Jun 1, 2009

New Bloods - Demo

Way back when, I used to live at this house called The Punkin House (old website, photos on flickr!). It was a somewhat venerable punk house that had a long history of notable basement shows, and I really really loved living there. Anyway, while I was living there, I also worked at Wayward Cafe, making homemade soymilk and washing dishes and doing food prep, and eating a bunch of amazing vegan food. I had a nice thing going back then, hosting a few shows every week and always bringing bands who stayed over to come and hang out at the restaurant, or sometimes I'd meet people at Wayward and they'd play at the PH.
However, all good things have endings, and we got notification that Ye Olde Punkin House was to be sold and we'd be kicked out. It was during these last few sad months that I was working at Wayward and one of my coworkers told me to introduce myself to two nice women hanging out in the restaurant who were looking for a show in the near future. These women were Adee and Osa, who had just moved up from New Orleans to Portland and started a band called The New Bloods. We chilled for a bit, but I couldn't immediately help them with a show because of the PH closing. However, I just started organizing a house-show festival with some friends in the newly collectivized SeattleDIY group, and told them that they could play Carousel Festival. Months later they played, along with another band we booked called The Vonneguts, and it was an incredible show, good times had by all, and shortly after the New Bloods toured with their new friends in The Vonneguts, and my new band (at the time) Bow + Arrow played with New Bloods a few times too, then they got all sorts of hype and ended up on the cover of Maximum Rock & Roll and got signed to Kill Rock Stars.
Sadly, they're broken up now... but it was sweet while it lasted. They were one of my favorite band, and more than just a little bit of an inspiration for my new band My Parade. I haven't talked to any of them since they played in Seattle last, but hopefully they're all doing well.

Here's their demo, released just in time for that Carousel Festival show they played (Summer 06 I think).

New Bloods - Demo 06!
Buy their record and 7" at Kill Rock Stars