BUY OUR ALBUM!
Wednesday, March 9, 2010
Big show two weeks away!
In less than two weeks, we get to grace the stage with Much The Same again for the last time. March 26th at Reggie's, they will have a reunion/farewell show to mark what was a great run by a great band. I can't wait! Ths show is going to be so rad. Not only do I get to play with MTS one more time, but Flatfoot 56 is playing as well. It's going to be a huge party-type atmosphere. If there was a show for you to be at this year that involves us, this is it. This night is going to be a celebration of Chicago punk rock and you should do everything in your power to make it out. We may or may not have a surprise or two for you as well, more news on that later....
If you haven't heard of Unit 91, and most people haven't as of yet, they'll be opening the show and they're dfinitely worth checking out. The band was a side project of Jevin (MTS), Josh (Break The Silence), and our very own Rod (CP). The boys asked me to play with them as well, and I'm looking forward to pulling double duty at the show. Its going to be a blast! If you need some tickets, just click on the flier below:
I would strongly suggest getting tickets for this one! It's going to sell out!
Until then,
E
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Home sweet home, a big thank you!
Well after a whirlwind of 28 days playing 24 shows across 9 countries, we're home safe and sound. We met some amazing bands, and made some great new friends. It seemed like every show was a new opportunity to hang out with some great people, and we definitely did that. I can say that I don't think the sun EVER somes out in October and November across the pond, but we did see it once or twice in England which was a welcomed change of pace. I know this seems a bit redundant, but I just wanted to once again send out a few big thank yous to everyone who helped us along the way. Whether you put us up for the night, fed us, or told us where to go to grab a decent adult beverage, you rule! Just a short list off the top of my head:
Manux and Roch from Feuzeul Booking (my fav Frenchmen..)
Michel and all the dudes in Forus (Check this band out, they'll rip your face off!)
Greg, Get and all the guys from Fast Motion (check these guys out if you haven't already! They're awesome!)
John fron Disconnect Disconnect Records
Johann from Funtime Records
Ian from Hidden Talent
Dani from Discos Rayados Records
Farting Gramps
Dami and Ste from No Reason Records
John and Danny and all the guys from The Fair Do's (awesome band! Check them out!)
Stanley from Stanley Star Productions and all of the Holis fam!
Andreas and Valentina Codini and the entire Codini family for that matter!
All the dudes in Sun City Falls. Record already!
Andy in Lewisham for putting us up when we were in a bind
Phil Ford in Leeds
All the dudes from We Are The Union and Ben. Rad to meet up with you guys across the globe
Tom in Southhampton
This list is getting crazy long. If I forgot anyone, I'm sorry! Everyone was so cool to us it's hard to pull it all apart. We'll see you all soon!
We have some release news for all of you folks in the states coming up here shortly, and I know I've said it before, but this time for reals!
'Till then-
E
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Europe here we come!
October 11th seemed so far away for us a few months back, but finally the day has come and gone. That means our new album has hit the streets in Europe! It's seems like forever since we hit the studio to lay this down, but sometimes good things come to those who wait, and I can honestly say that this upcoming tour of Europe is going to be bomb! We couldn't be happier for this opportunity, and with any bit of luck we'll be able to repeat the trip come springtime. We'll have some fresh new zip ups for sale, and some new tee shirts for everyone to take a look at also. I'll get these dates up as soon as I have a few more confirmed shows.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to send a HUGE thank you out to the following people:
Dami and Ste at No Reason Records
John from Disconnect Disconnect Records
Joe from Fond of Life Records
Johan from Funtime Records
Dani from Discos Raydos
Manuex from Feuzeul Booking
Kai at Muttis Booking
Without you guys, none of this would be possible. So thank you from the bottom of our pure beef hearts. Ha. Sorry, that was a Superdawg reference. Kind of an inside joke that only Chicagoans might get. Ok, lame.
