07|01|10 Video – We Might As Well Have Stayed Young in HD

Now in HD and with higher-quality audio:

So, poor Evan has, for the most part, been suffering a severe case of anti-culture-shock ever since he arrived here from New Zealand. The States, in many ways, is very similar to New Zealand. Both are fundamentally based on the Anglo-Saxon culture; both are very young countries; have similar landscapes in many parts of the country (Washington, Montana, and Oregon are painfully similar to NZ’s South Island); obviously we share a common language; and so on and so forth. Of course, there are many differences, but compared with countries like Egypt, Spain, Japan, et cetera, New Zealand and the United States definitely feel quite similar.

So when Evan and I drove through Wyoming and passed cowboys and horses, Evan nearly leaped out the window. Finally a genuine piece of Americana!

I guess you can always count on a cowboy to save the day :).

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04|21|09 The Enright House Newsletter Vol.1

What’s in this newsletter:

1) Intro + subscribing and unsubscribing
2) New Release: Enright House / Pushmi-Pullyu Split EP
3) New Video: We Might As Well Have Stayed Young
4) US Tour
5) A general call for help (please read this!)

1) Intro + subscribing and unsubscribing

Hi, and welcome to the first Enright House newsletter!

Many of you have opted into this newsletter through various channels, a wee few haven’t. Some of you actively chose to be on it by subscribing via Reverbnation, some of you are just friends and contacts of mine, many of you left behind your email address to download much of our free catalog of music.

None of you should, however, feel any pressure to remain subscribed to this newsletter, if you don’t genuinely care to be on it, so if you would rather not get newsletters from us in the future, just reply to info@theenrighthouse.com with “thanks, but no thanks” or whatever you deem to be an appropriate response: “fuck you” would be harsh, but equally suitable, I suppose.

I would have provided an auto-unsubscribe feature, but then I would have had to use a newsletter client, and all the free ones use ads, or html, and all sorts of ridiculous other features, and all I wanted to do here is talk to you directly in the simplest terms possible. Plain text, no attachments, corporate logos, just you and I. Seriously, let me know if you already get too much stuff in the mail – my feelings won’t be hurt (unless it’s my mom or my girlfriend opting out).

2) New release: Enright House / Pushmi-Pullyu Split EP

We have a new release available for sale. It’s a strictly limited CD (100 copies) that was just released by mam!records in Madison, WI. In addition to Pushmi-Pullyu’s gorgeous music, you get two new Enright House tracks, and a really awesome cover of “Darkwave” by Pushmi-Pullyu. One song, in particular, I am totally excited about, namely “Distance”. It was inspired by the acoustic tour we did in New Zealand, and features a long field recording of me and my old friend Mary talking about our college relationship, layered acoustic guitars, piano, an old vintage accordion, and a vocoder, as well.

You can either buy the release directly through mam!records’ online store @ www.mamrecords.com/shop (which uses paypal), at our remaining shows in America, or, for all you back home in New Zealand who aren’t into paypal, you can email me, and I will send you through my bank details so you can just do a direct bank transfer. Whatever your choice, the split EP is very reasonably priced, and we’ll all do our best to make sure you get your copy as fast as possible!

www.mamrecords.com/shop
www.myspace.com/theenrighthouse
www.myspace.com/pushmipullyumusic

3) New video: We Might As Well Have Stayed Young

Ryan Alexander Llyod (ex-Christchurchian now living in Australia) shot a lovely new video for our song, “We Might As Well Have Stayed Young”. It’s now online on youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFh4_F9J3Tk, so please watch it, and if you like it, rate it favorably, leave a comment, and help us spread the word via facebook, blogs, twitter, word of mouth, etc.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFh4_F9J3Tk
www.vimeo.com/3742057

4) US Tour

Evan and I are still in the midst of touring America, with roughly four more weeks of concerts to go. If you have friends living in America, please let them know we’re in their neighborhood. And if you’re reading this and live in the US, then – f’ing A – come out and see us!

Our remaining dates are:

Apr 20 @ Dunes, Portland, OR
Apr 21 @ Kimo’s Penthouse Lounge, San Francisco, CA
Apr 23 @ 54321 fun! on KCSB 91.9FM, Santa Barbara, CA
Apr 24 @ Echo Curio, Los Angeles, CA
Apr 27 @ Kilby Court, Salt Lake City, UT
Apr 30 @ The Mountain House, Dallas, TX
May 1 @ The Vertical Violet, Wichita, KS
May 2 @ Czar Bar, Kansas City, MI
May 4 @ The Bridge PAI, Charlottesville, VA
May 6 @ WPTS 92.1FM on “The Live Show”, Pittsburgh, PA
May 8 @ The Model Home, Philadelphia, PA
May 9 @ Goodbye Blue Monday!, Brooklyn, NY
May 11 @ Labyrinth Press Company, Jamestown, NY
May 15 @ CPR, Lexington, KY
May 16 @ Castle Sunshine, Bowling Green, OH

You can follow our whole tour (photos, stories, mp3s, etc) via our blog at www.theenrighthouse.com and www.twitter.com/theenrighthouse.

