Pete Weiss & the Rock Band News



"Rock forever, um, yeah!"


March 2013

First track from the new album released!

The new, reunion album Sex Contest is finished, and we have just released the first song on Bandcamp. Stream or purchase "Ermahgerd!"
Also, the song appears on a very cool UK benefit album, for a limited time.  We urge you to check it out.
Also, also, also... See the beautiful video, created by Neal Spaulding here:




February 2013

Reunion album almost done!!!

Who'd-a-thought that thirteen years after exploding into a fiery thunderball (actually, we went our separate ways quite peacefully...) that we'd reconvene in bucolic Vermont and record a new 10-song album?  Well, that's what we did.  In a whirlwind three days, we gathered at Verdant Studio and dusted off a few songs we used to play live, but had never recorded (John Huss' majestic "Go!"), wrote a few new ones ("Ermahgerd," "Coward's Lament," "Feeling The Brush Scene"), and even tackled a cover of Tracey Ullman's 1983 hit "They Don't Know" (written by the much-missed Kirsty MacColl.) A very cool aspect of this album is that the three band members play on every song (this was not the case on the other two albums), and everyone sings lead on at least one song.  (Full disclosure: Pete sings six songs, Stephen sings two, Emily sings one, and one is a semi-instrumental that everyone vocalizes on.)

Our pal Adam Fuest (UK engineer known for his work with Babyshambles, Big Audio Dynamite, and Queen Latifah) was on a U.S. vacation and we convinced him to join us and co-produce.  It was a good match... good sounds, performances, and times were had.  Adam played a bunch of rhythm guitar on the project and also co-wrote the afore-mentioned "Ermahgerd" with Pete.

Artwork is being created, and plans to release the album are being hatched -- likely on Bandcamp and a limited number of CDs.  And there's even discussion of staging a few live performances (!)  We'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, we highly recommend "liking" our Facebook page.  It tends to be updated more frequently than this site.



December 1999

Farewell CD from Pete Weiss et al: 'We're An American Band'

"We're comin' to your town;
We'll help you party down;
WE'RE AN AMERICAN BAND."
-Grand Funk Railroad

Pete Weiss & the Rock Band WERE an American band. By the time you read this however, we will no longer be a band. But never fear. We have left a "farewell" document in the form of an enhanced CD. Originally conceived as a 5-song CD of oddly-done covers of FM radio classics, "We're An American Band" has become a full-length CD featuring the last studio recordings of the nearly-legendary PW&RB.

The first half of the CD is the original "covers" EP, including a rip-roarin' version of the Grand Funk title cut (featuring special guest Malcolm Travis of Sugar / Zulus / Human Sexual Response fame on drums), the Beatles' "One After 909" translated and sung in a different language (which language is left up to the listener), a brief Frank Zappa & the Mothers' "Bow Tie Daddy," an obscure T Rex tune called "Seagull Woman," and a wall-of-guitar take on the Cream song you hate to love, "SWLABR." (Trivia: the letters in "SWLABR" stand for "She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow" -- no kidding.)

The second half of the CD includes "Zippah Studio Theme," a one-minute ode to the studio in which Pete Weiss works as an engineer-producer, perrenial mellow live favorite "Don't Go '99," and PW&RB's first (and happily, last) foray into the world of vomit and rap, the completely ridiculous "Pukin' Rap."

Also included on the CD is a QuickTime version of PW&RB's only music video. Leave it to us to shoot a video for an instrumental tune called "Boogie Me Timbers." The video features a pirate, a clown, and well, uh, we probably shouldn't divulge anymore. The video alone is almost worth the price of the CD. Technical info: we're told the video will play on Macintosh computer systems with QuickTime version 4 and will also play on most Windows systems as well. [UPDATE: since posting this information in late 1999, a new video-hosting website known as "Youtube" has made it possible to view (aka "stream") this PW&RB video on the interet!]



It's true that Pete Weiss & the Rock Band are throwing in the proverbial rock towel. But their music will live on in the Section 304 catalog  [UPDATE: not true, but you can purchase the first two albums by visiting weissy.com/buystuff and scrolling down]  (as well as a handful of valuable live bootlegs, recently seen selling on Ebay for hundreds of dollars.)

Pete Weiss & the Rock Band would like to thank all their fans for the heartfelt support over the past 1/25th of a century.

Pete, Emily, and Stephen


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