Category: News

The Production Advice blog posted last week on Diego Stocco, who makes music from sand and trees and burning pianos.

(Not all at once.)

Diego Stocco – Music From Sand from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Update, 5 August: I don’t know why the video is now unavailable to embed, but Diego has posted for free a longer mp3 of “Music From Sand” and one other track!

Quote:

Why do I love it ? Because it’s:

* Beautiful
* Musical
* Witty
* Unique
* Original
* Punky

– wait, punky ? [Insert FX of record scratch/car screeching to a halt/etc]

What the hell am I talking about ?

Punk means something different depending which side of the Atlantic you grew up on, but either way, what do these delicate ambient textures and found sounds have to do with either the Ramones or the Sex Pistols ?

The answer is – DIY ethos.

Regardless of what it sounded like, a key element of punk was that anyone could make music – provided they sing a bit, or strum and hit something.

Ian, unknowingly, has become an accessory to our conversation on punk.  I think his answer clarifies the connection I have been trying to draw between punk and Tillich’s “Protestant Principle;” in both, the point is that we need to have and create the raw experience for ourselves.

We don’t need gatekeepers, whether they’re the priesthood of the church or of the music industry.

And this is why punk always has the potential to rise from its own ash, phoenix-style, even if it’s under another name.

Here’s the third part of the Listening Project series (pt.1 – pt. 2); As our fifth birthday approaches in September, I’ve started listening to every release roughly in order, making notes as I go.

• MFR014 – Bike, “A Wind I Can Lean Into”
• This has been a brilliant album for me from the moment I heard it.
• Mastering it was a bear, though, due to the wild variety of sounds, instruments, and tones used in different songs.
• Nate and I thought for quite a while how to handle the various short songs / segues / song fragments.  I didn’t want to intimidate listeners with 18 separate tracks.  I think the breakdown pretty much works, in that the main songs are always at the start of the file (except the first track).
• “The Horror! Oh, the Horror!” is a permanent favorite; its weird exuberance is another perfect expression of whatever spirit it is that animates “He Came To Steal Your Children” from “How Is That Possible.”  And coming after “My Blood, My Bones”… damn.
• You know, I’ve never met Nate in person … or even on the phone … but through Bike, I feel close to him.

.

• MFR015 – echoes, “Tonight, the Lone Wolf Rides Alone”
• After the two punk-ish echoes EPs, I wanted to do something that reflected how my friends actually experienced my music, since I never put a band together (or meant to).  And I wanted to do some covers.
• I recorded this at Nick King’s then-new house in Liberty, MO, because I didn’t feel comfortable cutting loose singing and playing at my place (which was my landlords’ basement).  So I got a key, and headed up there one day to set up.  He was at work.  I forgot a mic stand… so I had to make the 60-minute round trip to my apartment for one.  When I got to Nick’s the second time, slightly pissed at myself, and continued to set up, I discovered I’d forgotten the special holder for the microphone itself!  So I made a third trip.  I don’t think anything from that first day of recording made the album; I strummed everything too hard and fast.
• Who knows why “Hymn for our T.M.D. (Technological Manifest Destiny)” AKA “The Picture Song,” is such a hit among friends.  People seem to love it, though.  It’s a hard one to remember how to play, but it has a line that stands out to me, “Only time ’til you and I decide between the torch and tinder…”
• It was hard to find a Shacker song I wanted to do that wasn’t already on “The Dimly Lit Room,” but “Talk Me Down” worked with some different chord voicings.
• My sister, Mary, took the photo and made the card that I used for the cover.  Maybe Christmas 2005.  That’s the kitchen table at home, a favorite place for trying out newly finished tunes; you can see the open 3-ring binder in front me.
• Three cheers for the two local bands that were huge influences for me: The JV All*Stars (“Pushing the Envelope”) and Blacklight Sunshine (“My Time”).
• I thought Sally Ride was just going to be the one record, “Don’t Let Them Take Us ALIVE,” until I wrote “Holy Moses” one day.  “Holy Moses” was one of those rare tunes that just popped out, fully formed for the most part, and when it was done I had a striking moment of “Oh God.  I just wrote a new Sally Ride song.”  And all that that implied.
• When it was released, I included a cover of the Foo Fighters’ “A320” (from the Gozilla soundtrack), which I took down after the file received 100 hits.  I didn’t want to scuffle over rights – not that anyone would have noticed! – but of course I love Dave & Co., and would never want to cause them trouble.
• “Hawaiian Bells” is this intuitive thing… the verse lyrics change every time I sing it.  It’s so slow, and I could listen to/play that guitar figure forever, there’s ample time to kind of improvise the words every time.  I’m pretty happy with how this version came out, but it’s missing some formulations that pop up regularly.  Probably worth it, not to have it be ten minutes long, though!
• In typical Mr. Furious fashion, the album title is a botched quote from the film “Mystery Men.”  The actual line is “…hunts alone.”

.

• MFR016 – Robot, Creep Closer!, “Why Aren’t People’s Heads Exploding?” EP
• Aggressively fun; R,CC! nail their mission to be weird, loud, semi-lo-fi party metal here on their first set of recordings.
• Look carefully at the cover art; see the extra robot, creeping the opposite and below the others?
• Whew!  There’s not much to say about R,CC! – you get it, or you don’t.  It’s visceral, and ideally, bypasses the conscious mind.

