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

It was only a few short months ago that we were standing in the construction site for what would become the new Mississippi Studios, in a light rain (there was no roof at the time), singing “Lovely Mary Dyer” for a video series called “Razing Mississippi“. Now, this coming Friday night, we’ll be playing our first full show under the roof at the new and improved venue. We’re extremely excited about the show, and honored to be sharing the stage with two of the best songwriters in town: the incomparable Chris Robley (a good friend and incredible musician), and the genius behind one of our favorite bands, Dolorean, singer/songwriter Al James. For more info on the show, visit the Mississippi Studios website at http://www.mississippistudios.com.

We’re also extremely excited to annouce that we’ve finished recording our new record, “The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry”, and will be sending the album to mastering in a couple of weeks. We’ll be posting the track listing on the blog page soon, but for now, in honor of our first full show back at the beautiful Mississippi Studios, it seemed fitting to post one of the songs slated to be on the new album, “Lovely Mary Dyer”, for you to listen to, download, and share.  And, of course, feel free to go back and watch the video from this past November (just click the picture below) as well…the place looks a lot different now!

The Dimes – Lovely Mary Dyer (click to listen)

Hope you have a great rest of the week and weekend, and maybe we’ll see you on Friday night?

Johnny

I wrote a song a couple of years ago called “New York 1930” about the Communist riots that were happening in New York towards the end of the 1920s and early 1930s. The song was released on “The Silent Generation” and was certainly the song critics either loved or hated. When I started writing this latest batch of songs about Boston, MA, I came across a story about the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and how an incredibly prejudiced judge named Webster Thayer presided over the trial. After finding the pair guilty of murder, with little to no evidence showing they actually commited a crime (in fact, one of the men was known to have been nowhere near the scene of the crime at the time of the murder), they were sentenced to death by electric chair. Judge Thayer, who referred to Sacco and Vanzetti as “anarchist bastards” and boasted to his country club friends that he would “get them good and proper“, denied all 5 motions for a retrial. Their eventual executions were the cause of riots around the globe for years to come, including those in New York in 1930.

Judge Webster Thayer

I’ve heard that actors often love playing the bad guy because of the freedom it gives them to be creative with the role. That was my approach with this song – I’ve never played the bad guy in a song before, and, as far as I’m concerned, Webster Thayer was a bad, bad man. Badder than Leroy Brown, that’s for sure. Click the link below to play (or right click to download) the song:

The Dimes – Webster Thayer (click to listen)

Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco

Have a great week y’all – for those in the Portland area, we’ll be at Mississippi Studios on Wednesday night (March 4th) for the Mississippi Rising show…should be an incredible night. We’ll see you there -

Johnny

Our friends at Mississippi Studios, here in Portland, are documenting the construction process for their new venue in a most interesting way: they are filming artists performing live at the construction site and posting the videos online at a site called “Raising Mississippi“. It’s an awesome idea and we recently had the chance to be a part of it – Pierre, Ryan and I went down the street (literally, it’s just down the street from Pierre’s house) to the construction site and performed “Mary Dyer” on a rainy Portland afternoon…click the pic below to link to the site and see the video. (You may have to scroll down to find it)…oh, and our most sincere thanks to Ryan and Jeana for hanging out in the rain with us!