Mediocre Bad Guys in concert with Tin Can Sailor, Old #10!

It’s Monday night, and that means band practice.  But before we head to the “Bat Cave,” as we call it, and crank out some tunes, we wanted to let you know about a pretty cool concert coming up in a few weeks.

On Saturday, January 21st, Mediocre Bad Guys will share the stage at Old North State Winery with two other bands for a rare Mount Airy concert trifecta.  Tin Can Sailor is a band of N.C. State students, including our community’s own Logan Draughn.  If you know Logan, you know he’s incredibly musically-gifted.  The cool thing is that he’s found some other guys at State who are equally talented – which translates into a super-tight band with originals that defy their young age.  Also joining our bill is Old #10, a new Mount Airy group that specializes in some pretty groovy folk/bluegrassy tunes.  And last but not least, MBG will be joined on a few tunes by Meredith Slate and her vocal prowess.  If you noticed the similarity between her last name and our drummer, give yourself a gold star and ask Les next time you see him how psyched he is to be performing with his daughter!

Tickets are on sale right this minute at Old North State Winery on Main Street in Mount Airy.  They’re only $10 – quite a deal for 3+ hours of some incredible music.  It’s not often Mount Airy has such an event, so we’ll hope you’ll be there to support not just us, but all of the great music that you’ll hear.  We promise you, you won’t regret it!

MEDIOCRE BAD GUYS // TIN CAN SAILOR // OLD #10

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21st – 7:00PM

OLD NORTH STATE WINERY IN MOUNT AIRY

CLICK HERE TO RSVP TO OUR FACEBOOK EVENT

“The Dance” – now available for download!

Happy New Year!  Not only is it the first day of 2012, it’s also the first day of the month.  And you know what that means – a new MBG tune!

We appropriately start the year off with “The Dance.” Simply click on the pic below to go to the download website! (click HERE if the picture isn’t showing).

By now you know the drill – you can stream the song by clicking on the play button.  Assuming you’ll then want to immediately download it as your own, simply click  the “Buy Now” link to start the download process.  You get to name your own price – and if you’re one of the first 200 to download the tune, you can get it for free!  How cool is that?!

In your rush to enjoy the MBG goodness, don’t forget to click the Facebook “LIKE” button under the album cover art and tweet it as well.   We greatly appreciate any help getting the word out about the new tune.  And please feel free to head over to our Facebook page and leave a comment there letting us know what you think.

Thanks for checking it out – enjoy the song!

Les, Jerry, Doug and Steve

“There It Went” – now available for download!

It’s the first of the month and you know what that means – a new MBG song!

We know you’ll enjoy our latest tune, “There It Went” – written by Gary Manfredi, original Bad Guy guitarist and well-known Phase 90 innovator.  Simply click on the picture below, or click HERE.

By now you know the drill – you can stream the song by clicking on the play button.  Assuming you’ll then want to immediately download it as your own, simply click  the “Buy Now” link to start the download process.  You get to name your own price – and if you’re one of the first 200 to download the tune, you can get it for free!  How cool is that?!

In your rush to enjoy the MBG goodness, don’t forget to click the Facebook “LIKE” button under the album cover art and tweet it as well.   We greatly appreciate any help getting the word out about the new tune.  And please feel free to head over to our Facebook page and leave a comment there letting us know what you think.

Thanks for checking it out – enjoy the song!

Les, Jerry, Doug and Steve

Why I’m an MBG Fan – Jerry’s thoughts on “How Did I Get Here”

Following the “Download of the Month” release, members of MBG will share their thoughts about that song in subsequent blog posts. We hope it’ll give you a greater appreciation for the tune and all that went into writing and recording it. Enjoy!

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I’m listening to the new MBG tune, “How Did I Get Here” (and you can listen to it and download it HERE).

“What’s that?” you say. “Jerry, you don’t seem conceited. Why are you listening to your own music?”

“Because it’s a good song,” I say (as are the others we’ve released, and yet to release).

