Ruffian e-mail account hacked, spamming, and all around lameness

Hello all,

With apologies I write to you that my ruffian account was hacked/infected/compromised and apparently sent all kinds of dreadful spam everywhere. SPAM EVERYWHERE!



What this means in practical terms is that

a) you may have been spammed by our e-mail address

b) you may have written an e-mail to me that never received a response some time over the last year (including a couple people wanting us to check out their music or give them advice about DC because they were moving here...sorry!)

c) I'm just seeing a lot of correspondence from the last year.

Don't worry, I don't have any of your personal information unless for inexplicable reasons you gave it to me by e-mail, so this shouldn't be an issue for anyone who is still paying attention to what little happens over here.

Also, apologies to those who were spammed or inadvertently ignored. I didn't not write back because I didn't like you. I just didn't know you had reached out.

Happy spring, folks.

Hugh

Enkutatash - Sept. 11 New Year/Homeland Security Composition

Hugh is singing as part of the choir for this Jace Clayton (a.k.a. DJ / Rupture) composition. Details below:


Anthology of Booty DJs spinning afterward. Hope to see you there. Sorry for the short notice. We didn't know until September 9th!

Second Annual Report

Hello all, I hope midsummer is treating you well.

As usual, more has been going on than we've been posting about, so here is the semi-regular, annual-ish update...

The Priests record we worked on last year is out on Don Giovanni and Sister Polygon and the band is on the road. Kevin and I tracked three of the four songs at Inner Ear Studio and Kevin and the band did additional recording and mixing at Swim-Two-Birds. The balance of the record was recorded by Kyle Johnson at Fancy Time Studio. It's a good record, they're good people. Check it out. Oh wait, you probably already did 'cause it's everywhere (including here?!).

Kevin just tracked a couple songs for Cigarette, a DC band you should check out. It's probably my favorite music by them and it sounds beautiful. Release plans TBD, I believe.

Kevin and I also tracked an album for The Black Sparks, who come highly recommended by us as well. Kevin and the band are continuing work on the record at Swim-Two-Birds over the summer.

The studio is seeing a lot more action than the label right now, as you might have guessed. Here's a picture of it: 

As for the label, we don't have any concrete plans for releasing anything right now. Our jobs, the studio, and growing vegetables make it hard to devote the time and energy to Ruffian that an active label requires. We are still filling orders, though that process isn't going to be as fast as ordering from an actual business. While I'm on summer vacation from teaching, however, I'm hoping to make some changes to the website and make the catalogue and other material available online again. The website is currently down, so you aren't reading this unless you are linking directly to us through Blogger. 

Since you asked (?), the vegetable growing is going well: 

intensive multi-season cropping on a small scale

shallots

It feels kind of full-circle from my teenage Food-Not-Bombs days when I used to drive to the DC Farmer's Market by Union Station every Thursday to pick up end-of-the-day vegetables from farmers who didn't want to haul home a 40 lb. bag of okra, or whatever it was they were cool to give to some teenagers who wanted to feed people. Friday night we hit the bakeries for their day-old bread. Saturday morning we figured out what to make with whatever ingredients we had ("How do you cook okra? Anyone?") and hauled it down to Lafayette Park or Dupont Circle. I also got a sweet pair of steel-toed boots for $10 at the market. What were they doing there? I don't know, but in retrospect the couple years of Food-Not-Bombs work was more transparently formative than I probably have given it credit for. 

Since you've made it this far, here are some photos of Priests recording at Inner Ear that I forgot to post before:

Paleography (Hugh McElroy solo) set at Treehouse Wednesday, 8/14

Hello all,

I hope this finds you well. I am playing a show under the name Paleography on Wednesday with Soft Punch and Missionaries. With apologies to the details below from Ryan/Soft Punch, it is a (mostly) brand new set of (mostly) old songs (9th-20th centuries, CE). We'd all be delighted to see you there. If you've been to one of my a capella sets, it's kind of like that, but with more guitar, upright bass, space echo, and distortion. 

THIS WEDNESDAY (8/14) @ 8PM

The Treehouse Lounge
1006 Florida Ave NE
$8

In this tiny, new bar called The Treehouse Lounge, I'll be playing solo, and Hugh McElroy will be debuting his new solo project called Paleography. A brand new set of brand new songs, I'm told. The headliners, Missionaries, are just the kindest people you'll meet--a giant, strange folk band from Roanoke, including members of Eternal Summers. 

