great interview with the band in boston. you can get to know all of us better. the girls conducting the interview & taking pictures were so fun

http://www.teapartyboston.com/2009/08/the-mieka-canon/

It is my personal belief that Brian Cassagnol is a genius.  Now, I know the term, “genius” gets thrown around a lot, but I feel compelled to stress that my deeming someone a genius should not be taken lightly.  The criteria is as follows: said “genius” must be a) smarter than I am in some field that I maintain to have expert knowledge in, and b) everybody knows that a good outline needs to have at least 2 points per subheading… hence, point (b).  For those of you who are unaware, Brian Cassagnol is Mieka Pauley’s guitarist, music director, and engineer of an overly elaborate and menacingly complicated system of guitar effects pedals.  Brian has had a huge part in helping steer the sonic landscape of Mieka Pauley’s music in a direction that the rest of the band and fans alike have been coming to recognize as fresh, innovative, and a shit-load louder than it was before.  In addition to Mieka Pauley’s music, Brian also fronts his own band, “The Books of Brian”, in which he sings… better than I can… technically making him a genius by my definition of the word.  In addition to Brian’s “vocal performance genius”, Brian also knows a lot more shit than I do about classical music, music theory, opera, and “staying calm when you’re super late for some shit that you weren’t supposed to be super late for”.  I am fiercely envious of this last manifestation of genius… which brings me to the point of this blog post.

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The title of this blog entry is a direct quote: “I don’t know how to do this,” is something that Mieka said to me on stage during a show at Rockwood Music Hall, recently. I can’t remember if I actually heard the words come out of her mouth. I’m pretty sure that I saw her mouth move in the shape of the words, but…well… it’s just not that important to the story, ok? You see, Mieka has a certain magic about her. She has the power to express, whether she wants it or not. She need not speak. She need not gesture. She needn’t do anything at all, and you are bound to feel her fury; her joy; her despair; her mind-bogglingly neurotic panic. Much of the time, it’s her eyes that do the talking. Mieka’s eyes are beautifully expressive. Even when they are wide with incensed rage, you can’t help but admire their depth. They’re just so big. Often, I’ll find myself gawking in astonished wonderment as Mieka rips me a new one about one thing or another. It’s best not to drift too far out. The sea is uneven. Jagged shards of broken ice bob helplessly amongst inconsistently spaced white-capping waves that head in all directions. Unexplained shipwreck debris finds itself battered into kindling as it claws its way amidst the loosely packed ice, beneath a foreboding and thunderous sky. Lo! A voice; an unseen siren song beckons from the dark horizon… “Are you fucking kidding me?! Have you been listening to anything that I’m saying???” Sorry, Mieka.

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the band & I did a new music video – it’s for All The Same Mistakes off Elijah Drop Your Gun. it was shot by the wonderful Eric Hurt with help from Johnny St Ours.

here it is, hope you enjoy:

Mieka Pauley – All The Same Mistakes – Music Video by miekapauley

A lot of interesting things have happened to us in the past year or so. We won a few contests, made some money, got hooked up with a great producer, and wrote some great songs. A certain clarity has developed with regard to our identity, as a band. A creative force, resulting from 4 (and sometimes 5) distinct personalities has somehow managed to transcend any one of its singular creative voices, culminating in what has become… Mieka Pauley. Which brings us to the week of South by Southwest, 2009… a chance to find out what happens when (putting lame band bios aside) you throw a handful of seriously neurotic music nerds into a soccer-mom-van and send them across the country to play shows.

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the band and I just got back from charlottesville a couple days ago, where we were shooting the music video for All The Same Mistakes. the director eric hurt just sent me this video still, and I didn’t even recognize myself:

you can check out more pictures from the shoot here.

can’t wait to see the video, eric …

what a fun time last night, the show was amazing, great crowd – just love playing rockwood. my friend sarah versprille was gonna to join me to sing, but unfortunately, a plane in the hudson prevented her from making it in from jerzy (man sarah, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that excuse … ). my other buddy dan torres did make it, and jumped on stage with his voice & a snare drum for the end of the set.

here’s a picture that completely sums up the band dynamic (thank you robbie !!):

Mieka, Brian, Andrew after the show
photo by robbie michaels

you can check out more photos here and here’s a video of a song (Faster) from last night (thank you tony !!):

Faster- Mieka Pauley at Rockwood Music Hall
video by Tony Maceli (whosthebass)

yay my song All The Same Mistakes won the grand prize in the New York Songwriters Circle 2008 songwriting contest. brian, andrew, and I played the semi-finals wednesday night, and then I played solo thursday night in the finals. I’m honored to be recognized by nysc and excited to be more involved with them. I got money, studio time, stage time, and radio time; I am psyched. hopefully they’ll post audio or video, and I’ll make sure to post that here.

update 11/20/08:
here’s the official press release

yay ourstage: me, brian, andrew & gabe at cmj:

Watch video

from myfoxboston.com:
Local musician Mieka Pauley is a powerful singer/songwriter who is generating a lot of buzz throughout the Northeast. Check out Pauley’s performance of her song “Secret,” on the FOX25 Morning News.

this is what me, brian & andrew look like performing early in the morning. complete with me asking, live on-air, “you’ll tell me when to … ? oh.”