Let Us Now Praise Famous Crappy Demo Tapes!!!

A Floor Your Love update.

I'm mastering the final selections for the album on Thursday of this week -- depending on various technical issues, the album will have between 17 to 19 tracks. From live, studio, and home demo sources. All of which sound much better than they should, thanks to brilliant audio restoration by my chum Steve Schwartz.

Here's a fabulous track that didn't make the cut -- Andy, on WBAI, with a solo twelve-string and vocal version of our classic "You'll Come Around."

In any event, the album is now a definite lock for June release. And the digital downloads will be available on iTunes and Amazon.

How fricking cool is that?

Yes, We're Still Here!!!

A couple of updates, for those playing at home.

For starters, that threatened Floor Models CD is actually making progress; cover art (front and back) is going to be finalized in the next couple of days. Audio mastering will follow shortly thereafter.

And here's a sneak peak of the cover (unfinished in this version, obviously). And yes, you're allowed to go "heh."



And with that out of the way...

Some of you may know that I've been making loud noises with my now geriatric high school garage band buddies of late.

Here's an almost finished version of one of the songs we've been working on. That's me on all the electric guitar stuff, and frankly I'm pleased as punch with how the whole thing sounds.



Fun fact: All of the above was recorded in a cramped attic, using a couple of microphones, an outboard processor or two, and a laptop.

Which means that -- regardless of your opinion of the aural results -- it was accomplished with a more sophisticated technological setup than The Beatles had when they recorded Sgt. Pepper.

Tuesday Shameless Self-Indulgence

From a forthcoming work in progress -- tentative title Blame the Victim -- please enjoy The Weasels and the charmingly jangly "Beautiful Day."




The Weasels, of course, are the garage band chums I toiled with throughout most of the 70s, prior to the Floor Models getting together, mostly in a dank basement in suburban New Jersey, where we recorded countless shall we say iconoclastic songs on a primitive four-track tape deck.

I recently hooked up with the guys, and it turns out they still have a studio, only this time in an attic in rural New Jersey. There, plugged in to a laptop, we recorded the above (almost finished) track, with me on guitar (for the first time in 30 years). That's me on the right and left channels, plus the solo (of which I'm button-busting proud). Enjoy, if at all possible.

P.S.: The Floor Models CD project continues apace; the art work will be finalized before the Xmas holidays, and after a bit more tape research is concluded, the mastering for the CD itself should happen no later than early January. I'll keep you posted.

Tuesday Shameless Cross-Blog Whoring

Perhaps our earliest demo -- a home four-track of Gerry's "Wheel Comes 'Round."



From the circa 1981 David Grahame sessions.

This won't be on the forthcoming Flo Mos reissue album -- a superior live version will -- but I think it's adorable, especially the handclaps on the solo.

In any case, some other amusing stuff tangentially related can be found over at PowerPop.

Saturday Classical Music In-Joke Posting

From 1597, please enjoy Giovanni Gabrielli's quite amazing and beautiful Renaissance hit single "Sonata Pian 'e Forte." As performed in 1959, in a glorious arrangement for contemporary orchestral horn section, by Leopold Stokowski and the Symphony of the Air.




This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the mission statement of this blog, but let's say I have my reasons for posting it.

Incidentally, in a sense the Gabrielli piece actually IS kinda proto rock-and-roll, in that it's tuneful, extremely concise (at about five and a half minutes, it's suitable for Top 40 radio play) and depends on tremendous volume to make its point. Plus, it makes very sophisticated use of that whole loud/soft thing that everybody thought was a big deal when Nirvana ripped it off hundreds of years later.

Monday Shameless Cross-Blogwhoring

The post-Floor Models (Gerry, Glen Bob, and me plus guitarist extraordinaire Doug Goldberg) can be heard rehearsing a pretty nice stereo version of The Tremeloes 60s classic "Here Comes My Baby" over at PowerPop.

Or you can simply listen to the mp3 below.



In any case, enjoy.

Tuesday Shameless Cross-Blogwhoring

Another of the recently exhumed early Flo Mos home demos -- in this case, a really bitchen version of our most blatant Byrds rip-off, "Fade Into Grey" -- can be beheard over at PowerPop here.

Those backwards guitars just slay me, I must say.