We've been busy little bastards around here, so we'll get right to the news with no extraneous fiddling about.....

We've been asked to speak about our connection with John Beecher and his poetry as part of an international academic conference at the Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier III, France. We're honored to be included among the heavyweight academics and writers such as Steven Ford Brown and Foster Dickson, and we promise to do our best to be the ghost in the machine ;-) To John, poetry was a spoken art first and foremost ("art" being the key word here), so "Bestride the Narrow World" is important not just because of its writer and literary/political context, but because it is beautiful. And, take our word for this, it is a HUGE amount of fun to perform as a spoken word piece....

Speaking of speaking, The Mayor, The Commissioner, and City Council member Tone Deaf will be doing a series of spoken word performances built around John Beecher's poetry. It will be mostly colleges and smaller art spaces, but we will keep you all informed as we get more details about venues, dates, and so on. Also, as part of the normal Kicksville shows, we hope to include outreach events around each gig featuring the Beecher performances. So, stay tuned, and we'll fill in the details soon.

In early September, The City Council gathered for 10 days of writing and recording to finish material slated for release on The Singles – Season 3, as well as working on a bunch of new stuff for the vault. We put the finishing touches on about 14 songs, and started quite a few brand new ones. We filmed as often as we could and posted the videos on our Youtube page HERE. You'll see a lot of the silliness in between, but once we got to work we were WAY too absorbed in what we were doing to pick up the camera..... So yes, we DO actually do things besides sit around and laugh like 8-year olds ;-)

Some high points: Since the weather was gorgeous, Aya and Mike set up the Mini-Studio under the beautiful blue sky and tracked the vocal parts for one of the new songs. Of course, there was a picnic blanket and a bottle of wine involved.... Lou decided he needed a project while we were working on guitar parts or something not involving drums, so he turned the drum shield into a mini hockey dasher. Really.... He spent a lot of time on it, and it actually looks pretty damn good!

 

IATSE Brother Chris Barker let us dip into his mic closet, loaning us a pair of Microtech Gefell UMT-70s and a pair of AKG 414s (the super amazingly awesome TLII series). Tone Deaf was on a roll, and added 4 or 5 new pieces to the Kicksville Museum of Weirdo Art. Conrad got to record with our new 6-string Pedulla Thunderbass for the first time, and in between everything else, Mike spent a bunch of time setting up the new Kicksville lighting computer. All in all, we had a great time as usual, and got a shite-load of work done - despite the extensive clowning around....

Aside from 4/20 Day, Halloween is our favorite holiday here in Kicksville. City Council member Beaker Parpovich is back running his award-winning haunted house, Terror on the Fox. Voted the #1 charity haunt attraction in the country and named as one of "America’s Best Haunts" for several years running, Terror on the Fox has some of the most detailed sets, insane characters, and best cue line entertainment in the haunt industry. If you're anywhere in the Midwest, we definitely think it's worth the trip up to Green Bay to see the full-throttle freakshow! Don't take our word for it - visit the Terror on the Fox web site HERE and see for yourself!

The Singles - Season 3 is coming! We have so much material waiting in the wings (let alone the fact that we can't seem to stop writing more), that the hardest part has been culling the herd.... So, after we get a chance to go over everything we recorded in September (see the bit about our writing sessions above), we'll be making final decisions as to which songs make it onto Season 3. The artist providing the covers this time around is Skinny Gaviar, whose surrealistic and sometimes jarring illustrations have appeared in places such as the New York Review, Doomsday Department, and many other fine publications.

We will be announcing a string of special events very soon, so keep an eye out for that - all we can say for now is there will be zombies.... We've added more stuff to the show too: new music, more video, and The Mayor has some major additions planned for the lighting package. As soon as we have more details, we'll send out the information and post it on the main Kicksville web site.

 

That's it for now - thanks again to everyone for making The Singles - Season 2 such as success, and go buy your copy of the Collector's Edition right now!