The Circle Curse

Austin, TX based punk band consisting of three gentlemen who enjoy the abysmal things in life.

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This will be our last post.

Three years ago I was fresh out of college and I was restless. I hadn’t played in a band in a couple of years and on top of that, I wanted to try some new things. Write more of the material, give vocals a shot, and really push myself in ways that I hadn’t been before.

So I put out an ad on craigslist in search of like minded people. Out of all the responses I got, only two people seemed to have similar interests with what I was wanting to do. And of those two, only one of them ended up really being totally in line with me. That’s how I met Jacob. It wasn’t long before we were joined by a college acquaintance of mine named Wade, and The Circle Curse was born.

All three of us pushed each other to be our best musical selves, and I think our songs showed that. We were all driven to do things we hadn’t done before, and much of this remained the case after Wade left and Evan joined.

Collectively, we got a pretty good amount of things done in the span of three years. Far more than the bands I had been in before. The Circle Curse didn’t last nearly as long as we thought it would, nor achieve everything we had originally envisioned. But that sort of thing happens. What’s more important is what we did get done. We released two EPs, and are all still extremely proud of both. We spent a few brief times on the road and accrued some great stories and inside jokes. We shared bills with some incredible (and a few not so incredible) bands from across the globe. We made a lot of friends. But most of all we got to make music that we genuinely loved, and it was all because we did it together.

It may be cliched and cheesy sounding, but this band legitimately changed my life. It was an extremely important part of me, regardless of what we might have fallen short on achieving. I’m a much different person today than I was before, with a lot of that being directly because of The Circle Curse. And that is as  colossal a feat as any band could ever really pull off. These three years have meant the world to me.

After posting this, I will sign out of this account once and for all. The page will remain as a record of what we were, in case anyone ever comes across it and ends up enjoying what they find. If not, then at least I’ll be able to come back and revisit some memories.

So thank you to everyone who ever took the time, or will take the time, to check out what this little band from Austin, TX was all about. Thank you to everyone who ever booked us. Thank you to every band we played with. Thank you to everyone who came to see us perform. Thank you to everyone who bought one of our EPs. Thank you to everyone who reviewed us. Thank you to everyone who took photos of us. Thank you all for caring. And thanks to my bandmates. All of us made this happen. And it was great.

-Anton

(photos by Ashley Bradley, Anton William Blake, Breezy Ritter, Gabby Belzer, Holly J, Jacob Saheb, James McCabe, John Quinones, Leyla Royale, Michael Stangl, Roshi K, Ty Thompson, and Wade Thompson)

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Flyers for all the shows we played in our short career.

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"In a sea of similar punk acts, The Circle Curse have their own spin" - Brian Audette, OVRLD

Low-Flying Aircraft was reviewed on OVRLD with some very kind words about much of the album. If you’re interested in reading it, you can check it out here: http://ovrld.com/album-reviews/circle-curse-review/

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Last week, we played our final show ever. It was a very weird mix of emotions for us, as it had been talked about between us for at least a year and there it was finally here. The room was full of mostly friends both new and old to see us off. It meant a lot to us, just like the band itself meant a lot to us. I would argue that this was one of our best, most heavy hitting performances of our time together.

I’ll be posting a couple of other things here before leaving this account for good, but we’ll get to that later. Anyway, it was a great show and quite a way to end it all.

Photos by the almighty Ashley Bradley, flyer by Anton William Blake

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So we released this last month and totally forgot that this tumblr existed. Go give it a listen.

https://thecirclecurse.bandcamp.com/

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We've been fairly quiet on here as of late. We haven't played a show in quite some time either. But worry not, we have some very rad things in the works. While we keep working on all of that, we'll post a few tidbits to hold you all over until we are ready to announce everything.

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Made a pilgrimage to where the Crystal Palace once stood.

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In case anyone was wondering, Jacob is currently learning to fly through telekinesis.

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A glimpse of our show last night.

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I guess we need to go play somewhere with basements now (read: please invite us to play in your town).

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The Cop in Calera

(WARNING: This is a long read, but I'd say totally worth it)

     So last August we traveled out to play some shows in Fayetteville, Arkansas and Columbia, Missouri over a weekend. We've mentioned how cool Columbia was to us on here before, and the story of Fayetteville will be for another time.

