I’ve Been Looking Forward to this for a long time now. Yes, it’s still in its saran wrap, waiting for a moment when I can sit down & really listen. It’s due for release at the end of February, but I managed to get myself an early copy.

How, you may ask? Well, even if you didn’t here’s how. Back in 2017, I joined Mastodon because hey, everyone was doing it! (It turns out almost no one was doing it) then in 2022 when M*sk began burning Twitter down, people did start moving over in pretty good numbers. I was super-excited to see Thor Harris show up on Masto, as he’s one of Austin’s greatest treasures. If you don’t know about Thor, to put it in his words, “you’re fucked.” Love the guy. We’ve known each other from “around” since our respective bands played some gigs together at the end of the 80’s.

Anyway, although Thor’s presence on Mastodon was short, this lady who was friends with him kept popping up in my feed, so I followed her and we got to taking. She’s from Austin. She knew Phyllis, my favorite waitress from Xalapeño Charlies! where I was a cook in the early 80’s. Dang, I miss you Charlie. She knew Deborah Damm, my old hair stylist who tragically died in a car accident in the late 80s! (What a loss…) She traveled to Mexico a lot! This lady was cool, and we had some great talks. And she was trying to talk herself into playing out live again for the first time in 20 years. She thought I’d be the perfect bass player to help her get it together and get back on stage. I hemmed and hawed a bit.
Then she booked a gig. My entreaties of “I’m retired from working as a gigging bass player” were summarily ignored, and I got drafted. So since she had an album in the works, and a gig coming up, I was lucky enough to get to hear her demos, then some roughs as we were working up a set list for her show at Cheer Up Charlie’s last November. “But we need a drummer,” she said. “Why not ask Thor?” I said. “He’s too busy, he’d never,” she said. Anyway, Thor agreed to play drums & keys (one with each hand – this guy is something else) and we had us a nice trio going! The gig went really well. Right before we played, I walked up to Thor who was chatting with a friend, and he said “This is Steve Shelly. He was in a band called Sonic Youth.” (I plotzed) and it kind of dawned on my the stratosphere I was inhabiting for that one evening.

So I learned to play most of the songs on this album a year before it was released, and now I’m sorta savoring the idea of sitting down and hearing it all on a nice turntable, because these are really, really great songs. I was also overjoyed to see this on the back. Thanks Edith! You’re the best.