Showing posts with label on tape. Show all posts
Showing posts with label on tape. Show all posts

Twin Boyfriend split with Couch Serf

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In 2014 I devised a separate solo project of Darkwave music, called Prime Breeding Material. The name doesn't ring off the tongue, but I digress. The idea was to play cello and sing along to sequenced electronic music in a non-interactive performance, playing songs that people might want to dance to in an especially goth fashion. I played one show in which I used a keyboard instead of cello, which was to come later. And as it turns out, I couldn't figure out the posture to play cello and sing at the same time, finding notes with the two instruments at the same time. So I sat on the songs and used a couple of them for the PJ Baby tour cd. As I'm trying to get most of my unreleased music out, I decided to use this set of songs for a split.

Couch Serf is a project of my friend J.B. from the Kansas City area, an outlier among my old friends who has continued to stretch his creativity and release new music. So I'm happy to have finally gotten a split together with him, and his quirky, new-wavey songs. Instead of playing cello or live keyboard on my songs, I decided to go with electric guitar so I could perhaps do a couple sexy solos. For this fake band, I chose the name Twin Boyfriend. Inspired my by romantic partner's twin sister, who is goth, I imagined what my own goth twin would be like and whether or not this is the music he'd make. I imagine the guitars and vocals would be more washed out, with less overall melody. Maybe I'll do that next time.

Deepest Cuts by Super Famicom

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Among hours of unreleased songs, I'd been sitting on these a few years before getting them properly recorded and released. I didn't see the point in releasing music if, for each release, less people were going to listen to it. Still I found myself recording and releasing songs with other people, and it didn't make sense for me to focus on that instead of sharing work that's all my own. And I don't have a label guy trying to make his money back on this release. And I don't have bandmates floating around town, boasting about what to them might be a rare accomplishment. For me it's another album, another step ahead, easier to make than it is to share. And it hurts that for all my dedication, my music career hasn't gotten much further from where it started. But what am I supposed to do? I'm great getting songs written and recorded, and I would consider it a disservice to my art to focus instead on marketing, daring only to release what might improve mass appeal. Even I'm guilty of hiding in my ego, but I'll try to cut it away for any who might be inspired. It's not my job to please or impress anyone.

So this album is called Deepest Cuts. Most of the instrumentation was recorded in 2019. The vocals were redone several times, but finalized in the fall of 2021. As you might know, I have a lot of frustration with my singing abilities, as if I have no right to sing if I can't hit perfect notes. So I tried harder than ever to make it listenable for you. There are two made-up genres of music on this album. One is NWOFNW, which is the New Wave of Florida New Wave, but there was never a first wave of Florida New Wave. The other made up genre is Fantasy Folk Wave, which is kind of like 70s progressive folk rock, but more new age and pop-oriented. Fitting the two sounds together, I think this album has a truly unique feel. And with whatever attention you give these tracks, I promise I've tried to take every opportunity to express myself and make the most of your time. And It won't be so long until my next Super Famicom album. I still have a lot of unreleased stuff. Thanks.

Garrett Oliver split with The Stone Wings

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I had a lot of fun doing the fake band of Menards, while sitting on a stack of fake band ideas. One of those fake bands turned out to be The Stone Wings, playing romantic songs with acoustic guitar, the way I used to with Super Famicom, back when I had a lot of fans. A lot of those old fans are parents now, so I thought I'd make some music for them, and perhaps see if they'd be into it. I've always been a fan of Garrett's music, having engineered his two solo albums from 2009 and 2011. That was a long time ago, and I was really excited to hear he was working on some new stuff, but a new album was a lot to tackle. So it made perfect sense for us to do this split. I hope you love it!

Grind by Civilized Worm

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It took almost no time for Civilized Worm to to put together enough new material for a new tape, and I got to write the music for three of these new jams. Our last release was recorded live in my basement, but we did this one in separate sessions, with the drums tracked first. It sounds pretty heavy. We decided not to release it until the band started playing shows again. If I'd known the pandemic was happening, I would have spent a lot more time getting my drums perfect. Either way, I think this tape shows a great progression for the band.

Menards split with Noah Eagle

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Sometimes I wonder about having a solo project that uses a wide variety of styles. Like, most popular bands only make one specific style of song, and once they have a hit, their sound becomes more specifically focused on the sound of their hit. And before long, all of their songs sound almost exactly the same. With Super Famicom I never did that, which was probably not a very smart career move. In 2020, Noah Eagle asked me to do a split with him, and I said yes. It was always in my plans to start a punk band that played punk for grown-ups. It was going to be called Menards. Instead of playing grown-up punk, Menards ended up playing true midwestern emo. I made up fictional people who are supposedly in the band, playing 2nd guitar, drums, and bass. It makes me seem cooler, having access to a set of musicians with my exact skill level, playing exactly how I would like them to.

Balrogs by Super Famicom

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In 2018, I had been sitting on a lot of songs for a long time, and I wanted to record them really well. A very daunting prospect, considering the lack of external encouragement I felt I'd been receiving to record new music. So instead of recording old, smart songs, I decided to write a bunch of new stuff without putting much thought into it. Often a piece of work isn't improved by puttig extra time and thought into it. Balrogs turned out to be, possibly, by my best-sounding Super Famicom album thusfar, and the playing on it's fairly tight, considering how it was very much thrown together. It was finished in 2019, but I had some complications with getting it released on tape. I didn't want to release it myself, because I wanted to have some form of extra help in promoting my release, and getting it heard. Also, I was hoping to collect a little more external encouragement for recording my next album. That didn't work out, so I released the tape myself.

