Monday, October 15, 2007

The Arch Enemies adds tour dates and hits the road behind leader Steve Goldberg’s promising next project.

“Steve Goldberg's senior project is an orchestral-pop gem -- this eponymous album with his band, The Arch Enemies, is possibly the most elaborate, orchestrated indie-pop effort Pittsburgh has ever produced.“ - Pittsburgh City Paper

Steve Goldberg and The Arch Enemies first spread the good news of its debut album to the eastern US this past summer, and now the band has set its sights on the west coast with a tour that launched in Las Vegas on October 10th. The band has been posting daily notes from the road on its website (LINK) where fans can also find some recently unearthed acoustic demos of tunes from the band’s self-titled debut, as well as some fun cover versions of Neutral Milk Hotel's “In the Aeroplane Over The Sea” and “King of Carrot Flowers” as well as John Vanderslice's “When It Hits My Blood.”

The Arch Enemies first materialized as a rotating cast of live backing musicians for Pittsburgh pop auteur and music student Steve Goldberg who was studying music composition and creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University. It began innocently, as these stories often do, with a trumpet here or a violin there. But before he knew it, Goldberg was living on the outskirts of London and performing with a tuba player named King Wang. It wasn't long before he got to experimenting with string quartets.

And it was there, under the influence of meat pies, ale, and low brass, that most of the songs that would become Steve Goldberg and The Arch Enemies were conceived. Soon after returning to his native shores, armed with a head full of ideas and a healthy moustache, Steve sequestered himself in a secret underground recording studio. Enlisting an elite squad of orchestral mercenaries, he built his pop fortress lovingly, brick by brick.

The band’s self-titled debut album, recorded over eight months during Goldberg’s final two semesters as his thesis project, contains parts for 22 different instruments. All of the musicians were recruited from the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music, and most of them hadn't heard the music before showing up to record. The album was engineered by another CMU student and all vocals were recorded with a custom tube microphone built by an electrical engineering student. The album artwork and layout were created by CMU design students, as well. The record was mastered by Garrett Haines (Starlight Mints.)

By the time the final overdub was put to hard disk, The Arch Enemies' ranks had swelled to include harpsichords and trombones, vibraphones and glockenspiels, flutes and French horns. A powerful juggernaut to be sure, but such a behemoth was unfit for maneuvering in small spaces. A tour was devised -- an away team was needed, one that would be powerful yet nimble and capable of performing surgical strikes and counter-intelligence operations anywhere in the globe. Goldberg put out the call.

J.J. Josephs (fiery fiddlist and renowned medicine man) and The Duke (lead bass guitarist extraordinaire and international poker champ) were retained from the studio crew. The new squad was completed by the inimitable Mink Shoals (martial arts expert, accomplished golfer) on the skins. Like some sort of rock and roll Planeteers, their powers combined to create a heroic force for combating bad vibes. Now, you can experience that force for yourself. Keep your friends close, and The Arch Enemies closer when they arrive in your town.

Steve Goldberg and The Arch Enemies Live:
10/16 Los Angeles, CA Knitting Factory
10/17 San Luis Obispo, CA Frog and Peach Pub
10/18 San Francisco, CA Edinburgh Castle
10/19 Chico, CA The Salem House
10/20 Redding, CA Red White and Brew Pub
10/21 Eugene, OR The Black Forest
10/23 Portland, OR Kelly's Olympian
10/25 Seattle, WA The Mars Bar
10/26 Olympia, WA 4th Ave. Tavern
10/27 Bend, OR, 541 Lounge
10/28 Arcata, CA The Green House
10/30 Sacramento, CA The Press Club
11/01 San Diego, CA The Casbah
11/03 Las Vegas, NV Beauty Bar

Steve Goldberg and The Arch Enemies Tracklisting:
Stream The Album HERE

01. The Road
02. February Third
03. Julia
04. The Spy (Part 1) (MP3)
05. The Spy (Part 2) (MP3)
06. 23rd Century Identity Crisis
07. The Battle of Agincourt
08. Artichokes
09. Hideaway
10. Summer's Ending (MP3)

On The Web:
www.stevegoldbergmusic.com
www.myspace.com/stevegoldberg
www.fanaticpromotion.com/current/steve_goldberg.html

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