The Taters

The new CD, TATERS PARTY! is all done, and shipped off to Oasis for manufacturing. We should see them in our hands in a few weeks, and the release party has been scheduled for Sat, Mar 30 at Max's Positive Vibe Cafe in Richmond.

The Positive Vibe is a great restaurant and small music venue in Richmond's southside that is dedicated to training and employing people with disabilities in food services. It's a wonderful spot to eat, drink and hang out, and I think the release party will have a nice, intimate vibe to it! Here's a piece that CBS did on the Vibe a few years back.

If you're in the Richmond area and would like to come to the Party party, contact the Positive Vibe cafe and find out about reservations.

You can also find updates about the CD and more about the Tater happenings at the Facebook pages for The Taters and the Taters Party! While you're there, be sure to Like the pages, and share them with your friends!

Hope everyone is making it thru this heat! We've already had one show canceled due to extreme hot-itude, so I hope that doesn't happen for more! Got a bunch of outdoor things coming up over the next month or two, and many are out of Richmond, so it's a great chance to get to meet new folks and reconnect with some we only see once a year or so. The show in Arlington this past weekend went ahead as scheduled, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't pretty unpleasantly hot! The crew at the park did a great job keeping water and lemonade available for the people who came out, and they kept their nature center opened - it was AC'd! - so folks could go in there for a respite. Not a huge crowd, and I can't really blame someone for not braving it. But all the more reason to give a BIG THANKS to those who did come out. We really appreciated the support and hope once you cooled down you remembered having a good time :)

We had a great turnout, despite some struggling AC issues, in Ashland at the Rock & Roll Jubilee show on Jun 30. This was the 11th one of these we've done, which was hard for me to believe! We started, I think, in 2009, and we do generally do 2-3 a year. We've got another coming up in October in Ashland and then in January at the Glen Allen Cultural Arts Center. Lots of work going into each one, but it all feels worth it once the show is running! If you're a Facebook user, you can check out the Jubilee page there for shots from the shows, and there's also a YouTube channel. I try to cross-post on the Taters channel and FB as well.

Work on the new CD, Taters Party!, is going well. We are mixing this week, and are still hoping for an early Fall release if funds hold out! I'll be giving you more details on this once I have them. And those of you who are helping with the street team effort, we'll have stuff that'll need your assist as well!

Cleanup on the Party tracks is going nicely. Had to fix a few bits where something got buried, or SOMEone played a bad bass note (who could that be?), but we've picked the best of them and are in the process of mixing now. Still hoping to come up with more photos from the party - if any one has any, we'd love to see 'em!

In the meantime, keep an eye out at the TWIRL Radio site - Mike will probably post some of the performance and interview we did during the party as a Twirlcast. And if he doesn't, then we will :)

Well we got lots done at the Taters Party last weekend, including a pile of songs to pick from for the upcoming CD. Still have to choose which things to keep and which to leave on the cutting room floor (or the retrospective box set :) but I think we have a good amount to work with. I'll try to get some rough mixes out soon to those on the newsletter mailing list, Facebook, etc. 

Also had a great time on Mike Lidskin's TWIRL Radio show as we streamed the party thru to Sacramento at several points during the evening. I haven't heard how the radio show sounded - we were on a Skype connection in a room full of noise - but I hope they got a sense of how much fun we were having! If Mike podcasts the show, I'll get that posted as well.

We're starting work on a new Taters CD, tentatively titled "The Taters Party!"  More info on that to come but what we can  tell you is that it's going to be a live recording of both some fairly obscure Tater originals (Oh, you thought you'd heard them all? Not even close!) as well as some favourite cover tunes. 

The format will be a smaller, living room party/show, with lots of friends around to help out. Maybe even a dog or two, though they often have trouble with the frets. We'll just have to see.

We hope to have this out before the end of the year, so keep your fingers and toes crossed!