We’re keeping the progression alive:  In 2008 we went as a trio;  in 2009, we went as a quartet;  and now we’re going as a quintet:  Yes, that’s D, Jeff, Alex, Carmen, and Thymme.  Hopping across the ocean in the hopes of planting No Ifs, Ands or Dogs in lots of European earholes…  (That last phrase almost feels like it should include an anagram, doesn’t it?)  So check out our “Shows” page to see when we might be visiting you.  (No Poland this time, unfortunately, ’cause when the tour was initially being booked, way back in December, that entire country’s internet access had ground to a screeching halt.  Apparently.  They were all back online within a few weeks, but by then the tour had already been routed in a non-Poland direction.  Darn it!  We love our peeps over there.  Next time?

Anyway… When we return, our CD release show is happening on Saturday, June 25 at The Hideout, with Miracle Condition.  So we’ll see all you Americans there.  USA!  USA!  USA!  USA!  USA!  USA!

Sorry, What Have I Done, Goodbye!

Look at this:

— 17th full-length, No Ifs, Ands or Dogs, now available (check out merch page).

— New videos

— Many upcoming shows, including European tour (check shows out shows page).

— Lots of pretty new photos (we’re pretty now).

— Oh, and “Sounds Of The Week” will resume on Sunday, May 1. Sorry we were stuck on the same week for almost a year’s worth of weeks. It won’t happen again!

— Check out our new forum.

— Or don’t do any of this and go out and play ball or somethin’.

This could be a good time! We’re now engaging with the world in ways we never have before– that’s right, with a new blog and a new forum. We did have a message board several years ago, but it only lasted a short while as we ended up losing the war to spam. I do remember it being fun while it lasted, though. There were quite a few witty, insightful and knowledgeable folks who contributed to the lively banter which was always present in our small virtual community.

By the way, I do not wish to discourage anyone who doesn’t think that they’re witty/insightful/knowledgeable (but who really is) from writing here and, by the same token, I do not wish to encourage anyone who thinks that they’re witty/insightful/knowledgeable (but who really isn’t) to write here. Unfortunately, I will have failed just now, by definition, to encourage those of whom I had wished to encourage, and to discourage those of whom I had wished to discourage. Respectively! Well, dammit, it’s not the first losing battle we’ve taken on and it certainly won’t be the… Hey! Speaking of “losing battles,” I should mention right up front that I don’t really have the expertise in the realm of message boards to make any kind of prediction as to whether or not we will once again become inundated with spam (I’d like to point out something here which you’ve surely already noticed, and that’s my tendency to use the words “I” and “we” alternately and seemingly haphazardly. Just to clarify, when I use the word “I” it refers to “me,” and when I used the word “we” it refers to “us.” We hope that clears things up for you.), nor am I well-versed enough in the matters of human nature to forecast the likelihood of our humble little forum being attacked by mean-spirited trolls who always seem to have an endless supply of hours in the day in which to bum everyone’s world. And I do not possess enough self-awareness to promise with any confidence that this blog will not be filled with a bunch of long-winded, irrelevant drivel. In any case, I embark upon this new phase of social intercourse with a fair amount of optimism that we will be able to play a persistent role as catalyst to an ongoing discourse on… uh, whatever interests anyone keen on inhabiting (or even casually grazing up against) the world of CHEER-ACCIDENT.

Oh! I had better hurry up and mention Phil Collins! Somebody who “knows these things” recently informed me that if I wrote “Phil Collins” and “CHEER-ACCIDENT” in the same sentence, search engines everywhere would blow their gaskets as people flocked to our website to find out more about the prog-drummer-turned-outrageously-successful-pop-star, subsequently leading to a discussion which would reside perfectly within that intersection between “difficult” and “accessible,” a point on the musical map we like to think we inhabit.

This web enthusiast/search engine scholar/friend of mine had initially brought up Phil Collins in a flippant and dismissive manner, but I found myself coming to Phil’s rescue: “You know, he’s a damn good drummer.” More often than not, in fact, I’ve defended Mr. Collins in the past two decades. Here’s the standard spiel I’ve been boring my friends with over the years: “From 1971 to 1980, Phil Collins could do no wrong. I mean, come on: He drummed on three of the four (really great) early Eno rock records; he was a founding member of the blistering British fusion band, Brand X, who really were quite inventive when they started out (note Percy Jones’ highly idiosyncratic bass playing, for instance); and, of course, he drums on most of the early Gabriel-era Genesis albums (which kept getting better and better right up until Gabriel’s departure… and, actually, the first few post-Gabriel albums, in which Collins sings and drums, are very good as well). Granted, he gets a lot of flak for “ruining” Genesis, turning them into a vapid, commercial hit-making machine, but, before that, he also saved them from becoming a ponderous, grooveless, “symphonic rock” band by bringing R&B, soul, and “Bonhamisms” into a group that could have otherwise easily succumbed to English stuffiness. (There are plenty of people who believe that that was the case anyhow, but they’re wrong!)

Additionally, it would be dishonest for me to not point out that Phil Collins had a huge, personal influence on my own drumming… right up there with Chris Cutler (who I’m positive will be thrilled– gentleman, start your search engines– to have been mentioned in THAT very same sentence). Perhaps more importantly, though, I think Phil influenced me simply in terms of what to do vs. what not to do. Ensuring that a tricky passage in 9/8, with a wailing synthesizer solo soaring over the top, still grooves in a way that would make James Brown proud: Yeah, do that! Allowing yourself to get chewed up by the machinery of commercialism and losing sight of why you started playing music in the first place: Awwwww, don’t do that!

Okay, that last bit was a bit presumptive (I don’t know what Phil Collins “lost sight of”), and I don’t mean to judge (he did a perfectly fine job of being Phil Collins), I’m just saying that when the scale tips that far toward the mainstream, it doesn’t look like very much fun. From 1964 to 1970, The Beatles managed to artfully straddle that line between innovation and accessibility. In our own way, in a much different world (and maybe on a slightly smaller scale!), that’s what CHEER-ACCIDENT has been attempting to do. We’ve seen a lot of bands we like come and go, and there’s a fairly common trajectory which goes like this: Start out naive, improve, arrive at a point of excellence, become over-refined, sell out, the end. We don’t want to do that. We would rather continuously “sell out” by playing pop music, while simultaneously maintaining the edge of contrariness/experimentalism as these two “poles” inform each other (really, this is a false dichotomy– it’s more of a continuum, but shouldn’t I be getting to sleep soon?). In other words, we are working against linearity, always pushing toward the center and moving away from the center at the same time. I’ve been typing for far too long (this was going to be whimsical at one point), and I’m not even sure what I’ve started to say toward the end here (maybe it will make sense to me when I wake up tomorrow… or maybe Scott Rutledge will have taken over), but… In terms of maintaining and nurturing our freedom to scurry back and forth between the “avant” world and the “pop” world, I gotta say: So far, so good!