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Such a long night cut short…. (Sure Juror @ The Fire 31-March-2007)

So we finally made it back into the city of brotherly love after almost a year of not playing a show there. The line up looked amazing, we were familiar with the venue, and all 7 of us were going to play. It was basically back and forth from there. We got to hang out with the other bands in “The Green Room”. This was a definite plus; we had played The Fire multiple times in the past 2 years, but no one seemed concerned enough to tell us about it. Our set was a constant battle with the sound guy. It may have sound fine from the crowd, but once again we felt a little put-off by how things went. We finished, and broke down allow The Victor Vitctor Band to take the stage. I really enjoyed there set, and was sad to miss the last few songs of their set while packing the cars. The night basically ended there for me. I saw Surgeon setting up, on stage, but my ride was leaving and I couldn’t stay. I haven’t heard anything else about the show, but I haven’t talked to anyone since then either.


Maybe I’ll stay for the next one?

Sure Juror @ Bryn Mawr (pt. 4)

(Photo by Kevin Convery)

I’m back again to offer a précis for anyone that may have missed us this past Saturday at Bryn Mawr…

This was our fourth time at Bryn Mawr in the past 2 years. It’s always a blast, and I always end up drinking too much tequila, but that last part really doesn’t matter, does it?

The night was suppose to start around 9pm, but due to some slight confusion with directions, our PA didn’t arrive until shortly before 9:30pm We unloaded the speakers while openers Water Sports set up. I haven’t seen Water Sports since this summer when we were playing shows in the area prior to finishing Smut, and with the addition of a keyboard player their songs filled out rather nicely. I enjoyed their set, and hope they put out a record sometime soon.

Sometime after eleven o’clock we took up our various instruments and began doing what we do best. A quick set of “Sure Juror” songs got the crowd in the mood, and then another hour or so of covers and some unreleased song and what not to satisfy the mob.

It was hot. The boys were sweaty. The tequila was warm, and so was the beer. Everyone danced until they couldn’t stand. It’s always a good time inside Radnor’s lounge, and hopefully this won’t be our last time playing Bryn Mawr.

In other news...




I received an email from Harper today responding to my inquiry about MACRoCk 2007...and it looks like this years conference is definitely a no go. BUT....The MACRoCk Committee seems confident that they will return stronger then ever. I advise anyone who can to contact Harper or WXJM, or JMU about donations, panels, bands, or anything you can think of to make sure MACRoCk will return in 2008.




Sean (Sure Juror)

The lamest post I will possibly write (this week).

So I know it’s not that big a deal to the people that read this blog…or to any fans of Sure Juror in general, but we have just reached 3000 friends on myspace. Yea, it’s a small insignificant landmark to be bragging about, but still it’s nice. It only took us 2 years to get here.

The funny thing is that no one in the band thought that myspace would be worth our time when the band first got together. It all started March of 2005 when the original 5 members start practicing for WCUR’s battle of the bands. Back then we weren’t Sure Juror. We were infamously known as Jonathan Heathcote…there may have been a “band”, after Heathcote, but I really don’t remember. We enter the battle of the bands almost as a joke, saying we needed some motivation to practice. The kind DJs at WCUR were so impressed with the album, that we were bumped right into the final 16. So two weeks before the final 4 showcase, we started to practice. We managed about 6 full band practices during those two weeks. We threw in a few covers to fill out our set…and Jonathan Heathcote (soon to be Sure Juror) played our first show. The judges said we had a poor stage presence, and that our songwriting was weak. Okay!

The next morning Luke, Jonathan, and myself headed down to MACRoCk, where we got to see many amazing bands, and better still, we got the chance to sit down at a bunch of panels, hosted by a various collection of label CEO’s, Musicians, Radio DJs, Independent Promoters, etc…At this point we really had nothing going for us. New band, one show under us, and an album that wasn’t pressed…So we asked as many questions as we could…On the subject of “Networking through the World Wide Web” places like myspace and purevolume came up in discussions…and we were told not to invest a lot of our time in such things. So we didn’t. We had a myspace account, and it was a more glorified email for us then anything else….Fast forward to MACRoCk 2006

