Happy Mayfield is a collaboration between folk singer-songwriter Lee Bob Watson and his former student, Derek Taylor's San Francisco based band, The Park (also including Josh Lippi and Ben Schwier).
On Friday, they released their first project together entitled the "Happy EP," which fuses Watson's jazzy-folk background with The Park's younger funk-infused soulful sound.
The whole feel is very honest and playful with tracks such as "Born Again Track Star." Or as Taylor calls it: "positive, uplifting, feel good, sweat on the dance floor, cut a rug, make you shrug, and maybe do the jitterbug straight CRIT MUSIC."
And to keep the edge going, Happy Mayfield is releasing 50 limited edition USB tapes of their album as a collector's item. That's right.
These 512MB USB drives come in the shape of old-school cassette tapes, and leave plenty of room for extra storage of your files while you tote around your Happy EP completely steezed out.
A little "analogue nostaligia for the digital age," as Happy Mayfield puts it. When asked about the inspiration for the idea, group member Derek Taylor commented that he had first seen the USB tape concept implemented for Mark Farina's Mushroom Jazz 6 album, finding it "sooper hot."
Taylor also noted that he read a post on Okayplayer in early 2008 talking about Erykah Badu contemplating an album release on a USB stick, which planted the initial seed.
The company who makes the tapes is called FiHi and Urban Outfitters has already begun selling similar contraptions.
The Happy EP tapes, which will also include links for demos and video downloads, can be found exclusively at Happy Mayfield shows.
