We’re playing an extended acoustic set at Royale in Park Slope (Brooklyn) next week with Red Orange Morning and Jessi Robertson. It’s a pretty cool space, and we’ll be playing one or two news songs for the first time ever.

Hello! We are writers of songs, despite all evidence to the contrary, and over four years, we’ve amassed quite a stable of songs we play live, songs we’ve abandoned, and songs we hope to play one day. Sometimes, we really like a song and then it disappears: “Cashing In” comes to mind, along with “Kinda Dark” and “Prizefighter.” Sometimes, they never make it out of practice: “Claustrophobe,” for example, and the long-awaited “Birthday Cake.” Hell, there are songs we would totally play, but we just don’t have the fucking time anymore: “Don’t Wait Up,” which made a brief reappearance at the Auction House last year, “Hide & Seek,” which is everyone’s favorite but mine, and “Silver Lining,” although Sam would rather not.

Here we are, four years old (this many!), and we really kind of have more songs than we know what to do with. The solution? More fucking songs! It’s been a hell of a lull for me and Sam, but, like prizefighters, we’ve come out swinging. Let’s talk about what we’ve got right now, and see whether we still have them months and years down the road.

Of all of the songs we’re working on right now, I think—probably arrogantly—that “The Slightest” is probably the best hit-single material. It’s simple, it has some good hooks, and we’ve done some preliminary futzing around with the structure that’s yielded some cool results. Still to come: harmonies, set leads, and probably eight or nine lyrical revisions. I’m already toying around with calling it “Mostly Harmless” instead, since it’s such a fitting title and since Douglas Adams is (was) awesome.

What we’re so far calling “Careless,” though, is catchy as hell. It’s simpler than “The Slighest” and has nice harmonies throughout, and I think it might be the most fun to play of all the new songs. We’ve got clapping in there, too, which I’ve been pushing for for years. Ultimately, Sam slid it into a song before I could. Bastard.

Then there’s “Revolver,” which might be too simple. Every song has one thing that makes it worth playing or listening to, something that might not come out until it’s been worked on for months. I felt that way about “Hide & Seek” until Red Orange Morning’s Ryan Hampton came up with a pretty great bassline. “Sweet Business” is a great song, but the reason to listen to it, I think we’ve all agreed, is the chorus, which wasn’t there from the get-go. “The Arrest” really wasn’t anything but a catchy verse until Sam pulled out a chorus and I threw some lyrics on top. That’s a really long way of saying that I don’t think “Revolver” has found that reason to be yet.

There are other songs—about three—that we’ve got on our plates, but those first three are the ones we’re really excited about, which means they’re the most likely to hear at the next Action Set show—whenever that is.

Perhaps you didn’t know: you can now follow Action Set on Twitter. We’re not sure if that’s a good thing or not. You’ll notice that the newly-redesigned backend of the site has caused three little icons to appear in the header to direct people to our MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter pages. Apparently, it’s 2009?

After months of poring over lines of HTML code and finding nothing to explain the broken-ness of our blog, it’s finally been fixed. Not entirely—you’ll notice the spill-over at the bottom of the page—but at least it’s displaying. So up it will stay until that gets fixed, and we thank you for bearing with us.

New York is a strange place. There’s history everywhere, but it’s never held on to like it really, truly means anything. By all means, The Bitter End is a musical landmark; Bob Dylan played there in his early days Arlo Guthrie recorded his second album there, and Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby and George Carlin all did stand-up there at the beginning of their careers. It’s been open for just shy of fifty years—that’s almost as old as rock and roll itself—and it still bills itself as New York’s “longest-running rock club.” Yet the place isn’t haunted; after all, these legendary figures performed their at the beginning of their illustrious careers. It’s not like standing on the stage at Veterans Stadium where Bruce Springsteen played to a gagillion people—it’s like playing the Stone Pony in Ashbury Park.

That being said, it was a hell of a night. Sam, Don, and Travis all made it up from South Jersey hours before the show, and I got to the club with -5 minutes to spare, coming from fucking Brooklyn. Everything would’ve been fine, except I ended up locking myself out of the apartment having not yet grabbed my amp. In hindsight, I should’ve asked the super for the spare keys or just had Ryan (of Red Orange Morning fame) direct his car three blocks up 14th Street and borrowed his unimprisoned amp. He would’ve let me, too, because he’s a solid dude.

The place was packed when I got on stage (the boys had long since setup and were waiting for me; I tuned my acoustic in the car), so I plugged everything in and off we went. It had been over a month since our last show—and a ridiculous amount of time since the one before that—but we played a great set. The Bitter End is probably about a 90 degree turn away from being one of the best rooms to play in New York. The sound was phenomenal, at least on stage, and the crowd was very responsive. Unfortunately, the whole lateness thing made setting up my MiniDisc out of the question, Travis didn’t have his recording doohickey, and we never asked if the sound guy had recorded from the soundboard, so there’s no record of the performance. I did, however, try to throw our hat into the mainstream ring by making like the Jonas Brothers and changing the end of the second verse of “Country Song” to “So I don’t think much of country stars anymore.” Sorry, Taylor.

While we’ve played the Auction House in Audubon before—they have tons of weird antique furniture, popcorn, and an actual stage—last night was our first time at the Loft, which is located directly above said furniture store. It’s a tiny spot, for sure, but the sound was great, and somehow the place manages to have a backstage area, unlike some of the more “proper” venues. I’m not slagging Arlene’s Grocery off—they are, in fact, one of my favorite venues in our limited three-state radius of effect—but their backstage is barely big enough to fit a full lineup’s gear.

Jay did a great job on sound, and it showed. We played with Red Orange Morning, who did the Ryan-and-Cyndi two-person special, and they sounded just as full and bombastic as our friends Sure Juror, who did us the great service of playing second at the show. SJ has always had a revolving-door lineup, and while the looseness works for the kind of musical tour de forces that Jonathan writes and orchestrates, it’s very hard for me to argue that the new lineup isn’t a tight, well-oiled machine. They didn’t play “Overreaction,” which is both one of their best songs and one of the best songs ever, but I was so happy to see they play after a year or so drought that I didn’t mind.

On the heels of our rescheduled/postponed Union Hall show, we were invited to fill out the Friday roster at Piano’s. So that’s where we’ll be this weekend. Yes: Piano’s at midnight on Friday. No: Union Hall on Saturday. Action: Set.