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June 28, 2006

Al: Sunday Service

When we had the late-night brainwave about recording some live songs in my mother's living room and calling it "Sunday Service: Come to Jesus With The Damn Millionaires," we should have factored in that it would be on no sleep and much hangover.

We didn't really do any factoring, to be honest, as will be immediately obvious. The thing is, the kind of band the DMs are (is?), we never get to play or rehearse together. For the recording of Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out, we literally rehearsed together twice, and then we recorded the album in one week, including mixing. We never get to do it, and even this is without Chris (on drums where he rightfully belongs) and Jesse (who we miss terribly), so it hardly counts. Still way fun, though.

I like the idea of a "recording band" recording a live performance, and we will try to do this each time we're together, though next time we should perhaps be a little more organized about it so we end up with some music clips worth sharing, something we did not accomplish this time. (I mean, our We are the World is pretty powerful, but my vanity has its limits of abuse.) However, there are some amusing outtakes. Please turn in your hymnal to number 398, and please turn up your volume to hear Vince Chao, who is not very close to the mic, talking about his Willie.

Aw, you missed it. We took these clips down to save space. They were silly, anyway.

Posted by The DMs at 10:23 AM | Comments (3)

June 26, 2006

The DMs: Now sold separately.

We forgot to tell you, but our songs are available now for individual download on iTunes, as well as many other digital download sites. I believe you can also download the entire album as a unit. The important news, though, is that you can get one song at a time. I was pretty blasé about this announcement until I actually looked up the album on iTunes and saw it and freaked out because... well, there are all the songs! That we wrote and recorded! For sale!

Of course, we'd love it if you'd buy the whole album from us, but if say, you'd just like to get a song or two or suggest one to a friend, please, for the love of all that is holy, do so.

A short list of other sites where we can allegedly be found:

MusicNet
MusicIsHere
MP3tunes
Emusic
AudioLunchbox
Napster
MSN Music
Bitmunk
Choice Records
BuyMusic
DigitalKiosk
Chondo
GreatIndieMusic
Liquid Digital Media
MusicNow
YooPeDoo
WrapFactory
Sony Connect
PlayIndies
Rhapsody

I've never heard of most of those, but maybe you have. Go for it!

Posted by The DMs at 11:14 AM | Comments (3)

June 25, 2006

Oh, hi.

(Comments were broken. We didn't know. Now they're fixed. Rock on.)

Posted by The DMs at 06:12 PM

June 22, 2006

Magic City Breakdown

Got back the other day from an extended weekend in Birmingham where The DMs-minus-Jesse gathered together to do a little songwriting, some home-recording and see the fantastic and beloved Brandi Carlile at the very awesome City Stages.

After sitting out on Fish Camp for like, nine hours in the heat Vince and I came up with the "brilliant" idea to record a "live session" of The Damn Millionaires sitting around playing songs and "practicing." Brilliantly, we figured we'd cut it down and put the best parts on the Internet. What can I say? It was 2 a.m.

We must have still been drunk the next morning when we did this, because... it sounds so crazy, I can't even tell you. I'm not sure I can make any promises about whether or not we will actually post it here -- I'll leave it up to Vince.

Highlights include:

1. Our duet of We Are the World.

1b. Vince worrying that his impression of Willie Nelson was not coming across well enough and saying: "My Willie's no good."

2. Chris, trying so desperately to be involved that he played a tamborine with a pencil.

3. Me, talking like this: "Haaay, dew yew no wheyun ah'm supposed to come iyun own thiyus pawrt?" And not on purpose, but just because that is apparently how I talk, which is so upsetting to hear played back.

4. This photo of our recording "set up," prominently featuring and sometimes physically employing a bird figurine.

The DMs have a few new songs in the hopper and we are looking ahead to putting it all together again to reunite and record in the studio at some point it in the not-too-distant future. The way we do this stuff is so complicated, but so fun. We hope you're still staying tuned.

Posted by The DMs at 10:52 AM | Comments (4)

June 12, 2006

Party Time

Chris and I went to a great party Friday night at a friend's farm outside of Madison and subsequently spent the next TWO DAYS recovering from it. Not just hungover, y'all, but slungover. Slung like I have not been in years. I didn't have a headache or anything, but I felt like somebody turned gravity up to 11 and ripped off the knob. If I was Toby Keith or one of those other Nashvillians who write songs like this, I'd put something together about the perils of whiskey and whiffle ball, which is a combo about as perilous as they come.

The host spun Be Sure... at the party and hearing us wafting over the trees of the tick-infested GA woods was a weird sensation. I haven't listened to the album in a long time, and once again I was very pleasantly surprised as were the other party goers who were, it seemed, sincerely complimentary. It made me very proud and happy about that recording, the anniversary of which we will celebrate next month. That's weird. In some ways, it feels like a very long time ago. Almost everybody we know has reached a very blase state about the album, including us, so it was nice to be around some fresh ears and see their eyes go wide and have them ask specific questions about this thing we still kind of regard as something we dreamed up. It was a very fun night, and that was a nice moment.

We are allegedly seeing the Chaos this weekend to do some rocking. Right now, Vince should be making a list on a napkin about what stuff he wants to bring and how many cables he'll need to make it all work in JoLowe's living room. We have not seen them in a long time, so I am more than looking forward to it.

(Update on the tax audit thing I wrote about last time: Ehhh... it didn't go well. At all. As a matter of fact, the worst case scenario became reality. It took us about three weeks to emerge from that murderous rage. A visit from my friend Julie improved our moods considerably, though. I'm sick of being so pissed off all the time, really. So, we're appealing the decision. They'll get that money by prying it from my cold, dead hands, and you can put that in a song and smoke it. )

Posted by The DMs at 10:10 AM