Happy Thanksgiving & Show!

I hope your holiday is filled with a wide variety of greases and confections!

In other news, I am playing a solo acoustic show this Saturday, Nov 29 10pm at Prospero's Books here in Kansas City.



The show is free, but please bring canned or dried food for donation to Harvester's food bank.

So come on out! Who knows, maybe I'll even look as somber as I am in that picture. I doubt it, but you never do know.

- Jesse Kates / the Sexy Accident > listen on iTunes

Lonely Days (LIVE)

From our last show in Columbia -



- Jesse Kates / the Sexy Accident > listen on iTunes

Jesse Kates endorses Barack Obama

Because I know you care. :)

Here is why:

The role of government in a capitalist democracy is to think more long-term than businesses are able to, and to set forth the rules under which businesses play.

Businesses think at best in 6 month cycles and only care about making money. That's fine. That's what businesses are for.

Government serves a needed function. You can't eliminate it without destroying your nation's ability to think long-term.

Problems that require solutions in timeframes longer than 6 months can only be solved by government.

Climate change is such a problem.

The economic crisis is such a problem.

Barack Obama gets this. And he has the courage to push for painful but needed change that will pay huge dividends in the future and prevent all sorts of awful outcomes. And he's HONEST about how hard these problems are, about how they will require sacrifice to fix. That honesty is incredibly rare and refreshing.

Sometimes things cost money, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

That's why I am voting Obama.

Whoever you support - please vote tomorrow!

- Jesse Kates / the Sexy Accident > listen on iTunes

Sexy Accident drummer actually Satan

Ladies and gentlemen, I present... the evidence.



Yes indeed. Daniel Torrence, our seemingly mild-mannered drummer, is actually The Devil. Beelzebub. Old Scratch. No wonder that boy drums so good!

- Jesse Kates / the Sexy Accident > listen on iTunes

The beginning and the end

I thought I'd show you all how this often works. Here are two recordings of what would become Gardener, Gibbet, Misery off of our second album, Kinda Like Fireworks.

The first recording is the "demo" I made the night I wrote it. I was sitting in the living room of my house, probably at around midnight or 1am on a work night, feeling like the song sounds (it's a better capture of how I felt than any words would be.) I was playing quietly, because my wife and baby were asleep.

Listen to the demo

The second recording is the album version of Gardener, Gibbet, Misery - which I'll release here for a little while, at least. If you snag it and download it to keep, you win! :)

Listen to the album track

I just thought this was an interesting illustration of the 'process' of how we'll go from an idea (usually a chord progression and maybe a melody) to a finished song with a complete arrangement, dynamics, new voicing, maybe a different key, a different melody and lyrics! In this case, the vibe is obviously more energetic with the band, but somehow, I think there's a kernel of that original recording that never left. Certainly, I was thinking about the same things on both occasions - when I first recorded it in my livingroom, and when I sang it to tape at Electrical Audio in Chicago months later.

Enjoy!

- Jesse Kates / the Sexy Accident > listen on iTunes