Hey friends -

We’re excited to say that “Save Me, Clara” is the NPR song of the day today (May 28th)!  (Click the NPR logo above to see the article).  Thanks so much to the kind folks at NPR and to the always amazing Barbara Mitchell for a great write up and post.  We love NPR  : )

We’re excited to say that this month our new record, “The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry“, was officially released nationally.  This month also marks the anniversary of the infamous “Boston Tea Party“, an event which rattled Boston and inspired a (soon to be) nation, and it’s captivated our imaginations ever since.  It was in the spirit of the Sons of Liberty, the group of Bostonian rebels who led the Boston Tea Party, that the song “The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry” came about.  The chorus of the song eventually lent it’s lyrics to the title of the new record.  I wrote the majority of the song over a year ago, but it wasn’t until a few months ago that we finished recording it with the band – while the song was finished a bit late to make the new album, we’ve included it, along with several other favorites from the “King” sessions, on a bonus EP of sorts that’s available free with the purchase of our new record from our online store.  You can find the store by clicking here or the picture below…the EP is called “William Dawes and Other Forgotten Gems“…

To celebrate the release of the new album…and the Boston Tea Party…we’re posting the song “The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry” as a free download. To listen to it, check out the player on the upper right corner of the site. The new song is the second one in the player. To download it, use the Free Song widget below or click the link below to download the mp3…

The Dimes – The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry (single)

Have a great week and hope to see you soon -

Johnny

This drawing by Ben Franklin was a popular image in Boston during the months leading up to the Revolution – for the Sons of Liberty, a rebellious group of Bostonians who orchestrated the Boston Tea Party, it became their calling card and principle message, and it inspired a new nation. It also had a hand in inspiring our new record…

We’re excited to have released “The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry” locally this past weekend (and a huge thanks to all who were able to make it out to the shows).  It’s been quite the year finishing up this album and we’re thrilled to finally have the chance to get it out to you…thank you for being patient with us : )

If you’d like to purchase a copy of the new record, click here to go to our online store – you’ll notice there are many options…you can get the new record instantly via digital download, or order the physical CD and get the instant digital download free – we’re especially excited to have the album available in vinyl, and some packages even include a little bonus B-sides EP of songs from the “King” sessions that aren’t on the full record and won’t be officially released for another few months…click the album cover below to go to the store and see for yourself:

Thanks again friends – hope you had a great weekend and we’ll see you soon -

Johnny

Hey all – hope your week is off to a smooth start.  It’s an exciting week for us in The Dimes camp as we’re having our first CD release shows this weekend for the new album.  We’ve been looking forward to this weekend for what feels like forever.  And, to add a little coincidence to it all, it just so happens that this week (today in fact) marks the 137th anniversary of the Great Boston Fire of 1872 – the fire, and the heroics of Boston Fire Chief John Damrell, are the subject and inspiration for the song “Damrell’s Fire”, which is the first track off the new record.

As for the story, the Great Fire of 1872 was certainly one for the books.  Historic Boston may very well have suffered the same fate the city of Chicago did just one year prior had it not been for Boston Fire Chief John Damrell.  Wooden roofs on structures built right along side each other, inadequate water supply in much of the city, together with a horse flu epidemic that kept the city’s fire engines from moving anywhere quickly seemed to have created the perfect storm in the winter of 1872.  Had it not been for John Damrell and the brave men of the BFD, historic Boston may have been left in ashes.  The song inspired by the story, “Damrell’s Fire”, is over in our new player on the blog page and up on our new myspace page, so feel free to listen – here’s the info again for the record release shows this weekend!

Friday, November 13th
Seattle Record Release Show
The Tractor Tavern
5213 Ballard Ave NW
Seattle, WA 98107-4809
9pm

Saturday, November 14th
Portland Record Release Shows
Mississippi Studios
3939 Mississippi Ave
Portland 97227
Early show: 7pm
Late show: 10pm

Have a great rest of the week and we hope to see you soon…maybe this weekend?

Johnny

The Dimes – Abigail, Don’t Be Long (Click to Listen)

And speaking of the new album, we’ve had several very nice reviews of the record over the past few weeks – click the links below if you’d like to read what the bloggers are saying…

http://your-moment-of-zen.blogspot.com/2009/10/dimes-king-can-drink-harbour-dry.html

http://wildysworld.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-dimes-king-can-drink-harbor-dry.html

Here’s hoping you have a great week and for those in the Pacific Northwest, we hope to see you soon – don’t forget to mark your calendars for the CD release shows…Friday, November 13th in Seattle at the Tractor Tavern, 9pm – and Saturday, November 14th in Portland at Mississippi Studios – 7pm early show (all ages), 10pm late show (21 + up) – see you then!

