So we’ve had the good fortune of being involved with a number of cool recording projects over the last few months , and said records are starting to see their way into the world. All of the releases are available on iTunes, Amazon.com, etc. Here’s a sample:

Jim Mize: Release it to the Sky, Fat Possum Records
Jason Weinheimer: Record, Mix, Produce, Bass, keys
Charles Wyrick: Electric guitars
Hear tracks here.

Christopher Denny: Age Old Hunger, 00.02.59 Records
Jason Weinheimer: Record, Mix, Wurlitzer
Hear tracks here.

Boondogs: A Thousand Ships, Max Recordings
Jason Weinheimer: Record, Mix, Produce, etc.
Charles Wyrick: Guitars
Hear tracks here.

Easys: Blood Capsule, Max Recordings
Jason Weinheimer: Record, Mix
Charles Wyrick: Guitars, Q Chord
Hear tracks here.

So Red Chuck and I missed Daniel Lanois, Buddy Miller, Brian Blade, and Brady Blade playing in Shreveport last December because of a gig here in Little Rock. Never Again. Footage has surfaced:

Wow. Dig Cate Blanchett as Bob:

“Somehow my losing just comes natural, like a Southern Democrat.”
~~Kevin Russell, “Promenade”

The Gourds have a new record out today… And I daresay it’s a return-to-form. I was obsessed with “Dem’s Good Beeble” (1996) for a good two years after it came out. Somewhere along the way, though, the Gourds lost my attention. Things got goofy. Things got weird. My new favorite band lost it’s center.

But Noble Creatures has the same vibe that drew me to the first Gourds record (over!) a decade ago.. Equal parts fun and tender. Kevin Russell writes songs that fall somewhere between Murmur-era R.E.M. and Hank Williams, Sr., and the Gourds play them like the Band if they were from the Texas/Louisiana border.

Not sure why they let Max sing a song this time out. It’s all I can do to accept Jimmy Smith as an equal to Russell. Whatever. The record is really good.

The Gourds | Noble Creatures:
Stream it here

So Sellout has a bit of a keyboard fetish, much to the chagrin of our studio mates. A 1940s Hammond organ here, a couple of 70’s Wurlitzers there, several cheap combo organs, string synths, Casios, etc. But what we thought we REALLY wanted is a Mellotron. But today in The Believer we read about Rick Wakeman’s prototype Birotron— a Mellotron-type instrument made from 8 track cassettes.

Read more here: The Believer | Ker Chunk!

Here’s some nice “studio footage” from Spoon. We’ve been wearing the new record out here at Sellout. Dig the drum kit. Fairly certain that’s a TapeOp magazine on the snare drum.

EDIT: As of this weekend the video is no longer available online. Will repost when it surfaces again. I should have noted earlier, though, that this is the only song Jon Brion produced for the record. Maybe he wasn’t pleased about the status of the “producer” at the end of the video.
EDIT AGAIN: Finally hit youtube: