etcetera

We’re funding our new album with help from fans, friends and this amazing website called Kickstarter, which allows people to donate to the project.

With the record industry being what it is, this is a super exciting new way to try to fund an album.  We only get the money if we meet our fundraising goal of $12,500 within two months — if we fall short, everyone gets their money back and we get squat — so the stakes are high, but I’m hoping it’ll give the people who enjoy our music a deeper sense of ownership over the project.  Speaking of which, everyone who donates gets a CD and a credit as a Micro Producer, and if you donate significantly, you get a lot more than that.

And oh, we are off to an awesome start.  After a day and a half, we are over %10 of the way to our goal. Thanks to the 24 backers who’ve donated so generously already!

Read more about the project, and how you can help, here.

Sweet!  

i can’t say that i had many fantasies about our band playing a high school in upstate new york, but man, this was one of the best music experiences i’ve ever had. a great teacher at Dryden High named Bob McMahon had seen us play Celebrate Brooklyn, and through sheer hustle and will, got grant money to bring us up to his junior high/high school to lead a workshop for the kids and play a show for the community.

heather drove up with us and took some great pics of the workshop. since i don’t know much about music that i can explain, i decided that we as a band would try to “put together” a new song in front of the kids, and hopefully involve them. by “put together” i mean, well, to assemble a song in the fashion that we usually do, which is this: i get a lyric and melody in my head, work on it until it feels like a song, then i bring it into rehearsal, sing it for eb, v & i, and they try to figure out what the heck i’m singing, and then figure out how to play it. i’m very little help in this process: all i can do is sing the tune over and over, and tell them when i know it’s right. once we have a basic shape of the tune, then we all decide on the vibe, tempo, etc., together.

so i brought up a new song called SKYROCKETED that the guys hadn’t heard before. and after a 4-hour drive and some sandwiches at a suspicious-yet-delicious roadside diner, we went into this big school auditorium, where a whole cadre of young, eager students armed with trombones, trumpets, guitars, you name it, actually bought into what we were doing. at first, the kids just listened, somewhat bemused, as i do what i always do: sing the tune over and over while the band goes trial-and-erroring with their instruments. but as the song began to take shape–there were few lonnnnnng moments when i wasn’t sure that it would–students began to step up to the stage to play with us. first it was three horn players, then more, then all of a sudden this drummer had set up his kit, and then we had a second standup bass, and on and on. some of the kids started putting together little mini arrangements of the sections they were doing, and eventually, we ended up with an awesome trainwreck of a first draft of a song. tremendous!

then their folks and other community members filed into the auditorium and we gave them a show. i managed to keep most of the cussing and darkly ironic songs out of the set, but i did err in thinking HIT IT might be appropriate. HIT IT was not appropriate. alas. we all survived.

a very shared experience, and an awesome time. did i mention the lasagna that one of the kids’ prents made for us? also awesome. ian hate half of it.

thanks for bringing us up, Bob, and to the kids of Dryden, you rock!

Originally uploaded by mr.softy

the band plays golf the morning before a long day of shooting for the movie. here eben and i are discussing some chord changes.