Cucumber Stretch
On Valentine’s Day, Deena Shoshkes and Jon Fried of The Cucumbers will release a book (Hello George) with music (As You Heard Me). The longtime Hoboken favorites found their first flush of love and art while busking in early ‘80s Paris and Rome. Singing in the streets for chump change might’ve inspired them in the ways of the “chapbook,” which, historically, is a European booklet sold by street peddlers (“chapmen”), be it political tract, folklore, poetry or any kind of experimental writing.
Hello George, by Jon, tells the tale of a publisher in search of a composer. “The frustrations of life in and around the 1990s music business leads us on a search for what’s real, what’s imagined and, most importantly, what we hear and how we are heard,” according to the Cuke Camp. Littered with references to songs in the story as the publisher searches for the songwriter, it’s those same songs (plus more) that Deena has given birth to.
When Jon heard Deena’s co-write (with Vaughan Daniel) of a tune called “There’s A Crop Circle On My Daddy’s Land,” his mind went into overdrive and he concocted a story of a fictional character, George Knott, a country singer whose career is in serious decline. He’s fading and he knows it. Then “a young man stumbling through adulthood and the music industry” brings him a song by a mysterious woman named Daisy.
The dual works will be available in multiple formats: an e-book, pdf, cassette, CD, download or digital stream.