What -- you mean she DIDN'T actually buy a copy of our album?
Heh.
POSTSCRIPT: Big news coming about my new solo single -- watch this space!
The sort-of official website of '80s pop combo The Floor Models [Gerry Devine, Andrew Pasternack, Steve Simels, J.D. Goldberg and Glen Robert Allen] -- with updates on their 2021 Byrds tribute album In-Flyte Entertainment, their reunion gig and their various forthcoming group and side projects, including Gerry's 2023 EP In My Own Good Time, Steve's forthcoming 2024 cover of The Replacements, and two amazing reissues on Cherry Red Records!!!
What -- you mean she DIDN'T actually buy a copy of our album?
Heh.
POSTSCRIPT: Big news coming about my new solo single -- watch this space!
The short version: Cherry Red Records -- the most prestigious rock reissue label on the planet -- is assembling a three CD box set whose theme is Stuff and Records Having to Do With People Who Played at CBGBs in NYC in the Mid to Late 70s.
And somehow, the people putting this project together had not only heard of the 1976 indie single by my pre-Floor Models old band The Hounds -- who did in fact play at CBs a couple of times, including opening for a pre-stardom Blondie -- put out back in the day...
...but they figured it was catchy/historically important enough to include in said forthcoming package.
They're using the A-side, thankfully...
...which was recorded at Electric Lady Studios circa 1975. Attentive readers over at PowerPop will recall that story, which involves a cameo by Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones.
In any event, said CBGBs box set is apparrently scheduled for release sometime late his year, and I'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, that leads to the business at hand. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) band (or album cut by an artist associated however tenuously with the CBGBs New York downtown scene of the '70s) is...?
In case you're wondering, my favorite folks from out of that gestalt is/are, hands down, the great Mink DeVille. If you don't know from them, I'm not going to get into their history right now, but there's a new documentry about them that should be available for streaming momentarily. (Also, get me drunk and I'll tell you an amazing story about my encounter with frontman and auteur Willy DeVille at the offices of Atlantic Records in 1981. It's hilarious and creepily terrifying.)
But my favorite single track, however, has got to be this power pop gem -- from the unjustly critically pooh-poohed Live at CBGBs album -- by the unjustly forgotten Laughing Dogs.
God, I love that song.
Discuss!!!
[cross-posted at PowerPop]
Floor Models drummer and my great good friend Glen Robert Allen...
...passed away four years ago last Friday.
Glen Bob was, of course, one of the most talented, funny, and all around mensch-y people it has ever been my privilege to know and work with. And as I've said on previous occasions, he enriched my life in so many ways I couldn't begin to enumerate them.
I will say, however, that I still really haven't come to terms with the fact that he's gone. Truth is, these days when I go into the recording studio, I inevitably look to the back of the room and expect to see him sitting on the couch yelling at me about tempos.
So you'll understand how delighted and moved I was when I awoke the other day to discover that our brilliant mutual friend Steve Notis had just written, performed and posted this tribute in his honor.
Wow.
Je repete -- wow.
That's just so heart-tugging and beautiful I lack the words.
Except "thank you, Steve!" of course.
But seriously, even if you didn't know and love Glen personally, I guarantee you can't hear that song without getting, intuitively, that it sums him up perfectly.
So -- thanks again, Steve. You did what us Red Sea Pedestrians call a mitzvah.
And I guarantee that, somewhere in rock-and-roll heaven, Glen is taking a break between sets and going "Thanks, guys. And yes, I deserved that."
As promised, physical copies have at last arrived! Now if I can only figure out a way to get Amazon to sell the damn things. I mean, you can already download or stream it over there...
Oh well, in the meantime, because I love you all more than food, here's a sample track for free. A swell cover of the Box-Tops classic; I'm in there on piano somewhere.
The rest of the EP (which features occasional bass and keyboards by some dweeb whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels) is also up at Bandcamp, but the official release everywhere else -- Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, and the rest of their ilk -- happens on Tuesday June 12th.
Needless to say, I'll keep you posted on that, as well as where and when actual physical CDs can be procured.
Oh -- and have I mentioned how hilarious the album cover is? The work of my beautiful and brilliant art director girlfriend who, as always, is working cheap. [cross-posted from PowerPop]
Well done Steve, Thanks for sending your Cd. You guys sound really good. Merry Christmas!
I'm not kidding about the die happy thing.