It's finally here! The long-awaited new CD from Big Meanie - TEA BAG. Want the story? Well, keep reading.

Tea Bag has been a long time in the making. Houdini, the fourth track dates way back to Nate and Doug's Hopper Genie days in early 1998. But as any Big Meanie fan knows, none of these songs, new or old, was complete before we completed our perfect lineup as it stands on the CD: Nate, Chris, Eric, and Doug.

The night of January 21, 2000, we stuffed ourselves into a minivan and headed up to New Jersey for a...well, not-so-well-heated show before we settled in to Philly for the weekend. With a few hours' sleep under our belts we descended upon The Creation Station in South Philly.

Enter Jeep. Can we talk for a second here about the best fucking engineer who ever touched a recording console? We clicked with Jeep instantly. It's rare enough to find somebody who actually thinks it's funny when a bunch of 22-24 year old guys act as stupid as we do on a regular basis. I'd venture to say Jeep had a downright good time. We'll show you some of the loads of smiling pictures once they're scanned. More importantly though, Jeep and his buddy Phil (a damn fun guy if I can say so) coaxed sounds out of our equipment that we had only dreamed of. In no time, the 3-foot tall monitors in the control room were pumping out the best-sounding Big Meanie sound you can imagine, (Maybe we should thank Jim Marshall, Eddie Van Halen, and Les Paul too.) not to mention the way they sent the here-to-be-unnamed ass picture in gyrations. :)

So, we bought some beer, some tastykakes - ok, lots of beer - some Chinese food, some Pop-Tarts, some donut holes, some sodas, some hoagies (not subs you weenie, we were in Philly), some hot tea cause Nate's likes hot liquids in his mouth, and a whole bunch of other crap. We spent Saturday laying down the bass and drum tracks for all 8 songs on the disc:

1. Severna
2. Mail-Order Bride
3. Fig Newtons
4. Houdini
5. Parkway
6. Dodgeball
7. Understandable
8. Dukes Of Hazzard Theme

Eric and I had a few beers and crashed hardcore. We figured Nate and Chris would lay down a few rhythm tracks and we'd do the rest on Sunday. Next thing we know, it's 1:30 in the morning - thirteen and a half hours after we got there - and ALL the rhythm tracks were done. Talk about a killer productive day. We headed back to the 'burbs for some sleep and came back Sunday morning.

Sunday we - well, we in the strict sense of the word "we" - that would include me. Cause, since I'm talking, when I say "we" it has to include me, doesn't it? So anyway, Eric and I ate donuts and Pop-Tarts and tastykakes and drank a bunch of beer while Nate and Chris did the lead tracks and the vocals. After another 11 hour day, we called it quits.

We came back 2 weeks later to mix the whole shebang. More beer, more Pop-Tarts, more hoagies. Jeep worked his magic, and voila! Tea Bag!

Thanks to all the help and financial support of Ted Rosenthal, we finished the whole process and sent the disc out to Joe's Productions for manufacturing.