Spring 2015 booked and in full effect!

It’s officially on. Progger will be hitting several states from late March through April, and we’ll be traveling and playing with the brilliant soul singer/songwriter Melissa McMillan. Check her out:

http://www.melissamcmillanmusic.com

Melissa’s new EP is dropping soon, and we’ll be releasing a single and video VERY soon as well! We’ll be joined on the road by a few other great acts, too. Here’s the schedule:

March 31: Dallas, TX (at RBC with Melissa McMillan and the Hungry Jaxx)
April 1: Denton, TX (at Dan’s Silverleaf with Melissa McMillan and the Funky Knuckles)
April 2: Austin, TX (at One2One with Melissa, the Funky Knuckles, and Temple Underground)
April 6: New Orleans, LA (at Hi Ho Lounge with Melissa McMillan)
April 7: Atlanta, GA (at Aisle Five with Melissa, the Indie Revenge, and the 200s)
April 8: Asheville, NC (at the One Stop with Melissa McMillan)
April 9: Nashville, TN (at BLDG with Melissa and Rick Wilkerson)
April 28: New York, NY (at Drom with Melissa McMillan)

See you out there!

Updates for the approach of Spring (please get here soon, it’s cold)

2015 is off to a great start, and this will be a very crucial year in the developing direction of this particular musical entity.

As many of you know, Progger has members, both core and “extended family,” you could say, in both Texas and New York. In December, we spent a day at Orb Studios in the beautiful hill country just outside of Austin recording three brand-new tracks with the whole original Progger crew, plus the brilliant young Sean Giddings on keys. We also brought in our good buddy Andy LaViolette to capture the whole process on video. Andy is the genius behind all of Snarky Puppy’s amazing viral video hits, including the one that, you know, won a Grammy when Lalah started, you know, singing chords and stuff.

Our new videos and singles will be out in the next couple months, but that will be far from the end of the project. This summer we’re going to invade a studio in New York to record yet more audio and video goodness with the NYC Progger family. The two sessions will be mastered together into one release later in the year, and you’ll be able to get it on iTunes, Bandcamp, CDBaby, and at our live shows.

Speaking of live shows, we have lots of those coming up, too! We’re in the process of booking lots of dates with one of the country’s most brilliant soul singer/songwriters, Melissa McMillan. Melissa has an EP dropping soon, and we’ll be sharing lots of dates with her in the spring performing sets of her music as well as Progger’s. Some of the dates are yet to be confirmed but here’s what’s on the table so far. Hope to see you at a show soon!

SPRING 2015 PROGGER TOUR DATES

March 31: Progger, Melissa McMillan, and the Hungry Jaxx at RBC, Dallas, TX

April 1: Progger, Melissa McMillan, and the Funky Knuckles at Dan’s Silverleaf, Denton, TX

April 2: Progger, Melissa McMillan, and the Funky Knuckles at One2One, Austin, TX

April 6: Progger and Melissa McMillan in New Orleans, LA (venue tbd)

April 7: Progger and Melissa McMillan in Atlanta, GA (venue tbd)

April 8: Progger and Melissa McMillan at the One Stop, Asheville, NC

April 28: Progger and Melissa McMillan at Drom, New York, NY

New year, new projects, new shows! Fontana’s on Feb 20

In the wake of our extremely productive and enjoyable southerly studio project in December, the northerly incarnation of Progger is planning projects and shows for early 2015 like crazy. Another audio/video production will be happening in the early Spring, and the first of many shows for the new year will be at a new venue for us, the beautiful Fontana’s in Manhattan’s Lower East Side on February 20. Fontana’s is in the heart of some of the most exciting musical activity in the country right now, and it will be a pleasure to scope it out. Our homey Cory Henry recently played there, so it’s bound to have something great to offer as a venue. We’ll be sharing the stage with Phantom Pop, an exciting groove-based group with some great tunes.

Release-wise, we’ll be getting cracking on mixing/mastering the new tracks as well as editing tons of awesome video by our amazing brother Andy LaViolette over the coming weeks. Before long you’ll be able to see and hear the fruits of our studio labor, and I have to say, we’re really pleased with what came out. Thanks to all of our incredible friends, fans, supporters, and comrades for helping make it all happen!

If you’re in NYC, see you at Fontana’s on February 20!

2015: New audio, new video, new PHAUWNK

2014 was a huge year for Progger! We weathered a lot of life transitions on individual and group bases, released our second record, and played in a ton of new places we never had before. Of course, we had lots of help from amazing groups like the Indie Revenge, the Funky Knuckles, and our homeys in Snarky Puppy, as well as countless other gifted bands and musicians from the Southwest to the Northeast. And the support of our friends and fans across the country made our shows and productions possible. With all the complicated and challenging changes facing the music industry these days, we’re fortunate to be able to create, travel, and produce music in this wonderful, diverse nation, and the love we receive from you incredible people is not taken for granted.

