Today is the day! “Ghost World” is officially available for your listening pleasure. Buy it, stream it, share it, etc… and have all of your various anxieties enhanced tenfold. You are so welcome.
Somewhere A Dark Heart is now available for your listening pleasure. I owe a heavy debt to the mid/late ‘90s for this one, in particular EMOtional music. 😉 Feel free to listen/stream/purchase/support if you feel moved to do so.
Much love.
Hey Fam! The video for Get Out Of The Woods is now available for your immediate viewing pleasure. Had a blast meeting virtually and working remotely with some seriously talented individuals. I’ve never fancied myself an actor, but I think the no budget b movie horror pulp route is the most suitable for what it is I have to offer. I would never run barefoot through the woods IRL, but for art… ANYTHING. At any rate, there’s a lot to unpack here. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did making it. Much love and be well.
https://jcp.ffm.to/tpos
Doing a Late Night thing with my boys! Tickets on sale NOW, Y’all! See ya when I see ya.
🤘❤️🎤🍔🤷♂️
https://www.axs.com/events/411097/riot-fest-late-night-motion-city-soundtrack-tickets
Casting Call, Y’all!
I had so much fun with the previous effort, I decided to up the ante a bit. Looking for a ragtag team of misfits to aid me in defending the world from zombies and monsters. You will be paid a modest sum. Head HERE for details. 😘
My new EP 'The Price Of Salt’, is finally out! Head HERE if you dig noisy nonsense and stream/order the hell out of it!
In anticipation for the release of my The Price Of Salt EP tomorrow, I’ve added another playlist to the previous one that delves a little deeper into the literal and figurative influences that went into it all. Enjoy.
#Justin Courtney Pierre#The Price Of Salt#Patricia Highsmith#Epitaph Records#Motion City Soundtrack#Jim Jarmusch#Barry Jenkins#Steven Soderbergh#Michelangelo Antonioni#Hal Hartley#Nicholas Britell#Neil Young#The Jesus And Mary Chain#Swervedriver#The Flaming Lips#Guided By Voices#Sonic Youth#Gospel Gossip#The Magnetic Fields#Lifter Puller#Neutral Milk Hotel#Justin Pierre
In celebration of my birthday week I present “Firehawk”, the first tune from my forthcoming 'The Price Of Salt’ EP, out July 09 on Epitaph Records. Check it out and pre-order that shit if it speaks to you. 🎂
An Anthropologist On Mars is officially out today! Head to wherever it is you listen to noise and buy it or stream it and then listen to it on maximum volume on repeat all day, all week, all month, all year, and don’t stop until you’re dead. Much love y’all. I’ll be on all the sites today if you want to interact. 🤘 https://jcp.ffm.to/aaom
justincourtneypierre reblogged
CHARITY ALERT!
Hey there, good friends. We just wanted to let you know that a while back we re-recorded some old songs for a 7” gift last tour as part of our VIP program.
Thinking about what we could do to give our crew a brief reprieve from the horrors of daily living, as well as #saveourstages we though we’d unload the extra 7” records and donate the money.
NIICE THINGS was gracious enough to set this up for us. They are limited, so time is of the essence. If you can’t afford this, please spread the word. Do what you can. We ain’t shit without our crew. And the independent venues we went to as young punks were responsible for giving us safe spaces to be ourselves and shape/warp our little emotional minds.
Much Love, Y’all!
Many of you have been inquiring about the song “Crooked Ways.” Well, here’s a bit of history about it from Stephenie Meyer. Enjoy.
In case you hadn’t heard, Motion City Soundtrack released a song today called Crooked Ways. It is available wherever music is sold and streamed. Artwork by everyone’s favorite little buddy, Lydia Liza. Enjoy!
In 2007 I was recording part of the third Motion City album “Even If It Kills Me” in New York with Eli Janney and Adam Schlesinger at the helm. My memory is not my greatest asset, but I believe it was winter and I believe it was a cold and miserable experience. New York. Not the recording session. Recording with Eli and Adam was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had working with Producers. Eli was very soft spoken, calm, and chill compared to Adam’s intense, and frenetic (dissecting and reassembling several ideas in the blink of an eye whirlwind) force of nature. They were a good team.
I did not know Adam outside of making this record. I enjoyed his music, his many bands, the songs from movies and television shows he wrote, and the music he produced. So I guess maybe I did know him - through all that. I don’t know. The point here is that I wanted to offer a little moment behind the curtain to let you all in on what I experienced working with the man, to celebrate his essential brand of brilliance in the studio.
