Mike Dees - Home

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Upcoming events

Sun, July 12, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, July 19, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, July 26, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, August 2, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, August 9, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, August 16, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, August 23, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Previous events

Sun, July 5, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, June 28, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, June 21, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Wed, June 17, 2009
10:00 pm
Mike Dees & Tom Arndt at Kudzu's
Kudzu's
603 Monroe Avenue Memphis TN (MAP)
Tom Arndt and I had so much fun last time, we're doing it again. Solo and duo acoustic sets, covers, originals (including a few new ones)...Who knows what might happen?

Wed June 17
Kudzu's
603 Monroe Ave
Memphis TN 38103
901-525-4924
Show starts at 10PM
Age Limit: 21+

Sun, June 14, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Fri, June 12, 2009
10:00 pm
Mike Dees Band at Poplar Lounge
Poplar Lounge
2586 Poplar Memphis TN (MAP)
Age Limit: 21+

Sun, June 7, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, May 31, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sun, May 24, 2009
9:00 pm
Songwriter night at the Edge Coffeehouse
The Edge CoffeeHouse
394 N. Watkins Memphis TN (MAP)
Mike hosts the Songwriter night at the Edge coffeehouse every Sunday at 9PM-until. Come on out and play a few tunes. It's a great way to close out the weekend before the weekday drudgery begins.

1400 Overton Park Avenue @ 394 N.Watkins in MidTown
Telephone - 901-278-0803
Home of the Avalanche! ™
"World Famous Highly Addictive Double Espresso Milk Shake" The Avalanche

Sat, May 23, 2009
10:00 pm
Mike Dees Band at Poplar Lounge
Poplar Lounge
2586 Poplar Memphis TN (MAP)
Age Limit: 21+

View all previous events (117 more)

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Mike Dees

Tommy Hoehn

Please keep my friend and mentor Tommy Hoehn in your thoughts and prayers. He's in critical condition at St. Francis ICU and on a respirator with bilateral pneumonia.

Take Refuge In Pleasure: The Songs Of Roxy Music

I've kept this one under my hat until everything was done, but I am appearing on yet another tribute album from Burning Sky Records. This will be my 4th track on all three of their releases and I'm privileged to work with them.

The album is called "Take Refuge In Pleasure: The Songs Of Roxy Music" and will be coming out later this year. When I was contacted about submitting a track for it, I was initially reticent. I'm not the biggest fan of the band and I figured the few songs I liked would be spoken for (Love Is The Drug, Avalon, Slave To Love, More Than This). So I listened to as many songs as I could to find one I could do something with. After initially trying out versions of "Viginia Plain", "Still Falls The Rain", and "In Every Dream Home A Heartache", I finally settled on "Nightingale" from the Siren album.

My take is a more folk-pop version on the song, somewhere between The Beatles/Jellyfish and Wilco/Jayhawks, while still remaining true to my sound. For a recording that I was initially hesitant to do, I think it turned out really well and I'm proud of it.

The personnel on the recording are:

Mike Dees: Vocals, 6 and 12 string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, slide guitar, keyboard
Tom Arndt: Bass (Our new addition KILLS this trackin 2 takes!)
Kevin Doherty: Drums
Jobu Babin: Lap steel during the "this is where the acid kicks in" section.

So check out the good folks at Burning Sky Records ( http://www.myspace.com/burningskyrecords ). They've put all four of my tracks from their various releases on their page for your listening pleasure, including the premiere of "Nightingale" from "Take Refuge In Pleasure:The Songs Of Roxy Music" (coming later this year. http://www.myspace.com/songsofroxymusicrevisited ).

Here's a blog they posted about my involvement.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=391357368&blogId=482675298

Also watch for Thunderjack's version of "The Bogus Man" from the album. Thunderjack is Tracy Chappell who contributed the awesome guitar solos to my versions of "Let This Dream Never End" from Sensory Lullabies:The Ultimate Tribute to Jellyfish" and "Flood of Sunshine" from Beautiful Escape: The songs of the Posies (Both still available from Burning Sky). Tracy is a great friend and excellent musician and his track is just pure whacked-out, Zappaesque, psychedelic bliss!

Thanks a bunch,
Mike Dees

Updates for 2009

Hey all,
Sorry I've been lax in the blogging department, I'll try to be more regular about these things. I want to thank everyone for coming out to the shows and supporting us and for coming to the site and playing the tunes. It really helps and I couldn't do it without you.

Without further ado, here's what's been going on recently:

Adam Dodds has left to play bass with his new project, Tiger Rag. Really good stuff! You can check it out at http://www.myspace.com/tigerragmusic . We wish him all the best!

We were privileged enough to have Tom Arndt (http://www.myspace.com/tomarndtok ) from my favorite local band, Chees Kees, join the band on bass and vocals. This guy is a monster and his melodic basslines have really opened up the live shows! Chees Kees album "Landscaping" was my favorite local release of last year and I highly recommend you check them out and get yourself a copy. It has excellent songwriting, stunning musicianship and vocal harmonies, and hooks you'll be singing for days. They are working on their second album now, and the previews of the songs I've heard are even better. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/cheeskees .

