The new album "and still..." from Blake Jones & The Trike Shop on a vinyl LP with a picture sleeve.
BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP
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The world has changed a very great deal in the last three decades. So even has Fresno, California, the Central Valley hub that's home to BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP and which looms large as the setting for so much of the band's utterly unique material. Collaborators have come and gone, leaving vocalist-guitarist-thereminist-songwriter Jones himself – and his singular gift for wedding memorable, accessible melodies to quirky, challenging-but-heartfelt wordplay – the only constant. And still, animated by a spirit akin to those who settled the hard pan hard land of their native valley, The Trike Shop endures. And still, Blake Jones creates. And still…
Deeply informed by both the pop and experimental sides of the music of the '60s, shaped by the punk and postpunk ethics of the '70s and '80s, and often compared to the wild and witty likes of XTC, They Might Be Giants and Robyn Hitchcock, The Trike Shop has become an institution both locally and abroad. Their longevity stems from an unending quest to answer the question: what can a crew of music-obsessed folks from Fresno do? What can any artsy pop band do? Blake and his bandmates – the lineup ever changing, but always drawn from the shocking wealth of like-minded Central Valley musicians – are fascinated by everything that springs from songwriting and performing: the community it grows, the straight-to-the-heart communication, and even the joy of getting all those bits (guitars, theremin, vintage synths and percussion, whatever they happen to be working with) to dance together into an uplifting chunk of music.
They’ve done quite a bit with that approach since their first record in 1993. They’ve had tunes spun regularly on both terrestrial and internet radio, including Little Steven's Underground Garage, the venerable BBC Merseyside, and New Jersey's legendary WFMU. They've enjoyed enthusiastic reviews in publications such as Goldmine, Endless Summer Quarterly, and Liverpool Sound & Vision. And they continue to play all over their home state of California and tour frequently in the UK, often alongside their labelmates from Big Stir Records – an imprint that owes its very existence in part to the band's inspirational community-building approach and counts Jones and the band among its Founding Five Artists, with the watershed 2018 album MAKE standing as BSR's first-ever vinyl release.
“Yeah, but what kind of music do they play?” When pressed, Blake Jones & the Trike Shop will settle for calling themselves an “art-pop band”. That gels with frequent comparisons like “The Turtles meets Frank Zappa”, or “Dylan by way of The Minutemen”. But much of what goes into the recipe comes from a focus on community (in both geographical and artistic senses) and a D.I.Y spirit that's long been the guiding light of the band’s life. Always, they reflect the times, never more so than on their newest album, entitled and still... and due this Summer on the heels of the single “Record Cover Girl”. That tune's title provides a clue to the album's concerns: record stores are the spindle around which many of the songs revolve. And while The Trike Shop is known to spin out abstract monster jams onstage when it's called for, the urgency of the times (politically and culturally, globally and locally) demands the leanest approach to songwriting in the band's history, with few tracks even cracking the three-minute barrier and nearly half of them clocking in under two minutes. What's being expressed ranges from arch outrage to wistful optimism, but it's all delivered with heart and soul. It's the vital sound of a band clinging to the spirit of creativity and community in a world that seems to value them less and less. And still... Blake Jones & The Trike Shop ride on, embodying both.
John Shafer: drums
Mike Snowden: bass
Mike Scott: guitar, vocals
Scott Hatfield: keyboards, vocals
Blake Jones: songs, vocals, guitar, theremin
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BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP official website
The new album "and still..." from Blake Jones & The Trike Shop on CD in a Digipak.
The new EP from BLAKE JONES of Blake Jones & The Trike Shop featuring six brand new tracks recorded during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. Track list:
- The Last Song of Summer
- Do The Lockdown Bossa Nova
- Three Jerks In A Jeep
- Homebound
- The First Order
- Make Peace
The sixth release from the Trike Shop features 13 brand new slices of hooky, quirky art pop full of the humor, heart and inventiveness for which the Fresno legends are justly renowned.
