Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Townies: HERE'S THE DEAL

Townies Machismo
By Dustin Blocker


The late, and often great, Macho Man Randy Savage used to say, "Here's the deal...", then he would go on to tell you what the deal was; and of course, he always put a little umph in it. So, since we are all die-hard machismo fans, we thought we would keep you in the land of knowing-the-deal with some full-disclosure of our own.

Earlier posts describing Bobby Shoes departure from the band to pursue his individual Bobby-isms have led our guitarist Jeremy Hutch into the studio’s cave for a double-stamp of his Hutchdom onto our upcoming Townies record by laying drums and guitars (as well as some fancy mandolin work). This has created an undeniable paradigm shift in the way we track, as the whole of the music has been arranged and written while in the studio as individuals. All the while his older brother THE Hutch has continued to lay the fattest lead bass this side of the Tarrant County Line.

The award to “the guy who sits in front of the tracking monitor the longest while still tracking guitars and writing songs” goes to… Aaron Borden, who has been holding producer’s court in his Fort Worth studio, with exception to my minor textural contributions (see: keyboards, harmonicas, rhythm instruments) and vocals, which I track at my house in Dallas.

It should be wholly apparent why the process has dragged a bit long, but we are at the end of overdubs and early mixes, which means the mastering studio is close at hand. Then off to Chris Whitehead at Hand Drawn Records to promote, print, and hopefully launch into some low lying stratosphere?

Another currently happening is Borden taking a job for a few months in Kansas, where our former road manager Dallas Rob currently resides, and where he is undoubtedly giving Borden the old Mid-West Way.

Our great friend and longtime contributor James Villa (who is about to launch his own official website) has been shooting photos for the Townies project for the last few months all over the Texas plains, and this week I was able to finish the album art design proofs from those shots, compiling them into the slickest disc art we will have to date.

On the last of the To-Do List is grabbing a new drummer for the live version of this act, which will ramp up the show dates calendar in accordance with the Townies album release dates.

That will conclude the deal for now. Thanks for playing!

"A Drive-In” Photography by James Villa
Digital Artwork by Dustin Blocker

Hand Drawn Records © 2011