Pete Wright- Everything in the studio
Christian Baldo-Drums
and other pal
Influences
Beatles, The Clash, Junior Senior, Outkast, Ted Leo, Prince, White Stripes, Buzzcocks, Blues Explosion,The Figgs, Five Maseratis,the Who, Weezer,Hives, MC5, Public Enemy
I have been doing a little more blog/book writing than music lately. You can check out the regular blog The Underachiever's Progress on this page.
I also have written a book called Surviving Retail, a collection of anecdotes and observations from my 15+ years working in retail. I've recently created a blog to promote it:The Blog!
As far as music:
Pete Wright is Your Pal. It's both the name of his musical project and what he's becoming to more and more people as he preaches the Popagenda. the PopAgenda is a personal philosophy that was originally developed as a way to make music, but it can be modified to any part of life where mediocrity and diminished expectations have become unwelcome companions.
Its tenets are (in no order):
1. To take the term "pop" back from those who have made it a negative term and make it a badge of honor to encourage creating Pop Culture worth wasting nostalgia on .
2. To honor every audience regardless of their size or interest. They could always be doing something better than watching your lame ass.
3. To eliminate the counterproductive idea of "guilty pleasures" , because everyone is capable of teaching with their art.
4. To promote inclusion, recognizing that there is strength in numbers, not irony.
5. To recognize the use of Pop Culture as a instrument of real social change, even if I mostly sing about Women and Music.
6. To always do the best you can with what you've got.
7. To eliminate negativity and pretension in it's many forms, allowing of course for the pretentious idea of having a personal philosophy in the first place.
"This is My Pop", along with many things in Your Pal Pete's life, are created with the Popagenda in mind. Does he succeed? That's for you, the listener, to decide.
"Let our melodies ring forever in the heads of the nonbelievers"
The first recordings for "This is My Pop" were less than a week after the break up of his former band. Already playing almost all the instuments, Pete taught himself engineering to record the songs that complete the album. His reasoning? "I had already spent 10 years waiting for other people, so why not?"
Your Pal's Pete Wright is like a brain we keep in a padded cell to write us perfect p"op songs. We feed him our favorite records and he lays us perfect poppy eggs. Occasionally he gets uppity, as all our favorite padded-cell-chicken-artists do, but that just makes us crane our necks and fight for space in his minds window to view our pretentions, razed and rebuilt as a simpler world of guitars, drum machines, and good songs"
Brendan Canty-Fugazi(Dischord Records)
"I think Your Pal is excellent. Melodies that stick in your head like they should and make you feel sad, sweet, dark and touched at the same time"
Jeanette -the Chubbies(Sympathy for the Record Industry
"Your Pal looks back to late power popsters like Joe Jackson and the Cars while throwing it's lot with the Weezers of the world. It's an enjoyable sketch of where (Pete's) head is at."
Jim Santo-Demouniverse.com
Writer's Block
Christmas song for the retail worker.
Videopolis- a short movie by Francis Abbey that I appeared in.
GUESS WHAT!! I just got back from D.C!! Jealous much? I went to visit my friend in Sterling Virginia. It was so green and beautiful! Check out my pics. The girl with me is my daughter Celesta. So still working for Kent? I got a new jobby job!!!
Are you still taking questions / giving advice on your blog?? Is this a never-ending service youre offering us loyal readers? Perhaps, a monthly or quarterly post of the questions and your replies?
omg, it just occurred to me today that i don't live with someone who can levitate david blaine-style whenever i request it! you have no idea how this depresses me.
