Make History with The Red Tack – Last Call for Wicked Kickbacks!

If you hurry, you can be a part of music history by donating to helping a local heavyweight to finish recording his next record! The Red Tack, AKA Ted Thacker, is deep in the throes of recording his next masterpiece, “Judy,” and pressing it to vinyl (and, of course, all other formats. And today – or for the next (approximately) 36-ish hours anyway – is your chance to be a part of the magic. Just jump over to The Red Tack’s Indiegogo page and donate what you can to make this next record a reality.

Come back here to read more about why. Here’s a little video to help inspire you:

Ted Thacker is no less than a wizard on a guitar, with a voice that’s alternately steely and smooth or raucous and frantic, and songwriting skills of which any of the denizens on Billboard (or pretty much any musical listing) are deeply envious – just ask local heroes DeVotchKa. And he’s all ours, and has been for some time.

Ted Thacker is The Red Tack

The new record promises to be another great one, with Thacker’s talent combining with the energy of such a strong community in Denver and Boulder (Thacker’s home base), and collaboration from many artists. Thacker has this to say about the record:

Ex-Baldo Rex drummers John Call and Dave Willey, two of Colorado’s best drummers and musicians, have both joined me in the studio to create some real magic on a handful of songs. John plays his thundering rhythms on the anthemic Satellites, and Dave adds his rhythmic ballet to two brand new songs that I’ve never even played live yet.

I also have the local legendary drum wizard, Jeffrey Mince, once Nina Hagen‘s tour drummer, playing on some of the album’s coolest songs. I have a new addition to my band, Billy Pigati, a force majeure of songwriting prowess himself, he came just in the nick of time, and we will record two of the albums hits to be. There is also a blazing trumpet solo by longtime boulder musician extraordinaire, Grant Rieder on the title track. You’ll have to wait to hear that one!

– Ted Thacker, The Red Tack himself

And on the cover art, created by Denver’s own Karl Christian Krumpholz:

I have also enlisted the impeccable talents of Denver’s beloved illustrator Karl Christian Krumpholz. His art can be seen all over Denver, on Colfax avenue street signs and every week in the Westword. He has done the cover for ‘Judy’, and we will be printing a very limited number of signed copies of the original. 

Whether you’ve been around the Denver scene for a while, or you’re just beginning to realize how deeply influential this city has always been, and continues to be, to music worldwide, you probably know about the ubiquitous force of nature that is Ted Thacker. I discovered Thacker as a young twenty-something in the early ’90s.

Back then, he and cohorts John Call (a thundering giant who himself is almost as large as his drumming prowess), Dave Willey, and others ripped their own swath in Denver and music history with the late great Baldo Rex. Many will back me up in saying the band’s group on Facebook isn’t inaccurate in its description: “The greatest underground band of all time.” It’s no surprise that both Call and Willey are collaborating with Thacker for the new release.

With the band he led before The Red Tack, Veronica, Thacker re-established his storytelling balladry with a band that thundered through the local scene with the unforgettable “Emerging From Troubled Days,” an anthemic American Post-Punk must-have. He followed up Veronica with The Red Tack, his current solo act, recording the masterful “(K)Night of the Sorrowful Face” with funding from another Indiegogo campaign. The first one worked out so well, he’s decided to do another.

So go, now – run, don’t walk – to The Red Tack’s Indiegogo campaign for the next record, “Judy,” and take advantage of all the perk packages before they disappear. You want to be part of this music moment. Trust me.