     The morning after our show in Columbia, we wake up early for the all day drive home to Austin we have ahead of us. Other than a flat tire right off the bat, the drive is pretty uneventful through Missouri and Oklahoma. Somewhere around hour nine, the sun is setting and I've just started my second shift of driving for the day. We are closing in on Texas with only about twenty minutes away from the state border. As we pass through this tiny town called Calera (population just over two thousand, only about two square miles wide). I check my side mirror, and glance at the car keeping pace with us in the next lane. A police car. Just as I look, they slow down and I get that sinking feeling. As they move in behind us I say to the guys, "Well, we're about to get pulled over."

     And sure enough, I was right.

     Lights go on, I slow down and pull over at the next side road. All three of us begin to groan. Officer walks up to the window and asks about the crack at the bottom of the windshield. I reply I don't know how that happened, since we were borrowing the van from an old friend and former bandmate of mine. He looks over my license and insurance, then asks me to come with him back to the squad car. Oh great, we all think.

     I get out and am promptly asked what kind of music we play. While thinking it might be a bad idea to inform him of it, I say "Oh we're a punk band." He then asks where we were and where we are going. He starts writing in his little ticket pad. And that's when things got interesting.

     He goes on to tell me that he sees himself as something of a music buff, and then proceeds to go on a long rambling conversation about The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Sonic Youth, and Green Day. And I play along to every little thing he says. I use all my knowledge of punk history to the full extent, picking every little factoid I can that I got from countless hours of reading interviews and band bios as a prepubescent lad, all the while I'm internally losing my shit. After about five minutes of this he says he is just writing me a warning for the windshield so that if we get pulled over by someone else, we won't have to worry about getting an actual ticket on the home stretch of our journey. As I take the slip and hop back into the van, he remarks that he'll use this stop as an excuse for a smoke break and then wishes us luck on the rest of our drive. We quickly, but politely take off, and I recount everything to the laughter of my astounded bandmates.

     Seriously, who the hell was this guy?! A cop in a two mile town in the middle of nowhere that knows a decent bit of punk history, who just so happens to be the guy to pull us over? Hands down one of the most hilariously bizarre ways we could have ended the weekend. But it just goes to show you that not all cops are the stuff of Black Flag songs. We like to think that as he had that cigarette, he said to himself "Man, what have I done with my life? I've sold out!"

-AWB

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flyer by Anton William Blake

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The differences in the setlists from our second show and our third show, which were three months apart.

We retired Epiphany and Coliseum after the second show, and Shields was totally improvised. The third show was the first time we played all of the songs on the Glass City EP live, which was recorded about half way in between these shows.

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The three of us sound like the beginning of some weird punk joke:

"A vegan, a vegetarian, and a straight edger walk into a DIY space..."

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OVRLD Review of Glass City

Brian Audette of OVRLD gave this excellent review of our EP:

“Immediately after listening to the band’s solo recording, the Glass City EP, I was impressed. The album starts off innocently enough with the opening chords of the song “Cartography” treading fairly stable hardcore punk ground. Less than a minute in, however, the song’s seemingly boilerplate facade is cracked by a brief, jazzy, Fugazi-esque breakdown that later gives way to a similarly jazzy bass and horn duet before returning to a 3-chord shred. The EP’s remaining four tracks follow a similar pattern, sounding like familiar hardcore one moment and then veering off into less traveled territory the next. Between the bursts of guitar noise, the jazzier elements, and the terse, shouted lyrics I’m most apt to compare The Circle Curse to the earlier works of influential 90’s Post-Hardcore, avante-noise smiths Unwound and speaking as a huge fan of that band, this is not praise to be taken lightly. Regardless of who they sound like, as a demo of what they can do, Glass City has me hooked to hear more from this group.”

In the same article he also reviewed our good buddies Super Thief. Check it out here:

http://ovrld.com/ovrld-shares/2013-austin-punk-bands/

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SxSW 2014 house show

Our first show in a very long time was totally killer. We played with Air Dagger, Super Thief, Geography, and Honey & Salt. Every band brought their A-game and kicked serious ass. There were an unbelievable amount of people crammed into this house all getting down.

Photos by John Quinones