Don’t forget – you can grab a free Chris Merritt best-of album here!  (It asks you to sign up for the newsletter, but you don’t have to – there’s a link that goes straight to the download.  But you should sign up for Wes’ highly awesome newsletter!)

Why not throw the link to a couple friends who might have somehow overlooked the international musical phenomenon known simply as Chris Merritt?  “Hey there, friend!” you might say.  “Check out this quirky piano freak I found!  His music makes life slightly more bearable!” Or something to that nature.  Have a quick link to gmail, yahoo, and aim.  You’re welcome.

I’m in a best-of mood.  In fact, I think it’s about time to get serious about my little band.  It’s time to make this thing huge.  It’s time to make history.  We’ve got some ideas, and I will keep you documented on our progress daily here.  With a more-than-freaking-amazing donation from my currently favorite Chris Merritt fan on the planet, we find ourselves in the midst of decision-making time.

Here are the facts:

• The next Chris Merritt record will be the best Rock And Or Roll album ever made by human men
• We have 8.7 billion ideas and the 22 best songs I’ve ever written,
• plus a crack team of the finest musicians on the planet, including percussion factory Brett Ripley
• We need a decent budget to make this record what it’s supposed to be, which is the sonic version of synthetic life
• We need a promo company or a record label, realistically, to get there
• We live in NYC, which has many promo companies and record labels
• The public is bound to get sick of crappy music any minute now

So, Brett and I propose the following.  We’ll get in a studio next week with some of this surprise change and finish up a couple new (amazing) tracks that we’ve been secretly rocking out to.  That way you guys will have something new to hear.  But we’ll use the majority of our efforts over the summer not on making another masterpiece that flies below the radar, but on securing a fat catapult to launch our boiling lard over the heads of…..I don’t know where that little analogy was going.  Basically, it’s time to kick some butt.

I’ll update four times a week.  Monday.  Tuesday.  Thursday.  Saturday.  You’ll know our successes and failures.  You’ll know what we’re up to on our epic journey to stardom.  And most importantly, you’ll be able to keep in touch with us and help us.  We need your help.  We’ll have jobs and fun activities for you.  We’ll give you stuff.  Signed shirtless photos.  It’s time to become intimate friends with my email, the post office, and my cell phone.  Damn that cell phone.

Friends, I’m sorry about the lack of Tuesday Tapes.  Cathy, I’m sorry I haven’t called you back.  And Emma, I WOULD like that Pearl Jam t-shirt.  And Wes, here’s a video of a man who truly understands the high comedy of Ricky Gervais.

Let’s start strong, folks.  Send the best-of album to two of your friends that LOVE strange, manly piano-rock.

The time has come.

love, Chris

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Apparently my mom entered a couple of my songs in the UK Songwriting contest.  Out of five-thousand thousand entries, Cult Of Karl was one of the four songs that placed in the indie/rock category – cool!  Thanks mom!  She also entered Avery and something else, which apparently almost placed too.

Check out the contest results here and the video on the contest’s YouTube account here.  Half of the credit goes to Dustin Hofheins for his amazing bassline on Cult (I love that bassline) and Steve Pick for his amazing animated video.

There was one grand winner in each category and three runners-up.  Cult Of Karl was the runner up in the indie/rock category.  And the winner?  Amazing – an eleven-year-old girl named Daniella Salone won with her song Good Thing which is unbelievable.  It would be a great song even ignoring the fact that a young child wrote it and recorded every instrument!  This girl is awesome.  She can write better than almost every adult ’songwriter’ I’ve met.  If this chick keeps at it, she will be truly great.

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This song is in fetus stage but it will be a huge hit, I can hear it in my head:

It’s a pretty short one, so here’s an oldie called Dr. Jerk:

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Here’s a magazine article about myself.

I remember talking Cassandra’s face off for like an hour, so she must edited about 97% of my inspired ramblings.  Anyway, thanks for the great and awesome article Cass!  Mind if I call you Cass?  It’s kind of close to Ass though huh?  Well, forget it I’ll just stick with Cassandra.

In other news, I’ll be playing Relay For Life in Charlottesville VA on Saturday!  I’ve never really played C-Ville but this is for a great end:  eliminating cancer from the human race.  Come walk and hang out.  I’ll be playing two gosh darn sets!  I think the only real and final solution to cancer will have to do with manipulating genes or nano-bots.  Really.

Here’s a song I made.   I Don’t See You Here from Virginia Is For Hoverers (Part I) (buy it here, fools)

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I will be playing tomorrow (Saturday) night at Local 269 (which is on the lower east side on Houston) at 8 PM.

I’ll be playing mostly acoustic and I’ll be doing all science-themed songs!  Come by for an hour of hard science and hard drinks.  And rock music as well.  Plus, you get a free disc of all my science-themed songs!  Yeah, I know, I’m a nice guy.

Physics, biology, astrophysics, famous scientists…..maybe some history and computation thrown in as well.  Oh, and also science-fiction songs.

You know,

• The Turing Machine
• Anti-Bird (Little Bird)
• The Singularity
• Sequel
• Sanctuary
• Sarah And The Fabric Of Reality
• The Beautiful Ms. Parker And I Approach The Singularity
• She-Wolf

You know, stuff like that.  Maybe some Magical Stones and some I Don’t See You Here thrown in.  Am I forgetting any?

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I drove to VA to work for my dad and his landscaping company.  When times get tough I turn to shoveling animal crap over people’s lawns for money.  Anyway, I wrote some new semi-songs on the old piano in the basement, but I was too lazy to record them.

However, I’ve been hooked on these old Paperface b-sides lately…it’s cool to be able to look at this stuff with more objectivity now.  I think Paperface was objectively a damn fine group.   I didn’t write good lyrics, and sometimes I made up lyrics on the fly, and I didn’t worry about singing well or playing the piano well, and we were still a good group.  Probably mostly due to Tristan and Jake, come to think of it.

I also organized my whole catalog of music.  The grand total is:

• 500 songs on early Chris Merritt tape demos
• 4 official Chris Merritt albums
• 21 albums of newer Chris Merritt demos
• 5 Paperface albums (one of b-sides)
• 3 Upperville songs!

I feel like I’m just getting started in my writing.  I’ve been listening to lots of Rimsky-Korsakov and Vaughn Williams and Berlioz and I think there is much to be done!

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Delays on tapes, this week has been busy!  The show at Rockwood was awesome.  We were done and it was still light out.  But the finest people in the city all came out.

Then I got a job doing grunt work for the UK Embassy in NY.  I worked with a couple of the guys from Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch or something.  Bleedin’ cockneys they were.  Sweet blokes they were and a couple of cheeky bastards.  Why do I always end up around these Limeys?  First the gig at Le Caprice (a London restaurant) and now this.  Where are they all coming from?  Did they all just get here?  They still sound like they’re straight out of Layer Cake.  My slow American brain has trouble keeping up with them.  I think it’s the universe telling me to get my Elton John ass to England.

Here’s some little demos I recorded at a new Yorkman’s house:

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I thought I would post the newsletter for all to see.  If you don’t subscribe to the newsletter, now is the time.  Wes sends ‘em out about every three weeks, and he takes it to an art form.  Use the simple sign-up button to the right of this blog.

Long time no spam, eh?

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We played a show last week for these amazing kids at St. Andrew’s school in Delaware.  The students were so awesome – by the end of the show, most of the audience was on stage with us.  Clapping, dancing, singing.  It was a freakin party.

This confirms my recent longing to play for younger audiences.  21+ shows tend to be more jaded and low-energy.  St. Andrew’s, you guys are rad!  We’ll come back soon.

Anyone got more show pictures?

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