Album Notes

Four years ago this month Jason Jones began work on a record, performing all the parts and vocals in a fictitious four-piece band called Open Eyed Staring, based in New Orleans. He finished the lyrics of the first song on Friday, August 26th, 2005, and thought that, because there was an approaching hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, he should probably record a demo version of the tune, just in case it wasn't possible to return to it for a week or so.

More than a year later, Jones found myself unpacking his studio in a basement in Toronto, able to get back to the music for the first time. But his experience of Katrina and the government's reaction to it have shaped the material in a way he couldn't have envisioned that Friday in August. It's a dark, occasionally bitter reflection of the United States and it's role in the world.

Open Eyed Staring consists of Lexi Fontaine, a magenta-haired bass player from Long Island, Regis Buckinghum, a lead guitarist from the UK, Bonzer Carmine, the shirtless, dreadlocked drummer, and Jones, doing vocals, guitar and keyboards. The first single's video features all four, and has been described as "deeply disturbing" and "pretty messed-up,man!" although the latter remark was from someone who had been drinking. Heavily.