It doesn’t happen too often –actually, it’s never happened before– that I hear the name of a Fred/Alan alumnus on the radio...

“Smerconish called an old friend from Holicong Junior High School, Chris Strand...” philly.com, July 9, 2020

...but it’s a great feeling to know that former colleagues continue to do well. Chris Strand was a television producer working for the Fred/Alan and Chauncey Street production head Albie Hecht (who went on to great things himself). I always had the feeling –probably wrong headed– that Chris wondered what he was doing with such a group of lunatics. But, I’m probably giving us too much credit.

Chris at Fred/Alan, 1987.

Chris could always be counted on to do a fantastic job, getting the productions on track, no matter what any of us did to derail them. It’s no wonder he went on to a prolific and successful television career. Something that I found out today on Michael Smerconish’s SirusXM radio show, it was something Chris and Smerconish had dreamed about since junior high school. Yay!

Chris Strand releases 2nd full-length "Settle Down", sets release show for March 6

Stream lead single "I Would Sell My Lungs":  https://soundcloud.com/axisproductions/i-would-sell-my-lungs

Chris Strand is heartbroken, road weary, and overflowing with lessons and experience from a life full-lived. If his first EP, "Roots" was about his debaucherous youth, "Settle Down" is about looking back and trying to make sense of it all. What did those misled years mean? What should he do now? "Settle Down" is a meditation on what it means to exist, what it feels like to simply be in this world. A confident lyricist, Strand's recent collection of songs find themselves straddling the gap between alt-folk and alt-country, as if he brought his boots to the show, but left his spurs at home. "Settle Down" would file neatly between Ryan Adams, Nick Drake, David Bazan, and Slaid Cleaves.  Produced by Jesse Ebaugh (Heartless Bastards), Rich Brotherton (Robert Earl Keen), Lloyd Maines, Brendon Anthony (Pat Green), Tiger Anaya and Mark Davis (The Gourds and Shinyribs), Strand's Settle Down is a confident sophomore release. Of his previous album, the acoustically-driven "Roots", The Equal Ground said: "Chris Strand, currently creating lonely highway music out of Austin, TX, has crafted a meditative, at times emotive, and above all worthwhile collection of acoustic songs that touch upon a little bit of everything."   Strand carries that torch into "Settle Down". Enumerating on the vessel of emotion that is a lonely man and his guitar, his writing traverses the expanses of the bittersweet, the nostalgic, the heart-broken, the world-weary, and misguided youth.  The release show for "Settle Down" will be held on March 6th at the Spider House Ballroom along with Sons of Santos and Mini Pony. Get details for the show here. Find the event on Facebook!

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/chrisstrandmusic

Twitter - http://twitter.com/shortstackchris

Bandcamp - http://chrisstrand.bandcamp.com

Soundcloud - http://soundcloud.com/chrisstrand

Country Drive by Kenna Mae Reiss & Chris Strand