This past weekend was the anniversary of the famous “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” (and William Dawes), and we thought we’d take a break from our current recording project to give a quick update.  We’ll be releasing the bonus EP, William Dawes and Other Forgotten Gems, for purchase/download in the coming weeks (up to this point it’s only been available with the purchase of The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry).  The EP includes the song “Paul Revere“, and our good friend Doug Blair, who put together the artwork for The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry, has been working on an animated video for the track. Here’s a little teaser he sent me:

We’ll keep you posted on the progress of the video and on the release of the new EP.  If you don’t already have our latest album, The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry, and you’d like a copy, click the link below to jump to our online store and the bonus EP, along with the song “Paul Revere”, are included.  We’ve got the record in vinyl too  : )

CLICK HERE FOR THE ONLINE STORE

We’ll be on the road to southern Oregon this weekend with shows in Eugene on Friday night at Sam Bond’s and in Ashland at Alex’s on Saturday night.  If you live in the area, come out to the show and say hi – we’ll have a few burned copies of the new EP with us.

Have a great week and hope to see you soon,

Johnny

ps – Thanks again to the kind folks at “My Indie Life” who featured us in their latest episode -

For over 140 years the Charles Street jail was the last place a person would have wanted to stay the night, much less serve hard time. But over the years, old Charles Street had a number of famous “guests” spend more than a night or two, inlcuding former Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, who remained Mayor while in prison, letting the “clerks and the jerks” run the city until his release. And a former conman called Frank Abagnale, who’s name you might recognize from the movie “Catch Me If You Can“, spent a few nights within the famous walls of the Charles Street Jail.

Those famous walls are still there (most of them), but the place is anything but a prison these days. Less than two years ago, after several years of renovation, the old jail reopened as The Liberty Hotel. The building is an amazing piece of historic architecture, and Boston, being the historic place that it is, doesn’t like to see beautiful old buildings torn down. There are many nods to the Liberty’s historic past, such as the hotel bar, called the “Clink“, and the hotel lobby, which looks like it could have been a movie set from “Jailhouse Rock“.

When I read a story, several months ago now, about the old jail’s reopening as a swanky hotel, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a song there – here’s the acoustic demo we’ve been working from for the record version. If and when we get the band to Boston, I’m looking forward to singing this one in the lobby…

The Dimes – Charles Street (Acoustic Demo)

Have a great week and a Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Johnny

Charles Street Jail, circa 1930

I started working on a song based on Thoreau’s “Walden” almost a year ago – the world he describes in his writing is definitely one that appeals to me, and I’d been wanting to try my hand at a tune like this. For months I only had the first verse of lyrics down, unsure of what the song wanted to be…so the “Walden” song idea kind of hung around. Every once in a while I’d play a bit of the tune for one of the guys and they would respond with “dude…you really need to finish that”. Finally, a few months ago, I had some lyric ideas to try and took the song off the shelf. This time around, rather than writing the lyric about Thoreau himself, which just didn’t seem to fit the song, I tried writing a story of two people taking a trip together, riding through the countryside just outside Boston, on their way to Walden…and seeing some familiar faces along the way. It’s one of my favorites, and though we’re still tweaking different production bits, I thought I’d post what we’ve got so far.

Just click below to listen to or download the demo:

The Dimes – Walden and the Willow Tree

Hope you guys have a great weekend – we’ll see you soon -

Johnny

Hey folks – hope your week is going well – I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the studio these past few days, putting the finishing touches on a couple of the tunes and taking them over to Jeff Saltzman’s place for some mixing. He’s doing some mixing on a song called “Susan Be” (which is up on the blog as well), and one of our favorites of the new songs called “Celia’s Garden“.

The lyrics are based on the paintings of Childe Hassam, a 19th Century impressionist painter from Boston,  who spent his summers in Maine at Celia Thaxter’s Garden…(in fact, the song opens with a playful reference to the “poppies on the Isle of Shoals“). I had such a great experience writing the “Ballad of Winslow Homer“, based on Homer’s paintings, that I wanted to try it again with a song based on Hassam’s work. There’s so much imagery and texture, even in the titles of the paintings – it was a ton of fun to write and even more fun to play, and I hope it comes through in the song – it’s definitely one of our favorites. Click below to listen (or download) and let us know if you like it -

The Dimes – Celias Garden (DEMO)

Have a great rest of the week and we’ll see you guys soon -

Johnny