Project Update

  1. Songs of -h.  Tim and Jill are helping print & fold the oragami cases and liner notes today.  Make sure to come by 700 E 110th St. next Saturday, April 19, between 10 AM and 4 PM to hear howie&scott rocking out!
  2. I’ve finished vocals for 8 out of 10 “There is Something and not nothing” vocals!!!111  Matt has come over twice to work on drum parts, we have ideas for what he wants to do on most of the songs.  Closer and closer – I’m super-pumped to get this record OUT.
  3. No 5*C action yet, but we have a plan.  I’m anxious to hear what Joel’s been up to.
  4. Fifty Bears haven’t practiced in a while due to schedule-y stuff…  but Tim in Lincoln (of Rent Money Big fame) has recorded vocal ideas over all of our nine demo’d jams, and his stuff is sounding rad.  We’re going to have him down to KC soon to jam with us and talk about the logistics of living three hours apart.  If it’s possible, it’s easier with the vocalist being separate and being able to work back and forth with me in ProTools.
  5. -h

howie&scott SHOW – APRIL 19, KC

On my way home from evening activities last night, ScoMo called.  His blues band is playing at Blayney’s here in Kansas City April 18 and 19.  Did I want to hang out on Saturday (19)?

YES.  And it just so happens that I am playing an acoustic show that afternoon.

howie&scott at the KCSPUCC Craft Fair

10 AM – 4 PM (MAP), Saturday, April 19

Kansas City, MO, US

We’ll be playing off and on throughout the afternoon, tightrope-walking with no net.  We will play songs Scott has never played before.  We’ll play songs you’ve never heard before.  We’ll (attempt to!) play old stuff.  It will be fun.  If you’re around at 4, we can go have dinner together and hang out.  If you need a place to stay, I can probably help with that.
This will also be the release of “Songs of -h,” AKA the “howie comp.”  “Songs of -h” has fourteen of my best songs released on Mr. Furious Records, including several of your choices (the acoustic “Open Columns,” “New Slow Sea,” and “The Picture Song”).  It also includes three exclusive tracks: “Stop Walking (live)” from the h&s Summer’s End sessions, “Set You Ablaze” from Lone Prairie Records’ “Killers in the Nebraska Territory” murder ballad compilation, and a brand-new acoustic recording of “Major & Minor.”

The disc will be packaged in a handmade origami case, and come with two pages of liner notes with stories and background information I’ve never shared before about each song.  I’m limiting the release to 100 copies, hand-numbered and signed.

I suggest that folks make a $20-40 gift to help send two high-school-age friends of mine to Tijuana, Mexico in June, where we will build a simple but strong house for a family that doesn’t have one.  100% of your gift will go to the trip fund.  The trip cost, including construction materials and AMOR Ministries’ ground support team, is about $1100 per person.
“Songs of -h” will not be available digitally via Mr. Furious Records, and this will be the only opportunity to pick up the acoustic “Major & Minor” and the liner notes…  ever!

IF YOU DON’T EXPECT TO SEE ME IN PERSON during April or May, leave a comment on this post with your email address.  I will get in touch with you, let you know how you can make your gift toward the Mexico trip, and get a copy in the mail for you.

I am mega-excited about this.  I haven’t had my work printed on CDs since “signs.comets,” more than four years ago.  It’s a special project that came about in a sublime way for a great cause.  Thanks for your gifts of friendship, input, songwriting (Cory & Joel!), time, origami (Tim!), listening, and money.

Full tracklist:

Songs of -h

1. Snow is a Bear

2. J. Cougar Mellensong

3. Coast & Plains

4. New Slow Sea

5. What U Do 2 Me

6. Open Columns (acoustic)

7. Tired Chords (live)

8. Stop Walking (live)

9. Major & Minor (acoustic)

10. Set You Ablaze

11. Back in the Fire

12. The Picture Song

13. America Votes 2032

14. The Last Song

Mike Doughty's Band at the Beaumont Club, 26 March 08

Jill and I walked into the Beaumont to the strains of lumberjacks playing free jazz.

