Another Form of Relief

It’s an odd journey that has led to The Twilight Hours. Long time readers will be aware of my love for late 80s / early 90s Minnesota band Trip Shakespeare. When that band dissolved, bassist John Munson went on to join Semisonic, while front man Matt Wilson seemingly wandered around in the abyss, releasing only one solo album in ten years. In 2001, Munson and Wilson formed The Flops, a two-man band that played a mixture of old Trip songs, some of Wilson’s solo work and some other bits and pieces. They released a grand total of one live CD, disappearing again in 2005. Sometime after that they started billing themselves as The Dark Nights, which has now morphed in to The Twilight Hours. Only now, seventeen years after the breakup of Trip Shakespeare, do we actually get some new material from two incredibly talented individuals.

And you know what? It’s slightly disappointing. I suspect this is because of how much I’ve built this up in my mind over the years. I adore those Trip Shakespeare records, as well as virtually everything Semisonic and Matt Wilson have put out in between. What I’m struggling with here is that this whole album feels just a little too MOR. There’s nothing strictly wrong with it, and Wilson’s vocal remains compelling throughout. It can’t seem to help remaining a little flat though.

That said, it has it’s moments too. The new arrangements for older Wilson songs Forgot Me Now and Queen of Tomorrow are largely successful. The song below, My Return, is the closest the record ever gets to the Trip sound of old. Vocals play off of each other, guitars rev into life and harmonies pop in at just the right time. It still feels like it’s being held back a little, but after this amount of time, I’ll take what I can get.

Stereo Night is out now in “Good enough for me” mp3 quality (160kbps) for absolutely nothing from the band’s website. Also available in “When it comes to music, I don’t like to compromise too much” mp3 quality (320kbps / $7) or “I’m a person of high quality, I’ll need your best music” CD for $10. More bands should be adopting this system.

The Flops make me sad. Not necessarily in a bad way, but sad nonetheless. The fact they don’t exist anymore doesn’t help, but the worst part is the feeling that they were the closest thing to ever sound like Trip Shakespeare. This isn’t really all that surprising given that both members of The Flops, Matt Wilson and John Munson, were in that band. I maintain that Trip Shakespeare are one of the most criminally underrated bands of the last twenty years.

The Flops, while never quite managing those dizzy heights, have that wonderful feel of nostalgia about them. They never formally recorded anything in the four years they performed, only putting out a live album instead. This was largely made up of performances of Trip Shakespeare and Matt Wilson material, with a few other bits thrown in. In 2005, The Flops project was deemed over and a new band was supposed to rise from the ashes. It never did. John Munson now plays in a jazz band, while no one seems to know what Matt Wilson is doing. Which is a shame as he is a ridiculously talented singer-songwriter.

This song may not work for you if you’re unfamiliar with the original, but it should hold up on it’s own. A mournful tale of the one that got away, supported by nothing more complex than a gently strummed guitar. If one song could pin down melancholy perfectly, this would be it.

Ed is Dead laments superb bands that are no longer with us. It’s named in honour of the Pixies song to remind us that even though it’s sad they split up, it’s far worse when they get back together.

It’s hard to believe that it was nearly ten years ago that I first listened to Semisonic, of which their Feeling Strangely Fine album would become the first ‘proper’ album I would ever buy. It’s even harder to believe that the version of FNT that’s below is fifteen years old at this point. Another version of the song went on to appear on the 1996 Great Divide album, but this dates back to when they were putting out demos under the name Pleasure.

It’s kind of sad that they will seemingly forever be those one-hit wonders behind Closing Time, and perhaps, to a lesser extent in the UK, for Secret Smile. All three of their albums were loaded with superb songs, but they seem to be little more than a musical footnote at this point.

Semisonic were my ‘gateway band’ when it comes to indie. Even without a direct connection, it was this band that eventually led me to REM, to Weezer, to Nada Surf and to Ben Folds Five. Which isn’t to say that they are responsible for everything, but they were certainly a catalyst. An entire world of records that would rarely ever be played on the radio entered my sphere, and eventually I’ve ended up here.

When I wrote the first ‘Five for Friday’ post this time last week, I said I didn’t know whether or not it would be a recurring feature or not. Given how much I enjoyed it writing it though, getting to go into some detail about some of my favourite songs, I think it’s inevitable that it’s going to be, at least for a little while. As such, we now have part two in the series, where you get to read me rambling about some songs that I like, and as a reward, you get to listen to them. I think that’s how all this works anyway.

