While it is true that the world of CHEER-ACCIDENT will continue
its silent slumber for most if not all of 2012, a little something just
came down the pike from a neighboring solar system to aurally
keep you company in these quiet months:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/stopped-clocks/id501980001
Downloadable now. Available physically (via this here website) in
a month.
And now a word from Pravda “We’re Still A Record Label” Records:
Stopped Clocks is a collaboration between Scot Ashley and Thymme Jones, two veterans of the Chicago music scene, or (to be more precise) of two completely separate Chicago music scenes: Scot has lent his deeply diverse guitar talents to such mainstream success stories as The Greg Kihn Band, Martha Reeves And The Vandellas, Louis Bellson, Jim Peterick, Enuff Z’nuff and The Platters, while Thymme has continually burrowed his way through the underground with the likes of U.S. Maple, Brise-Glace, Tony Conrad, Illusion Of Safety and Dead Rider, while remaining a (founding) member of the seminal art-pop band, CHEER-ACCIDENT. In Stopped Clocks’ self-titled full-length debut, these two worlds converge in ways that are surprising yet somehow entirely natural. As it turns out, combining the pop sensibilities of, say, Cheap Trick with the more “outside” elements of ’70s Miles, mid-’70s ECM, and Morton Feldman results in a wholly rewarding listening experience. Rounding out this veritable musical adventure are the inclusion of two Chicago luminaries: Bob Lizik (who’s played with Brian Wilson and many others) and Chip Z’nuff were both gracious enough to provide their signature bass-playing styles to several songs on the recording, putting the finishing touches on this already-formidable undertaking.
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To quickly add to that…
For those of you familiar with the history of CHEER-ACCIDENT,
you will already know that there was a band in the early ’80s
called Dot Dot Dot, and that that was where Chris Block (bass
player on first three CHEER-AX albums) and Thymme first began
playing together. This avant-rock/faux-jazz ensemble, which
included Jef Bek on drums, was also where Thymme and Scot
first began playing together.
You will also recognize Scot as the performer of the classic
guitar solo on “Facialization” from The Why
Album, as well as the fade-in solo on “The
Middle Age” from the second Variations On A
Goddamn Old Man. Additionally, he co-wrote
“Fat Dog’s Gonna Hatch” from Dumb Ask
and “Surviving A Methodology” from What Sequel?
(The latter on which he played guitar.)
So now, three decades after their first musical encounter, we have
Stopped Clocks, the result of Scot and Thymme putting their heads
(and hearts) together to create twelve new moody, rocking, hypnotic,
and poignant tunes. Perhaps, given the vast amount of time that
seemingly refused to pass, they should have called themselves
“Calendars With The Pages All Stuck Together.” Nah, that doesn’t
have quite the same ring to it.