Once again we headed down to Harrisonburg, VA, and to our surprise we received a complete 180 from the panels. Now they were telling us that myspace is an independent musician’s best friend. They even said it was worth looking into a myspace bot to add more friends. We were told that labels DO look at the number of profile views, and the number of friends an artist has….Independent promoter’s look at where you have played, and the number of shows you have…Basically they told us that we couldn’t do anything with out a myspace, and not just a myspace…but a myspace with all the flashy pictures and the 3,005,746 friends. Hmm…Well we probably won’t reach that status be we do try…All our friends have either been hand picked by us, or have requested us as a friend. It’s an on going process that helps us discover new people and new music as much as it puts our music out to the masses. So to all of our friends, Thanks for the add!!!

-Sean-

Friends, Shows, Parties, News….

So as we you may have noticed, I have taken a keen interest in updating our blog to help keep everyone informed about the now 7 members of Sure Juror. Here is a look at the month of March.

On Saturday March 24^th, Sure Juror will once again be playing at Bryn Mawr College. We will be in Radnor’s Lounge from around 8:30pm until we can’t play anymore as usual. We are in talks with our friends from Water Sports to see if they’d be interested in opening the show again, but not yet confirmed them.

Then that following Saturday March 31^st, we will be returning to The Fire in Philadelphia after a 10 month absence from the city. We will be playing with local bands Surgeon, and Victor Victor Band, as well Brooklyn’s The Jealous Girlfriends. The show starts @ 9pm, and is $7.00. This is a 21+ show…sorry to anyone who can’t attend.

Sean (Sure Juror)

Edits, errors, mistakes, and retractions…Long over-due….

So if I jumped the gun on “Phasing out this blog”, I apologize. I have no control over our website, and need to keep everyone informed on the day to day life of the band. So until further notice, the blog will remain (perhaps forever if I start enjoying this whole “Blogging” thing).

Now for a bunch of corrections on our website…First of all, the track listing for Smut is incorrect. There are not 15 tracks on the album. To everyone that has purchased Smut thinking there was 15 tracks, sorry. There are 12 tracks, available from our website, iTunes, and eMusic. The track listing should be as followed:

1.) Emotional Bed-Wetting At The Heart Of The Delaware

2.) Making Friends Has Never Been So Easy

3.) Harry Reems And The Bill Of Rights

4.) Broken Crayons

5.) The Once-Great Gender Debate

6.) Barking Dogs (Part 1)

7.) Underwater Touchdown (Pfft Pfft)

8.) Happy Camper

9.) Mended

10.) Christmas Shopping

11.) Smut

12.) Barking Dogs (Part 2)

I hope that this clears up some questions about the number of tracks.

Onward to the press section of our website…First and foremost, it is Underrated, not Ubder Rated. Rachael is a big supporter of the band, and we need to correct our mistake. Sorry Rachael, maybe one day it’ll be fixed on our website too. And to the Aussie bloggers The Sandwich Club, we know there is no ‘h’ in sandwhich, but we made an honest mistake. Sorry, hope there’s no hard feelings mates.

That’s all folks. Come back soon for all sorts of updates and stuff in the coming days.

-Sean (Sure Juror)-

Its time to recognize all those people that came out to support us over the past 4 weekends….so in no particular order

Rachael, Nora, The GoStation, Seth Kallen & The Reactions, White Rabbits, Liam and Me, Sin-é, Jerry, Ryan, Chris, Matt, Jen, Zack, Pianos, Linfinity, Americans, The Wading Girl, Dany, Beth, Care Bears on Fire, Age Rings, The Bridesmaids, Pat, Bryan, Union Hall, The Antlers, The Muggabears, Johan, Wes, Chrissy, Giuseppe, Vanessa, Katie, Kira, Heather, Liz, Brian, Brooklyn Vegan, Jeff, Wes, D, Paul, Carolyn, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Sparks, Miller, Budweiser, Yuengling, and massive amounts of drink tickets.

If I forgot anyone else who may have played a part in anyway I apologize.

Love always, Sean (Sure Juror)

When last I left the recesses of my alcohol riddled memory we had just finished playing the first of two Pianos shows for our ‘residency’…Which leads us to…

February 10, 2007 Exitfare presents…Care Bears On Fire took the stage first…and not to sound mean, but they are 11-12 years old. So when you’re in a bar and these kids are setting up and tuning guitars and sound checking you think this has got to be a joke, a publicity stunt…believe me its not…I had listen to them before on their myspace, and was impressed…I still didn’t believe that they were 12 and this good, but they proved me wrong. I had talked to their bassist Lucio(?) after their set and he informed me that they had been playing for almost 2 years already, and had known each other since they were young…haha…young? That’s funny if you think about the fact that they’ve been playing together longer then most bands twice their age. Anyway, to actually understand them you would have to see them live. Indie, punk, blues I think isolates them enough to hear it in your head. They played to a packed crowd of 20-somethings, 40-something parents, and 12 yr old kids…all of whom were singing and swaying while the Care Bears tore through a blazing set about Unicorns, and Baby Animals. Oh and if that wasn’t enough to win you over, they played “Should I Stay, or Should I” Go by the Clash as an encore to end the night.

Next up was Age Rings. The chances that we would be playing with a Boston based band on the same night as a Boston based blog came down to sponsor us….1::2…. So this 6-piece(maybe 7 I can’t remember) is hanging out, and we talk here and there and I have to say none of them had a “Boston Accent”, at least not the guys I talked too. So Age Rings headed on stage around 8 o’clock post meridian UTC-5….and true to everything I had read up about them they played solid rock show. Never letting the crowd catch their breath…the sweaty handshakes after the set was enough to know they put in 110% into this show. For anyone interested Age Rings will be playing SXSW next month, and I would recommend checking them out.

It was now our turn to woo the crowd. Unfortunately this night would end up being the worse show that we played while in New York. It had turned out that we were given way to many drink tickets by one of the promoters, and after almost 4 hours of drinking, we weren’t in any condition to play a decent show. It was funny to still hear a good response from the crowd afterwards, but they probably didn’t know what to expect. So I apologize to everyone that thought it sucked, and to everyone that enjoyed it but just didn’t know it wasn’t as good. Sorry.

Last up was Bridesmaids. Who I unfortunately missed most of their set. Around the time they went on stage, for their first show ever I believe, I found out that our singer had been up for almost 36 hours due to work and life and whatever else you can imagine, and he had to drive back down to southern New Jersey to work a double on Sunday. Oh, Yeah, like the rest of us he was inebriated. So another apology to the Bridesmaids…They sounded great as I walked in and out of the downstairs venue. They sounded like a funky pop-jazz band. I’m not sure who was actually in the band…almost all but the singer/flutist had sheet music in front of them during the set, and I actually saw the singer writing out some notes earlier in the night.

February 16, 2007 The Battering Room hosted the Knockout! Round 2 at Union Hall in Brooklyn. This would end up being our best played show, even if the start of the night for us was the most stressful out of all the shows this month…It all started with the snow. It had finally snowed a substantial amount in the city. This in itself was not a problem. I enjoyed having some snow to look at and ice to slip on finally. The problem was in the transport of band mates from Glassboro, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, & West Chester, PA. Everyone had left with plenty of time to spare, and since we had said we would supply the backline for the rest of the bands…this was a good thing. Load-in was around 5:30pm. I got calls saying that 5/7ths of the band was only 20 miles away around 4:00. This was great news. We didn’t have a van, so it would take multiple trips to Union Hall to drop of all of our gear. Around 5:20pm those people that were 20 miles away were just arriving at my apartment. I called and said we were on our way and that although we appreciate the opportunity to sound check, we would have to decline. We drove back and forth 5 times total. And then around 6:30 our singer(s) called and said that they were right outside the Holland tunnel and would be there soon. Now I don’t have a car, but I know that it’s not far from the Holland tunnel to the Manhattan Bridge. At the most on a bad day I would guess 25-30 minutes. Well this was the worst traffic in the history of traffic. It took them over an hour to drive less then 3 miles….regardless of everything up to this point the outcome would be spectacular.

8:00pm The Antlers hit the stage right on time. (Even though I was over hearing people say we were 2 hours behind schedule). I was still busy running around like headless chickens at this point, but did catch a few songs. It would be fair to say that he reminds me of a young Jeff Magnum mixed with some Arcade Fieriness and an amazing voice from somewhere in the late 50’s.

