From all us Turtles, wishing you a healthy and happy 2010. Party on.

Given the type and style of music we write, our band Beatnik Turtle is often categorized with the label “Geek Rock”. Depending on what song of ours they’re listening to, we’re often compared to “other Geek Rock bands” like They Might Be Giants, Fountains of Wayne, XTC, Weezer, Ben Folds Five, and Barenaked Ladies or solo artists like our contemporary, Jonathan Coulton.*

But just grouping us with other “geeky bands” that we may sound-like, while extremely helpful in setting potential new fan expectations, doesn’t make a good definition of Geek Rock.

To me, Geek Rock is not so much about the music or even the personalities of the artists themselves (though yes, that does spill over into the music), rather it’s about the subject matter that’s tackled. It’s the fascination with focusing on “geeky” things — placing that interest unapologetically front and center to the music.

So, while I can’t come up with a good definition, the way I’ve been describing Geek Rock in person when asked by people is: if Rock equals “Maybe I’m Amazed” (Paul McCartney) then, Geek Rock equals Maybe “I’m Downright Amazed at What I Can Destroy With Just a Hammer” (a very cool tune by Atom and His Package).

ROCK = MAYBE I’M AMAZED

Vs.

GEEK ROCK = (MAYBE) I'M AMAZED AT WHAT I CAN DESTROY WITH JUST A HAMMER

In other words, it's not so much about the music wrapping, Geek Rock bands can cross all types of music styles -- rock, country, folk, jazz, alternative, grunge, etc. -- so much as the topic that's being sung about.

And that's where our band comes in. We're obsessed with writing songs about things that haven't been put to song. We write songs about Google, IT departments, cereal, pizza, warp gates sucking in kids, blogging, secret agents, Star Wars, interns, obsessive compulsive children, and porn on your computer.

And while we sometimes take the subject matter with tongue-firmly-in-cheek, we always take the music part of the songs extremely seriously -- from melody, to harmony, to recording, to mastering (just download and listen to Pizza: The Rock Opera if you've never heard us before).

Of course, music genres are slippery, amorphous things. Just when you think Beatnik Turtle is completely Geek Rock, we go and record SHAM ROCK, an album of rocked up traditional Irish songs (i.e. Tell Me Ma). Now how does this fit in with Geek Rock?

Uh, I don't know. We just do what we do. Guess we'll have to leave it up to others as to how to categorize that one!

*The interesting thing here however is I remember when most of these bands came out, they weren't labeled "Geek Rock". This is a retroactive term that's been applied to try and capture this hard-to-pin-down genre. This is true for our band well. We started over 12 years ago and the word geek and rock were rarely uttered in the same breath when we took the stage. We were labeled "alternative" (or better yet, "weird") since we had no hope or interest in being mainstream.

Every year around this time our “Un-Holiday” album, SANTA DOESN’T LIKE YOU, respawns, er, gets reborn. (Jesus was the world’s first respawner, no?). And it’s that album as well as all the Un-Holiday songs freely available at TheSongOfTheDay.com that put our entire band in the awkward position of passing on Season’s Greetings.

“How can you say Merry Christmas to me when you have a song called Christmas is a Vulture?” they say.

Um, it’s satire?

“And what’s this about Santa not speaking Spanish? Do you play that to kids?”

Oh, that one. We just thought it would be funny if Santa couldn’t speak Spanish. You know, “Santa” is a Spanish word anyway and –.

“Whatever, jerk.”

So, just in case you’re not that person and won’t hold it against us, “Happy Holidays” anyway — no matter what you celebrate (or don’t).

Today’s the day and we’re starting to record because there’s no time to lose.

We’ve got some song ideas, lyrics, and demos. We’ve got the studio fired up. And, we’ve got a plan o’ attack.

Now the hard part: concepting the album.

Our first RPM album was recorded during our TheSongOfTheDay.com project and ended up being about work and technology. Last year we decided to reinvent traditional Irish songs (and crankthem to “11″).

This year we decided to try our hand at creating a kid’s album, Beatnik Turtle style.

Basically, what the “Beatnik Turtle style” thing means is we’ll be writing songs that we normally write, but just drawing on our own memories of being a kid. In other words, this won’t be about learning ABC’s or 123’s, but rather songs about bullies, going to school, and asking repeatedly, “are we there yet?”

We’re seeing the album as a sort of “day in the life” of a kid. We’ve got a song called “Get Up & Outta Bed” and a reprise envisioned called “Go To Bed” which could bookend the album. In fact, we put the call out for clock sound effects and alarms cuz we think that might be the best way to start the album. Sort of like a Dark Side of The Moon album but, you know, for kids! (If you got any clock/alarms you can record, please contact us at our collaboration site!)

So, as of Feb 1, all the pieces are in place. We’ll see how many are still standing come March 1…

You’re invited to collaborate with us.

It’s easy.

Subscribe to our latest podcast: all our demos and songs-in-progress will be released as we make them via our “Songs Under Construction ‘Kast” .

Don’t forget to check our Studio Webcams.

And, most importantly, join us as we work, write lyrics, and manage the entire project out in the open at our Facebook collaboration page.

The World-Famous Lawn Rangers marched in Barack Obama’s Inaugural parade. This is cool to us, since I’m a member and we wrote a song about it.

Here’s a photo starring Barack.

And, here’s Dave Barry’s explanation of what we Lawn Rangers are all about.

Mow-bam-A! Mow-bam-A!’