Today’s download of the week is “Slide By” from the Zony Mash CD “Brand Spankin' New.”

Zony Mash started out on a whim, and ended almost a decade later. We’ve played a bunch of shows since then as an 8 piece. "Zony Mash Plus Horns”, and done the occasional encore as the original 4 piece, but basically we haven’t played in almost 10 years. We will be changing that this July with 4 concerts, 2 in Seattle, one in Olympia and one in Portland.

I started the band for 3 reasons. I wanted to stay home and not tour, but keep playing some, because we had a new baby in the house. Brand Spankin’ New refers to the birth of our son Lowell, who was indeed exactly that. The second reason was because I wanted a project that forced me to play Hammond B-3. I hadn’t played it much, and we would use it in the studio sometimes on Naked City records, and I’d fooled around with Farfisas and other electric organs: but I finally got a real B-3, and decided to try and get a little better at it. And last but not least, I wanted to check out playing with this young guitar player named Tim Young, and this seemed like a good way to do it. We played for a year once a week in the front room of the OK Hotel, and then started taking it other places. It’s my favorite way to make a band happen, slowly, and without a lot of expectations.

The first record we made was fast and dirty, half the time I wasn’t sure if it was a demo or an actual record, and we recorded it at Tucker Martines original Flora Avenue studio for the Knitting Factory Label.

The second album, "Brand Spankin New," we gathered a bunch of food, some DA-88s, and some other gear and took over a little house in Chimicum, WA near Port Townsend. Days turned into nights and we had a really good time. Tucker came out with us, and later Tucker and I mixed together.

Slide By is the opening track on the CD, and it represents for me how the band could sound at its best. Its hard for me to figure out what I like more, Tim’s solo, or how he comps on my solo. Andy and Fred build everything with a lot of restraint, but don’t hold back either.

Most fans know this track as the second tune that we segue into after Tim’s wailing solo on "Meet The Zony Mash”, which usually disputes into some sort of mayhem from which "Slide By" emerges. We recorded this before that tradition began.

If you are in the NW, we hope to see you at some shows.

And as always, I hope you enjoy the music.