FB invite here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/181448225366120/

All best,

Hugh/Paleography

DC punk farmhouse

Hello all,

Things have been quiet here for some time, except for about my friend JJ's awesome activist photography. I've realized that since we haven't been putting out records lately people might be laboring under the misconception that nothing's going on around here. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There's still a ton of music going on over here, even if it's not coming out on ruffian. Cephalopods have gone into hibernation with new professional responsibilities, two marriages, and the arrival of a delightful baby girl. We will get around to playing again once we sort out how to fit it into our new lives.

Kevin, my husband as of Saturday, has largely taken over the studio, as I have concentrated more and more energy on the garden. He's been down there working with Priests, a seriously rad girl/boy-revolution punk band whose music gives me that 15-years-old-and-at-my-first-good-punk-show tingly excited feeling. Gideon from Priests has also been engineering some projects down there, including a record by the also-awesome Downtown Boys.

I'm turning our back yard into a small urban farm. Between the garden, the Mt. Pleasant farmers' market, and a winter CSA from Even'Star farm in Lexington, MD, we've been able to get most of our produce locally and grown without chemicals. The difference has been enormous. We feel more nourished from less food. Our garden regularly attracts cardinals, robins, bluejays, mourning doves, finches, sparrows, hummingbirds, and woodpeckers. And bees. I get more sun and exercise. The food tastes a whole lot better. Every year the soil holds more water, there are more worms working it (enough to share with the robins), and more of our food gets harvested minutes before it's prepared and eaten. This year I'm feeling like we can skip the winter CSA - even we, lovers of greens, radishes, and turnips, can only consume or preserve so much per week. The market opens the year earlier and runs until Christmas now. I'm getting down with year-round food production and finding that I'm already growing a lot of what I used to buy.

To me, this is just a new growth from old DIY punk roots. We are trying to nourish ourselves and our communities physically  in the way we always have culturally with music, support, and solidarity. A really satisfying day here tends to involve Kevin in the studio with a band and me in the garden. At some points I'll put down my tools and go into the studio to listen, chat, or fix a patch bay. At other points the band will break and we will chat in the yard. On really good days the dinner break finds us all sitting down at the dining room table with a meal cooked out of the garden. There is a deep and palpable satisfaction in the cultivation of the ground we live on and the cultivation of art and of friendship, fellowship, and community. I suspect I'm going to want to think through a lot of how this works, what it means, and why it's valuable on this blog while we are working out new ways to be. Hopefully this means there will still be cool updates about what's happening downstairs at swim-two-birds. But in the mean time, there are going to also be updates from the field, as it were. Today: Priests tour cassette mixes 3 pounds of radishes harvested 6 eggplant seedlings and 4 tomato seedlings transplanted Visits from Hugh's mother and Kevin's brother

Help document the struggle for Justice in Agriculture

Hello all, 

I know it's been a while. Ruffian has been pretty dormant while we reorganize Swim-Two-Birds, plan a crop rotation for the garden, and work on planning a wedding (big year over here). In the meantime the extended family has seen weddings, births, new jobs, and a whole lot of life-in-general. I'm sure we will get back to Ruffian in some way shape or form before too terribly long. But for now I want to pass on some information about the excellent work a good friend from the old days of the label is doing. 

My friend JJ needs some fundraising help to document the critical work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, right at the center of issues of fair wages, fair working conditions, workers' rights, and the ongoing disgrace of forced labor in the US. 

JJ is an old buddy of mine from back in high school days and does amazing work using photography to document communities of all sorts. His work is frequently social-justice oriented, even when not explicitly so. He walks the walk and regularly uses his professional skills in aid of righteous causes like the work of the CIW. 

Please consider kicking him a couple bucks and passing the word along. 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jjtiziou/photographing-the-march-for-rights-respect-and-fai

Thanks,

Hugh/Ruffian

In the short space of 16 hours...

various members of the family were dressed as cops beating up Tereu Tereu's Ryan Little during People of the Sun's Run for Cover set:



And early the next afternoon Cephalopods played the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Luce Center (these videos won't embed for some reason) with special guest 'pod Liz Bennett:

Porque Llorax

The Holly & the Ivy

Lady K

In other news, Hume spent much of the summer writing and recording a new album with Hugh kicking off the first 2 weeks of engineering. They're on tour right now and you can get all their info here.

