New Video out Today. "Karina"

We are thrilled to tell ya that today we are a releasing a brand new video for our new tune “Karina”. We were hired to write a catchy song for our friends at Sick Luggage---the sickest in portable personal public audio---what? It's a super hi fi digital blue tooth boombox AND our brand new banger "Karina" sounds real good on the Shaboom Box! With a bunch of help from sick luggage boombox head honcho, Noel Rabinowitz, we made a killer video. Be the first kid on the block to watch it. 

Hot tip: The former Alameda Naval Air Station doesn’t take kindly to vigilante filming without the proper city-issued filming permits and necessary one day insurance policy...even if you do try to bribe the security guard with a crisp $100 bill (dude would.not.budge). Who knew? I mean...we thought it would be no biggee for the five us + film crew + one actress AND our life-sized Bunny to frolic around a tiny borrowed camper, “The Scamp”, lit up with a bunch of Xmas lights (plugged in all willy nilly to a car's cigarette lighter) and blaring our tune loudly over and over again on that otherwise abandoned military base on a very cold, windy and rainy night.  Nonetheless, Felsen prevailed and we managed to quickly get one shot done outside the huge empty jet hangar just before the law arrived, scattering us into a ragtag fugitive fleet of 5 cars + one SUV pulling the scamp, promptly proceeding to get completely lost, majorly discombobulated (kinda creepy out there at night BTW) and causing us to nearly throw in the towel (twice), but then somehow miraculously finding an alternate location not on the old navy base (thankyouverymuch) where we parked the Scamp and quickly decorated the interior with approximately 1.7 miles of Xmas lights, 14 pineapples, 37 oranges, 9 antique lamps, 2 empty wine bottles, 4 electric guitars, 2 amplifiers, one set of souvenir Puerto Vallarta muy autentico maracas, one Shaboombox by Sick Luggage inc (cranked to full volume), one reluctantly-loaned children’s drum set, one femme fatale and of course, our own heavily-caffeinated life-sized bunny wearing L.E.D. disco gloves. "What could go wrong?", we thought while plugging in all the electrical stuff into a motley scrum of power strips and extension cables patched MacGyver style into a car's cigarette lighter. At times like that, you just put on your matching red track suits and hope for the best. You hit play on the old Shaboombox, scream “Action!”, dance, lip synch and act like total lunatics and then break it down real quick and pack it up before the light drizzle turns into a violent downpour of thunderbolts and lightning and Felsen and company are all electrocuted (don’t try this at home.) But once again, dear old Felsen prevailed and the results are pretty freakin amazing. We hope you enjoy it and will help us by shamelessly sharing the hell out of this timeless classic and vigilante-made video. Rock on amigos. 

PS.  In love with the tune and want to purchase a copy of the MP3 for a mere $1?  

new single for Felsen.

We're excited to announce to you that we have a new single out today.  This is the first tune we're putting out there from our soon-to-be released and eagerly-anticipated new LP Blood Orange Moon.  The tune is called "Vultures on Your Bones" and we're really proud of it. 

I made about 6 different attempts to record this.  I tried it in the key of G, E, F, F# and finally landed in D.  I rewrote it several times.  For a period of time it was called "Fall of the House of Zuckerberg" and then it was "Underachievers Anonymous". Both good titles (don't even think about it you songwriters out there), but something just wasn't right.  Toying around with the chords and the words and rhythm and the key and the tempo until something finally made it stick and I'm proud to report I'm content here and would love for you to listen.  enjoy it dear friends.




I wanna live where culture kills machines

and decent melodies will haunt you in your dreams.

I wanna laugh once again before I die.

Do you think that you could try?

Do you need a reason why?

From the cradle to the amp to the grave

who’s life tonight will be saved.

If there’s vultures on your bones

but they just won’t leave you alone,

they just won’t leave you alone.

I believe in you, can you believe in me

when junk technology is the new mythology?

I’ve written you a song.

