By the time most of you read this (9:00 AM EST, Monday, March 19), the new Monkey Power Trio record will be available. Only 150 were pressed, so, if you want one, order now. As I mentioned before, these are kind of cool because we’re using recycled record jackets, a lot of which are really great… Here are some photos of Clementine and me working on them… So, if you want a limited-edition piece of Monkey Power history, just click here after 9:00 AM and send $10 through Paypal. You’ll have our new record, “House of the Mechanical Sun,” in your hands in a few days. (The FCC doesn’t like it when I make guarantees, but when you mention that you have a copy in your Match.com profile, I think it’s almost a certainty that you’ll see more action. Male or female. Seriously.)

As for the music, it’s your typical Monkey Power fare. Lots of goofy, half-written songs about life, love, the tiny robots that live in the folds of our skin, and all the usual stuff… For those of you unfamiliar with the Monkey Power concept, the band gets together one day a year to play. Nothing is pre-written. Nothing is planned. We just goof around for a few hours and then press on vinyl whatever we think works the best. Sometimes we fail spectacularly. Sometimes we stumble onto great beauty. It’s a crap shoot. And we, the members, are honor-bound to keep doing it until the last one of us is dead… This year is a bit different in that, instead of a 7” record, we pressed a 12”. It’s also the first year that I haven’t handled most of the vocalizing. (The pinky usually does one song a year, but, over the previous dozen sessions, I’ve been forced – by the fact that I can’t play an instrument – to sing everything else.) For some reason, everyone came this year excited about sharing the mic. (I’m hoping that journalists refer to it as the “American Idol effect.”) Anyway, if you’re a fan of the MPT, this is your chance to hear the thumb and the ring finger belt out heartfelt tunes. And, if you listen closely, you’ll ever hear the middle finger rap! Oh, and this record also incorporates two sessions. It’s got songs from Minnesota (2005) and Oregon (2006). (Our attempt to launch a record in 2005 was aborted when it became clear that the entire Chinese market would be closed to us. Since then, we’ve devised a plan.)

As a result of putting this project together, I have lots of liberated vinyl here on the table in front of me. If you have a use for it, let me know. It’s pretty scratchy, but some of it is really cool. Linette thinks we should make something cool out of them, but I can’t help but think that the fumes given off while heating them up in our oven would either kill us or turn us into Mary Kay salespeople… Anyway, if you want to risk it, let me know. I’ve got a stack of about 50.

[Special thanks again to Cousins Vinyl and Paul Davis for supplying most of the jackets used in this project. Without their generous support, this little art project would have been a much bigger pain in our collective ass. And, while I’m at it, I’d also like to thank VG Kids for doing an awesome printing job with the stickers, and Linette Lao for doing the kick-ass design. Our creative team rocks like no one else in DIY. (And one day we’ll get there with the music too.)]