From Al:

Join us at the Chris Merritt Family Reunion Friday July 15th. at 5:30 pm. Till dark. Eat dinner with the Merritt Family (Chris, Dustin & Al) and enjoy an evening of great music in the park! All this for a donation of just $8.00! Heidi Hofheins St. Julien will be playing and singing her original music during dinner and special guest Andrew Bingham will open for Chris Merritt. Dinner will include Al’s special Sirloin Burgers, chips and drinks! The park is located just south of the Orem Rec. Center (580 West 165 South) and Mountain View High School in Orem. We will be set up in the north west corner of the park next to a house. We will be easy to find. You can call 801-830-5118 and talk to Al or Kathy if you get lost or need directions. Don’t miss out on the fun, good food and great music!  Bring blankets, lawn chairs, etc. if you want to. See you there!

HEY sorry for the lack of updates.  Busy in the city.  Filmed a little music video!  Been going to shows!  Been sending out emails/letters like crazy!!  Oh, and guess what??  Been working on like 5 or 6 of the best songs I’ve ever recorded in my life!  Tracking vocals and percussion right now and editing and stuff.  Thanks for all your emails and messages, everyone, especially with contact info for managers/labels/promo companies/etc.  Totally rad.  We’re working our butts off, especially Brett, who serves at Stress Cafe like almost every day.

Here’s a couple songs I’ve been fooling around with:

Stay tuned for a preview of some new studio material!  Right now I gotta run off to work!!

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Come out and see us tomorrow (Tuesday) at 8 o clock at Pianos.  http://cross-pollination.com/

Playing with a cool cello chick.  Cool event called cross-pollination.

New Perry Bible Fellowship?  http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF248-Transmission.jpg

7/01/10 …and yet ANOTHER update! Sooo, Chris technically won the public voting rounds, but as it turns out, OurStage.com brings in a panel of music industry professionals to critique each of the top-20 artists’ songs and THEIR choice will be the winner. They said that on or around July 8th the winners of each touring city will be announced. So we’ll hopefully only have to wait a week for the outcome.

Did I mention that you all are AWESOME for voting like mad for Chris?? Especially those who live too far away to even fathom attending a show in Buffalo? Seriously, the support is overwhelming and really inspiring for Chris, Brett and myself. THANK YOU! and stay tuned.

~ Cathy

Everyone. Drummer Brett Ripley needs a BIG favor. We have the chance to play a humongous concert with boy-band phenomenon Hanson. Go vote for us because we made it into the top 4 out of hundreds! Cathy entered me into this contest and I came out way ahead – let’s vote and become number one! This could give Brett the chance to make out with literally hundreds of teenage girls, so let’s make this happen for him! Cathy says this:

— “So, how do you vote? Go to www.ourstage.com, make a quick (I promise it’s very quick!) and free profile (, look up Chris Merritt and click the button “make this your favorite artist.” Once you do that, go to the “Judge” tab, select “Shout it Out! With Hanson” on the right, click on the Buffalo NY channel, and begin the head-to-head voting.

“You will have to listen to the first 15 seconds of each competing artist that comes up (whenever that artist comes up again you can vote without listening) and Chris should pop up within the first few rounds since you’ve made him your favorite artist. Select “Best – By Far” for Chris’s song, “Sugar”. Chris will come up a bunch of times in the voting — the quarterfinals have 190 rounds, which go very quickly once you’ve listened to at least 15 secs of each artist once.

“Go NOW and keep voting to get him to #1!!!”

In other news – Live in New York City? Come see me at Pianos on the Lower East Side next week. On Tuesday Brett and I will be there with guest bassist Simon Walsh, New York bassist extraordinaire. It’s part of a cool event called Cross-Pollination – we’ll be playing with another band, and at the end of the show we’ll all do a couple songs together.

Hey guys, check out this new jamb.  Badtouch (Greg Baeza) was awesome enough to get me involved with his project.  He provided me with the main arrangement, groove and instrumentation, and I wrote melody and lyrics and sang and played piano over the mix.  It turned out unique and dark, and really rad I think.  We’re working on another one.

This song is currently unnamed.  Does anyone out there have any good suggestions?  It’s loosely about this Shogun Warrior named Honda.

More on this project as it develops.  By the way, I’m doing a show in NYC at Pianos maybe next week.  Check back later for details. Love, Chris

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here’s a new little demo

I’ve got some other new stuff but I didn’t have time to demo it.  Maybe I’ll throw up some more tunage this week.

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Let’s all go to a virtual Chris Merritt Trio show!!  I picked a few videos from some recent shows for ya:

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Instead of the singer being judged by his performance on an occasion when fatigue, illness or unfavourable circumstances may militate against his perfect success, when the nerve-shattering conditions of the platform probably in any case offend his susceptibilities and detract from the perfection of his performance, he will be able to found his reputation upon the very best performance he is capable of. He will be able to try and try again in the privacy of his study. When he has satisfied himself, and then alone, will he publish his artistic effort to the world.

– T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence, 1906

We went into the recording studio last week!  We laid down the drums and piano for three new songs (The Times Are Changin’, Radio, Walkin’ On The Water), and piano for a couple other songs (Surfin’, Sarah).  We were at the AWESOME Doghouse Rec. Studios in NYC where owner/head engineer/jazz pianist Nathan did an amazing job.  He became a fan of our band and really helped out.  He has a 1926 Mason & Hamlin grand piano, which is the best sounding piano I’ve ever used on any of my songs.

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Hey guys, thanks for all the comments lately!  It’s nice to hear from you.

I got a last minute show tonight at Pianos in NYC!  Come be the only one there!  8 PM – I’m upstairs.  There are two stages apparently. Feel better Shannon Corey!

Here’s a new jamb – been listening to Rimsky-Korsakov (who is a freakin’ genius) and trying to learn something.  This recording is crap but I think the song will be good eventually.

Here’s a great piece - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty8CCHicF40 – at 4:36 I get shivers up my spine.  It’s rock and roll right there.

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Someone sent me this article on the sinking music industry with quotes from Thom Yorke.  His main point is that the music industry will be completely dead in a matter on months, and to new artists, he says, “When the corporate industry dies it will be no great loss to the world.  So, I guess I would say, don’t tie yourself to the sinking ship because, believe me, it’s sinking.”  His band mate Ed O’Brien is involved somehow with the Featured Artists’ Coalition.  I couldn’t really figure out what they actually do, besides feeling good about themselves and being angry at the man.

I agree that the music industry is sinking, but I think it has been mostly underwater for a few years now.  But here’s my main problem with Radiohead’s super-progressive outlook on music and the industry:  even though the old, behemoth music industry is gone, or mostly gone, there’s no system in place that even comes close to promoting a new artist in the same way*. Thom Yorke tells new artists to avoid major labels, but nobody would even care what he says if Creep hadn’t been skyrocketed to super-fame by the major labels.  Read the rest of this entry »