The Monkey Power Trio present “Left Behind,” chronicling their musical adventures from 2011 – 2013

There must be something in the air… A few days ago I posted about our just-completed Monkey Power Trio session in Cleveland. Then, yesterday evening, I got word from a friend in Ann Arbor that WCBN was playing our stuff. And, now, after years and years of waiting, the world has the new Monkey Power Trio record that it’s been longing for.

Yes, the logjam has finally broken. Our new 12″ record, containing the sum of our creative output from our 2011, 2012 and 2013 sessions, is back from the pressing plant and ready for your turntable.

Have you been looking for the perfect gift for that special hard-to-buy-for someone? An uncle who never speaks? A child that, until recently, you didn’t know you had? That new family of Syrian refugees down the street? Well, why not give the gift of Monkey Power?

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[Supplies won’t last. Order today.]

If you read this site on a regular basis, you probably know the story of the Monkey Power Trio… five men who, being young, drunk and stupid in 1995, vowed to get together and write songs one-day-a-year until the very last one of them is gone. You probably also know that, while we’ve kept our word, and gotten together once a year to write and record music over the past 21 years, we’ve been relatively bad when it comes to getting singles out every year documenting that historic creative output. Well, this new record, called “Left Behind,” brings us up to 2013… That’s right. We’re now only two years behind!

“Left Behind,” which my bandmade Dan likens to “an extremity dropped by a leper, for you, the curious medical student, to gather and observe,” will take you on a musical journey of America’s rural west… from the bigfoot country of Government Camp, Oregon where we recorded in 2011, to the bear-covered mountains outside Tahoe City, California where we found ourselves in 2012, to an abandoned grain-silo-turned-fuck-den in Wilson, Wyoming where we secluded ourselves with a handful of instruments and a few gallons of rotgut whiskey in 2013. This has it all, from our sickness-induced fever dreams about Al Green, to our thoughtful meditations on life in Reno, the saddest little city in America. Seriously, I know the phrase “thrill ride” gets thrown around a lot by reviewers talking about our work, but it’s really deserved this time. This is, without a doubt, the best record of the year by amateur musicians who don’t really try all that hard, and never play a song more than three times.

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3 Comments

  1. stupid hick
    Posted December 2, 2015 at 9:47 pm | Permalink

    “Pocahontas Swamp Machine Recordings”. Cultural appropriation inspired by a romanticized legend? Or a tribute to honor a Native American, who had a different birth name, and who preferred to be known as Rebecca after her conversion to Christianity? Not sure what to make of it.

  2. Posted December 2, 2015 at 10:07 pm | Permalink

    To be honest, I wasn’t even thinking of the woman when I named the label 21 years or so ago. I’ve just always liked assembling words in groups of three, and I thought Pocahontas Swamp and Machine sounded really interesting together. So, no, I wasn’t trying to appropriate anything. I just liked the way the words flowed. But, yeah, if people are offended by it, I wouldn’t mind changing it. I also like the way Lip Stick and Scab sound together… And, actually, I’d like to know more about Pocahontas. I did some reading about her while in Jamestown this past summer, and it’s really fascinating stuff. She was sent back to England to sell potential colonists on the idea of coming to America. And, unfortunately, she seems to have died as a result. At least that’s the sense that I got from what I read.

  3. stupid hick
    Posted December 3, 2015 at 1:40 am | Permalink

    Yes, fascinating story, and something interesting I heard from a knowledgeable friend is the name “Pocahontas” was only used around the white settlers, because at first her dad didn’t want them to know her real name.

    Fair enough about your recording label’s name. I don’t think it’s patently offensive, but I can only speak for stupid hicks, and I would never recommend anyone to give a hick opinion much weight.

3 Trackbacks

  1. […] THE NEW MONKEY POWER TRIO: And, at about 7:30, because I just got the new Monkey Power Trio record in the mail, and haven’t yet been able to listen to it, as I don’t have a working […]

  2. […] good from beginning to end… even the part where Jim Cherewick and I just played songs off the new Monkey Power Trio record as young men on drugs attempted to get into the studio… Here are some of the […]

  3. […] to end… even the part late in the show where Jim Cherewick and I just played songs off the new Monkey Power Trio record as young men on drugs repeatedly attempted to get into the studio… Here are just a few of the […]

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