TRACK LIST: 1. Make a New Day 2. My Soft Rock Girlfriend 3. Hard Pan/Hard Land 4. Goldfinger 5. Take a Look at the Stars 6. Wind Blues 7. At Every Train Stop 8. Wednesday 9. That Abandoned Theater 10. My Girl (brings me colors) 11. The Ghost Ship Sails On 12. Come Down (Great Big God) [demo] 13. Alchemy C'mere
The sixth release from the Trike Shop features 13 brand new slices of hooky, quirky art pop full of the humor, heart and inventiveness for which the Fresno legends are justly renowned.
TRACK LIST: 1. Make a New Day 2. My Soft Rock Girlfriend 3. Hard Pan/Hard Land 4. Goldfinger 5. Take a Look at the Stars 6. Wind Blues 7. At Every Train Stop 8. Wednesday 9. That Abandoned Theater 10. My Girl (brings me colors) 11. The Ghost Ship Sails On 12. Come Down (Great Big God) [demo] 13. Alchemy C'mere
Special mini-album release featuring Blake, the Trike Shop, friends and family. Includes "The Girl in the Camera Obscura", "Ross Used to Play Us His Frank Zappa Records (Cold Pepsi & Croutons)", and more!
- Ross Used to Play Us His Frank Zappa Records (Cold Pepsi & Croutons)
- The Girl in the Camera Obscura
- Life Turns on a Dime (w/Tom Magill)
- Dark Hallows (Ellie Choate & Blake Jones)
- I Roped the Moon Out of the Sky
- 8 1/2 Ice Skaters
- Hey Hey Speed Rail
More whip-smart California Art Pop from Fresno's very finest on this watershed release, featuring the classics and live favorites "Sun Up" and "Send the Band to Liverpool".
- All I Want for My Birthday
- Forestiere Gardens
- Sing Along
- Who's Got a Light?
- Sun Up
- Fighting the Big Dumb Noise
- Neptune Bursts Free
- Sen the Band to Liverpool
- Your Sad Party Dress
- Christmas Sale
- The 5 Deadly Fingers of Dr. Theremin
- Some Fool Wouldn't Let it Go
- Out & Free & Faraway
- Everybody's Got an Andy Story
- Here Comes the Bus
The Trike Shop's 2005 release "Pop Songs & Kyries" -- which most definitely is what it says on the tin! -- received rave reviews both nationally and internationally.
- Improvisational Song
- Clever Things
- Snapshots
- Beauty Loses a Round
- Once
- One Telling Kiss
- Kyrie #2
- Virginia Woolf
- Summer's Just Half the Dream
- RedWhite&BlueSoBlue
- Kyrie #3 (loud)
- Thrift Store Record of the Week
- Mr. Theremin's Miserlou
From the tight pop craftsmanship of 'My Baby Lacksadaisy" and 'I Roped the Moon Out of the Sky" to the Mothers-eque 'Ross Used to Play Us His Frank Zappa Records..." and a re-working of an aria from 'Carmen", these 16 tracks show a cheerfully insane range of pop eclecticism.
- Disclaimer
- Parade
- My Baby Lacksadaisy
- Ross Used to Play Us His Frank Zappa Records (Cold Pepsi & Croutons)
- Beware the Woodmaries
- I Roped the Moon Out of the Sky
- No, Waiting For the Rebirth of Wonder
- Lackadaisy
- Looking For a Tune
- Did you Know it Was a Dream
- Sweet Life Grows So Slow
- Bad Bad Ronald
- Empty Sea
- The Light Still Shines
- Makin' Honey Like a B-Movie bonus track:
- Carmen's Big Aria
This 14 track CD includes such marvels as: "Even Van Helsing (Needs a Piece of Cake Now & Then)", "Harpain's Dairy", "Too Mayonnaisy" and a complete rock opera (!?) about the band's native Fresno.
BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP, Fresno California's delightfully unique purveyors of art-infected guitar pop, return with a new full-length album entitled “and still...” on Vinyl, CD and all digital platforms, out August 16 from Big Stir Records. Featuring the hit indie singles “Record Cover Girl” and “Mock Stoner Voices”, it's their first major
BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP, Fresno California's delightfully unique purveyors of art-infected guitar pop, return with a new full-length album entitled “and still...” on Vinyl, CD and all digital platforms, out August 16 from Big Stir Records. Featuring the hit indie singles “Record Cover Girl” and “Mock Stoner Voices”, it's their first major release since 2018's MAKE and the band's clearest statement of purpose yet. The new record is up for pre-order and pre-save now:
https://orcd.co/blakejones-andstill
BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP have been making wildly innovative and melodically accessible music in various configurations, all revolving around singer-songwriter-guitarist-thereminist Jones, since 1997's aptly titled debut Mad Pop Inventions. They've brought their unique brand of warm-hearted, quirky guitar rock to stages all over the US and UK and been equated with artists from the '60s (they're equally informed by The Beatles and Frank Zappa) and well beyond, with the likes of XTC, They Might Be Giants and Robyn Hitchcock often mentioned. It's music from, of, and about their native Central Valley, but its roots are and always have been global.
Their 2018 album MAKE was a watershed for both the band and the fledgling Big Stir Records, whose community-based ethos was shaped in no small part by Blake (and who counted The Trike Shop among its initial roster of just five key artists). A celebration of the creative process and its role in overcoming grief, the album wound together the many threads of Jones' songwriting in a cathartic package that brought the band a whole new audience. But aside from a pandemic-themed solo EP from Blake – The Homebound Tapes, also on BSR – The Trike Shop collective has been largely an onstage concern in the years since, undergoing personnel changes that have brought us to the current lineup of Jones, longtime drummer John Shafer, Mike Snowden (bass), Mike Scott (guitar, vocals) and Scott Hatfield (keyboard, vocals), all veterans of the astonishingly fertile Fresno music scene.
The album's advance singles – the liltingly sweet cautionary tale “Record Cover Girl” with its Beach Boys harmonies, and the irresistible quirk-rock masterpiece “Mock Stoner Voices” – have set the stage for much of what The Trike Shop circa 2024 have cooked up for the new album “and still...” with characteristically eccentric appeal. Both radiate a sense of nostalgia that's too sly to be saccharine, both drip with memorable hooks, and both take place in record stores. Jones adores them for the sense of discovery they offer, and two more songs on the LP take them as their locations: “Used Record Stores” with its quintessentially ebullient Jonesian refrain “don't you adore / used record stores?” and, by inference, the instrumental “You Put Theremin On My Hype Sticker” (no Trike Shop record is complete without a wordless interlude showcasing the vintage electronic instrument, and this is one of their finest). It's telling that “Mock Stoner Voices” in particular melds the vinyl shop setting with romantic remembrance, and there's more celebration of the beauty of everyday life on the soulfully Stonesy “Shake Your Dress” (you can dance to art-pop, people!) and the bewitching, skittering “Dreaming About Sleeping”, which may just be a love song to dreams themselves. And “Mr. Saturday Sun” is a lovely retro treat with its Zombies/Kinks feel (and just a tinge of dub production) that's guaranteed to capture the hearts of fans of classic pop worldwide.
But it's 2024, and the unease of the times can't help but seep into the lyrics of as thoughtful and observant a songwriter as Jones. Thus we're treated to bracingly of-the-moment tunes like “The Queen Is Dead” (not a cover, but a music hall piano-based band original) and the Fresno-centric, think-global-act-local anthem “We Love The Tower”. A sense of urgency even invades the Holidays on the outwardly-festive “String Lights And Hold On”, which manages to balance its unflinching look at the modern world with jangling and genuine Christmas cheer. Most pointedly, Blake proves himself that rare (and vital) songwriter who's able to take on as toxic a faction as The Proud Boys – who'd invaded his hometown for a time – and even do so with humor, on “The Fascist Bumblebee Winter Formal”. It's a new kind of protest song for an era that desperately needs them, and Jones – always a believer that art can change the world – is uniquely suited to deliver it.
