We just found these photos taken at totally different times, with totally different people. We’ve decided that we are absolutely destined to be together…. 4evr.

If you’d like to Crack your hWhip, head over to Navy Pier in Chicago!

nick + trey

We posted a couple of YouTube videos of our songs, From Satellites! The first is my initial video of it, acoustic, and the second was Trey’s response! (with BGVs and another guitar part!)

Thanks for listening!

Nick

Ask You In Gray

This song is a cover of our GREAT friend, Richard Ingersoll. He wrote this song quite a while ago and we just LOVED it. We actually played it at our LAST show in Fort Collins with Richard and it was awesome! We miss him and this is just for him!

Meet Me In Montauk COVER (Originally by Richard Ingersoll)

If you LOVE good music, then you’ll love the “Jazz / Lounge / Melodramatic Popular Song” that he makes:

http://www.myspace.com/richardingersoll

Hayley wrote me a story this morning through instant Message. Here’s how it went:

Hayley Wells said:

• “mr. nickman i have a story for you
• This morning, i hit my snooze button approximately 36 times
• and when i finally drragged myself out of bed
• i thought
• what music can i listen to that will get me going on this cold chicago morning
• it has to be good, poppy, and exciting
• and then i thought
• NICKS BANDDDD
• and i listened to ayig all morning
• and it ruled the end”

haha. Thanks Hayley!

Nick

Ask You In Gray

Sometimes we write music that is just ridiculous. We’ve decided that we are going to post a couple of our unheard tracks here on our AYIGBLOG so you can hear them! These aren’t available anywhere else… and thats the way we like it. Yeah! Thanks!

This song was a birthday song that I wrote for my lil’ baby cousin, Fynn for his 2nd birthday. Its really just Happy Birthday recorded to a high-energy dance beat and some fun synth instruments! Have a listen!

Fynn’s Birthday Song – By Nick Wichman

nick + trey
ask you in gray

After my post a few days ago, Nick and I felt compelled to provide a few examples of what the results might look like after successfully playing the Drawring Game.

This is  Nick’s Interpretation of some shapes that I drew for him. Now, all of these characters are exceptional, but it seems there are a few noteworthy creations that I particularly enjoyed. First, I’d like to turn your attention toward the only thing that Nick felt needed a label, the Grim Baby.

It looks very unhappy to be collecting souls at such a young age.

Let me point out that one of the characters is wearing the infamous Italian-style boots that I mentioned in the original post.

This seems to be some kind of puffy-chested bird. These boots often pop up durring any session that Nick is a part of so it does not surprise me that they made an appearance here.

There is the Dancing Badger that I was especially fond of.

He is obviously doing the popular wiggle dance that we have seen from time to time. Being in a band that plays dance music, dancing is the kind of thing that inspires a lot of our creative work which also includes drawrings.

Another reoccurring feature that is often put to use by both Nick and me is the half-moon eyes. There is a chicken wearing a tuxedo in the upper right hand corner that has these eyes.

It usually gives the impression of contentment or gratification but it may also indicate that a creature is asleep or that it is being snooty. This one is definitely content.

There are a few creatures on here that I couldn’t really identify. There seems to be some sort of saggy-eyed, rhino-corn toward the middle of the page that is emitting fumes. I can only assume that Nick was trying to upset me by drawing something grotesque.

It worked. Ugh.

Anyways, other things appearing on his page include: Dead chicken doing some yelling, dead crab with his mouth full, asterisk cobra, happy poo, angry shark-fish, grumpy over-bite, droopy horse, sky diving hedge-cat and many more. I feel that the shapes were interpreted brilliantly. Great work, Nick.

This is where it all starts.

This is his final product.

Within this world, there are people who can turn any shape into a horse… trey is one of those people. He can also turn any shape into a bird. WHICH… if you play this game; which you should cause its fun; you know birds are the easiest and the most flexible.

