Tacks, the boy disaster- Twelve Lions' Paws

The long awaited full length album! The songs are written, recorded, slaved over, picked apart, rewritten, re-recorded, rearranged, tried in different sounding rooms with different engineers over the course of five years of love and hatred. Missed family dinners, two children, four houses, and four rotating band members later it is actually done. It is a beautiful thing.

Evan has poured his whole soul into this, spending countless evenings scrawling lyrics, listening to hundreds of hours of recordings, practicing singing, banging away on the piano. This was his full time job-unpaid. We got by on his private piano lessons, the odd jazz gig and my bartending. Only the final mastering remains, which will happen in the next few days.

Here is a dorky and endearing video the boys made for a program called Kickstarter, which is an online donation project designed to help artists and musicians reach goals without going into personal debt. They call upon friends, family and fans to donate whatever they can in exchange for different levels of incentives, ranging from a feeling of euphoria to an advance copy of the record to a private concert. If they don't reach their goal within 30 days the money goes back to you.

The guys are projecting a pretty modest goal, just enough to cover the costs of studio time and the engineers. This doesn't include tshirts, buying gear, future tours, pocket money or even the printing and pressing of said album. (any overages will certainly go that direction) Though it rubs my fur backwards a bit to panhandle on the internet, what better cause to humble myself? This is the future of our family, and I married a musician with this kind of life before my eyes. A house full of music, children and laughter, our income invested in keyboards and microphones and lovely noises rather than the nasdaq or a large home in a safe part of town.

If you feel so led, you can be a part of this project HERE.
If you'd rather just give us a hearty high five- spreading, sharing, and re-posting this link all over the wide web is just as good as money to us.

Thank you kindly for stopping by this corner of the web where I keep my ravings. I think you're pretty.

Album cover

If I had an record, this would be the cover. Evan's album will be mixed and mastered NEXT WEEK. After five years of playing second fiddle to his "album wife" I am about to move up in the world, you guys! It feels like a death and a birth of some kind. We should probably have a party.

Tacks video starring...Ruby and Jesse

Here it is! Thanks John.

Tacks shirts

Chaos weekend! Tacks has a show tonight, and I have to pull dinner out of thin air for the sitter and manage to NOT look like I stayed up 'til 5am serving fancy wine to rich people at a private christmas party. At least the tshirts are finally printed! (design by me, executed on computerbox by Jeff Klein)

"Tacks, the Boy Disaster" BAND OF THE YEAR

Having a blog is awesome because you can get away with grandiose titles like this one. It will be true on a more public scale someday, or my name ain't "Mommmmyyyy".











This band is Evan's baby. He writes the songs and lyrics, arranges quite a few of the parts, sings all the lead vocals, plays piano, keyboards, synthesizer, a smattering of guitar and drums and records and mixes everything himself. The lost family evenings together in sacrifice for their new album is multitudinous but it is tantalizingly close to blessed completion. We have adopted two new members since the record was started, displacing one to anarchy and another to Harvard (hopefully he'll be back). Though the fans are wondering if Tacks is still kicking I know everyone is in for a treat when I hear the beautiful sounds filtering through the studio doors into my kitchen.

Meet Kyle. Drums, coffee, fish, garden vegetables and great hair.









Alán. Bass, funk, bicycle, synth, melodica, backing vocals and fashion sense.

Jake. Guitar, guitar faces, impeccably clean house, backing vocals, irresistible to coeds.

I love these guys. Talent abounds and much laughing, in between making beautiful songs of course. They are the only dudes I will consent to let my husband have a "relationship" with, because being in a band is very like being in a marriage I think. When Evan plays with other bands I have a vague and ridiculous feeling that he is being unfaithful to us, me and the boys.

I have embedded a live video of one of the new songs which is the only sneak peek I'm allowed to give you, hope you enjoy and stay tuned for more!








































*live performance "smell of the pines" (evan doesn't like this one because the fish eye lens makes him look all neck) but it is one of my favorites -mawu photography

*band photo by Ali at mawuphotography
*photo of Evan and mountain by Jeff Klein