It's on the plaintive “What's Enough?” – the latest and maybe most affecting in a long line of Trike Shop songs that ask the big questions – that Blake's blend of celebration and cultural anxiety come together (pun intended – it's based on one of the most late-Beatles-inspired musical settings in his catalog). “What’s enough, what can you do? Oh when, oh when is it enough?” Jones asks, but the answer is right there in the creation of the song, and the whole of and the record itself. His is a profound belief that art means something, all the more when created alongside his fellow travelers in The Trike Shop, and as part of the creative communities he's always building, at home in Fresno and on the wider global pop rock stage.
The answer is often in his album titles... Mad Pop Inventions, Make, and now “and still...” : no matter how indifferent or downright hostile the world may seem, self-expression and collaboration are crucial. And that, coupled of course with a singular instinct for unforgettable melodies and unexpected turns of phrase – is why we at Big Stir Records resonate so completely with the music of Blake Jones & The Trike Shop, and why we're proud to bring their latest offering to you. What's being expressed on “and still...” ranges from arch outrage to wistful optimism, but it's all delivered with heart and soul. It's the crucial sound of a band hewing to the spirit of creativity and community in a world that seems to value those qualities less and less. And still... BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP ride on, embodying both.
Expected release: August 16, 2024
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Record Cover Girl 3:020:00/3:02
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0:00/3:57
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Mock Stoner Voices 1:260:00/1:26
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Used Record Stores 1:410:00/1:41
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0:00/2:59
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0:00/1:53
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0:00/2:52
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What's Enough? 3:340:00/3:34
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The Queen is Dead 1:070:00/1:07
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Mr. Saturday Sun 3:020:00/3:02
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Shake Your Dress 3:300:00/3:30
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We Love The Tower 1:340:00/1:34
BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP, Fresno's torchbearers of quirky, hooky guitar pop, continue to build anticipation for their forthcoming album with the new single “Mock Stoner Voices”. It follows the band's previous indie hit single “Record Cover Girl” in setting the stage for the LP to come this summer, and sees release June 28 on all digital
BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP, Fresno's torchbearers of quirky, hooky guitar pop, continue to build anticipation for their forthcoming album with the new single “Mock Stoner Voices”. It follows the band's previous indie hit single “Record Cover Girl” in setting the stage for the LP to come this summer, and sees release June 28 on all digital platforms. “Mock Stoner Voices” is up for pre-order and pre-save now:
The wit, whimsy and melodic facility of TRIKE SHOP leader BLAKE JONES – surely the only frontman on the global pop rock scene routinely described as a “singer-songwriter-guitarist-thereminist” -- is on full display on “Mock Stoner Voices”. So are his heart and soul: not only is the tune a sweetly nostalgic love story, it kicks off, like the band's previous single “Record Cover Girl” (and several other tracks on the forthcoming LP) in a setting that might be considered Jones' natural habitat: a record store. The song encompasses decades of a lasting relationship with an unlikely origin, and it does so with breathtaking brevity: at under a minute and a half, it's the shortest single Big Stir Records has ever released, and the pop scene with its proclivity for lean, no-nonsense hooks is sure to embrace it. The approach here is akin to the cleverly humorous, attention-grabbing quick blasts from early They Might Be Giants albums, but the sound hearkens back to the '60s, straddling the line between Beatles melodicism and Zappa eccentricity. In short, it's The Trike Shop doing what they do, and leaving the listener wanting more.
JONES expands on the song's origins: “It's a true story. A love story. My wife and I had not yet begun dating. She overheard a friend and I while we were being obnoxious in a record store. Her friends had some made-up ideas about me. I went to the ‘stoner’ high-school, she went to Clovis West,” referring to the Central Valley communities of his youth, where he creates his musical art to this day. That he speaks so casually about the culture of Fresno, decades ago and in the present, tells you how much the idea of “community” means to Jones. Indeed, the details, characters and locales of his hometown loom large across the songs on the soon-to-be-announced album, and throughout the band's full back catalog as well. But “community” also means artistic collaboration, and that's front and center here, too, as his band provides the perfect lurching musical setting for the lyrics. And the creative drive behind the tune unites Blake's communal vision with that of countless bands on the worldwide pop scene who share stages and sentiments with him, in California, the greater US, the UK, Europe, and beyond.
