Byrds Project Update

From their forthcoming Byrds tribute album (In-Flyte Entertainment)...

...please enjoy The Floor Models (featuring some asshole whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels on bass and synth strings) and their gorgeous cover of the Gene Clark classic "Here Without You."

There'll be a little tweaking of this (which we otherwise finished in the studio last night) when we finalize the album mix -- and it's now looking like the record is gonna come out early next year -- but I think this is just terrific, and god bless our special guests Peter and Caleb Spencer, who did absolutely stellar work on it.

I should add that if you think the front cover is cool (which it is), wait until you see what we're gonna do with the back cover. Heh.

Your Monday Moment of Steve Fulfills a Life-Long Dream

So thanks to the miracle of modern technology, I just got to sing and play with the freaking Byrds.

The back story: As you may or may not know, I am in the process of putting together a final Floor Models record -- specifically, either an album or an EP that will be a tribute to The Byrds (titled In-Flyte Entertainment, courtesy of friend of PowerPop and moi Tommy Perkins. Thanks. Tommy!). This is going to feature a lot of my musician friends -- some of whom you will be familiar with -- but the core group of players is going to be the surviving Flo Mos before we shuffle off this mortal coil, which could be any minute now. Heh.

In any case, I've been kicking this idea around since last year, and at the time I was conceptualizing it, I was hobnobbing with our late great drummer and dear friend (or, as I used to refer to him, my musical director for the last 50 years) Glen Robert Allen. My idea was that we'd restrict the Byrds songs being covered to those they had done between their debut LP in 1965 and their final album involving David Crosby in 1967, i.e. just their folk-rock and psychedelic stuff, before they went country-rock. The music that had principally influenced the Flo Mos.

Glen, however, being the brilliant guy he was, said to me "Uh, Steve -- that's great, but if you don't include "Tulsa County," the gorgeous country song from the Ballad of Easy Rider LP, then you're a mongrel idiot." I was not immediately convinced, but I do in fact love that song and on reflection -- not even considering Glen's health issues at the time -- I ultimately agreed with him.

Bottom line: A few weeks ago -- the intertubes being the wondrous things they are -- I found an instrumental track of the Byrds recording of said song, sans lead vocal and with a barely audible bass. And then last Thursday I went into the studio and put a new vocal and bass part on it.

Which is to say I finally got to collaborate with my favorite band of all time.

The track isn't done -- ultimately we're gonna replace all the original instrumentation, including adding an electric 12-string to it, which should make it sound less country-rock and more 1966. But in any case, this rough version is now the favorite thing I've ever done artistically in my entire life. I think it really sounds like an authentic Byrds outtake I just happened to sneak onto when they weren't paying attention.

I should add that I barely recognize my voice, which is a good thing. I'm well aware that I've never been a particularly good singer; basically, I can negotiate a sort of snotty sounding nasal Jewish suburban punk Lou Reed kind of thing at best. But here, I think, I've done better; to my ears, the vocalist on this genuinely sounds like his heart has been broken.

I'll keep you up to date on the progress of the track and the album itself as things develop. And god bless you, Glen.

[cross-posted at PowerPop]

Consumer Notes From All Over

Finally, a ray of sunshine amidst the darkening gloom of life in the time of the Trump Virus.

The Floor Models new (but recorded in 1982) live album is now available pretty much everywhere, including YouTube (if you want to listen free) or for download at Amazon, Spotify, iTunes and the rest of the usual suspect digital platforms.

I only wish our late great good friend and drummer Glen Robert Allen, who passed in February, was still around to have seen/heard it.



BTW, in case you were wondering why it's taken this long to get the damned thing out, it's totally my fault; when I submitted it for digital distribution to CD Baby (where it's been solely available for over a month) the date I gave for its official release to other platforms was 3/29/20 -- in other words, a fucking typo on my part. I actually yelled at CD Baby about this, but there was nothing they could do, and like I said -- it was totally my fault.

