My Dinner With Crumar

The Exbats

September 11, 2026

Rock / Grunge / Pop

Recorded by Caufield Schnug (Sweeping Promises) in Lawrence, Kansas over a span of four visits between Summer Break '24 and Spring Break '26. Album Art Design by Inez. Not transitional. An arrival. Fully formed expressions of modern concerns. Killer sounds. Typically Exbatian badish-attitudes, and we love it! So as it happens, A couple years back we were scratching our heads and casting about for a new place to record. Having found huge personal inspiration in the sound and people of a band we had come across playing around America; Sweeping Promises, we thought...maybe? We ended up playing a second show with them and asked Caufield if he would be into recording us and he said "yes" (what a great word!) So we did. We packed our bags and some new songs and went up to Lawrence, Kansas from Bisbee, Arizona for a few trips and these super cool new friends generously listened to us and our ideas, shared some time and space, and out popped "My Dinner With Crumar" and that's what we have here. More songs! It feels like what Inez and I started 16 (impossible !!!) years ago is just entering a middle phase. It just keeps getting funner and weirder and bigger. We are all so grateful to get to meet new people and share our particular way of dealing with life and creative pursuits. It's a hoot. Bands can be a real balancing act, but for us it's worth it as long as we just get to be ourselves and keep trying to hear ourselves in an imaginary world where songs change things and can transport us to places where we are free to dream, recollect and feel new. Getting to have, no matter how transitory, the chance to connect with people is the greatest feeling and what better way to find these moments then through songs. We are so grateful life has led us to this wild pursuit! Anyway, enough of that. The Crumar Orchastrator is a mid-seventies Italian String Synth we discovered in the big drum room when we showed up to record. We all instantly felt like it perfectly fit our mood. I'm pretty sure its on 11 of these 12 songs. We ended up getting one for home and that is the one on the cover. We also discovered the Moog Grandmother and Lira was a great help with that. An old Oberheim DMX makes a few appearances. Caufield and Lira were patient enough to help us include the Pulsar 23 which is beyond us but we loved the sound, so it shows up a couple times. The cool lead guitars and some great vibes came from Spencer. And also one of mine and Inez' oldest friend made it to two of the four trips to supply his awesome ears and hands; Loren Barr. Great company all around. I kinda thought Caufield was the producer on this but he suggested it was actually Dale and I agree, but I still have to include myself as producer also, because I'm sitting here writing this! LOLOL. At the time of this release The Exbats are: Inez McLain / vocals Kenny McLain / guitars and stuff Bobby Carlson Jr. / bass Dale Miller / drums and stuff Little Nicky / keyboards Gabriel Liebeskind / guitar We are based in Bisbee, Arizona. We write songs. Many of us our teachers. Most of us have dogs. Our live shows are always fun and funny and usually pretty much out of control. You should come visit us. We're having a decent time out in the desert maintaining our sanity trying to be good contributing members of society. If you would like to contact us, go for it! We would love to hear from you. [email protected] is way better then trying instagram, fb, or messenger we almost never check those sort of things, we don't log into the fb and tbh I (kenny) get the ig notifications and they fuken confuse me. Just email or send a message through bandcamp/ but we would love to hear from you! I hope we get to rock with you, down the road, wherever you may be <3 -Kenny McLain (and Inez, but I end up having to do all the writing of notes like this so...)