Today I’m gonna hand my little forum over to my dear friend and bandmate Andrew Connor. Today we’re releasing a set of tunes, 3 of ‘em. It’s a special day, a celebration of life- the life of his remarkable family in Chicago and the life of the band Ghosty he started at KU with pals a long time ago, a band I’m lucky enough to be in now.
Please follow the links and give it a listen! Also, if you’re able, feel free to use our Bandcamp as way to help us along with the dollars it takes to do a project like this. Much love, Bill.
Here’s Andrew!
“Today is February 27th, 2025, the first birthday of the beloved Duane Reade Connor. We're proud to announce a sort of tribute to him in the form of 3 new Ghosty songs we're calling The Duane Duane EP. It's up today on Bandcamp and your streaming service. Hoping the cosmic energy from Duane's momentous celebration will bring heat to these tracks and send them straight to the Top 40 and American Bandstand and Rap Caviar or wherever tracks go now to get heard by the world's music heads. I sang and played guitar. Ross Brown engineered, played slide guitar, sang backing vocals and mixed in that effortlessly skillful way of his. Later I asked Ross, does your studio have a cool name like "Full Blooded Studio" or something? He said no. The talents of those trusted Kansas City heavy hitters Bill Belzer and David Wetzel were secured. They played hard, somehow drawing upon the rich history of the Ghosty songbook while taking musical snapshots of late 2024. How do they do it? I thought. We shared a lot of laughs during this fruitful few days. Blessed with drop-ins from friends and seasoned professional backing vocalists Konnor Ervin, Colin Rausch, and new husband Kyle Rausch, we felt an abundance of mirth and holiday joy.
When his bass tracking finished, Mike Nolte transported the songs carefully to his Portland, OR Eureka Mastering homebase and ran them through his mastering devices, listening with those highly attuned ears of his, rendering the music shiny and new. The wise Gene Booth helped me with the lyrics, which touch on the mystical power of animals like Duane and the family of coyotes who roam the old cemetery down the street from my Chicago apartment. These coyotes and their ancestors have ushered countless souls (like those of Louis Sullivan and Ernie Banks) into the afterlife, so I always make sure to greet them with reverence when l encounter them on a run.
Finally we enlisted another friend and longtime Ghosty associate Paul Browning to make the artwork, which references KU's Fraser Hall and another lyrical idea of the EP, that of a halfhearted declaration of intent to return to college in midlife. Thanks for listening! Peace”
https://music.apple.com/us/album/duane-duane-ep-single/1798137788
Love you Bill thanks!!!!