Mike on guitars, basses, drums, vocals, keys, knobs, dials and switches, sometimes with friends including Pete, Steve, Alan, Rick, Brenda, Tad, Jim, Scott, Amy, Johnny, Chris, Conrad, Paul, Jerry, Rich, George, Dave, Rob, Rusty, Terry, Mick, John and... you.
Influences
Offthetopofmyhead: the Beach Boys, The Jam, Dictators, Flamin' Groovies, Yadrbirds, Johnny Horton, Who, Kinks, Dave Clark 5, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Byrds, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music, Lovin Spoonful, Big Star, Cheap Trick, The Move, Faces, The Turtles, Marvin Gaye, AM radio 1964-69, FM radio 1973-82, Eroll Garner, Bucketful of Brains, Bomp!, Creem, Prairie Sun, Trouser Press, Ramones, Real Kids, The Pop, Shoes, The Records, 20/20, Paul Collins' Beat, Plimsouls, Young Fresh Fellows, Motown, Stax, Roy Buchannan, Mike Bloomfield/Paul Butterfield Blues Band, jMayall's Bluesbreakers feat. Eric Clapton, Pete Ericksen, Martin Newell, the Posies, Chixdiggit!, Buck Owens, Nuggets, Rezillos/Revillos, Model Rockets, George Makovic, Steve Lindstrom, The Band, Blue Ash, Elvis Costello's first five albums, Radio Birdman, Moby Grape, Barracudas, The Windbreakers, The db's, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Tracy Ullman, Graham Parker and The Rumour, Dr. Feelgood, Sex Pistols, John Cale, Chris Spedding, The Morells, The Trend, Suicide Commandos, Ramones, Del Shannon, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, anything Hal Blaine played drums on, The Cyrcle, Every Mother's Son, Slade, Jason and the Nashville Scorchers...
Sounds Like
"More Beck than Beck." - Terry Keating, ex-Midwest Music Liquidators
Some comedy troupe had the sense to claim the New Normal name on myspace, so The New New Normal is our tag in these parts.
The New Normal (est. 2003) is my ongoing music-recording-and-doing thing, occasionally in real studios with friends from near and far away, sometimes just me futzing with 4-tracks, 8-tracks, digital portastudios and now the DAW at Ritt Laboratories, rehearsal/recording home of the band to be known as "formerly Midwest Music Liquidators" once we find something shorter.
"...How could we not love The New Normal?... a spontaneous ball of melodic fun... wonderfully entertaining..." - LMNOP, babysue.com
"It's Our Time" is as fine Byrdsian mid-60s track as 2004 has produced!...terrific Rickenbacker 12-string riffs...Welcome back to the summer of 1965! - Eric Sorenson, Fufkin.com
"...This is good old-fashioned rock and roll, with roots that go back to the '50s and make their way up to now... fresh as a daisy... Encore! - Mike Bennett, fufkin.com
The New Normal CD, done in 2003 and just re-released on Old3C, is probably the funnest rocking-out I've done to date. It's available in physical form from Old3C.com or via download at Apple iTunes, eMusic, Amazon MP3. There are also a couple of original silkscreened copies left at CDBaby.com.
The record happened after work took me to Seattle and I ran into Scott McCaughey (REM, Minus 5, Young Fresh Fellows) at the airport and I got to ask him whether he thought it would be cool to ask my ol' pals Tad and Jim (the amazing YFF drum/bass battery) if they wanted to have recording party, doing up my songs at Egg (the coolest of little analog-based studios). Over two weekends we got everything tracked and overdubbed, with Jim's engineering/producing brother Johnny taking care of lead guitar and some bass while also running the board and buttons. Scott, Chris Ballew (Presidents) and Uno (Egg owner/engineer) dropped in to add keyboards and backing vocals and such. It was a blast, and you can hear it in the tunes. Buy many copies from Paul.
And so much more.
Here's a little video something Alan did at Ritt Labs. We layered up a faux-Christian rock music track and Alan donned wig to pose as someone from work. You might've had to be there.
