News and mews. First, a big unveiling! Drum roll and trumpets, please.. Here’s the back cover of my CD album!
A few years ago, when I started releasing singles on my own, I reached out to Shannon Wheeler to draw some cover images. Eventually it seemed these would make a cool sort of picture-book style lyric booklet. Peter Montgomery went to work designing and coloring it, and voila. It’s unique, printed on matte paper with a bit of a tooth.
You can learn more about the album and pre-order it here!
What else? I enjoy podCATSing sometimes and I don’t know why they ever called them podCASTS in the first place, the rabble. Here’s our latest episode:
And now it’s Catursunday, and with this despatch, signing off. THANK YOU for your pre-orders, they mean so much to me. I am very excited about releasing and promoting this album on CD and streaming on Berkeley Cat Records. Stay well and remember to passionately play with a random ball of string sometimes.
Some ideas are best captured and released quickly, and this one was in and out the door like a kitty on a mission. Idea came to me Thursday – a date which will live in infamy, to borrow a phrase – I finished the song and recording Friday and Caturday. Rather than pussyfoot around, I uploaded it to my beloved Bandcamp, AND to selected streaming services right away. Thus..
THANK YOUs for your pre-orders for my CD! Means so much to me and I so look forward to sending these orders out, right here from Berkeley Cat Records international scratching post. Pre-orders available HERE!
Also! Streamin’-music-using cats – please pre-save my remix of Comeback Pete’s Mankind single. It’s a Duck! It’s a March! It’s an Earth Day anthem! Links HERE!
What else? Nothing! There’s nothing else from here today. Happy Catursunday, make love not war, save the critters,
It’s a Catursunday Mewsletter, and it’s BIG Berkeley Cat news, today!
Release date for the Eric Din album is April 9! Pre-orders available as of this hot minute. You can head over to our beloved Bandcamp to learn more about the album and by gosh, pre-order this limited edition CD. I look forward to holding and sharing the actual CD package, designed by Peter Montgomery and Shannon Wheeler, complete with a booklet with the lyrics and more of Shannon’s fabulous drawings. Friends, Berkeley Cat Records is pleased to unveil,
Moar Berkeley Cat releasing goodness! Moar!
On precisely the 20th of April, 2022, my REMIX of Comeback Pete’s classic Mankind single goes live on the streaming services! 4-20 is Earth Day of course, and this song is an Earth Day anthem. Online music aficionados – please pre-save the single on your favorite streaming gizmo – some of which are linked to from this fab Distrokid “hyperfollow” page! Save the critters.
Russ Ellis album update!
Russ Ellis“Songs From The Garden” continues its marvelous journey. I have been sending the CDs out from here, having converted a corner of my kitty-lair to a USPS mailing station. I just noticed, in a luddite-cat moment, that I had set the shipping prices wrong on the order page. They are now fixed, so if you’ve been waiting to pick up a copy of this unique album on CD, the coast is clear and you may have at it! To all who have ordered and received it, thank youuuu!
Feel free to share any of this as you like.
Your pre-orders and pre-saves will help surface these releases in the vast vastness, and we really appreciate them!
Berkeley Cat Records is thrilled to announce a new single by a new artist for the new year! Matte Plastic is Paul Jackson and Charles Stella and Eric Din. That’s right, Uptones own dynamic trio made a new track in October – of a Jackson original song called New Threads. We decided it’s an appropriate New Years single, so it is now available at our beloved Bandcamp plus Spotify and Pandora and Apple Music and other streaming music contraptions.
I also had Paul as a guest on the Berkeley Cat Records Podcats on New Years Eve for our first Outerview! An outerview is an interview, you see, but we borrow Lee “Scratch” Perry’s name for them – he did outerviews, not interviews. There ya have it.
An exciting milestone this year was completing and releasing the Russ Ellis album. Along with all of the wonderful experiences we had recording and producing it (with a great cast of Bay Area characters only Russ could cat-herd) we ended up getting some excellent press coverage on this unique story, even a write-up in the New York Times. In time for the holidays, we manufactured some actual CDs with a lovely package design, and cover art by Russ’s grandson, Dex. The Ellis’s and I had fun passing these along to all of the (many!) cats who helped create the album, and to some friends and fam as gifts. They’re available thru (you guessed it!) our beloved Bandcamp, if anyone wants a copy, and you can also listen to the album there or download it for free.
In September we celebrated the release of Matte Martin’s second BCR album Violent Order, a completely original self-produced work from a unique young artist we’re very proud to know. He’s coming on as a guest to do an outerview soon, as it happens, and we’ll talk about the album and what he’s up to now and beyond. Oh and the spelling of our two “Matte” artists is purely coincidental, if anyone’s wondering! It’s a Matte Matte Matte Matte Matte World.
My Eric Din “solo” album drops in April! I put “solo” in quotes cos I had some great help creating the album, from some fellow Uptones and other marvelous cats, and even though my name is on it, I could not have done it without them. I’ll send a pre-order link in another mewsletter soon.
Also in April! On Earth Day, my remix of Mankind by Comeback Pete hits the streaming services! We’ll send a pre-save link soon and if you have any playlists in the Spotifys of the world, we’ll invite you to include this unique and timely gem!
And that’s all, really. We hope it’s enough, and not too much!
Love and a bright and creative 2022 to you all, from all of us at BCR,
Paul Jackson, Charles Stella and Eric Din from The Uptones have a new entity called Matte Plastic, and here’s their new single, New Threads! It’s in Pandora and Apple and Spotify and other many other streaming gizmos, and here’s the embed from our beloved Bandcamp:
Play it, share it, put on some new threads and out with the old! Happy new year from all of us at Berkeley Cat Records!
For an outerview with Paul and Eric, discussing this song and how it came about, pop in here.
