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SEXPOSÉ: The Gentle Readers Diary

Spring 2002

Can you believe it - an updated Sexpose! I'm sitting here at work typing this which is a no-no since now I own my own business. It was fine when I worked for someone else. I'm also listening to this really good Big Star compilation that we're on - LunaSea Records put it out and it's called "A Tribute to Big Star (additional songs by Chris Bell)." Please look for it at your local store or on Amazon, or go to www.lunasearecords.com. The album features Nada Surf (remember "Popular?"), Marty Wilson-Piper of the Church, Longwave (now on tour with The Strokes), Scout, Fooled by April, Champale, Probe, and many others. Our song, "Back of a Car," has been receiving lots of spins at AAA and college radio. You may find a download of it at the Flat Earth Records site ( www.flatearthrecords.com). We recorded the song at Nickel & Dime here in Atlanta, which is the studio of our friend and former bass player, Don McCollister. He engineered and produced the song with us and it sounds great. Exceptionally great, and big, in a modern way. Not 80's big. Not "I Know There's Something Going On" big.

Alright - enough business talk. Here's where we are. We are taking a little time to recover from playing all those 70's songs as The Susi French Connection. Oh - which reminds me - we do have limited edition Susi French Connection EP available. Please send us $10 post paid (P.O. Box 2841, Decatur, GA, 30031) and we'll send you one, or check Daemon records (www.daemonrecords.com) to purchase. So anyway, we thought we should lay low until we had a set of new songs to play, so that's what we're working on right now.

Linda is out on the road with Michelle Malone at this minute. Greg and I went out for a beer the other night and he told me the most hilarious story, about filling in for a local band called Lithp, who open each set with a lengthy puppet show. They build life-size puppets, which means that they have to pull a trailer behind the van to put them in. I hear their music is quite good, but the presentation sounds fairly eccentric. You thought I was just blowing smoke when I said our shows were guaranteed puppet-free. Ha.

Susan has been recording some of her own songs with Greg, and we'll have downloads of those available soon off this site. We all got excited when Indiana University got into the sweet 16 - Susan and I saw a lot of each other for basketball watching purposes (we both have years of study at IU under our belts, neither of us with an IU diploma). Now with no band activities and no basketball and no home improvement activities for her to help me with, we're going through an adjustment in our relationship. I'm trying to get her to start running with me and she's trying to get me to write songs faster so we can start playing again. Which means we'll just have to settle for sharing cocktail hour for a while until this gets resolved.

Brandon recently went to South by Southwest in Austin, where he had a nice hotel room and a car and driver (that's the rumor that I heard. SOFT.). He plays sometimes with an artist named Tift Merritt and I believe she has an album coming out soon on Lost Highway, or some other bigger type label. She's got a great voice, and a sort of Americana, alt-country sound. You can always check Brandon's site ( www.brandonbush.com) for news on his life and where and when he's playing.

I am playing a couple of shows with one of my favorite artists - local or otherwise - Paul Melancon (www.paulmelancon.com - do listen to the downloads!) in April and May. His regular guitar player, Rob Gal, is in New York producing the new Josh Joplin Group record. It's a lot of fun to play Paul's great songs, though I have complained to him about the sheer number of chords in each composition. That's why our Gentle Readers songs repeat a lot, and are heavy on the drums and bass. They can carry the verse, for goodness sake. The chorus is what people want.

And that's what we'll give them, when the time is right.

Please do check out Paul Melancon, and if you like our music, you'll like the Big Star tribute album. And you'll probably also like the new Mysteries of Life record, called Distant Relative (No Nostalgia is the label).

Thanks for keeping in touch.

Lee for Linda, Greg, Susan and Brandon

If you're really bored, you can check out our archives of previous months diaries.
(1996) - (1997) - (1998) - (1999) - (2000) - (2001)

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