Toot toot (my horn)--Buy this Record

Flying in the Face of Festivities, while dancing.

I know it's the holidays and time to party and take advantage of a rare chance to just act like stupid humans--and god knows, I love it too, but I just wanted to spread the word that there is a very special CD officially out now.
Rehab Massachusetts has just become available through the excellent
Brave Tiger Records,
home of such quality local geniuses as Treefort, Josh Crane, and of course, Fancy Trash.
Read the Brave Tiger blurb to get an understanding of what Rehab, MA is all about. But I'll just put in my two cents, since I was involved.
I've been putting drum parts to Thane Thomsen's songs for 10 years, and I know that he likes each Figments album to contain an over all loose theme. However, for this, he went above and beyond.
Like The Who's Quadrophenia, Lou Reed's Berlin or Husker Du's Zen Arcade, Rehab Massachusetts takes you along for the ride of a troubled person trying to weather his own personal perfect storm, let alone get along in a chaotic world.
I know the words "Rehab" or "12 Steps" often carry a lot of baggage that the casual music fan doesn't want to interfere with his/her listening experience.
But rest assured, like Lou Reed never murdered a lover or fathered abused children but knew very well what wrong turns could lead to such personal tragedy, Thane's words go inside the deepest depths of personal hell, while still keeping hold of his journalism credentials.

The melodies are such that you find yourself singing them randomly, forgetting that you're possibly imparting a phrase not usually said in public. But this is a testiment to the quality of the songwriting. The saddest subjects can still posess hooks galore.
The recording is pristine. The best recorded drum sound of my playing ever on tape. Thank you, Mark Miller. The two days of basic tracks were among the most fun and rewarding of my recording career. Having beers while recording songs about the 12 Steps? The irony was noted, but no guilt expressed (the inverse of XTC's recording as the Dukes of Stratosphere--stone sober while recording psychedelic druggy songs).

The band was picked by Thane. And while the experience at times inevitably felt like Figments, or felt like Lo Fine (being surrounded by Thane, Kevin and Bruce)the added Stuntmen element (Scott and Terry) was new to me, but fit very natually.

Listen to the samples up on Brave Tiger, dig the music, don't feel like there's any stigma or statement being made--it's just a quality rock and roll concept record, done 10x better than most concept records (i.e. there's no one named The Acid Queen nor are there passages sung in Italian).

Happy In-Between week.