I've been playing some of these songs with 3 Men & Black, which is an acoustic project involving myself, Pauline Black (of The Selecter) and various other musicians at differing times. Mainly because the story of an album that had been written over ten years ago and never been released due to one mishap or another was a pretty funny tale. (If you like laughing at other people's misfortune, which I guess is the basis of a lot of comedy !) So; this marks the end of the funny story as, thanks to Alan Parker's commitment (No, it's a different Alan Parker !), the record has finally come squinting and blinking into daylight.

It was originally conceived as an "Irish punk" album, but in the interim a million albums like that had come out, so that put the kibosh on that approach. So, I decided to take it a bit further down the acoustic path. All fine and dandy in itself. However, in the meantime I had re-located to Chicago and that meant recruiting local musicians. Some of these guys were veteran Irish (or Irish-style) musicians and some were not. And so, we ended up with this Irish /Hillbilly /Country/Punk hybrid. So much for: "File under: POP"!

I never thought I'd hear these tunes beyond the original demos I made all those years ago, so I'm really excited to finally get the damn thing made. I do know I had a great time working with all these great players and certainly ended up laughing much more than I should have done for someone who was supposedly "working" ! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

All the best, Jake.