Hello everyone,
I’m here with some sad news – Please Do Not Fight will be playing two more shows and then breaking up. Moving on. Saying goodbye.
This is not a decision I make lightly. However, after five years of putting all of my energy into PDNF, this year finally felt like the right time to move on and start something new. Please Do Not Fight started as a project based around songs I had written in the years prior to it’s inception in 2007 – that makes some of the songs from our library almost 10 years old. So much has happened since Erin and I first began working on our first song, ‘These Are The Sounds Of Days That Are Passed’, and I’m a much different person than I was then. Bottom line: The artist within me is calling out to create something fresh and different from what Please Do Not Fight represents and this is the first step in that process.
I’m incredibly proud of everything this band has accomplished and I have been honored to work with some of the greatest musicians and friends I could possibly ask for. The best times of my life have been with this band. So much of my gratitude goes out to everyone who has made this what it was - Spike, Beau, Erin, Kubes, Matt, Scott, T, Geoff, Kyle, Chris - I love you and am eternally blessed to have had you be such a big part of this. Thank you for Anna and Loni for being our biggest fans and great friends. Thank you to Aaron Hellam for mixing and mastering almost everything we ever did. Thank you to Picture Atlantic and Rin Tin Tiger for believing in us and playing with us all the time and being incredible inspirations. Thank you to Craigslist for bringing Kubes, T and Kyle to us. Thank you to our families for lending us money when we needed it and buying way more merchandise than they could have possibly ever needed. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us, come to shows, taken photos, purchased CD’s, let us crash on their floor, bought T-Shirts, shared our videos, pledged your hard earned dollars and been a part of making this all worth it. We couldn’t have done it without you and we will truly miss it when it is over.
Until then, we still have two really great shows to play. The May 26th Rock Hop and our farewell show at Bottom Of The Hill on July 14th. More details for the farewell show will be released as the date draws closer but suffice to say, it’s going to be huge and we will basically be letting you pick the entire setlist. The line-up for both shows will be the most recent line-up of myself, Geoff, Erin, Kyle and Chris.
We also have recorded one last song that we will be releasing at some point soon. More details to follow on that also.
That’s about it. We are all feeling both sad and very excited as to what the future holds although I am sure come the day of the final show we will all be a mess of emotions. It’s going to be hard but I’ve always been a firm believer in pushing your boundaries and doing things that scare you and I’m truly looking forward for what is to come.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Much love,
Zen
P.S. If you’re interested in keeping in touch with future projects from the members of Please Do Not Fight I highly recommend you follow us on either Facebook or Twitter. We will post a couple of follow ups through there so that you can keep in touch with all of our new projects!
Buy tickets here. Share the event on Facebook here.
Reasons to not miss this:
1) The Mod Theme – Dressing up like a Mod means dressing up very nicely, like the Mod couple on our flier. How can you miss an event full of super attractive people dressed to the nines? It also means dancing to awesome Mod music DJ sets courtesy of Danny from The Frail!
2) The Blumenbooth – Our first Rock Hop in San Jose had an amazing photo booth provided by Aaron Blumenshine and it was a huge success (See photos from the last one here!). It only made sense to have him return for the San Francisco Rock Hop to capture everyones awesome Modwear.
3) The super solid line-up. Aside from yours truly this Rock Hop features performances from Finish Ticket, Picture Atlantic and Coast Jumper. It doesn’t really get any better than that.
Can’t wait to see you there! Over and out.
-Zen
[ Buy Tickets | RSVP On Facebook ]
The Rock Hop – the 50s style concert created by yours truly and Picture Atlantic – returns on December 10th and boy are we excited about this one. We will be playing third out of four and will be supported by best breh’s Rin Tin Tiger and out-of-towners PK from San Luis Obispo. Headlining will be NSSN 2010 Winners Finish Ticket. On top of all that we will be featuring the art of David Maddalena who will be stationed at the Collage Bar where you’ll be able to build your own Christmas Cards – just in time for the holidays!
Forget Not So Silent Night – this year The Rock Hop is the holiday event of the season.
More exciting Rock Hop Holiday Hooplah announcements forthcoming but hopefully this is enough to wet your whistle.
Love,
Zen
This is probably the most evil you will ever see us be. Savor it. We’re pretty evil.
The Haunted Hoedown AND the official release of ‘pastpresentfuture : part 1′ is only TWO days away. I’M FREAKING OUT MAN.
