two weeks after city hall, where you fell down the steps
smoking outside Tir Nan Óg, I just wanted to play catch
we used to go to all the bars, but we were underage
so we drove down to your step-mom’s house, listening to Rage
so i’ll re-run the mile, i’ll rewind the tape
i’ll put your hat back on your head, but you won’t win this race
We used to fight, in grocery store parking lots
We’d go all night, ‘til security came and broke it up
Look at you now, loving Jesus like you do
It freaks me out, but I still miss you
so i’ll re-run the mile, i’ll rewind the tapes
i’ll put your hat back on your head, but you won’t win this race
so i’ll re-run the mile, i’ll rewind the tapes
i’ll put your hat back on your head, but you won’t win this race
i tried to re-read The Wars, but i can’t turn the page
"did you grow up lonesome and one of a kind? were your records all you had to pass the time?" ~ the queen of lower chelsea, the gaslight anthem
welcome back, y'all.
first off, i'm stoked to tell you (if you haven't already heard) that you can actually hear what we recorded with all of this instead of just reading about it when our debut ep,
cry about it
is released on january 31st!
(and if you're in/near vancouver, you can come see us at our release show the night before! rumor has it there'll be merch and new songs 👀 (there'll be merch and new songs, it's not a rumor))
Houseguest invites you to celebrate the release of their debut ep, 'Cry About It' to enjoy a night of emo, punk and indie rock!
now. let's talk about mj's guitars, shall we? he used a LOT more guitars than i did this time around, so let's dive in.
this is mj's fender noventa stratocaster, one of his two main guitars, and hot damn. this thing is unbelievable. i'm not usually a strat girl but changing the standard design is a good way to pull me in and this thing sounds incredible. the p90s are a fender custom design and they really are fantastic - i'd love to see fender making more guitars with these pickups. the thing weighs nothing and has such tonal variety that mj plays it on big aggressive tunes and the quietest, softest parts (this is the only rhythm guitar on pink power ranger, for example). if you find one of these, i really cannot recommend it enough. mj keeps this guitar in his half open c tuning, CGDGBe; something you may notice is that mj, rach and i often play in wildly different tunings. does my baritone sit more neatly with this weird tuning because of a natural eq curve? is this completely psychosomatic and it just sounds good and i'm overthinking it massively?
... moving on! he uses .10-.52 ernie ball skinny top/heavy bottom strings on it!
this is mj's other main guitar, the fender vintera 70's telecaster deluxe. what is there to say about a telecaster in 2025? hopefully lots. this thing is surprisingly light, given that it's just a big beefy slab of wood, and the wide range pickups sound fantastic. still very versatile, but when he goes absolutely nuts on taurus, for example, that's where these humbuckers shine. this thing is fantastic and comfy as hell (tummy cut forever!). he's got one of those d'addario auto locking straps on this thing and WOW is it ever comfortable. hell of a guitar, truly. he keeps this in e standard (for now; i see d standard in the future, though) and uses the same string set.
(fun fact I - this was my DREAM guitar when i was like 14-18 years old. I always wanted to like sg's but they never seemed like they suited me but then i saw THIS and that was that. it was my absolute dream to own one of these because justin pierre from motion city soundtrack played one and i was (and still am) just such a huge fan. maybe one day i'll use one, too.)
mj lives in the land of actual pedals as opposed to my digital utopia, but i digress. his pedal board includes:
source audio soundblox 2 dimension reverb
southampton pedals fifth gear (nasty, NASTY little motherfucker, so good)
boss cs-3 compression sustainer
source audio nemesis delay (an incredible delay, this thing is so versatile and powerful. it's like a time machine)
boss ph-3 phase shifter (i actually don't think he's ever used this but i'll check)
mxr analog chorus
ehx linear power booster
dunlop crybaby wah (there's definitely something funky with the switch on this one, hence the AM I ON? reminder tape)
boss tu-2 chromatic tuner (tu-2 forever!!!!)
and the fulltone ocd autism pedal (for the record fuck this guy and fuck his company; as of the time of writing, we've got it (tentatively) replaced with a boss ms-3 multi effects switcher (this thing is very cool. surprised there aren't more multi fx/switcher combos out there))
mj is one of the most creative guitar players i've ever heard and he can coax ANYTHING out of this board (which you'll see when our next songs come around). Big weird spacey things, heavy, nasty distorted things, beautiful math-y things... he gets it. he's got The Pedal Touch.
mj plays all of this through a fender tone master deluxe reverb. you might be wondering, why the tone master model? well.
a) you would never know that this is not a tube amp listening to it. never never never.
b) it weighs HALF and that's honestly a big swing right there
c) digitally recording it is not a compromise the way it was way back when with digital amps
d) built in attenuator??? hell yeah. it's not 1985 anymore, baby. the days of diming an amp to get "the best tube breakup" are dead!
as expected, given that it's emulating one of the most legendary amps of all time, it sounds fantastic, takes pedals incredibly well and can do... essentially anything.
now for the studio only guitars! (all three of which belong to rachael, incidentally - out of all of us, she's the guitar collector for SURE.)
mj played this epiphone sheraton ii on a couple tracks just for some tonal variety - different scale length, different strings, different pickups, semi-hollow... really brought a lot to the table for some tracks. these things are ENORMOUS - mj was less than pleased haha.
