3rd Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Show at Club Cafe

People of the world, we invite you to attend our

Third Annual School of Athens Ugly Christmas Sweater Show this Saturday, December 15th at Club Cafe. Doors open at 7:30 and we'll be partying all night. Josh Verbanets starts the night off at 8pm with an acoustic set and Triggers will more than warm things up for us before we take the stage. We hope it will be another sold out show crowded with the ugliest sweaters imaginable. If you haven't already picked up your sweater, go to Goodwill or your Grandmothers attic and get ready for a great time.

In other news, School of Athens was awarded two wonderful plaques by the City Paper last night, winning 2nd place for "Best Rock Band" and 3rd place for "Best Underground Band".. Thank you to everyone who voted for us. Losing to the Clarks in Pittsburgh is like losing to Tom Hanks in Hollywood, so we're very honored to be awarded for the second year in a row. You can pick up the new issue of the City Paper to see the complete list of winners. Congratulations to our friend Becky for winning best bartender at St. James Place Tavern, which happens to be our favorite five-star dive bar.

After our Club Cafe show, our last show of the year will be an all ages show at Southminster Church in Mt. Lebanon with Matt Capan and Sweet Earth The Day After at 8pm. We won't be playing in Pittsburgh till Feb or March since we'll be busy recording again early next year.

Thanks again for voting for us again this year and we hope to see you this Saturday.

Neal, Mike, Johnny and Drew

School of Athens

 

Big Weekend, Voter Fraud

This is a huge weekend for us. We're going on a tour throughout Pittsburgh. Tonight we'll be at Market Square with Big Green Tanks, tomorrow we'll be at Station Square with Good Brother Earl and Saturday we'll be playing at a park in Kennedy Township. True rock stars.

Speaking of rock stars... it's time to vote for the best of the best in Pittsburgh's City Paper again. Last year we were blessed with title of Best Indie Rock Band and this year we're campaigning for Best Pop/Rock band. I know it's lame to ask you to vote for us, but hey! VOTE FOR US HERE!

Below is my list of people you have to vote for to be my friend:

Best solo artist: Paul Luc
Best radio personality: Gab Bonesso
Best bartender: Becky Sauers
At the end of the survey is a write in space... add your name there for "Neal's best friend"

There are so many good bands in Pittsburgh we're going to have to kill so we're voted best rock band again. We need to poison Triggers, Kill The Drama and Persona Grata to have any chance...

Did you get the new Horse The Band CD yet?

We have the honor to play with one of my favorite bands, Division Day at Club Cafe on October 10th. You have to come to this show or they'll kick me in the kids. I think Barack Obama is opening.

Listen to me. The weather is changing and it's about time to buy a nice warm $12 shirt with our name and logo on it. Would you rather it be a hoodie with our faces on it? How about this... you vote for whose face should be on the shirt. Just one of us. Really big. (Mom, please vote for me)

All upcoming shows:

08/30/2007 06:00 PM - Market Square Pittsburgh
Market Square, Downtown PGH, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - free happy hour show with Big Green Tanks

08/31/2007 07:30 PM - Station Square Street Jam
100 West Station Square Drive, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219
free outdoor show with Good Brother Earl

09/01/2007 12:00 PM - Fairhaven Park - Kennedy Township
Picnic for Darren Charles Morton

09/15/2007 09:30 PM - St. James Place
153 S 18th St, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15203

10/10/2007 08:00 PM - Club Cafe w/ Division Day
56 S 12th St, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15203
Call Club Cafe @ (412) 431-4950

10/20/2007 10:00 PM - Brillobox
Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
with Luc

Neal wrote this, Drew, Mike and Johnny were here in heart.

If you can't read this email the way I intended it to be (intriguing and mystical) then go here to see it online.

Email 8-16-07

Greetings from my lunch break at work. Someday I'll be writing "Greetings from the road" but until then I'll just steal company time to tell you, to beg and plead to you to come see us tomorrow at Peter's Pub in Oakland with the band 28 North at 10pm. It's going to be one of those shows where we try to out-drink Steve the homeless guy who sits outside of 7-11. Speaking of the homeless, or the home-challenged, I almost got into a fight with a homeless guy the other day outside of PNC Park. Does that make me look bad? I can't help the fact I needed some beer... er.. bus money.

A recent poll shows that people like our new shirts, stickers and pins. They're selling like iPhones, but at half the price. That's right, our shirts are only $280... but you can get them right now online for $12 or at our upcoming shows. Click this link to buy a shirt.

