Back in December of ’98, Greg Beemster recorded an a cappella rendition of  “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” Greg’s vocals had always sounded like a slowed-down Karen Carpenter, and indeed his interpretation of this seasonal classic owes more than a little to the Carpenters’ take on the song, which can be heard on the Christmas album that they recorded in 1978. Greg’s good friend, Thymme, who documented the solo vocal performance, decided to add some pitch-shifted pianos to the mix…   and then some trumpet… and so an idea was born: For the next ten holiday seasons, Thymme would take Greg’s original vocal track and add different instrumentation (while erasing the previous year’s music). The two friends would then hand out copies to people they knew in the form of store-bought, pre-recorded cassettes. (They would record over the first four minutes of, say, a Peter Frampton or Madonna or Judas Priest or Pearl Jam release, leaving the rest of the album intact.) After a few years, the tradition evolved as they began to occasionally include an audio Christmas letter (by an anonymous acquaintance of theirs) and then switched from cassette tapes to CDrs. (Not as fun, but the letters definitely compensated…)  Anyway, what we have here in 2013 is every year’s recording on one purchasable CDr, which can be acquired by going here:  cheer-accident.com/merch/                                                                                              enJOY?

Just a little reminder that We Accidense are playing a very special indoor/outdoor show at Experimental Sound Studio (5925 N. Ravenswood) this Saturday at 4:00pm. And before that, we are being featured on the glorious WNUR (89.3 FM, Evanston/Chicago). The following is from the desk of Dan Burke…

Incorporating: “Patchworks” feature focusing on groundbreaking, old and new synthesizer music and primarily modular synth music made by members of the Muffwiggler forum from 4-5PM.

We thought we’d give y’all a taste of what we’re bringing to Europe in September a little early: Yeah: Saturday, August 31, in the afternoon, we are doing our first show at ESS as part of their summer series (graciously and intelligently curated by one Adam Vida). Implodes, a band I’ve not yet heard but look forward to hearing, will also be playing that day.

And, yeah: Evelyn Davis (specializing in piano innards), Dante Kester (our newest and tallest bass player), Charles Dudley Bayne, III, Jeff Libersher and Thymme Jones will be the lineup you will hear.

You will, here?

Or I suppose you could skip that show and just see us at one of these spots:

Friday, Sept. 13: Gerardmer, France. Le Grattoir

Saturday, Sept. 14: Basel, Switzerland. Hirscheneck

Sunday, Sept, 15: Leuven, Belgium. L’Escalier

Monday, Sept. 16: Brussels, Belgium. Magasin 4

Tuesday, Sept. 17: Paris, France. L’Espace B

Wednesday, Sept. 18: Clermont-Ferrand, France. Raymond Bar

Thursday, Sept. 19: Probably Milano! Confirmation soon!

Friday, Sept. 20: Montpellier, France. The Black Sheep

Saturday, Sept. 21: Carmaux, France. Rock In Opposition Festival

We get to play before our heroes, Univers Zero! And Faust will be there, too. ¡Yowza!

Our good, good, obnoxiously talented friends, Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi, were in town last week. The first thing they did upon arrival was play an amazing show at Schuba’s: It was intimate and highly engaging, with some of the most amusing caffeine-induced between-song banter I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. The second thing they did (which I unfortunately could not attend) was play a house show in Evanston. The third thing… Oh, the third thing they did…

Well, they invaded our CHEER-ACCIDENT recording/rehearsal space (“the basement”) to document the very first TRUE collaboration between them and us. (Now don’t get me wrong, these two camps have put in a lot of time together, both in the form of recording– Carla sings on “Sun Dies” from Fear Draws Misfortune and plays violin on “Blue Cheadle” from that same album, and their former band, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and CHEER-ACCIDENT have engaged in so much onstage cross-pollination that I’ve sometimes forgotten where one band ended and the other began. But this…)

THIS was the first bona fide collaboration, in that we were all equally involved in the inception of a song. The way we went about “writing” this song was rather treacherous: Carla, Matthias, and “road friend,” Abby, came over to join the JeffThymmeDanteEvelyn version of the band (in other words 4/5 of Euro-Accident) to freely improvise for an hour. The next step in the writing process entailed sifting through the (frightening/joyous/magical) id vomit to “find the song.” Well, we found a few chunks that did the trick, Carla sang some words that Scott Rutledge had written many years ago (which happened to be lying in plain sight on a table upstairs, still songless after all these years), violas/violins/trumpets were overdubbed and we were good to go.

And so what does this collaboration have to do with “musicians earning a living?” Well, this song (entitled “Before The Sun”) is to be the August 2013 installment of Carla and Matthias’ subscription page. Jointly, they go under the moniker “Rabbit Rabbit Radio.” I’ve been a subscriber since day one, and it’s been an amazing ride: They’ve pledged to record a NEW song every month, while giving members of the site access to the process of the recording (via video documentation), top ten lists and other dork-ass brain fun (DABF). You can enlist in this extraordinary world for as little as two dollars a month. They have generated enough interest during their one and a half years of existence to have come darned close to earning a living (there’s that phrase again) through this site alone.

