Dirty Money Mid January!

This brand new five song EP is currently being pressed and printed. The tracks were recently mastered by the expert Mike Bozzi at Bernie Grundman.

Here is a listing of the tracks:

1. Dirty Money and Filthy Love
2. Me and Thomas Hardy
3. Let's Climb the Staircase
4. I Love You Regardless
5. Didn't Have the Time

Radio promotion, release parties, and a tour are in the works. More news about the release and dates soon.

EP Nearing Completion

Today, Aaron and I are putting finishing touches on a ghostly song called "Let's Climb the Staircase." This will most likely be one of the five songs on our upcoming EP called "Dirty Money and Filthy Love." It's looking like December will be the completion and release of it all! Soon, we'll head down to Bernie Grundman Studios to polish the tracks off ina fab. mastering session.

As of yet, we have not CD release parties set but will start in on the planning very soon. Please check back with us on this front as we'd love for you to be there when we release the EP.

Machete in Biker Bar

On the road, coming home after a brilliant weekend of touring. Currently listening to the wonderful new Fast Computers album Heart Geometry. Beautiful synth layerings, satalite beeping loops, and rich string sections.

So where’ve we been?

Friday, we drove for thirteen hours straight to Eugene, Oregon, and met up with Peter and Jen of TFC, who were kind enough to put us up in their mid-century party pad. Very quickly we got to playing Guitar Hero, ripping it up on such classics as Balls to the Wall and other fairly obscure, half-forgotten rock songs that make for great faux guitar playing.

Tapas for dinner, and then a quick set-up at Sam Bond’s Garage—a great little venue ranked in Esquire as one of America’s best bars. It’s a humble neighborhood haunt with great Oregon beer and of course, the local favorite—mead.

The last time we played Sam Bond’s, we noticed a hippie hanging by his knees from a tree down the street, and one stoned dude weaving on a bike down the middle of the avenue, riding no-hands while playing the sentimental section of “Free Bird” over and over again on an acoustic guitar. Eugene was living up to the hype. So this time around we didn’t know what to expect.

We set up our equipment for our first ever duo performance—just C and G with drum and bass tracks run conveniently through our iPod. There was a good sized crowd of Eugene citizenry who were nice enough to not heckle us. The other bands on the ticket—Ed Cole and The Underlings, and Luca, were in the crowd, nodding their heads and tapping their feet, a whoop of appreciation here and there. Worked out some of the kinks of our set in front of a live audience.

Later, we went back to the party place and had pizza rolls with Apple Jack and other mixed drinks from Fox and Dean’s vast collection of top shelf liquors. More Guitar hero till late into the morning.

Next day we all packed up for our show in Portland where we would share the stage with Home Before Sundown and Fast Computers.

After a relaxing afternoon of champagne and synth sessions at the HBS house, all three bands caravanned to a kick-ass sushi house.

We arrived at Kelly’s Olympian to load in. Kelly’s is a biker bar with about two million dollars worth of motorcycles hanging from the ceilings and walls—Harley’s and Indians and cafe racers of all kinds. A drunk punk with ripped jeans and chains was flailing around a taped up machete and trying to hug everyone. I guess the tape was to make the machete somehow acceptable in a crowded public place, but we found him just a bit unnerving.

The excellent sound man Nalin was dressed à la Richie Tennanbaum. He gave us a choice of background visual footage on stage—Saharan lion chases and killings or Twilight Zone footage for our background. We chose the Zone—couldn’t pass up the moody black and white weirdness.

Played about a 25 minute set of new tunes, and then Home Before Sundown—a self-proclaimed synth army of a band with four synths and backbeats and soulful vocals. Depeche Mode lovelorn angst meets earnest lovelorn kids of Portland.

Then Fast Computers took stage—an always ecstatic Jen Fox bouncing positively about those drums, the stylish Peter Dean cranking out upbeat synth and electric piano tinklings and masterful tales of their recent US tour. Fast Computers have a new line-up featuring the ever-cool Brenna Sheridan on guitar and synth and enthusiastic-dancing Andrew on bass.

Oh, and then to wrap up the night, of course, arm wrestling to the soundtrack of Sylvester Stallone’s masterful 80’s classic, Over the Top. This was a mini-tour worth remembering.

Pictures posted soon!

Dalloways Talk Shop on ABC

The Dalloways talk about Distant Fairs with local celeb news and entertainment journalist N.L. Belardes of ABC 23 after a recent show at The Dome in Bakersfield.

Watch the interview on Youtube posted below, and read a new live review on Buzz Bands.

