Last two shows report & and news of our new album!

Two Shows in a row!! 3rd CD news...

Last weekend we were excited to be invited to the 2nd year of the "Let Feedback Ring"
Festival. In it's first year it was a one day event that took place around July 4th (hence the play on words) but, this year it spanned over three days and several venues.

We played the early Friday evening spot with Poncho's from Peru from Wilmington and Jews & Catholics from Winston Salem.
This was our first show in Raleigh. It was kind of a homecoming for me since I spent most of my early band life playing shows there. There are a few songs on SS's first CD that are leftover
tracks from my Raleigh days (Moore Square Station, Schrader Properties).
I was pretty surprised how nice Sadlack's looked these days. They competely re-did the porch. They added a small drum riser, a vocal PA, and heat lamps for cold nights!

I'm not going to go in great detail about the show but, overall it was a great night I had listened to Poncho's from Peru online for years and it was nice to finally see them live and meet those guys in person. This was actually the third time we played with Jews & Catholics but it was the first time it was in an intimate setting and not a 10 band fest!.

I came back the next day and caught part of day 3 of the fest. I showed up just in time to catch
Were the Buffalo Roamed. This was my first time seeing them though I have played several shows with Corbie's other band "Battle Rockets". I was surprised to see that they had a bass player since their CD was guitar & drums only.

Next up was Blag'ard. This was another band that I had heard online for a while but had never seen. They filled up quite a bit of sound for a guitar/drums duo! I picked up their CD after the set.

Last band that we saw for the day was "The Last Tallboy". It's fronted by my old Raleigh friend and the event co-organizer Bart Tomlin. They are a really tight band and I'm looking forward to getting a CD when they put one out.

So that was it for us show wise for a while. With nothing on the calender for months I started putting together plans to finish recording the vocals for our third CD. I had contacted Ian from Pistil about doing a show at The Pinhook in July when he came back and asked if we wanted to do a show next weekend! Just like that it was on! SS's first back to back weekend blowout!

I was the first to arrive at The Pinhook that night. I scored the front parking spot to unload which is rare. I'm guessing it was because the Duke game was about to come on and everyone was at home or at a bar near campus getting ready to watch the game. The bartender at The Pinhook had it streaming on his laptop.
Soon all the bands and folks started showing up and Anna Rose Beck hit the stage first.

This was the first time I had ever heard  her music so it was a treat for me. She set up with another guitarist and a keyboardist. After a few songs the keyboardist stepped behind my cocktail kit and played with brushes. I talked to him about it after his set and we laughed about how he had never played drums standing up before.

Soon afterward we hit the stage. We haven't changed our set in a while but that will soon change when we start bringing in tracks from our new album.

The surprise of the show came afterward when the nights "secret guest" hit the stage. It was Deb doing a solo set with her cello hooked through a distortion pedal. Lots of fun songs including a cover of "Human fly" by the Cramps.

Soon after Pistil hit the stage. We love these guys. great songs, great people. Their just an over all fun band to play with. I'm looking forward to getting their new CD when it comes out. hopefully soon!

----SS 3rd CD news----


Hot off the heels of "Doomed lucky Day" we have been working hard on another new full length album! It already has a title!  "Maximum Apartment" titled after the first track on the album. I feel like this will be our first true album as a three piece since Junko came on board a 1/3 of the way into our last album. So far it's looking to be about 10 songs or so. there are a couple of tracks were we split the vocals and there a couple of tracks were just one of us does the vocals so were mixing it up. Lots of the usual genre bending going on including an orchestral/show tunes type song. A 70's prog sounding track, and even some strange island instrument stuff going on. Were in the final part of writitng vocals now so expect  a sneak preview track sometime soon down the road.

Thanks so much if you've read this all the way to the end!!

Paul G.

Benefit for the Girls Rock Camp @Duke Coffee House

(All pictures by the fantabulous Kim Gray!)


This weekend we were invited to play a benefit for the Girls rock camp alliance at the Duke Coffee house.

If you’re not familiar with Girls Rock it's a camp put on by local musicians that teach girls how to play
Instruments and learn the fundamentals to forming there own bands. Sort of a "rock101" to get them started

In the music world.

