I am pleased to announce that the debut album ‘New Hope’ from Chris Bates’ Red 5 is available worldwide today, Tuesday Sept 18th! If you are living in the Minneapolis / St Paul area you can pick up your very own copy at all the Electric Fetus and Cheapo locations. You can also go to Amazon or itunes for downloads! Incidentally, the album is available throughout the world through the amazing music distribution services at Tunecore – I highly recommend them to all independent artists seeking music distribution.

I need to say a very, very special thank you to all the people who came to the Cd release weekend at the Artists Quarter.  The band played great. I am so lucky to have these amazing musicians bringing their voices to my music. It meant so much to see so many people supporting this new adventure! I have a bunch of video and audio to sort through from the shows and I’ll try to post some things from the road.

Hey, what? Yeah, I’m going out on tour with Todd Clouser from Sept 19th -30th.   Tour details

I get home from Todd’s tour on Sept 30th and I’m looking at back to back weekends at the Artists Quarter.

Oct 5th and 6th I’m playing with the brilliant percussionist Babatunde Lea in a new quartet feat. Babatunde on drums and percussion, Zacc Harris on guitar wizardry, myself on bass and the highly inventive Richard Johnson on piano.

On Oct 12th and 13th I’ll be playing bass with the genius Bill Carrothers on piano and the intense and mind boggling drummer Ari Hoenig! Needless to say I’m excited to play with these guys and bring you all some really beautiful and collaborative music for you to enjoy!

Playing with all of these amazing musicians is very fulfilling but hard work.

I have to go practice!

Viva la musica!

cb