Anyways, here's a quick review that you can check out on the new album:
http://www.alterthepress.com/..2010/10/album-review-..counterpunch-heroes-and.html
E
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Ugh. Turned around at the border.... :( ....and another chance to catch A Wilhelm Scream
So....... the stupid Canadian border patrol turned us around yesterday and sent us home. Believe it or not, we actually got more crap from the US customs coming back. How much could we possibly have done after not even getting in the country, and being on Canadian soil for like 20 minutes, inside the immigration office? I didn't even get a chance to wolf down some gravy fries! Total bummer. In a nut shell, we are home again after playing one show in Detroit. We met some great people, had a rad time in Detroit (for the night), and that alone was worth the trip. A big thanx to Bridget, Jason of Hell City Records, and Kegger at The Northern Lights Lounge an intense night of foosball. That was some heavy shit! In other news, we'll be at Reggie's (shocking I know) on September 4th sharing the stage with A Wilhelm Scream and The Sky We Scrape. It's going to be an awesome time. You should go! We'll have some new merch available for you guys to take a gander at, and bring it home to rock for your friends. We also will have some European tour dates up for you in the next few weeks. Our CD will be out in Europe October 15th, followed by three weeks of solid shows across the whole western continent! We're super excited, I can't wait. We'll have a US release date reeeeeaaaal soon, I promise. I know I've said that a million times, but for reals. We're just waiting on the cover art to set the release date. More details to come on that! While we've been home, we've been churning out some new tunes. They sound rad. Can't wait to lay them down for you! E Friday, Smarch 26, 2010
HELP GET US ON WARPED 14!! AND A WEEKEND WITH SLT..
..Hola! So we're about to embark on the "From Curds to Turds" weekend through Wisconsin with our buds in She Likes Todd. It's going to be rad! We're going to Milwaukee tonight, then Fond Du Lac on Saturday and finally a stop in Madison on Sunday. You can check out the shows page for the details on those three.
**WE NEED YOUR HELP TO PLAY ON THE CHICAGO STOP OF WARPED TOUR 14**
That's right. It's time for the shameless begging for your vote to begin. Seriously! You can vote once a day, and we even posted another new track for you to check out on the Ernie Ball page to check out. It's called The Great Regression. Give it a listen, give us a vote, and carry on with your day. You can even gently coax your friends to check it out and vote. Tell them Richo will give them a private showing of his world famous donkey show. It's disgusting, but kind of like a car crash. You don't want to keep watching or looking but you just can't stop.
Here's the link:
http://www.battleofthebands.com/counterpunch
Word
E
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Some new music for all y'all to chew on
As you can tell from our Myspace page, we did in fact receive our masters from Fedex finally! I've posted four tracks off the new record for everyone to give a listen to, so I hope you have the time to check them out!
As far as the release date goes, we're not 100% sure right now. We're working out some licensing agreements with a European record label, and it will be out in Japan in less than two weeks (Feb 10!). I know you're probably asking yourself why the people of Japan get to have the opportunity to have this fine disc in their hands first. Well, the answer is pretty simple actually. We have no label support here in the US. We're hoping that we can find a home here in the United States sooner than later so we can hit the road and play out for you guys!
So if you know anyone that works for a label, or has a friend of a friend that knows a guy who used to live next door to so and so, pass the word along to them. It would be a great help! We're shopping it right now, so hopefully I'll have some good news for you soon!
We just posted quite a few shows coming up in the next few months, so keep an eye out for fliers coming your way! The next opportunity you have to catch us live will be at the Bottom Lounge here in Chicago with Chase Long Beach (on Victory records) and the Green Room Rockers next Friday (Feb 5th). It's a quirky bill for us to play, so we could sure use all the support we can get. It's a ska show! It's going to be a great time, so hopefully I'll see you there.
Eric
Friday, December 18, 2009
Almost done, assuming Fedex doesn't fuck us again and lose the master...
So we FINALLY have the master of our new CD coming Monday *crossed fingers* if Fedex actually delivers it this time. They apparently lost the last one somewhere along the way, which means that someone somewhere could be prematurely enjoying some sweet new tunes featuring yours truly. As excited as I am for that person possibly liking what they hear, I REALLY WANT THIS CD IN MY HANDS!! GGGGRRRRRR!!! We've worked really hard to get this done, and learned a lot along the way.
Of course it wouldn't be possible without the help of Jamie Rohde, Mark Michalik, Dennis Muller, and Stavros Giannopoulos. All of you played a very key role in helping us to make this project a reality, and I want to personally thank each and everyone of you!
Alright, enough with the sappy stuff. The new CD will be out February 10th in Japan on Radtone Records featuring 13 new songs. We're also in talks for a European release, but nothing's cemented just yet. We'll see where that one goes, but for all of you stateside, we'll have a release date soon!
-Eric
Thursday October 15th, 2009
Where ya been dawg? What's going on CP? and a few shows!
Sup people. If you haven't noticed, we haven't been real active as of late. It's ok, there's a good reason. We've been kind of lying low for the last few months, putting the finishing touches on the record, finalizing things with Radtone, and trying to find a home for this release in the States and elsewhere. We also went back to the studio to record two bonus tracks for the record (believe me, you'll be surprised!). They'll be free downloads with the purchase of the actual disc.
