Turn On The Outside Lights EP - OCTOBER RELEASE!

Alright kids!

I know it has been a very VERY long wait and a wait that neither I nor the rest of the band could have anticipated. We ran into some issues with tracking the drums which we had to record first before we could move forward with the rest of the instruments, and finally figured it all out and at long, long last got the drums recorded and ready to go.

Now I have set a strict and solid schedule I am trying my best to keep. In between working a day job and sleeping I am going to be spending every free moment recording the rest of the instruments and mixing. The first two weeks of September are slated for Recording the rest of the parts for all the songs and the second two weeks are devoted to mixing the songs.

So given that schedule we will have final mixes of all songs ready to be sent off to be mastered and then printed up at the start of October. After that it is just in the hands of the mastering engineer and the press and then soon we will have the final product ready for release by the middle or at the latest the end of October.

I know it has been a long wait and we thank you so much for hanging in there and being patient with us. We know this batch of songs will be worth the wait.

We will keep you all updated as we get closer to a set release date.

Thanks everyone!
Mark

Great God

So-
All the "Turn On the Outside Lights EP" banners and such and such you see on our Myspace page? Wellll just so happens they're not accurate whatsoever. Haven't been for quite some time.

Indeed, we had planned to be releasing the new EP by May; no wait- July; no wait, end of August; end of September? Nope. Right now it's looking to be end of October. Maybe a good ol', haunted EP release show. Now that'd be swell. But who knows- maybe it'll be Santa Claus who gets the final say on which nice boys and girls finally get their hands on the EP.

If anyone was still wondering, the show we had last Saturday, in Richmond, for the side project Mark and I now have (Carlyle Petes' Chessmen of Doom) was amazing. Mostly thanks to all the wonderful people, whom we never expected to show up, showing up. Of course, there are two types of people we would've never expected to show up; there's: (I'm a BIG fan of lists- can you tell?)

1. The type that say they're friends/fans and either maybe going to, going to try to, or even flat out GOING to come, but then...don't.

2. The type that would have a more legitimate reason not to come- usually in the form of being a little too far away. THIS was the group that really shined that night, and gave me more faith in the diminishment of the roll that Time and Distance play on Friendship/Fanship/Givingaship.

We had people come out all the way from both ends of Virginia. My friend Kelly came all the way from Roanoke, my sister and brother-in-law from Charlottesville, and my old friends came out from all the way over on the Eastern Shore of Virginia (across the bay, East from Va Beach). Kelly's a true devotée- you'll see her up as the lovely Kellbells on our Top Friends (friend her- she's amazing); she almost always finds a way to make it out to our main shows. My sister and brother-in-law have been out to see us a couple of times; but the Eastern Shore folks presence really hit me hard. Gave me pomp like I'd never had. Mark and I clambered onto that stage and the gears never stopped turning. It was magnificent.

(Stepping off the screen for a second, I'd like to note that - I don't know if you caught it, but- I started this entry in a particularly sarcastic and defeating mood- but talking about this show has cheered me up a bit. Thank goodness. Let's try and carry on in the light of that.)

Anyway, that new project of ours now has a Myspace, so PLEASE check us out HERE and friend us if you haven't done so already. And I'd just like to thank Lucas F., Ben A., Ben F., Christen G., Andrew F., Tatum S., Colin M., James M., and that Austin guy that was pretty damn nice and cool.

To wrap up, I WILL deliver some delightful Plato! news, and that is that: we HAVE finished up a final design to be made into our very first batch of t-shirts, which will be first available at our October 7th show at The Camel, with our good friend, the ever-so-soulful-and-honest Alex Enggist, and the excellent band Run, Run, Run. So please please please try to make it out, so that you can be one of the very very first to get your hands on We Know, Plato!'s, first ever T-SHIRT.

Have a wonderful night, and DON'T be like me: make friends, don't lose them; listen to music; and get a worthwhile job.

Benvolio

7 maybe 8 in 5

You may or may not know by now but Ben and I are doing a little side project, currently dubbed Carlyle Petes' Chessmen of Doom, in order to do something a little less We Know, Plato! like, but then again so are Daniel and Todd. So maybe one day we will be able to book a whole show with nothing but WK,P! related acts.

