This will be limited to 200 records and this is where you can pre-order the record and be the coolest kid on your block! What's so special about the vinyl? 1) Full track list plus bonus song. 2) Full lyric sheet inside. 3) Bonus 5 song EP "So many bars, so many Saturday nights" included. 4) Download codes for all of the above. 5) Back cover is

This will be limited to 200 records and this is where you can pre-order the record and be the coolest kid on your block! What's so special about the vinyl? 1) Full track list plus bonus song. 2) Full lyric sheet inside. 3) Bonus 5 song EP "So many bars, so many Saturday nights" included. 4) Download codes for all of the above. 5) Back cover is just the SeaGreenNumber5 painting with no words if you feel like framing 6) Custom SeaGreen colored vinyl! 7) Custom downloadable songbook with chords for all the songs on SGN5! 8) Guitar picks. 9) Special backwards hidden track at the end of Side B! 10) Special Iron on transfer for you to iron on your own shirt.

I like to paint, well, I like to spill paint on a canvas. I like watching the colours bleed into one another and become something more, colours and shades that couldn't exist on their own until brought together. SeaGreenNumber5 is a painting I did a few years ago and we recorded almost all of this album right in front of it in my living room,

I like to paint, well, I like to spill paint on a canvas. I like watching the colours bleed into one another and become something more, colours and shades that couldn't exist on their own until brought together. SeaGreenNumber5 is a painting I did a few years ago and we recorded almost all of this album right in front of it in my living room, everyone adding their own colour, shade and texture to the music. 

In the past few years I've done a lot of house concerts and there's something special about performing in a small room with a handful of people connecting that is a really different experience. No big amplifiers or wall of sound, just songs, stories and people. I wanted to make an album that sounded like me singing in your living room, like I'm part of your family. 

Matt brought over his stripped down drum kit with his homemade cajon snare and one cymbal and played to the songs like he always does, simply and tastefully. My wonderful wife Tracy is always nearby with her bass, a harmony and a clever thought about how to change a single word or phrase to improve the whole and she's always right. Then I called Jeremy to add his pedal steel playing to Queen, December and Somewhere Else and there was an immediate classic country-ness that he brought out in those songs. Geo showed up with a bottle of wine, some chocolate and added her violin and viola and the songs gained a depth and melancholy that wasn't there before. Jen and Tawny lent their beautiful voices to a few songs and brought yet another layer to it. Thank you all. 

In California I play shows with The Fallen Stars which is Matt and Tracy (and sometimes Matt & Geo). When I'm in New England, Gary Young and Dave Ballou back me up and call themselves Two-Fifths. In Germany Sam Barnard, Niklas Herzog and Mona Li are Die Gefalenen Sterne and Roman Sonnleitner performs with me in Austria. When Ben Riddle is around he, Tracy and I morph into Riddle & The Stars. In music, you're very lucky if you can get a couple of people to learn your songs and perform and play with you. I am exceptionally lucky to have these talented folks with me and I do not take it or them for granted. Thank you all. 

My songwriting friends Chuck Roberts, Ben Riddle, Kalai King, Morgan Keating and of course Tracy have been sharing their talents with me for years and I love the music we make together. Jason Day told me he was going to challenge me to sing differently and we'd make a great album together, he was right. Thank you all. 

I am so grateful for my fans. Whether we are all singing APB, sharing a fluffernutter at a festival, chatting on a radio show, eating late night falafel konig or toast or drinking wine together, it is humbling and amazing that we have found each other and connected. Thank you all.

This 7 song cd accompanies the vinyl release of SeaGreenNumber5 but is available on its own as well. These were songs I was working on at the same time as SGN5 but didn't seem to fit in stylistically or thematically with that album but somehow all work together. There is some straight up rock, some alt.country and even a pair of mandolin fueled

This 7 song cd accompanies the vinyl release of SeaGreenNumber5 but is available on its own as well. These were songs I was working on at the same time as SGN5 but didn't seem to fit in stylistically or thematically with that album but somehow all work together. There is some straight up rock, some alt.country and even a pair of mandolin fueled folk tunes.

Well it all goes back to a poem by William Carlos Williams called The Red Wheelbarrow. It's a short but important poem that starts with "So much depends upon"- all WCWis doing is describing a scene but the scene doesn't exist until the poet says it exists and in that what he is actually saying is "All art depends upon". Because here's the thing -

Well it all goes back to a poem by William Carlos Williams called The Red Wheelbarrow. It's a short but important poem that starts with "So much depends upon" - all WCW is doing is describing a scene but the scene doesn't exist until the poet says it exists and in that what he is actually saying is "All art depends upon". Because here's the thing - all art is dependent upon the actual doing of it. You'll always hear someone say things like "I could've written that" or "I could've painted that" but they didn't. Do your art, whatever it is and in the words of Andy Warhol - "Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art."   

That was the motivation behind this album. I went to Nashville and in 5 hours Ken Coomer and I recorded 5 songs that became the framework for everything else. I've been a fan of Ken's since way before he was in Uncle Tupelo and Wilco and I knew we were going to keep it rocking and loose. Then I met up with my buds in New Hampshire and Morgan Keating, Jon Grant and Gary Young added some backing vocals to a couple songs and Will Walker played the Wurlitzer piano and Hammond on a song. I got back to California and shockingly got Phil Manzanera to play lead guitar on my cover of Roxy Music's "Virginia Plain" and then Rami Jaffee put Hammond on four more songs. And then I thought - let's keep this loose and fun, I know what I sound like playing guitar but I know a bunch of great guitar players. What would it sound like if I got my friends to join me and it sounds like way more fun. And that's how Travis King, Django Rowe and Tom Bremmer all played guitar on here.   

What about drummers?  Well Ken had already played on most of it but I couldn't forget Matt Froehlich so he's rocking on here as well and then Kyrie Anderson and Django were visiting from Australia and I had to record something with her on drums too and of course my buddy Brian Matteson in Wisconsin rocked some as did Brandon Allen.    

Tracy is of course on here playing bass and singing. Her bass playing is what holds all my songs together. I can play bass but I can't play bass like Tracy. My friend Stacy Pendleton also makes an appearance singing on two songs, so that's different too!   

And there you go. It's so global, it's so right, it's rocking and fun. We learned the songs, we jammed them out and recorded them. Nearly everything is first or second takes and spontaneous. I've gotten so tired of hearing music that is structured and diced and sliced to perfection. People aren't perfect and music ain't supposed to be perfect either. This is rock and roll.    

Enjoy.