Vimeo.

heart.mm

One of the best parts of playing music with my brother is the shared history. One of the even better parts is the notion that we’ll be playing music together, in some way, for the rest of our lives. Recently, I was reminded of this when we were out on a hike. We had just descended the last slope and were walking through waist-high summer grass. Spencer spread his hands wide over the tips and turned grinning to me, “if a body meet a body, coming through the rye.” It was lovely, way out there in mountains without our instruments, to hear Spencer singing our songs. It was also windy:

heart.elizabeth

We love the stories Jack, our bassist + aspiring astrophysicist, shares with us. Once he turned to Spencer and me during practice and said, “So, when you were little, did you make foghorn noises back at the boats?” He then let out his best foghorn imitation. Having grown up in SF, he was pretty good at it.

Another time he was telling me about a conversation he had with his friend wherein he was trying to say ‘I dig it.’ Unable to remember the phrase, Jack instead told his friend, “If you dug a hole, I’d jump in it.”

Most recently, Jack picked me up to drive to our rehearsal space.

J: So do you want to listen to Parliament, Parliament, or maybe Parliament.

E: Um . . . I was wondering if you have that band Parliament?

J: You’re in luck! Actually, it’s currently the only cd one can listen to in my car. Last week my car was broken into and the thieves tried to take my stereo out. They couldn’t get it out and just ended up breaking it. So now I can’t change the cd, skip songs, adjust the volume or turn the stereo off. I just listen to this Parliament cd every time I drive.

E: Well, at least the cd stuck inside isn’t something really intense like death metal at top volume.

J: Yeah, or that pop cd you have where you only listen to that one song you like when you’re driving by yourself . . . On the bright side, one of the cds they took was the Middle Maki cd. Now there are roaming thugs driving around bumping Port Adieu.

(Later, driving back after practice)

E: Wow, Parliament is so good. I could listen to it all the time.

J: I feel the same way. And I do.

And that, really, is the best we can hope for our ep; that somewhere in Oakland thieves are rocking out to ‘Cocaine.’

heart.elizabeth

The party was killer. So much good food + drink, amazing music and community. Check out Photos and Video from the party:

http://www.vimeo.com/7705527

.thank you to grant gardiner for the photographs and videos.

A little while back, Elia of One Night Music and Pirate Cat Radio came over to our house and recorded a lovely video of us playing Month of Sundays in our living room. In celebration and cahoots here it is (Autumnal Fire makes a cameo):

Middle Maki from San Francisco performs for One Night Music from One Night Music on Vimeo.

You can download it (you choose your price) under music. We love these songs and we think you will too. heart.mm

Our debut ep, Port Adieu, is coming out November 1st! It will be available here on the website and in lovely silkscreened hardcopy at our ep release; you name your price.

Port Adieu ep release party

.with.

Honeycomb

Kathryn Anne Davis

& friends

Sunday, November 15th at CELLspace (18th St+ Bryant St)

food+doors at 6p; music at 7p.

21+; free

The food + beer will be free and put up by my older brother Morgan and his two cook friends, Johannes + Nuch. It’s going to be delicious so you should plan on being there by 6p to get food.

pretty exciting stuff, eh? heart.m²

I decided to silkscreen the covers for Port Adieu.

First step: learning how to silkscreen (thank yous to friends and books).

Second step: getting all the materials (thank yous to art supplies stores with lengthy hours and spencer’s pickup truck).

Last step: silkscreening . . . Folks, it was rad.

One Saturday morning, I began setting up. I taped up the windows in our hall closet, emptied it out, and created my laboratory:

Frequently Morgan (my older brother) wakes up and I am halfway through some project dressed in my pajamas and about five sweaters (it’s cold in my house in the morning) and muttering to myself. I can only imagine what he thought when he saw the contents of the closet in the hall and and me duct taping cardboard over the windows. I got everything together and by the evening I was ‘burning’ screens:

This is the screen after it’s burned and the photo emulsion is washed off (in my bathtub):

The next morning I made coffee and surveyed the landscape. Morgan made me breakfast. I put together a worktable (the kitchen table):

The most brilliant innovation was my duct tape hinge system. It kept the screen stable so I could be a onemanfactoryline. I duct taped the screen to a hinge and the hinge to the table:

brilliant. . .

Screen one turned out well; I did a small victory dance.

Onward, through screens two through five. Here an image of one of the screens during the inking process:

They turned out beautifully – you can see just how beautifully at our release party on Sunday, November 15th at Cellspace (18th + Bryant in the Mission), doors+food at 6p. The music is available here on the website on November 1st.

.elizabeth.

We recorded our debut ep, Port Adieu, at Hyde Street Studios in SF with some awesome people. Nigel Pavao was our recording engineer (with the help of intern Kent) and Mike Wells mastered the ep. It was like this:

It was also like this