All good things must come to an end sometime, but we have to move on and embrace the next step in our lives/careers. “Adapt or die” - it’s been our motto for the past 4 years and its helped us get to where we are today. It’s not easy to find five guys who love to do the exact same thing and are willing to give up everything to go for their dreams. Luckily, we started finding those guys in the winter of 2006 when Scott Muellenberg auditioned to be our bass player in the dark, musty basement of our (Mike and I’s) house, dubbed The Meridius by a fellow roommate. We rehearsed in that house several times a week in the beginning, honing our sound and working through all the songs you hear at a Roster concert today. Last night was our final practice in that space because everyone has had to move out for numerous reasons. It was our final gathering in a place that has meant so much to us. A place that has seen the auditions of countless drummers, hundreds of Roster rehearsals, preproduction for our new album, demos galore, and a plethora of parties not remembered. We’ve come to a point in the road where for many reasons we now have to live in different cities in order to make Roster McCabe work. We’re not home much, so it doesn’t really make much sense for us to be paying rent while we’re on the road. What does this mean for the future? Well we’re going to have to go back to our mantra that brought us here in the first place: Adapt or die - find a way to make it work. We’ve got a couple ideas so don’t fret, we’ll find a way to continue to bring you fresh new music on a regular basis. This album has taken up so much of our time in the past two years that we haven’t really been able to focus as much on what got us here in the first place: our live show and writing new songs.

Our final rehearsal in the Meridius consisted of doing just that. We brought some new ideas to the table for the first time in a while and also made some changes to existing songs in order to keep things nice and fresh. The two ideas we worked out were very different but such is life in Roster McCabe. The first song was an instrumental (so far) that I’ve been working on in Ableton Live. The song starts out with electronic drums and a synth flutter that I wrote as a sample. Then the guitar melody and bassline enter which is being played by Scott on his bass and me on my synth. It sounds really dirty and clubby. It’s easily the dirtiest dance music we’ve ever played. Then Alex comes in with a nice swelling pad to fill in the missing space. The next part is nasty breakdown that builds into an all out dance party. Not sure where this song will take us but hopefully we’ll be playing it for you at a show soon.

The other piece of music was a funky improvisational jam written by Mike and led by Scott. Lately our rehearsals have been very rushed and we don’t have much time to experiment with tunes and riffs. Luckily we had eight hours to just let the music flow. This jam took us on a 20 minute excursion through key changes and riffs that just came out through jamming. Some of our best songs have come out of jams like this. Stargazer was a 10 minute jam based on a heavy rock riff in its early stages but through hours of experimenting we birthed one of our strongest songs. All It Takes was a 14 minute song at one point, too. Who knows what will come of this song but we’re working on finding a way to work our songs through the same workout they received when we lived in the Meridius. Change is always tough, but we’ll make the best of it and move on. Thanks for reading, we’re back on the road now so check out our tourdates and spread the word to your friends. Peace and much love.

'Through Space & Time,' our highly anticipated new album, is set for release December 7th, 2010. Free download of first single, Stargazer, with mailing list signup!

Through Space & Time Tracklist

1. Swords
2. Stargazer (w/ Steve Molitz)
3. Acorns
4. Falling Apart
5. Rush The Tide
6. Soar (w/ Steve Molitz)
7. Out Of The Storm
8. Oracle
9. All It Takes
10. Spark a Light

We are thrilled to announce our new album, "Through Space & Time" which will be available everywhere on December 7th, 2010! This album is our first official studio release as the band you've known for the past two years, and we feel this is our first body of work that truly captures our sound and vision for Roster McCabe.  'Through Space and Time' is a pure and pristine snapshot of our current catalogue of funk, reggae, dance and rock tunes. We continue to cross blend genres on this album, and push the instrumentation into new lush sonic soundscapes.

The album has taken 2 years of writing, rehearsing, and performing to bring the songs to their full potential. The colossal size of the project pushed us to evolve and improve. The time and energy spent on the recording allowed us to play to the best of our ability and sound better than ever. The result is 'Through Space and Time' - deep, fresh, and colorful like you've never heard Roster McCabe before.

The album features a few songs that have already become live staples, like the tight dance rock song 'Stargazer' and the funk electronic boogie 'Falling Apart'. Roots reggae anthem 'Swords' gets new life breathed into it on the recording, while vibed out songs like R&B influenced 'Out of the Storm' and chill island reflection "Rush the Tide" bring the listeners into new musical terrain from Roster McCabe.

