Last Saturday at Neil's

I will post a full report about our show at Neil's soon, but due to the home computer being on the fritz, this is the first opportunity I've had to post anything. Here's a good look at some of the good-looking folks who were there with us, followed by a shot of us onstage in costume and a picture of our beaming bass player, who was celebrating the birth of his new daughter, Lucy Eleanor. The photo at the bottom is of me (pre-Alice Cooper makeup) and our pals Mindy, Rachel and Jan. They came in costume, as directed, but had to leave before we honored their request for "Sad Girlfriend". Bummer. Sorry, Jan!!

Thanks to Roger Mexico, John Paul Keith and the great folks at Neil's!!

"So, who's the square in the suit?"

Our pals Dennis, Ric and Luca (from Memphis' Rock 103) have been very good to us this year. Not only have they played our songs consistently on their excellent Sunday evening radio show
The Great Unsigned, but they also included us in an on-line contest that eventually led to our performance at the Beale Street Music Festival in May. They've had us in the studio live a couple of times and used our tunes as bumper music on their weekday show. And just when we thought it couldn't get any better...

Luca e-mails me and tells me that she wants me to represent the Standards on Dennis and Ric billboards that will be placed all over town. Pretty cool, huh? So, here I am on-stage at Newby's on the lovely Highland strip with a bunch of local rock stars who don't wear suits, ties and nerd spectacles. Let alone pose with jumbo body Gibson acoustic guitars. I did feel a little bit odd--especially when the photographer's assistant asked me to put my right foot up on the stage monitor. This lasted all of about 5 seconds. I felt like a total fraud. I then proceeded to kick over one of the electric guitar player's colas. What a clown.

But, it was great fun, and we're thrilled to have the exposure! Keep your eye out for the billboards, Memphis fans. And if you haven't done so already, please be sure to check out Dennis and Ric weekday afternoons and Sunday night (9-11 p.m.) for The Great Unsigned. It's all at 102.7 FM.

And speaking of The Great Unsigned, we'll be joining forces with another program regular, Roger Mexico, next Saturday, October 28 at Neil's in Midtown Memphis. RM is hard at work on a new record, and they have a great sound. Fantastic local singer/songwriter John Paul Keith will kick things off with a short set around 9:30 p.m. We'll play the middle slot, starting around 10. See ya there!!

Fine-Tuning

Thanks to the Germantown Community Library for having us back again last Thursday evening. The event was designed to honor Germantown-area educators, and we had a nice turnout of teachers and other friends of the band.

Those who made it out were gracious enough to indulge us a bit, as we played a set made up almost entirely of new and unreleased songs. It was a great time, and as always, you discover a lot about the songs by playing them live and making some mistakes. We're super-excited about getting this batch of songs (and others) into the studio.

Speaking of studios...our plan is to make our next record at various studios throughout the area. We've had some great conversations with folks about it, and we hope to have made a nice dent in our long list of tunes by the end of the year. At this point, we plan to go ahead and record two albums worth of material at once and then release these two very different projects separately. Keep your fingers crossed that this all works!

So, here's a glimpse at what we played at the library. You'll probably notice a couple of familiar tunes. We'll try to get demo versions of some of these on myspace very soon.

TAKES SO FEW
HEAVYWEIGHT
THANK YOU, HERMAN MANKIEWICZ
STRIKE
MOLLY MOSAIC
DRIFT AWHILE (ANNIE)
GREAT BIG COSMIC
TEENAGE HEART (by request)
MY FRIENDS, TOO
REAL LIVE SUBURBAN ROCK 'N ROLL DAD
BACK FROM LITTLE ROCK

Our next public show is at Neil's (Madison and McLean) in Midtown Memphis on Saturday, October 28. We'll be joined by some special guests that night. More information to come!

Be well, friends.