Album Notes

What's with Moes Haven and movies?

Sure, they've always alluded to films in their songs. But here we have, for the second straight month, an entire album inspired by the silver screen.

Last month was dedicated to horror movies. This month, it's ISHTAR. Yes, ISHTAR, that universally loathed film from 1987 starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty.

Guess what? It's not such a terrible film. In fact, it's a very good film. Matt Farley and Tom Scalzo have watched it dozens of times. And they love it.

Farley and Scalzo have even admitted to seeing many similarities between themselves and the two main characters in this film. So they spent the month of November writing songs, all the while imagining that they were Rogers and Clarke.

What came of it?

Just the most fun, upbeat, hilariously earnest album Moes Haven has ever put out.

"It was so freeing," says Farley. "In that movie, you watch these guys fearlessly writing songs. They have no doubt in their minds that every idea they come up with is a good one. Scalzo and I are like that to a point. But this month we took it as far as we could go. No idea was deemed too stupid. We went with it."

Thanks to that work ethic, the world is graced with songs like "Forest of Love," "Leftover Love," "Let Me Tell You 'bout a Girl I Met" and "The Girl Next Door," to name four of the 24 tracks on this disc.

The entire album is only 30-minutes long. And yet there are 24 songs! Each song flies by, melding perfectly into the next.

It's very much like the first 20-minutes of ISHTAR. If you haven't seen it, rent it today. Those first 20-minutes are as good as any 20-minute section of any film, ever! In it, the audience is blessed with little snippets of the Rogers and Clarke songbook. It's glorious! So glorious!

NOVEMBER THE TAR! A COLLECTION OF SONGS WRITTEN IN THE TRADITION OF THE COMPOSITIONS OF ROGERS AND CLARKE...does justice to ISHTAR and will hopefully have some small part in making it known to the world that ISHTAR is a movie worthy of celebration, not mockery!

For the record, here is the entire, unedited title of the album:
NOVEMBER: THE TAR! A COLLECTION OF SONGS WRITTEN IN THE TRADITION OF THE COMPOSITIONS OF ROGERS AND CLARKE, AS PORTRAYED BY WARREN BEATTY AND DUSTIN HOFFMAN IN THE 1987 FEATURE FILM, ISHTAR, A MUCH MALIGNED PRODUCTION CENTERED ON THE METEORIC RISE OF AN ILL-RECEIVED SINGER/SONGWRITER DUO, WHICH IN NO WAY DESERVED THE ALMOST UNIVERSAL DISPARAGEMENT IT RECEIVED FROM CRITICS WHO FOCUSED DISPROPORTIONATELY UPON THE PICTURE'S LAVISH BUDGET INSTEAD OF ITS GROUNDBREAKING HUMOR AND RIBALD SOCIAL COMMENTARY, WHICH IS ONLY NOW, SOME TWO DECADES LATER, FINALLY BEING RECOGNIZED BY A SELCT FEW RESPECTED SCHOLARS AND ERUDITE THEOLOGIANS