10/25/2009 10/24/2009 10/3/2009 9/15/2009 8/17/2009 7/28/2009 7/23/2009 6/10/2009 5/19/2009 5/15/2009 5/12/2009 3/30/09
Travis Criscola, rest in peace
Early the morning of March 28, in Cincinnati our friend and band-mate Travis Criscola passed away in his sleep. He was 24. Travis was guitarist in the Cute Lepers for the last six months and was the perfect addition to the band as it's developed. He was our friend. His company was always a pleasure. I don't think I ever heard him say a negative word about any one. He was smart, polite and considerate, always interested in learning more about music and playing guitar... he really loved music. He was passionate about music in a way that only other like-minded musicians recognize and relate with. When Travis joined the band he would not think twice about jumping on the bus from Olympia and making the two hour ride to Seattle for a spur of the moment rehearsal, and then riding the bus two more hours to get back home. In fact Travis was doing this three times a week up until we left for Europe to start our tour. His character and his commitment made him the very best we could hope for in a band-mate and a friend. We're gonna really miss him. We feel that it's appropriate and absolutely not in bad taste to disclose the cause of death of our friend. Travis combined alcohol and pills, then went to sleep and never woke up. It was an accident. Travis was not any kind of a habitual drug user. I'm a man who has left drugs and alcohol alone for over a decade and I just wont work with people who are mixed up with narcotics. It is rare to find a rock n' roll musician in his early twenties who doesn't get caught up in hitting the bars and going to parties on tour, and Trav was just one of those ones who made a really bad decision. He naively took some type of pills on top of the beer he was drinking and that's it. I believe that it would be a disservice for us to leave out this information. People would wind up hearing distorted versions of the truth anyways. Also our hope is that other young musicians, or anyone it may apply to who reads this will learn from our tragedy and perhaps wise up a bit. We're currently traveling across the country back home to Seattle with heavy hearts. Trav's family and his beautiful longtime girlfriend are in our prayers. –Steve
In light of this tragedy, the duration of the tour has been canceled.
2/02/09 1/14/09 9/21/08 8/20/08
7/20/08 4/30/2008 NIPPLE ERECTORS join Lepers’ record release at London’s 100 Club, May 6th! 4/21/08 Come on out this Saturday to the HIGH DIVE 3 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!! It is a FREE show with a SPECIAL SECRET BAND (that actually rocks)/
Heavy Hearts/The Cute Lepers/Holy Name Dropouts
We just shot a freakin' insane video with Mike McCarthy, of Guerrilla Monster. Check back soon for more details.
4/3/08 Steve has a spastic interview in Distorted Magazine! The April issue is online here: Distorted Magazine
The Cute Lepers Sign with Blackheart Records! 2008 US WINTER TOUR w’ THE HORRORPOPS and PINK SPIDERS! Check out the tour dates!
SMART ACCESSORIES PRE-SALES - New record to be released in December!
Well, everyone has a little pre-sale package thing going on with our upcoming record so we thought we would have one too! We are whipping up a special package of a record or cd plus a cool enamel badge (button) and a Chick cartoon style pamphlet. The badge and pamphlet will only be available from the band - while supplies last! We'll get that deal up in the merch section of the website very soon. And of course, we'll just have plain old records and cds for you if you would rather go that route as well.
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About that show at The Comet today...
We will be playing 92% of the new record at The Comet Tavern in Seattle. Come on out and be the first to hear our new songs live! Most of them have never been played in public before. See ya there.
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Today we play at Seattle Weekly's REVERB (festival). We are on at 9 PM at the Salmon Bay Eagles Club. You can see the line up here: Seattle Weekly's REVERB
BYO Records recently put out a 25th anniversary documentary, coffee table book, and double cd called Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records. The movie is great, the cds amazing, and the book is super freakin' cool! For the cds, artists were asked to cover a song from the BYO back catalog. We performed "Future Dreams" by Upright Citizens.
We recently received an e-mail from Anton from Upright Citizens about the song:
Higuys,
heard the other day that there should be a cover of "Future Dreams" around, by the
Cute Lepers, a band I did know before ;-)
I just checked it out at LastFM and I'm positivly suprised that you made a real
smasher out of of a good song.
Absolutely well done !!
Anton
singer with the Upright Citizens (R.I.P)
Right on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Yesterday we completed mixing our new record, tenatively titled "Smart Accessories". It should be out in December on 1-2-3-4 Go! Records (US) and Damaged Goods (UK and Europe)!
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We are still completely exhausted from the UK tour. The Rebellion festival was loads of fun and we got to see many of our favorite bands as well as play! Thanks to everyone who said hi and hung out.
At the end of the month we're going into the studio for work on our second album, which will be out shortly after. Its about time, isn't it?
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SEE YOU IN THE UK! We are leaving on the 30th and are playing in Derby, Sheffield, Ipswitch, London, and Blackpool. COME UP AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF!
We just added another Seattle show. We will be supporting The Spits for their record release on August 27th at Chop Suey.
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LAST MINUTE 21+ SEATTLE show
7-26-09 @ rock o' clock!
The show is at the Bit Saloon in Ballard with The Girls and The Unemployables. We hope to see you there!
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We have an ALL AGES show at the Seattle Art Museum on 7/2/2009 with our drummer Rob's band The Femurs - see the tour page for more details. Also, check out The Femurs website.
Just in! We now have Berlin Girls 7" singles from Damaged Goods Records in our merch area.
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There is a show planned at the end of June - see the tour page for details!
We also have new 7" singles in from Drunk'N'Roll Records. They are available in our merch area.
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We have hours and hours of video from over the last year of playing and touring. We're going through them and creating video journals for YouTube. You can see the first several at the Cute Lepers YouTube Channel
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We've been pretty quiet here on the news front. We would like to extend a very big thanks to all the people who
helped out with Travis' memorial and benefit shows. It means a lot to so many people, including us.
That's all for now. Thanks again.
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The Cute Lepers are heading out on tour to Europe and around the US! Updated dates are posted here: TOUR DATES! There are lots of exciting shows with The UK Subs, The Buzzcocks, and The Queers! Also, COMING SOON, West Coast dates with Eddie and the Hot Rods!
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The Cute Lepers were named the Winner in the Best Punk Album category for their release “Can't Stand Modern Music” in the 8th Annual Independent Music Awards!
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The Cute Lepers' "Terminal Boredom" ran as MP3 of the Day on AOL's Spinner.com!
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The Cute Lepers' "Terminal Boredom" is featured on livedaily.com
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Check out the review of The Cute Lepers "Can't Stand Modern Music" from Venus Magazine!
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Yep, the rumors are true. The NIPPLE ERECTORS featuring Shane MacGowan and Shanne Bradley will be performing at The Cute Lepers record release show May 6 at the 100 Club in London. Get there early, as they are slated to play at 8:30. Gab Gab Gab Gabrielle!!!! We'll be pissing ourselves to hear the hits! Johnny Moped will be crooning following the Nips, and one of our absolute favorite bootleggers, Paul North will be DJing throughout the night and telling anyone who cares to know about how much he got for his South African Sex Pistols 7". If you see Ian Damaged at the show, please tell him how much you like our record so that he will run more ads! This show is truly gonna be a blast. --Steve e.
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