September 26, 2009 @ East Village Coffee Lounge

September 26th, 2009 at East Village Coffee Lounge in Monterey, Ca

With an acoustic opening set from td&ts bassist Ray Junior

Yet another great show at East Village in Monterey! Sadly our friend Dakota couldn't make it so our bassist Ray played an awesome acoustic set of some of his own songs. Over-all it was a great night and had a great time playing for all of our friends and family in Monterey!

Setlist for September 26, 2009 @ East Village Coffee Lounge in Monterey, Ca

1. Mistakes!

2. Across the Water

3. The Psychologist

4. These Inevitable Insanities

5. The Regular G (Days Away Cover)

6. Rules in a Knife Fight

7. Dog Problems (The Format Cover)

8. Ashes Ashes

9. Halloween

10. Collie Man (Slightly Stoopid Cover)

11. Untitled Unreleased Song

September 19, 2009 - Event for the Animal Rescue Team

September 19th, 2009 in Solvang, CA

A private event for the Animal Rescue Team (www.animalrescueteam.com)

(Due to health reasons Nick was unable to play this event. But the show must go on! so Easton played the show solo acoustic.)

From Easton: Had a great time at this event. The fundraiser was by far the most "out of the ordinary" show I've ever tackled before, but the event was a success all around, for both myself and the Animal Rescue Team. In addition, this was the very first time I've ever used our newly purchased PA system, so the practice I got on that with this event was invaluable as well. Thank you very much to the owners of the beautiful Solvang estate whom hosted the event, Julia Di Sieno for organizing everything, and the entire Animal Rescue Team for making this really enjoyable!

Some of the songs played as follows:

Halloween
Dog Problems (The Format Cover)
The Psychologist
Ashes Ashes
The Regular G (Days Away Cover)
Coney Island (Good Old War Cover)

Autumn in the Evening Review by Alter the Press

Autumn in the Evening just received a great review at Alter the Press!

From Alter the Press -

Review by Andy Touch

I feel sad. Truly and genuinely sad. Since March, I’ve been trying to find the perfect summer band to soundtrack my summer of 09 (I was hoping for Vampire Weekend’s second release to be out in time; it’s unfortunately not). And finally, at the beginning of September and the beginning of the cold seasons, I get sent The Dreamer and the Sleeper’s second album ‘Autumn In The Evening’. My search has come to an end.

From the go, this album sets the mood perfectly. Opening track ‘Across The Water’ welcomes the listener to the calm lapping of waves and is then introduced to both Nick Pappageorgas and Easton Broome as the acoustics and singing introduce the listener to gentle yet a powerful melody. This captivating sound continues throughout the album, but to a quicker succession, such as the hand clapping follow on of ‘These Inevitable Insanities’ and the marching beat of ‘The Civil War’.

The album, in a whole, is incredibly reminiscent of the slower Jimmy Eat World songs, such as 'Dizzy' and 'Your House'. Its creepy how well this comparison fits as lead vocalist Nick swoons his way through the campfire-lullaby-esque setting of ‘Mistakes!’. A quick MySpace search informs me of Jimmy Eat World being one of the bands influences and it clearly shows. At times, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t listening to a better produced version of ‘Clarity’ by the aforementioned influence with the inclusion of Andrew McMahon, of Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate fame, helping out in the song writing.

Speaking of similarities to other artists work, like the prodigy offspring of Conor Oberst ( to those who are uninformed, the mastermind behind his alias Bright Eyes), The Dreamer and The Sleeper turn their record up a notch and into more daring territories on track ‘Rules of a Knife Fight’, which is very similar to Oberst’s ‘NYC – Gone, Gone’. The song sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place on a wild western record player, and whereas this change of tempo and style would falter for most other bands (I’m looking at you, AFI), it helps the album to progress forward, continue its steady flow and to advertise their multiple song writing talents, instead of becoming a one-trick pony.