(fun fact II - i used to own one of these in black with gold hardware and i LOVED it and i miss it all the time)
we currently have this fender strat in half step down to facilitate some of our new stuff, but mj used this on the ep for some really chime-y cleans on re-run. we used it hyper specifically, but it really did the trick.
i used this prs se soapbar II for some kind of like. extra guitarwork, weird noise stuff, guitar pad-style sounds. not super frequent, but a good jack of all trades instrument that served us well! (plus it's a prs without those fuck-ugly bird inlays so that's a big point in its favour haha)
THERE YOU HAVE IT. all instruments have been revealed. in the next week or two i'll do a quick breakdown of what we used mic wise and in the box to record, as we did this whole thing ourselves, but 'til next time:
just some thoughts on the genesis (ba dum tss) of the new song.
i wrote the lyrics to divine creation just about two years ago, watching "left" politicians roll over and feed us to the christo-facist killing machine in the hopes it could be appeased (it can't, btw). i was so angry. i AM so angry. i don't want to be visible just to be eaten alive by this monster so milquetoast fencesitters can claim they appealed to unity. drop dead.
houseguest has been rolling divine creation around for almost as long, pushing and pulling and twisting it until, suddenly: there it was. we recorded it in like 3 weeks and i mixed and mastered it in like 4 days. it was a mad dash, but i'm glad we swung for the fences. a bunch of phenomenal guest vocalists? yes! synths like crazy? yes!!! why the fuck not!!!! it wasn't huge compared to other productions, i'm sure, but it was new for us and i am so proud of mj, cait, (sorry no studio photos of you, used a show one) and rach ( @algorithmthirtytwo ) - and, frankly, myself.
we will be bones in the throat of the killing machine.
we were here well before them and we'll be here when they go.
i won't die so you can live.
it is trans day of visibility and i hope this bolsters you against being so goddamn visible right now.
divine creation is about remaking yourself in the image you have chosen even in the face of powerful, institutional opposition. it is about standing up and being who you are but, more importantly, it is about the freedom for anyone and everyone to follow in your footsteps if they so choose.
it is about being trans, through and through.
bandcamp only, for now: all proceeds from divine creation will be donated to local trans mutual aid.
featuring our friends @sixthgradesoftball, ?NUMB?DAME?, doom loops, sticky keys, izzy cenodese, and our honorary houseguest, blue chu.
divine creation releases on streaming services easter sunday (april 20th).
we love you. take heart, take care.
🏠
ps. don't forget, though. this song is also about telling transphobes and homophobes and misogynists and racists and zionists and TERFs and SWERFs and fascists loudly and unequivocally to GET FUCKED. no one is free until we are all free. free palestine.
hi. hope your monday is pretty chill overall. i wanted to follow up on the basses we worked with on this next ep! three great options, honestly. starting with rach's stage go-to:
this is rach's fender geddy lee jazz bass! the neck on this thing is like a guitar neck - it's absolutely tiny and it plays so fast it's unreal. this thing is E X P R E S S I V E . every single note jumps off the fretboard, it makes even simple root note runs sound so dynamic. gorgeous bass.
next up is rach's fender p-bass. pretty straight ahead stuff! what is there to say about a p-bass that hasn't been said before? not a lot. i double tracked this over a couple of the jazz performances to cheat - i didn't want the best of both worlds (a pj), i wanted BOTH WORLDS. i am a greedy engineer lol. oh, also, there's a slap part on this upcoming release (!!!) that this p-bass just excelled at. (we're not going funk. you'll see. it makes sense.) (also look at those SYNTHS. rachael is armed to the teeth.)
last up is mj's fender jazz bass! this thing kind of ended up sitting in between the geddy lee and the p-bass - more expressive than the p, but more restrained than the geddy lee. this actually landed on most of this ep, which was a pleasant surprise - it sounds fantastic and who isn't a sucker for an all-white fender? i sure am.
to my knowledge, all three of these are stock... down to NOT HAVING STRAP LOCKS. rachael just plays 'em raw on-stage and i think that is full blown psychotic (especially given that she's the one doing a lot of the running around!!!!) but i respect it. me saying "be more careful" is absolutely silly lol.
okay! see you next time! it'll probably be drums but we'll see! we're doing this in a fucked up order! anything worth doing is worth doing wrong!