If you’d like to sing along

trust your feelings they’re not wrong.

Once you hear it then it’s gone.

From the cradle to the amp to the grave

who’s life tonight will be saved.

If there’s vultures on your bones

but they just won’t leave you alone,

they just won’t leave you alone.

If my afterlife

has got a lazy undertow,

you can feel my tempo slow,

feel the windy tarmac blow.

Like leaves on the breeze

beneath the rubble and debris,

broken glass, swarm of bees

we’re stardust you and me.

From the cradle to the amp to the grave

who’s life tonight will be saved.

If there’s vultures on your bones

but they just won’t leave you alone,

they just won’t leave you alone.

LPs for me and for you...

I just took possession of a few test pressings of Felsen's new LP sent to me directly from the factory in the Czech Republic.  It's been really fun listening at the homes of friends and on my own super lo-fi turntable here at stately Griffin Manor in Alameda, CA.  

Over many long years, I've made lots of recordings as both a session drummer for hire, drummer band member and more recently as the creative benign benevolent dictator at Felsen inc (this will be our 5th release thankyouverymuch). Some of those recordings never really saw the light of day so-to-speak, while others came out on CD and way back, even as cassette tape (remember those?) releases. But this will be my first time making an actual LP.  On Friday I had the very, very deeply satisfying experience of listening to the LP test pressing from start to finish at my dear old friend Pie's house on his KILLER stereo.  Giant speakers, super high end turntable, tube amplifier, listening at a pretty high volume.  It was all very intoxicating for me. I realized how great a job Allen Clapp did mixing this sucker.  (Cudos to Myles Boisen for a stellar mastering job as well).  From the get go I told Allen this would be coming out on LP and I really believe he mixed with that in mind.  The CD version of this new Felsen release sounds really good too, BUT the LP sounds really tremendous. I realized Friday that Blood Orange Moon is really intended to be listened to on LP and really should be listened to from start to finish, digested in one sitting.  Kind of a tall order in this insane, hectic time when the collective attention span has been progressively whittled away.  (Have you even made it this far in my blog?)  I asked my brother, who is a professional symphonic musician if he listens to much music, "Nope. Too busy, too distracted" he said.  Yikes. Not boding well for me trying to get this album out into the universe.  I get it people.  Enjoy Blood Orange Moon on your computer while you're working, or at home making dinner, or making love, or in the bath, or in your earbuds when you're at the gym working out on the treadmill.  However you want to do it , ultimately is fine with me, BUT if you do get the beautiful opportunity to actually listen to the LP, alone when the house is otherwise quiet and you've silenced your phone and slowed down your heart rate and your lying still for 44 minutes, I think you'll really get it and love it.  I promise.  #sodamnworthit   Preorder your Blood Orange Moon LP Now.

Here's a sneak preview of one of the new tunes.  Enjoy!  

In the meantime, we have a few really fun live and local shows coming up around Halloween weekend.  We headline the Ivy Room on Friday Oct 27.  It's Thriller Flash Mob.  What?  A Thriller-themed Halloween Show (dress up y'all).  3 great local bands will each be playing a hit from MJ's Thriller album in their set and then a grand finale of all the bands crammed together on the Ivy's stage playing the tune "Thriller" while you'll be out in the audience doing the Thriller dance.   That's right.  Super Sexy DJ Huggaboot will be spinning old school funk and soul before and after.  Arrive early, stay late.

And then Sunday Oct 29 we have a beautiful house concert in Alameda at the home of Felsenista Numero Uno, Laurie Wagner.  This will be our 3rd time rocking her backyard.  Each time has been truly magical.  How bout some vimeo from the last time we played at Laurie's 27 Powers House Concert?   Get your tickets in advance.  (It really helps)

Thanks y'all.

xoxo

felsen

Blood Orange Moon

Oh my.  It has been a very long time since I've posted anything to this blog.  OK here goes...

