What? What? Derailleur activity?!? It’s true, my friends. We’re back (we never left, we just stopped updating this site) and we’ve got a freshly-pressed EP for you.
We always felt that, while some of the Bond theme songs are awesome (My picks: ‘Goldfinger,” “Nobody Does It Better,” and “Live and Let Die”), there’s a lot of room for improvement. Improvement not just in the theme songs for movies that actually made, but also for movies that they haven’t made (but should). So we recorded an EP of alternate Bond themes, and they’re available for your downloadin’ and listenin’ pleasure over on our Music page.
What’s that you say? 4 songs is too few after being gone for so long, and it’s cruel to whet your appetite and then only toss a crumb? Have no fear. Our man Jay is hard at work mixing our second full-length album, tentatively called The Dirtiest Dudes in Rock ‘N’ Roll.
So, I’ve signed up for Localtone radio and posted a couple of Derailleur tracks up there; go on over, check out the site (it looks really interesting, a good independent online radio station), and vote Derailleur every chance you get.
Uploading songs from The Cat’s Meow feels a little weird, given that we’re putting most of our material into the newer stuff, but that recording process is slow and, anyway, I still love everything on Meow.
It’s too bad, though, that we didn’t have tape rolling at practice last night, when we melted “Walking on Sunshine” down to some sort of weird experimental rock alloy and made weird sculptures out of it. I would’ve loved to be able to upload that…
This is up on our shows page, too, but I thought it’d be worth mentioning– through the aegis of our friend Lolly Pop, we’re playing at northeast Minneapolis’s Club Underground in a couple of weeks- Wednesday, August 8, to be exact. Amusingly, it’s New Band Night, but I suppose we’re still pretty new on the Rolling Stones timescale. And I guess it’ll be our first show with Todd, so there’s some newness.
Another show, probably in August, is in the works at a venue that has me just about squealing with excitement… but I’ll hold off on the announcement until things are confirmed.
In other news, we’ve moved into our new practice space in downtown St. Paul. Very cool, but it’s weird not to be in Bob’s basement… practicing in the middle of a bike-fabrication facility has always been a big part of this band. Now there are other bands practicing around us (we share walls with a couple of metal bands), and occasionally talking to us in the hallway. When they talk about making money, we pretty much have to limit it to smiling and nodding. Oh, well.
Remember, tonight, Memory Lanes, 8:30, $12, charity.
And to further entice you, a couple of teasers:
1. Here’s a list of titles for the new Bond-themed songs we’ll be playing:
Assassins Never Cry
Octopussy
Win, Lose, or Die
Live or Let Die
Live to Kill Again
2. And here are a couple of Derailleur recordings which we’ve so far kept to ourselves. Older songs, but new mixes thanks to Producer-in-Exile Jay Bauer-Clapp:
Headphones
The Million-Pound Shithammer
Lots of things going on in Derailleur-land. And here’s your chance to be part of it! And bowl!
Thing 1: After losing Jay to the state of Massachussetts, we thought our guitars were sounding awfully thin. So we’ve picked up another member, Todd Smith, to beef up the guitar noise. And we actually still consider Jay part of the band (he’s a key part of our recording process these days), so we’re up to 6 now. Clearly, it’s just a matter of time before we get to Kool & the Gang territory.
Thing 2: Show alert! And this is a weird-cool one. We’re playing at Memory Lanes on Thursday, May 10.
Sounds like a bowling alley, no? That’s because it is– if you haven’t been there, you have to see it… the stage sits in the middle of the lanes, like some sort of weird Big Lebowski-induced dream.
It’s a little on the early side; we expect to start playing a little after 8:30.
Now, the cover: it’s $12, but hang on. For one thing, this is another benefit show to raise money for the AIDS ride, so some of that 12 goes to a good cause. For another, the $12 includes bowling! $12
for a night of bowling and rock isn’t bad, is it? Especially when e’ll be playing…
Thing 3: …the first few tracks from our new project, an album of ake theme songs for James Bond movies. I don’t know what it is about he concept, but it’s spurring us to make the best music we’ve ever
done. Trust me, after you hear “Win, Lose, or Die,” you’ll never get t out of your head.
Right on. That’s the Derailleur update. See you on the 10th, and ring your bowling shoes.
–KP
So, right on. We’re in the process of making the website a little more timely, since the server logs seem to indicate that people are actually visiting. Freaky, no?
<> Anyway, in lieu of actual news, here’s the current State of Derailleur as I see it on March 7, 2007: we’re awesome. We’re still bummed by the fact that Jay Bauer-Clapp had to move to Massachussetts, but he’s actually maintaining a pretty active role in the band by working as a sort of producer-in-exile. We record tracks in St. Paul, and then get them to him through the magic of the internet; he then performs his studio wizardry to make them sound way, way better. He’s ploughing through the outtakes from The Cat’s Meow — which include about an EP’s worth of acoustic tracks– now, and we’re about to start recording songs for a second disc (or, to be more accurate, a second bunch of MP3s).
<> The show schedule for the spring is light; at the moment, a private party is all we’ve got scheduled. But I wouldn’t be shocked if we wound up at the Guthrie again before long. Any new shows will of course be reported here real quick-like.
Oh, and Mark has taken the plunge and set up a MySpace page for us.
Right on. Any new news will fly directly here.
