Quick Album Update: The Ghost of John Henry

It’s a very exciting time for me, since the new album will be out on Tuesday and we’ll be playing our CD release show a week from tonight. We’re taking digital pre-orders here and physical CD orders here. It’s hard to quantify how much different this feels than when the first album came out in […]

Road Stories: The Show for Nobody

As I’ve said extensively elsewhere, I used to play in a metal band called Black Spiral. When we first started playing together, we were about 16, in high school, and just doing covers of Metallica songs and such. Our first gig ever was at a Catholic church Spring fair, where we played two nights (my […]

House of the Rising Sun

We headed into the studio with ten songs to record for our next album, “The Ghost of John Henry,” but at the last minute, I decided to add an 11th to the schedule (we had to go up to 11, after all…).  In a lot of ways, recording that last song —  “House of the […]

Couch by Couchwest

Yes, SXSW is in full-swing in Austin, and while I once lived in Austin, that was a while ago. It’s cool, though, because the Couch by Couchwest festival is here for us all — those of us “too broke or too lazy to get off our couches and go to Austin.” Over the weekend, we […]

In the Studio, Final Weekend – Video Blog

We wrapped all of the recording for the new album, “The Ghost of John Henry” this weekend with our final cello, guitar, and vocal sessions, in addition to getting some miscellaneous percussion tracks. Percussion “instruments” on this record will include chains, old cast iron jail keys, artillery shells, homemade stomp box, a “thunder tube” (not […]

For Auld Lang Syne

Spend any time at all on Turner Classic Movies, and you’ll hear Auld Lang Syne sung by a big group of folks. They’ll sing it on New Year’s Eve, Christmas, birthdays, or just when Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart has a nice day. It’s everywhere in movies made before about 1950. As someone who has […]

In the Studio, Week 1 – Video Blog

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6eMNjh7HDc] I took a stab at a video blog, and I’d love to hear what you think.  Here’s a three-minute peek behind the scenes at our first sessions in the studio to work on the new record. As always, for more about the band, free downloads, other videos, etc., visit www.scifiromance.net.

The Studio Awaits

Tomorrow morning we start work on our new album “The Ghost of John Henry” at JaronSound Studios.  We’ve got ten songs to tackle in order to tell the story of the album, and we might try to bang out a couple of one-offs or would-be B-sides if there’s the opportunity. My plan is to try […]

Nirvana and Pearl Jam, 20 years on.

On August 27, 1991, Pearl Jam released “Ten,” their first album. A month later, on September 24, 1991, Nirvana released their second album, “Nevermind,” so for the last month there has been a ton of media coverage about the 20th anniversary of each of these landmark records.  I don’t need to say anything about how […]

Thinking About the Album as Art Form

As we gear up to head into the studio to record the next album, naturally I’ve been thinking a lot about albums. Everybody knows that the album as we generally understand it — a coherent collection of songs by an artist — is pretty much dwindled to a niche preoccupation.  Bands like Radiohead get some […]