“I was the youngest guy in the stroke wing next to people who were 80 and 90, and the doctors kept passing by asking ‘Why are you here?’“
 
Last year, Dani Meza of the crushedvelvets spoke to his local newspaper The Desert Sun in Indio, California (he is a native, and still a resident, of the town now best-known for Coachella) about his treatment after suffering an aneurysm and two strokes.
 
In the interview, writer Bryan Blueskye writes that Meza “described his recovery as ‘experimental’ because it required observation, and there was a great deal of uncertainty. Depending on which part of the brain is affected, rehabilitation includes regaining lost skills such as movement, speech, strength and everyday tasks.”
 
As a musician, one of those tasks is music-making, and so, following a long road back to a normal life, Meza embarked on a new way of creating that allowed him to make art and keep his health intact.
 
Throughout 2022, Meza released a series of three-song EPs under the dark and sexy name the crushedvelvets.
 
Described by Stereo Embers as “dreamy and soulful shuffles that have all the night-kissed grace of Julee Cruise and the poetic finesse of The Jazz Butcher,” Ghettoblaster proclaimed that “the vibe is reaching levels of ultimate leisure.”
 
It was as if Meza’s physical need to approach music from a more relaxed perspective had allowed him to relax his listeners as well.
 
“These songs are all about the groove,” Meza said at the time, citing Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and Prince as primary influences.
 
Meza is now wrapping up a full-length debut album with veteran producer Chris Schlarb (Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Sufjan Stevens) at the helm. While working in Schlarb’s Big Ego Studios, Meza decided to cap his 2022 series of EPs as the crushedvelvets with one more.
 
“Live In Studio” will be released on Dec. 15, 2023 and is a unique companion to Meza’s previous releases in that it was recorded live on the Big Ego studio floor accompanied by a professional multi-camera video shoot.
 
“We perform two of the song taken from two of the earlier EPs that people liked the most,” Meza says of “Intertwined” and “A Hero’s Sin.” The band also lends its signature sound to a cover of the T. Rex classic “Mambo Sun.”
 
“‘Mambo Sun’ was just for our pleasure, and to show the diversity of influences on the music I write,” Meza explains. “This song kept coming up in conversation when I would share some of the new music we were recording for the album. I couldn’t ignore the sign when more than a handful of people took it up.”
 
The musicians joining Meza for this live session comprise the same band that accompanies him on the album he tracked the week after the “Live In Studio” shoot and session went down. 
 
These include Ben Lumsdaine on Drums (Durand Jones), Danny Frankel on Percussion (Lou Reed, Fiona Apple, She and Him), Heather Sommerhauser on Synth (Junatime), and Max Diaz on Bass (scarypoolparty, W I R E S, Broken Baby.)
 
“This live EP is the closing of a book in order to move on to the next one,” Meza states.

We are fortunate that Meza is here to continue providing us with these soulful sounds of survival.
 
“Live In Studio,” arriving Dec. 15 with visually stunning performance videos to accompany each of its three tracks, is the fourth and final EP in the crushedvelvets series by Dani Meza.

The debut album by the crushedvelvets is scheduled for release in 2024.

the crushedvelvets - Intertwined (Live In Studio)

Alberta & The Dead Eyes is the giant-sounding band that in reality is the majority work of one real-life carpenter, David Boone (or D. Boone as he often signs off, evoking another literal and figurative giant of musical history, D. Boon of The Minutemen.)

In fact, Boone’s songs contain that same ramshackle joy and conversational, inclusive tone that Boon’s do. It’s the sound of a natural talent letting it fly.

“I’m a carpenter by day and sometimes even by night,” Boone says. “A fine carpenter at that, but a better musician.”

You may want to leave the page now to find out more about Boone, but don’t bother. He made the right choice. The choice that none of us made and many wish we had. Boone is nowhere to be found on social media. 

He lets the songs do the sharing.

Alberta & The Dead Eyes will release its new 11-song album Give or Take on March 15, 2024. The album will be preceded by “Ghost Kitty,” a four-song EP of additional songs on Dec. 22, 2023.

The songs on Give or Take represent a man in withdrawal from a two-packs-a-day cigarette habit that went on for 15 years.

“Mama, did it fuck me up more than I expected,” Boone confesses. “I wrote the entire record pretty much curled up in a ball.”

Grieving his relationship with nicotine while composing, Boone kept company with his influences, numerous and varied. So numerous and varied that mentioning a handful isn’t going to help you any more than looking for Boone online will.

“I love Billie Holiday. And The Stooges. And The Band. And Outkast. And Duke Ellington. And Cole Porter. And David Sedaris. And Bill Watterson. And the Detroit Pistons. And John fucking Prine.”

Boone doesn’t mention The Minutemen, but likely would, if prompted.

“I mean Jesus, should I keep going?”

Get it?

The thing about Boone as musician that isn’t likely is how much Boone as carpenter makes it into his music. He doesn’t mention the Grateful Dead either, but the steadfast focus that underpins Boone’s freestyle nature is kinda Alberta & The Workingman’s Dead Eyes.

“I’m a complete ‘no one is coming to save you’ type of person,” he explains. “Keep your head down and
do your job. Musician schmoosician. Do what your supposed to fucking do. Write good songs. Play good
shows. Show up on time. Be humble and be fucking nice.”

A real-life carpenter keeping it real-life real. Refreshing.

It should be even less surprising now that musician Boone rejected Instagram squares for T-squares just like he painfully swore off smokes cold turkey for the clean lungs that arrived with the songs, or as Boone sees it, he arrived to them.

“The songs are just there, hanging out, waiting for someone,” he says.

Now that someone is you.

Alberta & The Dead Eyes will release its new 11-song album Give or Take on March 15, 2024, preceded by “Ghost Kitty,” a four-song EP of additional songs on Dec. 22, 2023.

Alberta & The Dead Eyes - So Cool

Fanatic is a music marketing company established by Josh Bloom in 1997 to build fan-to-fan connections between artists and the media. For 25 years, Fanatic has continued to help launch and maintain careers through the strategic advocacy of creative talent.

the crushedvelvets - Intertwined (Live In Studio)

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