I'm sitting here sporting some serious "headphone hair". This coif is a not altogether rare condition most commonly brought on by time spent in the recording studio, or lounging in a beanbag chair across from your turntable with old-school cans on. In this case, my symptoms resulted from the former, as we spent a few hours in our favorite out-of-the-way Nashville haunt for tracking tunes, The Switchyard. Our trusty engineer, Michael "Street" Saint-Leon was once again at the helm, as we cut a handful of covers for what we hope will either become the makings of a new EP of such fare, or bonus tracks to give away with the next full-length (whenever we get the time to deliver on that threat) release.
In other news, we recently picked up a sponsorship from the fine folks at COLDCOCK Whiskey. Hit that stuff, if whiskey is your thing…it's smooth…deceptively smooth, in fact. Trust me, it snuck up on one or two of us after we shared a bottle at rehearsal.
I'm shipping this update out a little early because we have an April 1st date here in town(sort of), and it's been a while since we played locally, so I figured I'd spread the word ahead of that engagement, for anyone unaware.
We'll be headlining the grand opening of former Rutledge GM Andy Aquino's new venture The County Hall, in College Grove, TN. We're gonna do a long one for this. 1.5 hours…possibly split into 2 sets, although I'd rather just rip through it front-to-back myself. We'll see how that goes. Whatever the case, this joint is situated in an old hotel, and sounds like it'll be a pretty cool hang, so please come out Friday night and help us help Andy get this thing off the ground. I think there's an acoustic act kicking off at or around 9, and we'll be on immediately thereafter. It would sure be nice to see some familiar mugs….it's been a little too long without a hometown gig.
From there we have a few road dates throughout the rest of April as we finally commence work on the next record, getting into preproduction on the first handful of tunes we can all agree on. We'll be hitting up the following(you can see our full schedule HERE):
Friday, April 1st The County Hall College Grove, TN
Saturday, April 16th Preservation Pub(w/The Roomsounds)Knoxville, TN
Friday, April 22nd The Alamo Newnan, GA
Saturday, April 23rd The Hummingbird(w/Maradeen) Macon, GA
Friday, April 29th The Spillway Bowling Green, KY
Saturday, April 30th MVP(with Victor Spoils) Cincinnati, OH
May will have us in South Carolina for a few dates, as well as Kentucky, but we've started getting a mess of new offers coming in that will have us headed up into Indiana and Illinois, including a long-overdue Chicago date that should be announced shortly.
In between treks, I promise we'll be busy whipping this new material into shape, and some of the stuff will probably start creeping into the live set from time to time, as we sort out just what is "keeper" and what goes back into the vault. Personally, I think we're still missing one or two bits of magic, but I definitely believe there are enough worthy contenders to begin looking at a return to the studio before Summer's end. If you wanna check out some early demo snippets, scroll back through our FACEBOOK page. I posted a handful of things from the 15-20 ideas I've tracked here at Pastry Park for consideration. They're just clips, but they might give you some idea of where we're headed this time around….or not. Who knows?
And finally….I almost forgot. We're dropping a new T-shirt in April too. It starts shipping around the 11th, but you can pre-order it now in our store, right HERE, if you wanna cut to the head of the line.
OK then, I think that's everything covered…thanks to everyone who came out to see us in March. The Rocking For A Cure benefit in Pekin, IL was such a hit that we've been asked to do it again in September with Mike Tramp and Faster Pussycat, and the John Brown's On The Square rebuilding efforts have by all accounts been phenomenally successful, so our track record as avid and accomplished philanthropists remains intact.
Now go order a shirt or somethin'.
Cheers,
D.