The coming year is going to yield some beautiful things including new audio/video releases and a slew of shows in cities across the United States. Of course, we’ll be visiting our home bases of Austin, Dallas, and New York, as well as our homes-away-from-home like New Orleans and Atlanta, but we’re planning on striking tons of new ground, too. Toronto, Chicago, and Kansas City are all in our sights, as well as numerous burgs in between.

We can’t possibly express our gratitude for the kind words and media plugs we’ve received about our second full-length album, “Populace,” and the shows we played in its support. It’s really a dream come true to have our energy, love, and creativity spread throughout the music world, and it inspires us to make more new, dynamic, creative music to share with all of the listeners and enthusiasts out there. We’ll keep updating here and via proggermusic@gmail.com with all the new shows and productions happening in the next few months. Thanks for helping to make new music happen, and we’ll see you in the new year!

Upcoming awesomeness: Knower, videos, new tunes

The month of October is going to be pretty chill on the Progger performance front, but consider at crouched-down, balled-up, tension-building exercise along the lines of Dragon Ball Z. Our energy will be unleashed with a thunderous fury from November through the end of the year.

We’re putting together a ton of new music and also milling around with ideas for live video shoots.

First, though, is something we’re all pretty giddy about. We’ll be sharing the bill with one of the most ridiculously awesome musical entities on the planet right now, the Los Angeles-based high-energy electronic art-pop duo known as KNOWER. That’s happening at One2One in Austin on All Saint’s Day, November 1, 2014. Keep that Halloween buzz going with some significant help from intense new music!

We’ll then be spending most of December in Texas and the South. A few dates are already in the books with more on the way, so keep checking in here or on our Facebook or Twitter pages for news. And, of course, you can always sign up for our email list.

The past few months have been a blast! We’ve been utterly fortunate to share shows with some incredibly gifted people including Troy Roberts, the Funky Knuckles, the Indie Revenge, Mente Clara, and more. Much love to all of you! Here’s what’s in the near future:

PROGGER CALENDAR

November 1, 2014: with Knower at One2One, Austin, TX

December 5, 2014:  FlattFest, Austin, TX

December 9, 2014: RBC, Dallas, TX

December 10, 2014: residency at One2One, Austin, TX

December 17, 2014: residency at One2One, Austin, TX

December 31, 2014: residency at One2One, Austin, TX

Big ol’ end-of-summer update

Summer was equally intense and worthwhile.

As individuals, all the various limbs of Progger embarked on diverse and far-reaching journeys and occupations as diverse as world travel, studio production, parenting, and flurries of freelance musicianship. That’s not even taking into account the lightning tour that took us from Texas to New York in under two weeks.

And about that: gratitude is an insufficient word to describe what I, and we as a band, feel toward all of the beautiful people that hosted us, supported us, hung with us, and played music with us in every single awesome city we hit. Of course, the Funky Knuckles and the Indie Revenge were ideal touring cohorts for both camaraderie and music. All the other brilliant musicians and non-musicians we encountered made the excursion far beyond worthwhile, and we can’t wait to do it again. Extra-special thanks have to go out to our good friend TaRon Lockett for playing some seriously mean drums for us in between his massive national and international tours! We’re happy that worked out, to say the least.

The fall and winter have some really cool things in store as well. We’ll be doing some exciting shows in various configurations over the next few months, and we’re also in the planning stages of some exciting new production ideas to release early next year. We’ll definitely be making use of some of the brilliant minds we got to spend time with in July and August!

Our next show will be on September 17 with the amazing Troy Roberts and his band, Nu-Jive. Troy is well worth an evening on Youtube, even more worth an evening in concert, and we’re very excited to be sharing the bill with him at Rockwood Music Hall in New York.

We’ll be doing a couple more unusual shows in September, too, with our friends from Austin, Mente Clara. We’ll be taking a trip up to the Hudson Valley and then we’ll follow it up with a Williamsburg show, for which we’ll be wearing our skinniest jeans and dashingest moustaches.

Speaking of excited… we’ll be doing a show at our OG stomping ground, One2One, in Austin, TX, on November 1, with one of the most exciting bands in the world right now, Knower. “Excited” is an understatement.

We’re incredibly grateful for all the love and support we’ve been getting over the past few months, and we’re looking forward to pouring it back into making new music to share with the world! See you out there.

Tour update and gratitude

Taking an independent band on tour is an inherently difficult thing to do. So whenever people in the various cities we travel through and play in extend generosity, hospitality, friendliness, and unbelievable amounts of help with smiles on their faces, it makes me tear up with joy. Thousands of thanks to our friends in Dallas, Austin, and New Orleans for three amazing shows and amazing hangs, for your generosity, warmth, and support. We’ve already been having a huge, if sleep-deprived, blast, and tonight we keep on going at the Thirsty Hippo in Hattiesburg. Much love to everyone involved!

Progger and Funky Knuckles are at the Hippo tonight, and then in Atlanta tomorrow at 529 with the fantastic Indie Revenge. ChoomDiddlyWonka.