As far as the new CD goes, here's where we're at. Radtone has officially decided to pick up this release, titled Heroes and Ghosts, with a release date somewhere in Jan/Feb 2010. No exact date yet, but you'll have it soon! For the US side of things, the artwork will be done once again by Stanboy Reinel (http://www.stainboyreinel.com) and we couldn't be more stoked to work with him again! We're still figuring out who we can afford to master with, as we've funded this record ourselves so far, but we'll have an answer for you on that front soon!
We've just picked up a few shows around the Chi for you to check out in the next few weeks, so check out the shows page for some details. We have one with She Like Todd and Michaelane in Villa Park that's going to be a blast! If you haven't heard SLT's new stuff, it's flippin' awesome!!
We're also playing the Chicago premiere party for a short film entitled Moustachette, starring Ryan Key from Yellowcard and Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz from FOB. We get to share the stage with Danger is my Middle Name and Coventry, and you'll be able catch some out takes from the film you'll only get to see if you're at the show!
Till next time,
E
Monday June 15th, 2009
Tossers tickets, discounted just for you so we can all party like it's 1999
Hey guys-
Just wanted to take a sec and thank everyone who came out to the Strung Out show last Monday and made that show a success. We had a great time, and met some good people.
We have another show this Friday (free....) at the Mutiny with She Likes Todd, The Hallow, and Ryan's Hope. It's going to be an awesome night filled with many mini pitchers of assorted whiskeys....yum.
Also, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you all in on the party that's going down June 27th. We're playing with The Tossers at Durty Nellie's in Palatine. It's a hometown throwdown for us, and it would be great to see all your smiling faces and to share a pint with you! We have tickets available that allow you to avoid the ticketmaster surcharges and taxes, which we know no one likes. The tickets are $10, and they will be waiting for you at will call. We only have 75 of them, so you better get on that before they're gone. CLICK THE LINK BELOW AND GET ON THAT SHIT!!
Hope to see you there!! IT'S A 21 AND OVER SHOW!!
-E
Saturday May 2nd, 2009Strung Out!! Death by Stereo!! Recording news!!!
We can finally say we're done recording. We finished up tracking two weeks ago, and now it's on to mixing this crazy record. It seems like it's been going on forever, cause it has :) . But this is it. For serious this time!! It sounds great, Mark has done an awesome job with everything and it's finally all coming together for us. We'll have some snippets of sound up here for you to listen to pretty soon.
If you didn't already know, we have a show coming up in June (the 8th to be more specific...) with Strung Out, Death by Stereo, and This is a Standoff at Reggie's. I can't wait for this show!! If you want to go, I would highly suggest getting some tickets from MPshows.com This show will sell out, and the tickets are cheaper than the at the door price. Plus, when will you ever get to see Strung Out in a sweet and intimate setting like Reggie's?
We have Adam Turman doing some custom hand-screened posters coming in for this show, and they'll be for sale along with some of the vandals posters as well. While we're on the subject, you can expect to see all brand new merch at that show as well, and we'll be handing out some 3 song demos of the new songs for your listening enjoyment.
If you can't wait until then to hear some new tunes, you can catch us at Mad Maggie's in Elgin Sunday May 17th with our buds in Starter Kit. It's an all ages show, should be nice and warm out. So grab a few beers with us and hang out!
For those of you in the Chicago area, tune in every Monday from 6 -7pm on 1410 am for Tattoo Radio! You might hear some exclusive Couterpunch tracks being spun...wink wink....nudge nudge
-E
Thursday January 15th, 2008
Cripplepunch (studio diary part two)
Hey guys-
We're getting to the end of recording slowly but surely. I can say that we're Almost sorta done! And by the way, holy crap it is cold here right now. And I mean like -20 or something ridiculous out right now.
Anyways, here's to a happy 2009 from all of you from Counterpunch! I know this is going to be a great year for us and I hope the same for all of you. We're slowly but surely finishing off these songs, and they still sound killer. You're stoked, I know. We were able to squeeze in a few days with Mark scattered throughout December, and we got through a good amount. We still have a ways to go though. a----lot!
We have some more dates with Mark in February, hopefully we can belt this out for y'alls.
In other news, Jared went and busted up his leg. He has a full on cast that he won't let me draw a dick on. Kind of a bummer. Both on the broken leg and the lack of phallic decoration. Hopefully he'll be up and hopping around soon enough. Maybe he'll let you draw a dick on it. You should ask him.....might make him feel better..
Peace out, we'll talk soon!
-E
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Destoyed by Lions (aka the studio diary part one)
So we were able to burn through 15 songs worth of music in the 10 days we spent with Mark Michalik. Unfortunately we didn't get to the vocals, but we have some dates in December set up so hopefully we'll post some of the new sounds for all to hear soon.