All upcoming shows:

08/17/2007 09:00 PM - Peter's Pub
116 Oakland Ave, Oakland, Pennsylvania 15213 - $3

08/30/2007 06:00 PM - Market Square Pittsburgh
Market Square, Downtown PGH, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - free happy hour show with Big Green Tanks

08/31/2007 07:30 PM - Station Square Street Jam
100 West Station Square Drive, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219 - free outdoor show

09/01/2007 12:00 PM - Fairhaven Park - Kennedy Township
Fairhaven Park - Kennedy Township, Kennedy Township, Pennsylvania
Picnic for Darren Charles Morton

10/06/2007 06:00 PM - Diesel
1601 E Carson St, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15203

10/20/2007 10:00 PM - Brillobox
Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
with Luc

Okay, I'll leave you with a bit of advice. Thanks for not unsubscribing from our list.

A wise man told me don't argue with fools
Cause people from a distance can't tell who is who

~ Jay Z circa 2001

Neal Johnny Drew and Mike make up School of Athens

If you can't read this email the way I intended it to be (pretty) then go here to see it online.

Email 7 -18 -07

How cute! You know we're friends in real life, too? When we're not playing music or working on our reality show (tentatively titled "The New Friends") you can find us playing a round of golf at Oakmont, shopping the streets of Beverly Hills or even having slumber parities at Andy Dick's house.

Fun fact of the week: Mike's favorite color is periwinkle pink (its a hybrid color he actually developed himself!) and his favorite Starbucks drink is a mocha latte frap with whipped cream and sprinkles (he smuggles in the sprinkles himself.. shh!)

Ok, enough fun. We've got some news for you's.

We've got some new merch on the way, so get ready for some new shirts, pins and stickers. Here's what the shirts will look like. Be sure to go to our website and order one at the end of the month. That's 12 days from now.

We've been busy booking shows around town, so come see us soon. We're playing this Friday at Southminster Church in Mt. Lebanon. It's an all ages show so be sure to watch out for John Mark Karr lurking in the crowd.

Here's the complete list:

07/20/2007 07:30 PM - Southminster Mt. Lebanon
799 Washington Rd, Mt. Lebanon (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania 15228 - free - with Dakota, Crossings Crew and Ben Prisbylla

08/03/2007 01:00 PM - Mt. Lebanon Street Festival
tba, Mt. Lebanon (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania - free

08/17/2007 09:00 PM - Peter's Pub
116 Oakland Ave, Oakland, Pennsylvania 15213 - $3

08/30/2007 06:00 PM - Market Square Pittsburgh
Market Square, Downtown PGH, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - free happy hour show with Big Green Tanks

08/31/2007 07:30 PM - Station Square Street Jam
100 West Station Square Drive, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219 - free outdoor show

I hope you're planning on coming to all of these shows... even you Federica!

Also, please check out our Virb music account. It's kind of like myspace, but without all the dirty needles. We're hoping the site catches on.

If you can't see the email correctly, call Ched's Computer Repairs in Imperial PA or simply click on this link to see the website version.

Thanks for the gift of literacy.

Neal, Mike, Johnny and the singer guy in the band too.

Tracy Morgan

Met Tracy Morgan last night... most hilarious dude ever...

South Side Project Show

Vote Luke!

We had to pleasure of meeting Mayor Luke Ravenstahl at the Maniac Magazine launch party. Awesome guy.

Modest Mouse

The new modest mouse CD is amazing.
That's all.

Buy a CD!

We would like to thank everyone who came to our CD release party at Diesel last weekend... we had a great time! Thanks to everyone who bought a CD. This scammy little email is actually a ploy to have you buy a CD, too. You can buy an actual copy of the CD at the buy now link below, or you can buy a digital download here.
The CD is $7 online (free shipping).

Also, the CD was just reviewed by the Pittsburgh City Paper and you can read the write-up
here. We'd love to know what you think of the review, so leave a comment on the City Paper's site at the bottom of the page.

We have a few shows coming up, including tonight at PD's Pub in Squirrel Hill. Get directions here. we're playing at 10 and there's some good drink specials.
We're also playing at RPM's in Bridgeville on March 30th, but we'll bug you about that later.

Thanks for reading this far.

Neal, Johnny, Mike and Drew

The Dark Alley of the Internet

Myspace is the needle-ridden homeless infested dark alley of the internet. It's the internet's largest home of everything from side-project-side-project bands to dateline nbc's favorite topic of every show in the past 8 months? I thought the idea of myspace was a great one, and I still do, but somewhere along the line, the bright lights of myspace started to dim and out came the 55 year old basement dwellers signing up as 17 year old high school students.

