Five Years

As you regular readers know, our show at Borders on Saturday night marked the 5th anniversary of Ted and Jeff's first date (uhh..er..gig!) together. It was January 6, 2001. We've told the story many times before, but we really had no intention of forming a band at that point in time. I had played at Borders once in April 2000 (before Ted returned to Memphis), and I booked this next one a couple of months in advance. I asked Ted if he wanted to join me, and we went from there.

As I recall, we only rehearsed once or twice. We did a handful of tunes together (maybe 8 or 9), and the rest of the night, we just traded songs back and forth. As it turned out, we enjoyed doing it so much that I don't think we ever really talked about whether or not we'd continue. It was just understood. Ted was coming off a successful run with Resident Clark, and I felt like I was starting to get somewhat of a handle on the songwriting thing. So, we both still had the desire to play, for sure. With very similar work schedules that kept us busy up to 12 hours per day often times, it was pretty easy to schedule rehearsals. There were few options!

Five years later, here we are (with our comrades Casey and Marty), playing our semi-annual (or so) Borders gig. It was a fantastic night--probably our largest Borders crowd ever. Once again, the store sold out of CDs, and we had to dig into our own stock. Good problem to have! Thanks to all of you who made it out. We played for close to 2 1/2 hours and unveiled several new tunes that we're really excited about. We had a solid core of friends, family and fabulous folk-rockin' fans--many of whom sang along all night and even danced in the cafe! We had a great time, and we thank you for sharing it with us! Here's what we played:


IN THE BOOKS
KEEPING STILL
ROSEMARY
DON’T YOU STARE
GREATEST DAY
HEAVYWEIGHT
DAMAGED DOLLAR
BLUE EYES CRYING IN THE RAIN
SO MUCH CLEARER
PERPETUAL AFTERNOON
JAY-C’S BROKEN RADIO
CHANGED
WHAT THEY MEAN
IT TAKES SO FEW
AFTER THE GOLD RUSH
TEENAGE HEART
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
GREAT BIG COSMIC
YEAR 55
HARD TO FALL
WHAT MAKES YOU THINK
I’M ONLY SLEEPING
BACK FROM LITTLE ROCK
TOP OF THE WHEEL
IF I WANTED YOU
SUBURBAN ROCK ‘N ROLL DAD
THE RIGHT COMBINATION
GUMBALL MACHINE DIAMOND RING

Due to Ted's pending nuptials and honeymoon, we'll be on hiatus from live performance until March 18 (I know...this doesn't really sound like a "hiatus" for us, as much as just our normal span between shows), when we'll play The Vault in Memphis for the first time. We look forward to seeing you then! In the meantime, we'll be working out new songs in the rehearsal space and counting on you to spread the word about the record. Keep checking this blog for weekly udpates. Thanks for your continued support!!

P.S. - A full set of photos from Saturday night will be available via our Web site, www.centralstandards.com.

Long Time Coming

Hard to believe, but this picture was taken the last time we played a full set as a band--in the year 2005! Despite what our lightweight apparel may indicate, it was not summer of 2005. It was actually an 80-degree day in November.

So, this weekend, we're celebrating the 5th anniversary of Ted and Jeff's first show together (and Ted's upcoming nuptials!) at Borders in Germantown, TN. We're always psyched to play Borders, because there's usually a lot of people there who know the words and like to sing along. If you're somewhere in the region, we sure hope you'll come on out and join the fun.

We'll be playing two brand new cover tunes, as well as six new originals that we're looking to record in the very near future. Of course, most of the show's material will come from our new record, CAN'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME, with a handful of tunes from REFRAIN to keep everybody folk-rockin' old school.

Look forward to seeing you on Saturday, Memphis folks! Have a great weekend, everyone!!

THE CENTRAL STANDARDS
Live at Borders Books & Music
Saturday, January 21 - 7-9 p.m.
6685 Poplar Avenue
All ages--no cover charge

In My Room

So call us crazy, but we really love rehearsing. And this is the room where we do it. Yes, it's actually smaller than it appears in the photograph. Thanks for asking. But, we like it that way, and we're grateful to have a nice, cozy, totally un-soundproofed place to do our thing. Not sure how Ted's neighbors like it, but alas, no noise violations yet! So, you've heard of garage bands; perhaps we're a spare bedroom band. Makes us sound even squarer than we already are (if that's possible).

We could say cliche things like "this is where all the magic happens" or "this is where the dream began", but really this room represents none of that--it's simply the place where we plot our plan for international folk-rock domination. All kidding aside, this room is special to us because it's truly a place where it's acceptable for us to act like 16-year-olds again, and that's pretty cool. As much as we enjoy playing shows and having audiences with whom to share our music, some of our best times as a band happen in the rehearsal space. Thus the reason we wanted to share it with you!

The photos below were taken during our practice on Monday, January 9. Enjoy!

Your Standard Pack Meeting

It's certainly been a season of firsts for The Central Standards. Last night was perhaps the most exciting, though, as we traveled to a land known as Bartlett for a weekly Tiger Cub, Cub Scout and Webelo pack meeting. We had a great time, as the photos surely indicate. The dudes were focusing on music at this week's meeting, so it was an ideal opportunity for them to be exposed to our melodic folk-rock stylings. Gotta start 'em early! We did three sessions for each of the different age groups and played two seemingly innocent and harmless Standards' standards--"Pearl of a Girl" and "Sad Girlfriend".

We spent much of the time answering questions, as illustrated below. By far, the coolest and most difficult question of the night came from a guy in the second group, who asked Ted how long it takes him to learn a sad song. (Presumably, he was referring to a Jeff Capps song.) Naturally, Ted handled it like a champ--expertly dodging the issue of why exactly it may take more or less time to learn a sad song versus a happy one and instead offering his standard response to the far less complex question "How long does it take you to learn a song?" We are certified teachers, after all!