Brian and our founding guitarist Bill Lambusta (who served in the band from 2008 – 2011) have launched a new podcast called, ‘The Great Albums.’ Having grown up in the 1990s – really the period where the full-length album had its last stand – the pair wax poetic on some of their favorite LP’s (Boys & Girls in America) as well as a number of accepted classics (Murmur, Dookie).

Episode One is posted and ready to roll. What album do they discuss? Click the link and find out!

The Great Albums: Episode One

Happy Holidays, everybody! We’ve got two more tracks for Brian to tell you about today before we go on a short break for the holidays, but we’ll be back on January 2 for the last installment in this series, not to mention the last day you can buy our We Are All Strange Friends special edition for only $4.99! Anyway, today’s tracks include the Frank-sung rocker “Now You’re Gone” and the epic album closer “Getaway Car.” Enjoy!

“Frank’s third and final vocal on the album. We had a really hard time nailing the lyrics down, but the music existed in some form since 2008. Tim Ryan’s high-flying keyboards and spooky, discordant piano really bring this one to life for me.”

“I premiered this song at a solo concert called Quiet Please in January 2011. A general theme of loss and longing was beginning to be established across the album, and I started putting the song together that June. The time change and repetition was inspired by a song called ‘Ramble Tamble’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival: one of my favorite songs. The opening lyric was based on an old nursery rhyme my grandmother used to sing to me.”

Brian takes on three tracks today: “It’s Only Talk” and “Set of Rules” from the album proper and “Misinformed (Live Solo Acoustic)” from our We Are All Strange Friends special edition bonus tracks. Make sure you head over to Bandcamp and grab a copy, if you haven’t already. It’s on sale for $4.99 through January 2!

“‘It’s Only Talk’ got its title from a King Crimson song called ‘Elephant Talk.’

“HITS Magazine did a little piece on this song for us, which was pretty validating, too.”

“My attempt to write a Tim Ryan-esque song. There’s a version of ‘Set of Rules’ that exists as far back as 2010, four years prior to the album’s release. It went through a number of different arrangements before arriving at the final one. Frank was the mastermind behind our Josie & The Pussycats send-up music video for the song.”

“Taken from the ‘legendary’ Quiet Please performance where ‘Getaway Car’ and ‘Friends of Friends’ were also debuted, this version of ‘Misinformed’ is the first one to feature Tim Ryan’s new refrain. He dropped his famous, ‘I wrote you a new chorus,’ line the night before. I immediately loved it and began incorporating it into the song. And he was in attendance to hear it.”

It’s time to learn a bit more about “I Said You Don’t,” a track that features some excellent piano work from the late, great Tim Ryan. Read Brian’s thoughts below, then get the song along with the rest of our We Are All Strange Friends special edition for only $4.99 through January 2!

“My favorite Tim Ryan memory comes from the recording session for this song. He and I sat across the studio’s live room, Tim at an 1896 Steinway grand piano and I at a 1960s Fender Rhodes keyboard like Paul McCartney and Billy Preston during the Let It Be sessions. I was teaching Tim the song and we just vamped back and forth on it for a while so he could figure out his parts.”