Cephalopods play Everlasting Life with Silo Halo and friends on Aug. 19th. More info soon.

Make it in the shade,
Ruffians

Cephalopods play at Smithsonian Museum of American Art THIS Sunday afternoon July 31st

Hello all,



Cephalopods will be playing an acoustic set at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Luce Center this Sunday, July 31st. The event, part of the Luce Center's Art and Coffee and Luce Unplugged series, begins at 1:30 with a talk on William Alvin Blayney’s Mural No. GU-43752.

The event is free and open to all ages.

We will play at 2. We are really psyched about the art talk as well as a set made up of Cephalopods originals, Sephardic ballads, Hungarian folk songs, and assorted other goodies.

For more info see the museum's page here.

Looking forward to see you there,
Cephalopods

CLITFEST Press Release

Ruffian has always been keenly interested in supporting sexual and gender identity equality and we love the work that H.I.P.S. does. So we are passing along press info about an exciting event happening in July in DC. There are some notices about events that have already happened in it but it's still worth being hip to the event, which I am sorry I'm missing.

Begin transmission:

Help Support Safer Sex and Promote Women in the Arts!

Combating Latent Inequality Together Festival is now in its 7^th year, and will take place in Washington, D.C. on the weekend of July 8^th. It will be a three-day event combining music and education to promote women's involvement in the arts. We aim to stimulate conversation between folks of all backgrounds, ages, abilities, ethnicities, and genders. We aim to raise consciousness and to build a community wherein people of all genders are supported and empowered. All proceeds from this year’s fest go towards H.I.P.S..

HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive) was founded in 1993 by a coalition of service providers, advocates, and law enforcement officials as an outreach and referral service. HIPS mission is to assist female, male, and transgender individuals engaging in sex work in Washington, DC in leading healthy lives. Utilizing a harm reduction model, HIPS’ programs strive to address the impact that HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, discrimination, poverty, violence and drug use have on the lives of sex workers. HIPS is a nationally recognized organization that meets the needs of sex workers and assists them in their efforts to eliminate the transmission of HIV, increase sexual health, and reduce violence and harm associated with sex work and drug use. HIPS programs serve an estimated 2,000 sex workers a year on the streets and in the organization’s drop-in center, providing a full spectrum of programs to address basic & immediate needs, long-term goal setting and life skills development.

Budget cuts in public health have forced H.I.P.S.

to downsize significantly. They need your help!

Go to www.hips.org to make a donation.

The C.L.I.T.Fest benefit series will help the fest cover its costs.

Look out for the following events around town:

3/31: Don't Need You screening at Red Emma's in Baltimore
4/3: Pharmacy Bar local business raffle

(with drink specials and items including tattoos, merchandise from Smash & local art!)
4/9: Babes & Brews

(homebrew party featuring beer by A Brewing Problem; space TBD)
4/13: Dischord: An Impression, Don't Need You, and Beyond the Screams screening

at the DC Arts Center in Adams Morgan, $7

in May/June: keep your eyes out for...
bake sale & tabling with Positive Force in June to support Planned Parenthood
self-defense training
screenings of AfroPunk and Beyond Beats and Rhymes

Other ways to help the cause: volunteer time to the CLITFest card at the Maryland Food Co-op to help feed the presenters and bands! Host a benefit of your own, promote our events, check http://clitfestdc.tumblr.com and "like" us on Facebook. Check out our online store (coming soon!) to see all our wares!

Need more info? Have an idea? Hit us up on Facebook, or at:

clitfest-dc-2011@googlegroups.com

Help support local activism and women in the arts!

Phat Daughter String Quartet Live in Baltimore!

Click Here For Video

CORRECTION: Cephalopods Rock it Collectively Saturday NOW AT LA CASA

Correction all,

The house show show on Saturday has been merged with the awesome Radio CPR benefit at La Casa on Saturday. Here are the new details:

The ridiculously awesome Radio CPR benefit show we'd planned for this Saturday, November 13, just rose to a new level of ridiculous awesomeness. We now have five bands to rock your world. They are -- in reverse order -- with notes!

