theglowingstars:

Earlier this week, Lizzie was interviewed by The Joystiq Show about The Glowing Stars for their music episode. It went live today, so check it out!

The Joystiq Show - 006: Musical Players 

Meanwhile, Matt’s wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy! 

While we’ve been on a break from shows this month, we’re still cooking up a lot of things behind the scenes. Lizzie is getting ready to do a few shows withcrashfaster in the next few weeks. Catch their sets on Saturday, August 27 at PAX Prime 2011 in Seattle, and Thursday, September 8 at The Stork Club in Oakland. 

The next The Glowing Stars show is in just two weeks! We’ll be playing at Convergence Fest at the Japantown Peace Plaza in San Francisco. Here are our upcoming show dates:

9/4/11 @ Convergence MMXI Festival, Japantown Peace Plaza, San Francisco, CA
With Teenage Sweater, SpaceKraft, Planet Booty, and The Bran Flakes
12 pm | FREE | Facebook | Flyer

9/28/11 @ Red Devil Lounge, San Francisco, CA - Jonathan Mann’s 1000th Song-A-Day / Album Release Show!
With Jonathan Mann & The Rock Cookie Bottoms, The Backorders | 7pm | $8 | Facebook

10/28/11 @ The Crepe Place, Santa Cruz, CA
With The Phenomenauts and The Bloodtypes | 8pm | $12 | Facebook

We have some more upcoming shows in October that we can’t quite announce yet, but when the time comes, you’ll know! Be sure to subscribe to our mailing list on the right sidebar. Also, Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve taken a break from music stuff for a short while since The Glowing Stars is on hiatus as Matt’s been in baby mode — his baby is due pretty much any day now! While that’s on hold, I have some plans to do some stuff with crashfaster, like performing with him at PAX Prime this year in Seattle. I’m also recording some vocals for Wizwars. I’m really happy to be working with all of my friends!

I guess I forgot to plug in here that The Glowing Stars debut EP dropped earlier this month, right before we went on hiatus. It’s titled Anything Past That, and has five tracks of Game Boy goodness and rock & roll. Please check it out! You can stream it for free or download it for five bucks on Bandcamp.

I’m really thankful that crashfaster recorded and mixed this EP, and Hans Dekline mastered it. Dekline has also mastered records for Snoop Dogg and Lisa Loeb. Someday I think I’ll write a protected post about all the inside jokes and secrets of Anything Past That, but I’ll save that for another time. Considering the entire EP is about one person, there are a lot of little things about it that are all related, including the EP art, and the labels that were on our limited edition physical releases.

Side note, those who have ordered the limited edition EPs, please be patient. People have been receiving them at different times. Some last week, some this week, and I expect more next week. But if you have any concerns, e-mail theglowingstarsband [@] gmail [.] com!

Oh right, so video game stuff. Since the band stuff is on hold, I’ve been adjusting to my new position as Associate Editor of @GAMER Magazine, and it’s been a fun ride so far. I’ve taken over their podcast and have hosted the last three episodes, including Episode #21, which just went live today. This week’s episode also has Jillian Lungaro and GamesRadar’s Chris Antista, and we talk about Comic-Con 2011 and Catherine.

Speaking of Catherine, that was my first review for @GAMER Magazine as an official employee. Yay! It’ll be in the September 2011 issue. But the game came out this week, and it’s so amazeballs. Really, buy it. Or listen to the podcast first, and then buy it.

Oh dear, this will have to be another one of those bulletpoint lists again. Lately my time has been split between work and band stuff, which is great, but I haven’t had time to do much else. I can’t believe we’re opening for Anamanaguchi and Peelander-Z in a WEEK! So, so crazy. I’ve been playing guitar so much, that I can’t feel anything else with my fingers on my fret-playing hand.

That said, the above video was a bit easier on the fingers. My band did this cool video for GamesRadar showcasing these ThinkGeek interactive music t-shirts for a giveaway. This was a lot of fun to do, and my best friend Angelo Ibanez shot this on a Flip HD cam and edited it. So cool!

Alright, here we go:

The Glowing Stars

• Well, that video.
• Been practicing and rehearsing on hardcore mode for our April 7 show! You can still get tickets here!
• We put up our second mini webisode on Monday:

GamesRadar

• Today, GamesRadar’s Trailer Trash Theatre - Episode 17 went up! We looked at trailers for Family Farm, Battlefield Heroes, and Shadows of the Damned.

Everything Else

• I guess this is more The Glowing Stars-related, but I was recently interviewed by Front Towards Gamer Radio and it went live last week! Listen to it on FTG Radio, Ep. 46.
• Also that week that it went live, the @GAMER podcast I sat in on went up as well: The @GAMER Podcast - Episode #14
• And speaking of @GAMER, I wrote reviews for their last two issues. In the March 2011 issue, I reviewed Yoostar 2, and for their latest April 2011 issue, I wrote my biggest review yet for Crysis 2. So happy about that.

Pics or it didn’t happen!

I think that’s about it. Life is moving too fast! I feel like time has been on steroids since the announcement of the April 7 show, and things have been blowing up since. Even after that, we’re possibly playing something awesome in May, and we’re already setting up a tour for June. Not to mention the release of the EP. This is going to be a good year. :)

Happy holidays, GamesRadar style. I finally just finished my last work day of the year, and am looking forward to spending the next week concentrating mainly on my new 8-bit indie rock band with fellow former Sputterdoll member, Matt Payne.

But before we get into any of that, click play above for a special Talkradar episode: A GamesRadar Christmas Carol. It’s basically the whole staff of GamesRadar doing a videogames version of the classic Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but with really bad fake British accents. It’s only about 20 minutes, and a really fun listen, so listen! I play three different characters, with each accent worse than the last. So I wasn’t made to act.

I also put together this list of videogame-related holiday cards we’ve received this year (and some probably last year). Check it out below. We also included a special GamesRadar holiday card just for you.

GamesRadar: Happy Holidays from the people who make your games

Happy holidays, everyone. Keep checking back for updates on my new band. We already have a few songs written with more to come!

If you missed it last week, I got to be a guest on the @Gamer Podcast for a little bit to talk about videogames. Somehow the topics always reverted back to FarmVille, but I swear it’s sort of kind of entertaining. Maybe. Take a listen by clicking the link above, or streaming it from here.

@Gamer Magazine is the official gaming magazine of Best Buy.