Luckily, a new uber social networking site has come along called Virb. We're on it and we hope all you honest people join up. But, we'll still be on the dirty dirty myspace, too.

Neal

What chu do... fall dahn?

Drew took a hilarious nose-dive last night at Lava Lounge while jumping on his piano. If anyone has any pics or stories, please comment... He's not dead and didn't break anything somehow...

Neal

Ugly Christmas Sweater Show pics

Thanks to everyone who came out to Club Cafe for our second annual Ugly Christmas Sweater show. View the pics here, and if you have any from the show, please email them and we'll put them on the site.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Show is tomorrow...

Since being named "Best Indie Rock Band" by the readers of the Pittsburgh City Paper, a lot has changed. I really can't pin-point what it is exactly... maybe the hourly massages, the constant calls from major record labels... it could be the endorsement deal from Nike or the five-way relationship the entire band is having with Paris Hilton. Whatever it is, something feels different. I'm sure it hasn't changed us, although I really haven't seen Drew since I ran into him on the 7th floor kitchen of our new mansion.

I'll save the rest of my stories for our new book, movie and reality show.

Tomorrow is going to be a great night at Club Cafe. We play with J. Creepers for our second annual "Ugly Christmas Sweater" show. The show starts at 10pm tomorrow (December 22nd). Be sure to wear the ugliest Christmas sweater you can find. Bonus points are awarded for working lights on the sweater.

Other upcoming shows are January 4th at Diesel in Pittsburgh's south side. We're playing with Raising Pilate at 10pm. Then we'll be at Mt. Lebanon's Southminster Church to play with Triggers on January 19th. We met a lot of awesome people last time we played and I hope they are able to make it out to see us again.

We have some great things planned for early 2007 and we hope you'll be around to enjoy them with us.

If you aren't able to see the above pictures correctly, view the entire email here.

Neal, Johnny, Mike and Drew
School of Athens

Beer Girls...

It's a tradition as old as time itself...
The band plays a show, the bar has some Miller Lite or Bud Light girls doing promotions, giving away XXL t-shirts to skinny hipsters while Mike and Drew pose with a beer beauty... well, Drew poses and Mike pulls one of those a-hole in the back moves like you'd find in Maxim Magazine.

And I laugh every time.

Technorati Profile

Hard Rock Cafe Video

I make a bloggins! (as Borat says)...

You've heard our music on the radio and have seen us dance, but did you know that we actually play our own instruments? Thats right, and now we have proof thanks to Big Green Tanks Productions. You can video the entire Hard Rock Cafe show filmed on October 6th here.
The video also includes an interview in which we try to make jokes and look cool but just don't come off that way at all. After I learn how to eat with my mouth closed, i'll sign up for some personality classes or something. I'm sure when Capitol Records signs us they'll put us through a bunch of training seminars. I'd also like to learn how to do my own plastic surgery. I sure wouldn't want a botched nipple job like Tara Reid...

Enjoy the video and thanks again to Big Green Tanks.

Piano Bench Conspiracy

People of Pittsburgh, audience of The Hard Rock Cafe show that took place on Friday, October 6th, 2006... we ask you to join us in helping solve the mysterious events that resulted in a destroyed piano bench owned by lead singer of local rock band "School of Athens". The photograph you see above is the last known picture taken of the in-tact bench. You will notice the bench is at a perfect horizontal level allowing Mr. Fogle to strike the piano keys at an even and non-arthritic motion. Tragically between the opening song "Kids with Guns" and the final song "The Manuscript" the piano bench (pictured) was horribly bent to a near 45 degree angle prohibiting Mr. Fogle from correctly sitting on the bench. Witnesses claim seeing a man wearing a yellow shirt with a bird print, holding a Gibson Les Paul guitar dancing violently across the stage. At one point the guitarist (later identified as Mr. Rosenblat) was seen jumping close to Mr. Fogle and even seen having a foot "or more on the piano thing" as described by audience member Federica Meier of Germany. Ms. Meier could not be located for comment.

Conspiracy theorists and bloggers have already cluttered the Internet with scenarios pointing the blame not only at guitarist Neal Rosenblat, but other persons of interest. Some of these people were not even in attendance. Outlandish and improbable, popular figures from present day and past have been named. Included are "Cee-Lo", "The lady who hit Ben Roethlisberger" and "The Flying Spaghetti Monster". If you have any information, please leave comments below.

Donations are now being accepted for a new piano bench.

WDVE Morning Show

We can now say we've played a show at 8am. Fueled by Starbucks, we had a great time playing this morning on Pittsburgh's WDVE Coffe House program. We played The Manuscript. Thank you to Ryan Camuso, Jeff Paul and everyone at WDVE for having us play and supporting local music. We were able to talk to Jim and Randy also. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do the weather or traffic reports, even though I was the official Clarion University weather guy. People say I have a face for radio.