S-PRCSS
(hypnotic post-punk, with a 90s dischord vibe. Reminds me of Lungfish with Wire or Gang of Four for a rhythm section)
Cephalopods
(ex-Black Eyes, Early Humans, Et At It)
The Eye the Ear the Arm
(electro-awesomeness from MA. ex-La Mia Vita Violenta)
America Hearts
(stripped-down indie pop, catchy and sweet. Reminds me of the Breeders, with the grunge scoured off).
Fell Types
(early 90s style indie rock, riffs-a-plenty. Reminds me Dinosaur Jr. without the solos).

I imagine this show will rule. It will also be chock full of human bodies. Come out and listen. Doors at 6:00, sets are short, we'll be over by 11:00 as per usual. $5 cover benefits Radio CPR. La Casa is at 3166 Mt. Pleasant St. NW, WDC. A few blocks from the Columbia Heights metro on the green line. Spread the word.


Just dropping a line about two Ruffian-related shows coming up this week.

First up Hugh McElroy is playing a solo set on Thursday with Tereu Tereu, Conductive Alliance, and Listen Listen. Hugh's set will be mostly solo a capella with odd bits of samples and tape-based effects. Tereu Tereu killed it at the Positive Force Punk Rock Flea Market on Saturday and is sure not to disappoint.

Then, on Saturday, Cephalopods is playing at the MVB with Tidelands, Good Offices, and The Eye, The Ear, The Arm. The Eye, The Ear, The Arm features members of Ruffian band La Mi Vida Violenta fresh off some recording and with a new line-up. Hugh saw Good Offices at their first show in September and was impressed. NOTE: This show was going to be moved up to not conflict with the La Casa show the same night but it couldn't be worked out sadly. Both shows will be awesome, so don't sweat which one you go to.

Details below:


11/11 - Tereu Tereu, Conductive Alliance, Hugh McElroy, Listen Listen
@ Everlasting Life 8:30pm $5
2928 Georgia Ave NW


11/13 - The Ear, The Eye & The Arm, Cephalopods, Good Offices + TBA
@ The MVB 7pm
two nine one eight Sherman Ave NW

Hope to see you there,

Ruffians

Cephalopods on- and off-line

Hello all,

Just a quick update: Cephalopods played a short set on August 14th at the Black Cat with The Plums and it all went fine. Mike over at Dead City DIY filmed some of the set and posted it here.

You'll notice only two of the three 'pods are in it, though. Wells, our drummer, was experiencing severe back pain that week and had to sit the show out. We're still working on music as he recovers from surgery. All's well, he'll be back behind the kit soon, but we'll be using the recovery time to try out some new instrumentation, arrangements, and ideas as well. We'll keep you posted on plans as we make them.

Hugh

Cephalopods at Black Cat this Friday

Cephalopods will be playing this Saturday as part of the Black Cat's Second Saturdays series and we have the honor of playing with The Plums. For those who don't know, Cephalopods is Hugh McElroy, Fiona Griffin, and Wells Bennett. If you saw us at Fort Reno with the Evens last Monday, you get the idea, though we will be playing a very different set for this show. We'd love to see you there.

The show is early, 8pm! So if you want to go dancing upstairs at Mousetrap, downstairs at Nevermind the 90s, or over at the 9:30 clubs back bar for Zack (The New Gay) Rosen's Transformer rock party, you can do those things, or anything else, after.

Cephalopods and the Plums
8pm Black Cat Backstage
All Ages
$8

Cephalopods

Cephalopods have been much in the news of late here, here, and here.

The band plays Black Cat this coming Saturday, August 14th, as part of the club's Second Saturdays series.

It would be lovely to see you there.

Hugh

New Mailing Info for Ruffian

Hello all, just as a heads up, the Ruffian PO box is no more. We get so little post there that there seemed little justification in spending the money to keep it open. We'll use the funds to keep a large amount of storage and bandwidth available for the free downloads page. There should be some more on that soon.

Ruffians

Orders Missing

Hello all,

During the Great Ruffian Site Crash of 2010 some Paypal orders didn't get through. We've identified which ones didn't make it and we'll be shipping those out in the next 24 hours. Apologies for that, but if you ordered any records from us via paypal between April and now, they're on their way.