MP3 Semisonic – Closing Time (expired) (Feeling Strangely Fine, 1998)
It’s a shame that Semisonic will seemingly forever be lumbered with the “one hit wonder” tag as over the course of nearly a decade they put out several really great albums. They also hold a personal significance to me as they were the first real band I got seriously into after I purchased ‘Feeling Strangely Fine’ following some school exams when I was 16. Crazy times. Anyway, ‘Closing Time’ is probably their most definitive song, even if it isn’t their most complex. The words are pretty much self explanatory, putting across that feeling of being kicked out of a bar at the end of the night to a fantastic piece of guitar work. And the sadness from Dan Wilson’s voice when he points out that “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” is just perfect.

MP3 The Elected – It Was Love (expired) (Sun, Sun, Sun, 2006)
I’m still not a big fan of ‘Sun, Sun, Sun’, but this song is just about my favourite of any song that The Elected have put out. If there’s one thing Blake Sennett can do well, it’s sounding melancholy while doing his best Elliott Smith impression. An entirely depressing story about two people who stay together because they know no better (“I just put up with you / Kid, I stayed because you wouldn’t leave”). I don’t know if it’s supposed to be positive or not when Blake describes this time as “It was love / Or at least the closest I got”, but it certainly doesn’t seem that way even if it’s supposed to be.

MP3 Elliott Smith – Happiness (expired) (Figure 8, 2000)
A nice segueway here from a man who sounds like Elliott Smith to Smith himself. I don’t really know what ‘Happiness’ is actually about, and it’s far too easy to shout “suicide” or “broken relationships” or whatever at it. I guess it doesn’t really matter given the song itself, and it’s certainly not hard to believe how real the emotion behind “all I want now is happiness for you and me” when Elliott is the one singing.

MP3 The Rakes – Retreat (expired) (Capture/Release, 2005)
It’s easy to proclaim that The Rakes sound like every other British band of the past couple of years, but out of the recent batch of “common people” bands, they are the one that I enjoy the most. A song about trying to strike that balance between not wasting your life but also keeping a social life, we never do really know whether the narrator decides to “retreat” or “go out for the fifth night in a row”. I’d hazard a guess that he’s heading down to the club just once more though. It’s a theme that The Rakes often return to, particularly in their awesome “Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)”.

MP3 Pavement – Rattled By The Rush (expired) (Wowee Zowee, 1995)
We’ll conclude with a Pavement classic today, from their often overlooked ‘Wowee Zowee’ album. If I’m honest, it was probably the last Pavement album that I learnt to enjoy, but upon doing so, I discover a whole bunch of gems, including this one. It’s probably the most accessible song on the album while still remaining as unique as most of their recordings. I’m not going to try and assign reason to it, although Malkmus has implied that it’s about marriage in interviews, which kind of fits, so I’m not going to argue with that. Thinking about it, I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s the fun of songs like this that I find lacking in Malkmus’ solo material and why it doesn’t end up doing very much for me. Kind of a random tangent I know, but it’s something to consider.

That’s all for tonight. On an entirely non-musical related note, if you get a chance to see Sarah Silverman’s Jesus Is Magic, make sure that you do. It’s just about the funniest, most offensive thing that I’ve seen in a very long time.

Well it’s that time again folks. The post that crops up every couple of weeks or so and doesn’t see me shilling whatever new band I’ve discovered this week. It’s time for a bunch of weird and wacky cover songs!

MP3 Belaire – Through The Wire (expired) (Kanye West)
I originally posted this one when I first wrote about Belaire. Originally I had absolutely no idea that it was a cover, much less that it was a rap cover. I think I’m one of the few people that the Kanye West bus (other than Gold Digger and Jesus Walks) hasn’t rolled over just yet. Anyways, after I found out I went and listened to the Kanye version, and I’m all the more impressed by it now. This sounds absolutely nothing like that version, turning it into a driving guitar song, and I love those borderline aggressive female vocals.

