For more info, go here.

As part of our campaign to raise awareness for our Kickstarter project (only 2 weeks left!), we’ll be playing one final gig at another really cool and unique location.

The show is next Friday, July 15th, at the Eiffel Society, the glass and iron building that rises above St. Charles Avenue like a steampunk UFO, and was apparently built from parts of the Eiffel Tower restaurant, relocated from Paris.

We’ll be playing in front of the epic film “Blade Runner,” which is based on the novel “Why Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick — a futuristic writer that’s been no small influence on our music.

Opening will be our friends in The Beams — a fun and lively power-punk band with echoes of the Pixies, Pavement, and Velvet Underground. We’d like to thank them for setting up this show with us!

This is an early show (8pm)… and it’s free. Thanks to everyone who’s supported our Kickstarter project to release the new album, and in advance to those of you who are about to. We’re getting down to the wire, please share the link with your friends!

This is the last gig to raise awareness for our Kickstarter campaign. Don’t forget to check it out, pledge, and tell your friends!

Over the past few weeks Dan has been dragging the rest of us around different parts of New Orleans. Without knowing why, we were told to drag our equipment through the streets, ruins, and parks of New Orleans.

Parts of City Park, the French Quarter, New Orleans East (by the abandoned Six Flags amusement park) and of course a certain rooftop in Mid-city figure in this video.

With no further ado, here is the second video featuring a song from our upcoming album. The song’s called “Il obstrue ma vue de Vénus”:

Il obstrue ma vue de Vénus from Chef Menteur on Vimeo.

“Venus” will be song 2 on side A. Get your copy of the new double album by pledging $30 to our Kickstarter fund.

The last minute or so of the video was shot at the rooftop party on June 11. Thanks to our good friends Court Batson and Carl Moller for contributing their camera work.

Big thanks to everyone who came to our rooftop show on Saturday. It was a lot of fun, the weather was beautiful, the food was great, and the beer went down good. We really appreciated the support and hope you had a good time if you were able to make it.

And of course, our extra special thanks to those who made donations to the Kickstarter fund online.

We have still got a LONG way to go in terms of raising funds… but if this project is successful, we promise to put on another rooftop show to celebrate. Maybe it will even double as our album (p)release party….

But don’t forget, we won’t have anything to show for any of this if we don’t meet our goal. Kickstarter is all or nothing. Please help us spread the word, and tell your friends. Hope to see you next time, with vinyl on the way!

Meanwhile, if you missed the show, here’s a couple bits from folks in attendance — thanks to the folks who took and posted these:

Chef Menteur perform “Narconaut” by bunnyman

Chef Menteur Rocks Past My Battery Life by editorb

Here’s the brand new video for “The Forest,” one of the tracks off our upcoming double album “East of the Sun & West of the Moon.”

The Forest from Chef Menteur on Vimeo.

Dan made the visuals. No digital effects used!

Special guest on bass: B. Aubrey Freeman (Geisterfahrer, Sketches of an Amorous Window, Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship?).

Last minute reminder: Don’t forget the “secret” live show/bbq/beer bash tomorrow on Saturday, June 11. To get directions, connect with us via Kickstarter, or go to more info on our Facebook page at and click “like”… or just contact one of us directly, or via Twitter.

Check this Kickstarter update for exciting news about the new limited edition artist’s print available (suitable for framing) and the free secret show (on a rooftop! with beer!) we’ll be playing for our friends and supporters.

Here’s an early live improvisation with our friend Mack Hagood on rhythm guitar and drum machine. This jam, like many of our other tunes was recorded to 4-track cassette in our 8th floor practice space in the former Hotel Fontainebleu on Tulane Avenue. Lead guitar is Rick 12-string through old DOD delay pedal.

“Betty B Free” by Chef Menteur

Ah steak…. an american favorite!

Here’s another one from around 1999 — a noise track with guitar, bass, and voice samples that fell off the back of a truck. (I can’t say where I got the voice samples from but working in multimedia has had its advantages…)

"An American Favorite" by Chef Menteur

You know how some bands have a song with their band name in the song/title? Yeah, it’s pretty cheesy most of the time, but how often does it use vocal synthesis?

"Chef Menteur Hwy" by Chef Menteur

This was one of our very first songs: drum machine, bass, Farfisa, K2000, and a nifty program for the Mac called VocalWriter that let you pitch shift and control the Mac voice engine using phonemes.

Outro has bizarre Woody Guthrie reference.

In anticipation of our upcoming double album, I would like to present to you the first of many tasty treats; in order to demonstrate the vastness of our culinary acoustical journey, and in the interest of your auditory salivation and salvation, I’m going to be dishing up some golden oldies from Chef Menteur’s first menu.

Here’s the first song we finished, entitled “Shotgun” –named after the style of New Orleans house I was living in at the time, not the gun.

“Shotgun” by Chef Menteur

Gear: Boss DR-550 drum machine, bass through distortion pedal, Farfisa organ through wah pedal (which I had just discovered) and sound processing using version 1.0 of an application called SFX Machine.

After some serious consideration, we’ve decided to release the newly recorded album, East of the Sun & West of the Moon, on double vinyl — the way we originally envisioned. But we can do it only with your help, thanks to Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is a great way for creative people of all stripes to get their projects funded by the people who really care. We’ve seen it work for some of our friends and we decided it was our best chance to get the album we’ve been working on for four years into the world. The project only gets funded (and the supporters only get charged) when/if the project meets its goal.

Check out the video we made for the Kickstarter project.

We just launched this page and we’re already up to over $700 thanks to some of our most awesome friends and fans…. We have still got a long way to go, though, so please consider supporting us!

Love,
Chef Menteur