In the spirit of the holidays 3rd Alley has released a Broke Christmas EP which includes an original song titled “Broke Christmas” about being too broke to enjoy Christmas. It includes an all-star cast of musicians and is FREE, this week only!
3rd Alley-“Broke Christmas”
“Broke Christmas” background:
With the holidays upon us & Christmas a week away, The Pier has been receiving Holiday music from tons of groups inside the Reggae-Rock Community. But when Todd Forman & and 3rd Alley front man, Zack Walters, contacted us with their “Broke Christmas” song from their Broke Christmas EP, we felt it was the perfect song to post up on as our Leak of the Week. Here’s what Todd Forman told The Pier in regards to both the song & EP…
“Zack and I decided to try our hand at a couple of xmas tunes — one original “Broke Xmas” and one remake of the classic Charles Brown hit “Please Come Home for Xmas.” Zack wrote and produced “Broke Xmas” and we added some flava in my home studio. Zack and I worked out the parts for “Home for Xmas” and we produced it in my home studio in Long Beach. Lew Richards and his madness at 17th Street Studios mixed them in genius fashion.
We experimented a bit on the song Home for Xmas with Zack using a simple Sure mic on the vocals and me bangin’ on my grandmother’s 100-year-old upright piano as well as my 3-year-old daughter’s toy piano for that extra Xmas flava. There have been several versions of this song over the years, most notably Bon Jovi and the Eagles, but we think this one stays true to that ol’ time blues rock feel. You know, it might sound like a simple song, but Home for Xmas has a lot of interesting chord changes and has one of those tempo’s that’s more difficult to keep together than the ear will tell you. We’re proud of how it all turned out.
We also have single comin’ at y’all shortly called “Strangebrew!” We’re very excited about this home production and will tell you more as we roll it out in the next few days/weeks.
I’m stoked how these songs came together through my humble abode studio (Rise Above Productions). We used our local community of music heroes on these tracks, including Trey Pangborn of Falling Idols, Shortbus, Busface (guitar on Home for Xmas and Strangebrew), Mic Dangerously of Zen Robbi fame (bass on Home for Xmas), Matt Brein of the Mike Pinto Band (bass on Broke Xmas), Jack Hale of 3rd Alley (drums on Broke Xmas), and Adrian Young (drums on Home for Xmas and Strangebrew).
Merry Christmas from 3rd Alley and the LBC crew!”
-Todd Forman
3rd Alley Links:
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3rd Alley Myspace
Enjoy the FREE track on the Home Page!
–Mike Patti