We also met Mikey and Big Bob from the 96.1 Kiss Morning Freak Show. They invited us to watch the freak show karaoke contest, but we're not rock stars yet and all had to run back to work...

Thanks to everyone who listened this morning and called and text'd us, too.

Neal
School of Athens

Recording/I have a kid.

This is an update. People want to know what's going on? I'll tell you what's going on. We're really trying hard to get these songs released. It's taking forever. I wish I could say something cool like "the labels are in a furious fight over who wants to pay us more money" but it's not that.
did you know that recording, mixing, mastering, packaging and planning are really difficult? Yeah, it is. You actually have to be really rich and know what you're doing like you've been in a band for twenty years. Hopefully I can learn how this business works before I die so I can be prepared when I groom my son/daughter to be a rock god/goddess... Kind of like tiger woods' dad, but instead of golfing every day, we'll smoke cigarettes and talk about who we want to "do".
yeah, I'll be the best dad ever. I'll be one of those dads who buys their kids and their friends alcohol... But then instead of being a rockstar kid, they'll just die in a DUI crash at 15 when sally steals my car while on a heroin run for her and other 10th grade classmates I bought beer for just hours earlier.

TALK ABOUT YOUR ALL TIME BACKFIRES.

we're writing like mad men. We're making new songs and we're making them harder-better-faster-stronger. Maybe we'll even cut the songs down to 15 minutes this year. Who knows what 2006 will bring.

hopefully not a sally.

Neal
School of Athens

Club Cafe - September 30th

Along with Triggers and My Sexiest Mistake, School of Athens played Club Cafe last night and it was a perfect, amazing show. I just wanted to take a quick minute and thank the other bands and everyone who came out to support us. We had the time of our lives, thank you for making it happen. Hopefully we'll be able to post some pictures from the show, i'll put a link on here soon, until then, you can see the aftermath here.

Back to Erie

just a quick update...
we drove up to Erie yesterday at 5:30 to finish up vocals and add some guitar tracks to our upcoming 10 track CD. We finished all the recording for the CD and now we have to mix it. When that is finished, we'll get the other 4 track CD from our L.A. recording we did in January and send them both out to get mastered in NYC...

Recording in Erie

Blog for Erie, PA

Friday August 26, 2005

This is a precisely detailed description of our experience in the recording studio at Backwards Recording Studios in Erie, PA.

We arrived at 8:30 on Friday. Thirty minutes after the Steelers game started. We listened as much as we could before the static took over. After making a quick stop at the beer distributor to pick up a “dirty thirty” case of I.C. Light, we headed to Justin’s house, other wise known as Backwards Recording Studios. We recorded here almost two years ago in January of 2004.

We unloaded the truck and set up our equipment right away and started recording. In about four hours, we laid down six songs. The songs we are recording are “Pride”, “Natural”, “Manuscript”, “April”, “Venom” and “Chameleon”. We plan on combining this recording with the other songs we recorded in January of this year in Los Angeles. The planned track listing for this EP, or CD or whatever you call it is:

Kids with Guns9-1
Pride
Natural
Subconscious
Manuscript
April
Venom
Chameleon
Suckerpunch

But who knows what we’ll put on there.

Also, Justin surprised us with a newly remastered version of the CD we recorded here last time we were here, this one doesn’t have all the unwanted reverb, so maybe we’ll press some copies of that, too. The songs on that CD are:

In my Life
Valedictorian
Over and Over
Dot on a Page
Life Extensions


Saturday August 27, 2005

Woke up around 10:30 and drove to donut connection to get a healthy breakfast. At the insistence of Johnny and I, we drove another five miles out of the way to Starbucks because we don’t like coffee if it’s cheaper than $3.50, and it’s just more fun to speak a different language when we order what size we want. Right now we’re in the control room making notes on the bass parts, where to patch in the re-do's...

I just finished my guitar tracks. When we recorded last night, we did a live take all together, and then we planned on patching in the parts we originally messed up on. Even though Mike will have no problem bragging to you about it, I have to give him credit, he laid down the drums in one take… the whole CD, all six tracks. That’s pretty good. Johnny did really well on the first take, but he re-did some parts he wasn’t happy with. As for my original guitar parts, we had to change the mic position on the amp, so I had to do everything over, which was totally fine by me. I wasn’t very happy with my original takes anyway. I think I do pretty good with recording a song straight through, but it’s frustrating when you mess up a second on a 5 minute song and spent 20 minutes getting the messed up part fixed. I also laid down an acoustic track on April, that’s the only acoustic I used on this CD.