And guess what? CHEER-ACCIDENT is about to follow suit. That’s right, we are going to (per their suggestion) completely rip off their idea: As of September 1, 2013, you will be able to enable yourselves (for $2, $4, $6, or $10) access to a brand new song, rare live footage, conversations with Phrogclock, and a “wild card” scenario which will vary from month to month. (And, of course, the “free” part of CHEER-ACCIDENT.com, including the part you’re reading right now, will remain free.)

So. Given that we find ourselves a mere 24 hours away from Rabbit Rabbit Radio’s first CHEER-ACCIDENT invasion/inclusion, I suppose I should throw you their link. It looks like this: http://rabbitrabbitradio.com/

Fortuitous, eh? And completely (honest!) unplanned. Tune in soon for details on how you may participate in enabling your favorite CHEER-ACCIDENT to earn a living.

We are playing our first show in two years (almost to the day) at Mayne Stage in Rogers Park. 1328 W. Morse. Doors open at 6:30. Show is at 8:00. Gnuman will be starting the night. They are a Gary Numan cover band. We come the closest we’ve ever come to being a Gary Numan cover band on the “B” side of our new single which will be available at the show. (We’ve never come that close to being a Gary Numan cover band, though.)

(But really, that “B” side isn’t as far off as you might imagine.) Well, enough about Gary Numan. Let’s talk about you. What do YOU think about Gary Numan?

Don’t forget to remind me to tell you that it’s an all ages show.

Oh, and that we’ll be playing for 90 minutes, covering pretty much every year we’ve been around. But who’s counting?

I think the keyboard player for Gnuman is a dentist. But he also used to be in the band Men Without Hats.  
(I don’t believe those two things are mutually exclusive.)

Our new bass player is good. His name is Dante Kester. These people, who are also playing that night under the CHEER-ACCIDENT moniker, could also be considered good: Carmen Armillas, Charles Dudley Bayne III, Mike Hagedorn, Andrea Faught, Jeff Libersher, Cory Bengsten, Sacha Mullin, and Thymme Jones.

I hope you can be considered good. And there. On June 22. Saturday.

Okay. Time to run out of time!

Three, in fact, chunks of news:

1. The CHEER-ACCIDENT horn section (and the Lovely
Little Girls horn section and the Dead Rider horn section)
will be horn sectioning for the illustrious Bobby Conn this
Tuesday (that’s March 26) for his final residency stintage
at The Hideout. 1354 W. Wabansia. Be there by 9:00ish
if ya would.

2. Another summertime single will be unleashed in
two or three months. This will commemorate our 32
and a half years of existence.

3. Our recent lineup (this must be our 131st or so)
has been busy working on lots of new music and lots
of old music, which will be delivered to your ears in a
real time fashion when we play at Mayne Stage on
June 22. Show begins at 8:00 and is all ages.* More
on that later, I’m sure. More on (I’m sure) this later,
as well: We will be playing the Rock In
Opposition festival on September 21
in Carmaux, France. Right before Univers Zero.
So there’s some ¡Yowza!

(* This will commemorate our 26 years of playing
live.)

(I won’t mention the barbecue, ’cause you’ll either
know about that or you won’t.)

Okay! Don’t forget to write! Don’t be a stranger!
Have a nice summer! Sorry so sloppy!

I guess this would be a good time to mention that Dot Dot Dot is doing a one-off, 30-year anniversary show on Friday, July 27 at Mayne Stage (1328 W. Morse Ave.) in Chicago. The show begins at 7:30. 18 and over. Also on the bill: Ono and Illusion Of Safety. This will be the first time the band has played since breaking up in early 1985.

Mayne Stage is an extremely good-sounding venue. It will be worth the extra 3 to 30 to 300 to 3,000 miles you will have to travel on your bicycle to witness this performance.

For those of you who don’t know your
CHEER-ACCIDENT history
as well as you might like,
Dot Dot Dot included two members who went
on to form 66.6% of the Dumb Ask
era: Chris Block and Thymme Jones.

The lineup that will be playing on the 27th will be:
Ross Feller- woodwinds
Jef Bek- Drums
Chris Block- bass
Thymme Jones- trumpet, keyboards

Bring your druthers!

Tuesday, April 17 At The Hideout

Thymme Jones
Dag Juhlin
Susan Voelz
Daniel Lutz

All of these folks will be singing their own songs, solo-like.
Show starts at 9:00. Yeah, at The Hideout (1354 W. Wabansia)
$7

Tuesday, April 24 At Elastic Arts

Baaba (From Poland!)
LXMP (From Poland!)
Our Last Names Trio (Todd Rittmann/Thymme Jones/And…)
Grace Kulp (Slightly Touched, Songs Sung Solo)
Thymme Jones/D. Bayne (Piano Improvisation)

Show begins at 9:00. Yeah, at Elastic Arts (2830 N. Milwaukee)
Macio Moretti is in both Polish bands. He is from Warsaw. He is a good friend of CHEER-ACCIDENT. He is completely brilliant and hilarious. This will be good…

Considering how long it’s taking for the Stopped Clocks physical copies to exist, this band is really starting to live up to its name. The date to truly put some faith in is now April 12, so Thymme will certainly have copies available at the 4/17 and 4/24 shows.

Lastly, czech out this collaboration C-A did with Jang for their Jungle Duets compilation. Free download only, so don’t even attempt to purchase it: http://jang.bandcamp.com/

First track (“Rest”).