Category: Catnip

Caturday Report

Been a meow-filled week or three over in Berkeley Cat Records international HQ (not an actual place)

Items:

Russ Ellis featured in the New York Times
(wait.. what?!)
Yes Gwendoline, the little paper in New York.
We are delighted, flabbergasted, and pleased.
It’s part of their It’s Never Too Late series,
and you can find this wonderful article by Chris Colin here.
Really an inspiring interview, and the comments are a fun read too.

FAVES new single Never Ending is live in streaming services! And Bandcamp! And here’s a cool video of the guys recording the song.

Matte Martin has a new album coming out in like, minutes! Here’s a fun video preview of what he’s been cooking up for us.

Eric Din has released a new song called Fear Of Everything which is about fear of (wait for it..) everything! Din created this with Jay Lane and Dave Shul, and he’s so excited about it he’s started talking about himself in the 3rd person again. We are concerned. The song is here.

Comeback Pete is on the comeback trail with a massive remix of “Mankind” by the aforementioned Eric Din. A footnote (pun accepted) – Larry Lynch of FAVES added the live acoustic kick drum track to this. With his foot. I note.. ba da ping, I’ll be here all week. Save the planet.

The Uptones recent early recordings album landed in this Brooklyn Vegan list of 64 Essential Ska Albums from-1964 To Present. We are thrilled and honored to be in such fine ska company.

What else?

Vote NO on this stupid CA recall nonsense!!

Lastly, importantly, here are some adorable kittycats watching dominos fall.

That is all.

Pod Cats Run Amok

We’ve submitted the RSS feed for Berkeley Cat Records PodCats to Apple for world-wide kittypod foistribution. We’ve also upgraded our Simplecast account so now I can embed the show here and not just individual episodes. Shocking progress. We like to embed because cats like beds and are often embedded in guitar cases, boxes and other cozy spaces which were obviously created for us to embed in.  Here’s a pic of The Great Cat Burley, co-founder of Berkeley Cat Records, proving the Theory Of Spontaneous Open Guitar Case Cat Generation (TOSOGCCG) for which we await our Nobel.

Now let’s try the embedpodding..

W00t! It works! We are amazed. Our PodCats is the worlds greatest PodCats in that it is the only one.

Simplecats (oops) Simplecast! makes distribution very easy (simple, if you will) and we at BCR World Corporate Headquarters (my bedroom) have decided to try many, purrhaps even all of them. Click the play button above and give ‘er a whirl!   It’ll play the most recent episode and run back thru time like sci-fi magic.  So fancy.

LAMENT – Audio by Russ Ellis and Jay Lane, Video by Jason Martineau

We have a very special treat for you today on Russ Ellis’ BIRTHDAY!!
A brand new amazing video set to the Russ Ellis track, LAMENT.

Here’s video producer Jason Martineau’s notes:

When Russ first approached me with the idea of creating a video of fractals and computer-generated visuals to accompany his audio track, I eagerly seized upon the opportunity. Using his iconic image by photographer Judy Dater, I built a visual narrative of mathematically generated clips utilizing 10+ different applications, then composited and animated them to follow the music. Russ provided invaluable creative input along the way. I’m very happy with the result, and indeed honored to have been asked to contribute in this way. In a sense, it’s not much different than if he had sent me an original melody and asked me to come up with a chord progression for it. So, this is my “visual harmonization” for Russ’s “Lament”

Here’s Russ’s notes:

Fans of the audio version of “Lament” will be aware of its origins from its liner notes on Songs From The Garden. As soon as it was completed, I imagined it with images. Several years ago, Jason Martineau introduced me to fractals, The Mandelbrot Set, etc., so, last year, I asked him to entertain the prospect of adding fractals to Lament. He agreed. I am very happy with the results. Hang with it a couple of times. There’s stuff to get into.

You can also view this directly on YouTube if you like, and you may share it to your heart’s content. We suggest you view it full-screen, at high-res.

Enjoy! And please join me and all the Berkeley Cats in wishing Russ Ellis a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! And many more. Much love,

Eric Din

FAVES new video single – REMEMBER

We are SO very proud to welcome FAVES to our humble Berkeley Cat home!
The band features these living legends:

Larry Lynch – drums and vocals
Robbie Dunbar – guitars
Jimmy Jet Spalding – bass
David Tashinian – keyboards

Here’s their cover of Greg Kihn’s 1978 single, “Remember,” captured at 25th Street Recording in Oakland. Larry Lynch, who sings this version, also played drums on the original with Greg Kihn Band back the day! Exclusively on YouTube right now, coming out soon in the streaming services, Berkeley Cat Records is thrilled to present, FAVES, with Remember.

BERKELEY CITY STREETS 2020 featuring “Oom Chugga Remix #3”

Alrighty! For our Caturday share we have this marvelous surprise, a new video created by Berkeleyan Ian Ransley with our Oom Chugga Remix #3 ommchugga’ing along throughout!

This came about in the most Berkeley Cat way. Ian sent us a note saying “Hey, I’m doin this, is it cool I use this track?” We replied “Hella yes it’s cool, may we share?” And hella yesses ensued and here it be! As a lifelong Berkeleyan myself, I was struck as I noticed that every scene in here I know well (except for the newer buildings), and many of these places have numerous memories attached. Subway Guitars! I got my first guitar there as a wee lad when they first opened up, around the corner from my childhood home. The Jupiter is in here! And scenes of the Berkeley good and bad and the all of it. The images fit beautifully with the song, so from here, a big Berkeley Cat Records THANK YOU to Mr. Ransley for creating the video and to all the cats who made this marvelous music track as well. All the Oom Chugga remixes are here. You can read about and listen to all of Russ Ellis’ recorded works to date here. Info on videographer Ian Ransley can be found here. Please share on all the Berkeley pages and whatnots, and tag your hella Berkeley cats! Thanks and stay safe through all this kerfuffle. Love,

-Eric of Berkelshire

Russ and Zoe Ellis on the Break It Down Show with Jon Leon Guerrero

Check out this fun interview Zoe and Russ Ellis did with Jon Leon Guerrero on the Break It Down Show. Guest appearances by Darryl Anders and yours truly. It was really fun watching and listening to this, and being invited to the discussion. There’s more to come from these marvelous individuals and collaborations. Humble thanks to all involved, and to you, for lending an earball.  Much love,

Eric Din