However, it’s when the album reaches its conclusion in the last track, ‘The Beginning and the End’, where Nick and Easton’s lyrics and vocals really take hold of your attention. This track closes the album in emotional triumph. There isn’t a lot else I can comment on about this phenomenal, majestic and mystical album, other than that both Nick and Easton should definitely take great pride and happiness in their work and to continue writing songs with more soul in them than most other albums on the shelves of record stores of today. One to watch out for, keep an eye on and to most definitely take note of.

5/5

'Autumn In The Evening' by The Dreamer and the Sleeper is available now.

Thanks to Sean Reid and Andy Touch at Alter the Press for taking the time to check out or album!

Nick's Blog #010: New Poster in the Works!

Hello friends!

I have begun designing the second poster for the D&S Song Inspired Poster Series.

Edit! When I originally began to design this poster I had said that this was to be the poster for our song Villains. But as I kept going I have changed it to our song Halloween as this will also be the show flyer and poster for our Halloween show this year in Monterey, Ca!

Below are some images showing the progress of the poster form start to it's current state. Hope everyone likes what they see!

New Website for Our Live Streams

After posting last night I was checking out the UStream.tv site we use to broadcast over the internet and I saw some cool features that I hadn't seen before that allow you to embed the live stream into your own website. Being a web designer I was stoked and got rather inspired. So I've thrown together a page on the Icarus Kids Recordings web server that now will show our live stream sessions.

From this page you can watch our live broadcasts and chat with other viewers. And the layout of the new page is much more fun than the last one!

Stay tuned to our twitters, facebook, and myspace accounts this weekend to check us out, streaming live from our studio in Monterey!

Link: http://live.dreamofsleeping.com

Returning to the Studio this Weekend!

We will be back in one of our home studios (The Orange Room) in Monterey this week, Thursday through Sunday. We have a few different things planned that should be pretty fun!

We plan on working on a song that was written during the Autumn in the Evening Sessions. The song is still untitled but we have been playing it at shows recently. Our plan is to record this song this weekend but we aren't going to force anything. We also aren't quite sure what we will be doing with the song, whether it will be on an upcoming album or ep of some sorts, or whether we will release it as a single. We're just going to wait and see how it turns out and go from there!

We will also be rehearsing for a bunch of shows we have in the coming weeks.

As we did while recording Autumn in the Evening we are going to broadcast some of these recording and rehearsal sessions live on our UStream.com page! For those of you who don't know UStream is a really cool site that works a lot like YouTube but allows us to stream video to you guys live! There is also a chat room where you guys can come on and chat with us and other D&S supporters. It's usually a really cool and fun experience for both us and the people who come on to watch.

We don't have any set times when we will be working so we have a few different ways you can get notified about starting the live stream. If you are a frequent Twitter user the best way is to follow both Nick and Easton. You can follow Nick: @NickDandS and Easton: @EastonBroome and we will tweet it out when we are about to start streaming. Also we will post it up on our Facebook Page and Myspace bulletins so adding us on both of those pages can't hurt! And of course we will post it on here so subscribing to this feed is a good way to keep updated as well!

The UStream Page can be located at the link below and you will need to enter the password: "aite" to access the page. We cant wait to chat with you all this weekend!

The Dreamer and the Sleeper Ustream Live Video Page

Nick's Blog #009: Turning (Edit) Chinese!

Edit! I've been informed that the websites that this post talks about are Chinese and not Japanese. Duh! Sorry guys, I suppose I need a lesson in asian internet culture!

Ok so I really hope this doesn't make me seem like a self-centered deush, but yes, I tend to google search my own band's name from time to time. It's sort of embarrassing to admit, but since we don't tour much sometimes it's the only way see what people are saying, if anything, about D&S!

When I search I usually click on the "Blogs" tab and the "Forums" tab because that is usually where I can find people discussing our music. Now a recent google search of "The Dreamer and the Sleeper" turned up some rather strange results.