So, please see the images above and really soak in the before and after. Trey really dove into his bag of crayons for this one. He’s pulling some tricks out that are classic Trey. I think we should go over his game plan and see how he delivered his mighty crayon strikes.

Here we go:

#1 – Prancing Armadillo

Trey took this image and really made it creepy. He made some sort of scary, unslept, prancing armadillo. It’s got some nasty overgrown claw things that really give it that uber-freaky look.

#2 – Perched vulture

Trey has a talent that really transcends the mind of a normal person. When first examining the shape, it doesn’t seem clear what you could make from it, but once you see Trey’s final drawring, it seems to just make sense. Very good form with the ‘plucked’ look on the bird’s head, and the sleepy, arrogant posture. Nice tree, too.

#3 – Mr. Elephant

I’m glad that there is still that a soul in this world that appreciates that classic top-hat style. Mr. Elephant is so comfortable with his classic-look that he is soundly napping; droopy ears and all.

#4 – Giftbox Gremlin

This is another creative solution of Trey’s. He digs deep in his bizarre subconscious for this bizarre image of a santa-hat-sporting sock-monster in a GIFTbox! This is just horrible. I love the detail in it’s devious eyes.

#5 – Bird-Scrooge

This bird’s eyes actually look exactly like one of those Jim Henson old man puppets. Or one of them. I can’t find an image of him, but I will update this soon. Trey made this poor bird stocky and square, so he can ‘lounge’ on his own bizarre-shaped back. AND his beak flares out at the end… probably so he has a good scquack, huh?

#6 – The Coy Bird

This shape is like a peanut one leg, bent at the knee, and somewhere in Trey’s crazy mind he saw a very coy, bowing bird. I love it. Big square beak, lil’ butt feather. I love it.

#7 – I thought It’d be a Squirrel

I really did think this was going to end up a squirrel with an Old English wig. Instead it turned out a big-chinned, sun-hat wearing, wooden sword wielding bird. 3 extra points for creativity. 1 extra point for the hat WITH the feather. and -2 for the silly chin.

#8 – The ….. Elephant?

What the heck is that? I think its an elephant, but usually Trey does some good work on detail on the trunk of an elephant. But the ears are small… Does he have CLAWS?!? Geez, Trey, you’re sick.

#9 – Whistle while you trip-bird

Music notes just make things cooler, i swear. Lil’ bird, lil’ hair tuft, LONG stride, and that nice lil’ music note. Simple. Beautiful.

#10 – Birthday Bird

Trey is addicted to making these birds look like they have HUGE strides! Birthday bird and singing bird are very similar, but CLEARLY the birthday is very festive. I like it.

#11 – Heil Donkey Lips

We aren’t nazis, nor do we support the discrimination, dislike, or abuse of anyone. We love everyone, and I am sure Trey’s militant saluting donkey-warrior is friendly, too.

#12 – This is a stretch

It took me quite a while to figure out what the crap this was! BUT, after some tilting, squinting, and screaming, I finally see that it is a disturbed elephant with… a KNOT in his trunk? wow. Do you see the detail in the trunk? That is what I’m talking about for the previous elephant image.

#13 – Trey-duck

Trey… this looks like you. You gave this poor ducky-figure a haircut kind of like yours. Then I think you gave him an under-cut, too! You’re sick. Its very weird. … and a belly button. geez.

#14 – Antennae-Bird

Haha. He uses those antennae for better in-flight reception?

#15 – The finale is totally F”d

If you are reading this, hopefully you’ve seen some weird shapes transformed into cute/funny/bizarre/totally ridiculous images. Well, this one is just about the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Trey took this bizarre shape that really resembles no animals and turned it into … I think … an odd hiding goose? It’s neck is craned around into it’s own body… sleeping? The wings look kind of like a puppy or something, then it looks like the tail has a bow tie or something. I must not see what this image is…. I’m lost.

In conclusion, Trey’s mind is a warped chasm of incomplete thoughts that is striving to have a bird for a best friend and a miniature donkey army. That’s it.

