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!

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.

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.

Super Famicom split with Noah Eagle

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In the summer of 2011, Noah and I had been housemates for a year. He's one of my best pals, and I've always intended to support his musical endeavors. I don't know whose idea it was to do a split, but I was down. In fact, I needed to be doing more splits. At the time I was doing a lot of loud singing and loud screaming, and felt like I had a strong voice. Half my tracks on this are serious, and done with acoustic guitar. The others are weird and heavy, including a powerviolence song about my friend Garrett Oliver getting his drivers license. Justine did the cover art.

The Bottom by Super Famicom

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This is Super Famicom's punk album, and I was sick of everyone's crap. I 2011, I'd been living on the bottom for a good four years. I wrote some songs that I thought were funny, at the expense of a world I didn't like. It seemed like a lot of punks liked this album, and thought it was cool. It felt pretty neat while it lasted. You may have noticed how this album has two covers, one is on the far right of the above image. I don't know why I haven't used two covers for an album in the future, since I thought it was pretty cool, to do one just as a Fuck You to whomever isn't punk enough for me.

Stiff Bindles Demo

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This is a weird cd I played on. Stiff Bindles was my favorite local band, and their members were my best friends. In 2010, they went on tour with The GAZE. For a while, I was borrowing a broken four track recorder from my friend Nick. It was the kind that let you record on four separate tracks at the same time, which was a huge plus. However, I only had two functioning microphones. So we recorded this with two mics. The band wasn't getting along with their bass player, so I played bass on it. I don't remember what bass it was, but I know it sounded pretty bad. It was really cool that they let me do the art, though. Later they made a tape that sounds better than this, and the only art on it was their band logo, and I still get ideas for album arts they could have had if only they'd asked me.

The Diamond Rainbow by Super Famicom

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For most of the writing and recording of this album, I didn't have a working computer, countered with an excess of heavy music ideas. Some might say this album would have had more appeal, had it had less songs, and less songs that don't sound like the last eighty songs I'd recorded and released. Songwriters evolve, and that evolution happens within shorter time frames when you write as much as I. Too bad it took me so long to get good at drums, but what can you do? I didn't want anyone else playing on my album and trying to tell me how my songs should be played. The original tapes I put this release on were found in the dumpster of a thrift store. So punk. 

The Winslows 2009 Tour Demo

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The Winslows went on tour for a whole month, in two thousand nine. Before this tour, the only band tour I'd been on was with Lori Ann. We had a band fund, and a budget for eating meals on the road. We didn't have that with the Winslows, and I don't know what I expected. For those of you who don't know, being on tour with no money can be really bad for your self-respect. And for the sake of the team, and being fair, I kept going on band tours with no money. In fact, I owed it to the bands who were constantly helping me out a little bit with food, and what not. I owed more than my life was (fiscally) worth. On solo tours, I could at least sell a few cds and feed myself. With a band tour, it's often frowned upon to push your solo music onto people, making money for yourself instead of on behalf of your band of best friends. So I learned a few things on the Winslows tour.

As a band, we'd been finding our sound. The tour cd isn't 100% sick, but I think it's a definite step up from our tape. And I started to get an idea of what flavor of pop punk I wanted to make in the future.

The Winslows - Didn't Do That

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You probably wondering how, with no money, I was able to escape my hometown and move to Saint Augustine, a place I'd never been to before. Well, I was invited by my friend Evan who wanted to start a pop punk band with me. It seemed like a fine thing to do, especially since a lot of the solo shows people booked for me were not actually shows. They were just parties, and I was expected to beg people to watch me play and buy my cds. And I was duped into being the meme of the guy at the party with a guitar. With a band, you might expect the show to have a p.a. system, assuring you that you are indeed playing a show, and if not, your band will be loud enough to force people to pay attention. It all sounded good. So we got Matt Pius, the coolest guy in town, and taught him to play bass. At the time, I wasn't listening to much music that was punk or pop punk. I thought most of it was too bland, or bro-ish. Also, I didn't know what to write songs about that might represent the band as a group. None of these things mattered. We were the new band in town, and we were having fun, and everyone was having fun. The exported mix of this album doesn't sound like it did when I was mixing it in Sonor. The vocals came out way too loud, and it's too late to fix it. It was probably for the best, because after all, the vocals are usually really loud in popular music.

There was also a new label in town, The People's Republic of Rock and Roll, which our friend Jacob was running. Even though it was a tape and not a record, we were tapelabelmates with bands like The Fleshies, Underground Railroad to Candyland, Alligator, Tubers, Brainworms, and Future Virgins. So it was all pretty exciting for us and the kids who raged at our shows.

The Wandering Floret Part 8 by Super Famicom

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So yeah. I had my friend John Carling do the artwork for the Octology, and it was the only time I willingly let anyone do album art for me. After all, I was too busy writing and recording the eight albums. Despite all of my intentions, I wasn't very good at organizing my time and sticking to a schedule. But I had to focus on getting a job first. I couldn't owe my roommates money forever without prioritizing the search for work. Even then it was very easy for pretty much anyone to disrupt my recording and waste the rest of my day. Some might argue that it's not a waste to relax with your friends, but relaxing isn't that easy when you are neglecting the promises you've made to yourself. And part of why I chose to put so much of myself into my work was to prove that I had better things to do than entertain people by watching tv with them. Not all of us just want somebody to sit with us while we wait to die?

