It seems John was “the guy” in Philadelphia if you needed work on anything with tubes, amps etc. He also designed amplifiers (Martone) of true quality. Over the last few years I spent quite a few valued hours having conversations with him when picking up or dropping off equipment. I will miss him. He was a decent and modest man …in my estimation, the kind of guy that keeps us all hanging in there with some degree of faith in humans.

Chris DipPinto (DiPintos guitars) is arranging a little get together in honor of John at Johnny Brenda’s here in Philly. It’s now scheduled for August 24th. Friends of Johns will play and it will feature a stage full of Johns Martone amplifiers.

With the lovely Ann Marie coming down from Brooklyn next week we hope to finish up song 5 for the upcoming Hong Kong Stingray ep. One song-”You were born” is posted to Myspace (though it’s not yet mastered properly).
Still hoping for a late Summer release.

The lovely Ann Marie came down from Brooklyn for a few days and added some very lovely Vocals and Viola to the songs.
Next week Erik and Mark will be finalizing some drums and bass work that will put us into the joyous place of mixing mode. 1 or 2 songs will be posted to the site and myspace in a month or so. More details to follow.

The folks at philebrity kindly asked me to come by and play a wintery song tonight. It should be a fine time with other such as BC Camplight, Joey Sweeney and Adam Arcuragi doing the same. Maybe you’ll join us…you might here “Chrismas time is here” Vince Guaraldi’s way of making the holidays as pretty as they can be.

http://www.philebrity.com/2007/12/19/and-now-the-first-ever-non-denominational-completely-secular-philebrity-christmas-pageant-lineup/

Recording will be ongoing over the next few months as we put together a new HKS ep that will be released in the spring.
2 of the new 5 tracks will be posted to myspace in early 08.
Happy holidays to my band mates and friends!

“good grief”
C.Brown

hks update:

Following the addition of the fine gentleman Ramon Sender, wey’re in the process of working on new songs to be part of an upcoming ep. wey’re shooting for a mid 08 release date.
In conclusion, I think it will sound good.

We will be doing a record release Show at The Khyber in Old city Philadelphia on Wednesday 3/14 to celebrate the release of Hong Kong Stingray. HKS is a band put together to explore the more experimental rocking curiosities lurking within. The record was produced by Kid Congo Powers. Playing with us will be The Novenas, The Creeping Weeds and The Timothy Bracken Complex…We look forward to sharing the night with such a fine bunch of folks.

HKS on MySpace