We are Having a Party - and You are Invited!

Friday, May 3 - market it on your calendars. Better yet, head on over to WHAT.org and buy your tickets in advance, because Travis and Shook present the Steve Shook CD Release Party is coming to town. A town, anyway. A town called Wellfleet, MA, to be specific.

That's right, the great Steve Shook (Homer & the Dont's, Travis & Shook, Incredible Casuals) has come out of retirement to record a CD. A really good CD, if you ask me (and you're reading this blog post, so in a way you are asking me). It's called "Dignify" and if you don't have a copy yet, you should head on over to CDBaby for the physical CD or Steve's download site and buy it.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

In celebration of Steve's CD, he and his old musical partner, Chandler Travis, are hosting a CD release party at Wellfleet Harbor Actor's Theater's Julie Harris Stage (straight up on Route 6). The show will feature sets by Kimon Kirk (who produced Steve's album), The Chandler Travis Philharmonic, of course Steve himself, plus a Travis & Shook reunion.

Of course, they'll have Steve's CD for sale at the party, but you'll already have your copy ... ain't that right?

Tickets for sale from WHAT here.
Facebook event page here.

Somehow I've become a record company exec

I'm the Associate Producer and Artist Wrangler for the second annual Record about Records for Record Store Day to be produced by the ever-embiggening staff over at Bubbles in the Think Tank.  This year's edition is "Eponymously Entitled" and we just started taking advance orders for the record over at love.bubblesinthethinktank.com

That's right ... "record" ... real vinyl ... 7 inches of it, in fact.  Last year we made a purple record, "The Petite 7 Inch Record."  This year we did something completely different.  We made a clear record.

The color is different, the artwork is different, the artists are different - but the love for records is the same.

This year we managed to get brand-spankin' new tracks about records from guitar legend Deke Dickerson; Cape Cod supergroup The Catbirds (featuring Rikki Bates & Chandler Travis from the Casuals, Steve Wood from the Freeze and the Greenheads, and young upstart Dinty Child from the Funky White Honkies and Session Americana); Boston-based, mostly instrumental group The Weisstronauts; members of Chicago-based group The Chuckleheads coming together in the form of SEMIchuck; a collaboration between long-time Boston-area musicians Mr Curt and Bird Mancini; and "the Sasquatch of American Music" himself, Pete LaBonne.

We also somehow convinced Japanese artist and musician Yutaka Suzuki (of the band Movin' Jelly) to create our cover image, a cartoon version of Belinda & January Fairy having a dance party in their basement.  Not only that, but we bagged the one & only Cal Schenkel (Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart), to create our label art, a very Calvinesque collage.

But wait! There's more!  We also have bonus download tracks from Chicago-area's Chris Ligon and Boston-area's Twink, the Toy Piano Band that come along with the record download you get when you buy the record.  Geez, can it get ANY better?

YES!  It can!  We're throwing a party!  On that most special of holidays, Record Store Day Eve (Friday, April 19, 8pm), join us at the Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain, MA (3496 Washington St) for our record release party, featuring artists from both "The Petite 7 Inch Record" and "Eponymously Entitled," The Catbirds, Mr Curt and Bird Mancini, The Weisstronauts, and Western Mass favorite Ray Mason (whose track on "The Petite 7 Inch Record," "Liner Notes" is the song that got the idea in Belinda's head that she had to make that record).  Oh, and you get a copy of the record with your $15 admission to the record release party.  The hits just keep on a-comin'!

So, to summarize:

• You can buy the record at love.bubblesinthethinktank.com; we plan to ship in time to get it into your hands by Record Store Day 2013 (Saturday, April 20)
• We're throwing a record release party at The Midway in JP on Record Store Day Eve (Friday, April 19).  Things start around 8pm, the admission is $15, and you get a copy of the record with your admission.

Really ... get this record ... I can't tell you how proud I am to have worked on it.

Singing with Ray Mason

Just weeks after getting a chance to sing with the fabulous Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby at a house party concert in Woods Hole (they asked me to sing some harmony vocals on "Goin' Back" to close the evening's entertainment), I got to sing with another great songwriter & performer, Ray Mason.  My friend Belinda of Bubbles in the Think Tank captured us on video:

If you get a chance to see any of these fabulous performers in concert or buy their albums ... DO IT!

Oh, and please invite me along.

I'm on a brand-new CD! And we're having a Release Party this week!

The Chandler Travis Three-O, a four-person spinoff of the Chandler Travis Philharmonic (I'm sure most of you know that I'm a member of both), have produced our debut CD, "This is What Bears Look Like Underwater", and we are having a release party this Friday (October 12) at Club Passim in Harvard Square (47 Palmer St).  The show starts at 8pm, and it's just us - no opening act.

The show is even available as a live HD video stream for those of you who:

• live too far from Cambridge to make it
• aren't crazy enough to drive from the far-flung Isle of Langerhans to get to the show
• are afraid of Cambridge

You can buy tickets in advance from Club Passim ($15 or $13 if you're a Passim member)

You can even buy your live stream "ticket" from Concert Window ($3 and yes, the band gets a portion of that!)

Of course, we'll have the CD available for sale at the show (we're even doing a deal with Club Passim that if you become a member of Passim that night you get a free copy of the CD as a thank you gift for your membership).   If you want to listen to the album ahead of time or can't make it to the show and want to order it online, check out this preview:

Sure hope to see you there!

Now You

One of my favorite shows of 2010 was a performance by Tin Hat at the Wellfleet Library.

"BLEW. ME. AWAY." was what I wrote about the show. I am sure I am not the only one in the audience who felt that way.

Then, at the Cape Cod Christmas Cavalcade, Tin Hat violinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt and her husband Mattias Bossi performed a couple of numbers under the name "Now You". Carla sang and played violin and some crazy norwegian viking boat or something like that, Mattias played percussion and piano, and they both made animal noises. They were charming, funny, weird and wonderful. Again, many of us in the audience were awestruck.

Well I'm happy to be able to help spread the word that Now You will be performing a full show at the Cape Cod Museum of Art on Sunday, February 6, starting at 2:30pm. Tickets are available in advance from the museum and online.

This is bound to be a fantastic show, and it's early enough for you football fans that you should be able to catch both it and the Super Bowl.

You really must go.