After several years of relative silence, I plan - nay, resolve! - to release at least a dozen projects in 2010. It won't be a-thing-a-month, but it'll average out that way. You'll be able to get this stuff digitally through iTunes, Amazon and all the usual retailers (as well as eschatone.com, where you'll find most of it bundled with a physical counterpart of some kind, whether it's a vinyl record, a poster, or a t-shirt). Vinyl records will be available wherever you buy vinyl online or in person. Here's what's coming:
SOLO RECORDINGS
- This Sunday, some friends and I hit Studio G in Brooklyn, where we'll record "Yuppie Exodus From Dumbo", a new single that will be released in the spring - digitally and as a limited-edition wax cylinder. Yeah, you heard me.
- The Cutting Room Floor, my 11-song solo album, coming on vinyl in the summer.
- A live compilation featuring the best performances from my early-aughts CB's Gallery shows, released digitally with a poster (in other words, order the download from eschatone.com and you can opt to receive an original printed poster from one of those shows in the mail, while they last).
- A live compilation featuring the best performances from my CELEBRATION PARTY! tour this past summer, released digitally with a poster (in this case, one of the limited-edition silkscreens printed for the tour). Some tracks were recorded out in the crowd; others were multitracked off the soundboard and properly mixed. The whole thing's been mastered into what sounds like one long show, and it sounds fantastic.
- Thanks In Advance, a fully multitracked, mixed and mastered release of my Thanksgiving Eve show - which was excellent if I do say so - released digitally.
- A second studio solo album by the end of the year. I'm not sure if it'll be Shoot The Piano Player, which is finished, or something called Small Sacrifices Must Be Made!, which is almost finished. But it'll be a digital/vinyl release.
THE HANSLICK REBELLION
- A new studio album from The Hanslick Rebellion, released digitally and on vinyl in the fall. This may be the project I'm most excited about. It's our 15th anniversary and we've got a ton of fresh material to record, with one or two pieces of unfinished business sprinkled in. Technically, this will be the Rebellion's first full-length studio recording. the rebellion is here. is full-length but live, and The Deli Of Life is studio but an EP. We're thinking about calling this one Ashamed Of Rock And Roll.
- A second Hanslick Rebellion thing that you will like very much. Full-length digital release with an unbelievable physical counterpart. Details to come as September 22 approaches.
SKYSCAPE
- The full digital/vinyl release of Skyscape's Zetacarnosa in the summer. By the way, if you ordered a Zetacarnosa CD and it hasn't yet arrived, that's because something wonky happened in manufacturing and discs had to be re-pressed. Nobody's fault; we were just victims of the law of averages. Your disc is coming!
- Mineral Nine Nine Nine, a live Skyscape compilation featuring performances dating all the way back to our very first gig, all properly mastered. A digital release that will come with a t-shirt if you order from Eschatone.
- Skyscape's awesome 2009 Googie's Lounge show, in its entirety, beautifully mastered for a digital/t-shirt release which Dom has titled Flunky Gassoda's Honeymoon.
JEEBUS
- Jeebus's August '09 show in Albany, mastered up and sounding amazing. Just an incredible gig. Another digital/t-shirt release. Also, perhaps a full studio album from Jeebus in 2010 - it's all recorded, just waiting to mix (and we're hoping that will happen on somebody else's dime, if you know what I mean. We'll see).
- Finally... this doesn't necessarily count as a project of mine, but something I've been working on for 13 years is at last being mixed (two songs already down). I'm talking about the EP I started producing for Amy Willey in 1997. I'm embarrassed that it took this long, but the results are fuckin spectacular. I can only hope that Willey is happy with the record, which is all I care about - if she is, then maybe you'll get to hear it!
Fuck my ass, what else? More gigs this summer. And work continues on my solo album Failing Upwards (four songs complete and mixed) and a brand-new Skyscape record with a very interesting band lineup. I've started recording another solo album of all-new material called Like A Radio Loves A Song, while planning a revisitation of Physics with a few special pals. Oh! And Rise And Shine lurches ever closer to being performed by a bunch of good-looking people for school-tripping adolescents and old folks.
Also, watch out for the first album by my pal Crazee Joe Slevin: YARRRRRRRRR! And Other Words. May not be a 2010 thing, but it sure as hell better not take me 13 years to produce.
The past few years have been tough ones for me. Full of changes, many brought about by circumstances beyond my control. I worked steadily on this music all the while, taking time to get it just so - and watching helplessly as the music industry collapsed, as my fanbase moved on, as the economic disaster took hold. While dozens of new songs piled up in the queue, screaming to get out, unable to be realized until I cleared my overflowing plate. Very frustrating. But also rewarding in its way, as I now have all this music exactly as I want it, no compromises.
Will anyone care when this stuff comes out? I don't know. Honestly, I don't give much of a fuck. I'm doing what I want. In 2010, and beyond.
I hope you, too, are doing what you want. If you're not, you know where to find me. ;-)
CART
