And So It Begins...

As Jon was not able to join us (what with having to work for money and all that), Steve and Skap and I got together to start laying the groundwork for the new album: so far called Mustardy. With that being the front-runner for new album title, these holiday sessions have been dubbed "The Mustardy Sessions."

So today we worked on "Bad Croissant" (which I had the rough tracks recorded for already), "With Drunk Astronauts" (lyrics by me that were put to music by Skap) and Bellydancing Superstars (about which I've already written).

Since the music for "Bad Croissant" and "Bellydancing Superstars" was more or less done, all we really did was add a scratch vocal to the tracks. It was "With Drunk Astronauts" that we had to build from the ground up, laying down rough keyboard and drum tracks and then some vocals.

We were side-tracked for a half-hour or so when we decided to record a random keyboard part Skap came up. The syncopation of the riff completely eluded us and after 35 minutes of trying to put it accurately into the computer, we gave up and dubbed the riff "Skap's Insanity Music."

There are two other songs pretty much ready to be put on this album that we did not work on today, namely "Her Grandfather, The Robert Frost of Korea" (which I wrote based on a true incident my wife lived through) and something Skap and Steve concocted now called "Mustardy Fanfare."

We may try to lay down some basic tracks for "Kaiser Gorilla" on Saturday or we may just try to finish as much of these songs as we can.

We'll let you know.

How We Write Songs

In a nutshell, here's the genesis of one of the songs we're planning on putting on the next Chuxx. This one's called "Bellydancing Superstars" and it began on March 6th with this email to Steve.

There's a live music venue a few blocks from our house that used to be a movie theater. It's called the El Rey. And when we drove by it last night it had the best marquee ever.

Bellydancing Superstars

In big letters. It was the only thing on the marquee.

And I thought, "Now, THAT'S the name of the new album." And my plan was to go home and grab my camera to shoot a picture of it. But when we drove by it later, they had changed the marquee.

So sad.

Steve's reply that same day: Standby for a drum part for an instrumental called Bellydancing Superstars. Skap also replied that day, with his thought that "Bellydancing Superstars" sounded like a new reality show, one which Emmitt Smith would certainly win.

Two days later, Steve sent the rough drum part along, to which I added bass and doctored a little bit so that it had room for singing in the verses and chorus. So on March 13, I sent Steve the doctored version, which now sorta sounded like a song. (These are the things we can do electronically now that there's the interwebs.)

By March 15th (the Ides of March, naturally), the rough music to the song was finished, even though Steve and I had not even been in the same room or on the phone.

On a side note, the lyrics to the song -- the only part that doesn't require elaborate computer programs or emailing at all -- are still not done.

Onward and...er...Onward!

In about 11 days, the Chuxx will reconvene in Kansas City to begin work on our 19th album, which is (so far) unnamed. There is a motion on the floor to call the album Mustardy -- as in...

"We biked through Mustardy to get some real mustard, not that yellow baby shit they sell to American tourists in Dijon."

Thanks to Skap for that brilliant usage of the word in a sentence. We've never had a single-word title, so that makes it an alluring title to us. I'm sorta partial to The Usual Underwear & Bibles or A Planned Moose in Sweden. But Mustardy would be okay with me too.

Our attempt with Album #19 is to finish it by Xmas 2008...or Summer 2008 by the latest. We'll see how we do. I've got about a dozen songs pretty much ready to go for this album already. So, if we stay focused and fairly organized, we should be able to accomplish it.

More updates to come...

Two on Tunes

As of today, Mr. Poorluck Buys Some China is available on iTunes. So now there's like twice as many songs available for that mystery person to download. Perhaps he or she (or "it", if he/she is a robot or a monster), will find another song to enjoy. Or perhaps you will. After all, what's 99 cents in Internet dollars anyway? It's probably less than one percent of your monthly porn budget! It's a bargain!

Thank You, Mystery Person

Someone has finally downloaded a Chuxx song off iTunes. Randomly enough (as I'm sure that's how the song and band were chosen), the song downloaded was "Uncle Wheezer's Pure Oxygen Breathing Apparatus for the Masses."

Whoever you are, person who spent 99 cents on our music, thank you very kindly. If you ever stumble across this blog, please drop us a comment. We might very well write a song about you. A song of thanks. A song of praise. A Hosannah of sorts. In fact, that might be the title of the song, "A Hosannah of Sorts."

Poorluck Has Arrived!

America has waited long enough! Our 37 fans have been more than patient and now that fateful day is finally here! The Chuxx have finally released their 18th album, Mr. Poorluck Buys Some China. You can buy it now at CDBaby.com. Sixteen action-packed songs including: Four songs called "Mr. Poorluck Buys Some China"! One awesome version of a '70s game show theme! Seven different languages! One song about eggs! One song about food poisoning! Two heartfelt tales of love! One song about madness! And one mention of the word "sphincter"!

Is that all you get with the album? Of course not! There's so much more! There's gratuitous use of exclamation points! There's baby's crying! There's singing and music playing! Also, there is a scary hidden track. (No exclamation point necessary.)

Be the first, and therefore coolest, person on your block to own what might be the greatest album ever recorded!!!

This Blog

I think the blog is going very well so far.