I read an interview with Robert Pollard from Guided By Voices, wherein the interviewer asked him if he ever listened to his own material. I expected him to shrug it off and say no. He said something like… “Of course I do. If I don’t enjoy my own music, how can I expect other people to like it.” Sweet, no?

So, I’m not sure about the other boys in the band, but that’s where I stand on MBG tunes. That said, you probably don’t like some of the music we like, so I can’t promise you’ll like all of our songs. I can promise that we won’t release songs we aren’t proud of. And we won’t use the robot voice effect. And we won’t add dance routines to the shows. But we will use explosions when we can afford them.

Doug blogged about “building a house” in his last post. Have you guys ever gone on a mission trip or spent a day with Habitat For Humanity? You should. Anyway, it’s a lot more fun to do that work in a group, isn’t it. I’m finding that to be true in songwriting. Don’t get me wrong. I will always continue doing solo shows and putting out solo albums. My ego (nor my singing voice, hopefully) hasn’t completely vanished. For the time being, though, I’m happy seeing the direction the songs take without me completely steering them (even though I am an avid backseat driver).

Wait, have we moved from house metaphors to cars? Let’s go with it. An example: We’d all like to think that we’re capable singers, but we’re more than happy to hear Les take the lead. Why? Listen to the song, silly boy. And I can’t play piano & organ (and sing high) like Steve. And Doug wrote the verses whereas I stopped at the chorus. See? We all have our spiritual gifts.

Wait, did I just move from cars to religion? Let’s go with it. Obviously, things like blogging & “getting to the point” & “making sense” are not among my gifts. If there is a point to be made, though, it is this: MBG is a good band and you should like them.

Jerry

P.S.  Happy Thanksgiving!

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TO DOWNLOAD NOVEMBER’S SONG “HOW DID I GET HERE,” CLICK HERE

TO SIGN UP FOR MBG’S EMAIL LIST, GO TO: www.mediocrebadguys.com

FAN US ON FACEBOOK FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Co-writing a song is like building a house – Doug’s thoughts on “How Did I Get Here”

Following the “Download of the Month” release, members of MBG will share their thoughts about that song in subsequent blog posts. We hope it’ll give you a greater appreciation for the tune and all that went into writing and recording it.  Enjoy!

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Back in February ’09, Jerry challenged me to work with him on a project for “National Album-Writing Month,” whatever in the world that is.  I’m a sucker for a good project like that, but I wanted to get focused.  My twist on the idea was that this could be a perfect platform for jump-starting the original music side of MBG, something for which I’d been angling for a while.  We got a really good start on the project, with 10 pretty solid initial ideas, but we got sidetracked, and nothing would come of those songs for nearly two years.  “How Did I Get Here” was the first of that batch of songs to see the light of day; I suspect that you’ll hear at least five or six more, eventually.

Jerry and I have co-written many tunes over the years, but one of the primary ways we’ll work is that he’ll send me snippets of songs and let me take them from there.  I keep imagining that I’ll finish a draft, and that he’ll edit and send it back, but somehow we keep ending up using whatever I sent for a first draft, which keeps me on my toes!  Sometimes, when Jerry and I build these houses together, he’ll send me a complete structure, and I’ll just stick on a roof.  Sometimes, it just needs a good coat of paint by the time it gets to me.  Sometimes, he’ll send a door mat over and say, “build me a house!”  Well, metaphorically, anyway.  He’s never actually said that.  In this case, what Jerry contributed stuck around pretty much unchanged as the final chorus and hook of the song – you can hear it yourself in this original demo snippet that he sent.

 

Not sure at all what I had in mind with the writing on this, but I imagine that the singer is a happier relation of the guy from “Gonna Get It Right” – the lyrics are definitely working a similar vein of the same desperate need for redemption through love, and all that sort of thing.  I just know that when the guitars and the big harmonies kick in during the instrumental break and the last chorus, I get a big arena-sized rush of adrenaline – it’s definitely one of the more fun tunes that I ever get to play.

