An Update, Direct From Chris:

Jack,
here is the update!
OK....well here is the big update on my movements and musical ramblings for
the last two or three months. As I do this update into a tape recorder I am
picking up my daughter who is 6 months old and cute as a button sucking on a
yellow binky in the winter sunlight in Seattle Washington. I set her up with
a tape deck that is plying "Funhouse" by The Stooges and get on with the task
at hand......

THE GIRAFFES:
  Well I just finished a session at EGG with a producer named Johnny
Sangster. We re-visited all the tracks I did with Conrad Uno back in July
with Mike Musberger and Jason Staczek, and tore them down to drums and vocals
and re built them up with bass and new acoustic guitars and extra bells and
whistles.
  When I got that previous version of the album finished I thought that it
was done and I resisted the gut feeling that I had a bunch more work to do.
Then I read a note I had written to myself on my studio wall a few months
earlier that said "dont shy away from the hard work....make it right!". I had
to admit that it was not finished.
  This album has been an intense learning experience for me. I have been
pushing my songwriting trying to gain some more skill so that I can make the
song succeed and not settle for the first thing that comes out of my mouth.
Not that I did that before but I am enjoying really sitting down with a
guitar and pushing songs toward completion with hard work instead of throwing
them away if they suck at first. Sometimes I end up throwing them away
anyway, but the ones that do succeed are better for having done the work.
  Mike is moving on to work full time with Shuggie with Jason. I hope to
recruit Jason to play live from time to time with the new bass guitar drums
version of the Giraffes.
  I just did a session at my house with the new GIRAFFES drummer (I hope)Ron
from a band called the Ottoman Bigwigs. He has an awesome style....lots of
splashy fills that poke out of the mix and a really organic loose feel. I am
looking for a bass player who can sing and kick out the fuzz. I will work on
those tracks when the family and I get back from Hawaii in March and then
look for a label to release the damn thing!
  I may go with Orange again or look around and see who bites....we will
see. BUT I will stay that I think this album is going to be a pop gem filled
joyride for the PUSA fans and GIRAFFES fans out there! I can not wait to hear
this one myself. I want to make another record that would be my favorite to
listen to if I didn't make it...
  

CHRIS AND TAD
  We are back in black! We are back to playing live again and it feels good!
We took some time off when I decided to invest some time into the Giraffes
and for a while I thought that I wouldn't have the time to do Chris and Tad
and the Giraffes but I realized that I need to do BOTH. SO....we are playing
more to promote the album we put out in November....damn fine piece of work
too! We have some new matching gold underpants and we are ready to bust out.
  We also wrote two songs for a Disney movie that is coming out next summer
called "The Bears". Its supposed to be about a band called The Bears that was
big in the 70s and broke up for all the classic "Behind the Music" reasons
and now they are reuniting to save the old hall where they got their start
from the evil clutches of the real-estate developers.
  We wrote the big grand finale song and a guitar and fiddle duel song for
the showdown part of the movie

PUSA
  Not much to report....We are climbing the charts....in Belgium! No
kidding...I am doing three phone interviews today about PUSA in Belgium.
Otherwise we are pretty much done with that project.

SUBSET
  No movement to report.

thanks Jack!
chris