The Hush Now

It was a dark and cliche-laden rainy night in Los Angeles. Careening down the road on Good Friday with Queen's "Don't stop me now," blazing on the radio and driving stick shift with a broken wrist I thought, "fuck it, I can make that turn." My assessment wasn't completely off. I did make the turn, it just happened to be through a fence and into the broad side of a Catholic church. After coming to, I ducked under the steel fence pole that had shot through my windshield where my head should've been and slid out. I would say that was the nexus; the end of the old and the beginning of some new path. My old band Cerulean had just dissolved and now I was looking down the spot beam of some super angry cops…and a befuddled priest. I didn’t have the heart to ask him if he was hearing confessions, but the cops seemed more than willing to beat one out of me for him. Apparently the bad cop and the dick cop didn’t believe what I had to say and soon I was handcuffed and in the back of the squad car. As we pulled away I started smiling because I couldn’t shake that damn Queen song out of my head (“Tonight I’m gonna have myself a real good time, I’m gonna fly fly fly fly…don’t stop me now.”) Dick cop turned and yelled, "what the fuck are you smiling about," …Fuck him. So I lost my license. Needed a license for my job so I lost my job. And to make matters worse, now my mother thought that the accident was a sign from God and that I was supposed to join the clergy. Nothing left to do, I packed up my meager belongings and moved up to a basement apartment in Portland Oregon to drink PBR, eat hostess cupcakes and work on writing and music...and The Hush Now was born. BTW, girls don’t dig guys in their 30’s that live in basements. After writing a bunch of tunes I moved out to beantown and set about finding some musicians and boy did I luck out. Mike DiMinno, the eccentricity of this fella goes beyond description. During his free time from being a beloved elementary school teacher, Mike participates in full scale battle re-enactments. (See his cool photo on the left). He also happens to be a session quality bass player with a dulcet voice and an amazing knack for etching stunning background vocals. Incredibly, this was his first recording. Barry Marino literally fell out of the sky. A gift from a once forgetful god. Let me just put it this way; Barry is hands down the best drummer I’ve ever heard. The bloke has a swagger to his playing that is down right intimidating. Humble as pie though. He also plays in several local boston bands such as Often Airborne and the crazy cool This Car Up (I hear they're huge in Japan). Kurt Shneider is Barry’s roommate and bandmate. He is an audio engineer by trade (and a Berklee snob--just kidding Kurt) and not to be melodramatic, literally locked in the sound of the band with his keyboards. One of the most laid back dudes you will ever meet. So I pulled these guys together and on our first day of rehearsal Mike was all abuzz about a new military hat he found at an army surplus store when Barry and Kurt come screaming into the parking lot of the rehearsal studio blasting Hall and Oats. The next thing I know we’re inside jamming to Out of Touch. I knew this was going to be something very special. The last piece of the puzzle was Sir David Newton of the Mighty Lemon Drops. I had worked with Dave in the past with Cerulean and knew that I didn’t want to work with anybody else on my first solo project. He was cool enough to humour me and so we all flew out to Los Angeles nearly two full years to the date of my accident to record the first Hush Now album…and hence the genesis of a band and hopefully the start of something wickid cool and fun. Hope you enjoy...