(No joke.)

The exercise was probably another case of Mike Doughty’s band opening for itself (his drummer and bassist are also in official tour openers The Panderers). We hung out in the back and read The Bridge’s interview with The Elders from the pamphlet handed to us at the door.

The Panderers are the first act signed to Doughty’s micro-label Snack Bar, which makes a lot of sense. Like Mike they play repetitive harmonic progressions with quirky vocal rhythms. Unlike Mike, they are more bluesy / rock and roll, and they are not entirely awesome.

Jill commented that the crowd was pretty diverse, and not at all dominated by hipsters. Mike’s post-Soul Coughing music doesn’t seem to be that cool; too AAA for the tastemakers. I don’t imagine that liking MD adds an ounce of indie cred in the Pfork circles.

After snagging the next-to-last Boulevard Wheats in the house (they didn’t have any Lunar), we moved to a perfect spot on the floor and skittishly prepared for haughty melodies and golden deliciousness.

We would be satisfied.

From the opening beat and hits of “I Just Want The Girl In The Blue Dress To Keep On Dancing,” Mike and the band shuffled old and new songs together with banter, broken sustain pedals, songs written by four-year-olds, fake last songs, and listening to people yell requests until someone called for the next song on the setlist. The sound was clear and warm, and had good grip. “Apparently, transcendence looks a little like going to a rock concert,” Jill said.

Mike played the cool, confident professional to his band’s looser, more DIY vibe; there was a halo of giddy guilt glowing over Pete, John, and Scrap, like they’d snuck into a higher-profile gig than they thought they deserved and were getting away with it. The subtle partition had the effect of turning Mike into a sort of subversive crooner, infiltrating a world of NPR-approved indie pop with deconstructed tunes, freely associative poems, and a band that seemed almost punk in this context.

I loved it. Thanks for a great night of music, Mike & band.

This morning (Thursday, as I write) I woke up with “Long Black American Car” in my head. Those are the best shows; the ones that are still echoing through you the morning after.

“Aimless sister, you’re surrounded
Angel-faced and I’m astounded

“Easy, cowboy, what’s the rush now?
She may cleave me like a snowplow
How sweet you are, how sweet you are

“In your long, black American car
And you know just where to find me
If I don’t know who you are
You will remind me

“You will remind me”

Mike’s lyrical fractured-ness is perfect. It’s pretty impossible to hear straight-up love, or story, or issue, or party songs in this day and age of ironic distance and history-worship/vandalization; rather than succumbing to skepticism as an end in itself, he comes at his subjects sideways, in zigs and zags, and takes me somewhere I need to go by a route that I can fully dig with integrity.
\\\\

The KC Star’s review here | Mike Doughty’s band live from this tour (March 18) here

Site Requirements and the Weekend

In order to display mrfuriousrecords.com correctly, you’ll need to have Firefox or update to Internet Explorer 7.  I’m still planning to update some of the deeper content soon.

dollarcd.com is apparently defunct, and that was my plan for the howie-comp.  I’m pondering backup plans.

Around the web, NPR is streaming some great stuff from this week’s SXSW conference.

I picked up tickets to shows in the next couple weeks by Mike Doughty and SPOON.

The longer I’ve thought about pay-what-you-want, the less I like it.  I’ve been thinking about doing some merch via CafePress.  Then I discovered they do CDs, too.

50 Bears are meeting with a potential singer on Tuesday.

And 5*Joel is unexpectedly back in KC for the mid- to long-term.  I haven’t seen him yet, but will soon.

New Site, Saturday Update

I think the new site looks good enough to launch, so here it is for good.  Leave a comment or email mr (at) mrfuriousrecords.com if you encounter technical/aesthetic difficulties.

Since this took all morning, I don’t know how the rest of the day is going to play out.  I’d like to finish & sign off on my mastering for Pat Bradley’s record, and I’m kind of itching to lay decent scratch vocal tracks on the “There is Something and not nothing” material and burn discs for Matt and I to listen to.  We’ll see about that.

