please - still no heart attacks

Long-time readers will know that I consider it my duty to mention any and every scrap of musical activity undertaken by Jersey's heroes, the Wrens (example, from my entry posted February 4, 2005: "Kevin Whelan, on his way to work this morning, tripped on a loose bit of carpeting and banged his left elbow on the piano. The chord that resulted consisted of E, F, F#, G, A, and C two octaves below middle C (the expected B is broken) and reportedly will form a leitmotivic chord for the operatic song cycle based on the tunnel builders of Newark, due to be released sometime in 2057. It is projected to be a full 47 seconds long, and recording will commence in 2012, with overdubs scheduled for the following thirty years, while the band's heirs negotiate direct-to-cortex release for the remaining fifteen years").

But really truly actually the Wrens have released a new song. Okay, it's "new" only if you don't notice it's really the same song as "In Turkish Waters," which was released last month (and was on one of my 2008 mixes)...but this is a different recording. What's more, it is the first time all four Wrenseses have performed together in a studio in ten years. And that studio, my friends, is none other than (Zappa looks over at the majestic Albert Hall pipe organ) Abbey Road studios.

Take that, Beatles! Ha - those guys haven't recorded together in the last ten years either! And you're thinking that's because two of them are dead...yeah, well, two of the Wrens were dead (for tax purposes) for a year in the early 2000s, so there.

Anycow, the new song (here titled "Pulled Fences") is available for an entire penny less than a dollar via this little chromium link here. Long-suffering Wrens obsessives may also note that ZOMG it's an entirely new website. (Note: "new" in this sense includes some text not updated since 2002 - but really, there's lotsa new stuff, including a much-more detailed discography, with notes in trademarked Wrens "we suck worse than all you guys think we do" style, and a new layout, and the rest of Charles Bissell's hair is being auctioned off. Hurry, before it's all gone!)