MP3 Teenage Fanclub – Here Comes Your Man (expired) (Pixies)
I always find Pixies covers to be interesting if only for the way that they put bands into an awkward spot. They have such a unique sound that it’s pretty hard to cover them without either copying it exactly or changing the sound a hell of a lot. Teenage Fanclub elect the copy scenario, which is reasonable enough. It’s harldy the world’s greatest cover version or anything, but it’s a solid version of a solid song. It seems to have something of a cleaner sound than the original too, actually making it easier to make out the words. Granted they still don’t make a lot of sense, but it’s a help nonetheless.

MP3 Dan Wilson – Everything I Own (expired) (Bread)
I guess I’m about the only person excited by the upcoming Dan Wilson solo album. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of his projects, be it Semisonic, Trip Shakespeare or solo material. I know most people are going to cry ‘middle of the road’ at it and the such, but I don’t really care. I’ve yet to be let down with any release he’s been involved with so I’m very curious about this. Anyway, this is a cover version of a Bread song recorded as part of a live radio performance several months ago. I’m going to be honest and say that I don’t really know the Bread version, but I like this a lot, and it’s the perfect song for Dan’s vocal style.

MP3 Death Cab For Cutie – This Charming Man (expired) (The Smiths)
Oh boy, where do I start with this one? This has to be one of the most shambolic, disastorous covers that I have ever heard. Oddly though, I still like it a hell of a lot. If you’re a big fan of The Smiths oriignal though, you’re probably going to consider this to be akin to rape. I wasn’t when I first heard so it’s not a massive deal for me that the lyrics are completely wrong. It’s all good though as the band apparently feel really bad about getting them wrong. You’d think if you were covering a song you’d check your lyrics were correct first, but apparently not Gibbard and his merry men. Thankfully this doesn’t do any major damage though, other than changing the entire meaning of the song. It’s still a lot of fun in a car crash kind of way though.

If I could just do a quick bit of pimping before I go, don’t forget that this is the last couple of weeks for eMusic’s 50 free mp3 offer. If you haven’t taken advantage of this awesome deal yet, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so. If you already have and want a new fix of mp3s (or are just greedy!), don’t forget that Audiolunchbox are also offering 50 free mp3s. Both of this sites have a lot of great stuff available, so be sure to grab what you can, while you can.

Well that’s your lot for today. I’ll hopefully be having my second interview type thingy coming up soon, which should be pretty damn cool. Once again I’m not going to say who it is, just that it’s someone I’ve written about previously. And like last time, it’s not William Shatner. Although that would be aweosme in itself.

Matt Wilson was the primary force behind Trip Shakespeare, a band I recently wrote about in some detail. However obscure Trip Shakespeare and their material may be these days, Matt Wilson has that topped with his own solo material. It’s almost as if the internet is trying to eliminate any references to Matt’s career. Which is very sad.

His website has been down for years, with no signs of a return. His album isn’t available anywhere, and finding even that tiny picture of him to the left was a near impossibility. Still, I eventually found one, so it’s time to give Matt a little credit, as his music really does deserve a bigger audience that it seems to have.

After Trip Shakespeare split in 1991, each of the members drifted their own separate ways. I don’t actually know what Matt did for quite a period here, only that he surfaced in 1998 with a solo album entitled ‘Burnt, White & Blue’. Critically it was well received, but was seemingly only purchased by nostalgic Trip Shakespeare fans and a few fans who discovered him through the popularity of Semisonic in the years following.

The album was made up of solid songs, but nothing as unique as Trip Shakespeare used to come up with. This could have been why the album never really became a success. The lyrical wit and bold experiments were gone in these songs, and Matt’s voice was far more restrained than it ever had been previously. This is not to say the material is bad. Each of the songs are good, displaying the lyrical complexity one would expect, occasionally even managing to rock out at the same time.

MP3 Matt Wilson – Sun Is Coming (expired) (Burnt, White & Blue, 1998)
MP3 Matt Wilson – The Trick (expired) (Burnt, White & Blue, 1998)
MP3 Matt Wilson – Descender! (expired) (Burnt, White & Blue, 1998)

MP3 Matt Wilson – Queen Of Tomorrow (expired) (unreleased, circa 1998)
MP3 Matt Wilson – Forgot Me Now (expired) (unreleased, circa 2003)

After this, Matt went on to work with John Munson (Trip Shakespeare, Semisonic) to form the Flops, a band who never recorded any material, and only toured playing acoustic versions of Matt and Trip songs. They released a live album in 2003, but the project wound itself up soon after. It’s unclear exactly what Matt is doing these days, so if anyone has any idea, please let me know.

