Music

Motion City Soundtrack gear up for fifth full-length studio album with career spanning shows

Motion City Soundtrack is set to release their fifth full-length studio album in 2012 and to celebrate they are embarking on a 4 Album, 2 Night, 7 City concert. The band will play all four of their first albums in seven cities across the country.


Official Press Release:

New YorkNY – 4 Albums. 2 Nights. 7 Cities.  Motion City Soundtrack will be gearing up for the the 2012 release of their fifth full-length studio album with career spanning shows that have the band playing their entire four album catalogue, 2003’s I Am The Movie, 2005’s Commit This To Memory, 2007’s Even If it Kills Me, and 2010’s My Dinosaur Life, from start to finish, over the course of two nights in seven cities across the U.S. this August and September as part of the LG Ones to Watch tour.  The band originally staged a similar performance of the then three albums in three nights in Chicago in 2009 and wanted to expand on the idea.  This series of shows kicks off in Los Angeles, tickets are available on Friday, June 24th at livenation.com and locally at all Ticketmaster outlets, charge by phone, and tickemaster.com and all stops are…
August 19th & 20th       House of Blues                                                Los AngelesCA
August 24th & 25th       The Fillmore                                                    San Francisco, CA
Sept. 9th & 10th            Irving Plaza                                                     New York, NY
Sept. 13th & 14th          Paradise Rock Club                                         BostonMA
Sept. 16th & 18th          Theatre of the Living Arts                               PhiladelphiaPA
Sept. 20th & 21st           Cambridge Room at House Of Blues              ClevelandOH
Sept. 23rd & 24th          St. Andrews Hall                                              DetroitMI
With the “4 Albums. 2 Nights. 7 Cities.” Tour, Motion City Soundtrack is taking a look back before they take a look forward with their fifth as-yet-untitled full-length studio album, which they recently recorded.  Co-produced in their hometown of Minneapolis MN with producer Ed Ackerson at his Flowers Studio, the band took an organic approach to writing and recording the fifth record – from trading emails of song ideas, to locking themselves up in a rehearsal space woodshedding, to ultimately letting the ideas take shape and develop in the studio, song by song.  The band is aiming for a Spring 2012 release with more details to come later.
The album that started it all is I Am The Movie which they self-released in 2002 with this “state-of-the-art” floppy disc drive packaging….
They hit the road and shortly thereafter signed with Epitaph who re-released the record in 2003.   Their debut earned them some media attention with SPIN calling them “…pop-punkers with a jones for Elvis Costello…,” and Alternative Press saying their album had “pop-punk with plenty of promise.”  I Am The Movie is now close to 200K in sales. 
They followed up their debut with Commit This To Memory in 2005 – a record they made with Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus as the producer.  This second album found the band continuing to make fans in the press and saw them make their late night TV debut on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and followed that up with a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.  This record also earned them an “Artist to Watch” piece in Rolling Stoneas well as “16 More to Watch” in SPIN’s annual “Next Big Things” issue and had Alternative Press saying that “…Memory is an inspired mature sophomore disc chock full of catchy, intelligent pop-rock….”  This album has gone on to sell more than 300K copies.
After Commit This To Memory came Even If It Kills Me in 2007 which debuted at #16 on the Billboard 200 with 33K albums sold.  This recording found the band working with Ric Ocasek as well as Adam Schlesinger and Eli Janney on production.  A decidedly more pop effort, the album earned them a review in the New York Times which called it “…one long sugar rush” and SPIN called it a “…set of near perfect pop.”  This was the album that also earned them a slot on the Honda Civic Tour with Panic at the Disco, their first Lollapalooza slot, and the cover of Alternative Press Magazine’s “Most Anticipated” issue. Even If It Kills Me has sold nearly 200K to date.
In 2009 Motion City Soundtrack reunited with Mark Hoppus to record My Dinosaur Life, their debut with Columbia Records. My Dinosaur Life came out in January 2010 and charted #15 on the Billboard 200 – their highest debut to date and earned them raves from Vanity FairEntertainment Weekly (A-), SPIN and USA Today among others.  It also scored them a perfect 5 out of 5 lead review in Alternative Press and a spot playing live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the week following release.  In addition, the band headlined throughout the U.S. and internationally and made its’ first appearance at the Reading Leeds Festival in the UKand Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival in September of that same year.
Now with album five in the works for a Spring 2012 release, Motion City Soundtrack has decided to take a retrospective look back on their four album career with this series of upcoming shows – 4 Albums. 2 Nights. 7 Cities.  It’s definitely a bright look forward for a band whose first album featured an unforgettably catchy song called “The Future Freaks Me Out.”
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The Author

Jim Napier

Jim Napier

Lover of movies and The Big Lebowski.