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.
This album was shorter than I meant for it to be, considering how fun it was to make. It's a collection of pop rock songs with acoustic guitar, drums, and bass. My first time playing drums on an album, and I wanted to stick with this theme, and stick to the eight song format. Someday I'll compensate for the shortness of this "full-length" by releasing one that's much longer than your wildest dreams.
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
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.
Fire Island, AK was a solo project of a guy named Thomas, who at the time (I think) lived in North Carolina. Most of my friends in the freaky folky scene, including myself, were fans of Thomas's music. It was dark, ambient, and translated well when played with an acoustic guitar. However, I'm not sure if I know anyone who's met the guy who made the music. There wasn't a ton of communication about this split. My side was more hit-oriented, and Thomas's was more experimental and longer. Either way, I made a cd-r of this split and I think it'd pretty good. I think all of my songs from it were recorded in Bloomington Indiana, at a house called The Lattice of Coincidence.
Like the state, I considered this album to be diverse and expansive, full of inside jokes and easter eggs. Its tracks were recorded in a number of places, using a lot of different stuff. Some are hits, and others are just silly, the kind of stuff you'd expect on an edgy cd's "hidden" track. In 2007, you could get away with calling it experimental. This is also my Super Famicom album with the most guest appearances. Maybe if you listen really hard, you'll hear yourself on it. The original cds were released on a short-lived label from the Kansas City area, called Red Chair Records. I might have chosen a less obvious, less wholesome album art. But you know how it is. You have to support these kids when they want to start their record label, even if they do jump the gun on the art for Your album. Cause you never know. Maybe they'll get really big and Not forget they ever knew about you.
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.
One of the first shows of my long tour with Redbear., we played a coffee shop in Fort Wayne, Indiana. That night, we stayed at our friends' Mary and Ben's house, with Ben Laatsch and Toby Foster, who also played the show. We were having a pretty fun, exciting time, and decided it would be fun to commemorate the party by recording some songs. Patrick (of Rebear.) didn't want to record his songs that night because he wanted to play them really well. My songs were written on the spot, while everyone was going to sleep. Our friend Anna did guest vocals on one of my tracks, and I'm pretty impressed that she was able to just jump in and sing over my parts. The lyrics were already in my notebook, but the singing was all in the moment.
Pat did the art for the cd, and while I love his art, I'm really not into the use of band/musician caricatures. He also made himself a way more handsome than Toby and I, whom I consider both really good looking guys! There were no song titles listed with this release. What good were song titles if we weren't trying to push our smash hits onto people? This was cvlt before I knew what (I hoped) cvlt was, and this was what I wanted to do with PJ Records. Give artists an excuse to make something extra weird (and often) extra cool, while giving listeners something more intimate and genuine than whatever us songwriters were trying to commercialize for the sake of our brands and egos.
That being said, I'm not sharing for download or stream, any work done by my partners in splitting. I don't want to put them on the spot about it, after all these years. And if you want their tracks, you're on your own.
Stream it - YouTube Download it - Nextcloud Here is yet another album from Super Famicom, my solo project since the year 2002. As ...
