Well, I’m pretty sure we’ve done most of the heavy lifting at this end….at least so far as the PRE-release portion of our designated workload goes for the new album. We’ve shot fresh press pics, two videos, and a series of “PSAs” that yielded a pretty hilarious “gag reel” of bloopers that I really hope surfaces eventually. After a long day of “playing” the same song over and over again, fueled by little more than coffee and beers(many, many beers), on top of having played The Local Nashville the night before, by the time we got around to shooting the promotional clips our label requested, most of us were either pickled and/or exhausted, resulting in a reduced capacity for information retention. Said retention being critical to the delivery of what were primarily scripted lines, this proved something of a handicap, hence the slew of botched attempts that populate the outtakes reel….buddy, are there some gems…and 78% NSFW to boot. BUT, we did manage to compose ourselves just enough to get the job done, so rest assured, you’ll be seeing our mugs jabbering on and hawking the LP soon enough.
With regard to the videos themselves, the first edit of the “Back To Boston” clip is turned in, and we’re loving it. We shot it at The Switchyard, where the bulk of this record was tracked, and it captures us simply doing what we do. The video for the first single, “What You Get Is Gone”, is currently in the editing stage, and should make its appearance sometime in mid to late April, just ahead of the street date for ‘Ten & 2’. The new tunes have been holding their own in the set, with over half of the record having gotten some air time by now, at shows in GA, IN, IL, AL, KY, and TN in the past month or two. Now that the weather is becoming a little less unruly, we’ll be heading out on a few runs this summer, including some East Coast dates finally, as well as several stops throughout the Midwest and Southeast, before I imagine we’ll make our way out West.
Speaking of weather, WTF was going on with that blizzard we slammed into up in Illinois this past weekend?!? Four days AFTER the official start of Spring, and we’re digging the van and trailer out of a snowbank to make the gig, sliding through intersections, and missing out on valuable record store shopping because the roads were too slick or straight-up impassable to get us there. Ridiculous.
We DID make the show though, as did our Nashville brother Joshua Ketchmark, to team up with new label-mates The Rumours, celebrating the release of their ‘Hot Bang’ on Kivel Records. They too managed to get stuck in the muck en route, traveling down from Chicago where they’d played the night before, but appeared none the worse for wear when they took over the stage, and slapped around the heartiest of heartlanders brave enough to flip Mother Nature the bird and venture out into the sudden Tundra. Needless to say, the people that knocked on the door, DID come to party, as evidenced by a series of stills, and a plethora of video that is already circulating.
So, for now we spend a couple of weeks getting our gear in order for more shows, while Kivel Records prepares our album for launch. We’ve got a handful of dates that we haven’t posted yet, including a very cool, and long overdue return to Memphis in early May that we’ll post details on soon, as well as a pending Cincinnati stop that we hope to announce once we work out a couple of things with the venue. But first, we’re headed to joints in GA, SC, IN, KY, TN, NC, & IL, so check out our CALENDAR for particulars on those.
Things should start ramping up around here very soon, and getting a bit more interesting. We hate having to sit on this album for so long, but it’s all part of a bigger plan, so please be patient with us.
Be good to each other,
Denny
The Great Affairs