Dark Disco and September 29

Working steadily on the mixes. Up on the block now is "Didn't Have the Time," a dark disco tune with some very cool vampiresque backing vocals. It's shaping up as one of the dance tunes along with "Dirty Money." Shooting now for a November release of the EP.

Working with our friends at Hectic Films on a video for the single, "Dirty Money." I'll keep the details under wraps for now until productions begins.

September 29 in Bakersfield is our next show for the public in Bakersfield, with Near Miss Mallet and Highway Jones.

October 19 in Portland!

We've got a great show coming up October 19 in Portland with beautiful techno cuties Fast Computers and Home Before Sundown. For details, visit The Dalloways Tour Page.

Distant Fairs Sound Bites Posted

The Dalloways have polished up yet another tune called "I Love You Regardless." This along with "Me and Thomas Hardy" and "Dirty Money" are now posted as sound bites on The Dalloways Myspace, so take a listen!

The band is actively seeking a label partner to team up with for the next big Distant Fairs EP/LP combo project, so if you'd like to hear the rest of these tracks in addition to other tunes from the project, simply email your request to the band through The Dalloways Online.

Polishing Trona

Wednesday, April 25, Aaron and I worked on the "Trona" mix. This is the toughest mix of the album, it seems, but it's most likely going to be a demo track, so we wanted to attack it first. We've got a ton of tracks to deal with, so basically this session, we picked and chose which tracks to keep, which to dump, and which to quiet. We also worked some delay and Moog effects into a few of the tracks. What I like in particular are Cortnie's backing vocals and the flugalhorn and trombone tracks -- great strengths of this song. Cortnie showed up toward the tail end of the session and offered some feedback, some yea's and nay's.

60's British Gameshows and Spaghetti Westerns

Monday, Marcy 26, and Wednesday, March 28, we managed to get into the studio and finish up all the horn parts for the new album. Trombone player Adan Infante of 40 Watt and many other bands and trumpet and flugalhorn player Thomas Lake came in and tracked my parts for "Trona," "Me and Thomas Hardy," and "Josaie."

"Josaie" is standing out as the dark horse of the lot. The trumpet part is reminiscent of a sixties spaghetti western soundtrack. The song's about three minutes long - perfect for a single - and pretty catchy if we don't say so.

The other two tracks' horn parts are lending a '60s British gameshow feel to the tunes - wonderful and rich sounding. I can almost see the BBC/Thames television broadcasting logo in my mind when I close my eyes.

Ricky also tracked some great arpeggiated and strummed electric guitar tracks for "JoSaie" - a tinge of Johnny Marr in a fabulous way.

Days of Synth

Busy day: Cortnie, AWall and I descended on the demo tunes . We shifted a few around, and some dark horses have now come to the forefront. When this happens, you've got to give them room to sprint.

We started off with "Dirty Money and Filthy Love," a song I'd scratched from the demo list because I felt it was a bit unlike some of the other tunes. But it's got too much of the "single" about it to ignore it. We developed some beautiful and outrageous synth sounds today. All three of us laid down tracks on several different boards, including one fabulous old Crumar synthesizer Aaron discovered for a few bucks at a yard sale of all places. It's so Flaming Lips it's ridiculous.

The other two songs we're considering are waiting for next week's horn sections - otherwise, they're pretty much done. So we moved on to another dark horse, the surprisingly poppy and strangely named "JoSaie." Some synth Tron strings and cellos, and suddenly this spaghetti Western style tune dripped with loveliness.

After the session, Cortnie and I relaxed for a bit at Teazers, our fave Fresno tea house, and worked on polishing up our new bio.

More more more about the Distant Fairs recordings to come. Stay tuned. Until then, enjoy they slide show of today's action.

Three Songs Shaping Up

March 16, 2007 - Royal Dutch Company in Fresno - The Dalloways are honing in on the three out of fifteen songs to be used as demos, developing developing developing through creative tracks.

On Friday, we tracked lots of keys - Hammond and Wurlitzer sounds, among others - in addition to percussion such as cymbal swells, snapping and clapping, triangle, and more.

Right now, we're considering "Me and Thomas Hardy," "Trona," and the dark horse, "Let's Climb the Staircase," which needs the most work of the three. Hopefully we can shape it up and transform it into something really unique and catchy - the key to the demo tunes.

After these three are shaped up and out to the labels, we'll be continuing to develop the rest of the fifteen songs for release. We're planning on a stateside tour in addition to a European tour, complete with radio and press promotional pushes, so we're hoping we can find the right visionary label that wants to join a full-speed ahead project.

