Please Don't Almost Kill Me

It’s been almost a year since I wrote a blog post about an fire in the home of J Stuart from The Cloud Room – a Brooklyn-based band I had been listening to a lot in the fall.

The band was working on their new tunes in J’s apartment, so all of their gear was destroyed, along with the Mac computer that contained the recordings. Amps, guitars, new tracks, plus all of J’s personal items and clothes went up in smoke. Oh yeah, and yesterday just happened to be his birthday. [The Tripwire]

After writing the blog post I decided to get in touch with J via email and see if I could conduct an interview. I asked, and he obliged. The band even posted a link to my entry on their news page, from which I still get several hits every month. [Miss604, Dec 8, 2006].

Through the aftermath of the ‘officially devastating’ fire, The Cloud Room have managed to produce the EP, Please Don’t Almost Kill Me. Once I heard that it was released, I contacted J yet again to find out how I could get my paws on a copy. One email reply and about 2 weeks later and I now have a copy of the EP in my possession. But that’s not the best part….

Upon opening the parcel this evening I smelled something reminiscent of emerging from my tent at a Cultus Lake campground at 6am: smoldering ash. Sure enough, from the envelope comes a crusty CD jewel case and a “nice n’ CLEAN” wet nap, followed by a letter:

Maybe it’s because I grew up buying records and CDs rather than downloading MP3s, but while sifting through my melted music collection (after my house burned down last fall), I found myself unable to throw anything away. So here we are, with 483 melted jewel cases recycled into a Limited Edition of our new EP, Please Don’t Almost Kill Me… – J Stuart, The Cloud Room

This is fantastic. Looking at the case (which isn’t from a Cloud Room album), it is definitely burnt up somethin’ fierce and the first thing that caught my attention was the “Made in Canada” sticker on the front.

Thanks so much to the guys in the band: Dave Horowitz, Steve Milton, Jon Petrow, Jason Pharr and J Stuart, for sending this over. It will get priority podcast play on the next RadioZoom and here’s hoping a tour brings them by Vancouver in the near future.

Check out The Cloud Room‘s website and MySpace for more info.