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TO DOWNLOAD NOVEMBER’S SONG “HOW DID I GET HERE,” CLICK HERE

TO SIGN UP FOR MBG’S EMAIL LIST, GO TO: www.mediocrebadguys.com

FAN US ON FACEBOOK                      FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

“How Did I Get Here” – now available for download!

So we’re now three months into this “Download-A-Month” thing – three songs, and we appreciate all your great support!

You’ve already heard “I Will” and enjoyed “Gonna Get It Right” (if you haven’t, click on the links to do just that)

And now today, we’re proud to bring you our most epic song to date: “How Did I Get Here”!  You know the drill – just click on the pic below, or click HERE.

By now you know the drill – you can stream the song by clicking on the play button.  Assuming you’ll then want to immediately download it as your own, simply click  the “Buy Now” link to start the download process.  You get to name your own price – and if you’re one of the first 200 to download the tune, you can get it for free!  How cool is that?!

In your rush to enjoy the MBG goodness, don’t forget to click the Facebook “LIKE” button under the album cover art and tweet it as well.   We greatly appreciate any help getting the word out about the new tune.  And please feel free to head over to our Facebook page and leave a comment there letting us know what you think.

Thanks for checking it out – enjoy the songs!

Les, Jerry, Doug and Steve

New MBG song, “How Did I Get Here,” out tomorrow!

Heads-up, folks: holding true to our “Download of the month” plan, the four of us – Les, Jerry, Doug and Steve – are looking forward to sharing our latest song with you tomorrow.  It’s called “How Did I Get Here,” and we’re uber-excited about it.  Easily one of our favorites of the new batch of tunes we’ve been working on.

So have fun trick-or-treating tonight, and then keep an eye out for an announcement sometime tomorrow!

Steve’s thoughts on random band connections and “Gonna Get It Right”

Following the “Download of the Month” release, members of MBG will share their thoughts about that song in subsequent blog posts. We hope it’ll give you a greater appreciation for the tune and all that went into writing and recording it.  Enjoy!

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If you haven’t checked out our latest single, Gonna Get It Right, please do.  Not just because it’s a nifty little tune, but because it’s proof positive of an iron-clad truth: Doug Davis can write some awesome songs.

In one of life’s wonderful twists and turns, Doug and I knew each other long before we shared the stage as Mediocre Bad Guys.  Way back in the 80′s, we were classmates at Wake Forest University.  Fraternity brothers, even. Yep, Doug was a frat boy.  I guess that’s no less surprising than me being one.

Doug was in a nifty little band called Easily Suede that was 3/4 Chi Psi, our fraternity; which meant whenever we had a Chi Psi party we had a 3/4 chance of booking them to play.  They were solid.  And yes, I managed to find my way onto their stage a grand total of two times: once to sing U2′s “I Will Follow” at some outdoor gig; and second to (no snickering) play bass for our Greek Week song.  It was Georgia Satellite’s “Battleship Chains,” except we changed the lyrics: You got me tied down in plastic wrist bands / Seven different colors and it’s getting out of hand.  True poetry.

After graduation I lost touch with Doug, until some fifteen years later when I moved to Mount Airy and met Jerry, who had long run in Winston-Salem music circles with Doug.  It was a very cool sense of deja vu when Doug agreed to join MBG as our guitarist and fourth vocalist and we got to share the stage again.  And I’ll give him credit for pushing the band to start working on originals, tapping into a mess of talent we didn’t fully knew we had.  I still recall one of his emails to Les and Jerry and myself, talking about this song he’d written specifically for Les’ voice, and how it was going to bring tears to his eyes hearing him sing it.

That song, if you hadn’t already guessed, was Gonna Get It Right.  It may even bring tears to your eyes, too.  Let me tell you, it’s a whole lot of fun making music with crazy-talented people.

