"Gather 'round lads... 'Smell The Glove' is here!"
We had our Spinal Tap moment at last rehearsal.
Our new album arrived just a couple of hours before we gathered to begin refining and rehearsing for the CD release show. Luckily it went much better for us than those hapless English musicians... several boxes full of discs, no major issues, no "none more black" comments. Everything looks terrific. The printing looks really great and all the extra effort and cost that went into making this special is worth it. That moment when you first hold the final product (?) in your hands... wow. Indescribable. So I should just stop, right?
Let's backtrack and cover some recent news...
Redsfest 2008 was a blast, again. We closed the event out at Duke Energy Center and played about an hour... with a couple of surprises near the end. We got some dancers (thank you!) and some T-Shirt sales (thank you again!) and got to pull out a few surprises near the end of the show... The Big Show, from Cincinnati Clutch Hits, is a song we VERY rarely play, and of course Christmastime, our catchy-as-johnny-bench ode to the holiday season. Here's a bit of us rocking it out at Redsfest on youtube.
Big thanks to Alex and everyone from Mind Ignition for giving us such a nice mix on stage, Gapper for his musical contributions, and YOU for coming to see us!
Speaking of Christmas, if you live in the Greater TriState, tune in to Fox19 on Christmas morning at 8:45 AM and watch an exclusive live performance of "Christmastime" that we shot in their studios... Santa hats and everything!
T-Shirts? Did I forget to mention that? Available at our CD Release show on January 18th at The Southgate House... here's Jamie showing off the shirt in Atlanta:
Pretty sweet. We'll have ordering information on the t-shirts soon on screamingmimes.com.
But first, the CD. January 18th, 2008, is the official launch date of "Tragedy Comic". You will be able to order the CD before the show at www.cdbaby.com in a week or so. Friday the 18th we're having a huge, bigger than bigger, grander than grand CD release show at the historic Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky, directly across from Newport on the Levee. We're pulling out all the stops for this show - creating tons of video content, uncovering old nearly forgotten Mimes tunes, and debuting a few new tunes we've been working on that we know you're going to love. We've assembled hundreds of hours of interview footage, live clips, and special behind-the-scenes & making-of segments. In addition, after the show we'll debut our new video for "Superdave" - the song you've been begging for in a visual format. There will be cameras, great music, cold beverages and lots of Screaming Mimes merchandise for sale that night, so mark your calendars, book the babysitter, pry off the house arrest bracelet from your parole officer and get ready for one of the biggest shows in the Cincinnati music scene. If all goes as planned, we'll even have a bunch of cool surprises for you before, during and after the show...
So, back to that CD. After starting recording over two years ago on September 29th, 2005, with incalculable hours spent tracking the original full band recordings with Austin at the helm, Jim giving his all into every performance... Preston playing his fingers to the bone perfecting every bass note... staying up into the wee hours bent over my guitar on my solos and overdubs, Randy mixing and mixing and mixing while simultaneously laying in his guitar lines... all the nights of yelling at a microphone by myself in a dark room, trying like hell to get back into "that moment" when I wrote the song and trying to get something down on tape... the steady stream of "just another tweak" to the mix, driving Randy to the brink of insanity... contemplating dropping certain songs that we wondered if we'd ever be able to save in the mix... recording way more than we needed and making the "hard cuts" on certain songs... the joy of hearing the perfect balance for the first time... the final months of hearing all the tracks together, in order... going to Yes Master and adding the icing to the already decadent cake...
After all that, it's been worth it. Broken strings, stress, burned out ears, late nights... we owe our family members more than we can ever repay but the end project certainly reflects all the sacrifices and talent that went into the CD. It's eleven tracks long, with songs dating back to the recording of Live My Life (I was writing a lot during that album) to the night before our final recording session in November of 2006. I was writing a lot during this phase of the band, and all the songs were written with us in mind. This album also has our first band collaboration, along with a lyric writing adventure "in-the-round". It also represents a lot of the support we get from some amazingly talented people and the generous contributions meant that we had a lot more time and energy to concentrate on making the music great. Certainly nothing was more critical to this project than Sonic Arts Digital Services and all the time they gave us.
So to you, gentle reader, we hope to see you in January with Tragedy Comic in hand, listening and singing along, laughing at the jokes, wincing at the behind-the-scenes, and genuinely having as good a time as we've had bringing all this to you.
