Part 3 of my monthly residency at this local winery.

My friend and fellow songwriter Patrick Herek is opening up his home for a new monthly house concert series called The Midwestern Living Room in Northville, Michigan.  He and I will be playing the inaugural show together on Saturday, January 26th.  Space is limited, so if you’d like to attend, please RSVP to him at pherek@gmail.com. 

Pat is one of my oldest friends and favorite musical collaborators.  We began performing together at age 13 and he is still one of the most impressive musicians I’ve ever heard.  Over the years we have appeared on each other’s albums, played in each other’s bands and shared our musical visions together whenever possible.  This show in the intimate setting of his living room will draw on material from our individual and collective careers.

Check out this great collaboration I did with Detroit artist PreciseHero.  I’ve been listening to his music quite a bit this year and was excited by the chance to work with him.  I hope you enjoy the result.

Download the track:
Rookie Atoms by PreciseHero + Timothy Monger

Cheers!
TM

When Ann Arbor breathes its post-Art Fair sigh of relief, I’ll be playing for the townies at Old Town Tavern.  Sunday, July 22. 8-10pm.  Free.

Upon the release of my second solo album earlier this year, I decided to assemble my discography over the last twelve years.  On a whim, I lined up the six main CD’s from my career on the floor of my studio and noticed a curious visual trend.

Beginning with our 1999 release “The Legende of Jeb Minor”, the band (or artist) name is positioned slightly higher in the design of each subsequent album cover.  Some of the designs I had a major hand in and others I merely approved drafts from a hired designer so it would be difficult to make the case that there was a subconscious intention at work here.  Still, I thought I’d go back and take a brief look at each release and see if there was anything to it.

The Legende of Jeb Minor by The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love (1999)
This was the first legitimate release by anyone in the band.  After the teenage and college years of weird weekend bands, 4-track cassette releases and odd gigs, this was the first time any of us had worked hard enough to create something worthy of considering a “release”.  We were a new band intent on working our way up.  The original 1999 release on Planet Ant Records didn’t even have the band name on the cover.  It was added to the lower right corner after we were picked up by The Telegraph Company in 2000.

H.O.M.E.S. Volume One by The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love (2001)
Jeb Minor gave us some clout locally and led to a record deal with The Telegraph Company in Brooklyn, NY.  With the addition of Fido Kennington on drums, the lineup was solidified and we moved to a new studio and started working on better equipment.  Our confidence was building, but the classic “Calithumpian Band” photo was the hero of this album cover and our name had to settle just below it.

Summer Cherry Ghosts by Timothy Monger (2004)
After three years of work and a lifetime of thinking about it, I released my first solo album.  I admit that by the time we got to the artwork, I was crippled with debt and completely stressed out.  Although I love the birdhouse photo session I did with Doug Coombe, I’ll admit to having had greater intentions for this album cover.  I worked with a designer I met through a mutual friend and it was done very quickly.  She did an excellent job with what I gave her, but I remember mere days before going to press choosing this version of the cover out of a line-up of four.  In the year leading up to the release, I had imagined my name in a classic illustrated 60’s-style banner across the top, but in the panic to get it all done, it never materialized.  The named climbed up a notch from the last release but it wasn’t ready for prime time, I guess.

Great Lakes Myth Society by Great Lakes Myth Society (2005)
Technically this album was recorded as “H.O.M.E.S. Volume Two” by The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love and we had another bizarre 100 year old Northern Michigan clown band photo already chosen for the cover which would mirror our previous release.  After three years of recording we presented the finished album to our label just as they were going bankrupt.  Depressed and disenchanted, we actually disbanded for a few months before reforming as Great Lake Myth Society in early 2004.  We began reworking our new live show and image and the album eventually fell into the hands of Boston label Stop, Pop and Roll who released it in 2005.  We called on our friend Dan Shepelavy who had done our previous cover to construct something classy and moody.  His simple and understated photo of the dark water surface aptly fit our new black-suited image and our name could be nowhere except front and center.

Compass Rose Bouquet by Great Lakes Myth Society (2007)
Newly signed to Ann Arbor’s Quack Media label, we recorded this album more quickly than we had ever done before.  We had a great batch of songs, a willing label and were back in the comfortable confines of our favorite studio Big Sky Recording.  We knew we wanted to commission a piece of art for the cover and hired Brooklyn illustrator Rachel Salomon.  Her lovely painting of the high-wire tower dictated that our name would should rise into the air above it, but we were ready to move up anyway.

The New Britton Sound by Timothy Monger (2011)
The cover photo of my newest solo album was chosen long before the record was finished.  It’s a crop of a gorgeous panoramic photo taken by my girlfriend Kristie Brablec.  It was shot about a half mile from our farm on nearby Centennial Road.  Once again, I hired designer Dan Shepelavy and he came up with the classic lock-up text for the album cover.  In an early draft, he had place my name even higher in the image but I asked him to bring it down a bit.  I have to leave a little headroom for future releases.

