Mr. Jones & The Hard Feelings (1993)

The Hard Feelings is a fractious relationship record. A song-cycle concept album, intended as the follow-up to Porch Music, but with all the songs running together as they do, it was a pretty daunting undertaking production-wise for a totally indie band.

In the meantime, I went to Vienna and the Nevada Nuclear Test Site and fell in love and wrote the songs that became Mr. Jones & The Fascists: In Search of the Hundredth Monkey which we could record live, and then we started touring which just pushed everything back so, even though we were playing some of these songs as early as 1990 it wasn’t until the fall of 1993 that we started tracking the record at Q Division Studio in Boston (with Aimee Mann & Jon Brion working down the hall recording “I’m With Stupid”),

There was another year and a half of tinkering; recording additional vocals at Kommotion in San Francisco, and in studios around Olympia and LA before making our final passes mixing with Earle Mankey in Woodland Hills.

By the time “The Hard Feelings” came out in ’95 I was just embarrassed and exhausted by the whole enterprise and ready to get to work on “UnPop…”

It definitely deserved better. A better album cover. A band that wasn’t sick of playing it. I’ll do what I can for it now.

All songs written by Andras Jones
Engineered by Mike Deneen, Colin Mahoney & Earle Mankey

Andras Jones – Lead Vocals & Acoustic Guitar

John Nason – Electric Guitar, Mandolin on “Why Must You Be So Mean?”, Acoustic Guitar on “So Easy” & Backing Vox

Marshall Thomson – Piano, Keyboards & Backing Vocals

R. Walt Vincent – Bass Guitar

Colin Mahoney – Drums & Percussion

Lili Haydn – Violin on “Beautiful”

Lily Gobeil – Vocals on “Make You Strong”, “No Fighting” & “It’s Been A Long, Long Time”

James Lee Harris – Vocals on “Make You Strong”

Cindy Wasserman – Vocals on “Make You Strong”

Brian Schey – Vocals on “Election Day” & Crowd Walla

Leicia Chan, Linda Flinkman, Lisa Miller – Crowd Walla

THE HARD FEELINGS only exist because of support from people who believed in us enough to, once again, become our record company and pre-order. THANK YOU

Sarah Fasy, Angela Mitchell, Lilly Love, Billy T. Mahaffey III, Theron David Reed, Chelly Bird, Jimmy Stieglitz, Frank Bartlett, The Van Buskirk Family, Andrea Russo, Valerie Bullock, James & Julianne Sullivan, Marie Jones, Sheree Anderson, Allison Morris, Katherine Cougher, Indea Summer Suhr-Love, Cristina Love, Forrest, Jennifer Warren, Kelly McClernon, Christopher Roberts, Kent Robert Verderico, Babe Marie Hack, Bob Palais, Niki “Sunshine” Showell, Kevin C. Tipps, Melanie McGowan Ross, Joshua M. Margo, Joanna R. Hunter, Marie Snyder, Molly Orange Richardson, John Ennis, Brent H. Merritt, Sarah Compton, Danielle Anti-Slaughter, Justin (home owner) Bartlett, Amber Heaton, Donald P. Borchers, The Griers, Tom Shadyac, Christopher DeHaven, Greg “Pink” Pentacost, Jill Ebersole, Rochelle “Rocky” Lane, Tracie Cleverly, Gwenevere Bridge, Vickie Blouch, Louis Prsonovich, Hilary Avalon, Nicholas Burgis, Shelly Kitchens, Carla D’Amato, Ken Frank, Steven Shainberg, James Cleverly, Jennifer Jo Kuhn, Jean Pederson, Goran Gajic, Mira Furlan, Deana K, C.J. Lake, Jeanhee Kim, Craig X at 2000 BC, Sean Gugler, Steve Harris, Mark Kehtz, Nina Nin-Bean, Brad O’Brien, Molly Onkka, Ann McNally, Jay Monahan, Sean Fitzgerald, Susan Johnstone, Luca Scalisi, Danny Scalisi, John Bolling, Bob Glaub, Greenfield, Wendy Parker, Peter D’Elia, Jack Morrissey, Dan & Samantha Banda, Susan Jones, Julia Bovey, Amy Shouse, Aby Bram, Lisa Linares, Sandy Kowall, James Calvert, William Calvert, Linda Rose Flinkman, Brad Kerin Hoopes, Susie Balaban, Leicia Chan

 And especially to KRCL DJ KEN SULLIVAN who gave way more than the most when it was all that was standing in our way.