2008... I can't wait.
Dave
Screaming Mimes
Our new album arrived just a couple of hours before we gathered to begin refining and rehearsing for the CD release show. Luckily it went much better for us than those hapless English musicians... several boxes full of discs, no major issues, no "none more black" comments. Everything looks terrific. The printing looks really great and all the extra effort and cost that went into making this special is worth it. That moment when you first hold the final product (?) in your hands... wow. Indescribable. So I should just stop, right?
Let's backtrack and cover some recent news...
Redsfest 2008 was a blast, again. We closed the event out at Duke Energy Center and played about an hour... with a couple of surprises near the end. We got some dancers (thank you!) and some T-Shirt sales (thank you again!) and got to pull out a few surprises near the end of the show... The Big Show, from Cincinnati Clutch Hits, is a song we VERY rarely play, and of course Christmastime, our catchy-as-johnny-bench ode to the holiday season. Here's a bit of us rocking it out at Redsfest on youtube.
Big thanks to Alex and everyone from Mind Ignition for giving us such a nice mix on stage, Gapper for his musical contributions, and YOU for coming to see us!
Speaking of Christmas, if you live in the Greater TriState, tune in to Fox19 on Christmas morning at 8:45 AM and watch an exclusive live performance of "Christmastime" that we shot in their studios... Santa hats and everything!
T-Shirts? Did I forget to mention that? Available at our CD Release show on January 18th at The Southgate House... here's Jamie showing off the shirt in Atlanta:
Pretty sweet. We'll have ordering information on the t-shirts soon on screamingmimes.com.
But first, the CD. January 18th, 2008, is the official launch date of "Tragedy Comic". You will be able to order the CD before the show at www.cdbaby.com in a week or so. Friday the 18th we're having a huge, bigger than bigger, grander than grand CD release show at the historic Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky, directly across from Newport on the Levee. We're pulling out all the stops for this show - creating tons of video content, uncovering old nearly forgotten Mimes tunes, and debuting a few new tunes we've been working on that we know you're going to love. We've assembled hundreds of hours of interview footage, live clips, and special behind-the-scenes & making-of segments. In addition, after the show we'll debut our new video for "Superdave" - the song you've been begging for in a visual format. There will be cameras, great music, cold beverages and lots of Screaming Mimes merchandise for sale that night, so mark your calendars, book the babysitter, pry off the house arrest bracelet from your parole officer and get ready for one of the biggest shows in the Cincinnati music scene. If all goes as planned, we'll even have a bunch of cool surprises for you before, during and after the show...
So, back to that CD. After starting recording over two years ago on September 29th, 2005, with incalculable hours spent tracking the original full band recordings with Austin at the helm, Jim giving his all into every performance... Preston playing his fingers to the bone perfecting every bass note... staying up into the wee hours bent over my guitar on my solos and overdubs, Randy mixing and mixing and mixing while simultaneously laying in his guitar lines... all the nights of yelling at a microphone by myself in a dark room, trying like hell to get back into "that moment" when I wrote the song and trying to get something down on tape... the steady stream of "just another tweak" to the mix, driving Randy to the brink of insanity... contemplating dropping certain songs that we wondered if we'd ever be able to save in the mix... recording way more than we needed and making the "hard cuts" on certain songs... the joy of hearing the perfect balance for the first time... the final months of hearing all the tracks together, in order... going to Yes Master and adding the icing to the already decadent cake...
After all that, it's been worth it. Broken strings, stress, burned out ears, late nights... we owe our family members more than we can ever repay but the end project certainly reflects all the sacrifices and talent that went into the CD. It's eleven tracks long, with songs dating back to the recording of Live My Life (I was writing a lot during that album) to the night before our final recording session in November of 2006. I was writing a lot during this phase of the band, and all the songs were written with us in mind. This album also has our first band collaboration, along with a lyric writing adventure "in-the-round". It also represents a lot of the support we get from some amazingly talented people and the generous contributions meant that we had a lot more time and energy to concentrate on making the music great. Certainly nothing was more critical to this project than Sonic Arts Digital Services and all the time they gave us.
So to you, gentle reader, we hope to see you in January with Tragedy Comic in hand, listening and singing along, laughing at the jokes, wincing at the behind-the-scenes, and genuinely having as good a time as we've had bringing all this to you.
2008... I can't wait.
Dave
Screaming Mimes
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