Brad Smith is currently working on his new Abandon Jalopy album called ‘Death & Joy’. He had Rogers Stevens to play guitar on a song named “Summer don’t leave”, Lenny Castro to play the drums and also Chris Shinn to do some backing vocals, “It sounds killer, makes me mad that he sings that well… he just killed it” said Brad talking about Shinn.
A very special guest will also be part of the album: Nico Blue Hoon (Shannon Hoon’s daugther). “Nico sang on ‘Love has a way’ for my Abandon Jalopy record… she sounded great!!” Brad wrote on his facebook page.

Brad Smith has recently posted a message on the Blind Melon Forum about the new Abandon Jalopy record.

The fans have been waiting for it for years but Brad has been busy producing bands and focusing on the Blind Melon reunion. It sounds like it’s time now for Brad to make the lastest steps and release the record! He actually plans on mastering the record in mid February, after the Blind Melon show in Albuquerque, NM.

It’s going to be called “Death And Joy”, will have 11 songs on it and will be available on iTunes first. Rogers Stevens and Christopher Thorn have participated to this album along with Rami Jaffee (keyboards), Jimmy Paxson (drums) and many others.

If you want to listen to a song that will probably be part of the record, watch the video below:
Download link

Click here to read the original message posted by Brad Smith on the Blind Melon Forum.

Today is Rogers Stevens birthday, so have a good day Rogers!

I guess it’s the perfect day to remind you about an amazing audio recording that Ryan Conway has uploaded a few weeks ago on archive.org. This is actually a 2 hours long interview of Rogers Stevens and Christopher Thorn conducted by Steve Rosen of Ultimate Guitar Magazine during the “For My Friends” sessions at Blind Melon studios in North Hollywood, CA. The tape was actually not meant to be broadcasted but was only for Steve Rosen to use the information to write his article.

Click the image below and enjoy.

Thank you so very much to Ryan Conway who purchased the tape and to Matt Theberge for converting the tape to a digital format.

During the DC live interview yesterday, Glen Graham told Curt Bisquera about his e-session drumming experience: basically, you can hire Glen Graham to put drums or percussion on your own musical project. All you have to do is send your song, then Glen will make 3 complete takes that you can use as you wish and send the song back to you.
“… this is the wave of the future…” said Glen.

Rogers Stevens and Brad Smith also record e-sessions.

Visit Glen’s profile on indabamusic.com.
Visit Glen and Rogers’ profiles on esession.com.
Visit and contact Brad Smith on his myspace page.

The DC live show with Glen can be watched here.

Rene Lopez will be playing two shows this week in L.A. The first will be Thursday Jan 14th @ The Roxy 9 PM and then Friday Jan 15th @ The Stronghold in Venice 10:30 PM.

FYI, Rene played with Rogers Stevens in Extra Virgin and The Tender Trio from 1999 to 2006.

and happy Halloween to everyone!