Let's Give the Boy a Hand

Although Jay-C usually handles the blogging duties for this band, he's not handling much of anything this week due to a recent "mis-handling" of a set of electric trimming shears. As the photo here indicates, our earnest young rhythm guitarist and co-vocalist severely cut the middle finger on his left hand (that's his "guitar-fingering" hand, by the way...) in a very deep and very painful manner while doing some yard work on Monday. In all seriousness, our thoughts and prayers are with Jeff as he struggles through a couple of weeks of pain killers and longing gazes at his beloved Gibson guitar.

The news wasn't all bad this week, however. The Central Standards were named as one of the three finalists in Rock 103's "Great Unsigned" Local Music Contest! Thanks to the ratings of online voters (thank you, thank you, thank you) the Standards (along with co-finalists Perspective and Gabby Johnson) will perform at the Overton Square Crawfish Festival on Saturday, April 8th sometime between 2:00 and 4:00. We hope you'll come out and cheer us on! Judges at the event will choose one of the three finalists to perform at the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Fest. Due to Jeff's injury, we will most likely have a stand-in rhythm guitarist there with us, while Jeff concentrates more exclusively on his vocal duties. We hope to see you there!

TCB

We played Saturday night at a relatively new Memphis venue called The Vault. Thanks to the many folkers who joined us to help celebrate (The Day After) St. Patrick's Day. There were some troopers there, for sure--some who undoubtedly had celebrated St. Patty's in style the night previous..others who had spent the last two days building houses with Habitat for Humanity!

SET I
HARD TO FALL
GUMBALL MACHINE DIAMOND RING
TIME TO KILL
KEEPING STILL
HEAVYWEIGHT
BACK FROM LITTLE ROCK
CHANGED
WHAT MAKES YOU THINK
EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE
IN THE BOOKS
GREAT BIG COSMIC
THANK YOU, HERMAN MANKIEWICZ
YEAR 55
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
REAL LIVE SUBURBAN ROCK 'N ROLL DAD

SET II
PERPETUAL AFTERNOON
SO MUCH CLEARER
PSYCHIC LULLABY
OTIS REDDING SONG
WHAT THEY MEAN
ROSEMARY
IF I WANTED YOU
CAPTAIN, SHE'S LOST
SHOULD'VE BEEN IN LOVE
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
SINCE I'VE BEEN GONE
DON'T YOU STARE
THE RIGHT COMBINATION

Keep it right here and at centralstandards.com for news of upcoming shows and events!

Love,

The Standards

Thursday Morning Throwdown

Thanks to Paul Woodard at WEVL 89.9 FM for hosting us this morning on his "Thursday Morning Throwdown" program. Paul does a fantastic job, and it was a lot of fun playing live on his show. Of course, we're not used to singing and playing at 7 a.m. so it did make for some exciting moments! Here's our live list from the show:

NOTHING TO SEE HERE
SINCE I'VE BEEN GONE
YEAR 55
WATERLOO SUNSET
GUMBALL MACHINE DIAMOND RING
OTIS REDDING SONG
THANK YOU, HERMAN MANKIEWICZ
WHAT THEY MEAN

We'll see all of you locals on Saturday night at The Vault. If not, you'd best be prepared to answer to this guy!!

Soft Focus

As reported here previously, we've been working with our former student, Waheed AlQawasmi, to develop a music video for our song "So Much Clearer". Well, today we had our big chance in front of the camera, and we hope we didn't screw up too much. The fortunate thing for us (and all of you) is that Waheed's concept includes band shots using a very soft focus! We got to see the segments that Waheed already has completed, and it's looking fantastic. This is one talented guy.



As usual, the rhythm section took thier duties very seriously and wanted to make sure they understood their rights before signing on the dotted line.




The whole experience of playing instruments that aren't amplified along with a stereo that's blaring your song is a bit disconcerting at first, but not as difficult as we expected. Ted "played" and "sang" his song like a champ. One of the guys on the set said he could actually feel Ted's solo, despite the fact that very little sound was actually coming out of his guitar. That's pretty cool.






The "Case of Bass" was his usual cool self (a requirement for any good bassist, of course). He looked mighty dapper, too.







Here I am demonstrating my mastery of the barre chord and my total inability to sing simultaneously.







After spending several days on the set shooting scenes as Jerry Lee's drummer in Walk the Line, this stuff was old hat for Marty.



Thanks again to Waheed for making this happen. We had a great time. We also got the chance to meet Vince and C.J. who run Universal Productions in Southaven. They're super nice guys, and their facility is amazing. Thanks, guys, for your hospitality! More news about the video soon!!

In the meantime, don't forget we'll be in action this Saturday, March 18 at The Vault, 529 S. Highland. Doors open at 9 p.m. We'll start folk-rockin' soon thereafter. Don't miss your chance to meet real live video music stars! :)

Text Messaging Edge

So, we had a most excellent gig last night with Wayne Leeloy and the fabulous Native Son at The Flying Saucer in downtown Memphis. Thanks so much to Wayne for inviting us, clapping emphatically after every tune, and generally making us feel really welcome. As usual, we were most earnest in our approach, as this very grave photograph indicates.

Wayne was joined by New Orleans guitarist Reid Wick. Back in November, Reid and a group of all star musicians from New Orleans played at Habitat's "Operation Home Delivery" program at the Forum. They were absolutely incredible. Reid's taken a full-time job with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), aka the Grammy guys. He is a fantastic guitar player, but evidently, as a result of his trip to the Grammys a couple of weeks ago, Reid has struck up quite a friendship with a fine guitar player in his own right out of Dublin, called Edge. They send text messages to each other fairly regularly.

For a couple of hack folk-rockers like us, this definitely was information to geek out over. I mean, we were sharing a bench with a dude who, just today, may very well have communicated with one of the baddest ass (can I say that?) guitar players of our generation. Ted got a little hung up on whether close friends call him "Edge" or "The Edge" or, maybe, just plain ol' "Davey". Reid confirmed that, since he was a child, no one other than his mom has called Edge anything other than "Edge". When Bono called him "The Edge" on RATTLE AND HUM, he was clearly just stuck in a moment that he couldn't get out of.

So, it was a very fun night. We learned a lot and played well with others. We sang these songs, in this order:

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK
HARD TO FALL
KEEPING STILL
POCAHONTAS
YEAR 55
TEENAGE HEART
HEAVYWEIGHT
WHAT THEY MEAN
OTIS REDDING SONG
NO MAN ALIVE
I'M ON FIRE
TIME TO KILL
DON'T YOU STARE
JAY-C'S BROKEN RADIO
I'M ONLY SLEEPING

Classic (Folk) Rock

It was long, long ago in a (not so) faraway land called the Hi-Tone. Pre-suits, pre-Marty and Casey, pre-color photography...well, maybe not the last one. But, it was awhile ago, nonetheless.

This evening, March 2, The Central Standards Classic will bring their melodic folk-rock stylings to the Flying Saucer in downtown Memphis for a super secret set (not so much anymore, I suppose). We're slated to start around 9 p.m. and should play for an hour or so. We're supporting the excellent Wayne Leeloy and Native Son.

Come join us, won't you?!