Nick Wichman
Ask You In Gray

Hi Friends,

I want to take some time to talk about our favorite game to play.

Those of you that have been fans for a while may have received a copy of our very first demo recording. We copied this recording on plain white  discs so that we could customize each and every one. When we first had the idea to customize the discs, we had no idea what to do for a cover. We thought about designs and other random things we could do with a blank white space. Suddenly, it became obvious what we had to do. We had to play the Drawring Game.

The Drawring Game came about after numerous moments of boredem in the early years of AYIG. This game was often played by Nick, Mercy, Courtney, our good friends Ian and Joseph and I. Here’s how you play:

First, one person drawrs a shape. It can be any shape you can think of. Typically the shape is some form of amoeba shape with no real obvious form. . Once a shape has been drawrn, the drawrer passes the paper to the next person. Now it is this persons job to add features to the shape and turn it in to a unique character. Usually they end up becoming silly animals with ridiculous accessories. Nick tends to drawr his characters wearing black Italian-style pointy boots. I often add a belly button to my characters especially if it is a bird of some sort. The sky is the limit so it is necessary to let your imagination run wild. There is no rush, besides the anticipation of everyone playing but sometimes it helps to spend some time rotating the shape, looking at it from different angles, while trying to get some inspiration for your creation. We like to keep the shapes simple to enhance creativity but it isn’t a rule ( I once drew an arrow shape with two points on either side and regrettably Nick turned it into a woman giving birth… wearing Italian boots). This process continues until most of the space on the page is completely filled up. As the space gets filled the shapes and therefore the characters become more and more interesting.

Since the invention of the Drawring Game, we have incorporated on occasion some additional guidelines to make the game more challenging. For instance, Nick and I have played a version of the Drawring Game in which after the shape has been drawrn but before the second person begins to create a character, a third party will randomly select an animal which the shape will become and the creator has to drawr that animal. This results in some interesting outcomes. This is why creating custom rules is a way to make the game more fun for you and your friends.

I hope to have inspired you by sharing this game and we hope that you all will take joy in playing it as we have. If anyone creates an especially ridiculous creature we would love to see it! Maybe in the future we can hold AYIG’s first web contest.

trey

ask you in gray

So we’ve been really getting into this new music site we recently discovered. TheSixtyOne.com. From what we’ve found out, this is an online RPG but instead of fighting monsters or fighting creatures (like Pokemon!) and all that stuff, you listen to some really good music. Most of the music on the site seems to be emerging/indie bands but there is some more popular stuff on there also. We posted a few of our songs up there and over the course of the past week we have gotten a lot of positive feedback!

The way it works is simple. Once you’ve created a profile, you have access to a bunch of genres each with hundreds of songs from original artists (some covers too!)  You are alerted to some quests which consist of listening to a certain number of new songs, marking songs as your favorites, listening to a favorite over and over again etc. The more quests you complete the more experience you gain and the higher your level gets and the more credibility you earn as a music enthusiast! Basically its like if Pandora mated with World of Warcraft.

We’ve found that it’s really good for bands because it’s like the social aspect of Myspace but for people interested in discovering new music (as opposed to posting obnoxious pictures of themselves and spamming their friends with aps) We’ve found new favorites such as Philip Ferrari, King Tut, Go Periscope, FM BELFAST which gets our blood pumpin to dance all night!

Check out this site ASAP if you want to shake your booty while hearing some great new music at the same time! Don’t forget to give us a heart or two!

www.thesixtyone.com

nick + trey

ask you in gray

You know, when I step back and look at the way my mind works, it is really odd (and probably predictable) that my whole mind-processing is based on music and art. This is never more apparent than when I’m walking downtown and I can’t help but write songs in my head about the completely EPIC proportions of the buildings all around, or sitting in the park alone and I can actually HEAR strings playing in my mind. I know… It might be schizophrenia…

Read the rest of this entry »