Now I don’t really have any buy links for this album as it’s seemingly unavailable just about everywhere. All that is except for Audio Lunchbox. They have the entire Burnt, White & Blue album available for download in high quality. Best of all, with their 50 free mp3s offer, you can get it and a bunch of other material for absolutely nothing!

And if 50 free mp3s isn’t enough free music for you, don’t forget there is also a 50 free mp3 offer available from eMusic as well. I’m informed that May will be the final month that the 50 free mp3 offer will be available, so if you’ve been debating whether or not to give it a go, now seems like the perfect time!

No, that isn’t some bizarre screwing up of the title up there, but rather helpfully explaining that this is a mixtape about mixtapes. I’m not entirely sure what made me come up with this one, but it seemed like a good idea at the time at least. Mixtapes are generally underappreciated I think, so this is my own little tribute to them. Or something. At the very least it’s a small collection of good songs by good artists. Which should be enough to pacify most people.

It’s a pretty short mix (clocks in around half hour) largely because there aren’t a great deal of songs that are actually about mixtapes, or deal with them at all. Of course you guys probably could rattle off a ton more that I’ve missed, but these are the ones I came up with and enjoyed, so we’ll make do with the short run time.

MP3 Semisonic – Singing In My Sleep (expired)

This was the song that originally gave me the idea for this. After I really started appreciating this song I started looking for more songs that deal with mixtapes, which is what you’re looking at here. It’s only fitting that it goes first, particularly given that Semisonic’s ‘Feeling Strangely Fine’, the album it’s taken from, was the first full album I actually bought. I loved it back when it came out and I still think it’s a great piece of work today, even if the band themselves are long gone. Pretty much the ultimate song about exactly what a mixtape should convey (“Got your tape and it changed my mind / Heard your voice in between the lines”). It’s a mildly cautionary tale about the risks of possibly falling more for the concept of the girl making the mixtape (“Now I’m falling in love too fast / With you or the songs you chose”) than the girl herself. It’s a great song though, and representitive of a great band at their prime. Dan even throws in a joke in “pray to Sony my soul to keep”. It’s just a shame that Sony didn’t actually listen and dropped the band a few years later.

MP3 Jack’s Mannequin – The Mixed Tape (expired)

Yes, Jack’s Mannequin is a “side project” of Something Corporate. I know that neither of these bands will ever be considered “cool”. Nor do I really care. I like Something Corporate a lot. I also like Jack’s Mannequin too. Both bands produce catchy piano rock songs and Andrew McMahon can write some awesome lyrics, so I’m really not bothered about whether the scenester kids like them or not. Anyways, now that I’ve finished being all defensive, we’ll get to the song. It’s about making a mixtape for someone he has broken up with to say the things he was never actually able to at the time. It’s a tad bitter, possibly like the mixtape itself, but is a nice change from the concept of the “fall in love” mixtape which seems to be the most common one referenced.

MP3 The Lashes – Death By Mixtape (expired)

Oh boy, this one fits me perfectly. I’m not familiar with The Lashes beyond this song, but I soon will be if they have more songs like this. It’s all about a relationship going wrong (“I can’t seem to push you away / Even though you don’t like me the mixtapes aren’t the way”), seemingly because he is more “in love with the idea of finding the one” than actually keeping the relationship alive. It’s all collapsed and he doesn’t want to just be friends (“Sitting in your car getting angry / How can I just be your friend? / I save handshakes for people I hate”) which is making the whole thing far more unpleasant than it really should be, but he can’t really help it.

MP3 Bjork – Headphones (expired)

Falling asleep to a mixtape from someone. It’s quiet. It’s abstract. It’s Bjork. What do you expect?

MP3 The Promise Ring – Make Me A Mixtape (expired)

This one is about the most amusing song relating to mixtapes I was able to find. The guy wants the girl to make him a mixtape. Which is fair enough, but then he starts rattling off what he wants on it. He starts with more general things (“Something old and something new / Something I said or that we did / That reminds me of you”), but then starts listing artists that he’d like included like Husker Du, The Cars and Duran Duran. All of this is entirely without irony, the guy seemingly not realising that this destroys the idea of the personal mixtape that he wanted in the first place. Makes for an entertaining song for us though.