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TO DOWNLOAD OCTOBER’S SONG “GONNA GET IT RIGHT,” CLICK HERE

TO SIGN UP FOR MBG’S EMAIL LIST: www.mediocrebadguys.com

MBG on FACEBOOK                          MBG on TWITTER

Writing For The Voice – Doug’s thoughts on “Gonna Get It Right”

Following the “Download of the Month” release, members of MBG will share their thoughts about that song in subsequent blog posts. We hope it’ll give you a greater appreciation for the tune and all that went into writing and recording it.  Enjoy!

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When I first became peripherally involved with the Bad Guys, there were several things that attracted me to the band. In addition to being an easy-going group of friends that not only played, but harmonized, well together, they were anchored, in my opinion, by Les Slate’s voice. Although at the time, the band was playing a lot of Jack Johnson songs (an artist that, though I’ve come to appreciate, was hardly on my “top ten” list), I heard a different kind of depth to Les’ voice, a kind of measured sorrow that really resonated with me. It’s the smoky kind of sound for which I feel I’ve been writing songs for years. Unfortunately, my voice doesn’t have any of that quality! From the day we first started playing music together, I wanted to write songs for Les to sing. “Gonna Get It Right” was the first of those songs, and the result is everything I was hoping for.

Most of the songs we’re working on right now are collaborations among different combinations of band members, and I love the thought of all the possibilities that that might bring about, but this is one that I contributed that I wrote on my own. “Gonna Get It Right” is a sad sack’s song, sung from the point of view of the perennial loser that just never can seem to make the right decisions. I wanted to strike the same kind of tone that Tom Petty has been able to strike in a number of songs: a careful balance between that of someone that you can sympathize with, but only so far. You know that he’s probably going to screw it up, that things probably aren’t going to go so right for this fellow. There’s the possibility of some kind of redemption, and if you want to dwell on that, well, I’d be happy if it brought you a little hope. But the end of the story is far from unwritten. Maybe this guy will turn up in another song again soon and we’ll learn more.

Musically, it’s a pretty straight-ahead affair – simple American roots-rock. As with a couple of the songs we’ve been working on, they’ve gotten a little beefier in the studio, as we’ve built up the guitars and harmonies. Jerry’s harp strikes that high, lonesome, “Nebraska”/”Unknown Legend” sound. Steve and I layered acoustics, and I chose my Strat for the main rhythm guitar, which is a bit of an unusual choice for me – I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with Strats for some reason. In any case, somehow that single-coil sound keeps it on the honest side for me; it keeps it from getting too beefy, too “rawk,” at least until the heavier Les Paul overdubs come in on the bridge and the solo. Steve lays down lots of tasty Benmont Tench piano licks and organ pads from my Hammond M3. Drums and bass were pretty much straight in, one or two takes.

I couldn’t be happier with the way this one turned out, and I hope you enjoy it as well!

Doug

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TO DOWNLOAD OCTOBER’S SONG “GONNA GET IT RIGHT,” CLICK HERE

TO SIGN UP FOR MBG’S EMAIL LIST: www.mediocrebadguys.com

MBG on FACEBOOK                      MBG on TWITTER

“Gonna Get It Right” – now available for download!

Thanks for all the downloads and listens from our first tune, “I Will” (and it’s not to late to download it, just click HERE).

But TODAY, October 1st, we’re happy to share with you our second song, “Gonna Get It Right.”  All you need to do is click on the pic below (or HERE):

As with “I Will,” you can stream the song by clicking on the play button.  Assuming you’ll then want to immediately download it as your own, simply click  the “Buy Now” link to start the download process.  You get to name your own price – and if you’re one of the first 200 to download the tune, you can get it for free!  How cool is that?!

In your rush to enjoy the MBG goodness, don’t forget to click the Facebook “LIKE” button under the album cover art and tweet it as well.   We greatly appreciate any help getting the word out about the new tune.  And please feel free to head over to our Facebook page and leave a comment there letting us know what you think.

Thanks for checking it out

Les, Jerry, Doug and Steve