Mr. Lemons was recorded in Nashville, TN and mixed at Ed in Santa Barbara, CA. It was produced by Neilson Hubbard and engineered and mixed by Andy Hunt. It features guest vocals by Kim Richey and Garrison Starr.
Mr. Lemons was recorded with the goal of capturing the feel of my live performances in the studio. Instead of starting with rhythm tracks and adding vocals at the end of the record, songs were either recorded with live lead vocals and a full band or built up from a solo vocal and guitar performance.
Overdubs were done with musicians playing together in small ensembles to allow more spontaneity and musical interaction.
I live in Santa Barbara, the city of my birth, with my wife and three children, two chickens and a golden retriever.
I am releasing my new record independently, as part of a decision to shift from the insanity of the record business to the manageability of a family business.
My family and I will spend nine months in Europe starting in September of 2006, living and traveling in a motor home. Laurel and I will home-school the children and I will use the opportunity to play club residencies, home concerts and festivals across Europe. Much delicious food will be cooked and consumed. Art and music will be created. Fine friends will be made. Mirth will ensue.
I was in a band called Toad the Wet Sprocket when I was a boy. We sold over three million records, had a handful of radio hits and toured relentlessly. We broke up in 1998, for all the usual reasons.
I've made three other solo albums. Abulum (produced by Ethan Johns) and Live at Largo are both independent releases, and Winter Pays For Summer (with contributions from Jon Brion and Ben Folds among others) was released by the Lost Highway label. I have also released a collaboration with Nickel Creek called Mutual Admiration Society, touring in 2004 with the added rhythm section of Pete Thomas and John Paul Jones.
I tend to tour solo acoustic, partially because I enjoy performing that way, and partially out of economic imperative.
I've been a vegetarian and a voracious carnivore. I have planted gardens but not usually been around to tend them. I love running up and down fields chasing flying plastic discs. I am an enthusiastic cook. I read plenty of books when I'm not too depressed. I am happy to talk about politics and religion. I am most drawn to Buddhist spiritual philosophies, which confuses some people. I'm pretty much convinced that we have destroyed enough of the biosphere that we will soon make ourselves extinct. I would like to live in a democratic society. I am registered with the Green party. I take my coffee with a little cream, no sugar. I find excess packaging and materialism in general to be morally abhorrent, but do love opening things.
Mr. Lemons is named after a studio named after a deceased cat. The deceased cat may have been named after the pseudonym of Rutsjert Hoogaboom, a lesser philosopher of Dutch extraction who settled in London in 1858 (where he may or may not have tutored the young Sigmund Freud) and lived out his last years in San Francisco, writing and burning volumes of memoirs. Or not.
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