“Gone to California” Video from Cellar Stage + Joe Squared Mini Release Show

We're bringing our friends Miss Shevaughn and Yuma Wray to Baltimore for the first time. We played a bunch of shows with them over the summer. Oh, and here's your chance to get a copy of that poster McKinzie Lefstein made for us!

Back in the studio

So this is a bit of a surprise—I thought we’d be staying out of the studio this year, but we really got the bug to record Heather Aubrey Lloyd’s “Silent Little Bells,” so we’ll be heading out to Woodstock again to work with Chris Freeland in early November. We’ll also be rerecording an outtake from the sessions for The Distance of the Moon at Daybreak, “It Started Well,” which has only rarely been performed in public (and never as a full band). We’ve worked out a funky little drum beat and some unusual guitar sounds to go with Dylan-y lyrics, a jazzy progression, and a lot of local character.

“Silent Little Bells” will be the a-side, though. It’s an absolutely killer song by a local songwriter, and we haven’t played it in public as a full band yet, so the Joe Squared show will be everyone’s first opportunity to hear the full arrangement. I’m really excited about this song. It’s the song that actually got me into the idea of covering songs by local songwriters, and I’m not the only one around town who plays it, either, so I know it’s not just me. I’m really proud that we’ll be able to share it with our little corner of the world.

Okay, enough of the hype. Because there’s something else, besides recording our first cover, that’s a bit of a departure for us:

We’re not going to post this one publicly where everyone can listen to it. We’re not going to sell it. We’re going to give it away to people just for being on our mailing list. (There’s a link in the top right of our website to sign up, or you can click here, if you aren’t already on it.)

At some point that may have to change. There’s an upper limit to how many people can be on our mailing list before it starts costing us money we don’t make, and I have to pay Heather Lloyd for each copy of the song people download, so if for some reason we end up with one of those “first world problems” where too many people are downloading the song, I might have to put it up on iTunes or Amazon or something.

Oh, the EP will have a subtitle: Baltimerica 1. That should map out what’s going to be happening over the next year or so.

Joe Squared mini release show

So Dec. 9 will be our release show for the single/mini-EP, whatever you like to call it. We’re bringing our friends Miss Shevaughn and Yuma Wray to town. Spectacular vocals from Miss Shvaughn, and some big guitar sounds and a kickdrum provided by her partner Yuma Wray. We played a few shows with them over the summer, and it’s great to get them to our hometown. We’re talking with some friends about adding a third group, so we’ll let everyone know who that is once we know for sure.

Oh, right, a video

Anyway, this post also promised some video from our Cellar Stage show with the Kennedys. The show went great—we fit in pretty well with the headliners (who played a Fairport Convention song AND a Richard Thompson song), and we made a bunch of new friends. Hopefully we’ll be able to go back someday … maybe even with the full band. Paul Demmitt shot this video of our new song (pardon the incorrect song title):