The Streets Are For Keeps - the first Francis Friday album

click HERE to get to Francis Friday's "Streets Are For Keeps" bandcamp page!

The Streets Are For Keeps is my first solo album after the break up of Nerve Generator. For those who don't know, Nerve Generator was a band I was in for 8 years (!) that finally came to an end in 2004. The Streets represents a good cross section of the types of songs I was writing that weren't making it onto the Nerve Generator albums. Most of the music has a relaxed, care-free nature to it, usually accented with a bit of humor. The songs came naturally to me and I went through a prolific period in the early half of '05, recording either quietly in my apartment or bashing the drums in the hourly-rate studio down the street.

I played most of the instruments myself, but got a little help from my friends on certain parts. In fact, bringing in special guests was part of the fun and helped to diversify the sound a bit. Thank you to Matt Carlin, Rob Markoff, Jon Cole, Dave Rozner and Pete Tunney for contributing. A few of the songs were already recorded by the time I decided to put out a solo album, but the majority I wrote during the winter and spring of '05. I used a combination of cassette 8-track (Tascam) and Pro Tools, using little outboard gear (like the lexicon reverb) and only a few choice plug-ins (mostly for limiting and compression).

The artwork was silkscreen on recycled kraft paper. I'd never silkscreened anything before but I knew it was the look I was going for (thanks to John Mathias for inspiration). Luckily I got a lot of help from Chad Silver, silkscreener-extraordinare and the process was mercifully painless.

I knew I didn't want to use my real name for the project. I like it when solo artists use an alternate moniker for their performances (Cat Power, Bonnie Prince Billie, Smog, etc). So I came up with a bunch of ideas and emailed them to a few friends for input. At the time I was about to go on a trip to France and stated at the end of the email, "send your ideas soon because I leave for France on Friday." That's when Brett Burton sarcastically quipped, "why don't you just call yourself France Friday?" And so Francis Friday was born.

Here's the tracklist:

1) Subway Girl (world)
2) Downtown Radio
3) Break the News
4) Lax n' Loud
5) The Most Disturbing Kind of Love
6) Honest Way
7) Architects Unite
8) Everybody's Got a Little Secret
9) It's the Only Way to Be
10) No More Summer
11) Wasting the Years
12) Some Roommates
13) The Right Time
14) Way to go Charlie
15) Torn Cup
16) You've Gone Insane

The entire album is available for free. Download the zip file below.

Or if you want the CD and packaging, just email me at jameshbotha@gmail.com and I'll send you one for free. Or, if you have an album (or anything else interesting), maybe we can trade.

***This is going to be the first of many free downloads I will post on this site. I've got a few hundred songs collecting dust under my bed and this was the catalyst for starting this blog in the first place.