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

I started working on a song based on Thoreau’s “Walden” almost a year ago – the world he describes in his writing is definitely one that appeals to me, and I’d been wanting to try my hand at a tune like this. For months I only had the first verse of lyrics down, unsure of what the song wanted to be…so the “Walden” song idea kind of hung around. Every once in a while I’d play a bit of the tune for one of the guys and they would respond with “dude…you really need to finish that”. Finally, a few months ago, I had some lyric ideas to try and took the song off the shelf. This time around, rather than writing the lyric about Thoreau himself, which just didn’t seem to fit the song, I tried writing a story of two people taking a trip together, riding through the countryside just outside Boston, on their way to Walden…and seeing some familiar faces along the way. It’s one of my favorites, and though we’re still tweaking different production bits, I thought I’d post what we’ve got so far.

Just click below to listen to or download the demo:

The Dimes – Walden and the Willow Tree

Hope you guys have a great weekend – we’ll see you soon -

Johnny

Happy New Year! Tonight the ball drops in Times Square on one of the best years I can remember – we started the year having just released “The Silent Generation” and we end it wrapping up work on our second full length record and having just released an EP of what’s to come in the “New England EP”.

‘08 was a year of politics in this country – I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifetime, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. It was a year of crazy ups and downs – from $4 a gallon gasoline to stock market crashes – a year where I had the chance to go to Italy and experience an incredible art and culture…and climb castle towers. It was a year of writing songs, almost 30 songs (that I’ll admit to), all surrounding the history and people of an amazing place called Boston. It was a year of new instruments, new beards, new friends and old friends…

Every year has it’s up and downs, but, for me anyway, 2008 had many more ups than it did downs. If you all get a chance to reflect on the year a bit, let us know what you’ll remember most about 2008. Happy New Year!

The Dimes – Auld Lang Syne (click to listen)

Johnny

Photo Courtesy of Sophia OldenKamp

I hope you guys had a good Thanksgiving – we took a break from recording to spend the long weekend with friends and family…Pierre’s birthday was a couple of days before Thanksgiving, so the good times started early this year for us. But, in the midst of it all, I snuck in some time to write another song for the new record and had the chance to get together with the guys this past weekend and do some recording. We’ll be in the studio(s) for most of the month of December, and we’ll keep you all up to date on our progress. We’ll also be posting another demo to the blog later this week, so look for that…for now, we put “Clara” up on the blog page and myspace page to tide you over…it’s another new song working it’s way towards the “New England” album and is one of the tracks we put on the new EP. That’s Pierre on the harmonica…he grew up on Neil Young, which I think explains a lot…

Have a great week -

Johnny

I finally had a chance to see the recent John Adams series done by HBO (with Paul Giamatti playing the former President and Laura Linney as Abigail Adams) - we finished the last two episodes last night and I really enjoyed the entire series from start to finish. The story begins just before the Boston Massacre and takes you through the incredible life and trials of John Adams, right up to his death on July 4th, 1826…50 years to the day the Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Continental Congress.  Obviously, Paul Giamatti is a master and completely nails the performance, and Laura Linney as Abigail was amazing as well. I really felt like I got to know them and their relationship, as well as John’s very complicated friendship with Thomas Jefferson, who incidentally died on the very same day that John Adams did. The last living founding fathers die on the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence…pretty poetic, wouldn’t you say?

Anyway, as any reader of this blog probably knows, I’m not only a history buff, but I’m working on a group of songs about New England and in particular the Boston area…and John Adams hailed from Quincy, MA, just outside of Boston, so this series was a must see for me. Check it out if you get the chance – interesting stuff.

Hope you’re having a good start to the week -

Johnny