Of Great and Mortal Mean Plays Morning News Show
Of Great and Mortal Men appeared on the Sacramento morning show, “Sacramento & Company” this week for several songs, an interview, and some harmless banter. Watch the video! http://www.news10.net/life/entertainment/story.aspx?storyid=51750&catid=104
Hi there all. Christian here. In case you’d like to listen in on the various radio interviews we’ve been doing, I’ve included them as part of my podcast over at http://www.christiankiefer.com. You can link ’em below, or search for me in iTunes and subscribe to the podcast. I ran the original Presidential demos in their entirety last year and hellfire I might just do that all again this year!
Here are some recent places the album has cropped up around the cyberjoint:
Meanwhile, as staggering as this sounds, we’re actually already starting the longish process of contemplating SXSW for March of ’09. Yee haw Texas again! Lonestar! Everytime we finish SXSW I feel older and stupider, but it sure it a good time.
Because of, among other things, this 5 star review of Of Great and Mortal Men. Thanks, VenusZine! Tasty quotes from our songs about Van Buren, Jackson, Washington, GHW Bush, and GW Bush too.
Three sexy men in colonial formal wear
The Sacramento News & Review was kind enough to interview us three. It was to be a Music Feature. Then it was to be an Arts Feature. Then it became a cover story. To which we all say: Oh! Hell Yes!
By the time the author interviewed Jefferson Pitcher the piece was nearly done and so he even ran Jeff’s interview separately in the paper.
Good times for all. We’re planning a single show for local (to Sacramento) folks on Sept. 13 at our regular stomping ground the Fox & Goose Pub. If you’re around (and are 21+, sorry) please come by. The label promises we’ll have copies to sell at the show by then. If I get my biz together I’ll have 3″ mini CDs of some of the demos as a bonus for those who buy it. I really wanted to be able to give everyone a copy of the Constitution but I just couldn’t work out the $. Damn you $$. Damn you to helll$$!!
In any case, you can read the cover story here and the Jeff PItcher interview here. Go now!
Meanwhile, we did a rather lengthy series of interviews–both by e-mail and phone–with Matt Erler at NUVO and he did us up a really great essay/review/overview, which is quite good and worth the read. Check it!
AND Matt also kindly enough published the original complete interviews too so you can read those as well if you’ve got an inkling for the digital ink. We didn’t know Matt before this, but like Nick Miller (who wrote the SN&R piece above) he really took the time and effort to understand what it was we were trying to do. Thanks, gents.
Meanwhile, our friend Sandy did a post with some of the original fawm.org demos (with our permission, of course). Original demos of Washington, Coolidge, and Adams. Check those out on Sandy’s site here.
In a lot of ways, this album- and everything that has gone into making the project see the light of day- seems particularly prescient. While I was listening to Obama’s acceptance speech last night, I was packing up the last of the few remaining promos. His speech was cadence to my fold-stuff-seal labor, but it produced a harmony I am proud to be a part of. I know it’s no real comparison, but here we are in the midst of an honest to god historic election, and I am in the middle of the most adventurous release we’ve undertaken, chronicling our Presidents. If there was ever a right time to be stuffing envelopes, last night was it: the right release, the right place in modern history.
And as I was navigating the thick, substantial copies of Of Great and Mortal Men into the padded confines of the envelopes, I kept thinking, “What an amazing speech! What can McCain do to counter this?” Well, this afternoon, I found out. Palin took me by surprise (like 99.99% of the rest of the country), but after some contemplation, it seems that McCain picked who he thought was the most Republican version of Obama he could find. And then I wondered: “What song would Christian, Jefferson and Matt make of this? Will this political gesture become a lyric?”
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As I was sitting in Waffle House this morning at an interview about the release, my phone buzzed. I just got an email from Christian, a forward of a rather comprehensive and positive review of Of Great and Mortal Men. The freelance reporter was in a hurry, sorting through questions ranked by importance and settled on this as his first: “So will this project bankrupt you?”
Really? That’s what you want to know?
Part of me wanted to say, “what the hell kind of question is that?! What does that have to do with the merits of the project?” and show him the review that just came but another part of me thought better and said, “Even if it does, it will still be out there, released.”
The project has finally arrived at the offices of the label and is just starting to ship out to press. We three songwriters haven’t even seen it yet but they tell us: Awesome.
Unless the printer is lying, our main man at the label is scheduled to pick up the Of Great and Mortal Men books today. This is good news as a) we’ll finally be able to see what the whole thing actually looks like and b) we’ll be able to send out the hard copies to the various press folks who need them.
To all of this I say: Woo hah!
Another, from Chart Attack way up in that country to the north of us. Scandia or Canandia or something like that. I can’t quite remember. When you have both the money and the guns, you no longer need pay attention to the names of those who do not. Anyway, we love that country, whatever it’s called and you can read that review here.
Of Great and Mortal Men 