There are a couple of Camp Street related releases now available for aural consumption.  The first is the new album from Wasilla, Alaska’s Portugal. The Man, ‘Censored Colors.’  You can purchase the album in several formats, plus T-shirts and all sorts of cool stuff via Merchnow.com. For further enticement check out the tunes on the PTM myspace.

The next is a new release by the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas. Irma is accompanied by 12 outstanding pianists on this 14 song offering which features a new tune from master songsmiths, Burt Bacharach and Steve Krikorian, as well as a previously unrecorded Doc Pomus-Dr. John composition. Listen to some tracks and buy the album from Rounder Records.

We are also getting ready for the September release of the new Joshua English album, ‘Kill For Sport’…our very first Camp Street Records release! The LP cover will look remarkably similar to this…only bigger and more lifelike:

As the summer winds down, things are really heating up here at the studio.  Beat Circus, Boston’s finest purveyours of gothic Americana, were in with producer Sean Slade to track 18 songs. Ringmaster Brian Carpenter’s latest sonic vision is his most ambitious to date, featuring a string trio along with the usual assortment of banjos, brass accordian and keyboards. 

We finally got two blessed days of sunshine after what seemed like a month of rain.  The windows are open pumping fresh air into the control room while Adam and Paul mix Germany’s Reamonn. These guys just recieved mad street cred by performing for our favorite presidential candidate, Barack Obama, at his big rally in Berlin.  Judging from his hand gesture, Obama is down with West Germany.  Represent.

Some of the best musicians in the Boston area have assembled here at Camp Street in the form of Session Americana. Paul and Alex have been busy setting up the live room for a two day burst of live tracking from these talented gentlemen. As always, they are gathered in a circle singing, strumming, drumming, blowing harps as well as our minds.

Stage one of tracking for Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles’ 3rd full length is complete, having yielded a nice crop of originals, as well as some great covers. Stage two will commence next Wednesday. We’ll keep the PBR cold until then.

We are also getting prepped and ready for the very first Camp Street Records release, Joshua English’s ‘Kill For Sport’ which will be available in digital and vinyl formats via our soon-to-be-launched web store. The store will be online in early September. As previously alluded to, there will be parties.

Day one of tracking for the new full length from Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles.  We’re very happy to have Sarah and her crew back here at Camp Street for what promises to be another fine release.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress and maybe tease you a bit with a sneak preview track somewhere on down the line…stay tuned.

We’re rocking late night with Western Mass’ most progadelic sci-fi band, Bunnies.  Many cups of coffee and cola have been consumed to fuel the experience.  Producer, Roger Miller just conjured sounds from the Wurlitzer hitherto unheard by human ears.  Which is fitting as Bunnies occasionally sing in Esperanto–a language seldom heard by human ears.  A few more gallons of coffee and we should be mostly done tracking sometime very, very early this morning….

Bunnies are in from Western Mass recording a five day full length with producer Roger Miller from Mission of Burma. The Studer tape machine broke but we slapped the 24 track heads on the old MCI and it’s sounding great. Guest engineer Justin Pizzoferrato has used all the mic cables so it’s time to roll tape.

Producer Sean Slade in mixing Tony’s new record through Wednesday…guest engineer Benny Grotto is working with Adam T. It’s been a banjo-fied month at Camp Street, with Ralph Stanley and now Tony, who’s blending his banjo with some cool and unusual textures like Mellotron and fuzz-wah. Check him out at tonyfurtado.com

Paul came back from Minnesota with a couple of unique new instruments.  He found a Zvex Drip guitar that’s a tribute to the Vox teardrop-style guitars of the 60’s.  The gimmick is it’s got a built in wah probe controlled by a hidden antenna under the pickguard.  This one is an extra rare model as it also has a built in Super Hard On boost circuit.  Zachary was at the Bryant-Lake Bowl Saturday night and he confirmed there were less than ten were made with the boost…this one’s dated 12/12/00.

we also picked up a custom made 8-string tenor guitar/mando-cello (depending on how you want to tune it).  The guitar was made from the body of a Rickenbacker, re-topped with mahogany and outfitted with 2 Custom-built Lipstick style 4 string single-coils.  Originally built for Neko Case by Minneapolis luthier Kurt Nelson, it’s a beautifully made instrument and sounds great. 

Last but not least is a crazy old Wurlitzer “Funmaker” electric organ.  It’s got the usual vast array of stops and a two level keyboard with bass pedals..but it also has a built in synthesizer controlled by an additional 2 octave mini-keyboard, built in Leslie speaker, microphone input and even a cassette deck!  Some mad scientists over at Wurlitzer took it upon themselves to cram just about everything they could into this aptly named super-organ.  A “Funmaker” in every sense of the word. 

Paul’s been on vacation in Minneapolis working with Polara’s Ed Ackerson on new material and cooking up some new concepts for the site this Fall. Adam went to Brimfield to look for old vinyl and housewares, Johnny’s been on tour with Clouds, and Alex is getting ready for his trip to Prague next week. In the meantime though we’ve whipped up a new John Powhida tune, a disco ditty called “Dirty Birdie” that really puts the cherry on his fine new disc which we’ll be getting to you asap. As soon as we can all get together and mix it we’ll have a bit for everyone to hear. We’re also looking forward to Fall releases from Joshua English, the Bodega Girls, and Ed Ackerson’s great new solo album on Susstones… there will be parties!

Brooklyn’s Teenage Prayers are in for the weekend recording new material and playing a show at Boston’s newest Live Nation venue, The Paradise. We’ve got 6 songs going and we’ll hope to post one on the website soon…stay tuned.