The Band of Brothers: News

We received an e-mail from Wavelength Radio Promotion today expressing an interest in promoting "Piece Of Cake." Could be a good thing. Could be.

To celebrate our 100th Facebook fan we have discounted the price of our CD at CD Baby!! For the next few days you can buy the CD for $8.99 or download it for $7.99 -such a deal!!!

Lots of fun performing at Java Lake tonight for the 75th Anniversary of their colony! So very cool to be performing for an entire lake community!!

Seattle Punk meets Dansville Folk? Why not? Come on out Monday eve from 7 - 8:30 PM at the Dansville Town Gazebo on Washington St. & Red Jacket Road to discover why Jesse Sprinkle was the natural choice to drum on The Band of Brothers latest CD "Piece Of Cake."

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/poor-old-lu-p206226
By the way - Jesse Sprinkle disowns EVERYTHING stated about Poor Ol' Lu at the All Music review!! Quote: "just for the record.....this review of Lu is officially the most inaccurate review to date. I'm not sure how it managed to survive through the years. We were a melodic brit-rock style band. And we had never even heard of the bands that they site as our main influences. Proves to me that even people in the christian industry do hard drugs."

The concert in Dansville on Monday eve (7 - 8:30) is developing nicely - joining us on drums will be Jesse Sprinkle, (of Poor Old Lu fame - look it up!), Penny Cloonan on flute, and Sean Michael Smith on saxophone & vocals. With any luck, Aaron Hall will join us on violin!!

Big News!! Our new CD "Piece of Cake" is ready for delivery & will be available for sale at our concerts on Sunday (at the Dessert Festival at the United Methodist Church in Sparta) and on Monday at the Summer Concert Series in Dansville (at the Gazebo on Washington St.) Woo Hoo!!! This has been A Long Time Comin'!!! Thanks to all of our friends, family, and fans for your support!!!!

Music, artwork, etc. sent to Spinergy - "Piece Of Cake" is just a week or so away from release!!!!!

Another quick recording & photo session this morning - now it's down to e-mails & phone calls as we make final minor adjustments and count-down to sending "Piece Of Cake" to the manufacturer in a couple of days!!! Color us excited!!!

Photo session yesterday for a group photo for "Pice Of Cake" - and a zillion shots today of a slice of cake for the cover. Thanks to Kathy Stevens & Jesse Sprinkle for their photography skills!

Just finished listening to the Final Mix of our new CD "Piece Of Cake" - WOW!! What a thrill to hear the full realizations of songs we sketched out at home, rehearsals & shows during the past few years!! Thank you to all of our family, friends & fans for your support during this project that has been in the works for so very long - we could not have done it without you!

Recovering from the Marathon Gig Day of yesterday. 6 hours of performance - yikes! Thank goodness for the break at Alan Fox & Cathy Fox's cottage on Java Lake before our evening gig at Burlingham Books. After all the studio work we've done, it was fun to have a chance to perform our new songs to an audience. (Great to see our friend Annabelle Foos at the Perry Farmers Market, too!)

Summer's here and the time is right for Dancin' In The Streets with The Band of Brothers!!!! We will be performing live at the Perry Farmers Market this morning from 10 until 12, at the Arcade Farmers Market from 2 until 4, and at Burlingham Books from 7 until 9 this evening!!

Here's the tentative song order for our new CD "Piece of Cake": 1. Old Uncle Joe. 2. Dancing In Time. 3. Piece Of Cake. 4. The Cat Song. 5. Silent Ocean. 6. Wild Bill. 7. Kissing And Hugging. 8. We Used To Ride The Freight Trains. 9. Palm Of Your Hand. 10. Driving Granny Home. 11. Little Green Devils. 12. Irish Morning. 13. Punxsutawney Phil. 14. Your Face Is Love.

Another exciting day in the recording studio - with perhaps only one more to go! "Piece of Cake" is on schedule for release in July!!!!

We just delivered our jingle for "Boston Brown Rub" - soon to be featured on their website and at sale events! Of course, we offer samples of the "Mojo" blend with purchases of our CDs at all our shows. (And use it on all of our grilled & roasted meat at home!) Thanks to Dave Werth for a great product & his support of our music!

Breakfast with The BoB - listening to the rough mixes of "Piece of Cake" and planning for our next recording session with Jesse Sprinkle.