Felsen's long-overdue 5th album is finally recorded, mixed and mastered.  It's been two years of many obstacles, many false starts and many blind excursions down musical dead ends, but I feel like I got out alive and emerged with something beautiful to share.  I had a strong desire to depart from previous Felsen albums; easier said than done.  

One big difference is Allen Clapp's mix of this album.  A few years ago, I was reading a 1971 review of George Harrison's then new album, All This Must Pass and the reviewer described it as "music for mountain tops".  I loved that.  And I love that album.  I was also greatly under the musical narcosis of Beck's twin albums Sea Change and Morning Phase as well as Songs for a Blue Guitar by Red House Painters.  I wanted something bigger, more expansive--music for mountaintops.  Allen has a special understanding of reverb and this album needed tons.  Of course he got what I wanted to achieve--he and his studio reside on a mountain.  

If you gotta mix an album, it might as well be here, in the Santa Cruz mountains, sitting on a bench made out of felled wood, and drinking a beer at 11am. 

The tunes too are different, tempos slower, less of the amped-up rockers of Felsen past. I'm often singing in a lower register of my voice.  The tunes are often quieter.  My 10 year old son said they're more meaningful (whatever that may mean to a 10 year old), I'll go with that.  Felsen's last album, I Don't Know How to Talk Anymore is all about feeling displaced by technology while trying to remain human.  This album is about direct (and indirect) communication, desire, loss, cutting through the BS, wanting to be with you and wanting to sing right into your ear.  I think you'll like it. I think you'll get it.  The album's called Blood Orange Moon.  Hey, some good news: We'll be releasing this one on Allen's Mystery Lawn Music record label.  Pretty cool, huh?

So here it is...you're first look at our new album cover.  This was from my all time fav Felsen photo shoot.  We spent an afternoon at the home of gal pal numero uno, KC Rosenberg's lovely home in Alameda and shot the front and back album covers as well as a bunch of band PR shots. Photos by Stephanie Williamson.   

  

Felsen is in a fun phase now of learning how to play the new material and road testing it. We booked a little tour for the last weekend of July.  This was the first time on the road, so-to-speak in quite some time.   We had a lot of fun, drank some good coffee, ate really well, played great, jelled as a band and made some new fans.  How bout a little recap cobbled together from my Facebook status updates...

Day One was all about the last minute transpo issues. Scrambling to figure out what to do and as usual, Felsen is operating on pretty much zero budget. Why have rental prices on vans more than doubled since the last time felsen rented one 3 years ago? we're touring commando this time around. 4 Dudes, 1 SUV. Minimal gear and borrowing what we need from the other most helpful bands were performing with. (Thank you fellow rockers.) This is contrary to a band's usual power move: arriving at venue in cool big van, unloading shit ton of gear with band's name "Decryptitude" stenciled in impossible to read Gothic font on recently purchased from from Guitar Center road cases. "Wow they must be great with all that gear. Stenciled names? That's next level." Felsen's power move: arrive with nothing and proceed to throw down mightily. Def our most MacGyver-esque, Stealthy Ninja Commando raid of a tour. Our other huge power move...our sexy bass player Bryan Dean is less than 2 months out from a very successful cancer surgery. Bryan's come back tour? The Bryan Dean kicks cancer's sweet ass Tour of 2017? You'd never know based on how he played. Such a pleasure to rock with him.

The Dip in Redding was a fun one. The Band sounded great. Really beginning to inhabit some of the new tunes: Telepathic Kind, Private Airline in the Sky, White Denim Jeans.... It was just us fellas last night as we'll meet up later today with the Dara in Medford for the remainder of the shows. We opened for Foxtails Brigade--very interesting band. Def check them out. Small crowd of peeps hanging out for our opening set and then a wall of people arrived JUST IN TIME for their set--such is the fate of the opening band. We def one over a few (Felsen wins fans one at a time). The good people at the venue were kind and supportive and invited us back whenever we're passing through. We had fun. Now getting some extra rest at the RodeRage Inn of Redding. 4 dudes, one room. "Free breakfast" sounds great on the website when you book the room...but in reality, it's usually fairly grim. Styrofoam coffee cups and those weird cereal dispensers, make your own waffle set up, folding chairs, florescent lighting, TV on the wall perpetually turned onto FOX news. Motel life. Next stop Medford. Temp 102 degrees.