3 Shirt Agenda by Civilized Worm

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In 2018, Porunga was slated to be without a vocalist and on a haitus from doing shows, and I couldn't very well be on a haitus from playing shows. My friend Danny McKinley was a fan of Porunga and said we inspired him to play guitar in his own heavy project, and I offered to play drums, and we got Mitch Duncan to play bass. I had a lot of band name ideas for this group, like The Schwartz and The Gods of Jesus. For a while, we were going to be called Ranglefant, but settled on Civilized Worm. We are to The Melvins what Hatebreed are to The Misfits, maybe not. However, I would call this music sludge. These 8 songs were recorded in my basement in 2019.

Self-Titled by Porunga

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In 2016 I was asked to play drums in a doom metal project with my friends Tommy and Jeremy. In 2017 we played a few shows and I did some vocals. In 2018, we got our friend Liv to do vocals, and we recorded this tape in my basement. It got a lot of good reviews, comparing us to great bands like Cirith Ungol, Candlemass, and Mercyful Fate. Since then, we've gotten our friend Anna to replace Liv on vocals, and once the world normalizes a bit more, we're going to get our next tape recorded.

Heart in Squalor by Glatisant

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I recorded this in 2018 at my house in Bloomington. It's my 2nd solo black metal album. On Metal Archives they call it an ep, but this tape is nearly 40 minutes long. I packaged the tapes in kraft paper boxes, but I might switch them over to plastic. Diamond Famicom isn't a very metal name, so I ditched it in favor of Glatisant. It must be a lucky name, because the European label, Depressive Illusions Records, put out their own version of this tape.

Getting Colder by Thunderhoof

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This is the 2nd album I made with Thunderhoof, and I think turned out better than the first one. Once again, it was recorded in my storage unit, and has that 'recorded in a storage unit' sound. The songs on this one are even darker and more aggressive than on By the Flames. For this tape, we sprung for the professionally printed j-cards with the jewel cases. The coloring on my old computer monitor was pretty bad, and you can tell because of the color difference between the paper and the background on the album cover. So it may not look as pro as you might expect from a band like Thunderhoof, but that's okay. Often the pros are boring. The drawing on the cover was done by Brittany Drennan, and I think it looks awesome. Definitely worth purchasing!

The Titular Tape by Dildozer

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In 2013 I was still setting up punk shows, and needed a punk band to play those shows. So I started Dildozer with Westley and Treymon. The idea was to, while acknowledging the rules of political correctness, proceed to make the meanest, nastiest, snottiest pop punk music. I wanted to make music like Carcass, but pop punk. The thing about political correctness is that, the rules of being correct are always changing. So I doubt all of these songs are very p.c. anymore. By the time you read this, it might in fact be very wrong to shame people for breaking their phones or using good hygene. Oh well. These tapes were duplicated and imprinted professionally, and packaged in sleeves I printed at home.

Stone Wings OST by Super Famicom

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Released in 2013, this was a pretty fun tape to make. It's a collection of mostly instrumentals to provide background music for my first completed computer game, Stone Wings. The game is playable, but I wouldn't recommend it. However, I think the soundtrack is worth hearing. I used a yamaha 4-track to, for the first time, record my drums with 3 microphones. The guitars and bass were recorded into my computer, through a boss gt-50 pedal. There are also some keyboards and flute things. The tape was dubbed at home, onto some tapes I think I found somewhere. They sound fine. The O-Cards were printed with my Brother lazer jet, in the cheapest (punkest) way possible.

Endless Fervor by Super Famicom

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With the sadness of Punishing the Faithful behind me, I moved back to Saint Augustine and played the most prestigious show of my career, 2012's plan-it-x fest. In my own life, for the first time, I was able to make the money I needed to buy better gear. I was feeling very positive about the world, and my life in it. With my first drum kit in tow, I recorded this tape, meant to save the world with radical punk idealism. Written and recorded in 2012, this tape was released in 2013 on my friend Chris Eugene's tape label, Ghost Friend Records. I don't know if it's still a thing or not.

10 Movements by Diamond Famicom

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Released in 2012, I recorded these songs in my parents' basement in Jacksonville, IL. It's my first solo black metal album. Not all the lyrics are about metal things, like they probably should have been. Instead most were about punk things, and doing the punk thing. I hope it sounds nasty and punk enough for you.

Perilous by Super Famicom

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Following 2008's Wandering Floret Octology, it seemed prudent to make an especially great album, especially since I didn't have any deadlines. I could have spent the entire year doing nothing but writing my album, which is what I picture people doing when they say they spent an entire year on their album. It's not like they were going to work, or forming relationships. I, for one, had moved onto my back porch because the back porch so someone could rent my bedroom, then everyone at the house (especially me) could live more cheaply and more punkly. Musically, the Perilous album isn't much of a departure from what I was doing on the Wandering Florets. I got ghosted by the label that was supopsed to put out the cd... ghosted over a cd-r. Either way, I released it myself and then made some tapes.

China Buffet Dollar Tree by Super Famicom

Stream it - YouTube Download it - Nextcloud Here is yet another album from Super Famicom, my solo project since the year 2002. As ...