5) A general call for help

This point, to me at least, is perhaps the most important reason why I finally decided to send out a newsletter. The Enright House, as many of you already know, is essentially a one-person operation. Evan, of course, is a huge part of The Enright House, and I don’t know what on earth I would do without his dedication and musical input, but, the truth is, when it comes to promoting and financing my music, I’m pretty much on my own.

At first, this was never really an issue, as I adore the DIY aspect of making music, but as time goes on and our profile and amount of releases and videos slowly grow, I find myself at my end’s wit with all the stuff that I should be doing, but can’t, due to lack of time and energy.

In short, I just can’t do it all by myself anymore. The myriad of social networking sites that need to be kept current, syndicating through blogs to myspace, entering tour dates in a million places, staying on top of last.fm, writing to blogs about our music and videos, writing and recording the music, booking dates, touring, organizing new releases, creating artwork and posters, keeping up to date with my own blog posts on my site, promoting new releases and videos, and so on and so on… it’s getting to be more than I can cope with.

In short, what I’m looking for is help. From you. I’m hoping that amongst all of you are a few people who really genuinely care about my music and want to help it succeed in some way, and have a little bit of spare time here and there to help out.

Perhaps, you would be willing to run one of the many social networking profiles related to The Enright House, such as Reverbnation or Last.FM. Or, perhaps, you might offer to start a new profile for us on sites I haven’t found the time to get to know very well, such as Bebo, Virb or Pure Volume, to name but a few.

Maybe you have friends who blog a lot. Perhaps give them a nudge and see if they would be keen to give away some of our music, or feature a video on their site? Do you have friends who work for magazines or newspapers? Maybe hand them a CD and ask them if they would consider writing something about us?

Basically, anything at all would help. Maybe a single twitter post that links to our new video, maybe a facebook message to your friends asking them to give our music a listen.

I guess what I wish for in my dreams is that a humble and tiny stream of gestures of help might help me raise the profile of my music ever-so-slightly over time. And, on a purely personal note, a few small gestures of faith that our music means enough to you that would consider helping out in small way, would be a wonderful thing to experience, and would provide much needed fuel for the months that lie ahead.

It need not be much, honestly, it need not even be prolonged; whatever you can do without it being troublesome to you in any way, is enough to make a difference.

The payoff, aside from the fact that many little small gestures can amount to something greater than their parts, is that I will try as much as possible to make it worth your while. I promise to continue to offer free releases and videos over the years to come. And for those of you who chose to offer more of their time (i.e. building and maintaining an online profile for our music, etc.), I would be more than happy to give you free copies of upcoming releases, send you signed posters, share unreleased demos with you, etc. Anything I can to show you my gratitude.

What I can’t do, unfortunately, is pay you – it’ll border on a miracle if I can even scrape together the money to release the new Enright House album! – but what I can do is promise to extend to you as much kindness, transparency, and generosity as I possibly can.

Please take a second to think about this. I know some of you value what we do with our music. Please find a way – any small way – to help us get the word out about the fact that we exist and are here to stay.

With all my gratitude for your interest and time,
All my love,
Mark

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04|14|09 New Music Video: We Might As Well Have Stayed Young

Sorry for delay on posting about this, but I’ve just been so insanely busy with the tour and all.

We Might As Well Have Stayed Young has always been one of my favorite songs, and I’m really happy that a video has finally been made for it! It’s directed and produced by Ryan Alexander Lloyd, and the director of photography is David Rusanow. Thanks to you two, and everyone who took part in the shoot!

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09|05|08 New Zealand Skier Documentary uses Scattering the Sun!

Scattering the Sun used for NZ Skier documentary! from Mark Roberts on YouTube.

I am so stoked about this! I got back from the tour all exhausted, but one of the nice things I did the morning after my first sleep was to open up a package Bucket Productions sent me, which included a free mag of New Zealand Skier and a bloody awesome NZ Ski DVD, which I had offered my music to for free.

The resulting documentary is totally radical, with guys and girls essentially jumping of terrifyingly dangerous-looking mountain cliffs and twisting their bodies, like nothing could ever be more natural and simple.

Anyhow, they used the entirety of Scattering The Sun Like Gunshot for the opening intro chapter (like 7 minutes + long!!), which had me grinning so wide I had to massage my face after watching the DVD for fear of cramping up.

Without anyone’s permission (please no lawsuits ya’ll!), I threw up a short clip of the opening sequence just to give all of you a feel for how well the track works with the slow-mo skiing footage. Check out the video, and if you’re into that sort of stuff, definitely grab a copy of the mag and video (New Zealand Skier and Basket Productions).

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08|26|08 Electronic Solo Tour: i.Ryoko at the Palmerston Library

A short clip I made of Thomas performing his i.Ryoko set at the Palmerston North Library.

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08|23|08 Solo Electronic Tour: And On Sunday We Rest

I’ll update properly tomorrow, but I just wanted to take a few seconds and let you know that Thomas and I are both well and happy. We just played our first three shows on our solo tour, and are having a wonderful experience, thus far. Wanganui and Wellington were just so special, it’s a bit hard to put in words, so until I make a proper attempt to do so tomorrow afternoon, I’ll just share with you a few photos of our set-up from this weekend’s shows.

Thursday, Wanganui @ The Eye Of Night: