Tonight we are playing at the Mint here in LA!  It’s a busy day, but I still wanted to get this blog done.  I’ve been putting it off for far too long haha.

First off, the first single from our upcoming album Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies is out!  The song is called TigerBait.

We’ve been very happy to see the response the song has been getting.  Bucket Full of Nailssaid, “A portmanteau of David Cassidy-era fervor and today’s data-driven reality, new single “TigerBait” from Los Angeles-based duo Polaris Rose is an analog plea for physical contact and human connection.”. 

I also had the chance to interview with Kira from Roll the Dice and Play Niceand it was a really fun one!  A little excerpt from Kira’s introduction:

“TigerBait” does juggle lots of pieces: The steady, consistent chug of tightly layered guitars; an extremely catchy, synth driven melodic hook; lyrics that take on unexpected syllabic emphasis, thanks to syncopated rhythms (What I know / is tragically subjective / a three ringed show); a striking guitar solo and perfectly aligned vocal harmonies galore. Top that with interval and chord combinations – created by the vocal and instrumental parts together – which oscillate the track between singable major and dissonant minor, and this song might sound like compositional chaos. Yet, much like the intricate power-pop works assembled by Rivers Cuomo, Elyse and Anthony have shrewdly delegated each piece of TigerBait’s puzzle into something that is indeed wholly irresistible –in the best possible way.” -  Kira Grunenberg

Check out the full interview HERE.

We have been hard at work on music videos.  First up is the video for TigerBait, which we’re really happy with.  Kind of a classic Polaris Rose video, with the whole collage of old footage with simple performance shots.  Last week, we traveled down to Joshua Tree with our good friend and dp David Walk, as well as our friend and producer Mohamed Omar.  They helped us film a video for our second single which is - we think - definitely our best video to date.

So, tonight we are performing at the Mint, and it’s a special night because we will be joined by long-time friend Elliot Klein, who we were close with back in Boston.  He has brought a lot of great guitar work to these new songs!

We are rehearsing this afternoon, learning a new song last minute before the show (at Maddie’s behest), and then going out for a good-old band dinner.  Hopefully we’ll see you tonight at the mint!

This Friday we are performing at the Hotel Cafe.  And we feel it.  We have been practicing every night for weeks, learning new material and tweaking the setlist.  We stay up late, work all day, and - only occasionally - find time to step out at night and catch our friends’ shows around town.  The work is totally exhausting and it can be nerve wracking…

But it’s gonna be a rad show for us.

Our steadfast drummer Kiel Feher is on tour with Zella Day.  While we are sad to be missing him, we have turned this into an opportunity to work with the mighty Carlos Beltran.  Carlos has a great way of re-interpreting the songs, which we love to hear.  

Our pal Matthew Saba is once more joining us as a second guitarist.  Matt is one of the greatest people to have on a team… a focused player and always working to achieve the best performance possible.  He is also on an endless search to find just one more pedal…

This setlist will be a bit different from our last… our last performance featured a lot of songs from ‘Telescopes’.  But this show is going to cover material back to our first EP and beyond.  We thought it would be fun to play a song of our ’singles’… all those songs that we released out into the world that seemed to get the most attention (so you’ll hear songs like the one below).  We are even going to debut a new song, ‘TigerBait’.

Which brings me to our plans with Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies.  I recently blogged about the debate we were having over whether or not to record an EP or an LP… well, the final answer seems to be ‘Neither’.  We are starting something we call an ‘Umbrella Project’… where we will be releasing singles every other month, leading up to a final product of some sort (we are still dreaming up what that final project will be… my vote is to make it a full album with fancy packaging… limited pressing, of course).

SO!  Come to the Hotel Cafe (1623 N Cahuenga Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028) on Friday the 17th!  We go on at 9:30.  $10 cover.