We went to check in at the motel in Medford and the nice lady at the counter asked to see all of our IDs. The look on her face was priceless...I assured her all of our criminal records were clean-ish. Who's the most shady? I vote for Dara. She looks straight outta Breaking Bad, cooking meth in a trailer in the desert kinda shady IMHO.

Day 2.  Felsen's Tetris game is bullet proof. 5 musicians, 1 telecaster-black w/ virgin of Guadalupe sticker (what? I'm a recovering  Catholic), 1 mexican Fender Squire Stratocaster, 1 big black Johnson acoustic guitar, 1 schecter PJ5 bass, 1 Fender blues Jr amp (thanks Scarth), 1 small bass amp (thanks Eran), 1 1967 fender pro reverb amp, 1 Ludwig snare, 1 cymbal bag, 1 glockenspiel (thank god she left her MFing didgeridoo at home), CDs, ladies t shirts, 5 backpacks, 1 ladies fanny pak (seriously WTF?) 1 sleeping bag "the cloth missile", assorted cheetos, coffee cups all in 1 mid-sized SUV (nothing mid size here...this shit's small.) Rolling down the highway to 2 shows today in Portland. Savoring memories from last nights crazy fun show at Johnny B's in Medford. So damn fun. TV Heads were amazing. LA friends.. Please, please check them out. They very kindly let us use their drums and bass rig. Bless them. And Johnny & April who ran the club were so damn cool and nice and just true believers in rock and roll. Bands: highly recommend you try and book a gig there. Now listening to Zappa, Bill Withers, the Beatles, Ram Jam and Hocus Pocus by Focus and rollin down the 5 towards Portland... Ready to break some hearts.

Day 3 Portland & Vancouver, WA.  1st stop, an in-store performance at Portland's very hip record shop, Music Millennium.  

Portland's smartest people love Felsen.

They like our band here...so much that they made us this lovely window display.  Love this city, BTW.  You ever been? Worth it.   Good restaurant town.  

And then the litte tour closer at the Thristy Sasquatch in Vancouver, WA.  We were so damn tired, but managed to find the energy, embrace the bunny within, coax the mojo and throw down mightily for the good people of the North. 

Felsen invades your personal space...in a nice way.  

Join us dear friends for a lovely show at our fav SF venue, The Lost Church.  We'll be helping our long-time pal, Rich McCulley celebrate his new CD with a low volume show.   This will be Felsen's 3rd time at the Lost Church.  Each time has been truly magical.  Would you please join us?  

Come and Go...You and I Will Meet Again.

Two years ago Felsen was on tour and I bought a T shirt at a gas station in Iowa called Kum & Go.  I loved that shirt.  I loved it so much, I wore it pretty much to every Felsen show for about 2 years. Loved it so much, I pretty much wore it out and then basically stole the design and had similar Felsen shirts printed up in the same style.

Kum & Go.  Ha Ha.  But people liked the shirt.  Midwesterners, particularly Iowans, got the inside joke.  I was photographed a lot in it on stage.  Kum & Go. Come and Go. The words were in my head. The words made me think. That was fall and winter of 2013. Things were good.  Some big gigs for Felsen.  Feeling optimistic.  ahhh but wait...by spring of 2014, I'd hit yet another rough patch in my life due to ongoing health issues. I needed more surgery. I got really bummed out and kinda dropped off the face of the earth for a few months.  radio silence.    Now i was wearing the shirt in the hospital, wandering around the halls of UCSF, trying to rehab myself enough so I could get out of there. Come and Go.  Come and Go.  After I was out of the hospital, doing the Vicodin shuffle around the house in the summer of 2014, I started playing the guitar again mainly just to stave off boredom; there's only so much Netflix a person can watch . Daily I would go out for long walks trying to rehab myself and get off pain meds so I could start driving again and get back to work, playing music, teaching lessons, playing with my band.  I wore the shirt. Come and go.  Come and go.  I started to amass new little song embryos on my computer, musical seeds and pages of lyrical nonsense...write a page of crap, get one good line; write 20 terrible song fragments and get maybe 20 good seconds of music.  it takes time--fortunately I had plenty.  Play guitar, stare at screen. Eventually the words and the music will meet up.   Come and go.  Come and go.   I was listening to Serge Gainsbourg’s tune, “Bonnie & Clyde”.  I love the chord progression. For you music nerds that song is a lot of II- IV I.  I read once that we are all each predisposed to certain chord progressions.  I completely agree. I could play those chords all day long--and i did. I kept playing it, finding new ways to make it sound less like Serge while singing the same few words over and over and over again “People everywhere come and go, come and go”. The little seed was starting to grow.  “Come and go”.  The music and the words made me both sad and happy at the same time.  I like that.  The best of Felsen music does that.  Now other words were starting to flow about the idea of missing someone terribly, wondering if i get to see them again in this lifetime.  "I don't know how or when, but I will live to see your face again." That’s a good opening line, I thought.  That lead me to thinking about the transient nature of being here, in this time and place in history.  People everywhere come and go, come and go.  Everyone is in such a hurry.  I miss you all.  Slow down.  I got up and out and got back to work teaching and making music and writing more songs staring at the screen, playing the guitar. Ruminating on recent life events, music was slowly starting to join with words and songs were slowly coming to life. Felsen was back in biz and i was enjoying myself again.  It was like it all didn’t happen (sort of).  Fall, Winter, Spring...come and go. I started work on a new album.  The songs were quieter, longer, darker perhaps.  My 8 year old son said they were more meaningful than previous Felsen albums.  My friend Tom Luce asked me to contribute a song to a CD that he was helping organize benefiting  breast cancer prevention, CD4Hope.  I could get behind that (I lost my dear, sweet, smart, funny sister Gabrielle Rose Griffin to BC in 2002).  One song that i was recording for the new album seemed to feel right.  Come and Go had morphed into “You and I will Meet Again”.  It seemed like a good song for people going through the shit, so-to-speak.  It could be cancer, divorce, grief, loss of some kind, I'm not sure, but I think it’s about missing someone and we ALL have people we miss--that’s a universal, self-evident truth.  I had to earn the right the write that song. I think we got it right though---listen for yourself.  

Upcoming Felsen Shows:

Sat Oct 10.  House Concert/Fundraiser for album 5.

27 Powers Court, Alameda

7pm doors

Tom Heyman 7.30pm

Felsen 8.15pm

Tickets & info here

Can't be there but want to help contribute to the album anyway???

Sat Oct 17

CD 4 Hope CD Release Concert

Cal Shakes Bruns Amphitheater

Orinda, CA

Tickets & info

New Album!!!

I'm officially letting the cat out of the bag.  I'm closing in on Felsen V.  Yup, a new album under the Felsen banner.  This one is gonna be a bit of a departure, especially from the previous three albums.  Those albums were more of the traditional approach to band album making:  write songs (me), rehearse with band, raise funds, take band to studio, crank out 10-12 songs in 2-3 days, slavishly comb through overdubs for a few months(mainly me), mix, master, print and then distribute to fans, friends, family, journalists, bloggers, radio peeps, etc, sell at gigs and on various internet sites...Felsen V (I don't have a title yet) is shaping up somewhat differently, slowly taking form, gathering momentum, sprouting legs and coming to life.   I'm mainly working on this one alone at Felsen’s West Oakland Man Cave/ Hurt Locker, staring at my aging computer monitor.  It's been kinda fun though and I do crave the alone time.  Most of the songs were written in the fall of 2014/winter of 2015 reflecting on earlier events in 2014, which was a really tough time for me, my Murphy's Law phase if-you-will.  Anything that could have gone wrong, went wrong, or at least it seemed at the time.  I move at a glacial pace processing life events turning them somehow into songs.  And now I've been tasked with trying to sum up what the album is sounding like.  That's a tough one, but here goes.  On stage at Felsen gigs, often towards the end of the night, after much rocking has ensued, I will ask the crowd if we've earned the right to play something quiet.  Will we lose you?  Nah, they usually say--go for it.  That’s it really, a batch of those type of songs.  I’m hoping that I’ll be courageous enough to stick with that plan.  God only knows, maybe I’ll throw in a few rockers.  Not sure though.  My gut says don’t do it but there is inside me a fear of alienating Felsen’s ever-growing and faithful audience who like the rock.  Forgive me in advance.  The songs better be good at least--I’m on it.

I started a little branch to the left of the Felsen family tree about a year ago, playing with a few new faces and a few old ones, referring to that unit as the Felsen Symphonette.  Lower volume, acoustic-y renderings of Felsen hits.  The Dara is there singing and equipped with her glockenspiel, our new-ish collaborator/co-conspirator  Joann Demars playing her cello.  Girl power!  Often Scarth Locke (AKA Bongo Bob), often in drag,  playing percussion and synth and then really whoever else is available from the rock and roll live band as well.  Recently, we’ve even added trombone into the mix.  I got big plans for this rag tag ensemble.  We’re like the coolest 8th grade band that ever was!  We've been playing lots of house concerts, a few radio shows, backyards...low volume, lo-fi, low tech and I've been really enjoying that.  Why not write an album of that lower volume stuff?  Well that's where the idea began.  Of course, ideas change and morph and this album in particular has been like following a plastic bag floating in the breeze:  it goes where it wants to and I'm trying not to fight it, trying not to mold it too tightly into one easily defined commodity.  However, I will say with certainty, it's much quieter than other Felsen albums.  The tunes kinda sprawl out more and take more time to unfold.  It's music for headphones or late night car drives.  There's way less of the epic hard rockers that we've recorded many of in years past.   Well, have we earned the right to unplug a bit perhaps, take it down a notch or two?  Tone it done, lay on the floor next to you in your house, dim the lights and just listen to this thing from start to finish?  Would you do that for us?  Felsen will bleed its heart out for you and cry you a river while we’re at it.  We’ll also drink all the beer in your fridge and eat the leftover pizza too.  

So...we're gonna be playing a house concert in Alameda (my hometown) on Saturday Oct 10. My friend Tom Heyman is going to be opening up the show (Tom is one of the very best songwriters I've ever worked with). This will be a fundraising event for Felsen to help us pay for this album. Details here. The party is at the home of our dear friend and felsenista numero uno, Laurie Wagner. She is a pro at house concert hosting and her home is truly a magical place to hang out and hear great music. We're honored. Please join us.

Gather 'Round. It's Picture Time!

Many fine photo's have been taken of us these past few months and I wanted to share of few with you lovelies out there.

We've had so many great nights at the Starry Plough in Berkeley.  We played there once again in May and I think that show was one for the ages.  These photos were taken by ace photographer Aaron Campbell.

From left to right:  Che Guevara, Dara Ackerman, AG. Viva La Revolucion. 

I think we were playing our newest tune, "Unemployed in Chicago".

And AG on top of the bar at the Plough.  Bartender=Not Amused. 

July 4th Backyard party at Peter Finch's house in Moss Beach...That's AG + Heather Combs.  4th of July = Patriotic Pants.

Later that night in Alameda at a house concert hosted by KC Rosenberg...

Catch our next big show at the Awaken Cafe in Oakland Friday Aug 28.  Bring your camera.