The competition starts at 7:00, and the order of performance will be determined by a drawing from a hat (or so we’re told) just before, so come on down, get a good seat, and enjoy.

If you missed it, you still have a chance; we’re playing again on Friday from 5-8pm. Pictures from the show are up on the photos page!

We’ll be playing on Saturday, December 8, from 3:00-6:00, and on Friday, December 14, from 5:00 - 8:00. You know what, just to be on the safe side, you’d better come both times. It’s just prudent.
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Don’t miss it. New songs!

This is part three of four of our holiday offering.  I was trying to channel late 60’s / early 70’s Dolly, Tammy Wynette, and Loretta on this one.  I always get really excited about the spoken word parts.  Cheesy?  Maybe.  But awesome.  I also love the whole one-take aspect of this recording.  It’s like you’re in Matt’s basement with us!  So download the song now!  There are mere days left before Christmas!

Oh, we told him, we’re actually already working on “Christmas for Cowboys,” and it sounds really nice.

“No, you have to hear this one. It’s called ‘Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas).’”

Well, a song with a title like that pretty much sells itself, doesn’t it? A quick check of “Rocky Mountain Christmas” later, and we were hooked. Our first response, like I imagine yours will be, was hilarity, but in light of John Denver’s life story, it soon began to seem a bit more poignant, which (let’s be honest) is Ten Years Too Late’s bread and butter.

Just today, doing a Google search to find out more about the song, I found that it’s no longer quite the undiscovered gem we thought it was. The fricking Decemberists put out a version in November. The Decemberists! Totally copying our idea! I shall choose to be flattered.

So, here it is, for Ed, our tribute to the late, great John Denver, Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas). Enjoy.

Anyway, Ten Years Too Late are not immune to the holiday spirit. We’ve recorded a dazzling quartet of Yuletide-inspired songs for you to listen to and enjoy. First up, one written by little ol’ me.

This is a song about being alone at Christmas, which is ironic because I’m happily married. And Jewish. I suppose it’s really a song about being sad when everyone else is happy, or about the bittersweet feeling when all of your friends go home for the holidays, or about how awesome Tracie is on the tambourine. Anyway, ’tis a kicky little number, with a charmingly familiar fiddle part, and I think you’ll like it.

Why don’t you download It’s Christmastime (And I Don’t Care) and see?

This song — well, the chorus, actually — was initially inspired by a friend’s dog, who is named Willie, but once I started the verses it became about something else entirely.  I guess the heart of it is the notion that you can never really know what’s going on in another person’s mind, body or heart.  It’s easy to make assumptions about people based on what we see, but we’ll never have any idea about the reality of their lives.  And when it comes down to it, we’re all wandering.

In addition to our usual line-up — Matt on guitars (including the solo!) and harmony vocals, me on mandy and lead vocals, and Stephanie on a really stellar bit of fiddle — we’d be remiss if we didn’t give credit to special guest Rachel Spaulding on the bad-ass hand claps.  Now stop reading and go download Willie.

In any case, someone once asked me if this song was a true story. And my response was, “It’s someone’s true story.” The conceit isn’t particularly original — you try to convince yourself that you’re okay with losing someone, but the only way that this can be true is if the whole world is upside down. Right is left, black is white, and you’re doing just fine. It’s like Opposite Day on a grand scale of heartbreak. But I hope that I’ve brought something worthwhile to this genre of songs — an image or melody, a turn of phrase. A particular kind of ache.

I really enjoy singing this song because I get to be all smoky and mellow during the verses and then bust out during the choruses. It’s pretty cathartic to step about five feet back from the microphone and just kind of yell for a little bit. This is why Steven Tyler seems so content all the time. Matt plays really beautiful guitar on this song and adds the perfect harmony at just the right moments, and Stephanie has another lovely solo on the violin (or as I try to make her call it, the fiddle). And that’s me playing the wistful-sounding mandolin. You may not be aware of this yet, but the mandolin is a bad-ass instrument.

So now go grab yourself a box of tissues, click on the link, and enjoy yourself an earful of Maybe.

“Promised Country” is loosely based on the poorly-remembered story I was told about how my great-grandmother, Gussie, came to this country. It had an emotional impact, of course, but the details, like so many of the details of my family’s history, are fuzzy. Unfortunately, my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother are no longer alive to corroborate, so we’re left with something like a legend. Which is ok: legends make for interesting songwriting.

This song was written while at a writing retreat under the inspirational influence of Nerissa Nields. Very little changed from the first draft to the final version, except of course that Tracie and Stephanie each added their own special brand of awesome. (I sometimes think it needs a bridge, or something, to give it a little more shazam, but nothing’s come to me yet.)

Give Promised Country a listen, won’t you?