Happy birthday to our album! As of today, December 6, it is live on streaming services, downloadable, and arriving as an old fashioned CD! Take a look at our music page and visit the liner notes to get a preview.
And it turns out that tonight we’ll celebrate with a gig at Lighthouse Lounge (~9:00 – Midnight, 21+, $5 cover) here in Ogden. We’ll bring CDs as well as our live selves.
So, it turns out that we play Lighthouse Lounge in Ogden on Friday, December 6th. This is exciting for us for so many reasons: fun stage, good crowd, great setting, etc.
But it also turns out that December 6th is the day when (surprise!) our full length album comes out on all streaming services.
And, the delivery date for our real hold-in-your-hand-and-marvel-upon-its-significance CD is December 6th, too!
(We’ll host streaming links on our music page when they’re up, and I’m sure we’ll post an update here, too. Because we’re really excited, proud, and just generally tickled with the prospect of all this.)
So, it will be a release party. And we’ll play a couple of holiday tunes. And other things. We’re excited.
Earlier this week we worked three new songs that we can offer out to a live audience at the Funk N Dive on Friday, 9-Midnight (along with The Proper Way). We’ve gotten into a routine of putting a recorder on the floor when we want to run a new song straight through for the first time. Besides giving Caryn a track to rehearse with, we all get an irrefutable memory of exactly how we rehearsed that song. (Sometimes it’s a fun time capsule, too, realizing how much a song morphs for us as we work it over time.) I put the tracks on my phone and listen to them to get the feel for the changes and entrances. But more than those technicalities I love to hear the end of each recording.
It’s a small miracle, playing a new piece, start to finish. So it makes sense that after the music has finished there’s this pause as the last note fades, and then laughter. It’s some cross between laughing at a punch line and the laughter of astonishment. There’s delight in giving life to something that wasn’t clear before, the genuine joy in figuring something out.
And, I never imagined I’d ever get to play a Stevie Wonder cover.
Hope to see you Friday.
Next week we get to play along with The Proper Way at Funk N Dive in Ogden. It’s one of those late night $5 cover gigs for us — the “big time,” as they say. (Details here.)
But sometimes we play consignment stores, too. Not just any old consignment store, mind you, but the big lofty ones in historic districts while the rain is pouring down outside. Brigham City had us playing for their final farmer’s market of the season, but Mother Nature made sure to sweep in with a tumultuous cold front. Not a problem: just move with the market into the expanse of space whose wood floors supported old couches and bar stools, artwork on the wall and an old organ under the staircase.
That staircase led up to a loft that overlooked everything, facing the street and keeping sentry on all those who would come and go: vendors, tomato buyers, some enthusiastic dancers, and a few high schoolers dressed up and on their way to homecoming dance. Best of all, it sounded great from that elevated stage. We’ve played fancy platforms with sound boards and monitors, and they didn’t compare to the space behind the banister and up against the antique ceiling.
Caryn introduced the gig, inviting people to come out with a call to Facebook and uttering the phrase I’ll cherish forever. “We’re going to serenade the crap out of this consignment store,” she proclaimed. And she was right. We all had a good time, and we went home with fresh bread and tomatoes.
We’ve joked that we provide the Jonas Brothers this professional courtesy of improving upon their song. In particular, Ian takes something that was intended to be a very straightforward, uncomplicated rhythm into a pile of syncopation on the drums. Caryn* layers coy vocals on top of this and Tim lays a foundation with the bass line.
The piano is just along for the ride on this one. When you play with a great quartet, you continuously get to be immersed in the work of 3 really amazing musicians. This feels like an entirely new song.
And also, we really, really had a fun time playing here on the outdoor patio of UTOG. It was like playing in a back alley and a backyard at the same time.
*And doesn’t Caryn look like she’s an angel with a halo from the backlight here?
Standards & Substandards 