Master keyboard player Steve Molitz (Particle, Phil Lesh) performs on a few tracks as a special guest. He offers his expertise and talents on melodic electronica music, bringing the live dance standards "Soar" and "Stargazer" to new ethereal heights.

We are very excited for this next step in our music careers and cannot wait to share this music with you!  Make sure to head over to http://www.rostermccabe.com to signup for our mailing list to receive a free copy of the first single, Stargazer, when it is released in October.  Also, check out the Facebook Event at for the album release and invite your friends!

Recently this summer, Roster McCabe took our first official break from rehearsal, touring, and all other band related activities. Everyone did their own thing; I traveled south to Missouri for a vacation with my family. We stayed at a place called Lake of the Ozarks, a huge man made lake. The environment down there is amazing, the water is warm from the sun and the shoreline is surrounded by lush green trees. We often spotted huge fish jumping, Great Blue Herons flying and even water snakes swimming near the rocky shores. We brought the family ski boat down and I went wakeboarding every morning. Afternoons were spent swimming and cliff jumping with my sisters and cousins. I also made my first video with some wakeboarding footage my family captured. Check it out.



It was awesome to have some time off. Now, we are back on the road currently driving to Eau Claire. We are also playing Menominee, Fargo and Duluth this week. Check the “shows” page for more info. See ya on the road.

Thursday May 13th thru Saturday May15th I got to play with Particle. We had been touring with Steve Molitz for a few days with Roster, and he asked if I wanted to jam with Particle.

I had been a Particle fan for a while, so I was already familiar with their style and many of their tunes. But I went to work learning all the material with a bit more detail and perspective for the gig.

Particle has a long list of stellar guitarists, and I was humbled to share the stage with such a prestigious group of musicians. Particle’s approach to music (at least for the sets I played) is much different from your average Roster McCabe set. They are a “jam” band in the true sense of the word. Their live songs are very loosely structured, and the group performs as one brain - moving in and out of sections, shifting dynamics and ripping solos when the music calls for it.

There are some more videos of the Particle shows up on youtube, search Particle+Michael Daum.

As of now, we are still touring, the loose ends of the new record are getting tied up, Steve Molitz is recording his parts on the album and we are getting all set for our most ambitious release yet. Stay tuned.

There are a couple of shows that we look forward to all year round and Bella Vida is definitely one of them. The anticipation builds throughout the year and the month leading up to the festival is always chalked full of excitement and planning. "How are we going to top last year?" is the question that always looms over our heads. This year we decided to try "Around The World" by Daft Punk, one of the many artists that inspire us.

Finding time to practice/rehearse/write is quite the task for us because since going full time in January 2009, we have to be playing shows as much as possible to really make it work. Since we are constantly touring it's not always easy to add new covers, new originals, and new jams to the set. So, on Thursday afternoon we gathered at our rehearsal space to prep for Bella, working through some of our original works and making sure to work on a couple of covers as well. Daft Punk's "Around the World" was quite the challenge because everything has to be just the way it is on the recordings or it just doesn't work: tones, tempos, samples, instrumentation, etc. We slaved over the song and armed with our Around The World vocoder sample, felt our performance of it was pretty spot on. We also had been toying with the idea of covering Gin N' Juice by Snoop Dogg for some time so we decided to take a stab at that as well. The song turned out well and Deploi helped us get the crowd moving and bumpin.

Finally, we were able to get a light show together, big props to Matt James for making that possible. He was the man responsible for the thick ridiculous fog throughout our entire set. Check out some photos below and try and find JeffPete’s fro in the haze.

Nice Horse Head...


Through the haze


Glowstick War


Mike


Swords & Feathers


Find Scott’s headstock

We’re having so much fun on this tour it reminds us of being in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese. Deep in the pit. Balls deep.



I am currently in the car, and the band is making our way out east for a festival in New York. The fest, called the Jam-boree Festival is later this week, and we have stops in Ohio and Pennsylvania along the way. We are listening to BT, a world-class electronica musician/producer. Good stuff. Roster is trying to take care of business - setting additional recording dates with our engineer and talking with our designer for the album artwork. The record is…getting finished…in…a timely manner. Look for it this fall!!!

An awesome show is coming up next week – Roster McCabe, Heatbox and Shoeless Revolution in Chicago at the Double Door. More info on our “shows” page. We are pumped. Please come out if you live in Chicago and tell all your Chicago friends. Then, on to Summerfest to close out the month. Boom baby.

Peace.