Final tour dates! Starting JULY 28, going through AUGUST 7

After going out and hearing our dude Cory Henry rip shop last night at Rockwood, we’re extra excited to get out there and bring our own brand of choomdiddlywonka to the South and Northeast. This tour done gone and got finalized! Check out these dates, and click the links for advance tickets and venue info:

••••••••••••••••••••

Progger and Welcher/Urvalek

July 17: Albany, NY (Red Square)

Progger and the Funky Knuckles

July 28: Dallas, TX (the Free Man)

July 29: Austin, TX (One2One)

July 30: New Orleans, LA (Blue Nile)

July 31: Hattiesburg, MS (the Thirsty Hippo)

Progger, the Funky Knuckles, and the Indie Revenge

August 1: Atlanta, GA (529)

August 2: Asheville, NC (the One Stop)

August 3: Athens, GA (Hendershot’s)

August 5: Raleigh, NC (Pour House Music Hall)

August 6: New York, NY (Rockwood Music Hall)

August 7: Philadelphia, PA (the Grape Room)

••••••••••••••••••••

If you’re in or near any of these fine cities, please come check out new music by all these bands, hang out, say hi, and get some phauwnk in your life. More info on the other awesome groups:

http://www.thefunkyknuckles.com

http://www.theindierevenge.com

Summer is unquestionably back, and rather than cower in our air-conditioned living rooms, we’re going to do the least sensible thing possible: pile into a van, load a trailer, and drive through the hottest part of America. Fortunately, we’ll be in good company. Not only will we be joined by the Funky Knuckles, but we’ll also be sharing many dates with an incredibly cool band out of Atlanta called the Indie Revenge. There’s a scary amount of musicianship between these groups. We’re anticipating Dethklok-level destruction.

We’ve gotten some great feedback since the release of our second studio effort, Populace, and it’s going to be the most fun in the world to take the new tunes from Texas to New York starting in late July. We’ll be cutting a path from Dallas to the Northeast, and there are still a few dates left to be worked out, but here’s what’s confirmed:

Progger and the Funky Knuckles

July 28: Dallas, TX (the Free Man)

July 29: Austin, TX (One2One)

July 30: New Orleans, LA (Blue Nile)

July 31: Hattiesburg, MS (the Thirsty Hippo)

Progger, the Funky Knuckles, and the Indie Revenge

August 1: Atlanta, GA (529)

August 2: Asheville, NC (the One Stop)

August 5: Raleigh, NC (Pour House Music Hall)

August 6: New York, NY (Rockwood Music Hall)

August 7: Philadelphia, PA (the Grape Room)

Our 2nd album, “Populace,” releases today

In January we went back into Austin’s beautiful Yellow Dog Studios to work on our second album, and after two really fun days of recording, hanging, and making grown-up creative decisions, we came out with a collection of tunes that we’re really happy with. 2013 was a crazy, tumultuous year for all of us, but even through personal chaos we were able to make some pretty satisfying sounds happen.

We took the same approach to this album as we did with our first, “Beatmaker.” I tend to subscribe to the Steve Albini school of studio recording. That’s not to say that we’re the instrumental funk-jazz-fusion version of Nirvana, or that this is our “In Utero” by any means, but I do believe that time spent in the studio should be spent recording music that the band already knows really well. Pre-production involves spending a considerable amount of time composing, rehearsing, and playing gigs, so that when the band goes into the studio, they don’t waste time, they just play music they’re comfortable playing and have a great time doing it. We recorded eight tunes in two days, and it really didn’t even feel like work. It was just fun. We spent very little time on overdubs and fixes, and most of the overdubbing that was done was to add parts that are physically impossible to play with just the six of us (like when I need to be playing keys and tenor at the same time, or Nick needs to layer some Moog onto the bass sound). There’s more “garage band” sloppiness to this album than a lot of other instrumental albums, and I’m perfectly OK with that.

Everyone in the band brought a beautiful attitude along with tons of skill to this record. Paul plays some trombone solos that I think are frankly legendary. Carter plays some similarly murderous guitar, and Matt Muehling’s delightful rage shows through really clearly. Nick and Daniel simply crushed the foundation on every single tune. Matt Meli, our engineer, put more time, effort, skill, and energy into making everything sound awesome than we could every repay him for. He was definitely a real part of the band for this project, for both recording and mixing. Our new friend Sam Minae did a fantastic job with mastering, too.

Since members of Progger have spent the year scattering to various parts of the world– from Austin to New York, Los Angeles, China, and around the world with various bands– we’ve had some serious help recently from some awesome new musicians to help make the live shows happen. Snarky Puppy members Justin Stanton, Chris McQueen, and Bob Lanzetti have contributed their considerable talents, as have New York musicians Andy Martinek, Noah Kellman, Dan Muniz, Ross Pederson, Julia Adamy, Aki Ishiguro, William Tatge, and Daniel Foose. We’re definitely feeling the love, and the future is holding some exciting possibilities for us!

Here are some good places to pick up a copy of the new record:

Bandcamp

CD Baby 

If you get the inclination to help us out really significantly without having to expend that much energy, do us a favor and post those links on your favorite social website. It’s really amazing how far that goes, seriously! Thanks for all your love and support!

Brian/Progger