Update: December (and November) 2008

Posted December 10, 2008

We’ve been out of touch recently but with good reason. After many rumors and recriminations about Sons of Bill maybe possibly recording some new music (as early as Spring 2007, it was once estimated!) the facts are finally in: We’ve started recording our second album! In light of past indiscretions, we feel like we must offer the disclaimer that the album will not be hitting shelves until early Spring. However, we can offer you concrete assurance that new Sons of Bill music has been recorded and will likely be completed and released in time for the big Easter 2009 retail rush. Time to stock up on CD-shaped plastic eggs for all your loved ones!

To make a very long story a bit shorter, we had the honor of spending the majority of November in and around PLYRZ Studios in Santa Clarita, California with one of our idols in the record business, the esteemed Mr Jim Scott (and his able-bodied assistant Young Kevin). Jim first got our attention for engineering Tom Petty’s fantastic Wildflowers album, and later secured his status as a god among insects (at least in Sons of Bill’s eyes) when he produced Whiskeytown’s belatedly acclaimed Stranger’s Almanac. He’s also done all kinds of other exciting things including working with Rick Rubin for well over a decade, getting beaten up in Hollywood as a college student, and almost single handedly funding Pete Coors’ failed bid for US Congress by keeping the PLYRZ fridge stocked with enough Coors Light to pickle every other liver in Los Angeles County. Well played Jim. Add to that list producing, engineering and mixing the second Sons of Bill album. Keep up the good work.

We did all kinds of exciting things in October which we have yet to recap, but they just seem so long ago and we can’t really bring ourselves to go into much detail right now when we’re so excited about the next couple months. Look at the previous month’s update. Everything we said was going to happen did happen. It all went great. We didn’t even get the boot on our van in New York (although we did get a parking ticket for moving our van into the path of a street cleaner after misreading the no parking signs).

Keeping our eyes set on the future, we will be doing our 3rd Annual Christmas Throwdown (previously known as Anniversary Throwdowns, since our first show was on December 23, 2005) this December 23rd at Fry’s Spring Beach Club in Charlottesville. Since all of the requitably sized venues in C’ville have shut down for the time being, the good people at Starr Hill Presents and Satellite Ballroom Presents have taken it upon themselves to rent out the ballroom at Fry’s Spring and convert it to a temporary palace of rock. It is worth noting that give or take a decade ago the Western Albemarle High School Student Government Association rented out the same ballroom to host none-other-than Abe Wilson’s junior prom. With any luck, this time Abe won’t get thrown out for drinking coconut rum in the bathroom and end up passed out in a cow field in Afton. With any luck. Tickets are available from the following link and Wahooptie taxi service is running a special shuttle from various convient places around town (info also at the ticket link).

We’ve got all kinds of other great stuff coming up, including a winter tour through almost all of February that will take us to exciting locales like Baton Rouge, LA and Bloomington, IN where no SoB has ever tread. Keep an eye on the tour schedule for the official announcement of those dates and many others. Here’s hoping your Christmas goes as well as ours is shaping up to go. All we’re asking of Santa is a sweet new record to be pushing on the streets by springtime. See you all soon.

making a list and checking it twice,
Sons of Bill