Comment

Comment by Chris Reed on December 24, 2025 at 12:05am

My love letter to the City of Frankfurt am Main, Ausstellungshaus is just the German word for Meeting Hall, but the song and video turned out to be much more than that. I actually created a chart for this one with a melody and chord changes, and the song is extracted from about 2 hours of playing together with the band. I edited it down to what we have here, with some unusual instruments for this genre of music. It's some of the best jazz/rock I think we've ever done.

The main melody isn't played on guitar - at least not at first. The instrument is called a Whammy Bar Clavinet, which we ran through an amplifier. Google it to see what one looks like - I had never played one before and it was a trip. It was just sitting there in the studio we had rented and I wanted to try it out. Once I got used to playing it I realized that it could sound great through a Marshall amp. So I played just that and the piano part that comes in at about the middle of the song. The guyzos played the rest.

And can I talk a second about Kyousuke's drums here? He was using a borrowed kit for the whole session, and he insisted on mic-ing the kit himself. I'm not sure it would have that huge sound otherwise.

Now then, the video. This is the work of fivver Thushank (@thushankalana). I gave him very little direction on what to put together here and somehow he put the vision of the song together better than I explained it. I'm a firm believer in giving video creators a free hand in creating videos for me and to say that I'm pleased just doesn't do it justice. This is a love letter to Frankfurt am Main, and boy did he pull that off and then some. I am very proud of this work, and if you need a video you should consider hiring him for it.

This song is from the album "Frankfurt am Main" which will be out wherever you get your music on January 5, 2026.

Credits for this track:

Chris: Whammy bar Clavinet, Piano

Jim: Banjo, Guitar

Lee: Organ, Synthesizers, Electric Piano

Jason: Bass

Kyousuke: Big-ass sounding drums

Music © 2025 James Christopher Reed, BMI. All Rights Reserved. Recorded at Padlock Studios, Frankfurt am Main. Edited, Embellished and Produced at Edge of the World Studios, San Francisco. The title of the piece comes from a metal art installation outside Historisches Museum Frankfurt at The Römerberg, an old-fashioned town square I could spend all of my days at. I expect you'll see me there a couple of decades from now, enjoying tea in the morning and beer in the evening. Or maybe vice versa.