I should also add, and I've told this story before, that The Records' classic in the clip was one of the first songs the Floor Models played as a group. In fact, we used to do it so often in our club shows that everybody in Greenwich Village thought we wrote it. A notion that, if memory serves, we did less to disabuse people of than perhaps we should have.

Today We Are A Video (Part Le Troisième)

From our just released (but recorded in 1982) live album Floor by Four, please enjoy the fabulous Floor Models and the official video for our prescient ode to urban paranoia "What's Wrong With This Picture?".



The above is from the same show as the videos for "Free Advice" and "Shadow of the Flame" I posted recently. And as with those clips, the audio -- in glorious stereo -- was dubbed from a performance at the same venue taped five months earlier (the video shoot, alas, was in mono). And once again, kudos to our pal Steve Schwartz for synching the two more or less flawlessly.

I should add that the song itself is by our late great 12-string ace Andy "Folk Rock" Pasternack, who's singing it, and I believe it was his idea to put the quote from Paul Revere and the Raiders at the end of the instrumental break.

Oh, have I mentioned that you can and should download the album over at CD Baby HERE? Or that it will be available at all the usual digital platforms -- Amazon, iTunes, Spotify et al -- by the end of the month?

Today We Are Another Video

From our just released (but recorded in 1982) live album Floor by Four...

...please enjoy the fabulous Floor Models and the official video for "Shadow of the Flame."



The above is from the same show as the video for "Free Advice" I posted last week. And as with that clip, the audio -- in glorious stereo -- was dubbed from a performance at the same venue taped five months earlier (the video shoot, alas, was in mono). And once again, kudos to our pal Steve Schwartz for synching the two more or less flawlessly.

I should add that the song itself is by lead singer/guitarist Gerry Devine, and it was an absolute gas to perform. I must admit, BTW, that I had not recalled it came in at a concise two and a half minutes. Apparently we really were a pop band.

Oh, have I mentioned that you can and should download the album over at CD Baby HERE? Or that it will be available at all the usual digital platforms -- Amazon, iTunes, Spotify et al -- by the end of the month?

Today We Are a Video

From 2020, and our new live album Floor By Four, please enjoy the fabulous Floor Models -- featuring some asshole whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels on bass and lead vocals -- and (a song I like to dedicate to Jewish moms everywhere) "Free Advice."



The song, of course, was written by our late-great 12-string ace Andrew Pasternack, who is doing the wonderful impressions of Roger McGuinn from stage left.

A technical note: The sound for that clip, which as you can hear is in very good real stereo, was actually recorded at a different gig (at the same venue) than the video (which was only in mono). A coveted PowerPop No-Prize© is hereby awarded to our chum Steve Schwartz, who synched the two pretty much flawlessly. Your check is in the mail, pal.

I should add that you can -- and definitely should -- download the album...

...at CD Baby over HERE. It will also be available on all the usual digital platforms -- Amazon, Spotify, iTunes, etc. -- by the end of the month.

Glen Robert Allen 1954-2020

To quote a certain metallic gentleman from Oz -- now I know I have a heart, because it's breaking.

Sleep well, old friend. You made a difference in a lot of lives.

Got Live If You Want It

A Floor Models live album is about to become an actual thing.

Here's the cover (designed by my brilliant art director girlfriend, who as usual is working cheap)...

...and a representative track. That's the late great Andrew Pasternack on 12-string, of course.



The album was recorded off the soundboard at a typical club show of ours of the period. JPs itself was a small but comfortable industry dive/drug den in the East 70s off First Avenue. I was apparently the only person on earth who didn't know that Scarface-sized quantities of cocaine were being vended in the back room; in any case, we used to think of our gigs there as playing out of town.

It's now called American Trash. I'm told it still has live music, and from the look of it...

...it hasn't changed much.

In any event, I'll be editing the live tape sometime next month, and then the thing will be released for streaming or download on every digital format -- iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc. -- extant. I'll keep you posted.