There is a song that stands out for me from that session. It’s called “Antonia“ (you can find it anywhere if you’re interested in hearing what I’m about to write). The original idea was fairly straightforward in terms of structure. Again, apologies if any of this is inaccurate... For once I had a great problem. I had too many options for lyrics, as the song is a laundry list of things I loved about a certain imaginary woman, the nuances, the weird stuff (I borrowed heavily from Tom Waits’ “First Kiss” in this respect). Anyway... I really only had an A part and a B part and they went back and forth for an eternity. Matt Taylor ended up writing the chorus music, which solidified the whole thing.
Then Adam got a hold of it.
He ripped the entire thing apart and dug around in its guts, throwing what felt like hundreds of ideas at us at warped speed, eventually helping us reassemble a far superior version of the song (you can listen to a live demo we did of the track on the 10th anniversary reissue of the album if you want to compare and contrast). It was amazing. He suggested that we do the little walk down B part on EVERY rotation instead of just the last two. When going to the chorus for the first time he had us not sing for two rotations, which was fucking bonkers. But it totally worked. Blew my mind. He had us add a solo (I’ll get to that in a minute), and before the solo had us double the little tag that would normally lead us back into the next verse. But instead of doing that, I got to lay down a “ripping” solo (which led to me on future albums doing way more of that sort of thing). I had never written a solo under duress before. He had me just play along (terribly) and improvise solo takes. He recorded maybe 8 takes in total and then cut and pasted the parts he liked together, even moving parts around to the front that I played at the end. It happened so fast. Then he played what he thought the solo should be back to me and I was floored. It was incredible. My only request was that I be given some time to learn this new cut and paste solo so that I could do it for real in a single take (if possible).
That day is suddenly coming back to me, flooding waves of nostalgia, a moment in time I didn’t pay enough attention to when it was happening (story of my life). Maybe that’s just what happens when someone dies. Things that you chalked up to just another winter day in a studio in New York now have more weight. I was working with, and I rarely use this word, a true genius, an artist unparalleled, a great fucking man, and I didn’t even realize it fully until years later. I’d run into Adam at festivals in Europe or randomly in New York here and there and it was always great exchanging brief and simple pleasantries. We were not close, but when you work intensely with someone on a piece of art, and you pour your soul into their hands, and allow them to reshape it into something new, something excellent, something you couldn’t have done on your own, you become forever tied to them in a way.
He will be missed by so many. He leaves behind a continent sized hole where his magic used to reside. My heart goes out to his family and close friends. I can’t imagine what they are going through on top of this slow motion horror show we all find ourselves living in. Please take a few hours and listen to some of his work and share it with others. Turn people on to him, rediscover him, or simply continue to enjoy the art he put into the world. My buddy Tony Thaxton put together a great Spotify mix of songs of his. You can check it out here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/22qybPKx9zwSMXvBh9nLWX?si=dM9Y2IKnS_KQLhpP1UbTBg
Also, here is the only footage I could find of myself with Adam in the studio: https://youtu.be/499HPJ_rI1Q
I was working out a guitar lead for the song “Can’t Finish What You Started” around the 2:45 mark. We lost a lot of footage after Hurricane Sandy, so unfortunately these 8 or so episodes are all we have of that recording session.
So yeah... Maybe you’re a fan, maybe you’re a friend, maybe you didn’t even know who Adam was. Hopefully this tiny glimpse of my experience with him fills your heart with a little more joy. There is definitely sadness when I think of him, but there is much more joy. The world was made better by him having been in it. We still have his music. We still have his essence. Let’s listen. Let’s love. Let’s feel. Stay safe out there, good people. I hope to see you on the other side of this when all is said and done. Much love. -JCP.
Hey gang! I'm happy to announce what will most likely be my last solo live performance for a while as I get ready to dive into some Motion City Soundtrack in the New Year.
September 29th my buddy Moe is throwing a party and you are all invited! The location is Saint Paul Brewing. The cost is $25. The time is 2pm. All proceeds go to help Still Kickin! Head HERE to read more info and get yer tickets!
MUCH LOVE!
Friday July 26th (tomorrow) I will be opening up for Jawbox at First Avenue in Minneapolis, MN. This is the kind of shit I dreamed about doing when I was a 16 year old kid banging around in my room on a shitty guitar and listening to music that made me feel better about simply being human. If you can make it out, I’d love to see you. Youth Gangs has reunited and will be my backing band for the evening. Had a lot of fun with them last November and the first rehearsal (yesterday) was a lot of fun. Regardless of your interest in me and what I’m doing, I urge you to come and check out Jawbox as they are an incredible outfit and have been a huge influence on Motion City and who knows if you’ll ever get another chance to see them. The last time I saw them was in ‘96 on this very same stage and it still stands as one of my favorite shows of all time.
Heading east in the name of rock! See you at @ardmoremusichall in Philly(ish) on Saturday and City Winery in Boston on Sunday w/my boy Thomas Rehbein! Come out and GET SOME!
