We’ve been trying for two years to nail down a gig with popular Houston funk band, Fondue Monks and we finally got one. Saturday, Aug. 21 at Dan Electro’s on 24th St. in the Houston Heights will be the place to be. We’ll bring the rock, they’ll bring the funk and it will be a rockin’ funky good time. Check out a of video of Fondue Monks below…

“Breath It In” by Fondue Monks

This is the final segment of our live appearance on KPFT Radio in Houston on May 14, 2010. We played one our new songs, Let It Flow, and talked a bit about the songwriting process. RadioActive airs Fridays from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. on KPFT 90.1 in Houston. It’s a great show that promotes local, regional and national acts who get little or no airplay on commercial radio.

Don’t forget to come check us out on Friday, Aug. 6 at Bohemeo’s, 708 Telephone Road, in southeast Houston. Great little place owned by our friends Lupe and Sid Olivarez. We will be giving away free copies of our first CD, Another Lame Semi-Tragedy.

We’ve been working on new material for a while now and hope to have some available, at least online, by the end of the year. “Last Night of My Life” is a tune about loneliness, regret and reaching for people who are gone forever. We originally recorded it as a full-out rocker in the same vein as Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender,” but decided, because of the sadness in the lyrics, that it just didn’t work that way.

I played the tune a few weeks ago at Bohemeo’s in Houston and this is close to the way you’ll here it when it’s finished. Enjoy my friends!

On May 14, 2010, we traveled to the studios of KPFT Radio in Houston to promote our latest single, Someone Came To Help Me, and talk about our upcoming gig at Rudyards. This is part one of our interview on the show RadioActive.

Our own Chris Rogers always gets great guitar sounds, whether he’s live or in the studio, it’s always rockin’. He is so good and puts out so much sound that many times he sounds like two guitar players. While he is creative and has quick fingers, we found out a lot of that sound has to do with his peddle board….and we have one legendary guitar player to thank.

Like Quagmire says on “Family Guy,” we are gigity-gigity gigging again. Friday, Aug. 6 we will be rockin’ Bohemeo’s, 708 Telephone Road, inside Tlaquepaque Market, in Southeast Houston. This is a great small venue owned by our good friends Lupe and Sid Olivarez. If you’ve never been there before, it’s an excellent place to eat and see a band. We are playing the early set at 8:45. Pete Simple is the closer.

We will be handing out copies of our first CD, Another Lame Semi-Tragedy, to everyone who wants one. We will also have t-shirts and our second CD, Come and Take It, on sale for you to purchase as well.

Jeff joined me at Bohemeo’s on July 3 for a version of one of our new tunes, “Time Is My Enemy.” Enjoy. We hope to see you at the show. Keep rockin’.

We’ll be back on stage this Saturday, May 15 at Rudyards, 2010 Waugh Dr. in the Montrose area of Houston. This will be our first full-band gig since March 2009 and our first with new drummer, Mando Perez. This is also the first time we have played Rudyards’ since May 2008, a few hours after this performance at the Houston Art Car Parade. We will be debuting five new songs and playing some old favorites from our first two CDs.

DON’T FORGET…Everyone who comes through the door will get a *FREE* copy of our first CD, Another Lame Semi-Tragedy. Pete Simple will open. Hope y’all can make it out.

Jeff and I were asked to play our new song Someone Came To Help Me by the folks at LifeGift of Houston. The group was celebrating it’s second annual “Donate Life Month” event. The rain held off long enough for us to do the song for transplant patients, donor families and other dignitaries who gathered at the Texas Medical Center (TMC) Commons. Tomorrow (Friday, April 16) George and Chris will do the same thing for a similar event sponsored by The Methodist Hospital Transplant Center.

The full-band track is available on iTunes, Rhapsody and other various digital download sites.

NOW AVAILABLE ON iTUNES

Well folks, we finally have some new material to share with you. “Someone Came to Help Me” is a tune that was inspired by patients, donor families and caregivers at The Methodist Hospital Transplant Center in Houston.

We played acoustically at a “Donate Life” event at the hospital in 2007 and 2008. Both years we performed “Here Comes the Sun” and “Let My Love Open the Door.” Both great songs, but the event really needed its own tune. I came up with the words and melody, Jeff added some chords and we played it at the 2009 event to a very enthusiastic crowd.

This song started it out as a demo with Jeff programming drums and playing acoustic guitar and me singing just trying to get something together for the folks at Methodist, but we decided pretty early on we should produce it as a band.

Jeff and Chris cut the basic tracks in October, which included organ, bass, acoustic guitar and Chris’ great electric guitar part that weaves throughout the song. When that was completed relatively quickly, we tried a number of different vocals sessions afterward trying to get the right sound, but it just wasn’t coming together. After some time away from it and listening to some Steve Earle for inspiration, I completed the vocals at end of January. Chris and Jeff did some further tweaking to the instrumentation on the song as well.

Mixing commenced at Chris’ Rogers Recording in early February and after a number of sessions to fix the groove and the acoustic guitar track, we all felt like something was missing. Was it a guitar part? Another vocal? Then Chris found a trippy keyboard sound that felt like a mixture of a bunch of different noises and that did the trick. Jeff played it all the way through, Chris added some excellent effects and it really turned the track in the right direction.

This was our first try at mixing our own material and Chris really knocked it out of the park. He upgraded his entire studio last year and it has really made a difference in the overall sound of the band. We are almost done with a bunch of songs we started last summer with drummer Leesa Harrington-Squyres, our former drummer and current drummer for Lez Zeppelin. We hope to have those ready to release digitally in the next few months.

The song is also available for download on Rhapsody, Zune, Napster, Lala, Limewire, Nokia and eMusic.

A few months ago we were panicked because we had only three, maybe four new songs to record. Well, all that’s changed. About a month ago, we hopped on the the writing train and we haven’t yet pulled into station. We now have 19 songs to choose from, all of which, have very catchy hooks. I know every band says that, but we actually mean it.

It was Chris’ idea to build these songs from the ground up. In other words, record demos and build parts around them. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been in the studio laying down drum tracks. What I actually mean is that Jeff was programming drums and Chris and I were giving him our two cents worth. The process was long, but in the end it will be worth it because we will be able to give the tracks to a drummer (Steve Salazar is no longer in the band. Another story for another day) who will be able to play what we want, or at least close to what we want.

Last night, Jeff and I finished recording the acoustic guitar and vocal parts for ten songs and were happy with the results. Finishing this step will give me a chance to perfect the vocals before I record them and Chris a chance to work out guitar parts. It will also give us all the opportunity to “hear” other instruments and vocal parts that will work. I like this process alot. It gives you alot of room to be creative and find things in songs that you wouldn’t find any other way.

Normally, we book a CD release party before we are done with the disc to give ourselves a deadline. What has happened in the past is that we procrastinate and then have to rush at the end. We don’t want to do that this time around. The pace with which we having been working has been great and we made a pact not to rush things with this record. We feel this is the time to make “the” record, and we are going to take the time necessary to do it. The way things are looking, we should probably have something ready to release in the spring of 2010.

Stay tuned. It’s going to be a fun ride. Don’t forget to check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

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