Busy times. Happy to let you know the Shadow photo book is out to the designer, and should be off to the printer in about a week. Stay tuned for details on how to order it. Nick Blagona has done a gorgeous job remastering Animal Planet's "Dawn" CD and Bob Mussell was kind enough to locate the negative for the original cover art, which looks fantastic. I'm preparing both "Dawn" and "Toast," neither of which was ever formally released, for world-wide digital release sometime in the next month. I'll let you know when those are ready. I've decided to release those under the MLJ & the Gatos Malos flag rather than Animal Planet, since I've long abandoned the AP URL, and the Discovery network has taken it over to the extent that they've permeated the web and no one would every be able to find those records if I used Animal Planet as the band name.
Also, Preparations for the new MLJ & the Gatos Malos record we will record in Buffalo late November are going superbly. We are in the process of writing and finishing up a terrific batch of exciting and soulful new music and I can't wait to be back in a studio with Rodney Appleby, Percy Jones III, Jim Runfola, Jim Bohm, and Nick Blagona. Reggie Evans, a great drummer from Buffalo, will be playing drums on the record.
Deadlines are good. The last record took me a few years because there weren't any deadlines. With this one, we've got studio time booked, plane tickets purchased, plans made, etc...so it's forced me to spend a lot of concentrated time writing and searching for things I actually want to talk about and to finish the ideas quickly with virtual input from the guys as we go. It's not as fun as writing in a room together, but it will have to do for now. We'll have a week to rehearse before recording, so final adjustments etc... can happen organically then, which is great and necessary. We're going to record live off the floor for the basic tracks
Percy and Rodney were never in Animal Planet at the same time, if memory serves, and they're two of the most talented people I've ever worked with, so I'm particularly looking forward to the Gatos Malos record and the show at Sportsmens on 11/22 where we'll also be joined by the amazing Randy Cooke (who played drums on the 2006 north American Ian Gillan tour and who works with Five for Fighting, Smashmouth, occasionally for Dave Stewart and Ringo Starr, and who played on records for Rick Emmett, Alannah Myles, Kim Mitchell and many many others). Speaking of Sportsmens, this morning I'm working on organizing the set list and it's going to be heavy on the Animal Planet material from Dawn & Toast with some new songs, perhaps something off last year's "Death by Sunshine" and a few covers you might not expect.
Onward!