Anyway, while Daniel and Todd choose to keep their project tightly under wraps, Ben and I are trying finish up writing, arranging and learning 7 or 8 brand new songs at a frantic pace so that we can unveil them in some fashion or another at our "acoustic" non-acoustic show this coming Saturday at The Camel.


It has been a bit crazy to say the least, but it is very much the same way We Know, Plato! started when Ben and I played our first show up in Harrisonburg about 2 years ago. At least this time we have lyrics to all the songs.

But yes, it has been a pretty hectic pace trying to fit in practices whenever we can. So far we have managed to get some sort of arrangement and structure to about 7 songs. Of course, I am sure as we progress and record the songs, things will change but for now we have a running start which I hope will be mildly entertaining at the show on Saturday.

I feel I can speak for Ben as well as myself when I say we are quite excited about the idea of the new songs or rather the seedlings of new songs we have brewing. And no need to fear, even though we have our project and Daniel and Todd have theirs, it doesn't mean the end for WK,P! we are still hard at work on this EP. This is just an outlet for both factions of WK,P! to get a bit more creative and go in different directions in order free up creativity for both the side projects and ultimately We Know, Plato!

So now you will not only have one band creating great music but you will now have three.

Mark
We Know, Plato!

We Know, Plato! Divulges In "The Midnight Snack"

My old chum Snack (yes, that is his name to you and all his friends) has his own radio show, entitled "The Midnight Snack" (clever boy!), on VCU's college radio, WVCW.org. "The Midnight Snack" is on at -can you guess? that's right- MIDNIGHT, and Snack's going to be promoting We Know, Plato! and a couple of our songs, so tune in! You'll have to have/download Real Player in order to listen in, but it takes about 1 minute to download it and set it up, so there's no trouble.

This fella is crazy cool and unpredictable, so there's no telling what he might say/not say about the band/music, but I can tell you right now- you're going to enjoy whatever portion of the show you do end up catching!

Thanks for heeding,
Benvolio
&
We Know, Plato!

Ladies and gentleman, WE HAVE DRUMS!

Yes folks it's finally happened, we have successfully tracked all the drums for all five songs for the upcoming EP. It has been a long , tiresome, drawn-out process and much more time was spent on the drums than we should've spent, but alas we finally have the final drums for all the songs and it sounds pretty great!

Daniel and I finished up the final two songs on Monday and Tuesday. Monday we tracked drums for 'Mothra' which was a pretty difficult thing since there is a section, the bridge, that speeds up faster than the rest of the song and then going back into the last verse it slows back down to the regular tempo so you can imagine that taking a bit of time and skill to nail it or get even close. However, we were successful and we are feeling good about it.

Tuesday, we started fresh on the last song, 'Moon & the Sun'. That one was pretty easy so there was not much to say about that, only that it differs from our current live version a bit and we were going to try to record the live version after we got the EP version but time ran out and so we just called it a wrap and celebrated by leaving the studio and knowing we won't have to agonize over the drums for this EP ever again. Now we can move on and we have learned from our mistakes.

So given that we now move forward with the Ep finally. Sorry for the delay everyone. But you will have your EP or at least be close to having your new WK,P! EP by this fall. Next we will be recording guitar, bass and piano and lastly vocals. Then we go into the mixing stage and then off to be mastered and printed. WOOOOO!!!

In other news we have two shows coming up this month. The first being August 9th with Bock's Car and a few other harder rocking acts. We seem to always get shows with bands that are nowhere near our style of music but it's still good fun t o be had by all so come on out for that. It will be a rocking show at Rocks on Main St. in Shockoe Bottom.

Then Ben and I will be doing a stripped-down acoustic type show of pretty much all new material. We may play a WK,P! favorite or two but for the most part it will be stripped down versions of all new songs most of which are still currently unfinished as we speak. haha Therefore, it's not hard to do stripped-down versions of these songs. So come on out for that, it will be a great show with our good pal Brett Harris and this time he has a full band.