The first week was all drums. Tuning, playing, more tuning, more playing......
I had enough Ramen to feed half of (insert random small country here...) while El Richo supremo beat the hell out of his kit. The sounds we got are pretty stellar, if I must say so myself. Rod, Brian and I played plenty of Madden and NHL '09 while all this was going down, and despite my best efforts, I still suck ass at Madden. Always have, always will. The furnace was not working the first few days, so the studio was like an igloo. Good times. The next week, Rod finished up his bass in like 10 minutes for the album. Seriously, the guy is a machine........
Then it was on to guitars. This shit sounds amazing! The guitar tones are warm, biting, and focused. There's a lot going on on this record guitar wise, so it took some time to get through all of that goodness, but during the process we apparently have picked up a few formidable influences on this record. Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Optimus Prime, A Wilhelm Scream, Megadeath, Your mom, Van Halen, and the list goes on. Pretty crazy. You're going to be surprised to say the least.
A few nights we ended up at the Four Moons tavern in Roscoe Village, conveniently located on the corner where we were staying. Kind of a tiny towny bar for the locals with a really bad jukebox. So Rod and I end up closing the place on Tuesday, and there's this guy at the end of the bar hanging out with his friend. He decided to buy everyone at the bar a drink because there were like 5 people in the place and he'd never done it before. So we had quite a few Makers and called it a night. Friday brought us some horns and stand up bass. Yes you read that correctly, horns and stand up bass. I know, I know.....a little weird, huh? Oh well, you'll understand once you get your ears wrapped around this new CP goodness.
That's all for now folks. There's a few pics up in the studio album if you wish to check them out. We have a TON, so check back for new additions!
- E
Saturday, October 18, 2008
A new album almost ready to go
I'm not sure if anyone noticed but we haven't been playing any shows recently. There is a really really good reason for this.......we're almost done writing our next album. We've been tucked away in our shitty rehearsal studio for about two months hammering away at these 16 songs. I'm not sure how many will make the cut, but rest assured that it's going to fucking own you. I just can't wait to lay it down because I'm sick of the different smells that happen in that building. Seriously, every time you open the door its like a new experience. Anyways, this is a big step forward for us both musically and personally because we have a new member joining the Counterpunch family. Brian Phee, most recently involved with Break the Silence, has signed on and will be in full force on this release. It's great to have ya bro, glad you decided to join up, and I'm looking forward to the future. See ya soon!!
- E
June 29th, 2008
All new counterpunchrock.com!!
You read that right. Welcome to the real actual Counterpunch website!! Tons of cool new stuff, new merch, and some videos to scope out. And no worries...I didn't post that one with me, your mom, the burlap sack, and the camel......that one's still in the vault.
We're taking some time off from writing to play a few local shows this coming month, including one at the all new Bottom Lounge. I myself am really stoked to check that place out! It's been a while in the making so it should be cool. How the hell are you all?
-Eric
June 26th, 2008
Be our Facebook bud
Due to an overwhelming demand, we just launched a Facebook page. I'm just joking. No one wanted us to put a page up there. Seriously. But if you happen to be on facebook and want to stop by our lovely little page please be our guest.
-Eric
March 3rd, 2008
Just a thought
....So I figure it's been a while since we have had a little round table discussion about the life and times we so trudge through. We are the warriors with the will to survive. So yeah the baby Jesus dumped a foot of snow on us yesterday and I decided to go hiking in the woods w/ a case of beer and reflect on the world, the new songs we've been working on and some of the up and coming events we will be taking part of in the next few weeks.
As you see the default picture is of a poster design for our show on March 14th w/ The Vandals by Adam Turman which I have to say looks bad ass! We commissioned 50 hand made screen printed posters, signed and numbered and decided to do a some sort of give away at the show which means a select few people could win a poster signed by all the bands and artist along with a copy of our CD and maybe something extra (more details soon!). we are stoked on this and hope you are as well!
We have a few shows in the month of March, two in our home state and one very special trek...we will be riding the tiger to see our boys One Day Criminal in the land of cheese and honey; good ol' Wisconsin. Those guys rule! We always love getting smashed w/ them, rocking out, and yelling at them to play their cover of Holy Diver. Look out, Look out!
Also we have been working on a plethora of new material and I have to say from listening back the latest batch of CP tunage is very fast, aggressive and downright angry. It's a change of pace from out first record for sure but don't get me wrong; it will still have that vocal driven sound we showcased on the first album but these songs really move. I for one can't wait to put the finishing touches on these baby's and start the demo process.
And finally, your mom..your mom..your mom...your mom.....your mom!
~ROD