What I found was our new album "Autumn in the Evening" up for illegal download on a number of blogs (I only say illegal because they don't have our permission but obviously I couldn't give two shits, as long as people are listening!). But this is not the weird part. As I started looking at the blogs I quickly noticed that I couldn't read anything people were saying about the album, because to my amusement, they were all Chinese!

I got this weird feeling as I was looking at these sites that I can only describe as "amazement". How cool is it that a non-touring band can record an album, and somehow, through the magic of technology people are listening to it in a country thousands of miles away.

Now we have all heard this huge debate that has been going on over the past 10 or 15 years between the record labels and just about everyone who has ever used the internet. "Your stealing!", the industry folks cry! But if a band who has never played a show outside of California can record an album for free in their home studio, and without even trying have people in freaking CHINA spread it around for them... obviously these record labels and industry folks are not embracing what is an absolutely amazing opportunity.

I could go deeper into this, discussing album leaks and the like, (because obviously those stink for artists!) but that horse was beat to death a long time ago and that's not really the point of this post. I basically just wanted to express my amazement in what technology has done for us as a band. And although it seems that the music industry MAY finally be catching up to the technology (see: last.fm or grooveshark) it sure seems to me that an endlessly valuable tool has been wasted by them for almost two decades.

Either way it's incredible that there is someone in China right now with D&S jamming on their iPod (or whatever crazy awesome gadget they have over there now-a-days) and my fingers are crossed that we blow the eff up over there. Keep spreading that shit guys, maybe someday we'll make it across the water. (see what I did there?)

Nick's Blog #008: In the Studio with Ray Junior

Hello friends!

Last week I began recording an EP for one of my best friends Ray Padilla (He goes by Ray Junior but I just feel too weird calling him that in a personal context!). Ray has played music with us since high school and is a great guitar player and all around awesome musician. He was in a band called Bull Mountain with Easton and I for a few years before The Dreamer and the Sleeper (search us if you must but just as a warning, we were pretty terrible!) and now he has started playing bass for D&S.

I've wanted to record his songs for a long time now but was always too involved with recording D&S. After I had recovered from the grueling Autumn in the Evening recording and mixing process, Ray and I decided it would be sweet to get some of his own tunes recorded. Although Ray, Easton and I's songs are, in my eyes, very different... we all have pretty much the same influences. Steven Jenkins (Third Eye Blind), Zach Smith and Rob Crow (Pinback), and Nate Ruess and Sam Means (The Format, Fun.) to name a few have really shaped the way that all three of us look at songs and the songwriting process. So well the songs and style of Ray's music may differ from ours, there are also many similarities. Add that to me doing the recording and mixing of his songs and I think our fans are really going to enjoy these recordings!

We started recording an EP and so far the songs are coming together beautifully! It's been really great working on his songs and hearing the songs I've heard him play for SO long really come to life. It's looking like it will be a 5 - 6 song EP that will be released on Icarus Kids Recordings most likely sometime this Winter.

I'd like to keep posting updates on this recording process because I truly think that if you are here because you enjoy our tunes you are going to love these as well! Add Ray on Myspace and follow him on Twitter!

I have some quick news from the D&S camp as well! We have a tentative plan to record a new song next weekend. It is a song that if you have seen us play lately you have most likely heard OR if you remember this video we posted way back when. It's a really fun song that sadly got pushed off of the Autumn in the Evening song list pretty early, only because the mood and feel of the song clashed so much with the rest of the album. We really have NO CLUE what will become of this recording whether it will end up on an EP, Album or just released as a single. But it'll be great to get back into recording and I can't wait to see how the song turns out!

That's about it for today!

Nick's Blog #007: Santa Barbara Show and Fun!

I am going to try to start writing quick blogs basically describing whatever we do as a band. Whether it be recording sessions, writing sessions, or shows, I think it could be a cool look into our band for you guys. Maybe not, I don't know! We'll see.