I've been to the Duke Coffee house many times in the past but this was the first time I actually played here.
It’s a BYOB music venue on Duke's east campus that sports a nice stage and sound system and is filled

With chairs, couches, and all kinds of funky art to get you in the spirit of the show.
We kicked off our set around 8:15. Our latest set has been a mix of songs from our first two CD's mixedWith two new songs from our up coming third CD that were in the process of writing..

Princess and the Criminals hit the stage soon after us. We knew before the show that this was going
To be their last show in the triangle. There bass player is moving away so its seems that they are going

To re-group and start a new project. They will be sorely missed in PATC form! They put on a super high energy Set that is hard to get anywhere else! I'm looking forward to see what they have in store for us in the future. They play so well together as group that I could see why they would want to start over after the loss of one!

Soon after Heart of Glass hit the stage. They are a Blondie cover band fronted by Abigail Pearce who is a head Girls rock organizer. Right off the bat you could tell they were going to be good! They had wigs, matching outfits, And the works. They really pulled off the songs extremely well. Thomas & I kept trying to guess what some of the high tech music equipment they were using was!. One guitarist had some kind if midi interface hooked to his guitar that looked pretty interesting.



Near the end of Heart of Glass set we left to catch Beloved Binge over at the Pinhook. They were playing another great benefit that I wanted to contribute my part to. All in all there were 5 different benefit shows going on all over the triangle that night!. we couldn't play or see them all but I'm glad we were able to contribute to some.



Big thanks to the Girls Rock Alliance for inviting us to play this. It was truly an honor and we will do it again
At the drop of a hat if they ask us!

Quick post about our CD Release show....

This past weekend we finally got around to putting on a show for our new CD "Doomed Lucky Day". We'll, not new since its been available for download
for three months now. It really took me that long to book a venue for the event!.
If you didn't make it out to the show and still want a copy of the CD, its going
to remain a free download on our Reverb nation page. Just go to :

www.reverbnation.com/thescientificsuperstar

We started the weekend off on Friday by making a trip up to WKNC. DJ Caid
was kind to invite us up to talk about the CD release show. I hogged the mic
for much of the show but we did get some nice acoustic versions of Battle Rocket
songs from Corbie!. We also plugged the Beloved Binge blog and discussed their plans
for more touring.

I'm not going to do a long descriptive review of the show but just a brief summary
here to give you an idea. You came for the pictures anyway!  right?

Overall I would call the show a huge success. I got to play drums with Battle Rockets
and Beloved Binge which was exciting for me!. Beloved Binge did a surprise cover of our song "Schrader Properties"which was totally hilarious!. Rob actually forgot the same lyrics that I always forget when we play that song!

 We had a really good turn out which
kind of surprised me since it was at such a weird time of day. Maybe there is a market
for early Saturday show? Wayne joined us for a few songs on Baritone Sax. He'll most
likely be making an appearance on our 3rd CD.

In conclusion I just want to thank everyone who came out and got a sticker & CD. We had a great
time and I hope all of you did as well. I'm looking forward to 2010 and the making of our 3rd CD.

Thanks everyone!
Paul G.

P.S. Apologies to Battle Rockets for not having pictures on here. My iphone shots came out really bad! :(

Troika!! My views of our show on night #2!!

I arrived at The Pinhook at about 7:30 that evening and started unloading our stuff. I walked in and waved hello to Kym (Midtown Dickens/Pinhook fame) who was tending the bar. I stopped and talked with the Troika volunteer who was running the door. He gave me our passes and beer tickets (Yah!). He was a really nice guy but, I can't remember his name?.

I set up my drums and PA up on the stage and soon the other bands began to arrive. We had never played with any of these bands before so I figured it would be quiet between us at first. Soon Junko & Thomas arrived and we did a brief soundcheck. The sound guy was really happy that all we wanted was two microphones!. I bring my own PA to handle our backing tracks so I have total
control over this. You never know if a house PA is going to be able to handle what
we throw at it.

The place was about half full when we started around 8:45 but when I looked out about halfway through our set the place was already packed! We finished up with the first song from the new CD "Uncle Bud's Fabric & Foam. We scurried to quickly unload all our stuff off the stage because we knew that time was tight. Unfortunately without even noticing we completely walled in Grappling Hooks equipment from the stage (Doh!) They were really nice about it and we moved the stuff out of the way.

