Rake's Progress

The Rake's Progress home page at Geffen

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Rakenroll@aol.com

November 11, 1996

My Fellow Americans:
Well, we got 4 more years of Bill Clinton coming our way. Which is a whole lot better than 4 years of old whatshisname. And marijuana became legal for medical use in California. Some of the guys in the band are out at this very moment trying their darndest to catch glaucoma. Last year, while on tour, we stopped to eat in a "Cracker Barrel" restaurant somewhere in Kansas. For those of you that have never had the pleasure of traveling the great American interstate system (the "Eisenhower Interstate System" if you want to be exact or you're planning on going on "Jeopardy"), "Cracker Barrel" is a chain of restaurants that are done up in an "old country store" motif. Rickety rocking chairs, American flags, Indian Chief headfeathers, salt water taffy, crap souveniers, crap food, you get the idea. So we're sitting down to breakfast and we're the only ones in the place, except for three REALLY old looking people at a table across the room. I think one of them was wearing a bib. So we order our chicken fried steaks and biscuits (yes, for breakfast) and a few moments later the folks at the other table get up to leave. And one of them is Bob Dole! The real Bob Dole! We're all staring at him with our mouths agape as he's making his way toward the door, and Stevie (our soundman) yells out "look, everyone!! It's Bob Dole!" Bob Dole looked over at us, gave us a nasty look, and left. Maybe we looked like Democrats, I dunno. I think he may have stiffed the waitress. Well, I am very happy to say that you can now get a taste of our new album on a compilation CD called "Nothing in Common" which is out this week on a label called Casual Tonalities. They are owned by the people that make the "Rugrats" cartoons (no foolin'). Our song "Blue Collar Bed" is on there somewhere, so check it out if you can find it. And for those of you in the New York area, please join us for an evening of mirth and merriment at the veritable temple of dirty rock and roll, and even dirtier restrooms, Coney Island High. We're playing there this Friday night, November 15th, at 11pm. Bring your disinfectant, folks. It's on St. Mark's Place between 2nd and 3rd avenues. Just look for the homeless guy vomiting out front. He's one of the owners. Actually, it's one of the most fun places for us to play in this town. Hope to see you all there. later -=bob

October 10, 1996

Hey Gang!
No, we haven't fallen off the planet just yet. Just taking a bit of a breather before the storm of the new album hits. Peter and I took a brief break from Rakes land to produce a record for a fantastic band called District 4. I'm off to London tonight with my girlfriend for a couple days of well needed rest, so I wanted to fire off a quick update on the status of the new album, and also to let y'all know about our upcoming NYC show.

The new album is all ready to go, but we had to push the release date back 3 weeks, since we decided to change the name of the album to "Tiujuana Ass," and thus had to procure a photo of a donkey wearing a sombrero for the cover. As most of you probably know, we're not with ALMO Sounds anymore -- "Tiujuana Ass" is a crack on ALMO co-owner Herb Alpert's old band "the Tiujuana Brass."

We'll be back on tour as soon as the album is out. For the time being, we're playing next week in NYC, on Friday October 18th at Brownies (Avenue A between 10th & 11th streets). I'm looking forward to it, we haven't played our home town in months. Should be fun. I hope to see you there!

Oh yeah, and how about dem Yanks? later
-=bob=- (spelled backwards is reggie)

July 12, 1996

So Peter got married on Saturday up in Marthas' Vineyard and all of us other Rakes were ushers. Yes, that's right -- ushers. I guess it's an honor of some sort, akin to being a bridesmaid. We all got clothes to wear -- khaki slacks, blue blazers, white button-down shirts, and yellow ties. I felt like a bellhop. We would've looked better in what the bridesmaids were wearing. After the wedding we went down to the nude beach and took off the monkey suits and ran around, drunk off our asses.

Until the new album comes out in October and we have some fresh wind in our proverbial sails, we're just doing the odd show here and there. But it's kind of nice to have things moving at a slow pace for a change. We definitely needed a break from the 2-show-a-day-7-days-a-week-crammed-into-a-smelly-gas- leaking-van-eating-filet-o-fish-3-meals-a-day lifestyle. That's the glamorous life of a hard-working band on the road.

