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

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

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”…

Hey y’all – hope you’ve had a good week. It’s been a pretty mellow one here in P-town.  We had another solid recording session last night, and slowly but surely we’re starting to see the new record take shape. And speaking of the new record, here’s another song making it’s way towards the album. This is one of my personal favorites – I had a lot of fun with the lyrics and the imagery on this tune, and it’s full of strange bits of history. It’s a story set around the Great Boston Fire of 1872, which some say might have destroyed the entire city had it not been for Boston fire chief John Damrell. Check it out and let us know what you think…

The song is posted for you to listen to and/or download with the other demos, over towards the right…

Lithograph of Boston and the Great Fire of 1872 (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library)

-Johnny