More recording soon.

Trona Keys and Triangles

Wednesday, February 28 - Fresno - Royal Dutch Company - Aaron and I got together last Wednesday for some recording time.

We're honing in on three songs we will be using for the demo of the new album, so I brought a slew of keyboards into the studio, and we worked on keys and percussion - triangle and some great sounding Mexican maracas some friends of ours brought back across the border awhile back.

We pretty much finished most of the tracking for "Trona." All we have left for that song are horn tracks.

We'll put together polished versions of the three songs we've chosen and then send demo packs out to some major indies. That's the plan, in any case. Should be able to start sending in a few weeks at this rate.

Distant Fairs Station to Station

Wednesday, February 14 - Fresno - Royal Dutch Company Studios - This was Ricky's day. After some frustrating time spent working out hard drive issues, we finally got down to tracking some tunes. Ricky's Strat's frets definitely need some work - one in particular is making a string buzz lke a sitar - so he played my Riviera with the Seymour Duncan humbuckers in it through the Fender Twin.

"Station Girl" - This one's in 5/4 and has a pleasant lead part I wanted Ricky to play. Nailed it. It's got a bit of a low end twang to it. Beautiful.

"Kenny Filthy (The Distant Fairs)" - Tracked some pretty sliding swells on this song. Then we went on to record some trippy harpsichord to inlay into the end of the song for a dreamy fair-like atmosphere. This will be an epic tune - the epic tune of the album.

After recording, I took the Riviera to Backline in order to fix a sunken pickup I'd damaged in a previous feedback session of guitar abuse. All fixed and leveled and ready for another session.

This recording is developing!

As always, more to come.

Feedback Loveliness

Friday, February 9 - Fresno, CA - Royal Dutch Company Studios - It was all about the Riviera and it's semi-hollow body humbucker tones through various beautiful amps, including a Vox 15, and Fender Twin, and one mystery boutique with no label. Pretty standard mic set-up - a Sure 57 just a bit off the center of the cone for a nice gritty sound.

"Up Tonight" - I played it rich through the boutique, with an overdriven tone out of the neck pick-up. This was the rhythm track to accompany some acoustic sounds we've got running through this song. Also set down a strum track with pretty Bigsby tremolo bar swells throughout.

"Suffragette Chrysler" - This song is a problem child. It's kind of a straight ahead rock form, so there's always the danger that it turns into a generic cheesy rock tune, which is not really what we're looking for on this album (or any Dalloways album!), so it challenges us to get creative. For this song, we played it through the Boutique as well because it was such a nice tone. I came up with a simple little riff - more of a Go-Betweens style riff than a Slash riff, if you know what I mean, something very easy and catchy, for the background. Stumbled across this line in the way the best lines are just stumbled across, through experimenting around. This song's got hope yet!

"Stop Hangin's Around" - I tracked an overdriven rhythm line through the Fender turned way up. Beautiful! Then it was all out feedback - turned the whole rig up and through a nasty distortion pedal and set down two atrocious feedback tracks to use in and out of the song, to give it some atmosphere and depth. I abused and banged the poor guitar so much it popped a pick-up screw, and the humbucker sank into its slot like it was finished for the day.

Wednesday, February 7 - Fresno, California - Royal Dutch Company - It was all about Ricky and the Strat through the Fender Twin today, but I forgot the camera! I think we worked on "Trona" and a few others. I've got to write these things down as we go, as we're writing our own history here!

As always, more soon.

Electro a-la Dalloways

Recorded yesterday and today at Royal Dutch. Worked on electric guitars, battled strange humming equipment and the chore of finding that tone that's just right. I'm convinced that guitars are even more difficult than vocals.

Yesterday, I tracked e. guitar for Dirty Money, and today was Ricky's turn. He dialed in a nice Motown tone through the Strat/Deville combo on "Me and Thomas Hardy." Also tracked a fine delay/distortion track for "Dirty Money," a bit Jonny Marr-esque in flavour.

We're on a search for a label that wants to work together to release a beautiful and majestic album. If you know anyone...

More more more soon as these things are constantly developing! Soon we'll be living in Paris off our fabulous royalties.

Wurlitzer on Nightbird

You haven't heard from me in awhile. That's because we took a recording break for the holidays. But I started the New Year off right by laying down a Wurlitzer electric piano track for a song called "Nightbird" at the BIB studio. The sound is oh, so silky and smooth, that classic Wurlitzer vibe, with a touch of vibrato.

I worked on the part directly in the tracking, over and over again until I had what I wanted, then dropped the final finished part down a single solid take.