Another great day in the studio! We put finishing touches on "Silent Ocean", Wild Bill", "Little Green Devils", "Palm Of Your Hand", and "Piece Of Cake." Thanks to Sean Smith for his perfect saxophone solos on "Piece Of Cake" and to Jesse Sprinkle for his excellent drum work on "Wild Bill," "Silent Ocean" & "Palm Of Your Hand." We're thinking one more session might complete the CD!!

For reasons known only to the band, "Driving Granny Home" kicked butt tonight! OK - we'll let you in to our secret - while performing at a local bistro, an "elderly" gal made several comments that we should turn down our music. I think she REALLY meant we should pack up our instruments & go home! Anyway, she was making more noise than we were! So, we took a break, ate some food, then came back & cranked into a version of "Driving Granny Home" that rocked the house - and that was the last we saw of our "elderly" friend. So be it.

Great time in the recording studio today with Jesse Sprinkle, Nicholas Peri, Chuck Livecchi, Alan Fox, and Aaron Hall. Alas, we are not quite done, but progress continues with "Piece of Cake"!!! Aaron recorded some beautiful violin for "Irish Morning."

Check out our NEW music store on Facebook!!!! Simply go to our Facebook page & click on "Music Store" on the left hand side below our group photo! Let us know what you think of it!

Great time at the Naples Spring Artisan Showcase! Thanks to Annabelle Foos, Andrea Dodge, and Penny Jacobs Cloonan for attending! Andrea sounded great singing "Goodbye To The Green" with The Band of Brothers & Penny was her typically fabulous self playing flute for "The Highwayman Waltz"!

Mixing/overdub session with Jesse Sprinkle went great today! Another scheduled for next week. Now, if I can just get Sean Smith to sweeten a track with some saxophone!!

Day 2 of recording our latest CD "Piece Of Cake" went as smooth as we could have hoped. Once again the session was held at Bluebrick Studio with Jesse Sprinkle working the board. We started with a demo recording of a jingle for "Boston Brown Steak Rub" - one of the sponsors of our "BoB Value Bag." Then we got down to business - a few warm-ups for Jamie's "The Cat Song" & then we ripped into it - resulting in a very good take, and when Alan added a banjo overdub, we had a great start to the day. We then tackled a re-take of Alan's "Your Face Is Love." We spent quite a bit of time getting the groove right & once again came up with a superior take. Between takes I was playing a steel-bodied guitar, and Jamie began playing his newest song "Why Baby Why (A Redneck's Lament)". Although Alan had never heard the song before, and I had only performed it once before during a show, we decided to give the song a try - and didn't we nail it! Next up was Alan's "Silent Ocean." I decided to wait until another session to overdub the slide guitar part I usually play in concert and picked up the bass. Again, we put down a very good take. Finally, we began to work on my "Wild Bill." Although this song is now a few years old, and we have consistently worked on it during rehearsals, we have rarely performed it. We got through a complete take, but after listening to it, we realized it was performed at too slow a pace. A second attempt was just what we wanted and presto! we had completed the basic tracks for the CD!

What a treat to have Jamie Steven's mother in the audience last night at Burlingham Books! Of course, that meant I had to sing her favorite song "Why Paddy's Not At Work Today." Also, Thanks to Rick Hauser for stopping by - we are looking forward to our return to Perry NY and the Perry Farmers Market on June 18th!

“Living Up On The Hill” was the first original song I brought to The Band of Brothers - within a few weeks of our initial gathering in 2002. I wrote the lyrics and melody extemporaneously on guitar (in the key of “A” - my favorite) in one fell swoop looking out my back window at the cornfields and hillsides to the west of my house, tossing in spontaneous impressions of the home my wife & I had shared since moving to our hilltop in 1985. I had the group in mind as I worked on the song - hoping to fashion a song with a sing-along chorus that the guys might enjoy joining in with. I guess it worked, as it quickly became a favorite of ours at rehearsals and at our early shows. It was at rehearsals that the guys suggested I come up with a musical phrase to begin the song. Not surprisingly, I used the notes that accompany the lyric “living up on the hill” (B-B-B-A-G-A). The town of Ossian honored the song two years later by including it in their bi-centennial book about the town. “Living Up On The Hill” became the title song of our 1st CD, and we continue to perform it at our shows. By the way - I couldn't resist tossing in a few "yeah-yeah-yeahs" & tip my hat to the Liverpool lads who were such a big part of my musical upbringing. Jesse Sprinkle was kind enough to add his drumming to the recording.