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