Leap forward to March 1998, where I found myself in the thrilling and equally terrifying position of being seated on a chair with acoustic guitar in hand, five feet away from one of my musical heroes, Ray Davies of The Kinks. I was one of the 16 lucky students in attendance at his week-long songwriting course in Devon, England. The song I just finished performing, and only slightly less recently finished writing was called "Splendid," and contained the words "game show teeth" in its lyric. With a broad smile Ray immediately noted how much he loved the phrase. For the remainder of the week he kept requesting that I "play the game show teeth song." I'm not sure how much he liked the song, but he clearly liked the words.

In 1991, while employed as a video editor for a boss with obvious, expensive dental work, a high strung audio mixer co-worker of mine burst into the room after a meeting with the man in charge. His curse filled tirade ended with the phrase "And he can go f--- himself and his game show teeth!" I immediately excused myself and ran to the nearest soundproof room where I could safely burst out in laughter and write the phrase down, on the off chance I'd ever forget it.

It's 2006, one year after I released my third CD, an award winning concept album for kids called PURPLE BURT. The urge to write something new had finally returned, this time with an energetic few seconds of melody that led up to a different part which arrived in my head pre-fitted with the words "this is the chorus." No matter how hard I tried, I could not replace them with anything that felt better. Recalling the aforementioned Ray Davies' insistent lessons on song structure, I decided to take the plunge and write a song about the structure of songs, even though I felt a bit squeamish about doing something so self-referential. But I was happy with the results and asked my accomplished drummer friend Todd Bernhardt if he would do me the honor of adding his talents to it, as well as to another song I had written shortly afterwards in a mood of self-pity, called "Make Yourself at Home."

Once the final mix of "This Is a Song" was completed, I mailed a copy of it to Ray Davies, who was just about to teach another course, on the off chance that he'd get a kick out of it, and perhaps even play it to his students for fun as part of his song structure lesson. Months later I heard through a friend who had met with Ray that he liked the song, but after playing it for his class he couldn't get the tray to open, and it ended up breaking his machine. It seems my goal of writing something so good that it would get stuck in Ray's CD player only partially came true.

At the beginning of 2007 I upgraded my home studio to Pro Tools and got to work on several "new" songs that I planned to include on my next, more aggressive and hopefully accessible album. With renewed confidence and ambition, I decided I was finally ready to do justice to a bunch of songs I had written in the past, but had never attempted to record properly, while also finishing off a few others that had left me stumped on how to proceed.

"Often I Saunter" was written in 2000 as an homage to, and a slight parody of the work of UK jangle-master Martin Newell. My talented songwriting friend John Dunbar had recently made a recording that included what sounded like very intricately played mandolins, which was just the kind of thing I wanted on "Often I Saunter." He added in several other guitars, both electric and acoustic, to help finish it off.

"Keep It a Secret" was song I wrote for playful Canadian artist Lullaby Baxter, but she passed on it so I kept it for myself. I had just struck up a friendship with the brilliant Austin, Texas based pop artist Andrea Perry, who amongst her many talents creates some of the most melodic bass lines I have ever heard. She agreed to play her bouncy bass, and also some soaring electric guitar solos for me. Later I slated Andrea for more of her tuneful bass-ifying on the recently completed "My Dumb Luck," and another song from around 2000, "In The Know."

As the 10 year anniversary of the Ray Davies songwriting course approached, I thought it would be fitting to record the last, and best received song I had written during the class. For the final assignment, all of the students collaborated on "Thelma and Louise - The Musical." Ray cast me as the character of the detective, played by Harvey Keitel in the film. My song "Crack The Case" went over very well, and was dubbed "the hit of the week" by Ray and my classmates. To this day, if my name is mentioned, Ray will immediately sing the chorus of the song. Very flattering to be sure! You can watch a video clip of the world premiere right here:

I am extremely fortunate and blessed to be able to say that musical heroes Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory of XTC have been friends of mine since 1984 when I first met them in person. Over the years they have generously offered to collaborate with me, both in writing songs (in Andy's case,) and in adding their expert instrumental genius to my recordings, (both Dave and Andy.) Only a fool would turn down the opportunity, so I once again took them up on their kind offer.

Dave Gregory turned my bare-boned, acoustic folk waltz of "The Man That Talked Too Much" into a melodic, hyperactive, psychedelic wall of babbling guitars. Andy Partridge jazzed up my new version of a 1991 ragtime be-bop fest "Little Masterpiece," with jaggedly tuneful acoustic guitar stabs. Here's the original demo:

"I Have Never Lied" is another song from way back in 1990 that I demoed with my long time friend Ken Weinstein. I felt it was time to really give it the hi-fi treatment, though this time I recorded it all on my own. But before I tackled it, I needed to replace the potentially illegal Billy Joel referencing middle eight with one of my creation. Check out the old one:

Continuing to tap the resources of my musical rolodex, my friend Daryl Bean of Michigan displayed great saxophone skill on a side recording I made in 2007, and expressed interest in collaborating with me further. I gladly took him up on it, several times in fact! He's also adept on trumpet, clarinet, and a vintage keyboard called a clavinet. You can hear his clarinet solo on "Little Masterpiece," his clavinet, and a horn section of saxes and trumpet on "My Dumb Luck," and some exquisite sax on my 1940s-ish piano ballad "As Moons Go."

On the subject of pianos, the opportunity arose to have former keyboardist for The Psychedelic Furs, Amy Rigby, Martha Wainwright, and current musical director of New York City's long running Loser's Lounge tribute series, Joe McGinty, to tickle the ivories on two of my songs. He can be heard dueling with Andy Partridge on "Little Masterpiece," and is prominently featured all over the Jerry Lee Lewis pastiche "She's Dynamite!" The latter started out as just the chorus of a hit that my washed up lounge singer character Sebastian sang in a sketch I wrote and performed in 1992 for Gotham City Improv in New York City. Just for fun, I decided to expand it into a full song for this new album. Coincidentally, the costume I'm wearing in all the photos on this album is the identical one that I wore as Sebastian, minus the original red sequined bowtie.

Also found on "She's Dynamite!" are the frantic, rockabilly twanging guitars, and scratchy saxophone blasts of R. Stevie Moore, the "godfather of DIY/home recording," etc. Another long time friend, and huge musical influence, he is also someone whose offer to contribute should never be turned down. This is the fourth time I've made the wise decision.

The shortest song on the album, "Blackout," actually took me the longest to mix. The same can't be said for the length of time it took me to write and demo it. Composed by candlelight during the 2003 New York City blackout, and quickly recorded just hours after power was restored the next day:

Hawaii's Jim Smart has been a friend of mine since the mid '90s when I lived in San Francisco and we corresponded through online discussions about The Kinks and XTC. He was the first person I contacted when I found out the information necessary to sign up for the Ray Davies songwriting course, and was also lucky enough to attend. I've provided lyrics to a few of his excellent, prolific home recordings, and he has played guitars and keyboards on several songs of mine from earlier albums. He can be heard doing the fancy bits of electric guitar punctuation on "My Dumb Luck," as well as piano, organ, electric and backwards guitars on "In The Know."

Last but not least, my very talented girlfriend Anne D. Bernstein can be heard singing the "informational" sections on "In The Know." She also clicked about 100 photos of me in my ridiculous get up, which I wisely narrowed down to the five that can be seen on the album's packaging.

I am very proud of GAME SHOW TEETH, and hope you get as much enjoyment listening to it as I had in making it.

Mitch Friedman