Happy New Year! If the first three weeks of 2010 are any indication of things to come, this is going to be a very productive year. I have been working hard at planning, writing, and recording a new full-length album by The Jerrys (I have recorded two dozen tracks in the past five days alone), and I anticipate making the as-yet-untitled album available early next year.

As for this year, you can expect new mp3 downloads, new videos, improvements to The Jerrys official site (including a place to sign up for The Jerrys' mailing list), and a few surprises along the way. Until then, here are a few links that I hope you will find useful:

The Jerrys Web Site
The Jerrys on Twitter
The Jerrys on CD Baby
The Jerrys on MySpace
The Jerrys on YouTube
The Jerrys on Amazon
The Jerrys on iTunes Preview
The Jerrys on Facebook

Thanks again for listening to The Jerrys. I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2010!

Despite a toothache that plagued me over the weekend, I managed to get some work done on the new album, including totally finishing two songs. Here's how it went:

Friday, October 16

• Mixed and mastered "Love Thang (Instrumental version)"

Saturday, October 17

• Double-tracked rhythm guitar for "Let's Groove"
• Recorded three additional guitar tracks for "Let's Groove"

Sunday, October 18

• Completed postproduction work on "Emily" (2:16)
• Recorded keyboards for "Love in Action," a Utopia tune (here's Robert Porche recording drums for this back in May)
• Completed postproduction work on "Love Thang (Instrumental version)" (2:21)

For those of you keeping score at home, that's four minutes and 37 seconds of music for the new album so far, with more music nearing completion soon. I'll keep you posted.

Download "My Love in Her Attire," (mp3) from The Jerrys' debut album, Pop Go The Jerrys (2000), or listen to it here:

The song is based on a poem I came across while reading The Top 500 Poems. "My Love in Her Attire" was penned by an anonymous poet sometime between 1400 and 1600, and while it is an awesome poem as is, it needed a little work before it could be a Jerrys tune. Below is the original poem as it appears in the anthology, followed by the words to the song by The Jerrys.

My Love in Her Attire

My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For winter, spring, and summer,
No beauty she doth miss,
When all her robes are on;
But Beauty's self she is,
When all her robes are gone.

My Love in Her Attire

My love in her attire does show her wit;
It does so become her, this is true.
For every season she has dressings fit.
For winter, spring, and summer too.

No beauty does she miss
When all her clothes are on,
But Beauty's self she is
When all her clothes are gone.

My love in her black dress is such a hit;
It does so become her, what a view!
In every color she has dressings fit.
In red and green and purple too.

No beauty does she miss
When all her clothes are on,
But Beauty's self she is
When all her clothes are gone.

Trivia alert! This song marks the first time someone besides yours truly played on a Jerrys recording--in this case, Robert Porche (drums).

(Pop Go The Jerrys cover design by Michele Mata.)

I recently added a second guitar to my arsenal, a black Epiphone Dot. Unlike my primary instrument, the Dot is a hollow-body guitar that produces a rich warm sound similar to a Gibson 335--a nice complement to the twangy treble my Fender provides. While I almost always opt for trebly sounds, I want to incorporate more tonal qualities into the songs I am recording for the new album, and this guitar fits the bill.

This guitar has undergone several modifications since I bought it new. First, I had the truss rod and the intonation adjusted, as shipping without a case seemed to have mucked things up a bit. I removed the pickguard next (the guitar looks way cooler without it), after which I tackled the problem of ugly orange control knobs with a can of glossy black spray paint. End result? A great new second guitar for The Jerrys. Listen for it on the new album, coming in 2011.

It seems Twitter is as good or better than this blog at keeping up with The Jerrys, and why shouldn't it be? Like millions of other people, I have a busy lifestyle, and microblogging allows me to post updates more easily and more quickly. While blogs will always have their place in some form or another, it is a luxury to be able to deliver timely bits of information without even having to compose a complete sentence. That said, here are the updates I found that I think are worth mentioning here:

Jul 8
Digging my new Epiphone Dot guitar--played three hours last night (tonight I will actually plug it into my amp)!

Jul 12
The Jerrys will consider any and all new song ideas through December for new album. Be creative!

