TEMPSGIVING: WE'RE THANKFUL - Thanksgiving album recorded in 2009 by Neill Prewitt and Tim Inman on lunch breaks from their temp job.
We met by chance at a temp job in Raleigh just before Thanksgiving of 2008. The company piped muzak into every room of the building, and we got to know each other by discussing and critiquing the selection and singing along now and then. After a day of suffering through Christmas muzak in November we decided that the world needed Thanksgiving songs. For the next few days we passed notes back and forth, coming up with song ideas and choruses. Thanksgiving came too quickly that year, but we agreed that another one couldn't pass without our album. Seven months later Neill pulled the notes back out. The only time we both had free was our 1 hour lunch break, so during lunch we drove 15 minutes each way to Neill's house to record for 25 minutes. Two musicians with zero shared musical history, we came into Neill's studio and just pressed "record." That first day we improvised "We're Thankful Intro" and "Turkey vs. Ham Superjam." That was more than enough to keep us coming back to record during most lunch breaks over the next three months. We tried laboring over the songs, but it seemed we could rarely capture the energy of our first take in later ones, and we always ran out of time. So we just kept improvising. The large majority of these tracks are improvised; most are first takes. Neill made the beats and triggered the synth; Tim played the guitar and keys; we both sang. We recorded 24 songs in all. As the project was coming to a close Neill quit and Tim was promoted to become a permanent employee.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Tim Inman and Neill Prewitt
Stream tracks below or download the entire album at higher quality here.
Illustration by Tim Inman
01. We're Thankful Intro
02. Thanksgiving At Denny's
03. A Little Personal Tyme
04. The Turkey Waddle
05. Turkey Vs. Ham SuperJam
06. The Turkeydactyl
07. Ham Jam
08. Almost Thanksgiving
09. Turkey Lurkey
10. I'm A Temp
11. Snood It Up
12. Granddad's Blessing
13. Tryptophan Blues
14. Black Friday
15. Closed for Thanksgiving
16. Snoooood It Up!
17. Everybody Snood
18. Layer of Care
19. Turkey Train
20. Tryptophan In Ya
21. We're Thankful Outro