I had to take my wife home during Grappling Hooks set so I missed it ( I confessed this to them later :) ) Everyone said that it totally rocked and I'm sure I would have agreed judging by what I heard online from them. At this point I scanned over the crowd and saw people from all kinds of fellow Troika bands in attendance! Off the top of my head I spotted folks from All Your Science, Beloved Binge, Seqouya, Pink Flag, Pistil, Birds of Avalon, etc… I'm sure there were many more.

Soon Caltrop hit the stage and I quickly realized what everyone had said about them was true! They were so fucking loud that I felt like I could fall forward with my hands out and the sound would hold me up like a wind tunnel!. Junko offered me one of her earplugs but I didn't want her to sacrifice her ears for me. Mine were pretty shot already! After a few songs I did something that what would have really pissed off the 20 year old version of me!. I moved to the back by the bar to watch from a distance. Overall they were damn good though. Its been awhile since I've seen a heavy band that I genuinely liked!

Without getting much time to recover from Caltrop, Bellafea quickly started up their  set. You could tell during the first song that everyone was really hyped up to see them. Several folks attempted to get a pit going. There was also a beach ball being tossed around the place. These guys really brought it! I liked the way they had set up all facing each other in a circle as to bounce energy from each other and give body signals. It was a really great set! really high energy!

This was probably one of the best shows we've had as band so far. All the other bands were really nice and Troika was so well organized and thought out.
Every venue I went to or saw pictures off was completely packed!.

Overall I think it was a great success in every way! Thanks to those guys for picking us to play! Big Durham group hug!! We all rock!!

Scientific Superstar's official band Bio

Near the end of 2006, after a 10 years hiatus from playing in a band, Paul Gallant decided that it was once again time to dust off the instruments and put together a new musical project. He knew from the beginning that this project would be very different from anything he had done in the past.

Computer & sampling technology had a come a long way since 1996, so he knew that this would be a big factor into the writing style of this project. There would be drum loops, synths, and retro computer sounds but, not in a way that it would dominate the sound and the writing style of the band.

After putting together a few song ideas he decided to call old friend and former bandmate Thomas DeVries. Thomas was not only an amazing bass player but, also had a lot of knowledge in writing traditional & computer based music. 

Soon songs began to come together, but deciding how to pull them off live became the new challenge. The first draft of the band was Paul on guitar & vocals & Thomas on bass playing along with backing tracks. It just didn't have the right feel. They agreed that if this was going to work that they would need real drums.

Paul bought a drum set and started teaching himself how to play. One problem that soon came up was how hard it was to play a traditional drum kit and sing at the same time. A Janet Jackson headset mic was not an option, so he decided that a stand up drum kit might be the perfect fit. After finding a cocktail kit on bay he found it to be the perfect solution.

They spent a few months writing songs and putting together a live show and ultimately decided on the name "Scientific Superstar". Not wanting to rely on the sound systems in local clubs, Paul started saving up money and ended up buying a PA from a former strip club to handle the backing tracks.

Into their first year of playing shows, Scientific Superstar was asked to join the local co-op record label Subdivision 67. Soon after they released their debut CD, "The Scientific Superstar" The CD included a full 8 page comic book that featured a story about Paul & his friend Johnny's life of writing music as a non-playing band. 

Into the second year of playing, Paul decided that the band really needed a full time singer to free him up to concentrate on drums and backing tracks.

He didn't actively pursue anyone but one night at a show on Duke's campus he saw someone that he instantly knew would be a perfect fit. Her name was Junko and she was singing for the band "Fujiyama Roll". They were a band that did j-rock/j-jpop style music with all the vocals in traditional Japanese style.

Paul asked Junko if she would be interested in doing some vocals for them, and soon their first song came to life called "Doomed lucky day". The chemistry seemed perfect, and the timing worked out, and soon Junko joined them full time. Junko came onboard halfway through the writing of the 2nd CD, but ended up doing vocals on 3/4 of the songs.

That brings us up to present day with their 2nd CD "Doomed Lucky Day" just released and the 3rd CD underway.

Words of Scientific Superstar!!

Hey Folks!

Welcome to the official blog of Scientific Superstar!. Please subscribe to keep up with the latest stuff on us. I'll probably update this on a regular basis since Myspace is now officially on its own path of self destruction!!