Happy birthday to our favorite twins (May 6th)!
Go ahead and wish them happy birthday on twitter or facebook etc!

Wikipedia actually says it’s the 13th of May, but this is not true. Madinalake.com used to have false birthyears and dates on their website, so people assume they were born on May 13th 1981. Here’s actually a quote from Matthew/Nathan from a chat many years ago “Madina Lake: ahh thanks! may 6th is our bday, thank you loads for all of your wishes btw ” source.

“RP, citizens, and travelers..

deepest apologies, a redundant offering by ml.. we have had trouble with merch in this way: when i went down for a 5 day nap, we were right in the middle of fulfilling pledge orders. that system changed and we lost all files of which orders were fulfilled, which is why some people got 3 orders and some got zero.

next was the lila tour. we sold out of merch and bobabooey made an excel file of what we needed to fill.. that was at the request of our merch co. who was then going to fulfill the orders for us.

that didn’t happen..

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When Madina Lake first got started, you always said you had a story to tell, and it would span 3 full-length CDs.  You were met by all kinds of resistance along the way–genre labels, an attempt on your life, record labels cutting ties, and all of the financial problems that go along with all of those things.  Yet here you are today with 3 albums and 2 (soon to be 3) EPs under your belt, a handful of singles, videos, awards, and a published book to show for it all!  And to paraphrase one of your songs, you’ve still got your soul.  All in all, would you consider it a pretty successful run?  Did you accomplish everything you originally set out to do with/as Madina Lake?

Our mom instilled a humility in us that evoked a selfless understanding of achievement.  Subsequently, my nature is to deflect exaltation and experience the success with gratitude and from the same perspective as someone who connected to it would, i.e. the River People (this is what we call our friends/family/supporters, for those who don’t know).  With that said, I take great pride and fulfillment in what we created, which I feel as it’s funneled back from our community.    Musically, I can honestly say that I play in my favorite band.  For that I am lucky.  Every true musician would love to say that, but it’s not easy to brew your precious elixir with three other chemists.  Beyond the music, our vision was to link together as many like minded souls as we could and establish a home for us all in the ether.  A safe place of our collective imagination, electrified with love, suspended of judgement, and devoid of the ego.    This necessitates an entity outside of the band to spring to life.  This is the where the most rewarding, miraculous triumph came from.  Once our town was created and flourishing with so many incredible people something occurred that bestowed upon me the ultimate gift.  After my attack, I was brought back to life by the groundswell of love that they generated and sent to me.  No words can express what that feels like.

READ MORE ON TWRY WEBSITE!

run forrest run

For the many of you who know me this will come as no surprise..

My way of doing things is pretty much text book what NOT to do..  but since teaching an old dog new tricks is just arduous and mostly futile, why bother with it lol.  I started writing this years ago on my Macbook, in text edit.  Advance research and prep isn’t one of my fortes, so I simply picked a font size, spacing and some margin settings that looked to me like a typical book would and began typing away.  I  would periodically print preview to see how many pages i’m at which is around 210 ish.  Well my sister whos helpng me edit just informed me that according to my word count, I’m actually at 517 pages..  woops.  Good news is I’m at the trimming phase, meaning I’m essentially done with the writing..

Will email you all updates on rewards, chats, ship dates etc. very shortly but just wanted say yo!  hope alls well!

the new adventures of old mateo.

13 years ago, around this time, I was embarking in the greatest adventure of my life. (so far)
I left my family, my friends, my loved ones, in exchange of the distant promise of a career in the music industry.

for years I struggled. I waited tables, I sold cellular phones, I even worked as a landscaper with a bunch of adorable mexicans who always complemented me on my “ballet” style of sweeping fallen leaf branches.

Then I created a band, A band which I fronted. I rounded up a group of individuals who shared my passion for the art of RAWK and we headed to new jersey, and then eventually to the windy city of Chicago.

we all found our ways. Some found great jobs, I found a loving wife and we built a fan base. we had kids who sang every song at the famed Metro auditorium in Chicago. We even got as far as doing around 26 showcases for major labels. It all ended when a very important asshole at a very important label declared “that singer will go nowhere”.

After that, there were no microphones for me, I switched to the guitar, (a much better fit for me) and with a bunch of like minded souls, created the Juggernaut Madina Lake would eventually become.

With that project it was always smooth sailing, success came quickly, but so did inner band tensions and the inevitable decay of our own personal relationships.

I saw my five year marriage burn to the ground, I found myself clinging to the bottle a little too hard, and realized that after all the traveling, I was a full blown nomad, homeless and pretty much dead inside.

After much deliberation I decided to abandon ship and try life on my own. No managers, no agents, no accountants.

The next year and a half of my life was a grueling process of self discovery. What to do with my life? After a lot of soul searching I realized that my only source of real happiness and well being was writing music. That was it.

The glitz and glamour were passé, the magazine covers had become irrelevant and all there was left was the realization that I was a studio rat. My skills were writing and producing, not performing.

I re discovered my loved ones while spending time in my home country. I made more friends than I originally had, and even met a couple of blood sucking leeches that dried me up for a while.

And once again, like life has done for me time and time again, everything came together and everything seems to be pointing me in the right direction, with the right people.

this time it is less scarier than when I was a young lad, but its still intimidating. It is very difficult to change the warm embrace of your family for the cold distance of strangers, especially in a working environment.

But it feels good, It feels like the right thing to do, it wasn’t forced, it came natural, and that is how Ive found the little success Ive had in my life.

so if you’re holding some kind of booze in your hand, hopefully a vodka tonic, make a toast to me, and the new adventures of old mateo.

much love

-m