Guitarist Jobu Babin has finished his album and I was honored to contribute vocals to it. Look for it to debut this Summer. You can find previews of the tracks (including my contribution to "Mark My Words") on his page at http://www.myspace.com/jobubabin

The Pink Floyd Jam was a rousing success! We raised a lot of money for Camp Looking Glass and got to play some great Floyd tunes in the process. For the show I added Jeff Marks on keyboards and guitar and Magdalenda Romero and Monica Dohnken on background vocals and it turned out really well! I'm not the biggest fan of playing cover songs, but I think we brought enough of our own sound to them. Look for some of those songs to make it into the setlist at various shows. I should have some video of the show up on the various sites soon.

Cheers,
Mike Dees

A Holiday Gift-12-24-08

Happy Holidays! Here's a little gift for you. It's a free download of my Holiday EP "Partridge" (Missing the cover songs of course for copyright reasons, these are only the originals.)

Just go to http://www.door23.com/partridge.html and hit the download button. You can download the individual mp3s or get the whole album in one zip file. While you're there, check out the BUY section for more mp3 downloads and CDs as well.

Thanks to everyone who has shown support this year. I appreciate you more than words can say.
Enjoy!
Mike Dees

Gone Country?

11/11/08Yeah, you heard that right. Recently I was asked if I had any songs that would fit for a country compilation cd. Amazingly, I actually did. I had just written "Same Life, Different Day" and, while it doesn't fit in the context of my power pop/rock band, people really seemed to like it. I even had a few country artists wanting to play it but it's a little too personal to me to give to someone else. So my buddy Jeff Marks and I hit the studio and recorded it and I gave them "Picture" from the new album UNEARTHED as well.

Well, the cd is finally out and I was supposed to do a solo acoustic set for the album release, but they said they'd prefer that I have a band. That got me to thinking. I've always wanted to start a side project that would showcase the kind of 1970's California country rock I grew up with, stuff like the Eagles, America, Neil Young, and all that. I'm also a big fan of the current Americana/Alt. Country scene as well(Son Volt, Wilco, etc.), and have many songs in that vein that I don't get a chance to play in the rock band.

So I have a new side project now, called The Stargazers Union. Check us out at http://www.myspace.com/stargazersunion and add us if you're so inclined.

The lineup is:
Mike Dees: Guitar, Vocals
Jobu Babin: Guitar, Lap Steel, Vocals
Tom Arndt: Bass, Vocals
Jeff Marks: Keyboards, Guitar, Vocals
Kevin Doherty: Drums, Vocals

That's right, vocals aplenty and keyboards to boot. It's sounding really good and we're having a lot of fun with it. Right now we're just concentrating on "recontexting" my songs into this format for the CD release show, but with 5 vocalists and 4 excellent songwriters, who knows what might come of it down the road.

Come see us Thursday, November 13 at the Red Rooster (Kayak Country Radio CD release party)
140 Lt. George W Lee Ave Memphis, Tennessee 38130
Lots of acts celebrating the release of the Kayak Country Radio CD, including the debut of Mike Dees' new Americana project The Stargazers Union. Come learn the new dance sensation, the Kayak Rodeo Romp!
8PM: Memphis Trio
9PM: BonnieJean Drobeck
10PM: Mike Dees & the Stargazers Union
11PM: Sorghum Hill

05/01/08 Beautiful Escape

Hello everyone,
Just a reminder that you can buy your copy of "Beautiful Escape - The Songs Of The Posies Revisited" from the great folks at Burning Sky Records now.
Just click the link below and buy your copy today!
My version of "Flood of Sunshine" is featured on this 3CD, 45 song release.
It would be shame for you to miss out!

Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow weigh in on "Beautiful Escape"!

Founding Posies member JON AUER has this to say about Beautiful Escape: The Songs of The Posies Revisited:

“I’ll have to own up to being suspect when I first heard the concept of forty-five different artists recording new versions of Posies songs. I guess at my core I feared polite, cursory renditions of our relatively ‘best known’, the proverbial ‘skating on the surface’ as they say in the vernacular or at the very least folks just ‘phoning it in’. Still, as skeptical as I might like to portray myself, and after lending my ears to the procession, I couldn’t deny the ultimate conclusion I arrived at: a lot of Beautiful Escape… truly manages to surprise me and I’m really touched that it does. At its best, if you will, I’d liken it to diving headfirst into a sonic mirror from a slightly alternate universe, a place where clusters of tone, choices of instrument, and phrasings of word are reinvented enough to render me able to enjoy something I originally created as if never considered possible in the first place. Wow. In a similar sense, perhaps it’s like a stranger finding one of your old photo albums and restaging your favorite pictures in ways and with colors you might never have visualized. Colors that look and feel somewhat familiar, but upon closer inspection smell like a fresh coat of paint on a house you barely remember building. Double wow. Who would’ve ‘thunk’ it possible? Not me, I assure you. I suppose until now, that is.”

Founding Posies member KEN STRINGFELLOW adds:

“Though I don't think we're as important as the Velvets or Big Star, they say that everyone who heard those bands formed a band soon after--and thus, despite not achieving the high water mark in terms of sales, they profoundly influenced the course of popular music. Are the Posies the next band to join that list? Well, drop the word 'profoundly' and we're getting somewhere. So, in a sense, this collection is a nice cross section of the breadth and depth and global diversity of the people in whom we've struck a chord of inspiration. And it's true for all of us who make music, once you put something out there, you will be surprised how far it travels, and whose day it might make better. An inspiring thought, and I'm honored to contribute anytime to the inspiration to create.”