Enter some creepy Valentine’s Day cards, and you’re all set! You can see and even download them all at www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2013/02/6-valentines-cards-to-creep-out-your-loved-ones.html. Although, Paste did choose to forgo the most obvious of all creepy songs, Creep by Radiohead. One of our favourite weird jams ever.

When you were here before, couldn’t look you in the eye…
You’re just like an angel; your skin makes me cry.

Oh…uh…thanks. (Yikes.) Good thing they got the stalker anthem from the Police. (Which we have to confess, we absolutely love. The song. Not stalkers. Ok? Cool.)

Enjoy these little cards from Paste and may you and your loved ones have a very special (and hopefully not too creepy) Valentine’s Day.

We love you!
xoxo
DPA
(We’ll be watching you.)

Thank you to everyone for all your amazing support, encouragement, and incredibly positive feedback on our song. We’d never say we’re better than Johnny Cash or Social D, but as our tribute to two artists who have influenced us and whose music continues to influence the rock world today…we’re so excited to be received so well.

You can watch our NFL video and stream our song set to some of our favourite moments in American Football history. Hope you enjoy!

All our love,
DPA

Yes. It’s Ring of Fire, one of our favourite songs that we often cover at our shows. We got lots of questions about when we were going to record our version and release it, and that’s what’s happening right now. This is a tribute to two of our musical heroes, Johnny Cash and Social Distortion.

We’ve got a little YouTube video up so you can stream and listen to it! One of our favourite things in the whole world is the National Football League, so we put this together for our track, just in time for the Super Bowl:

Or ‘HarBowl’ as we’re all calling it now. We couldn’t be prouder of our town’s 49ers (as much as we love our Baltimore friends!) and we’re excited for the big Sunday game. So. Excited. Love this game.

We pulled together some of our favourite players and greatest moments in NFL history! This is for everyone who loves the game.

Four minutes is not nearly enough to include all of the latest and greatest in the NFL, but we chose some of our faves, including, but not limited to:

Marcus Allen, Terry Bradshaw, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Plaxico Burress, Reggie Bush, Dwight Clark, Cris Collinsworth, Victor Cruz, Mike Ditka, Donald Driver, John Elway, Boomer Esiason, Marshall Faulk, Brett Favre, Larry Fitzgerald, Joe Flacco, RG3 (Robert Griffin the 3rd), Jim Harbaugh, John Harbaugh, Michael Irvin, Colin Kaepernick, Jim Kelly, Ray Lewis, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Clay Matthews, Joe Montana, Randy Moss, Joe Namath, Cam Newton, Ed Reed, Jerry Rice…

Oh yeah. There’s more.

Ben Roethlisberger, Tony Romo, Deion Sanders, Shannon Sharpe, Phil Simms, Alex Smith, Emmitt Smith, Michael Strahan, Roger Staubach, Tim Tebow, David Tyree, Johnny Unitas, Kurt Warner, David Wilson, Russell Wilson, Roddy White, Jason Whitten, Steve Young, and the beloved Replacement Refs, and NFL moments including the Immaculate Reception, 4th and 26th, Music City Miracle, and Miracle in the Meadowlands.

LOVE THE GAME.

Love always,
Sarah & Steph
DPA

And, we’re incredibly honoured to be featured in the official Audix 2013 catalogue! (That’s fellow Audix endorser John Gourley below the pic, from one of our favourites, Portugal. The Man.)

We also got to do an acoustic performance and hang backstage at the Epiphone/Gibson booth upstairs with new friends Alex G (check her out on YouTube!), and John Frech. Video coming soon!

We will be spending the next few weeks getting ready for a few releases and we’ll be sure to post more about all of this soon.

Love always,
Sarah & Steph
DPA

Be sure to check out their pages and show them some love!

www.facebook.com/GibsonFrance
www.facebook.com/GibsonItaly

After the release of our music video for Hey Maria, we kicked off our first-ever High School Tour to promote the video and play some rock and roll for high schoolers and unsuspecting teachers all over California. We have never had so much fun on a tour and are sooo glad we got to make so many new friends!!

We’re posting a few pictures from the past few weeks (on the right —–>) so you can check out some of the craziness. (Or click here for the slideshow.)

Now for some Christmas. We still have two days, right?

Merry Christmas everyone!

Love always,
DPA

We had so much fun making it!! A HUGE thank you to AVL Films for the amazing work they did on this… Rajan Patel, Diliana Deltcheva, Heeral Hedo Solanki, Viraaj Solanki, Katrina Ranchhod, Tracy Richards, Stacee Skala, Simon Huber, Cyrill Messmer, Selina Messmer, and all the awesome people who were part of this…you are awesome.

Also a huge thank you to Gregg Bissonette for his surprise cameo appearance as the ‘nerdy teacher’!!

We hope you have as much fun watching it as we did making it. Watch it here:

We got to meet the Generals when we played a show together at Chalk It Up in Sacramento’s Fremont Park, both of us booked by mutual friend and local legend Jerry Perry. The Generals’ frontman, Matt Sertich, stood in the sun—the 100 degree afternoon sun—to watch our set, which is something we will never forget. We did a CD swap after the show, caught their electric performance, then hit the road and popped their album into our player. And we’ve been fans ever since.

