B-B-B-B…But so where does that leave us?

So although we haven’t started new recording yet (I know, I know, believe me), in a very real way, we’ve never been more ahead or more prepared. Or had more plans or ideas. Weird, I know, but sometimes such are one’s middle years.

the brighter star in the firmament
Kevin has been demo-ing for the last year or two, really for the first time ever (strange as that sounds), and he’s got over 100 songs recorded, mixed, with parts and pretty xylophones and rockly operatic lyrics wherein he embodies the character known only as the Rake.
Wait, that’s not us.
But he does have 100+ demos done and one of them's quite good. No, really.

the star's mysterious brother
And he & Greg have been getting together a few nights a week for quite a while going over those songs, working out parts & variations. Greg spent more money & time getting his guitar equipment together this year than in the previous 19 band years combined (multiplied by a large-ish whole number). He’s even been taking guitar lessons for the first time so clearly, someone’s buckling down. And he’s now a dad for round two, so the buckle comes off as well, ladies.

the other one who insists on singing
Charles?...also now a parent. In his case the stay-at-home-dad kind which means only a few half-hour-naps'-worth of available band/work time each day. And even that has to be fit around swapping Bed-Stuy gossip with like-minded neighbors over one of those top-half-open barn-style backdoors like an extra on Hee-Haw.

So to better put that time towards something productive and art-like, as of today, he’s hereby relinquishing & handing off all boring band-business stuff to our new foncy ponts management (see Part 2) and is now, officially, after a false start last summer, trading his “From the Desk of Charles Dickhead” business bond laid paper letterhead (with matching band gavel), for a guitar, a carbon mic and a Non-Remy Weft hair weave to try his hand making records again. He hasn’t been this jazzed about music since he was 40 and playing in Kenton’s band.

the cuddly likable one
Jerry has this way of holding his head that looks smashing on film. So band photos should be a breeze now. In his spare time, he continues to lead the world in the production of smaller MacDonalds (currently four street models to choose from).

Resolutions and Predictions

So, for like the dozenth time, official full-band recording starts next Wednesday, January 13th, 2010, at approximately 6:00pm E.S.T. in a New Jersey basement studio not far from Rudy Van Gelder’s original Hackensack one.
And bonkers as it sounds, I’m going on record predicting that we’re mostly done with the next album by say….June.
No, this June.
I don’t blame you for not believing me, I kinda don’t. And yet, there it is. In writing, no less.

‘Cause it really is about time now. The goal is to go from being one of the least prolific bands in indie rock, to one of the most, putting out say, two albums a year ‘60s-style, and deep-sixing whatever goodwill we’ve engendered over the years by flooding the market with product. Cheap, formulaic product with a hand-applied art veneer.

Or maybe we’ll just get going and see where that takes us…

Either way, thanks as always, especially for the patience, and may your 2010 be as fruitful as we fantasize our own will be,

the wrens

[approaches dais, clears throat]

"Thank you, shareholders and thank you to our parent company, Berkshire Hathaway. During this last fiscal year…well, you’ve probably read in the trade & industry journals that our cutting-edge R&D team is well under way with new product development and recording and…well, this is Wrens & Co. Inc. LLC and we will mic no drum before its time. So yeah, we both aren’t and we are..."

Here’s what we have done:

See our Report to Shareholders Part 1, here.

Here’s what we haven’t done:

Start recording yet.
Yep. Not a typo.

Here’s why: Um…

Um…we’ll get to that in detail later in this shiny new year. But for now, suffice it to say that a big part of what’s taken so long has been undoing/redoing 20-year habits of how we um, do things, especially how we make records.

Vowed when we were done the Meadowlands that we’d never make another record that way or take that long to do it, again. Of course, the irony is that it took about 6 years to set everything up to ensure that it would never take 4 years to make another record. See the kind of Lewis Carroll world we inhabit?

A not-insignificant part of all that is the nuts & bolts of running any small business, the knowing (or learning / cramming last-minute) enough about a sultan’s variety of aspects of music business to keep your own small-business boat not only floating but solvent, handling the more mundane emails & calls and things faxed, not too mention gaining the experience to make the big plays, head things off at passes, negotiate forks in the road, generate business clichés, etc.

And doing that yourself around real life (i.e. jobs, children and their ceaseless petty demands) seems to mean that as a musician, you often find yourself taking conference calls but rarely setting up mic’s.
Let’s call it Death by D.I.Y.

talk to our people

So in an effort to reverse that ratio, and for a thousand other reasons that are proved almost daily lately, it gives me nearly immeasurable happiness to announce that….we’ve signed on with official management – Ben Dickey, and his wonderful team of do-greaters at Constant Artists.
They technically start on the job the first week in January (hey, that’s this week) so be sure to drop them a line and present them with your “actionable” business model for bringing us acclaim and riches.

And they’ll quash it so we don’t have to.

With Ben riding at our side, the last piece of the apocalyptic puzzle is now in place and so begins the End of Days. Only regret we didn’t do this sooner.

Still to come: What’s to come?

Timeline 2010, wrens-style, in Part 3.