Since our muffler(and the better part of our exhaust system) did NOT fall off the van en route to Clarksdale, Mississippi’s Shack Up Inn this time around, we took advantage of the extra minutes afforded us by this good fortune, and headed down to The Crossroads on our way out of town, to see if we could swap our souls for a bit of success. For whatever reason(s), only Matt’s was deemed worthy, so I guess we should all watch for him to join Coldplay, or achieve some sort of solo stardom in short order. It pays to pray, people.

 While Matt’s still in the fold, we’ve been trying to make the most of our remaining time with him, first squeezing in a hometown show at The Vinyl Lounge Nashville, followed by a trip back to The Switchyard, where we made reasonably quick work of laying down the bulk of the tracks needed to get us over the hump of finishing our next album. A few vocal overdubs notwithstanding, we are most definitely in the final phase of production on this thing, at long last, so I’d imagine we’ll have some legit release news very soon.

 Oh yeah, I almost forgot - Matt was a little under weather, and thus a couple of hours late for the session. I like to handle these things in a lighthearted manner, mainly because it helps me pretend I’m not nearly as pissed-off as I actually am. Usually, this frustration manifests itself in little ditties, often entirely inappropriate, but occasionally somewhat amusing. I present to you my latest, inspired by this incident of tardiness and tummy troubles. Simply click on the photo below to check out the new video for that.

 With all that behind us now, our next order of business is playing our buddy Jay Smart’s annual soiree in Marion, IL on Saturday, June 10th.

Billed as the final installment, it’s a private event, but if you know Jay(and most of Marion apparently does; I believe, including law enforcement (thankfully, because thing goes down **loud** outdoors each year), you’ve probably already gotten an invite. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for good weather, no plague of winged insects, sudden thunderstorms, broken guitar straps, overheated P.A. systems, or additional global pandemics, so JayStock can ride into the sunset on a high note, and we can witness the setting of a new World Record for Jameson consumption.

 A few days later, on Wednesday, June 21st, we’ll be opening for Buckcherry at Hop Springs Beer Park in Murfreesboro, TN. To grab advance tickets, just click HERE.

From there, we’ll be turning our full attention to applying the last coat of paint to this LP we’ve been calling ‘Sleepwalker’.

 We’ve got some other dates taking shape for the Summer too, so keep your eye on our SHOWS page, if you care to be in the know as to these goings-on.
 
 Thanks to everyone who’s grabbed some of the new merch recently. It seems the “Space Dust” design is a hit, and we should have some more fresh swag to accompany the next single and eventually the album, but that’s talk for another time.

 We hope to see you all soon.

      Be good to each other,
                    Denny
                    The Great Affairs

It’s late afternoon, on a rather dreary, overcast Thursday here in Nashville. I’ve poured my fourth and final coffee of the day, and with the sweet rush of caffeine coursing through my veins, I shall now attempt to bring you all up to speed on the latest happenings in our camp.

Our St. Patrick’s Day show was a proper throw-down, even devoid of green beer as it was. Matt found himself almost pulled off the stage, not by an amorous female, but rather a drunken one who decided to use his lower torso for support when her own legs failed her and she’d tumbled in his general direction. It was on this occasion, and due to this distraction that Mr. Andersen hit; for the very first time during one of our performances, a bad note.

He’ll have a chance to redeem himself when we head back down to Clarksdale, MS, and The Shack Up Inn for a show on Saturday, April 22nd. We’re gonna blast through a straight 2 hours at this funky joint just up the street from the infamous Crossroads, where legend has it Robert Johnson struck his deal with The Devil. I should probably pack my Tele and a Pignose, just in case.

From there, we’re doing a hometown show the following weekend, and making our debut at The Vinyl Lounge on 3rd Ave. South, with support from Nathan Picard and our former 4-stringer Henry Go’s new band Salmon In The Current. Doors open at 7, with Nathan on at 8, Hank & Co.around 9, and us batting cleanup. It’s 21 & up, and 10 bucks gets you in. You can find more details on our SHOWS page.

We’ll have some new merchandise at these dates, having finally re-stocked our road inventory with a couple of fresh tees- Space Dust & All Alright. If you can’t make it to a show, remember you can always grab either one of these, along with a plethora of other exclusive designs from our STOREFRONTIER page.

OK then, this album we keep yammering on about….the final track-list has been determined, and we’re headed back into The Switchyard early next month to cut the two remaining numbers we’ll need to call this thing a done deal. 10 songs( and maybe a bonus tune that we’ll call a “hidden track” just to rankle Scott Benting from The NMD Podcast), that I think do a pretty fine job of pushing the envelope, while maintaining our identity. Plenty of loud guitar and big drums, but also a couple of rather tender moments that we roped in a guest or two for, and hopefully enough room for Rizzo to really show off what he’s brought to the table as well. If you’ve dug what we’ve done, I believe you’ll dig what we’re doing.

My mug is empty, and I’ve got songs to finish, so this is where I leave you.

Be good to each other,
    Denny
    The Great Affairs

It’s the morning after a somewhat stressful rehearsal, one fraught with odd technical difficulties (and a police search…but that’s a story for another time, about helicopters and hooliganism), like an acoustic guitar with electrical issues (The irony, I know.), and a digital mixer that may have gone Skynet on us, and in its newly sentient state decided to wage some form of audio-psych warfare by arbitrarily adjusting our individual in/ear monitor mixes.

We were attempting to whip ourselves into shape for a show on St. Patrick’s Day, in Marion, IL, where we’ll be busting out some new, some old, and some weird, to keep thing interesting for the folks at John Brown’s On The Square, who you’d think would be sick of seeing and/or hearing us by now. Assuming they’re not, we’re gonna give them an early show, starting at 7PM that night, as the green beer flows.

Speaking of new stuff(No, the album isn’t done yet.), we’ve got a new Tee-Shirt design, “Space Dust” available over at our STOREFRONTIER page(Just click on the image below to check it out). We should be having a few of these pressed, along with the “All Alright” design, and with us at the merch table for Spring/Summer shows, but for now, a lot of these designs are exclusive to the online shop, so please feel free to have at ‘em.

As for that album? No news on that front at the moment, but if I have my way, we should have a development to report by the next time one of these updates rolls around.

That’s about it then, I think. This ended up being a very concise, far less melodramatic entry than I’d originally envisioned. I was gonna tee off about how I’d rather tuck my left nut into my right shoe and jog laps around Opry Mills Mall than chase down shows or update another social media platform, but I figured I might just bum everyone out with my lamentations on the piss-poor state of the music industry and our lowly status as purveyors of song therein, so I abstained, and merely presented the facts. You’re welcome.

As always, be good to each other.

D.