I just wanted to chime in here and say that I've finished all recording (including some outtakes) and I'm currently finishing up the packaging. If all timelines hold, it looks like I'll be mailing these out in late June. The song list shifted a little bit in the course of doing final mixes, but all in all I'm very pleased with the record, and I'm hoping all of you who helped fund the thing will be too. We have a video of Autoluminescent planned to coincide with the release, and I will be playing some shows behind his record as well.

So thanks for the help. I'll be posting brief updates as I confirm the manufacturing, so you know when to expect your album/CD etc.

Until then, here's an outtake for you. Something that didn't make the record, but was sure fun to try. Ah, Sinatra.

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Well, it's been a very busy fall, bouncing back and forth between day job work, recording a new Camper Van Beethoven album and finishing this project. I went into the studio in late November to hit the remaining covers with David, Paul, John, Bruce, and pianist Dane Terry. We cut 9 tracks in one day, and most of it came out great. As we stand now, we're two short mixes away from finishing the main LP. I have several outtakes I'm in the process of tightening up as well.

Vinyl formats being what they are (which is to say restrictive in the amount of time you can put on each side) made my decision making process for the album harder and easier at the same time. Although there were a few things I would have loved to see on the vinyl that we put down in the studio, I think the final track listing will make most of you happy, and the outtakes will satisfy any requests for particular songs I got. I hit everything to the best of my ability.

So here's the songs we're looking at for the vinyl lineup:

Side A: Autoluminescent, Mother of Earth, The Good Life Never Ends, Bankrobber, By The Grave of Baudelaire, Gloomy Sunday

Side B: I Ain't Got No Home, Born Under A Bad Sign, New Highway, Unfinished Life, When Your Lover Has Gone

Outtakes include: The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood, Sail Away Ladies, Yer Ropes, I Asked For Water and She Gave Me Gasoline, My Death and possibly a couple of others. We ran out of time to record the Jethro Tull song full band, but I have a nice version of the Thin Lizzy song "Southbound" kicking around... maybe I can make it up to you.

Plans are now to master in February and go to manufacture the vinyl and CD formats. High res downloads will be available via my website, and for the backers who funded at the higher lever, the outtakes CD will be included with your Album. I think realistically this puts me at doing the mailing in late March or early April.

Thanks for you patience, and please e-mail me if you have any questions. This has been a fun recording to make, and I think you all will be proud. Just to perk your ears up a bit, here's a preview: By The Grave of Baudelaire, a song by the late, great Bill Morrissey.

We have about two weeks to go here, and we have about $1800.00 to come up with. Today, I decided to put up a little video update, complete with a cameo by my dog, Barabbas. It's slightly pandering, but at least mildly entertaining. Plus you get a preview of our version of "I Ain't Got No Home" by Woody Guthrie. I figure that at my office, they're always watching cute cat videos, so I might as well play the card. Barabbas isn't a cute cat, but he is a good looking (although slightly neurotic) Formosan Mountain Dog. You could find worse ways to spend 8 minutes of your time. Maybe.

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I hadn't really planned a covers recording. The Monks of Doom did one (What's Left For Kicks) that took 14 years to finish. So maybe I was tainted a bit on the process because I'm notoriously impatient and like to work fast. But In March of this year, as Jonathan Segel and I decided to disband our long time label, Magnetic, we found we actually had some money in the bank, and that we might as well spend it on some studio time.

I wasn't really sure what to do. Most of my writing of late had been snippets of music for a new Camper Van Beethoven recording, or songs for McCabe and Mrs. Miller. I'm always writing, but I really didn't have a coeherent muse in place. But I did have a list of songs I had been obsessed with, that I'd been keeping for a while, and so armed with that, we headed into Decibelle Studios in San Francisco. 

I don't rehearse much going into the studio if I can help it, I just like to go for it. I send out a list of songs, usually with some reference. Paul Olguin, (one of my best friends and a fantastic bassist who I cannot afford to hire nearly enough) likes to put together charts. That's about as far as we go.

One of the first things we hit was a song by Rowland S. Howard called Autoluminescent. Who, you may ask, is (was) Rowland S. Howard?

Rowland was the lead guitarist in the Birthday Party. Way back when I was a wee 17 year old, I had my mind completely blown by the Birthday Party. Crazy, dangerous, tormented, funny as hell, angry. I can only say they were my Iggy and the Stooges. Rowland's presence in the band was amazing. Rail thin, cigarette dangling out of the mouth, white Fender Jagaur turned up load... ear splitting, cool guitar work.

The Birthday Party fell apart in 1983, and Rowland went on to a band called Crime and the City Solution. Sometime around 1986, I met Rowland for the first time when Crime was playing at Maxwell's in Hoboken. He and I crossed paths in London a few times when Camper was first in the UK. He didn't get Camper in the least, I think our form of California irony was a little too oblique for him. But he showed me how to lift records out of the Rough Trade store room and we had a nice afternoon of talking where he quietly talked about music he loved while I quietly listened. 

You can find out more about Rowland's life and career here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowland_S._Howard.

Rowland hadn't really crossed my mind in a long time when I stumbled upon what turned out to be his last solo recording, "Pop Crimes." It was a great piece of work: nicely recorded, great songs, great covers, great guitar playing. I was into it. Sadly though, Rowland had contracted liver disease and passed away shortly after the release of the album.

It took a while to come up with the right Rowland Howard song to do. Autoluminescent is a song from his 2000 album Teenage Snuff Film that I immediately identified with. It seemed like I could take it someplace good, like maybe Teenage Fanclub meets John Cale, which is more or less what I tried to do. Ringo style syncopated drums, chimey electric mandolin from Immy, (who was probably referencing the Teardrop Explodes, but don't tell Rowland because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't approve of the Teardrops OR Fanclub). And sublimely great lyrics, courtesy Mr. Howard, replete with the fantastic line "I Was A Nightmare, But I'm Not Gonna Go There Again." Hence, the title of the project.

Part of the idea with these covers is to take songs I grew up on and try and find their commonalities with the music I've come to love as I've grown up and gained a wider perspective on the body of song. What are the lyrical dimensions that attract me? What are the musical elements I find appealing? How do things that are seemingly at odds with each other wind up meshing together? I'm still working on figuring that out with this project, but I'm pretty sure the answer is going to be interesting. The challenge of covering Rowland Howard and the Gun Club at the same time as I'm tackling Woody Guthrie and Odetta seems right.

I've attached a link of a rough mix of my version of Autoluminescent here. 

Rowland S. Howard's version can be heard here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqMuavjwb6M&feature=related

A link to a documentary on his life that Ghost Films of Australia has been working on: http://www.ghostfilm.net/rowland-s-howard/

PS: if you listen closely on headphones, you can hear a lightbulb explode in the guitar iso booth right after I sing the line "I am heaven sent." I would count that as one of the best moments of synchronicity I've ever committed to tape. Considering we only did one take of the song, we lucked out. Maybe Rowland was disapproving of Immy's Teardrop Explodes riffs...