Conclusion: It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.

-TM

Harvest Session

One morning during last month’s Harvest Gathering, I was captured on video outside of the vintage camper I share with my girlfriend Kristie. Our badass little camper is called Danforth. 

At first we were all just having coffee with Jim Roll and Greg McIntosh and then Steven Holmes of Mostly Midwest blog came up the hill with all of his video equipment.  He looked tired so I sang him a couple of songs and Jim and Greg joined in on baritone uke and percussion.  On the second song Jim rubbed two paper plates together which was brilliant.  That’s why he gets the big bucks as a famous record producer. 

After we filmed this, I went down the hill and played my festival set which went pretty well.  I filled my tin Coleman cup with more of the free beer and had a pretty great day.

-TM

This is the dream I had last night…

I was at a streetside demo for the iPad and my friend Scott DeRoche was playing with a new version that had a lot of buttons all over it.  He was manually scrolling with the arrow keys installed onto the top border and I realized that his was a PC version and many of the controls were not touch screen based.  I pulled out my 1st generation Mac platform iPad and someone exclaimed “Oh, I like that one so much better!”

I walked on down the street and suddenly it was nighttime and I was in Detroit.  I ran in to GLMS drummer Fido Kennington who had our old band van “Jeffine” parked against the curb.  Jeffine was about 14 feet long and parked in several feet of dirty snow.  As I began to shovel them out a digitally rendered, very pixelated U.F.O. in the bright rainbow colors of the 1980’s Apple logo flew over our heads.

Fido and I instantly knew that Scott DeRoche was inside with Mike Pinder from The Moody Blues and they had just started a band together.  I’d been so proud of my Mac iPad, but now I felt like I’d missed a great opportunity to hook up with Mike Pinder and was sad I hadn’t stayed at the demo a while longer.

Fido said “Whoa, is that Mike Pinder?  What does he need a spaceship for?”

I said “To put his mellotron in.”

-TM

Now presenting, my new album…

Ten new songs, written and recorded (mostly) at Brablec Farms in Britton, Michigan.  It is available from my new label Northern Detective on CD, MP3 and limited edition 12” vinyl. 

Download it now from Bandcamp.

I’m so grateful for the help, support, patience and incredible photography of Kristie Brablec.  She is responsible for that stunning album cover shot.  Many thanks to John Fossum, Matt Collar, Christian Anderson and Scott DeRoche who, for the last two years have comprised my live band Timothy Monger State Park and who played brilliantly all over the record.  Absolute pros, all of you. Thanks also to Jason Decamillis for getting the project off the ground by engineering the initial recording sessions back in 2008.  And then there’s the amazing Geoff Michael who patiently talked me off the ledge many times and mentored me through the engineering process.  He’s responsible for the gorgeous final mixes. And where would I be without Chris DuRoss who has fixed my sad old computers so many times enabling me to keep working.  And my friend Doug Coombe was always willing to help and lent me two of his beautiful vintage guitars which are featured prominently on the album.

Thank you to Paula Kelley for the beautiful string and wind arrangements and for agreeing to run an Ann Arbor string session from her garden in Los Angeles via Skype. Thanks to Jared Nelson Smith for moral support and long-distance organ collaboration which I apparently imported incorrectly although I still can’t tell. 

My super professional string quartet of Natania Monger, Lola Kern, Cathy Franklin and Sarah Cleveland totally knocked it out of the park, as I knew they would.  And Tyler Duncan was nice enough to take some time between tours of the U.S. and Ireland to record the uillean pipe part on “When I’m a Happy Drunk” which totally makes the song.  My brother James Monger also played mandolin on that song while I hid from Lenawee County tornados in his basement last summer.  He’s been a pillar of support during this entire project.  And then Kelly Sulick came up from Indiana to play the haunting flute parts on “Broken Barrows”.  Jim Kissling did the really great sounding mastering job and was so easy to work with. So many great musicians and artists… thanks to all of you for your talent and time!

Of course after the music was finished more great people like Dan Shepelavy stepped in and created the visual element of “The New Britton Sound” with his classy CD and LP design.  And leading up to my Day Tour and Release Show I also got to work with poster artists Jenny Harley and Randy Bishop who both put their unique stamp on a part of the album.

And through the entire process my amazing parents Bill & MJ Monger did everything they could to help me out.  They’ve been doing that for my entire career, in fact.

Finally, when I was desperate to get the album released but couldn’t afford to do so, eighty-nine extremely generous people helped Kickstart the project to completion in a mere two days.  That’s just crazy.

Thank you all.

Cheers!
TM