Friday, June 26, 2009

The New Caesars

Yet more old music from my musical closet & more free downloads for whoever cares.

Cleveland, 1996-97
:
Doug Morgan (Neptune's Car, Pressler-Morgan, Human Switchboard, etc.) formed this band and was the writer, arranger, singer and general mastermind behind it.

"Lou" and "Flame" feature Morgan on guitar & vocals; Jeff Benik (California Speedbag) on drums, Doug Gillard (Guided By Voices, Cobra Verde, Death of Samantha) on lead guitar and Mike Derrick on bass. This was a studio-only lineup that never played a live show.

At the end of 1996 Doug put together the lineup that is featured on the remaining tracks. This lineup was: Doug Morgan - guitar, vocals; Jeff Benik - drums; Brent Collins - bass, guitar; and myself (Tom Miller) on guitar. This was the "real" band; the one that was going to record, play gigs and (according to Doug) get famous...and the rest would be history. Turns out the rest WAS history, and a very short one at that.

We played 4 shows total, before the whole thing blew apart. It didn't help that Jeff quit after the recordings, and that every gig we played featured a different drummer. On New Years Eve, 1997-98, we even had our bass player Brent play bass and drums simultaneously. Brent could do amazing things like that. Some say we never sounded better live then that night, but it didn't matter much since we broke up immediately afterward. Too bad because I really liked Doug's songs; I thought they might even have had some commercial potential, in a Tom Verlaine/Rolling Stones/Wilco-ish sort of way. So much for that idea. Oh well, here are the songs now, in all their never-before-released-to-the-public glory.

All songs are copyright 1996 & 1997 by Doug Morgan. Used by permission.
DOWNLOAD:

No Real Thing
My New Moon
Lip Shine
Tattoo
Musical Fatuwa
Flame
Lou
What Would You Have Me Do?

Neptune's Car recordings (plus a lot of other great music) can be found at Ted Barron's "Boogie Woogie Flu" blog.



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey Tom
the bass player was Mike Derrick
studio pro and good friend

by the way .... how the heck are you?

benik

Tom and Denise Miller said...

Hey Jeff - I'm doing fine. Married and living in Pittsburgh (but I still hate the Steelers). Hope you are well too! Thanks for the info.

Anonymous said...

Last time I saw Doug he was selling me some of his record collection in New York, probably in 1993 or 1994. The funny thing is I just ran across the box after not seeing it for many years, and vaguely remembered he was in the Pressler Morgan Band, which led me to your blog post. Do you still speak to him? How is he? I would love to chat with him and tell him an amusing story that I don't think he knows, one of those weird coincidences in life. If you do speak to him, let him know the guy that bought his Green Slime 7" in New York City says hi.

Tom and Denise Miller said...

Hey Green Slime guy - Thanks for checking out our blog. Doug is doing fine, I still talk to him from time to time. Next time I see him, I'll tell him you said hello. Take care! Tom

Tim Morgan said...

Doug just showed me this blog and I heard these songs for the first time! Very well done, Doug. Excellent sound and produced well. I am proud to be your brother.

Pat Morgan