-Zen
The Rock Hop is over and it was amazing. It’s seriously been other three months building up to this and I have to say I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it went. I was slightly nervous that no one would embrace the 50s theme but my fears were lifted immediately as person after person entered the Rock Hop clad in poodle skirts, leather jackets, sweater vests and enough hair grease to fill the Grand Canyon.
Opening up the night was … us! We played a set that included ‘Wonderful World’ by Sam Cooke, a snippit of ‘Johnny B. Goode’ by the infamous Chuck Berry and a brand new song tentatively titled ‘I Am Just A Loaded Gun’. It was our first ever show playing without a female vocalist and I was a little nervous about that but Kyle and Chris stepped up their game and filled out the vocal sound admirably. The four-piece all-male PDNF will be the PDNF you see in the foreseeable future. It’s working well although I will say that the practice space has never smelled quite as ripe as it does now.
Fierce Creatures - Photo courtesy of Skeleton Key Photography
Second up we had the incredible Fierce Creatures from Fresno, CA. Nik picked them as our first ‘out-of-town’ act and I have to admit I was impressed. They’re like a younger hipper Arcade Fire – the whole affair was a giant on-stage party with people yelling and screaming in unison and tons of ‘Whoa-ohs!’. I did a CD swap with them and they are more than worth checking out. It would be easy for a band to come to this first Rock Hop and feel out of place what with the other three bands being so close but this was just not the case as Fierce Creatures are the nicest folks you’ll ever meet. Boom.
Ghost and the City - Photo courtesy of Skeleton Key Photography
Ghost and the City was the obvious choice to play main support for this show – the band is already a time-warp back to the 50s in and of itself. Red bow-ties, a horn section and Ash’s deep growl of a man voice set this group apart from anything else around. Plus, they feature our good friend and producer Aaron Hellam on guitar! You can’t go wrong.
Picture Atlantic - Photo courtesy of Skeleton Key Photography
Of course, closing the show was our good friends Picture Atlantic. I don’t know what I can say that I haven’t said before. I just love these guys. I’m not sure what I was more excited about to be honest – our show with them or my chance to talk about our Dungeons and Dragons session that’s coming up this Monday.
Aside from the bands Aaron Blumenshine was in attendance, showing off his art and bringing the full force of his ‘Blumenbooth’. The ‘Blumenbooth’ is essentially your standard wedding-style photobooth on steroids. Take all your standard cheesy props and then add fancy lights and an award winning photographer and you’ll begin to have some understanding of what I mean. You can check out a ton of said photos – all were uploaded to The Rock Hop Facebook Page – and they are amazing. Everyone looks GREAT. Please show your support by ‘Liking’ us and telling all your friends!
The vibe of The Rock Hop was probably one of the best I’ve ever come across. It was so refreshing to play with a line up of bands who truly supported each other and for good reason – every act brought an air of quality and professionalism to the event that you seldom see at local shows. Having played one too many shows where the other bands on the bill won’t even make eye contact with you it was nice to see everyone watching each others set and helping load gear on and off stage. It felt like more than just another local show – it felt like an event. It felt like the beginning of something really really good.
The next Rock Hop is October 29th at Art Boutiki in San Jose, CA with Bell Thieves, Pantheon, Early States and Dog Catcher. It will be a Halloween themed show and there will be a Raffle where the grand prize will be FREE time at Current Tattoo! Raffle tickets will be $2 or free with costume and all the money will go to support the artists. That’s pretty bitchin’ if you ask me. So while us and Picture Atlantic will not be playing we hope to see your smiling faces there anyways. We will be working hard behind the scenes to make it happen and will be in full attendance.
Moving forward our goal is to ensure the highest standards of quality – both in the acts we book and also in the event itself. You will see announcements for a Holiday Rock Hop soon as well as a 2012 series and maybe even a Rock Hop San Francisco. We’ll post about it here from time to time but to be safe make sure you follow The Rock Hop on Facebook!
We can’t wait to see you there and hope you will come and continue to support this new local concert series! Please feel free to let us know, either here or on Facebook, if you think there’s anything we can do to make it better.
-Zen
I am so excited. Please Do Not Fight opens up right at 7:00pm so be timely! -Zen
Back in 2004 I was in a band as the lead singer-songwriter called ‘Brave Not Noble’. ‘New Song’, ‘Everything Automatic’ and ‘These Are The Sounds Of Days That Are Passed’ off of our first album are all songs written during the Brave Not Noble era.