Johnny

On October 19th, 1781 – almost 230 years ago today – British troops under the command of General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, all but ending the war for American Independence.  Cornwallis was so ashamed at his defeat that he didn’t even attend the surrender, claiming he was ill and sending a subordinate to deliver his sword instead – no matter, General Washington and the Americans (with a great deal of help from the French) had finally won their freedom and as the British band played “The World Turned Upside Down” it must have truly seemed so.

Granted, the new record is about Boston and this didn’t happen in Boston, but it all certainly started there and it seemed appropriate to post…and I’m sure there was quite the celebration in Boston…

Here’s hoping you have a great week and we’ll hopefully see you soon…for those in Seattle and Portland, don’t forget the CD release shows are coming up – Nov. 13th in Seattle @ the Tractor Tavern and Nov. 14th in Portland @ Mississippi Studios!

See you then,

Johnny

We’re thrilled to announce the release of our new record, “The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry”, with a local CD release show scheduled for Saturday, November 14th at Mississippi Studios here in Portland and an official national release to follow. The record will feature 12 songs, each with their own ties to historic Boston, MA (hometown of our own Pierre Kaiser) -

We’ll be playing two shows at Mississippi Studios that Saturday (Nov. 14th), with a special all ages acoustic show in the evening and a full show (with some very special guest appearances) later that night – tickets for both shows are available on the Mississippi Studios site…

CD release shows are also on the books for Seattle, Eugene and Ashland as well – just click the shows link for more info.  We can’t wait to get the new record out to you – in the meantime, you can find several demos and acoustic versions of songs from the upcoming record here on the site (see the new music player towards the top)…

Hope to see you all soon -

Johnny

The Dimes at St. Cupcake from The Penny Jam on Vimeo.

The Penny Jam is a video series out of Portland that features artists in unique locales…so when asked where we’d like to shoot, we naturally chose a cupcake shop. A huge thanks to Portland’s beloved St. Cupcake for letting us in the doors…and for sparing a few cupcakes…and to Scott Carver and The Penny Jam Team for inviting us and for the great film work -

“Abigail, Don’t Be Long” is one of the songs slated to appear on our upcoming record, “The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry”, due out this fall. You can also find an early demo of this song here…

Here’s hoping you have a great week -

Johnny

Looking through all the blog posts and demos over the past few months, I realized that I hadn’t ever post a version of the song that started all this historic Boston madness…so here it is in it’s finished form. We actually decided to keep the original acoustic and vocal tracks from the demo on this one, adding a few little pieces here and there to round out the arrangement – Ehren’s old world sounding lap steel solo for example…feel free to download or stream the song from the link below:

The Dimes – Boston (Trimountaine) click to listen

We’re also hoping to have the final album artwork done in the coming weeks and I’ll make sure to post a picture of the album cover and the final track listing once we have it. Until then, enjoy the song and keep in touch…

Have a great week and we’ll see you soon -

Johnny

I recently stumbled on a rough demo of the song “Damrell’s Fire” that I thought you guys might like to hear.  The (finished) song will be featured on our upcoming album, The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry, due out later this summer. Click the link below to hear the rough demo…

The Dimes – Damrells Fire EARLY DEMO (click to listen)

A little background info: In the winter of 1871, Boston fire cheif John Damrell was in Chicago surveying the damage of the greatest fire the United States had ever seen. He was convinced that unless they took immediate action, Boston would soon face the same fate…and, unfortunately, he was right.  A terrible fire broke out in the old financial district of Boston, and the combination of the buildings being so close together and their wooden roofs made for a perfect storm…one could say the flames were “jumping roof to roof like they were running from a robbery”.  But Damrell’s actions and the changes that were made in the year before the Great Boston Fire may have saved the historic town – the firefighters in Boston were able to stop the fire before it spread through the entire city.  Along with these old photos from the aftermath of the fire, I also found a link to a letter that John Damrell wrote to the widow of a fallen firefighter – this letter, along with a ton of cool info, is on a website for a documentary about John Damrell called “Damrell’s Fire”. Catchy title, no? (Click here to read the letter.)

Have a great week y’all – see you soon,

Johnny

PS – to hear a more recent demo of the song, check the right column of the website – there’s a few new tunes to download including “Damrell’s Fire”…