Lately
I had written this in 2019 I think, and it was at a time where I couldn't really sing it. It's about a couple that loses their memory every night on the town. I did a lot of experimental recording with it at the house in Brookside, the rickenbacker I no longer have is on it. I then had an old friend (Dillon Johnson) that is a drummer in Nashville do the drums. He killed it, some of the coolest drums of anything I've put out. I had Trey (sleepwvlker) mix it and he took what ended up being the cover photo on his iphone while he was over one day, he brought a lot of modern influence to it. Enough time passed where I ended up singing it pretty well I think, one of my better piano parts as well. Mathias did the bass on this one as well, on a squire J bass he had briefly. For me it marks the beginning of me trying to sing powerfully/out front without a lot of processing at the peak of my Billy Joel phase.
Run With You
This EP was a lot, it took me a long time, and was my biggest undertaking since out of season. Sunday was recorded last, I had actually finished the EP without that song and decided to add it after I wrote it last second. Such a nice power pop bedroom sound, Emitt Rhodes style. The ballad of Johnny is about the son of James Aidee from the Richard Thompson song 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, I continued the story saying that the kid grew up fatherless (as James dies in the song) and turns into an abuser. Heck maybe he's riding the black Lightning in the song where it talks about "Johnny's getting closer, hes going 95 now" etc. Just thought of that. The title track is a lullaby I wrote, and Alone in a Fantasy is a She's So Heavy type feel shifting experiement that was a lot of fun. I played the drums with the song playing in my head, no metronome. Really cool guitar solo on that one. I played everything on this EP except bass on Run WIth You was Mathias, and Ryan Lokugamage plays beautiful keys on Johnny, actually wow they're so nice. Mixed and mastered by David Pietila, he did a great job on this and most of my early stuff. The cover is a rip of Tom Petty's Wildflowers, I even have a picture of Wildflowers on one of the quadrents that I took outside my late guitar teacher's studio.
1000 Times
This recording is probably the best example of me and Mathias working well together. I wrote it after a ski trip in Colorado, the photo is from one of my other trips there. After I wrote it Mathias and I jammed it out in the basement at the Waldo house where he was living, I brought the mics over there, and he went into a drum state that I don't think I've seen from him since. The drums are insane. I think it was a scratch track with a met that he went super hard on. He also has a great bass part, and the key here was to not think to hard about the song and it turned out great. Vocals were kinda hard for me at the time as they're kind of low and require a lot of confidence. I could have done a much better job nowadays but that's how it goes, the backing vocals are strong still though. Pretty song though, clever lyrics. David did a great job mixing/mastering this one.
On My Mind
I remember driving into bonnaroo in 2019 when the final mix of this was sent to me and we played it in my friend Amanda's car. That was a cool moment for me as it was kinda the first time I was excited to show my friends a song I did, it was sunny and all that. Another classic collab with mathias, he did the drums and bass. Rickenbacker 12 string intro, kinda tame impala singing. I remember showing my friends Joel and Doug the song up there in my room and Joel said he liked the 12 string intro which was a meaningful complement. This tune is nother step in my singing journey that i'm not super proud of but I think it holds up fine. There's a few really good moments in this song, the second verse going into the quarter note backbeat, the piano subtley coming in. Basic pop song for me, mixed by Alex Garnett and art by my old friend Jake Edminsten.
Out of Season
My very first solo release. What a time, had just graduated from Mizzou, KC was frozen over and I was holed up in my room at the "boys mansion" - a 5 bedroom victorian house in midtown me and my 4 best friends rented. We somehow paid very little rent there, it was a beautiful house with these great wood features, the sliding double doors, parlor bench seat. My room was essentially its own apartment on the top floor, and during this winter it was so cold and icy I was just up there making songs. I got really sick during that time, I remember it was all I could do to get out of the house and I was eating with my friend Tom and my words started to get scrambled from a fever. It hurt to swallow and coughing felt like knives on my throat. Anyway, I decided to record this EP and it's so different, and beautifully sad in hindsight. You can hear the cold and the comedown from moving from college to the real world, me being alone and making something totally unique. It's very special to me, I don't write like that much anymore. My slide guitar is nice on this, we would record the drums all the way in the basement on my laptop and send the tracks 4 stories up to my "studio" on the top floor. Mathias played some rockin drums on the Cowgirl in the Sand cover, bass and drums on Somewhere to Be. I played everything on Walk My Way, that's one of my best intros. Mathias took this picture on film in that stairway thing next to the Kaufman.
Last Christmas
Super fun Ponderous recording. This was one of our best times together, Mathias even played the Juno on it. Yamaha drum machine for drums, Tom and Nathaniel killing the vocals. I should have turned Nathaniel up more. Gross's (Alex Gross) solo is awesome, I did a crazy synth solo on this little yamaha I had. Good, simple times up in the "mansion".
Innerlude
Nathaniel Brancato and I started making music together as kids, we would hang out in this little room in my basement in the house I grew up in and mess around with recordings. Looking back on it we were pretty prolific, we had dozens of crazy demos, we were being fully experimental and uninhibited. This EP was our first serious musical undertaking, and while we didn't have a ton of experience we had a ton of creativity. I would never write such out-there stuff now, we were into Tame Impala and what not but there are latin grooves and crazy genre changes everywhere. We even got Matthew Clinkenbeard who now shreds in Nashville to do some crazy noodle work on Planetary Sunset. I can't believe we had a song called Planetary Sunset with a 4 minute latin outro! Nathaniel has a track I love called motions featuring his vocals, we would record them in a shower in his basement. Mathias plays drums on all of this stuff and his playing is super clean and technical which holds up really well. Recording took a while and bled into college, the guys would come over to como and we would track stuff. I remember when I couldn't keep my life on schedule we did a super quick drum recording at my friend Zach Dolan's house for There it is which turned out well. I'm redoing that one on the new album for fun. Finally is a song I can't really stand anymore but we had Will Peak play sax on it. I hate the vocals on it but whatever. Summer's gone is beautiful, recorded in Nathaniel's parent's living room with a mic live, then overdubbed vocals and the weird piano solo. Open Water also super weird but fun, I remember I could NOT get the vocals right, and went up to my parents new place in wisconsin with my recording gear to record the vocals in their cool glass sun room thing. That was the final recording of the thing, then I mixed and mastered it. Doing this with Nathaniel was so nice, and it bonded us forever. Kids having fun and being free, before anything got serious in our lives. Adrienne did the painting and font on that one, great as always.