The new album from BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP is the long-awaited followup to their 2018 LP MAKE, which was the first-ever vinyl release from the then-embryonic Big Stir Records. Like its predecessor, the record will be available on Vinyl, CD, and Streaming, and it'll hit Blake's beloved record store shelves this August. Details are coming very soon, but for now, heed these “Voices”... and get ready for the latest big-hearted collection of art-infected pop from a true master – and restlessly inventive innovator – of the form.
Big Stir Records is proud to announce the return of one of our Founding Five Artists: Fresno, California's BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP, with the brand new single “Record Cover Girl”. An early teaser for the band's first new album in six years (due this Summer), it's out May 17 on all digital platforms and up for pre-order and pre-save now.
Big Stir Records is proud to announce the return of one of our Founding Five Artists: Fresno, California's BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP, with the brand new single “Record Cover Girl”. An early teaser for the band's first new album in six years (due this Summer), it's out May 17 on all digital platforms and up for pre-order and pre-save now.
For more than three decades, BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP have been recognized in California and beyond – particularly in the UK, where they frequently tour – as a unique, vital force on the guitar pop landscape. Purveying a sound that's equally tuneful and quirky, The Trike Shop, anchored by vocalist-guitarist-songwriter-thereminist Jones, style themselves as “art-infected pop,” a description borne out by comparisons like “The Turtles meet Frank Zappa” or “Dylan by way of The Minutemen” (with XTC and They Might Be Giants often in the mix as well). Fueled by a mutual love of the pop and experimental sides of the '60s musical revolution and a lyrical sensibility that tackles the “big questions” while celebrating the joys of belonging to an artistic community, Jones and his crew were an instant fixture on the roster of the like-minded Big Stir Records at its inception. The band's acclaimed 2018 album MAKE was the fledgling imprint's first-ever vinyl release, and a template for the kind of melodically accessible, deeply thoughtful and creatively challenging fare that BSR has gone on to champion.
And now they're back, in a new iteration of the ever-changing lineup built from the shockingly deep wealth of inventive Central Valley musicians who call Blake a friend. “Record Cover Girl” is the opening track and the first single, and it's an utterly charming example of what to expect. Across the new record, Jones applies his talent for sharp hooks and lyrical wit to a set of short, bracing pop excursions with a palpable sense of time and place – frequently the aisles of a used record store, or Fresno itself. On “Record Cover Girl”, it's both: a record store in Fresno. Breezing in on Beach Boys harmonies with Blake's melody and vocal delivery alike echoing the golden-era Kinks, the song is capped by a delightful coda where cascading piano runs trade off with soaring vocal lines for “ultimate success”, as the lyrics have it.
The song is a cautionary tale of longing with an unlikely setting. “It started with an album jacket pinned up in our friend Bob’s record store,” explains Jones, referring to Fresno's venerable Tower District Records. “Also integral to the story was the almost-haiku on the sticky note above their toilet.” That inspiration speaks to the uncanny ability of BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP to create profoundly engaging art out of just about anything. The song's easygoing lilt is just one side of the band, with other album tracks tackling the befuddling state of 21st Century culture and politics, and still others steeped in the nostalgia of a genuine romantic recalling better times. Always, it's delivered with heart, humor, and that rarest and most essential commodity: hope born of the belief that music matters. On the single and the forthcoming album, BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP bring that hope home as only they can. It all starts here, with so much more to come... stay tuned to your Whispermaphone for all the latest.
BIG STIR RECORDS is proud to announce the immediate release as of Saturday, September 5, of a brand new EP, THE HOMEBOUND TAPES, from BLAKE JONES, a BSR Founding Father and the leader of Fresno, CA's Blake Jones & The Trike Shop. The six-track collection, a song cycle from, of, and about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on
BIG STIR RECORDS is proud to announce the immediate release as of Saturday, September 5, of a brand new EP, THE HOMEBOUND TAPES, from BLAKE JONES, a BSR Founding Father and the leader of Fresno, CA's Blake Jones & The Trike Shop. The six-track collection, a song cycle from, of, and about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on everyday life, is available on CD and digital download at www.bigstirrecords.com/store and everywhere now!
