Our second album, Thank You For Saturday comes out on Oct. 1st, 2009.
Although over the course of my 25 years of making around 20 albums I’ve never changed the concept much, this one definitely marks a new chapter. Those of you have have known me and my musical history know that there have been two people I’ve counted on to keep this often thankless labor of love going.
My brother Jeff (at left) of course, who in addition to being the driving force behind Pop Art has since left me with the unspoken understanding that although he’d probably rather be doing something else, he is always there when I need him.
The other true musical partner I’ve had is John Glogovac (at right with Cindy Albon and David Steinhart as Smart Brown Handbag) or as I called him, Slim. Fourteen years ago he filled in as the drummer for the Smart Brown Handbag “Silverlake” tour and from that point on his role just grew. He arranged the songs, argued with me about the songs, argued with me about the shows, argued with me about the production, argued with me about guitar parts, (although Slim wasn’t a guitar player the joke became that if there was a truly tasty guitar part on a recording I didn’t play it, Slim did). Enough arguing in fact that eventually he started producing the albums himself. These are many of my favorite albums. His first production “Just Like Driving Backwards” is worth picking up if anything I’ve ever done is.
Slim passed suddenly in November of 2008 and left me kind of devastated. That’s all I’m going to say about that but it does bring me to this new album. Thematically I’m as focused or narrow depending on your personal opinion as I am musically. My credo; melodic, pop-formatted songs, about all sorts of screwed up relationships with a drinking song or two thrown in for good measure. This album is no exception. There are however some very pointed songs about some very hard days as well as songs about new connections and re-connections. To that end Jeff is back playing full time and brought his son Nate in to play guitar in the live band for good measure.
John Okennedy who last played with us on nine years ago on “Just Like Driving Backwards” plays every string instrument he could get his hands on for this one. My good friend Ray Chang who forgot that he knew how to play violin does just that and Bob Gannon who played in a swing band (of all things) with Jeff and I right after Pop Art is playing drums live.
Poor Scott Taylor (Veloria, The Black Watch) probably wishes he had never bought Pro Tools after we got to him. What started out as him producing some songs at his house became (in part because of my cat allergy) a four month stint of him moving his entire studio to the Stonegarden work space and making daily trips of about 75 miles. Without his patience and total love for music I would have tabled the record indefinitely. Instead we set-up Slim’s drums and he coached me through bashing them on these ten songs. Dealing with Jeff and I in a closed setting is no easy feat and he did it with grace.
It’s a good album, if you like what we do you’ll like it, if you don’t know us it’s about time that you did cause it doesn’t seem like we’re going away anytime soon.
Cheers, David
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