April 10, 2008: First Warm Day (ruff demo) -Well, it's 5pm, Thursday, April 10th, and I just wrote this 2 hours ago, out walking m' damn dogs on the beach, and I was in such a good mood, I figured I'd try to get this to you before the weather started to suck again! (Hey, what's the world-wide Interweb for if you don't use it?) Happy Thursday everybody!

In case you missed them, here are several of our previous SotW selections...

March 5, 2008:  Live at the Cutting Room- The Chandler Travis Philharmonic recorded live at the Cutting Room, NYC, January 24th, 2008 by Chip Valentino - I thought it might be fun to give yez all a big chunk from one night, the better to convey the CTP experience, and this was a swell one, splitting the bill with the loverly Kami Lyle (always a favorite!), who also sat in with the band on trumpet and sangin'. Having Art Baron, a particularly fast friend from way back in college days who went on to have a staggeringly illustrious career (but only if you think it's exciting to play with Duke Ellington, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, and Bruce Springsteen -not to mention Travis & Shook, of course...) back on 'bone didn't hurt anything either. Kami and Art are both seriously cracked, and it was a particular pleasure to watch the intermingle-ization (both were in rare form.)

I only put in the second half of "This is Home", because it was the first song and it took a couple minutes to get the mix up to speed, as you might expect with a ten piece band with no sound check (luckily, Chip, the Cutting Room's sound guy, turned out to be a genius.) Please enjoy my many screw-ups, which include numerous lyrical errors, not to mention playing almost a whole verse of "All My Good Luck Is Gone" a half step sharp (so smooth!) This is also the first (vastly premature) appearance of a new Travis-Greenberger composition, "Calling Me Back Home", that I'm entirely infatuated with... I know we'll get it eventually.

The fact that I can get this ridiculously talented and delightful assortment of musicians to keep playing my music in far away locales like the Big Apple is absolutely stunning to me, and pretty much eliminates the possibility of ever quitting, just because I can't wait to see what they'll come up with next. In this instance, the geniuses involved (and to whom I am well beyond grateful) are: Rikki Bates on drums, John Styklunas on string bass, Dinty Child on mandocello, accordion, and vox, Phil Clements on keys, and Fred Boak the Valet on vox, plus our horn section, the June Trailer Dancers: Dan Brantigan and Kami Lyle on trumpets, Art Baron on trombone, and leader Mark Chenevert on tenor sax and clarinet.

The songs (written by myself, except as noted):



January 26, 2007: "Last Thing I Needed" - Chandler Travis & Modern Maturity, recorded at Passim, January 19, 2007, board mix by Matt Smith