Oh yeah, and you will want to be a part of this show because you may never again hear these songs in this style, as we might change out a chorus or totally change a section of the song when we later record it. This is your chance to hear these new songs in a very raw light.

Thanks for stopping by and reading these ramblings.
Mark

A Three Song Show In A "Foreign Country"

So- tonight was the big night. It was the night We Know, Plato! came out from hiding, which we have been doing now for 3 months- give or take. It was Todd Baker's first WK,P! show as our new bassist, and it was a first for all of us in that we played a venue that primarily caters to punk and hardcore. So, we did our best to rock up our set as much as we possibly could.

The night started out swell with a nice dinner combining Qdoba (what the hell does Qdoba even mean? Rock on Chipotlé) and Jersey Mike's. We then proceeded back to the venue to find out what was going on with the PA system. Five bands and not one PA in sight. I then realized that the club doesn't accept credit cards (just aaadds to the slum), so we all walked down to the corner ATM to get some cash for beer. On the way we (or Dan, rather) made several failed attempts to get one of our CDs up to the second story of an apartment building to some college kids who I am sure just destroyed the CD anyway, but who knows. We finally succeeded at that task (after horribly scratching up the CD to almost certain unplayability), and moved on to the ATM for beer money.

Upon returning to the club, we were still faced with the PA issue and wondered how we were going to be able to put on a show- for a punk crowd- with no PA for keyboards and vocals. Finally, the last band through the door had the the PA system we'd all longed for. So we quickly hooked it up and set up for the show. However, in waiting for the PA and setting everything up we only had time for three songs before we would start to cut into the next band's time slot. Jawesome.

So yes, we ended up playing only 3 of our most rocking songs to a largely punk crowd, Mothra, Love Song for a Drawing and Moon & The Sun.

We think they enjoyed us- or at least the people closest to us, as we were basically on top of them and couldn't really tell what was going on behind the crowd. The place is super small, and we were piled upon one another.

(rreow).

After the show, we packed up, said our weak farewells to Ramakins, and headed out to Friendly's for some ice cream and shakes; mmmmm.

All in all, it was a good night; full of fun, jokes, punk rockers (with bull rings, bullet belts, and studded leather jackets), and an extremely short set. And a great show for us, considering all the obstacles we faced.

For all of you who didn't make this show (and that is most of you reading this), PLEASE don't miss our big show at The Canal Club on the 30th!!!

See you all there!
Mark
& Benvolio

The Great Race

Welllll we did it. Depending on what "it" is, we definitely did it.

Wow- for a few minutes, I was utterly mesmerized by multiple refractions of light creating a ghostly image upon a small portion of my glasses' lens. Now I'm back.

"It", in this case, is actually synonymous for "strategically putting fliers up". For our Canal Club show. Todd and I sieged every other hot spot in Carytown and Downtown Richmond, including: Plan 9, Galaxy Diner, The Village Cafe, and the front door of Bottom's Up. We didn't really race to put them up, but- having just gotten the fliers done- we do have little time before the show to promote. So, if you're heading out into the city, look for our super swell flier, designed by Todd Baker himself. We'll have some more of these WK,P! fan-specific fliers available for free at the show- just to prove you were there at the roots of our tree of fame.;)


This is the 2nd to final draft. Final one will be at the show.

Meanwhile, we also signed on for two more shows- that birthday bash on the 9th of August that I told you about, and one on the 23rd of August- in which Mark and I, as a duo, will be playing an acoustic set that involves partially WK,P! songs, and partially some alternate songs/stylings that will be part of a side-project we're going to be dually rolling on soon, bringing in the aid of our good friend/musician Andy Brockmann. The show will be shared with the likes of our great friend Brett Harris, this time with his FULL BAND (WOO!) and HIS good friend Dylan Gilbert, both of whom hail from that brilliant (and I DO mean it) "Keep Right Except to Pass" state of North Carolina. Honestly, God knows how hard a problem we have with it up in here, up in here.

Howdy. Get excited.

July 30th. Canal Club. 7pm.

Ben.