Ruffians

Help out Girls Rock! DC

The fine folks at Girls Rock! DC just sent an e-mail asking for loans and donations of instruments and supplies for this years camp.

Girls Rock! DC is a week-long camp for girls 8-18 that "aims to create a supportive, inclusive and creative space for girls to develop their self-confidence, build community, stand up and rock out!" It's awesome. If you can help out, please do. We're donating a bunch of drums out of Swim-Two-Birds this year.

From their website:

Girls Rock! DC Needs Instruments and Supplies for Camp!

Hey GR!DC supporters! This year, we are going to have MORE CAMPERS THAN EVER! That means, we are going to need more instruments than ever. If you have any used, working instruments you would like to loan or donate (tax-deductible), it would be GREATLY appreciated. We also need items for the goody bags campers receive at camp. If you want to loan or donate, please email shelly@girlsrockdc.org, by Friday July, 30, to make arrangements. Thanks for your support–You rock!

We need:

DJ Equipment:
direct drive turntables
intermediate mixers
needles (donation only, these get a lot of wear and tear)
relevant laptops (last five years),
cables, all kinds (donation only)
powered speakers
PA Systems

Drums:
drum kits
any extra drums, cowbells, mountable tambourines, etc.
cymbals
hardware
sticks (donation only)

Bass Amps

Guitar Amps

Microphones

Microphone Stands

Tuners

Picks (donation only)

Working Instrument Cables (donation only)

Effects Pedals

Keyboards

Guitars

Basses

2GB SD Memory Cards (2 or more)

2-Way Radios (6 or more)

75 Reusable bags

75 Notebooks

75 Pens/relevant goody bag items

Site down and back up, other happenings

Hello all,

The Ruffian site has been inoperable for a bit due to a mistake on our end. It should be back to normal. Apologies if this caused you any trouble. The root cause was some funky e-mail settings that are being changed as we speak. If you wrote to us and didn't hear back between, oh, say May and now, drop a line and we'll look into finding your e-mail, order, etc.

In the mean time lots has been going on around at Swim-Two-Birds/Ruffian HQ the past couple months.

Cephalopods has two upcoming DC shows, one with The Evens at Fort Reno on Monday, August 2nd

and the other at The Black Cat, Saturday, August 14th with http://www.myspace.com/plumsband

Hume was just at Swim-Two-Birds tracking some songs for a 7" slated to be released in the fall. Vocals were tracked by Hays Holladay who mixed the two songs. They sound rad. The band heads out on the road really soon in support of their new EP on Sockets, "Penumbra".

Big ups, as always, to Sean and all the good work he does. Head over to Sockets for more on that. I hear, by the way, that there is more and more exciting news from The Cornel West Theory. Keep yr eyes and ears open.

The Chance finished overdubs and vocals at Swim-Two-Birds last week right after the Hume sessions. The record should be mixed in the fall.

BLDGS and Noon:30 have tracks mixed for the upcoming Sockets/Ruffian split 7" series. More on that soon.

Imperial China is coming in to record a track or two at Swim-Two-Birds next week for the same series.

I know we've been talking about this forever. It's coming. Good food takes time to grow and cook.

That's all for now.

Ruffians

Cephalopods this Saturday at St Stephens Church with Birds and Wires, Fordists, Body Cop

Cephalopods is playing this Saturday, May 1st, at St. Stephen's Church (16th and Newton NW).

The cost is $7 and the show is a benefit for the charity We Are Family (http://www.wearefamilydc.org/).

Also playing are Body Cop, The Fordists, and Birds and Wires. Show starts at 7 pm. Check out the awesome flier here:

People of all ages are welcome to attend (that includes babies, awkward teens, aging hippies, grandparents, and everyone in between).

Hope to see you there.

Cephalopods TOMORROW April 22d at Bossa in Adams Morgan

Cephalopods will be playing TOMORROW night Thursday, April 22nd at Bossa Lounge on 18th Street in Adams Morgan.

8:10-8:40 Embezzlers (Jeff Barsky)
8:50-9:30 Matta Gawa
9:45-10:20 Ches Smith's Congs for Brums
10:20- end Cephalopods

Bossa
2463 18th St. NW

Hope to see you there!

Cephalopods