12/19/09 A holiday gift

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

T-Shirts

The new T-shirts are now available in the store and at shows. $10 for a 100% cotton Gildan shirt. I've also made available a limited number of the 2008 Memphis Pop Fest vinyl single.

Charlotte Popfest

The Charlotte Popfest was great! Playing on the same bill with The Smithereens, The Shazam, Jill Sobule, The Posies, and most of my favorites was one of the best experiences ever. I was dissapointed that Roger Manning Jr couldn't make it and that it rained a lot, but all in all...good times!

Here's me with Jim Babjak & Pat Di Nizio from The Smithereens.


The Smithereens have been one of my biggest influences for more years than I care to remember and it was truly an honor to open for them. Special thanks to Jim Babjak for the conversation and radio recommendations.

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.

UPDATE:
Tommy made it through and is home now. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.

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

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!