If any of y'all want to make the trip out to the Galaxy show in the Hamptons, drop me a line and I'll get you the directions.

That's all for now. Nothing else to report except that my cat turned 10 today.

Your pencil pal,

         >>>>>>>                      B
               >>>>>>>>
                               O
                                   >>>>>>>>>
                                       B

Good Morning, America!

Boy, do we like beer. We're on the tail end of a well needed 2-week vacation (which will naturally result in the usual 3-week hangover). Gregg managed to scrape up a few bucks and fly to Mexico for 10 days, where he cavorted with a deaf prostitute and got strip-searched by the Mexican police. Now THAT'S what I call a vacation. The rest of us stayed home -- Peter is getting ready for his wedding in July (sorry girls) and the rest of us are trying to catch up on some well needed sleep, and some well needed drinking. So now we're getting back in the swing of things and we got an NYC show lined up this week . . . .

Thursday May 30, NYC, Continental, 25 3rd Ave @ St. Mark's

Showtime 10pm, 2 sets, all ages, $5 ticket

It gets to me, this city in the summertime. The problem with our neighborhood (the East Village in Manhattan) is that both humans and dogs use the whole place as a giant toilet. Men whip out their dicks in broad daylight and piss in the middle of the street. Dogs crap on your doorstep. Bags of garbage sit on the curbside for days before the mafia . . .er . . . that is the Sanitation Department decides to stop by and pick it up. Add that to the 98 degree heat we've had the past week and you've got one stinky town. Like a big apple stew, and you're just waiting for that giant carrot to come and knock you unconscious.

I am in need of sobering up.

--=bob

4/19/96

Hello, Hello, Hello.

I know I've been so out of touch it makes my head spin, but I guess that's what happens when you've got the flu real bad for 2 weeks and are in the middle of making an album.

We are really in the thick of it right now. Somehow we've got to boil these 25 songs we've been working on down to 13 to go on the final "product" (that's record label lingo). We pitched our label the idea of a double album. They weren't so keen on that. Here is the address to complain to:

ALMO Sounds
110 Greene Street
New York, NY 10013

In the meantime, we've got a show next week in NYC, on Friday April 26, at Coney Island High (located at 15 Saint Marks' Place). There are no advance tickets for this one, tix are $8 at the door only so I'd suggest getting there early. We're on at 11, so try getting there at 10 or so. They've got 3 floors all stocked full of beer and liquor, so that should keep you occupied. The last time we played this club, there were multiple exhibits of nudity, both on and off the stage. This will probably be the last Rake's Progress show until we finish the album, as it usually takes us 2 weeks to recover from one of these events.

Now I've gotten e-mails from quite a few of you who sent in blank cassettes for the b-sides tape wondering where in the wide world of sports your tape is. When I came up with the whole idea, I figured that we'd get 40-50 tapes or so. Not the case. At last count it was up to 843. I guess somebody out there really DOES like us (either that or it's a testament to the power of the internet and the eagerness of people to get something free). Since we've been making the tapes by hand, one at a time, it's been taking quite a bit longer than we expected. So please be patient, we're getting them out as fast as we can make 'em.

Our manager is getting married in 3 weeks. Any gift ideas?

This will be all for now as my cold medication is kicking in and my cats are antagonizing a squirrel in the back yard.

Hope to see you on the 26th . . .

--=bob

Hello from balmy NYC --

We finally got a break from this icy winter weather -- it's been in the upper 50's the past few days, and it's actually possible to walk down the street without having to duck into a doorway every 3 minutes to thaw out.

We have propelled ourselves into record-making land, but we still have a couple shows lined up:

Friday March 1 -- Philadelphia, PA -- Middle East
Friday March 8 -- Long Branch, NJ -- Metro Lounge
Friday March 29 -- Fredonia, NY -- SUNY Fredonia

Hope those of you in the respective areas can make it out.

For everyone that send in blank cassettes for the b-sides compilation, we've been dubbing them over the weekend and are gonna be sending 'em out tomorrow (Monday). At this point, we've got 30 songs that we're working on for the new album. We'll be whittling this down to around 16, which is what we'll bring into the studio to record. 12 or 13 of those will wind up on the record (CD, Cassette, whatever . .). We played around 10 of them at the Irving Plaza show last week. For those interested, here are the titles of some of the new ones . . .

