Promises To Deliver

Hi, Nato Coles here, representing Nato Coles & the Blue Diamond Band (naturally).

It's official! Promises To Deliver, our first proper album, is ready to go! The record will be available on LP and CD, and is a three-label release split between ADD Records (who have done all our 7"s thus far), Eager Beaver Records (in Japan!), and Dead Broke Rekerds.

And I am very excited to announce that the third of the three labels, Dead Broke, has created your go-to page for streaming some of the songs from Promises To Deliver. Click the link to hear two new tracks: PROMISES TO DELIVER!

Now, here's a picture of us pretending to be a totem pole, at the Turf Club one night.

Allright, all that aside, let me say one or two more things about this album. Promises To Deliver is a nine-song, 36 minute record made up of songs I've written over the past few years - some newer than others. It's the first proper album I've made in a "Nato-and-the-band" context (as opposed to albums with the Used Kids, Modern Machines, etc.), but it shouldn't be treated as a solo project. Mike, Kyle, and Sam all had tremendous input and impact on the record, and we would have a very different (and I think inferior) final result if it had been made by session musicians who weren't truly part of the band. We already want to make another.

Counting Promises, I've now been a part of five full-length albums, as well as an 8-song 12" 45rpm (record fans can argue over whether 12" 45's count as albums or not, it's one of the classic rock'n'roll arguments). This one took longer to make than most, and cost a little more, too. I don't regret that - I've never played on a record that sounded so good! (Thank you, Jacques Wait.) I guess I wouldn't have minded some Hammond B-3 on the tracks, but the Blue Diamond Band didn't have a keyboard player when we wrote and recorded this, so we decided to stick with the instruments we actually play live. Feel free to add your own keyboard parts to the thing. We might one day, too.

If you count yourself in that population of folks who consider themselves fans of my music over the years, then I sincerely thank you for that, and I hope that you like our new album, and I hope to see you singing along with some new songs in some basement or bar out there, not too long from now. We'll be touring a lot this summer, and we're going to make it to just about every region of the USA. See you then! As always, stay free and be excellent to each other, and I'll see you in hell. Tacos,

-Nato Coles

Maytime Update (and album news)

Hi everyone, Nato here, chirping like a spring songbird with some random May news for ya. It's finally warmed up in the Twin Cities (no more long underwear at the ballgame), and everyone's going nuts! So are we... in the near future, we're playing a show at the Hexagon on May 17th (it's someone's birthday party, who what why?), and then a really cool all-day party that functions as part of Nordeast Mpls Art-A-Whirl at The Plex: PER PLEXED FEST! Here's the facebook event link: PER PLEXED FEST!

And we've scheduled an official album release! Holy moly, the beast is finally coming out, and we have some details... it's going to be nine songs long, and the title is Promises To Deliver, which is a song on the record that sort of ties the whole thing together real nice.

There will be an all-ages record release show at Hymie's Records in Mpls at 3pm on Saturday, June 22nd. And later that night, we'll have the big rockin' record release night time-is-the-right time party at the Turf Club! Bands playing both will be announced soon. We're also in top-level negotiations to have a pre-release party somewhere special on Thursday June 20th, too, with all manner of surprises in store.

Last but not least, as you can see on the upper-right-hand portion of this website: we need a touring drummer for our east coast tour, which begins June 23rd in Milwaukee and ends July 7th in Madison. If you're feeling like this is something you'd be into, please get in touch! Email natopaisano@gmail.com.

Tacos,
-Nato

Back From Japan

Hey! We just got back from Japan, me and Logan did. And it was a blast! We played a ton of rad shows, enjoyed hanami (celebration of the cherry blossoms in spring, with booze) under the sakura (cherry blossoms), saw a million great bands, enjoyed a puro yakyu (Japanese pro baseball) preseason contest between the Yokohama BayStars and the Orix Buffaloes, ate a bunch of sushi (sushi) and tempurah (tempurah) and other stuff, climbed Bizan (Mt. Eyebrow) above Tokushima... well, there'll be some photos soon. Maybe even a tour diary.

But in the meantime, the Milwaukee Brat Fighters have disbanded... for now... but one day, we will ride again! Across Japan, or across the USA, the Brat Fighters will never die.

(l. to r. Shotgun Satoru, Kaibutsu, T-Boy, Horace Wilson)

In other news, our split 7" with Your Pest Band is out now. Get it from us at shows, or from ADD Records. And the LP is completely mixed and off to be mastered! That's pretty cool, eh?

