Ground Control Touring

These tracks were recorded at The Chapel, The Duke and the Kings’ cabin / home-studio in the woods of Bearsville by Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers / author of “Hail Mary Full Of Holes” Uncut Book Of The Month March ’09) and Robert ‘Chicken’ Burke (George Clinton/Drugs, Sweet Honey and the Rock/Toshi Reagon) and then taken down The Hudson River to be mixed in Brooklyn by their friend the Grammy award winning hip hop maestro Bassy Bob Brockmann (Notorious B.I.G’s Ready To Die).

So where’d the name come from? The Duke & The King are the two roving charlatans from The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, (which Simone read for the thirteenth time as Robert scratched out his signature vocal harmonies by the woodstove), a couple classic American grifters who’s lay was to masquerade as European royalty, put on bad accents, find a bandstand, dress up like Romeo and Juliet, stage on an obscene parody and skip town after the first act, ultimately getting them tarred and feathered. And so the name is a reminder, a sort of scarlet letter they’ll happily paint over their hearts to help them keep it honest, the music, the poetry.

These bitter-sweet songs speak of a time just out of arm’s reach. Days when kids rocked to We Are The World on a new thing called the Walkman, shooting BB guns into the sky only to see The Challenger come crashing down, tweaking bunny-ears cause boy do I want my MTV. A time when pop wasn’t a dirty word, when the golden era of 60’s and 70’s radio still sailed from the boom-box, still echoed in people’s heart. If it’s true that nothing gold can stay, well no one bothered to tell these dreamers. Or maybe they just don’t care. The Duke and The King are putting on a show, and you don’t need no ticket, you just get on board. Come one, come all!