New Album - O'Connor & Plank

2 friends, 1 afternoon, 4 mics

Many of you know of my long-time musical cohort and friend Michael O’Connor. We are putting out a completely acoustic album out before our tour together in March. Pre-orders for cds with digital copies will be available Friday, February 3, 2023 on Bandcamp under this name and title: O’Connor & Plank - Nothing To Prove.

Nicola Gell Photography

We sat down for 1 afternoon on March 9, 2022 with 4 microphones and ten songs, with the inimitable Gabriel Rhodes to capture, engineer, and mix the performances. Then we sent it to Cris Burns to have it mastered, and now we are putting it out to share with you.

This album will only be available for physical purchase at our shows and online, until we run out. We are only making 300 copies. So if you want the sound of a CD (the undisputed winner of sound over any streaming service) you’ll have to pre-order one on Bandcamp or buy it at one of our shows during our short March tour in Texas.

I had the idea to do this kind of album a long time ago. I plan to make many more. We live in an age where content is king, and there is absolutely no reason for us to not create some music for our die-hard fans, our friends, and family whenever we have ten tunes ready. In fact we had so much fun the first time that right before we kick off that March tour we are going to Gabriel’s studio again, and plan to make another.

Nicola Gell Photography

“Nothing To Prove” consists only of 6 songs written by one or both of us, and a 4 songs co-written with at least Michael or myself with others (Jana Pochop, Guy Forsyth, Jason Allen McIntyre, and one I co-wrote with Gabriel Rhodes (I’ve written many songs that ended up on my albums as well with Gabe). I know I speak for Michael when I say how grateful we are to be part of a musical community where we can call up such great songwriters as these to write with.

The title song comes from a phrase Michael told me Guy Clark would sometimes say before starting a show. He was notoriously adverse to setlists, and sometimes would walk out on stage with Verlon Thompson at his side and say, “we have no plan, we have no fear.” Michael mentioned this to me on one our our many long car rides to a gig, and I want to say it was somewhere on the east coast of the U.S. a couple years ago. I thought that was a good motto for us on tour. When we started writing the “Nothing To Prove” I quickly added that to Mr. Clark’s quote and the tag line of each chorus; I mean really at this point we have nothing to prove to anyone. We never did. We are lifetime musicians. We can say that. We count ourselves lucky to be of that tribe. It can be a hard life, but it is a charmed life.

One of the other songs, “Don’t Let ‘Em” we wrote in the courtyard of the new(ish) venue in New Braunfels known as the Redbird Listening Room. Many of you have already heard that song at my gigs or on my patreon page, and know the story of how it came into existence out of my frustration with the ideological divide in the United States today, every side (not just Fox) of print and cable television new media fear mongering and making it worse, day-by-day. Earlier that week someone had posted on one of Michael’s social media pages that, “I used to go see Michael and Plank play all the time but I can’t anymore because of Jeff Plankenhorn’s radical leftist views.”

That’s also for another story! That post inspired us to write the tune, in hopes that one day soon we could perform it at Gruene Hall and get the Hippies and the Rednecks and everyone in-between to sing along. Not so coincidentally, we did play it there and I’ve played it everywhere else from Chicago to Chilliwack and back and people always sing along. Every time. And it feels great.

Another one of my favorites on the album is Michael’s song, “Ramona.” We both play acoustic guitar on that, I get to sing a wee harmony on the choruses, and it is one of those beautiful and simple story songs that Michael writes. He sucks you right in. It was also co-written with Jason Allen McIntyre, whom I do not know.

OK I won’t give away too much. I’m going to save how Michael and I met on my very first gig in Texas with Ray Wylie Hubbard and how we have co-written and played with and for each others for over 20 years for another post. Maybe just before we do the pre-orders.?

Alright friends and neighbors, remember that date? It’s Friday, February 3. On Bandcamp. You’ll be able to digitally download the album and we’ll ship one of the only 300 CD’s (we think) we’ll make to your door.

Until then you go to mocmusic.com to check out Michael’s music and see where he’s playing live. I’m off to the California desert for now. See y’all in Texas in March!