Allright, spring is here, let's party! Later dudes.

Hello From Japan!

Logan Stang and myself have landed in Japan! Hello there. We're just chillin' out at our friend's house (T-Boy from Your Pest Band - Satoru is here too), eating rice clumsily with chopsticks and listening to the Parting Gifts and Otis Redding. Today is our BIG PRACTICE. It's really big, because if we suck, we'll be banished to the island of wind and ghosts.

Here is a picture taken by T-Boy of me, Logan, and Satoru. Satoru is holding up our special "Milwaukee Brat Fighters" t-shirts. You can't quite see it... but anyway, here we are

Check out our tour, on the right hand side of this page. We're pretty much sticking to central and southern Japan. For this tour, we are adopting the Seibu Lions are our puro yakyu team of choice. Gambare Lions! Gambare Hiroyuki Nakajima, #1 Shortstop In Japan!

See ya later...

March News - Brat Fighting The Man (and more)

Evening, everybody. I hope you're all having a good March. Me? The jury's still out regarding the overall month, but the first day was pretty cool. Anyway, I've got plenty of Blue Diamond Band News to report this time around. So, read on up and take notes if you need to. We've been busy, folks.

First off: our split 7" with Your Pest Band is officially OUT! You can order it from ADD Records (www.addrecs.com), and I do recommend doing so if you don't live in the Twin Cities region (for obvious reasons), or whatever particular part of Japan that Your Pest Band are from (possibly Tokyo? Tokyo is huge, that's not specific enough). And, if you want to hear it, well, here ya go - click away!

Four sweet jams by bands with the word "Band" in their name...

And here's the cover art:

Let's see, what else... Our album release date has been pushed back to May, and it'll most likely coincide with some TC-area show or other. The gears of justice grind slow, but they do grind fine albums. (Fine grind albums, even.) The mixes we have sound awesome!

Once the album is out, we'll be hitting the road for a week or two in June, mostly to points east. Ohio, NYC, those kinds of places. Look for a much longer tour - including our first real West Coast road trip - in late July and August.

And, that does it for this update. Thanks to everybody who came to our Grumpy's residency shows - we all had a great time (and so did the bar)! Looks like we'll be back for the next Black History Month. And expect another Live Band Karaoke in the not-too-distant future...

Tacos,
-Nato

Achtung, St Louis!

Hi there, everybody! Happy MLK Jr. day. It is very cold in Minneapolis, which means I'm sitting inside at my computer, and it seems like as good a time as any to talk about some cool stuff we've got coming up. Specifically: this upcoming weekend, we're going down to St Louis to play this funky weekend jamboree! This "Stay Retarded Weekend" fest was put together by Dudes Magazine, and features a ton of great bands including Masked Intruder, Tight Bros, Sass Dragons, Lipstick Homicide... well, just look at the flyer, you can read can't you? The shows are at Lemmons, which is a great club and has excellent pizza, too.

Anyway, Friday night's show is really cool (although that night we will be in Normal IL, because St Louis is far away and we wanted to play a show en route), and we're playing Saturday night. If you're anywhere near the area, I recommend getting a two-day pass and going to both shows! But since you're technically reading the Nato Coles and the Blue Diamond Band website, which means technically you are interested in our goings-on, then be aware that we are playing Saturday night, right after a Bruce Springsteen cover band (because Nighthawk understands irony), and right before Masked Intruder.

In other news, our Grumpy's residency is right around the corner, and here's the official art (looks great, Haze - the resemblance is uncanny!):

Quick Check-in

Hey there! It's snowy in Minneapolis/St. Paul, so we're going to have a real winter this year (as opposed to last year's Long Autumn/Early Spring). I haven't posted here for a month, mainly because things have been kind of dormant. We've been laying low since the tour around Gainesville Fest, getting prepared for a Huge 2013!

First things first: the album. Yes, it's really coming out in early 2013! We're working out the details for a few cool LP release parties right now.

Second, we're doing another residency at Grumpy's in downtown Minneapolis - every Saturday night in February, we'll be playing our stupid songs (and other peoples') and drinking our smart drinks (and other peoples'). The third Saturday - Feb. 16th - will be yet another Live Band Karaoke party! Please email your requested song or songs to: natopaisano@gmail.com. Lots of other surprises are in store, too (for example, we're batting around the idea of a really "boss" cover set, heh heh). Stay tuned.

Third, my Japan trip is still on! If you live in Japan... come see us play! Howdy, Gangster.

And here's your thought for the day: