It’s crunch time now.  We finished tracking the new album yesterday.  The album now has a title, too - we were getting nervous about this because it was 5 months into recording and two weeks before our duplication deadline and the album was yet untitled.  But the end result of the torturous naming process was as perfect as we always imagined it would be.  The idea came to me in the shower (or in a dream, whichever you prefer to conceptualize - I was practically asleep anyway), and after a short, exuberant discussion the album was titled Today Begins at Night, summing up some common song themes, and, incidentally, our lives at the moment.  We held up our coffee mugs to toast the discovery at 2 pm.

For whatever reason our latest string of shows has been some sort of religious experience.  We are pastors preaching our message of twisted funk to the congregation, and they are eating it up.  The music gods have channeled their energies to three hairy, unlikely men from the swamps of Connecticut.  Bearing equipment and musical adages from before their time, they have honed their skills and can now inject these energies into anyone within earshot.  We are not men of traditional religion.  James Brown is our Moses and our bible has SOUL.

Last night was no exception to this trend.  We played a last minute show (love those) at McIntyre’s Pub in Toms River, New Jersey.  Our contact there is Brandon, an affable gentleman and musician who organizes live original music every Thursday at McIntyre’s.  He calls us when he knows there will be a crowd because he’s privy to the fact that we won’t draw anyone.  So we got the call a couple days ago that we could open for a local band who brings a huge posse.  Of course we were in.

We got there and began to set up as people were filing in.  Our setup never ceases to astound the laymen (and fellow musicians alike) for lack of guitar and size, number, and/or age of keyboard instruments/accessories.  A curious observer asked Brandon what our deal was.  “These guys are great.  I only call them for special occassions.”  We like Brandon.

Our set was musical mutiny.  We play songs that normal people should find offensive.  Yet they were drawn in like flies to a bright light, fixated on our every move, attention unwavering as they watched three minds work as one.

We left the stage to an applause more thunderous than we have ever heard for a performance of our own.  Whatever has been clicking, we’ve got to keep doing it.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to stay too late and hear the headliner’s full set.  We had album mixing to do.  We left around 12:15 knowing we wouldn’t get home till nearly 2 am to start working.  I went up to Brandon to say goodbye.

“Hey man, we’ve gotta get going.  There’s a lot of mixing to be done on our album before our Tuesday mastering session.”

“Cool, man.  Want some beer for the road?”  Brandon knows we’re poor.

“Uh…yeah?”  I mean obviously.  How do you feign excitement for something like that?

“How does a 12-pack of Yeungling sound?”

“Incredible.”

“Put it on my tab,” he tells the bartender.  We like Brandon.

We set the GPS for Philly and were on our way.  With the promise of chicken when we got home, we were ready to take on the night.  Yeah, I said chicken.  We’ve got a guy for that.  You know how some people have a guy for building you a deck, or getting you a sweet deal on that plasma TV you’ve had your eye on?  Well, we’ve got a guy who hooks us up with chicken.  He’s a friend from our days in Jersey, so sadly we don’t see him much anymore.  I will withhold his name for security reasons.  Since he doesn’t understand why we like Steely Dan so much, I will henceforth only refer to him by names of women in Steely Dan song titles.  So Josie is a chicken salesman for a company that provides chicken for a lot of restaurants in the Jersey area.  He often has work for Dave, whether it be at a food expo or otherwise, and Dave always comes back with a bounty of frozen chicken.  Seriously, this shit keeps us alive.  But we hadn’t seen Peg in a while and were hurting in the chicken department.  So Rikki had some work for Dave moving his father into a new place, and sure enough, now our freezer is stuffed to the brim with chicken.  Thanks, Aja.

We got back at 2 am as scheduled and immediately began mixing.  Dave cooked up some chicken and everything was right in the world.  World, here we come.

-Albis