After we finished up the day around 9, we headed out to Calamari’s in Erie. They had a beer pong table, so Mike and I attempted to extend our 10-1 beer pong champion record, but to no avail. Sadly, as I sit here today, we are now 10-2. It’s a touchy subject, so I’ll stop writing about it now. (ha) Drew went to school up here in Erie at Mercyhurst College, so he knew a ton of people last night at the bar. When the band is long gone, I suggest Drew run for political office, he knows enough people to get elected President.

Sunday August 28, 2005

Thanks to a good night at the bar last night, we had a late start today. I woke up at 10 and walked around Peach Street and got some coffee, I came back around noon and watched Hot Shots Part Deux… oh that’s such a funny movie. Drew is recording vocals for Venom right now, so I’ll get back to you soon.

We’re packing up now, Drew finished vocals for four songs, and we’ll be coming up in next week to finish the recording. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it, we’re really proud of this recording. Thank you, Justin for doing such a great job. I would recommend any band looking to record try his studio out, he’s got great equipment and he knows what he is doing.

Neal

Been a while

I owe it to my adoring fans.. I mean I owe it to.. umm.. Who reads this thing? blogs are so cool these days, I just need to try and fit somehow. There's been a lot going on in school of Athens, there's a lot to write about, I don't know if I can remember what's worth writing about, so I'll try and recap highlights of the month(s):

January.
the band flew out to LA on a big 'ol plane and recorded five songs in 3 long days. We also played a show at a place called "The Good Hurt" in Venice.

February.
Drove to NYC to play at Arlene's Grocery. I've never been to NYC when it wasn't -30 degrees and I was broke as all get-up, so I never was crazy about the place. this time was no exception.

March.
Club cafe show with Like Summer. The place was sold out. I was going crazy. You really do feed off the people's energy, and such a small room filled to capacity was amazing.

April.
Arlene's Grocery, NYC again. This time I actually did like NYC much better. Not that I had any money, but warm weather sure helps. We drove up and came back the same day. Crazy.

May.
Wait 10 more days and maybe I’ll have something to tell you. All I know is Nine Inch Nails is coming out with a new CD. something I’ve been looking forward to for years.

This entry expresses the opinions of Neal and only Neal.

Post Gazette Write-up

For archives sake, here is the link to the write-up in the post gazette featured on December 10th. And while I'm at it, here's the link to the City Paper's... well, actually you can't have a direct link because http://pghcitypaper.com/ always appears in the browser window no matter what page you are on, so you're on your own. If found if by clicking on "Search" then type in "school of athens" and then click on School of Athens Music Previews 1/13/2005

Enjoy.

Jeff Buckley Tribute

How exciting can a blog entry be when all we say is "blah blah is so nice" "we had a great time.."
but this is another one of those entries...
last night we played with the most amazing bands in Pittsburgh, Brennan (formerly of Monarch), New Invisible Joy, The Quick and some other people who I have no idea what their names are, only that these 3 guys can play a typewriter like no one's business. Anyway, club cafe is one of the best places to play in PGH and we hope to be back soon. Thanks to everyone involved for last night's success and I hope to see you all again!

Mr. Smalls

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who came out to see us last night at Mr. Small, and also thank you to the other bands that played with us, The Road Less Traveled, Reasons for Leaving and Ennui. There were a ton of people there and I hope we made it a good night for all of you!

NYC

Look - SOA just booked a show in NYC at Arlene's Grocery.... no, it doesn't sell milk and bread... it is a venue which holds about 250 peeps and serves beer, not I.C. Light though. It will be on Friday February 4th at 8:00. Come one, come all and celebrate SOA's first ever show in NYC!!! We love you! don't forget to visit us at www.myspace.com/schoolofathens
peace!!

Acoustic at Pitt

Thanks to Emily, Kelly, Jackie, Mark and everyone at Pitt who violently clapped their hands after each of the three songs Drew and I played yesterday. We played April, Karma Police and Over and Over last night (Dec.6). We had a great time and thanks again to everyone for coming, hopefully we'll see you all at Mr. Smalls this Saturday, Dec. 11 at 7:30 when we play with
The Road Less Traveled, Reasons for Leaving and Ennui!

soa in erie

school of athens spent the weekend in Erie, PA playing a show and rocking softly. we took anvantage of the open bar and diffused more irish car bombs than IRA could ever do in one night. Thanks to Justin Fogle for the warm and cozy floor to sleep on, we really felt like rock stars, well, poor people in a band traveling at least...