The Slow Burn: Home

Hope you are doing well!

I wanted to take a moment to remind you about our upcoming shows and to do another Song of the Moment installment.

First, the gigs:

We will be returning to Brothers Encore Pub in Montclair, VA on Saturday, June 6th at 9 PM. We love playing at Brothers. The crowds are great, and the grub is even better!

On June 20th we will be playing at the Mantua Swim & Tennis Club – the local pool. This gig is free for members of the pool. If you are not a member and you would like to come, let me know and we'll see about getting you in as a guest.

For more info on these gigs, please check out our Calendar page: http://www.theslowburn.com/calendar.html.


Song of the Moment:

The first selection is from Tinted Windows, a new “supergroup” composed of four members: Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne (“Stacy’s Mom”), James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins, Bun E. Carlos from Cheap Trick (you read that right!) and on vocals Taylor Hanson of…Hanson. You may not have taken that group seriously, but believe me, Taylor Hanson can SING! (I’ll cop to the fact that I used to secretly sing along to MMMBop – will you?) The tunes are a throwback to the eighties – pure power pop and very catchy. I am including the song “Dead Serious” from their self-titled debut album. I dare you not to be humming this all day!

http://cid-0a3434d89334a56a.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Song%20of%20the%20Moment/2009

For more on Tinted Windows, go to http://www.tintedwindowsmusic.com/

I also recently became aware of the band Kings of Leon, which is made up of the four Followill brothers from Tennessee – Caleb, Jared, Matthew and Nathan. Daddy was a preacher and dragged the four boys from church to church where he would deliver fiery sermons. The boys were forbidden to watch TV or listen to the radio growing up. Whether or not their upbringing influenced the intensity of their performance, I don’t know, but there is no shortage of angst on the track “Use Somebody” from their album "Only By the Night" which I have put up on the share.

http://cid-0a3434d89334a56a.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Song%20of%20the%20Moment/2009

Here’s a video of them performing the song live on Leno on May 15th.

For more on Kings of Leon, visit http://www.kingsofleon.com/

These guys are the real deal!



As always, if you like the tunes, please support the artists and buy the mp3's/CD's.

All the best,
Ted Donat

Dear Friends,

It seems like forever since I wrote last, so I thought I would fill you in on some news, and take the occasion to do a Song of the Moment too!

JUNE GIGS

We have a couple of gigs coming up in June we wanted to tell you about.

First we will be returning to Brothers Encore Pub in Montclair, VA on June 6th. We love playing at Brothers. The crowds are great, and the grub is even better!

Also, on June 20th we will be playing at the Mantua Swim & Tennis Club - our local pool. This gig is free for members of the pool. If you are not a member and you would like to come, let me know and we'll see about getting you in as a guest.

For more info on these gigs, please check out our Calendar page: http://www.theslowburn.com/calendar.html.

WEBSITE REFRESH

We recently did a refresh of our website and we'd love to know what you think. You can even see a picture of our bassist Joe Loftus (it only took us two years to get a picture of him up on the site!)

Once you have had a tour, mosy on over to the guestbook and share your thoughts.


SONG(S) OF THE MOMENT

You may have heard of "Pandora". It's a site where you tell it what kind of music you like, and they stream music to you - some stuff you know, and other stuff you don't that they think you might like. One artist I discovered there is Richard X. Heyman. His jangly pop is reminiscent of The Byrds and Matthew Sweet, and his production ethic is akin to Todd Rundgren's - like Todd, he often plays all the instruments himself.

I have uploaded the song "Everywhere She Goes", an infectious pop gem, to the share:

http://cid-0a3434d89334a56a.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Song%20of%20the%20Moment/2009

Here is a link to Pandora: http://www.pandora.com/

And here is a link to his website: http://www.richardxheyman.com/


Is Amy Winehouse a train wreck? Sure.

Can she sing? Hells yeah.

Check out her version of "Valerie" from the "I Told You I Was Trouble (Live in London)" DVD, which I have also uploaded to the share.

If you want to see the video (caution, you will be concerned for her health!), go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdM97BtS9R8

Finally, I'm a huge fan of witnessing the creative process - the sausage-making, as I like to call it. I'm including a cut from one of our rehearsals of a great new song of Paul's called "When the World Is Asleep". We were woodshedding on this, and it is quite evident in the recording. Paul is calling out instructions and we are trying to follow. It is by no means a perfect document, but I think it captures very well our working style. I put it on the share. (Paul will almost definitely kill me when he discovers that I have done this, so it was nice knowing you!)

As always, if you like the tunes, please support the artists and buy the mp3's/CD's.

All the best,
Ted Donat

We have a couple of gigs coming up in June - one at Brothers Encore in Montclair, VA on June 6th, and another at the Mantua Swim & Tennis Club on June 20th.  Click here for details:  http://www.theslowburn.com/calendar.html.

Hope you can make it!

Best,
TD