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The Minor Leagues are on Kickstarter!

amanda_lee — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:16:12 +0000

The Minor Leagues just launched our first-ever Kickstarter project! Earlier in the summer we recorded our sixth album down in Nashville, and now we’re raising funds to pay for its pressing and promotion. Fun times! We’ve assembled a great lineup of prizes and whatnot for our supporters, so if you’ve got some cash to spare and want to support one of your favorite bloggers working with some awesome musicians to make something great, check out our Kickstarter.

The Minor Leagues: In the Studio

amanda_lee — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:05:51 +0000

[quote by Aretha Franklin; image by me]

The Minor Leagues will be in the studio for the next nine days. We drove to Nashville yesterday and arrived at around midnight, and then this morning we got to work. I’ll have some time to blog, and hopefully some photos for you, too, but I might not respond *quite* as quickly to emails and comments.

Hope you’re having a fabulous weekend. I sure am!

You’re My Travel Agent

amanda_lee — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:41:29 +0000

This is it – The Minor Leagues’ first music video ever. Chris directed it and did an awesome job. We ran on very little sleep, stayed up late to make these props out of cardboard – I drew the deer myself, and trust me, I am not a draftsman – and accidentally dyed my dog’s foot yellow. [He stepped in my paint bucket. It was tempera. Non-toxic. It wore off after a day.] I called 27 different stage supply shops in the tri-state area to find a green screen, only to find out at the last minute that we knew someone who had one.

At the shoot, which was held at Chris’s office, we accidentally acquired another production assistant, who was supposed to be working with another band shooting a few feet down the road. Johnny and Cassie, the actors in the video, complied patiently with my choreographic whims and took about seventeen tries before it looked like they were actually fighting in the car. Bandmate Ben bought us pizza and beer, and then we had to hide the bottles and caps, ’cause we weren’t supposed to drink in the office.

At any rate, the final product:

You can still get a hard copy of this DVD yourself, y’know. There’s a whole other video for “Good Boys”, some footage of us playing live, and like I mentioned in my last post about it, a video of me trying to shoot a basketball. If you watch it, you’ll understand why I don’t play sports in public. If you want a DVD, get in touch. They’re $5 plus $2 shipping. You know you want to!

What I Wore: Taste of Cincinnati and Midpoint Music Festival’s Fountain Square Indie Summer

amanda_lee — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:54:06 +0000

When I bought this dress, I never intended to wear it in the summertime. And then I joined the Minor Leagues, whose current stage uniform requirements are such that I had to, since I don’t have any little black dresses that were any more summer-appropriate than this one. And I spend both the afternoon of Taste of Cincinnati and the evening of Indie Summer sweating like a sausage. But it looked hot, at least. [Good thing, 'cause it was.]

Dress, vintage, purchased at Casablanca
Shoes, Charles David
Hat [in Taste photos only], vintage via Casablanca again
[Note: Special thanks to my good friend Connie Kenkel, who is our photographer-in-residence and president of the Minor Leagues' Parent Association.]

I like being more dressed up than my audience, a habit that hearkens back to my ballet days. Something else from my ballet days is that I like my feet to hurt more than my audience’s. Luckily, I haven’t pulled out my pointe shoes. These heels, however, put me at a weird angle to my keyboard, so I always end up leaning over like a hobbit when I wear them to play. During the Fountain Square show, I kicked them off for the last few songs of our set. Maybe I should sit on a stool like a singer-songwriter with a guitar.

Also during the Fountain Square show, the strap on this dress broke. Naturally, since I was sweating like a sausage, the dress stuck to me and I avoided flashing the entire audience. But I still felt precarious nonetheless. The dress is about twice as old as I am, so obviously repairs are in order. I think I’m going to make brand new straps from scratch – maybe out of some nice soft elastic to avoid potential future flashings.

This hat . . . I don’t really know how to wear it. It doesn’t have any pins or clips attached, so I end up just squeezing it onto my head and then trying to dance without moving my head. Graceful, I’m sure.

At Taste of Cincy, we shared the stage with a lot of bands that a lot of people love. We love ‘em too. The Metromix people were helpful and professional and ran a really smooth show backstage – nothing was late or disorganized, which is such a big help when you’re coordinating a band with seven members and approximately a ton of equipment. We weren’t allowed to swear onstage, though, which resulted in some awkward stage banter from Ben about how the Masons probably killed Mozart. [It was all over Twitter the next day.]

And at Fountain Square, we played with our good friends For Algernon [whose new album Oh My Starling is damn good], Wild Nothing [who were totally sweet and whose drummer is a former neighbor of mine in New York!], and Neon Indian [maybe you've heard of 'em? They're a major buzz band, everyone loved them, and it was a huge honor to play with such talented folks]. Puck, the event coordinator, is an amazing guy for putting us on such an awesome lineup.

Unrelated to this outfit: Would you like to see some sexy Minor Leagues video action? You know you would. That’s why you know you’re stoked to buy one of our new DVDs.

[Album art by the amazing Michael Bond, of Datawaslost Records.]

Sinister Smiles features full-length video for three tracks from our last album: “Good Boys,” “Lost in Ex-Lives,” and “Travel Agent.” It also features almost 40 minutes of exclusive live video from some of our most memorable shows. Highlights include: a record player exploding repeatedly; my bandmate Ben mistakenly telling over two hundred people how great I look in pajamas; a cute couple going on a tragic road trip where they meet at adorable deer [who I made myself!]; and footage of me clumsily trying to shoot a basketball while the rest of my bandmates [teammates?] get it on their first try. Things that happened during filming that didn’t make the cut: Hilly and me playing with Skip-Its; aforementioned cute couple making eyes at a billboard that features a drawing of a sexy lady; and close-ups of bandmate Luke’s skinny pants and skinny tie [which, for the record, were damn hot].

The DVD sells for $5 plus $2 shipping, which is less than some people have paid to see us live before. And you know what? If you order one by emailing me, I’ll write you a postcard and send you a cookie along with it. So getcha one.

Midwesterners, Take Note

amanda_lee — Fri, 21 May 2010 19:41:44 +0000

The Minor Leagues have got a ton of dates coming up in the next couple of months. So if you’re nearby, get your asses out here and dance!

The Minor Leagues Live!

amanda_lee — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:58:21 +0000

Chris got a really great HD video camera for the holidays, so when The Minor Leagues played a show last weekend at the Tavern, he passed it around and crowdsourced a video of our set. Here’s the first two songs. Enjoy, kids!