New 50B Jams, Vinyl, and a Project Update

Last weekend I cut a new practice tape with Fifty Bears in a Fight, and the results are up on our myspace, including new songs and better versions of old ones.  We’re still looking for a singer/howler/yeller/wailer.

I spent an hour yesterday at Half-Price Books, burning time between work and play, and picked up all this outstanding vinyl for $10:

  • Prince, Purple Rain
  • Chicago, Chicago Transit Authority and Chicago at Carnegie Hall (Sides V-VIII)
  • Led Zeppelin, III
  • Pretenders, Pretenders
  • Pat Benatar, Crimes of Passion (“Hit Me With Your Best Shot”)
  • Bruce Springsteen, Born in the USA
  • Neil Young, Harvest and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
  • Billy Joel, The Stranger

Jill, Tim and I watched a documentary on U2’s The Joshua Tree that was pretty great.  It was cool to hear Daniel Lanios talking about how different songs were recorded, tracks they didn’t use, etc.  Flood is a giant music nerd (= awesome) and it’s still my pie-in-the-sky dream to have him produce a record of mine.  I think the doc came out a couple years ago, though the album reissue is just a couple months old.  It left me wanting more, and wanting to get the record out and listen to it, which is probably the point.  I was amazed to see footage from the Zoo TV tour of the band playing these passionate, heart-on-sleeve, rural-America inspired tunes; I didn’t know they were still playing a lot of that stuff on the Zoo tour.
Projects:

The Sleepover – I finished mastering the first EP for Cory’s new band this week.  We’re going to put one track on Furious Instance, and the rest will be available via the band.

The Combine – Nick tells me they’re about done writing the new tracks that we’re going to bundle with a few from their album for a MFR EP release.  Super-looking-forward to that.

Pat Bradley – I’m listening to and tweaking a second master version, anticipating a MFR release in a few weeks.

There is Something and not nothing – I’ve finished all bass, keys, and guitars for Sally Ride’s fourth.  (It’s fourth in my mind even though it will probably come out before Boots.)  So when I get my voice back I’ll start singing, and Matt will come play drums soon.  I gave him a disc with three songs on it that had rough vocals and drum loops, and I think he was pretty surprised even though he’s heard the demos.

Howie comp – I think I’ve got a tracklist nailed down, I haven’t decided on a title, and I’ve been too sick to even think about recording an acoustic “Major & Minor.”

MFR – Once Pat Bradley is out, I’m going to spend some time working on new images for the site and possibly a whole new WordPress theme.  -h

Cory's New Band: The Sleepover

I guess we’re not SUPER new, since we’ve been practicing since last fall, but we’ve only played a few shows. Here are the vitals:Members: Cory Kibler (guitar, vocals, songwriting), James Tucci (bass, songwriting), Sarah Rosenau (keys, background vocals), and Brock Beckman (drums).

James and I have been in like 4 bands together including The Sleepover (if you count Axeface). Sarah is classically trained, and she also plays with Lincoln Americana heroes Loup River Band & Street Choir as well as a folk group called Blood & Ready. Brock Beckman is by far the most experienced member, having been in Lincoln bands since the 80’s (including Rascal Basket, World Record Players, The Sissies, Wide, and most recently Strawberry Burns!!!).

Sounds like: Well, we’re not hard dance-metal-punk-rock like Robot Creep Closer, and we’re not as “indie” as Shacker… but we’re somewhere in between. I mean, we’re pop rock, but we also have elements of folk and grunge.

As always, James and I are influenced by Superdrag, Nada Surf, The Pixies and Weezer, but there are new influences in the music including Wilco and The Hold Steady. When I was younger and in bands, I was always really hesitant to border on anything I might consider “Americana”, and I was always a little afraid of being too earnest. It’s easy to write cool-sounding songs that are ironic or cynical or sarcastic, but it’s really hard to write a good pop-rock song with earnest lyrics, because there’s a danger of being cheesy. Now, I see this as one of my challenges; I want to write sincere, earnest songs without sounding lame.

