A brand new song, all for you, called “Super Rocket X-1,” will be available exclusively on Bandcamp on January 8, 2016! In fact, all that weekend it will be available for download FOR FREE! And for that low, low (nonexistent) price, you’ll also receive 3 extra songs we recorded: Pink Floyd’s “Time,” Radiohead’s “Airbag,” and David Bowie’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.” Why? Because we love you, that’s why!
After that weekend, the EPÂ will be available for $1.99, and shortly thereafter the single itself will also be available on iTunes, Spotify, and all the other usual suspects.
This song might rock you, it might help to fight intergalactic intrigue, or it might even help you to find dangerous love. But most importantly, it will NOT be part of our upcoming record (more news on which soon), so snap it up while it’s FREE starting on January 8!
I have this blog.txt file always sitting around on my computer, where I write down things I intend to mention here. It grows and grows and I never seem to get around to making with the words. So, here’s all of the stuff…
There is a new record in the works. Nearly fully written (I’m shy lyrics for 3 songs), I’m hoping to have it out in the early part of 2016. I have elaborate plans surrounding it, lots of moving parts, and I don’t know if I can pull it off. But we’ll see how it goes. Either way, there will be a record. I can’t make a decision regarding how much to share about the process and the plans… is it better to put it out in the world without looking behind the curtains or is that fun? I have no idea.
There is a second side project I am working on with what should end up being a lot of people. If anything, it is even less sensible than the first. Same curiosity on my part about oversharing it before its anywhere close to done.
I am also fast getting to the point where the talking and thinking about these projects are just new methods of not DOING them. It’s about having to trick yourself, but every trick eventually gets figured out and skirted and you have to find another. My brain is like a corporation dumping cancer into a river.
People, if you want to feel energized about being creative and about doing whatever the hell idea you want to do and screw everyone else… watch the film Jodorowsky’s Dune. I can’t tell you this strongly enough.
Some amount of time over two years ago I recorded a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” with Jonny, my guitarist.
He made spacey noises on the pedal steel and it reminded me of Dark Side of the Moon. From there was born the wacky idea to play that famous Pink Floyd record live. We spent a few months practicing it, brought in a couple of ringers at the last minute to help us flesh it out, and lo, a show was born. I just thought it might be a fun thing to do and that maybe people might also find it fun to listen to. The weird part was the emotional reaction the crowd seemed to have. More than one person came up to me afterwards with tears in their eyes. I didn’t expect that at all.
So we decided to do it again the next year and picked Radiohead’s OK Computer. The weird thing about the process is how the record really starts to open up to you when you’re practicing it. These are records that all of us were really familiar with as fans, but they morph and change when you’re trying to bash out live versions of them. True, by the time we’re done, I really don’t want to hear them again for a while, but somewhere in the middle they really do become completely new records to me, full of little surprises. We brought along another ringer and played the show.
Afterwards, people had the same emotional reaction, which surprised me even more. So I figured, well, I guess this is a THING now. Since we’d done the show in October I thought, I’ll make this our Halloween tradition… where we pretend to be another band and play a full record live. The upcoming October was looking to be busier than usual for us so I tried to pick a record that I thought would be a little more straightforward than the last two.
But I was wrong. I think The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars may have been a bit easier for some in the band, but I know for me it was the hardest one so far. I know Debra (a ringer from the Dark Side show, now a permanent band member) had to work really hard for it, too. Bowie’s voice and style are not mine, so it was a much bigger stretch for me in terms of technique and attitude. Usually about halfway through practicing the record, I will find myself in it and it all makes sense. But it honestly wasn’t until the last night we practiced that I finally felt like I got it right.
We streamed the show live over the web this year (thanks, Paul Abrelat!), and here’s an archive of that (a little pixelly, a little out of sync, we’re not all the way in the future yet, but we’re getting there).
I tried very hard to be the special man, and they were definitely Ziggy’s band. I am a very lucky musician to be surrounded by such talented people (including this year’s ringers: Laura Seebol and Brian Bland), and to be able to play these odd little shows for people who open up to the experience. Thanks to them, and thanks to you.
