A Hearty And Fulsome Thank You, Plus A Dose of Optimism For The Upcoming Year

First of all, I want to thank everyone who joined us last evening for a stupendously enjoyable performance at Johnny Brenda's. Everything went pretty well music-wise (there was a hilarious and dangerous free-jazz passage caused by a faultily fired neuron somewhere, but fans of the cosmic-comic found it added a breath of new life into a wrinkled old pony of a song) (still, others thought the musicians forgot what they were supposed to be doing for a hot and panicky thirty seconds or so, but that's the thrill of live theater) and I can't say enough about the friendliness and musical power we found in our co-entertainers The Love Language and The Rosebuds. Both troops hail from North Carolina, a place seemingly incapable of spawning jerks, half-jerks, or anybody not lovable and full of music.

While I'm waxing grateful, might as well say thanks to Sean of Daytrotter who graciously welcomed us (and others) into Miner St. Studio in the wee small hours of Thursday to perform a few songs for his fascinating and important website. He's doing a truly valuable service, capturing all of the music he does -- he should get some kind of medal (or cake). And it was our good luck that he came to Philadelphia for some extracurricular documenting. Our eternal brother Nick Krill was there performing yeoman's work as sound engineer (along with a verynice gent named John). More thanks than I've got at my disposal are due to them all. Keep an eye out on the DT site: hopefully it ends up sounding ok...

And that ellipsis seems like a nice way to move into the future. The blogging was slow and intermittent during the holiday-nonsense season, but I'm making a solemn oath to you and the breeze that we'll get back to it in earnest. The trick, of course, is finding interesting NE-related things to show and tell about. Should they get scarce, we'll make 'em up.

And 2009, fingers crossed tight, should also be the first annum where NE puts out some kind of album within a single 12 month period. We will be striving to move faster than the earth does round the sun. Work is moving rapdily, and excitedly, and I look forward to doumenting a few moments of the recording process here on the blog. I feel reasonably confident the album will carry the title "Ramparts" (as hinted at in Jeff's post below) and will be known down the ages as the NE "rock" album. Or maybe just the one that will bum people out least at parties.

So, stay with us. And have a wonderful year. I have this crazy feeling it will be a really really good one.

Will Records In The New Year

I stopped by Philadelphia to say hello to 2009 for a few hours and did some drawings of Will. He's the one on the left. (Click for a larger version).