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

Good day friends!

We want to give you all an update into our world as of late… As you’ve probably heard by now, we’ve got a brand new record ready to release – The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry – a record about the people, places, and history around early day Boston. The songs are stories of abolition, women’s suffrage, famous artists, people and major events that have shaped our great nation.

We’ve been rehearsing like crazy lately, in preparation for next week’s record release shows, which will feature a few extra friends that will be sitting in to lend a hand. In fact, there’ll be a DOUBLE record release show on Saturday, November 14th at Mississippi Studios in Portland, where we’ll kick things off with an early, all ages and family friendly show at 7pm, that’ll be more intimate and acoustic feeling. Then at 9:30pm, we’ll give folks a no-holds-barred, full band performance that is sure to end in a sweaty mess of fun.

I honestly can’t explain enough how excited we all are to be finished with the record and to finally be able to share it with all of you. It’s been a ton of work in the making, so you and all your friends should come out and celebrate with us and enjoy one hell of a party!

To tide you over a bit, we’re giving you a free song that you can download. The song is from the new record and is titled, “Celia’s Garden.”

Or if big clickable images scare you… you can click on this link to download the song too:

+ http://t.opsp.in/Vv6

Also, here’s a nice little review of the record that came in today from music blog, Tuneraker.com over in Europe:

+ http://www.tuneraker.com/index.php/music-features/the-dimes-the-king-can-drink-the-harbour-dry/

Thanks again and we look forward to seeing you in Seattle or Portland next week!

- Ryan Johnston

“These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.” – Abigail Adams

We’ve been quietly tucked away in the rehearsal studio over the past few weeks, working on the show and adding more new songs, and very much looking forward to the CD release show weekend of Nov. 13th and 14th.  One of my personal favorites from the new record is a song called “Abigail, Don’t Be Long” – the song was inspired by Abigail Adams, an amazing woman who spent many years apart from her husband during the Revolution and not only ran the farm and raised a family, she was an early advocate for Women’s Rights and an outspoken Abolitionist.  This past weekend just happened to be the anniversary of John and Abigail’s marriage and now seemed like a great time to post the finished song Abigail inspired.  We released an early demo for this song a while back, and while some of the initial parts and ideas were kept, we changed a few things and had a lot of fun adding little details here and there.  Here’s the version that will appear on the new album, “The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry”, which we’ll be releasing in a few weeks – just click the link below to stream or right click to download the mp3 -

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