and now introducing the two new members of the M.S. Dream Team squad!!!  (and yes, I am making this as intentionally cheesy as possible). First up is BJay Howard, raised by wolves since the 3rd grade and accomplished manicurist, he walks where other guitarists fear to tread.  Befriend him on Facebook in you dare!!!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=sgm&id=1222904292

Next up is Scotty Zimmerman, lover of all things robotic, he had his heart replaced with a Boss Chromatic Tuner so he can instantly tune his body to the frequencies of the guitar strings.  Now, when he plays, the guitar and mind act as a single organism, pinch harmonics become breathing, 32nd notes are flickers of the eye, and death-rattling solos are bowel movements of epic proportions!!!  Bow Down, insolent ones!!!!

Right, welcome to Morning Society, fellas….pack a lunch, bring your hard hats, we’re going to work….

So we lost our original guitarist, Ty, then we lost our other guitarist Adam. It seems like band members are dropping like flies on us.  I’m gonna go ahead and attribute it to the fact that the remaining members have body odor issues.  Or maybe they didn’t like that we followed them home and watched them slumber ever so sweetly.  Those night vision goggles really brought out the color in their eyes…..

So now, we’re back to our trusty musician-locator-networking-hub of glory, Craigslist. Or what i like to call, “Where both Wackos and Decent Musicians find Kindred Spirits”. Thankfully, we’ve had nothing but really cool people come down and audition for us, and even tho it didn’t work out, they were all decent people that I wish nothing but the best. Except for this one guy, we’ll call him Neil, who came down to the studio, listened to the music and proceeded to say that he hated rock music and then quite brashly explained to us that what music he was doing then (I think it was Indian Free-Form Jazz?) was heads and shoulders above everything that was currently going on in the Twin Cities.  My urge to kill was never as strong and the one time that it was, a swath of dead hookers that Eagan has never recovered from.  But I gritted my teeth and allowed him to leave the premises alive.

Other than that, we found everyone in the band thru Craigslist and oddly enough, none of us in the band are what you call native Twin Citians(? whatever…) And now we have two new guitarists that I hope will stick around for a long time.  Introductions in the next segment…

Wanna thank all that showed up to the Dec 5th show. Especially the Terminal Bar, gawd do I love that place. And I mean I love everything about it, from the impossibly ornery yet strangely loveable owner, Flem, to the wide array of colorful townies that frequent it’s fine establishment.  And by colorful, I actually mean alchoholic and desperately seedy, which is awesome because I don’t know anywhere else that has Rick (his real name) yelling out requests for Jimi Hendrix and Beatles covers during ours and everyone else’s set….Rick, with his toupee-like coif that looked so Hair Club for Men presidential and a tan that seem shellacked by first year art students he looked bathed in nuclear plant run-off was truly the highlight of my evening….Dude’s got my vote for “Best Townie at Terminal”, but I’ll take submissions as well…

But the Terminal wasn’t always that cool, for awhile the place was an absolutely shitty place to play.  The booking people were complete douches, soundguys were on par for douchery and management was…well, the management was Flem, more curmudgeon than cuddly.  And now? Tom and Jason are now doing the booking and they’re booking agents with an actual human soul, the sound guys are getting much more competent and Flem is Flem is God.  I can’t ask for anything more….

Rescuing baby seals, Mervin

Sooooo glad that it’s finally done. A mixture of relief, trepidation and a shot of Patron all mixed together.  Relief because of all the sweat, tears and sleepless nights cradled in the fetal position culminated in a tiny 5”x5” cardboard package.  There were many times I wanted to rampage thru my home studio, Godzilla-like, stomping on poor unsuspecting musical instruments, guitar pedals, causing terror unheard of in Bloomington, MN.  I’ll have to send my yoga instructor a mini-muffin basket for those breathing relaxation techniques…breathe in, hold for 5 secs, exhale and repeat….

Trepidation because now that it’s finally finished, we offer it up to the cruel, cruel world, to be judged, scrutinized and harshly criticized.  Ok, I’m a bit of a pessimist. To be honest we have no idea how this album will be received.  Hell, it might be paraded down Main Street, U.S.A. on a golden platter, hailed as the greatest invention since Nuclear-Bacon-Sliced-Bread-Energy on the backs of 25 Egytian cabana boys.  And since this is all in my head, I’d like to have lemurs, Faberge eggs and VW Passats involved in the scenario. But just to the side, don’t want it to get convoluted…

I keep asking myself, “What do you want outta this album” and I guess that what I said above would be ideal (read crazy scenario above) but my more realistic goal would be to be able to make another album, to build on what we already have.  Like any other self-respecting artist, we all would like to think that our best work is the one that hasn’t been completed yet. I mean, I have no schizophrenic delusions as to what this album is, like it’s gonna be a revolutionary piece of art that will bring about world peace, cure cancer or increase penis size (stupid annoying spam emails!!!) But what I do know is that this album is honest and hopefully the beginning of a long line of albums, it’s really I can hope for.  Gratis versus Libre, Mervin (9th Level Wizarding Mage)