I talked about this in an interview already (and before I was supposed to) so some of you may have heard, but the thing that makes me most excited about this new record is that John Flansburgh is producing it. And yes, that’s THE John Flansburgh, who might be a giant. I opened for them a few times in the Spring, and that’s when we hatched this crazy plan. Of course I’ve been a fan for a long time, so I’m thrilled and flattered and all that stuff. I also think he’s going to bring some fun, edgy weirdness to the sound of things, and I’m hoping he’ll prevent it from being all slow songs about dead dogs in space.

Just yesterday we went into a real, like, STUDIO studio and recorded ourselves running through the set of new songs so we could hear how we sounded and make some arrangement tweaks. We sounded pretty good. This is going to be fun.

Thursday: Iron Horse in Northampton, MA
Friday: Somerville Theater in Somerville, MA
Later: More

Look out kids, six new songs coming atcha! The debut of this new enterprise is coming up next week when I’ll be trying out new stuff at shows in Northampton, MA on 7/22 and Somerville, MA on 7/23. Details on the Shows page – come on out and see us, we’re making HISTORY here people. At the very least I can promise you a lot of hilarious rookie mistakes. At best, they might be two kickass rock and roll shows.

Things are coming together nicely in rehearsals, and I have to say it’s sounding kind of awesome a lot of the time. Every day in every way I am a better and better electric guitar player. We’ve also got quite a few classic Coulton songs on the menu, and while they are not new, playing them with the band sure does make them shiny. We’re talking power trio right now: the drummer is Marty Beller (on loan from TMBG) and the bass player is Chris Anderson (on loan from Wired magazine JUST KIDDING IT’S A DIFFERENT CHRIS ANDERSON). They’re both great. We kind of rock sometimes even.

Also, any reports you’ve heard that the Somerville show is sold out are false – painfully, extremely, practically the opposite kind of false. Just saying.

Right, back to rocking.

I said it on the Twitters but I’ll say it again: it’s ON! And it is totally JoCo Cruise Crazy!

Come cruise with me, and MAYBE FALL IN LOVE (but probably not)! There are plenty more details on the site, but here are the basics: it’s a 6-day cruise on Holland America’s ms Eurodam from Ft. Lauderdale January 2-8, 2011 with ports of call at Half Moon Cay, Bahamas; Falmouth, Jamaica; and Georgetown, Cayman Islands. There will be entertainment of the comedy and music variety every day from me, Paul and Storm, John Hodgman, Wil Wheaton, Molly Lewis, Mike Phirman, and Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy from Rifftrax. It’s going to be fantastic.

Tickets are on sale: book now if you dare!