Good Day You Extremely Wonderful Humans –
Spring is in the air and we have an impossibly large and beautiful pile of fresh news for you. Buckets full. Plus it is Bandcamp Friday tomorrow, where artists keep all the sales!
Item #1. We (the royal we) are very pleased to be releasing Postcard, the third album from Olympia Psychedelic Folk Sextet The Hinges. I really love this album and you will too.
The Hinges is the longtime Oly band of songwriter/performers Karen Hancock and Danny Kelly. Postcard is the latest chapter in their evolution from a duo to a six-person outfit. Recorded at Avast Recording Co. in Seattle and completed at Delphi Oracle Olympia, this the Hinges third album is an expanded, richer and fuller “band” sound for the ears, heart and mind and includes guests Lori Goldston – cello, Dianna Kallerges – vocal and Eric Padget – trumpet. (Eric you no doubt recall was the brains behind the great Sigourney Reverb album we released in 2011.)
Karen has played in many Olympia bands including 2003’s well-received Saba with Colm Meek and Chris Pugh of Young Pioneers. Danny played in the recently resurrected Creep (with Meek and Pugh and Lisa from Grrrizzley) plus long time Oly favorites Heliotroupe. He had a track on Scott Vanderpool’s TESC student project Xmas ‘84 along yrs truly (appearing as the Green Monkey Christmas Chorale). In 2022 he added some ripping lead guitar to the Olympia – A True Story album.
The Hinges released their first duo CD, Surprise! in 2013 with the contribution of friend and producer Colm Meek. Home recorded and fully self-produced, the nine songs from that first record are still staples in their live set. With album #2, 2018’s Buzz & Shine, they had begun playing with drummer Robin Toye and bassist Robin Green, which instantly gave the band and the record a richer and more percussive feel. Following Buzz & Shine’s release, the tracking of the next record was already underway (with the addition of violinist Ben MacSpadden) when … pandemic… oops.
Post-pandemic,The Hinges resumed recording with a whole new approach. The band convened at Avast! and recorded as a full live band, now a sextet with the addition of keyboard player Theo Ragun. Postcard, produced by Ken Levy, is their most expansive, dimensional and best endeavor yet, with plenty of little sonic surprises to tickle your senses. I am certain you will really enjoy it!
Up next, we have the latest chapter in the neverending Von Cube saga, Non Dairy Creemer. As always we have Grady spankin’ guitar and bass, plus singing. (Grady seems to have an endless resevoir of this stuff.) On this one though, drummer Nick bravely stands aside and lets Grady’s son Derek thump them tubs. The result is, shall we say, rockin’ just like always. “Magic Wand” opens with thirty-plus seconds of guitar finagling before the pounding comes. “Johnny Was A Pimp” is a tragic slice of melancholy that suddenly takes a violent, though unrepentant, turn. “Auto Pilot” brings this EP to a satisfyingly smashing conclusion, again with many throttling guitar tribulations. Dig it today!
So, what’s next?
May will bring us the prolific Band of Jays, with an all new slice of shimmering pop, on a vinyl LP, Brave New Heirlooms. ‘Sides that, BoJ just won the 2024 Best Rock Song for Indie Music Channel’s Radio Music Awards! Boffo congrats!
June looks like the month for Jeff Parkhurst’s magnificent debut LP Dark and Deep. It is pretty fucking cool as fuck, in case you didn’t fucking know.
September 1 is the offical release date for the first, Jim of Seattle album since 2016! It is titled Carkeek Park Suite and is, as you might guess, a symphinic work about the glorious Carkeek Park in North Seattle. So exciting! If you have not yet subscribed to his QR code postcard thingy, you should – scan the code above and hear a new Jim of Seattle song! Or email jimofseattle@outlook.com to get on his list. More postcards will be coming. Jim is also on the verge of starting a GMR Podcast, which will spotlight all our 70 or so glorious GMR artists. We don’t have a kick off date yet, more to follow.
In exactly two weeks, I am meeting with Laura and Bonnie of Capping Day and we are finally going to pull their long discussed retrospective together, complete with some brand new Jack Endino mixes. It will happen this year.
I just got off the phone with John Carey from The OF – their long developing third album is still “developing”, but WTF, you can go see them in a rare-as-hen’s-teeth Western Washington appearance April 13 at Tim’s Tavern in White Center. Show up and totally freak out!
Shaken Growlers are threatening to at last release their second album this fall ON THE PRECIOUS VINYL
Talked to Jeff K. about progress on Green Pajamas’ Summer of Lust 40-year follow-up thing today. He is trying to get together with Joe and Karl to do some tracking but progress is slow. He also said there may be an album of all new modern-Pajama-style toons before the year is out – we shall see.
Me? I just went to Ireland and have started writing fifteen new songs about the trip. This madness is in its inception, so I have no idea how it shall be actualized. Guess we’ll have to wait and see, eh?
Tom & Bruce Dyer at the Crane Bar in Galway.
I think that covers the bases.
td 4-1-24
Ps. If you haven’t heard this yet go out and buy Hey Dummy! by our old pal Al Bloch + Bad Scene. It is his best record yet and my album of the year so far on my FreeForm Norhtwest radio show.