Prosperous-looking Dresdeners stood cheek-by-jowl in a city park, clinking glasses of Riesling and restlessly awaiting the appearance of local heroes Die Nierentische (translation: the kidney-shaped tables). Led by longtime friends of Mark’s, Die Nierentische recently played all over the Triangle, including a memorable set at Guglhupf when lead singer Martin climbed on the patio tables [...]

The magic kingdom of Bohemia never let up its aesthetic flood: literally every direction yielded a new vista that would send Imagineers running back to their drafting boards. A wall-to-wall carpet of tourists made streets hard to navigate without a battering ram. This preponderance of non-natives also gave the city an ersatz, vacationland feel.

People packed in to hear the show, including one chemically-saturated guitar player in a green hoodie who kept trying to grab my mic and scream about Kurt Cobain and Elliot Smith. He seemed poised to join their ranks, and soon. Then he settled down onto the floor at the base of my mic stand and proceeded to pour a side-salad sized pile of weed onto my setlist to start sorting out the seeds.

Things were going well, we’d turned our penny drizzle into a 50-cent and 1-euro shower, when the police rolled up. The driver rolled down his window, shaking his ruddy head and running a finger across his throat. “Get out,” he said with characteristic Dutch directness.

The time has come for us to unleash our newest album, Tender Age. A few things we’d like to tell you about it before you take it into your home and your ear space:

Hello friends, I have been remiss. But I’m back and bursting at the seams with great music for you. So, without further ado:

Floating Action: Floating Action
We played with Seth Kauffman and his band, Floating Action, recently, and it was a delight. They combine aspects of 50’s reggae, hawaiian music and loose Stonesy grooves, frosted with [...]

Whoever decided to call it (and the title track) “Surf’s Up” either is pretty far out of his mind or has a pretty dark sense of humor. Turns out, it’s both.

We’re about to head out on the road again, even braving the wild and woolly Canadian border. Hopefully, this time our papers will be, as they say, in order. As we all try to get our fill of homemade meals and real beds before we leave, we’re also getting excited to see our friends in [...]

The problem with recording is always that the live energy and the ‘vibe’ that a live performance creates, gets squashed and sucked dry until you’re left with some barely recognizable artifact. It’s like translating something into Japanese and back into English: something gets lost.

This record is a treasure trove of pop brilliance. It’s almost too much to digest all at one sitting, but impossible to put down, like a pint of Chubby Hubby.