Shortly before 9:00pm The Muggabears went on...I had seen The Muggabears briefly in late November/early December, and maybe it was booze or I’ll place the blame on the sound guy…but I wasn’t as enthralled in with them as I was this night. How does one describe The Muggabears sound? If you were to take artists like Sonic Youth and John Cale, and The Sonics, Steve Malkmus and anything avant-garde noise pop related and you may be able to hear a brief whirlwind of the Muggabears in your head. Intense is really the only way to describe their set. I’ve never seen anyone die on stage, but for a brief second I thought Travis had died on stage in the middle of a song. It turns out that he passed in the middle of an earth shattering scream…I asked him what happened after the show, and he said, “I knew had to stop, but something in my brain told me to keep going”. Pretty fucking rock’n roll if you ask anyone. So A+ to The Muggabears…Go see them as soon as you can.

So before I try and describe our set, I want to point out the one good thing that happened before the show…Bryan from Subinev made us into robots…. So as previously stated, the pre-show running around had gotten me all out of sorts, and to be honest I wasn’t sure about how the show was going to turn out, but close your eyes and swallow your fears….*blink* and people were sing and dancing and having a grand time. It felt great to put on a show that was better then we could have hoped. It sucks that we won’t be back in the city for a few months.

Surprisingly, the crowd started to demand an encore from us after our set, but time is always a factor and right at 11:00pm Johan stepped up and this quartet from the Netherlands after not playing in the US for sometime gained the respect of the other bands and quite a few new fans. It was great…phenomenal…I’m really glad I had a chance to see them play one of their two shows in the United States.

Its all been fun, and I’ll post my Tony Awards thank you list tomorrow morning since I can’t concentrate with the Bluth family on television

-Sean (Sure Juror)-

The Once-Great Gender Debate – Sure Juror (Live in West Chester, PA March 24, 2006)

The recap of our “the blogs love Sure Juror NYC tour”…(after a 7 hour bus ride from NJ its about time I updated this thing)

Thanks to everyone that set up and played and got us drunk, etc, etc, etc…

January 27, 2007 The Underrated Blog threw a bash that could put any big named, over-hyped indie dance fest to shame. There was lots of drinking, lots of dancing, and lots of great music. The night was by far the best overall show start to finish. We showed up to Sin-e at our prearranged load-in time, and to our surprise and delight we were greeted by hellos and 4 cases of PBR. Although we went on first around 8:15-8:30 the place was already packed. This was our first show since CMJ, and we had added a new drummer and violinist to the line-up, and we were also trying out some new material and playing some songs from smut that we haven’t played live yet. We received a great response during and after our set…no mishaps this time, and I’d like to believe that we all were thoroughly drunk midway through the set.

It was interesting to be playing in New York with 2 other bands from our home turf. Seth Kallen & The Reactions and Liam and Me…Seth & Kallen went on after us, and kept the crowd pumped with a great stage presence and an infectious groove in their music. It was my first time seeing them play live and I was completely impressed at how tight the band was on stage. They win best new friends of the night. We are going to have to kick some ass in Philadelphia with those kids sometime soon. After Seth Kallen & The Reactions came The White Rabbits. I have had the pleasure to see them on numerous occasions since I moved to Brooklyn, and they have never disappointed me. They also won over the hearts of my band mates as well. After what felt like a long night and prosperous night already The Go Station went on, and if (forgive me if I’m out of line) you like Oasis, then you’ll have no trouble falling in love with these guys. The night was wrapped up by Liam and Me…and to be honest, I don’t remember them actually taking the stage. I remember seeing them on stage and the crowd, and Kevin dancing up on me. Those boys always put on a great show, and even if I was to drunk to remember, I have seen them many times before, and they definitely know how to get the crowd going even after 4 bands already sucked the life out of you.

We packed up, and headed to the after party at 87. It wasn’t until I arrived that I found out our shows sponsor was waiting in the ER with some sort of illness. Our Violinist’s first show with the band was also his birthday…When you get home around 6:30 am on any night you can always assure yourself that the night was a success.