MP3 Viva Voce – Mixtape = Love (expired)

Pretty much the perfect song for summing up exactly what a mixtape is all about. “I dubbed the tunes in perfect form / To say what I could never voice / And hope you hear right past these songs” just about covers what mixtapes are generally used for, at least ones of a personal nature anyway.

MP3 The Jim Yoshii Pile-Up – Birthday Cake (expired)

Everytime that I hear The Jim Yoshii Pile-Up, I insist to myself that I’m going to get more of their songs, but never seem to get around to actually doing it. Every song I’ve heard seems to be great though, so I don’t know what seems to keep me from doing it. ‘Birthday Cake’ is no exception to that. The song itself covers far more than just mixtapes, but the singer giving a tape to his partner for her birthday is what the chorus covers, so it qualifies for here. It’s also about the most bitter song about going to the effort of making the tape too. “I put a file in your birthday cake because a cheap cliche and a half hearted gesture is what you asked for this year / I spent a day on that damned mixtape / I should have known that you’d have Nick Drake” is hardly the most positive promotion of them, is it? No matter though, I’m still using it as the grand finale as it’s just a wonderful, wonderful sounding song to end with.

The downtime..

So the site was offline for the best part of 12 hours yesterday, which was incredibly annoying. Apologies if you tried to access in that time and were greeted by the lovely Wordpress error message. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do about it as the problem was with the host and apparently it takes Yahoo 12 hours to restart a damn server. Anyways, we’re back now and everything is fine, so hopefully it won’t be happening again anytime soon.

I’d like to preface this post by saying that I really wish I had a better picture to offer, but there seems to be hardly anything in the way of Trip Shakespeare pictures, or indeed any kind of references, anywhere on the net. There does seem to be a few fan sites put together years ago, but hardly anything, which is shame. Spurred on by this, and the encouragement I got from one of the comments left on yesterday’s post, I’m going to try something a little different here. This is going to be a complete retrospective of Trip Shakespeare, from their formation to breakup, loaded with mp3s of course, in the hope that I can put a few more people onto this great band that no one seems to know.

Applehead Man
Restless
1988

Trip Shakespeare began life as a three-piece consisting of three college students: vocalist and guitarist Matt Wilson, bassist John Munson and drummer Elaine Harris. Their early work was pretty shambolic, but did give an indication of the great things that were to come. Their debut album, ‘Applehead Man’, while largely incoherant and unstructured, did still manage to feature some gems amongst the weaker material. This album probably isn’t the greatest introduction to Trip Shakespeare, so if you’re actually reading the text rather than just grabbing the mp3s, I suggest both of you do stick with with these as the songs do improve greatly as the band develops. Still, that isn’t to say that everything from ‘Applehead Man’ is without merit. ‘Pearle’ is the first hint of what will follow on later albums, richly textured romantic pop that manages to sound familiar and yet original at the same time.

MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Pearle (expired)

Are You Shakespearienced?
Twin/Tone
1989

Oh what a difference a year can make. In between ‘Applehead Man’ and ‘Are You Shakespearienced?’, Trip Shakespeare underwent a number of changes. The most vital of these was the addition of Matt’s older brother Dan to the group as an additional vocalist and guitarist. With him came wonderful harmonies a tighter style of music. It was still daring, but some of the extremes of eccentricity from the first album had been reigned in. Matt also developed greatly as a songwriter in this time. Rather than songs where the lyrics were second the music, the lyrics become one of Trip Shakespeare’s most defining elements. ‘The Lake’ is a perfect example of this new found confidence, harmonies and duelling vocals are littered throughout a song about a couple heading toward a breakout on the river’s edge. ‘Two Wheeler, Four Wheeler’ is a wonderful nostalgic look back to a time when everything was simpler, and ‘Toolmaster of Brainerd’ is a rambling, amusing tale that showed an entirely different side to the band. It is ‘Reception’ that is the crowning achievement of this album though, a melancoly song about a man going to the wedding of the woman he is in love with. It was this kind of mature songwriting that would become more central to the work of Trip Shakespeare over future albums.