Jones, famed for the “art-infected pop” and community-based ethos that defines The Trike Shop, recorded these tracks at home in his famed Whispermaphone Studios and has assembled them to document and present his unique take on this most unusual of summers. In explaining the creative process, Blake says, “An EP may not be a grand encyclopedic work, but some short stories are just enough. Just right. This group of songs was conceived and recorded during the lockdown and pandemic of Spring/Summer 2020. It's a more introverted work than my usual output with The Trike Shop. I think The Trike Shop is often a communiqué with the community. This is more of a personal work made where we were all entering a personal/family/safe time. I hope it speaks to you.”
It's personal, it's quirky, it's heartfelt, and it could only be created by Jones. Turning on a pair of tunes, the delicate opening “The Last Song Of Summer” and the penultimate (and downright exuberant) “The First Song Of Summer”, it's also got Stonesy local social commentary (“Three Jerks In A Jeep”), a characteristic theremin instrumental (“Do The Lockdown Bossa Nova”), and an aching rootsy pandemic-era road song, “Homebound”, remotely co-written with Rex Broome of THE ARMOIRES. And it closes with a benedictory message of hope, in “Make Peace”. Call the record a microcosm of Fresno, or even the USA, at the height of the multiple ongoing crises, refracted through the lens of Mr. Jones' camera obscura.
“It started as a tongue-in-cheek, self-imposed challenge to keep me sane and focused on positive, forward motion as the world slowed down – 'I declare that I shall write and record an entire album within one month!' -- but it quickly changed into something else,” Blake explains. “The story goes, that John Lennon wrote, recorded, and even released his 1970 single "Instant Karma" in 10 days, so I had that as my inspiration. The first couple of weeks were full of collecting little bits and pieces of lyrics and music as I played around on the piano and the guitar. Then, a few songs warranted a deeper dive.”
“I guess this a kind of a 'solo' release, but that doesn't mean friends/musical partners didn't contribute. JOHN SHAFER (of The Trike Shop) throws his drum-magic on a couple of tracks, and ROGER PERRY plays mandolin on 'Homebound'. Speaking of which, “Homebound” wouldn't have even been a song without Rex Broome. I had a snatch of a tune – a very traditional-sounding melody for the verse. I sent it to Rex. Hey worked up a complete and deeply personal set of lyrics, telling the story of his parents selling his family's long-time home in West Virginia and finding themselves moving to a new home in Florida during the uncomfortable times that began the lockdown. Thank you, Rex – it became the perfect story to base this whole little song cycle on.”
The EP “opens with the closing” in “Last Song Of Summer”, checks in via the instrumental on “the slowed-down, not always so bad, groove of staying at home, with added theremin fun”, before hitting the Trump-era complications of “Three Jerks in a Jeep”. “Let’s just say, this is a true story – in Fresno, but probably true in your neck of the woods as well. No charges were filed. So, we gotta sing us a song of white privilege.” From there it's the trad-folk journey of “Homebound” and the hopeful messages of the new single “The First Song of Summer” -- “I imagined a world re-opening. All the bands are playing. Every day is Saturday! Get your friends and hear them say: It’s the First Song of Summer --- I think the ‘bright twang and shining’ done in a semi-R.E.M.-ish way, was a nod to the bands Big Stir and the community it represents” – and “Make Peace”. “I think this was the first song completely finished,” says Blake. “It didn’t seem to fit even this vague story arc, but it did fit as an epilogue: so much wrong in the world that we shake our heads every single day. But somehow , in the backwards/upside-dow truths of the universe, making peace and love happen seems the only way out of the hole.”
It's a view on the current state of affairs that only Blake Jones could provide, and while we await the return of the live scene, and with it the big brash sound of The Trike Shop, Big Stir Records is proud to bring THE HOMEBOUND TAPES to you.
