Canard Music

Here’s a new maddening piece of psych-electro-fizzle from Electric Lawnchair, the alter ego of Newsboy Legion.

It Was Cheddar Cheese

 Recorded in October of 2007 in Rome, Ga. Lovingly messed with by THE ENEMY FROM SPACE.

It’s been a long time since I took a stroll, rock and roll, etc.

I have been immersing myself in making new noise. Hopefully soon there will be stuff to post.

I am currently enjoying working with a new band consisting of Pat Barousse, Jordan Myers, Brian Heath and myself. I am playing guitar, singing and writing some songs with the guys. So far it is going very well and we have about 8 songs already in various larval and finished stages. No band name yet. ‘Poncho’ was mentioned earlier. John Hintz would probably offer up the band name ‘Side’, which we thought was the worst band name ever!

In other bright and crispy news, The Exploding Madonna reformed after a year and a half and has been trying to bust out of its dormant state. Good things happening with that and possibly a new record coming up. Maybe some shows too, but it’s tentative at best right now and we’re just thankful to be back together and enjoying music and each other.

Newsboy Legion worked on some new tunes back in September/October,  but they are incomplete. It will probably take another session to wrap it up, but the stuff turned out a little more like “Jimmy Don’t Like That” then the electronic stuff.

It’s pretty raw and ragged as we shook the cob webs off.

Icon Mine disbanded for now with no plans for the future anytime soon. I would like to thank James and Larry for allowing me to participate in their music.

Trying to pull Canard and the Magnetic Band out of the ether. No firm plans, but the reunion show at the Legion Hall was kicking back in September.

That’s all for now… thanks!

Maybe new music posted here soon!

I recently spent time in Rome, Ga with Kelly working on some new Newsboy Legion stuff and breaking in his new studio gear. Before I left, I found these tracks which were designed to be on the second ‘Twilight of the Puppets’ concept piece.

TARS

Space Dance

Puppet Pieces  this features various pieces and songs in on mp3.

After the bizarre Newsboy Legion double album length “IKE”(1997), Kelly and I decided maybe we should concentrate on some shorter pop/rock type songs. Of course, freaky sci-fi and self loathing prevailed and we ended up with the concise statement ‘Jimmy Don’t Like That’ ep. What happened truthfully was that we had done several sessions and we were going to do a full album called ‘I Want to Be A Service Station Attendant’. For some reason I remember us having a hard time completing everything as Newsboy Legion was a two state distance learning band. Kelly still resides in Georgia, so it was hard to get up there and finish things. About three years ago we attempted to rerecord some of Newsboy Legion’s best stuff but it stopped short of a finished product. Maybe one day? Anyway, I will post the outtakes from this period which were going to be released but never were. There’s some good stuff so check back on this post for the extra goodies. A lot of the outtakes are cool older demos and solo synth pieces by Kelly. For now though the 5 song ep will have to suffice. Enjoy.

Irish Lust

Why We Burn

Party Rock

Spacemen Think So Too

Electric Lawnchair

Cape of Wind

Ya know I gotta tell ya that I’ve been finding lots of weird stuff. Not least of which is this track which I have no memory of recording, but obviously has Kelly Shane on drums and synth. “Satellite Jimmy(honky in space)” is a weird little tune where I seem to think singing in an English accent is a good idea. This must have been after ‘Ike’…who knows?

Newsboy Legion was formed as a way for Kelly Shane and I to play material we had written for solo projects in a live setting. Eventually it took on a life of its own as a collaborative rock music project and then later as an electronic music outlet before changing its name to Electric Lawnchair. Now pretty much inactive, the band’s rock output resulted in several releases and a live lineup that originally featured Kelly, Bob Anthony, Kenny Howes and myself. After a few gigs, Brent McNeal replaced Kenny on bass. Bob stuck around for a while longer, but the group spent more time as a trio. This eventually culminated in the tragic 1998            “ri-goddamn-diculous” tour with  Invaders from a Forbidden Planet. This is a 9 minute bizarre live recording of the ditty “Don’t F**k with the Puppet” from the ‘Ike’ cd. It features improv, a messed up Led Zep cover and an acapella ending. Sound quality is a little rough as it is from the mixing board at the Cow Haus circ. 1999. Also be prepared for a rather large file. Enjoy.

This week’s selection’s are “Tomfoolery” by Bacon Ray. This was the A side of our “legendary” ep that also featured “Sundays in a Row” and “Plica Plica”. Probably the best selling 45 I’ve ever been involved with. You can also find it on the AAJ comp ‘SHMUH’. Merlin Mann plays the crap out of the bass on this, Jason plays wang bar play doh guitar and the Beard pounds the skins.

Second up is a Newsboy Legion tune. “Irish Lust” was on the ‘Jimmy Don’t Like That’ EP. When writing the lyrics I was trying to indulge in stereotypes/cliches against a backdrop of 50′s style “I wanna take you on a date,school is a drag” bullshit complete with some sweet synth from Mr. Enemy from Space!

A quick note: All of the comments were unfortunately lost during the migration of the site. We apologize for this and encourage comments as we do not plan on moving again.Thanks for checking us out.

Sorry for the confusion if you tried to visit the last few days. We migrated to a larger server to better provide eons worth of music. I want to thank Kelly for his diligence. Anyway, I have been in contact with the other Singing Spoons and will hopefully have some input on what material they would like to have on this site. This week will be a little light, but here are two mp3′s. The first is cut called “Mars is Heaven” which is off of the ‘sounds from the electric lawnchair’ cd. It was our adventure into electronic music and was released under the Newsboy Legion moniker before we decided it was best to release the electronic stuff under a different name and keep the Newsboy Legion name for the more rock stuff like this song called “Fantasy Wind” which was going to be on a cd that never materialized. It did end up on the compilation ‘The Nervous System’ which was a great mix of national and local acts curated by Brent McNeal and released on AAJ records.

Here’s a couple of photos of Newsboy Legion. This was a side project at the time for me from Bacon Ray and a collaboration with Kelly Shane. Here’s a photo of our lumpy asses from Lee Grutman’s wedding. It essentially started as a way for us to play solo Canard material and Kelly’s Enemy from Space material. It eventually had a life of it’s own and released four cd’s and several 7″ singles. Anyway, here’s another photo from our debut gig. This one features the whole band , me, Kelly(finally visible in Bea Arthur drag), Bob Anthony and Kenny Howes! Wooop! The other one is from a show with the more permanent lineup which was me, Kelly and Brent McNeal . In this photo, Afshin Beheshti is joining us on sax for an incredibly dissonant version of “Puppet’. Newsboy Legion picture one is probably from 1997 and the second from 1998. And in case you were wondering…no it’s not a tumor!