Where you can see/hear us: We don’t have any shows in Lincoln scheduled for the future, although I am sure we’ll have one scheduled soon. We are playing in Omaha sometime in May, and along with various Lincoln shows, we hope to make it to places like KC, Denver and Chicago sometime relatively soon. Also, right now Howie is mastering our 4 song EP, tentatively titled, “When Bands Have Attractive And/Or Cool-Looking Members, People Care More Than They Would Otherwise, All Things Being Equal.” Soon, we’ll have the four songs up on myspace so folks can stream them, and we’ll have a physical copy for sale in the next couple of months. We’re also putting up the smash single from the EP (ha!) up on MFR called “Built For It.”

So, I hope you can meet us soon in some form or another, and we hope you enjoy it!

Cory Alan

MFR is a Mission (Not an Institution)

mis*sion

-noun

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mission

16. an assigned or self-imposed duty or task; calling; vocation.

17. a sending or being sent for some duty or purpose.

18. those sent.

in*sti*tu*tion

-noun

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/institution

1. an organization, establishment, foundation, society, or the like, devoted to the promotion of a particular cause or program, esp. one of a public, educational, or charitable character: This college is the best institution of its kind.

With time, I’ve come to appreciate mission statements. Both of my employers have excellent ones (though one is unofficial, it’s widely used – much more real within our community than the one on the books!). A mission statement provides identity, and direction; it says who we are and where we’re going.

The mission of Mr. Furious Records, a community of artists with roots in Crete, NE, is to facilitate the creation of excellent sound recordings and to curate and distribute the recordings in ways that enhance the community’s creativity and integrity. (v 1.0)

I left out that we’re a “netlabel.” A netlabel is a type of distribution model; we are currently using that model, but the model is not what we are.

We are not an organization. We organize, but our core identity is not institutional; it is communal. If the community goes away, MFR is gone as well. There is no content to MFR; it is an empty scaffolding, carefully conceived, that exists to support artists’ content. As artists identify needs or concerns, the community may respond, but MFR does not push content out to artists that does not speak to a previously discerned call within the community.

We are a mission. We are not any of the means we may use to fulfill our mission.

Howie Comp

Friends – I’m drawing up a tracklist for a compilation of my best songs, and I’m asking for your help. Out of all my stuff, can we write a list of 10-12 songs that make me come off as an OK songwriter?

My thoughts at this point in the process are below, and I’ve already included some stuff I anticpate you would pick (“The Picture Song,” “New Slow Sea”) that I might not have on my own. But what am I missing? What is essential?

This list may end up being a limited-run physical CD release with artwork and everything that I’d sell as a fundraiser to help me take kids to Mexico in June to build a house. Or, it may just be the list I burn for new friends. Either way, help me figure it out.

I also need help with the title, which I’d like to be a phrase taken from a song’s lyrics. (The song doesn’t necessarily have to be included on the comp.)

TITLES:

“You Couldn’t Know Whose Fire It Was”

“No Need To Be Fair”

“A Minor Change in a Major Key”

“It’s Good to See You Home”

“The Weight You Carry In Your Voice”

“Try and Leave and it Kills You”

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Songs of -h

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SONGS:

Snow is a Bear (XMAS)

New Slow Sea (Sally Ride, It’s A Trap)

Coast & Plains (Furious Instance)

J. Cougar Mellensong (echoes, Be A Ska Rat EP)

The Picture Song (Tonight the Lone Wolf Rides… Alone)

A Come-On / Relieved (Sally Ride, …Alive!)

Set You Ablaze (Murder in the Nebraska Territories)

Open Columns (echoes, nickel EP)

Back in the Fire (Sally Ride, It’s A Trap)

Tired Chords -live (howie&scott, Summer’s End)

new acoustic track? – 5*C? / I’m Coming Home (Shacker, Knowing Her > Best…)

The Last Song (Sally Ride, …Alive!)