February 3, 2007 I Rock I Roll took up the responsibility of hosting the first of our 2 shows @ Pianos this month (and with candy no less to sweeten the deal). The night was kicked off by NYC native Linfinity. I had only heard a few songs by the band, and was upset at first to hear that it would only be a solo appearance by the singer/songwriter Dylan. He performance was amazing. Not what I expected at all, and everything I could have hoped is the only way to describe his set. Next up was Americans, and they pulled off a seamless transition from solo acoustic to full band. They had introduced themselves to me earlier…but guess what…yep that’s a good assumption. We took the stage for the second time at Pianos, and this time with an extra person. Our set went by flawlessly, and once again the response was great. It felt good to finish our set this time. And finally wrapping up our half of the night was The Wading Girl a band from Virginia(?) if memory serves me correct….They performed a stellar show, and I hope to catch them the next time they’re in town so I can give them a more sober review.

Thus ends part 1 of this epic saga…I leave you with a song to keep you entertained until tomorrow when I become productive again and finish the story.

Always,

Sean (Sure Juror)

You’ll Never Recognize It – Sure Juror (Live in West Chester, PA March 24, 2006)

Smut is available for purchase

On iTunes & eMusic

Or you can purchase at our website via paypal

First of all as promised from the previous post…our artwork from the self-titled Sure Juror album… We hope you enjoy it.

In more recent news ...Sure Juror has made Smut available via our website for only $8.00 (including S&H). This is quite the deal. It isn’t a real album, just a CD-R, but it beats waiting and wondering, and it comes with, “artsy punk rawk DIY packaging made by myself and Bonerthan Healthcoat”¹. We hope to get an official release of Smut out soon, but for now this is the quickest way for everyone to get their hands on a copy. I’ll be back soon with more information for everyone concerning Sure Juror. Goodnight.

Sean (Sure Juror)

¹Kevin Convery (December 12, 2006)

HEY!!!!

We will be phasing out the blog over the next few weeks and just using our website for updates and such. We just put up our first record up for download on the website….and as a going away gift, I will be posting the art work for the first record (in its original Photo Shop Format, as well as in .jpeg for people without Adobe Photo Shop) soon. I’ll keep everyone up to date in the meantime. Any questions you have for us can be directed to my email or the band’s email. I’ll be in touch.

-Sean (Sure Juror)

So I suck at posting about the on goings of Sure Juror….This all happened 2 weeks ago, and I just now got around to it…Sorry.

Sure Juror and The Missing Automobiles (And Their CMJ Recap!!)

So around 8:30pm Tuesday October 31^st I headed over to The Musebox’s “Attack of the Werewolves” party to kill some time while I waited for the boys of Sure Juror to arrive at my apartment. They left Jersey around 10:30pm – 11:00pm had to pick up David from PA and then would be arriving around to Brooklyn between 1:30am – 2:30am…that was until the boys informed me that I-278 E was closed, so a quick re-route up the turnpike and through Manhattan and 4 of the members of Sure Juror arrived around 3:00am. They were tired, but we decide to go out for a little while, cos hey, we’re in New York City and why the hell not? I directed the boys to The Skinny, where Rachael and Nora were going into their 5^th hour of DJing.

We left sometime around 4:45am…had to come back to the lower east side because someone left their keys at Rachael’s apartment, and after a very long day we all sprawled out on my bedroom floor to get a few hours of sleep before our show (It was some where around 6:45am when I fell asleep)

I woke up a little before 9:30am and looked out the window to a picturesque day, and a street sans cars…my heart went from my throat to my stomach in seconds….Shit…Jon’s car was missing. We had to be at Pianos at 11 for our show. I spent the next 2 hours on the phone trying to locate the car. Yeah it was towed. We found the car and Jon and Joe took a cab (thanks Freddy) to get it out. Dave and I decided to haul as much equipment as we could mange on the subway so we could get setup and not lose any more time.

We went on almost a ½ hour after we were suppose to start…we blew three one of our most hasty 4 song sets ever. We were sweaty, we were exhausted, but we made an impression.

Reviews for the abbreviated show were posted by Heart on a Stick and Yeti Don’t Dance.

A few photos can be found on Underrated’s Flickr and Yeti’s post as well

Thanks again to Brooklyn Vegan for allowing us the opportunity, and thanks to everyone that stood around and waited for us to go on, we hope you all enjoyed it

-Sean (Sure Juror)-