About the tracks: for part 8, I wanted to use my darker, more goth songs. It was my intention to go more goth with super famicom, and wear turtle necks, and use drum machines. Maybe I would get a little band of little keyboard players. There would be no future blues dads to decide what tones and beats my songs needed, because I couldn't be trusted to decide that, because I didn't Really know how to write music. There would not be a band to douchify Super Famicom, and slow my progress.

My dad drove me to staples to copy the covers for the Octology. When he came in, I was copying part 8, and I immediately flipped over the cover so he wouldn't see the tits on my album cover. It was an instinctual reaction, and somewhat regrettable. As a kid, I would have gotten in trouble for something like that. In fact, my parents would have taken my guitar and my computer, and anything I might have used to make cds. I never wanted to hide my work from my parents, but they've never acknowledged my achievements in music. It's as if, to them, I've never done anything but fail to finish college.

The Wandering Floret Part 7 by Super Famicom

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Of the Wandering Floret Albums, I put the least amount of thought into the theme of this one, having some of the Octology's shortest and weirdest songs. However, I don't think the likeability of my work is dependant on the amount of attention I put into it. In fact, I'm well aware of the patterns and formulas that can make a nerds-only piece of a crap into something as enjoyable as it is forgettable.

The Wandering Floret Part 6 by Super Famicom

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Most the songs for this album were recorded on my Nickelodeon boom box in the bathroom at 165 M. L. King Avenue in Saint Augustine. Our house never got an official name, which was probably for the best. I would have ended up hating it and feeling misrepresented by it, or something like that. Regarding the album, the songs are all romantic. You might like them.

The Wandering Floret Part 5 by Super Famicom

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I thought this number of the Octology had a lot of hits on it, and a lot of acoustic guitar, embodying the formula I was trying for with Super Famicom. I would start with a finger-picked guitar riff, and use half that riff for the chorus and the other half for the verse. Then I'd add two verses, using the last two lines at the chorus, and then add layers to make each verse different. If simple yet weird hits are your thang, this is the album for you.

The Wandering Floret Part 4 by Super Famicom

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Of the Octology, this is the only album that made anyone go out of their to tell me how they don't like it. It's my first Super Famicom album of all heavy songs. It's kind of sloppy, but I always attributed that to the sludge factor. Despite the sludge, all the tracks are fairly poppy and catchy, which to me, make it all the more unique, and therefore, more special.

The Wandering Floret Part 2 by Super Famicom

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For the Wandering Floret Octology, I'd planned for a different labels to put out each one. Most of these labels were brand new, or only had a couple releases. My records weren't finished until a month before August eight, and it seemed like I should go ahead and copy most of these cds myself instead of expecting anyone to rush a release of my cd-r. Most of the tracks for this part were used my Peavey T-15 guitar plugged directly into my four track. For one of the tracks, I used a cup and a cooler of water for the percussion. It's been brought to my attention that I should do more of that for my future releases. As you may have noticed, the Wandering Floret Octology is the only release which I elected to have someone else to do the art for. It was all done by my friend Jon Carling, who I met one time. He hosted a Saturday Morning Cartoon Show in the bay area, and had me as a musical guest. I thought that was pretty cool, and I also liked his work.

You can check out more of it at his website: http://www.joncarling.com

The Wandering Floret Part 1 by Super Famicom

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When planning the Wandering Floret Octology, to be released on August Eighth, Two Thousand Eight (on 888), I had a story concept in mind for the lyrics. It was a story about a young woman who had committed herself for life, to tend to a certain magical garden. Unable to leave this garden, her use to the outside world was gone. She was dead to the world. Useless, and reflecting on this sad truth. However, there were plants in this garden that, within them existed a mass of entirely new worlds. Part 1 was the last set of songs with which I used my half sized acoustic guitar. It needed to be tuned so high to be intonated, and the neck was badly bowing. I used a lot of weird sounding percussion on these tracks, and I think it sounds cool, sloppy but cool. Lost Sound Tapes made a tape of this, but I think for the release show, I made cd-rs. For the PJ Records page, I thought I'd check to see if Lost Sound Tapes had any copies available, but it seems they've erased any evidence of me having ever had a release with them. As if my day in the sun decided to have never been. So it goes.

Super Famicom split with Kids Are Goats

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Kids are Goats is a solo project of my friend Levon from Tennessee. While on tour with Redbear., Levon came out to our Nashville show. It was an early thing at this singer, Kelly Shay Hicks's house. Levon and I decided that day to make a split cd, and record it right there, since I had my four track with me. The acoustics at that house were really nice, and Kelly Shay offered to play viola on my tracks. We banged on the floor, and on our laps, to add percussion to Levon's tracks, and I didn't do very well at that. Instead of putting one of us at the first half of the cd, and the other on the second half, we mixed up our tracks. It was weird and we were weirdos. So in case you could never tell the difference, my songs were tracks 1, 3, and 6.

Art for this one was also done by Patrick Labahn of Redbear. fame. Aside from being recorded on tour, I'm pretty sure this cd was also released while we were on the road. So that's pretty cool, to have something for our friends who might have been wondering what an awesome time we were having. Keep in mind, this was before every cool rocker had an instagram to update every day. It was a time in which our musical work could be a primary connection between us and our distant audience.