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0:00/1:52
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0:00/2:08
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0:00/2:45
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Homebound 4:050:00/4:05
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0:00/4:21
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Make Peace 2:240:00/2:24
Double A-Side Christmas Single (Big Stir Digital Single No. 8)
Blake Jones & the Trike Shop / Kai Danzberg
It's Christmas time at BIG STIR RECORDS, and that can only mean it's time for our DOUBLE A-SIDE CHRISTMAS SINGLE, featuring a seasonal tune apiece from two of BSR's own fine artists, KAI DANZBERG and BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP!
"String Lights and Hold On" by BLAKE and the gang and "If Santa" from KAI will be released on Friday, December 14,
It's Christmas time at BIG STIR RECORDS, and that can only mean it's time for our DOUBLE A-SIDE CHRISTMAS SINGLE, featuring a seasonal tune apiece from two of BSR's own fine artists, KAI DANZBERG and BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP!
"String Lights and Hold On" by BLAKE and the gang and "If Santa" from KAI will be released on Friday, December 14, and are available for preorder now:
www.bigstirrecords.com/big-stir-digital-singles
KAI DANZBERG's new original "If Santa" is a delightful holiday romp from the sessions for his forthcoming album Not Only Sunshine. Self-produced with a breezy sheen worthy of ELO or Jellyfish, the tune will also remind pop fans of the charms of the Christmas albums of yesteryear from The Beach Boys and Phil Spector. It's ear candy of the hightest order, imbued with the innocence and romantic longing of youth and the assured confidence of of a young master of his craft. Sure to become a seasonal perennial amongst fans of melody and pop songcraft, the song is exclusively available as part of this Double A-Side!
"String Lights and Hold On" from BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP brings an urgent jingle-jangle dual 12-string guitar and flute arrangement to bear on a more questioning look at Christmas in the 21st century. Blake describes it as a Holiday-themed extension of the band's acclaimed 2018 album Make: "We live in a miraculous world. We live in a broken world. What can one’s reaction to this be, other than: String Lights!..and.. Hold on! Musically it’s a bunch of pop music Legos stuck in succession---not really having the standard verse, chorus, bridge sort of patterns. I like the idea of things bouncing frantically along, yet still being coherent." The melodic strength of the tune soars with the help of returning guitarist Michael Scott, and the bouncing quirk of prime-era XTC will surely come to mind!
Happy Holidays from all of us at BIG STIR RECORDS, and thanks for your support of the Digital Singles Series! One more release before the end of the year, and it's a great one... stay tuned!
The Trike Shop's sixth release features 13 brand new tracks of quirky, hooky art-pop filled with the humor, heart, and inventiveness expected of the Fresno legends.
TRACK LIST: 1. Make a New Day 2. My Soft Rock Girlfriend 3. Hard Pan/Hard Land 4. Goldfinger 5. Take a Look at the Stars 6. Wind Blues 7. At Every Train Stop 8. Wednesday 9. That
The Trike Shop's sixth release features 13 brand new tracks of quirky, hooky art-pop filled with the humor, heart, and inventiveness expected of the Fresno legends.
TRACK LIST: 1. Make a New Day 2. My Soft Rock Girlfriend 3. Hard Pan/Hard Land 4. Goldfinger 5. Take a Look at the Stars 6. Wind Blues 7. At Every Train Stop 8. Wednesday 9. That Abandoned Theater 10. My Girl (brings me colors) 11. The Ghost Ship Sails On 12. Come Down (Great Big God) [demo] 13. Alchemy C'mere
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Make a New Day 2:220:00/2:22
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0:00/2:39
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Hard Plan/Hard Land 3:260:00/3:26
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Goldfinger 2:390:00/2:39
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0:00/3:02
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Wind Blues 2:580:00/2:58
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At Every Train Stop 3:020:00/3:02
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Wednesday 4:150:00/4:15
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0:00/1:22
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0:00/4:13
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0:00/3:24
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0:00/3:32
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Alchemy C'mere 3:450:00/3:45