Aug 1
Earlier today, recorded 15 tracks (12 vocal, 3 tambourine) in 5 hours for new album from The Jerrys--whew!

Aug 6
Just finished mixing and mastering "Emily," first song completed for a new album by The Jerrys. On to postproduction. And more music!

Aug 10
After recording a guitar track yesterday for (as-yet-untitled) tune for new CD, I'm off to the beach!

The vocal tracks included lead vocals for "Love in Action" (a Utopia tune) and lead and backing vocals for "Emily." As soon as time allows, I will try to make sense of some ideas that I recorded on my mp3 player, as well as the lyrics on sticky notes in my desk. Hopefully I will have more on that next time--until then, look for The Jerrys on Twitter.

Eight years ago, I received my first ukulele as a gift, and I have been crazy about ukuleles ever since. That uke was a Washburn, and I used it to write "All My Afternoons," "Happy Anniversary," and "Polly Urethane." Eventually, however, one of the holes on the electronics plate became stripped, so I put it on eBay and replaced it with the one shown above.

The Lanikai LU-21CE concert acoustic/electric ukulele, made by Hohner, is made of Nato wood (Eastern Mahogany) with white binding and has an 18-fret rosewood fingerboard. My favorite feature is the Shadow P3 pickup system, which allows the ukulele to be plugged into an amplifier (here's what that sounds like).

Whether or not you are a musician, you may want to consider buying a ukulele, as they are easy to learn to play. You can get an inexpensive but playable ukulele for about $30 at Musician's Friend, and that is a LOT of fun for the price. In the words of the late George Harrison, "Everybody should have and play a 'uke' it's so simple to carry with you...I love them--the more the merrier--everyone I know who is into the ukulele is 'crackers' so get yourself a few and enjoy yourselves."

The new CD is reviewed in the June 2009 issue of the Illinois Entertainer, and here is what reviewer Jeff Berkwits has to say about it:

Despite a name implying the presence of a full-blown band, The Jerrys is just one guy, Jerry Schwartz, playing quaint melodies with a retro flair. His new EP, What The World Could Use A Lot More Of, features five songs of self-proclaimed “treblepop,” including the humorous “Polly Urethane” and a straightforward cover of “Nowhere Man.” With a total running time of just under 15 minutes, the effort is concise and captivating.

The CD is available on iTunes and at Amazon and CD Baby. You can also listen to the CD here.

Stay tuned. More reviews and more music are on the way.

Having just completed more work on a new Jerrys album the weekend before (as those who follow The Jerrys on Twitter already know), I joined up with relatives on Memorial Day weekend to play a family reunion show. As admission was free and we needed a band name, we played as The Freebies.

The band romped through 22 songs, including "I Saw Her Standing There," "Just What I Needed," "No Matter What," "We Can Work It Out," "All Right Now," "What I Like About You," and "Twist and Shout." The band lineup was as follows:

• Todd Schwartz (guitar)
• Jerry Schwartz (guitar and vocals)
• Troy Schwartz (drums)
• Mike Phillips (bass and vocals)
• Kasha Phillips (keyboard and vocals)
• Holly Schwartz (vocals)

If you would like a taste of the show, head over to YouTube, where I have posted a video of "Secret Agent Man." (There's more about the song on Wikipedia.)

The summer has begun. Enjoy!!

New video, "Uneasy," now on YouTube. The song is from The Jerrys' first album, Pop Go The Jerrys. Robert Porche is on drums, with yours truly on guitar, vocal, and bass overdub.

Lyrics to "Uneasy" may be found here.

After recording four tracks of rhythm guitar and two tracks of bass guitar for the Jerrys' new cover tune over the weekend, I spent tonight editing and bouncing tracks. The song is Utopia's "Love in Action," and it is only the second song to be recorded for an as-yet untitled upcoming Jerrys release. On May 16, I will be joined by Robert Porche at Rumble House Rehearsal Studio, where, among other things, we will be recording drums and backing vocals for the song (that's us pictured above at Rumble House back in September).

Want more? You can now follow The Jerrys on Twitter. See you there!