Tuesday, September 1st 2009

I wake up fairly early and start packing up the car for the four hour drive from Monterey, where I currently live, to Santa Barbara, where Easton currently lives and where we have a show in the evening! It's pretty easy to pack since we are playing acoustic these days. I throw my and Ray's acoustic guitars in my car and hit the road. Sadly Ray can't come to this show because it's on a Tuesday and he has to work. Me and Easton are pretty bummed because we are loving how the live show is sounding with Ray playing bass and adding some percussion. He is a pretty amazing bassist! Although we would've loved to have Ray play with us we're still super excited because we haven't played a show since we began our little break about two months ago. I think both Easton and I are really excited about getting back into the swing of things with the band and both really refreshed from the small break we took after the pretty intense writing, recording, mixing, mastering and release of Autumn in the Evening.

I make it down to Santa Barbara pretty quick, only stopping once for a Red Bull and a snack. I meet up with Easton at his new place of residence just as he's getting off of a short day of work. It feels great to be back in Santa Barbara! I haven't been down since the fourth of July which didn't turn out very good for me or my girlfriend when I ended up in the ER. Long story with a very uninteresting ending. I had a pinched nerve and half of my face went numb! Anyways I check out Easton's new pad which I realize I have been too before. We quickly head downtown to SOhO where we are supposed to soundcheck for the show. We show up at SOhO and meet some of the others who are playing that evening. While they are sound checking we take a walk down State Street which is awesome because the weather is beautiful. On the way we spot this guy. Both Easton and I have a good laugh at the lack of explanation for why he is in a window front on State Street. We grab a sandwich and head back to soundcheck.

Soundcheck goes quick as usual! Basically we level our acoustic guitars and play through half of Across the Water and The Psychologist. Sounds great! After we soundcheck we have an hour or two until the show starts so we swing back by Easton's house to pick up his housemate Paul. He is a cool guy with an even cooler accent! The three of us head back to the club where the show is about to begin. The first performer is Rachael Cantu. We both really love her set! Really incredible! We listen to the next two performers while we kick back a couple drinks courtesy of Paul before it's our turn to go on.

Our set goes great and a good number of Easton's friends from SB come out to watch. A newer untitled song sounds particularly awesome tonight. Luckily we chose to close our set with it! It is a really cool song and it has quickly become one of our favorite songs to play.

After our set we hang out for a while with a bunch of Easton's friends and they buy us a bunch of drinks. By this point it is obvious I'll be staying in Santa Barbara for the night! We head back to Easton's house with a bunch of his friends. We all hang out and play Third Eye Blind songs on our acoustic guitars until the cops get called on us. Woops!

I crash on Easton's couch for the night before having to wake up super early to head back up North in the morning. Over all it was a very short but awesome day in SB and an even better show. We have a bunch of shows lined up in the next two months and I am so excited about getting back into the swing of things D&S-wise! Thanks to all of Easton's (and my new) friends for coming out to the show! It was great!

September 1, 2009 @ SOhO in Santa Barbara

September 1st, 2009 at SOhO Restaurant and Music Club in Santa Barbara, Ca

Singer-Songwriter Showcase with Rachael Cantu, David Lynch, Lucy Walsh

What a great show! Soho is an amazing music venue with fantastic sound and a really cool atmosphere. If you are ever in the Santa Barbara area and have nothing to do for an evening head down to this place! The three other artists that played were fantastic. We were both especially impressed with the very first singer/songwriter Rachael Cantu. Awesome!

It was great to finally get to play for and hang out with all of our friends in Santa Barbara! We hope to have many more shows in SB in the future.

Setlist for September 1st, 2009 @ SOhO Music Club in Santa Barbara

1. Halloween

2. The Psychologist

3. Black or White (Michael Jackson Cover)

4. Across the Water

5. Mistakes!

6. These Inevitable Insanities

7. The Regular G (Days Away Cover)

8. Dog Problems (The Format Cover)

9. Untitled Unreleased Song

Below are a few photos from the show: