As you’ve probably heard, our new live album, LIVE in MMXXV, is being released to streaming services Friday morning, and we’re playing a live show (natch) at Crosstown Brewing that night. While this is the first live album I’ve released with The Monday Night Card, the very first full album release I ever put out with a band was a live album we called Das Boot (both a reference to the 1981 German submarine film of the same name, as well as a play on the term “bootleg.” We thought this was uproariously funny, by the way…) by my Kansas City group Hobson’s Choice, which later became Resident Clark (because we found out a band in Australia was using the name Hobson’s Choice. A quick Spotify search tells me there are at least three bands called Hobson’s Choice).

I was in my early twenties, we had a tight three-piece band, a dozen songs we’d rehearsed really well, and a gig at the storied Davie’s Uptown Rambler’s Club. Since we didn’t have any other recordings to use to book gigs, we thought we’d record our first real show and release it as an album.

The funny thing about doing this in 1998 was that to record a “live album” we had to hire a mobile recording studio, which was a hollowed-out Econoline van full of recording equipment that we paid a not-insubstantial amount of money to hook up via cable to microphones in the back of the room where we were performing. In that way, it was very much like a bootleg, in that there was no way for us to mix individual tracks (like bringing up the guitar, the bass, the kick drum… you get the idea). The result: a recording of exactly what the people heard that night.

We were pretty proud of it, sold some to our friends and family, and indeed used it as a calling card to book other shows. The really funny thing is that you can now easily get a superior-sounding “live” recording on the phone you carry in your pocket. Wild.

The album we're releasing Friday, however, was a multi-track recording that we got to mix like a studio album. We kept the guitars loud in the mix, so the vocals have to fight the instruments a little, and the result is quite a bit edgier and more raucous than any of our studio recordings. We can’t wait for you to hear it and hope you’ll mix it into your playlists.

As always, thanks for listening—and (if you made it this far…) reading!

The Central Standards technically broke up in 2008, but my longtime friend and musical companion, Jeff Capps, and I never really stopped collaborating whether it was on music or family vacations. We’ve played shows together and even had a full band reunion of the four-piece Central Standards with bassist Casey Smith and drummer Marty Christopher in 2022. That being said, there has not been an official “new” song by The Central Standards in more than 18 years. We did perform an awesome song of Jeff’s called Like a Long Goodbye in a remote video collaboration in 2020, but it was never officially released (but you can check it out here if you’d like!). 

The songless streak will end Wednesday (we’re told) as The Central Standards are contributing an original Christmas song, Let Us Be Still, to the latest holiday compilation from the fine folks at Small Batch Records. The song will be available for download or purchase at their BandCamp page, and we’ll be sure and share the details when we have them, but I can tell you a little about the song. 

I wrote a draft of Let Us Be Still on December 21st, 2021; then came back to it over the Christmas holidays in 2023; made a few more tweaks and posted a Facebook video of me playing it on Christmas Eve Eve, 2024; recorded a home recording with two acoustic guitars and a lead vocal on November 11th of 2025; sent it to the aforementioned Jeff Capps on November 13th; followed up with a bass part from Casey Smith on November 30th; and after Jeff worked it over in his home studio in Iowa City, we submitted it to our friend Jeff Hulett with Small Batch Records today (just in the St. Nick of time!). 

Jeff Capps has become quite a home recording whiz, and his production captures the warm, lo-fi, and hopefully timeless simplicity that the song is meant to evoke. We can’t wait to share it with you and you MIGHT even get a preview of some sort if you sign up for the Ted Horrell Music mailing list here in the next day or so…

Hope your holiday season is off to a rocking start, and we’ll be in touch! 

What is a live album, really? While some bands have denied editing or overdubbing their live albums (adding on top of, replacing, or “re-doing” parts) and some have even admitted to overdubbing while originally denying it, there are numerous examples of “Live” albums that contain some or even heavy overdubs. When it was released in 1991, I remember reading that Neil Young's live Weld album (which I love) had vocal overdubs to improve the harmonies/background vocals. For many years, Kiss denied that their massive hit of a live album Alive! was overdubbed, and then admitted in the early Aughts (I wish I heard this expression more often…) that there were a few overdubs, and then finally admitted that it was heavily overdubbed in a studio. The Rolling Stone Record Guide noted that the Eagles Live album is "perhaps the most heavily overdubbed (live) album in history."

So what about us? Well, for years I’d been thinking that it would be great to capture a live recording with all seven of the Monday Night Card members playing a “plugged in” show. I finally had the forethought to arrange for a friend and talented sound engineer, Eliot Walker, to bring a laptop to capture the individual tracks (meaning a separate recording of each individual microphone/input from the stage that could then be EQ’d and mixed) for our performance at the 2025 Germantown Festival. We put the setlist together based on songs that we loved playing live and, with the exception of the brand new song, Four Stick Drumstick Count In, they were songs we knew really well. We also hoped to capture songs that had a different energy, feel, or vibe in our live shows than the studio recordings. 

Then life got in the way. Amy let us know she was too sick to perform a couple of days before the show. Totally understandable, of course, and Natalie knows how to adjust her background vocals from a three-part to a two-part arrangement for the live show, but what would that mean for the live album we hoped to record? 

We decided if Neil can do it, we can too. Nearly everything you will hear on our new single and the live album, LIVE in MMXXV, that is coming in January was actually recorded live including all of the lead vocals. The background vocals were overdubbed with Chris Isaac at Studio ‘82 as it just wouldn’t be a Monday Night Card album without both Amy and Natalie doing their amazing vocal thing. Aside from that, with the exception of a couple of bad guitar chords we fixed and a peal of feedback we removed, it’s exactly what happened on the outdoor stage that beautiful afternoon in September. We hope you enjoy the first cut from that album, Four Click Drumstick Count In (Live, 9/6/25)  which will be available for streaming everywhere on Friday, November 21st. 

I've decided to try and re-start and maintain a Blog here on the old website five years (!) after I posted some local record reviews during the pandemic and then didn't ever follow up with any more content. My approach is to not overthink it this time, and also not beat myself up if there is no engagement with it. If you're interested, the blogs will be here to read; If you'd like to comment, I'll certainly reply; and if you don't have the time or interest for either, then that's okay because (in the words of Stuart Smalley…) “I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and Gosh Darnit, people like me!” My plan is to share mostly musical thoughts, some related to my own music and some not. 

For starters, I wanted to share my thoughts on the recently released film Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. Springsteen is one of my favorite artists and there's been an embarrassment of riches recently in terms of “new” Springsteen content. The Tracks II: The Lost Albums collection of seven previously unreleased albums is much better than it has any right to be (my favorites are the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, Enyo, and Somewhere North of Nashville), but that's not the point at the moment. 

I love the Nebraska album and really enjoyed the approach of the film in terms of focusing on Bruce's mental health at the time and his relationship with his celebrity, his father, and his friend and manager, Jon Landau. While the pacing will be slow for many (most?), I enjoyed it as well as the technical recording elements explored the film (How was the album recorded? What equipment was used? How was it transferred and mastered?). The relationship with the “composite” girl took me out of the film as did the denouement with his father. I essentially wound up thinking three quarters of the movie was great, with most of the not-so-great portions in the last quarter of the actual film (though not exclusively). I also thought it was weird that the E Street Band members were basically non-factors in the film (and I bet Little Steven was especially ticked at just being “a guy” in the band scenes). 

I'm looking forward to seeing it again once it starts streaming which, from the box office receipts, may be sooner rather than later. Let me know what you thought if you've seen it (or listened to the Tracks II albums, or want to say anything at all!). Cheers! 

This isn't comprehensive, and I'm not a music critic. This is simply a roundup of local (Memphis area) recordings that were released in 2020 that I felt like you should know about if you don't already. I've gotten to meet a lot of the folks who made this music, and I can vouch for the ones I know as cool people, too. Hope you'll check out some of these artists (click album title for link), and thanks for your support of local music! 

Tony Manard - Tin Can QuaranTina  

Tony is the kind of songwriter who had 13 unrecorded songs laying around when the quarantine hit and was prepared to record them in his backyard camper that he calls Tin Can Tina. While the speed with which these were put down and the simplicity of the instrumentation (mainly solo voice and guitar) would suggest an album of “demos,” something about Tony’s confident delivery and the immediacy of the performances makes it feel more like a super clean soundboard recording of a live show. Alternatingly funny, profound, profane, and sweet, this album is worth your time by itself, but also suggests a deep bench of potential material for future Tony Manard & the Big Ole Band recordings. 

The City Fathers - Broken Hearts and Backyard Wars  

This is one of my favorite albums, whether local or not, that came out this year. We played a show with The City Fathers at Growlers in January shortly before the shutdown when they were readying this record for release and loved their sound and songs. It’s a real shame that they haven’t gotten the chance to play shows behind it because it’s good old-fashioned rock and roll with hooks and great sounding drums and guitars. While there are a lot of stylistic change-ups on the record (bits of soul, new-wave, and punk in the garage-band mix), there’s also a continuity of sound and aesthetic that holds it together as a musical piece. Catchy songs well played that leave me nodding my head like my favorite Buffalo Tom albums. 

Jeff Hulett with Jacob Church - Safe @ Home  

This may be the purest “quarantine” record of the records I’ve listed here as these songs were, I believe, written and recorded remotely and released fairly early in the shutdown. Sweet, reflective, and full of heart, the record looks at the bright side of the time many had to slow down, look around, and appreciate friends, family, neighbors, and the comforts of home. Like most of Jeff’s work, the arrangements are often offbeat and unexpected while still serving and elevating the songs. My understanding is that a lot of that is owed to collaborator Jacob Church on this record, and I plan on keeping up with him more closely. 

Bailey Bigger - Let’s Call It Love (EP)

Bailey opened for the Monday Night Card at Otherlands in one of the first “plugged in” full band shows we ever did in early 2016. We were all struck by her voice and skilled acoustic fingerpicking on her original songs and covers. It was hard not to also be struck by her youth at age 15. Since then, she’s gained more and more attention for all the right reasons and seems poised to break out to a national audience. Her recently released three-song EP (as well as her previous excellent work) indicate that she’s deeply felt and captured the feelings, moods, environments, and relationships that she’s passed through in the years since that show at Otherlands. Her talent has attracted some of the best musical players in the Memphis area so the songs are fully realized and hauntingly beautiful. 

Two Way Radio - Succinct Extinction 

I’d be so mad if I had recorded an album like this ten years ago and no one had heard it because it hadn’t been released. Like, I’d be upset every day. Built with complex layers of instrumentation and vocals, there is so much to take in on this record (it’s barely been out a week, so I’m still taking it in), and yet it sounds and feels effortless. Kate Crowder has a voice and vocal approach that stand out and stand alone while she sings her stories of the trials and triumphs of growing up, and I got the vibe that all of her fun musical friends had showed up to support and commiserate with her and a recording session broke out. It’s a fun, amazingly rich album that finally gets the release that it (and we) need. 

Ted Horrell - Keep Your Distance (EP) 

It’s not cheating, I do love this little record. One brand new song (Safe at Home (March, 2020)) and two (Makes Me Tired and Simply) that I’d been kicking around for nearly twenty years and fit the shutdown mood, I finally took the opportunity to try some home recording and remote collaboration with members of the Monday Night Card. Mainly recorded late night/early morning in a quiet house after the family had gone to bed, the remotely recorded touches from Natalie Duncan (piano), Dru Davison (saxophone), and Anna Pearson (violin) along with bassist Casey Smith bring out both the melancholy and contentment I was feeling at the time.