It’s a busy Friday afternoon and the Generals, Matt Sertich and Kirk Janowiak, are getting ready for their show at Harlow’s in downtown Sacramento. They’re opening for the popular 80s New Wave band Modern English, best known for their Billboard Top-100 hit “I Melt With You” (and for those of you who missed the 80s, it’s that song that Hershey’s used a couple Christmases ago… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpP51j74Iyg).

We connect over Skype before they head over for sound check, and they’re over at Kirk’s house, with the same enthusiasm that infuses their music, both live and recorded.

They’re getting promotion started for their upcoming release Keep Your Light On, named after the album’s lead track, and we start talking about social media, which will be a main focus for them. “I call it virtual touring,” says Kirk. “With the internet, there’s always something new…you’ve got to keep up with the times.”

Keep Your Light On is a positive new album of what could be described as hopeful nostalgia. Not getting lost in the past, and not wandering around knee-deep in regret, but learning from what’s behind you, using it to propel you forward. A pretty great message for our time, as any time. It’s their most developed album to date, driving pop put together by two guys who are at ease with themselves and their world.

The Generals started around 2005, but Matt and Kirk have been playing music together in garage bands since the early 90s. “Kirk got his first drum set at Sears,” explains Matt, “and I picked up a bass guitar and we just started jamming.”

“We grew up in the same neighbourhood,” says Kirk. “Matt grew up down the street from me, so we’ve known each other before we even started music, we’d go out and skate together.”

Jamming led to their first band together, Pocket Change, a gig which lasted a decade with Matt and Kirk as the two permanent fixtures, joined by several friends and also, for quite a bit of the time, by Matt’s brother Marty.

After more than 20 years of being in music projects together, with all the challenges their bands have faced from gigging to girls to travelling, Matt and Kirk have remained a strong songwriting duo. “It takes a certain personality to have to go through the grind of playing music, you know what I mean?” says Matt. And, of course, I do—anyone who’s ever been in a band gets this. Remembering his misgivings when Pocket Change ended, Matt goes on, “It was kind of scary when we called it quits. Almost like….is this it? Taking that first year off of playing music and then coming back with a different perspective, we didn’t really know what we were going to do with the whole Generals thing.”

It’s a good thing the Generals thing did happen, because it’s brought a lot of great tunes to the Sacramento music scene—from their first project, Save Me, to the more recent self-titled album, which includes a very cool version of “Eleanor Rigby”. They’ve done all their work with producer and friend Joe Johnston, who has been working with them from the beginning—and who has also worked with well-known Sacramento mainstays Cake, the Deftones, and many others.

What really makes the Generals stand out is their sound. They’ve got a huge range of influence—from the east bay punk scene, to new age, to early 80s pop, OMD, the Cure, U2, and Depeche Mode, to John Denver and Barbara Streisand, Matt adds with a smile. They all made their way into the world of the Generals.

But it’s more than that. It’s the influence beyond the musical. It’s daily life, and life from their perspective. Relationships that go beyond simply boy meets girl. It’s about family, sadness, tensions, love stories, nostalgia, and hope. When Matt’s dad passed away, he says, “It just put a whole new perspective on life…just another chapter in my life, with lyric writing, not really holding back anymore… I think when you come out at the end—you write it, and you put it all together—when you’re coming from the heart, people are going to get it.”

“Hopefully,” he adds with a laugh.

People are definitely going to get it.

You can follow the Generals on:
Official Website: thegeneralsmusic.com
Twitter: twitter.com/TheGENERALSband
Facebook: facebook.com/thegeneralsband
YouTube: youtube.com/user/TheGeneralsTube
Bandcamp: thegenerals.bandcamp.com
Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/thegeneralsmusic

Listen to the full track of “Keep Your Light On” below!

We are very excited to announce that our first official music video will be released this month!! We have been hard at work with our friends at AVL Films and Framework LA for the official video for our song Hey Maria. We had such a blast working on this with everyone and can’t wait for you guys to see it.

More details soon, but in the meantime…here’s a behind the scenes look at the cool stage they made for us…HUGE thanks again to Rajan, Diliana, the Solanki family, Tracy, Stacey, Framework LA, AVL Films, and Chhiboo Productions, as well as Audix, Epiphone, and DW, for all the AMAZING work they put into everything!!

But first, this is what it is…

What

We’ll be streaming a live acoustic laptop-broadcast of our original songs as well as some covers that we’ve never played before. (Never played before in a show, that is. We have played them before together.)

To watch the show, you have to buy a ticket, for whatever you would like to pay. Buy a ticket by clicking here…

What

Sunday, July 15, at 5pm Pacific Day Time. (8pm on the East Coast, 1am in the UK, 2am in Western Europe, and so on.)

How Much

As we mentioned, you will need to buy a ticket to watch the show, but we’ve set the ticket price to “Pay What You Can”, so YOU set your own price for the show, whatever you’d like. You just make a profile, or log in with Facebook, and reserve your spot! Here is the link: www.stageit.com/deer_park_avenue/deer_park_avenue_live_from_our_laptop/10640.

There are 12 tickets left, so we would love to see as many of you there as possible for our first ever online broadcast!

Love always,
Sarah & Stephanie
DPA