MP3 Trip Shakespeare – The Lake (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Two Wheeler, Four Wheeler (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Toolmaster of Brainerd (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Reception (expired)

Across The Universe
A&M
1990

‘Across The Universe’ was the first album recorded by Trip Shakespeare for a major label. Thankfully though, this didn’t lead to a diluting of their sound. In fact, the increased production budget available to them allowed them to create their most solid work yet. ‘Across The Universe’ is the natural evolution from ‘Are You Shakespearienced?’, bringing more of the things that made that album so good (the harmonies, the maturity of the words) and relaxing the use of the things that didn’t work so well (the whimsy). This album also represents a shift of the band to a more collective style. The songwriting duties and vocals are split much more evenly between the two Wilsons and even allowing Munson a share of the vocals, which only helps their sound. ‘Snow Days’ is one such example for this, giving us the perfect winter song, full of vivid imagery of snow falling, roads being closed and children playing. Matt’s melancoly side surfaces once again on the wistful ‘Drummer Like Me’ about a man who has given up his well paying job to become a drummer, finds himself struggling and now isn’t so sure that it was the right thing to do. ‘The Slacks’ is the one song where they do let their goofy side rip again, and it’s worth for the highly amusing tale of each of the band members trying to win the heart of a “one-eyed lady in France”. The back and forth vocals that descend into all out arguing at one point somehow manage to work perfectly when it should have become silly a long time before this point. Munson returns to vocal duties on the mournful ‘Late’, a song where his wife is off doing things she shouldn’t be, but he loves her too much to do anything about it as she still comes back to him. (Side note: I’m listening to this album as I’m writing all of this, and it’s so hard to not just put up every single song. It’s quite awful having to pick out a mere handful from each album given how great they all are.)

MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Snow Days (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Drummer Like Me (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – The Slacks (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Late (expired)

Lulu
A&M
1991

And so we reach the final full length Trip Shakespeare release. One of the great things about Trip Shakespeare though is that they managed to go out while at the top of their game, rather than following the steady decline route that so many other bands follow. ‘Lulu’ is their most confident work in every regard, they take more risks, and play up their vocal talents no end, even going so far as to open with an a cappella introduction. It’s also their most consistant work, where everything comes together perfectly, and on a personal level, it also has a lot of my favourite songs. ‘Jill Can Drive’ is a great little story about the eponymous Jill, a woman who works at the local store who isn’t thought of as very much, but becomes a fully rounded character in the few minutes of this song. ‘Bonneville’ is the perfect summer falling in love, not a care in the world kind of song that is almost too cheerful for it’s own good. ‘Today You Move’ brings us back to Matt’s wistful territory, as he helps his friend (same one as in ‘Reception’?) move, while finally realising that he loves her (“Now with the bedframe up the staircase / We’re through with the move / And if you thought you had enough space / I’d move in with you”), but the songs finishes before we get a resolution, which is probably for the best. ‘If You Miss Me’ is an appropriate finale to the album, seeing as it then becomes “last song” so to speak. It’s all self-explanatory enough: guy is away from girl, but wants girl to know he’s really there with her, and it all makes a fitting end.

MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Jill Can Drive (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Bonneville (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Today You Move (expired)
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – If You Miss Me (expired)

After Lulu..

Shortly after the release of ‘Lulu’ in 1991, A&M dropped Trip Shakespeare and the band decided to go their separate ways. Before they did, they put out a final EP made up entirely of covers of artists like Big Star, Husker Du and Neil Young. It wasn’t a crowning achievement by a long shot, but it made for a nice send off.

Following this, most of the band found themselves in other ventures. Dan Wilson and John Munson went on to found Pleasure, who later become the mildly successful Semsionic. Matt Wilson released some solo material before joining up with John Munson again to form the Flops, who released a live album a few years ago. Dan is now working on a solo album for Warner, due for release this year, and John is now a member of a new jazz trio called ‘The New Standards’. I may actually end up featuring Matt’s solo work on here at some point as I think it’s also deserving of attention.

Now I realise that a post of this length entirely about a band hardly anyone has heard of is mildly self indulgant, but that’s the point of these things, right? And I know it’s cliche, but if it puts one person onto the greatness that was Trip Shakespeare, then it was certainly worth it on my part. I wish I could offer up some buy links for these albums, but they have all been out of print for an incredibly long time. It took me about a year of waiting for them to come in at Djangos before I eventually got them all, so that’s about all I can suggest if you feel like trying to get hold of this material yourself.