Josh Bubniack was the first bassist for Brave Not Noble and is a dear dear friend of mine – check him out at www.joshbubniak.com. In the past, whenever my amp has broken or a pedal has busted I have called up Josh and he has always gone out of his way to help me out. Honestly we don’t get enough chances to connect these days – he’s got an amazing beaming family and I’m super swamped here in San Francisco so it was awesome to read his responses to these questions. Enjoy, and remember if you’d like to be featured too you just have to shoot us an e-mail at info@pleasedonotfight.com
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Name –
Josh Bubniak, but a lot of people just call me Boobie. It’s easier than trying to pronounce Bubniak!
Hometown –
Urbana, Illinois / Redwood City, CA
I know you’re a killer bassist – How did you get into it and why do you love it?
I actually started out playing a classical instrument – Viola, which I did for about 7 years before starting to play bass. I just happened to be at a friends house who happened to have a Fender Jazz Bass sitting in a corner not being used so I started noodling around on it, and ended up taking it home. It was around Christmas time, so I ended up picking out a bunch of Christmas songs on it. About a month later, my friend needed the bass back, so I had to wait till my birthday in July to get a bass, but I then went on to play throughout the rest of high school and do so on a semi-professional level now. I’ve had the pleasure of learning from some incredible bassists like Jean Baudin, Blyss and a few others throughout my career. I love playing bass because I’m fundamentally a supportive personality, which translates well as a bass player, since we end up transferring the rhythm to the melody, as well as laying down some tasty treats for your aural pleasure in the process. 
I also know you make some elaborate pedal boards and even make some your own effect pedals. How’d you get into that?
Well, I really got into it like tons of other builders before me, I was broke and couldn’t afford to get my stuff fixed, so I asked some friends to teach me basic skills like how to solder, and moved on from just fixing things to learning about electrical engineering and eventually developing my own circuits and building things I wanted rather than spending a ton of money on pedals that, to my ears, didn’t cut it tonally. I totally admit to being a tone snob, but hopefully I’m not too much of a jerk about it to others! Pedalboard layout design is an artform, just like anything else, but I honestly got into it because I have slight OCD and seeing a bunch of cables on a board just sticking everywhere and not all neat and tidy actually makes me upset! Weird, I know, but it has led to another fun hobby of doing pedalboard layouts for several friends, bandmates (both current and former!) and being hired by a few big names to wire their boards for them. I love it!
What else are you excited about aside from bass-playin and building pedals?
Well, I write gear reviews for Bass Gear Magazine as well as Pedalmajigger.com and am in the process of developing a curriculum for guitarists to talk about tone, and some easy shortcuts to good tone without spending a ton of cash, which most musicians have a limited amount of anyway! Other than that, I’m a pretty avid video game player and love to play guitar, record and write music. To be honest though, I’m most excited about being a Papa to my beautiful 16 month old daughter Kaiyah! Being a papa is the best thing I have EVER done with my life!
Where can people connect with you on-line?
Well, I am on facebook, but the easiest places to get a hold of me are on joshbubniak.com or pedalmajigger.com or my twitter @joshbubniak or @pedalmajigger.
What’s your favorite Please Do Not Fight song and why?
Actually, Dorian Waltz. Not that I don’t love Zen’s voice when he’s pushing it, but that song is so intimate, and Erin’s vocals make me happy inside. The other one is the good ol’ Ghostbusters Theme cover! Who doesn’t love some Ghostbusters? Lame-o’s! That’s who!
What other bands would you recommend to fellow PDNF fans?
The Dear Hunter, especially their latest, The Color Spectrum. Incredibly talented dudes! Another great local Illinois band is Consider The Birds. They’re doing some awesome things and are also good friends of mine. Last but not least, even though they’re no longer together, As Tall As Lions is an awesome band and they made some amazing music while they were together.
Fortunately for us when Kyle joined the band he CAME with a bassist – his really good friend Chris who is also from Michigan. Honestly, having the two new guys in the band be best friends couldn’t be a better situation for us. Two bro’s and two bro’s makes one big happy bro family y’know?
Again, super special thanks to Jimmy of Blank at Heart Productions for making these videos for us. Jimmy actually joined us on drums at the Holiday Hooplah in 2009 to perform a punk rock version of ‘Deck The Halls’ – he’s an amazing drummer and also a very talented film maker so it was a pleasure to get to work with him again. If you liked these interviews we highly recommend you check out his Vimeo page for a BONUS interview with myself and Geoff! Yes, it’s just as goofy as these.
-Zen