Medicated Mama
Mellando y Cantando en las Calles
Hemlock
Television Scar
To Hell You Ride
Unabomber
Fuck You, Hooray For Me
My Favorite Freak
Leave My Mind Behind
Sixty Watt Bulb
The Linda Ordeal
Summer Song of the Submariner
When Will They Come For Me
Her Velvet Coat
Peking Through The Levelor
Astro Disco
Withdrawal Kingdom
Sleep Deprivation Vacation
Porno Movie

Some other fine news for us -- we got on the soundtrack of a new movie called "Heavy," which is coming out in June. In the movie, our song "Howard Is A Drag" is playing as Evan Dando and Liv Tyler have sex in a gas station garage. I guess we are pop icons now, or something.

Speaking of Pop Icons, the Japanese singing group "Tokio" were at the Irving Plaza show last week. They were in town to tape some sort of special for Japanese television in which "singing group Tokio are enjoying a weekend in New York City." Now I don't know if I've mentioned this yet or not, but we are actually selling tons of records in Japan (can anybody say Spinal Tap?) and "Tokio" wanted to check out our show. So 3 weeks ago, we get this fax from NHK (one of the big Japanese TV networks), obviously written by someone with marginal engligh ability, saying that "Fantastic Japan supergroup 'Tokio' would like very much to include in fantastic television superspecial their enjoyment of fantastic Rakes Progress concert in great city of New York." Can somebody please get this person a fantastic Thesaurus?

In any case, we've been informed that 15-20 seconds of "Tokio enjoying fantastic Rakes Progress concert" will be included in this TV special. Will wonders never cease.

If you're on the west coast, make sure to check out our friends The Bogmen as they are touring out there right now.

Keep Warm,
-=bob/The Rake's Progress

Rakenroll@aol.com

Sat, Jan 13, 1996 -- at home (finally!!) in NYC.

ho ho ho, merry christmas, happy channukah, happy new year, happy martin luther king day, happy presidents day, happy valentine's day, happy passover, happy easter, happy 4th of july, happy labor day, happy columbus day, happy thanksgiving, merry christmas, happy channukah.

Well that should take care of that ca-ca for the next year.

Well howdy pardners (as they say out in Colorado where we just got home from). We actually had to cut the tour a few days short as Stu developed some tendonitis in his Left arm. But his daughter Gracie has started to crawl, so screw the damn tendonitis. And we were sure glad to get back home.

Driving to our shows up in the Colorado ski resorts, like Telluride and Steamboat Springs, was like being in a Road Runner cartoon. We had to manoever the van over these icy mountain passes, originally built for mule trains, and if we were to skid on a turn, the van would've plunged off a steep cliff sending us to a most certain demise. Luckily we got away with only a busted tire and cracked windshield. Not to mention an ulcer or 2 and lotsa grey hairs.

So now we're back home in cozy NYC, which Mother Nature recently decided to turn into a frozen wintery hell. Just leaving your apartment is an "Outward Bound" trek -- every street corner presents you with the option of scaling a 10-foot high mountain of snow, or tredging through a 4-food deep frozen puddle. Not a pretty situation, folks. In a city known for wanton insanity, we do not need a south-pole landscape adding to the fracas.

We'll spend the next couple weeks hunkered down in casa Rake (yeah, 3 of us live together -- we really ARE the Monkees) writing songs for our next album, and then (knock wood) we'll record in April and May, and release the sucker in September.

For anyone in or close to NYC, we'll be having a super-fantastic-once-in-a-lifetime monster boogie show at Irving Plaza on Saturday February 17th. Be there. You don't want to miss this one, take my word for it. After 6 months of being cooped up in a tour van, we're ready to let off some steam. Tickets go on sale this week and I'd advise getting yours soon. The last time we played NYC (at the Academy back in November) the place sold out 2 weeks before the show.

Someone at our label said something about us being on the charts in Uganda at the moment . . . . .

Take care, keep in touch, and write back with any questions, requests, relationship advice, or recipes.

-=bob