.

• MFR017 – Cory Kibler/Church Photo Directory starring Benjamin Axeface, “We Have Uh-Oh”
• This is Cory at his sad-bastard-est.
• We recorded Cory’s and James’ parts in my office in the church building one weekend.  The cement block walls reflected too much sound, so we hung choir robes from the dropped ceiling in order to dampen the room.
• “Pretending to Break Strings,” Cory’s spoken-word piece from “Furious Instance,” came from these sessions.  I caught it by accident; I’d clicked the record button, then he launched in to this story without knowing we were rolling, and it was so funny I saved it.  I always laugh out loud when I hear it, which is kind of embarrassing at work.
• “Where Did I Go Wrong?” is a tune I play myself, live, pretty often.
• I have a clear memory of driving around midtown Kansas City – actually up 50/Blue Pkwy./Volker from Raytown – listening to the raw tracks Cory had laid down, and writing the vocal harmonies.  For some reason, singing along to something in the car frees up my creativity.  It’s like I’m bypassing the self-editing part of my brain, and just letting stuff spill out.  I’ll put something in the car and drive around singing to it for a few days or weeks until I’ve written something OK for it.

I talked with Rob of DreamNotOfToday.com and Arturo Got The Shaft last week, continuing the conversation started here about Warped Tour and punk in general.

Re-post:

Gonzo Podcast #11: Punk or Junk?

For this week’s episode of the Gonzo Podcast, we are joined by the owner of independent record label Mr. Furious Records, C. Howie Howard to continue a conversation started about the controversial lineup for this year’s Warped Tour.

Taking a deep dive on lightning rods brokenCYDE, Millionaires and 3Oh!3, Howie and Rob look for punk in these crossover acts, searching for legitimacy in a sea of polished loops and quantized leads.

I think I might have figured out what I wanted to say, and couldn’t formulate talking with Rob:

Punk is a principle

It isn’t a sound or an era or a culture or even a group of people.  Punk contains its own critique.  Every concrete realization of punk is exhaustible, but the principle – the spirit – of punk is unconditional, and can always

(I’m borrowing language from Paul Tillich here, mostly from his concept of the Protestant principle, which I also used in the podcast.)

The spirit or essence or principle of punk always has the potential to transcend its crystallization in one place and time and be both critical and creative.  Punk isn’t a revolution; it’s the animating spirit of revolutions.  Punk isn’t a culture; it’s a power in people that both criticizes and creates culture.

Yes, punk has a widely known sound and culture in our present and recent history.  But the power of punk – unique in pop music, even hip-hop doesn’t have this element – is that its principle contains the potential for punk’s rebirth.  In this way, the unconditional may break through into our conditional existence.  Among popular forms of music, only punk has this principle as part of its identity.

Coming full circle to the question that started this conversation; brokenCYDE, 3OH!3, and the Millionaires are not punk and don’t belong on Warped because they fail to become a channel for the critical and creative power that is specifically punk.

KC/Lawrence indie/electro/alt-rockers The Noise FM are giving away their album, “Dream of the Attack,” for free here.

CA called me last Sunday night because 5*C’s “Aasta” was playing on the 96.5 FM Homegrown Buzz radio show.  I kept listening, and The Noise FM were in the studio, chatting with Jeriney and playing songs from DOTA.  At one point they mentioned that they had posted it for free, and I’d liked what I heard.

If you like Five Star Crush, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, that kind of dance-influenced rock, you’ll find a lot to enjoy on “Dream of the Attack.”  Solid hooks, a good rhythm section, and production that perfectly straddles the border between local band raw crunchiness and studio polish make The Noise FM a band to download now, and listen for in the future. -h

Subject: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org

This is a really cool interview, I think. I especially like the part at the very bottom about lyrical honesty (the subject matter of “Be Right” was practically made for me!)
Pitchfork – Wale Talks Debut Album Details, Dave Sitek Collaboration

Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
From: howie@metalfistrockout.com

sounds like quite a cat.

there’s a lot of gray surrounding concepts like “honesty” and “fiction,” and i reject the idea that they’re mutually exclusive; that the only honesty is physical fact.

fiction and poetry have a reality that is meaningful, regardless of their attachment to the movement of atoms in time.

now, then – people are justified in feeling misled, if someone like rick ross makes claims or implications about or in their art that turn out to be false.  i’m not trying to excuse that, or draw equivalence.

“…Boots” never literally happened, but it’s got a lot of honest stuff in it i think.  including contradictions; multiple perspectives on an event that can each invoke empathy, even though they exclude each other. fiction may be a more honest way for me to explore this territory, in terms of actually communicating something real with listeners.  -h

Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org

I agree: I’m fine with art blending fact and fiction in almost any ratio.  And I think there’s no need to say, “Well, some of this is true, and some of this is false,” etc.  I think you can just make a piece of art and see what truths it’s able to address without wondering or caring if it’s being wholly “honest.”  Art that aimed for the exposition of the literal physical truth would be pretty boring.

As you said, you shouldn’t write a non-fiction book about how you climbed K2 when you actually didn’t, but that’s pretty apparent.

The professor who taught the grad fiction-writing class that I took described fiction-writing as “telling the truth through lies.”  I think that’s what art is supposed to do, and that’s what I think something like “Boots” should do.

Furthermore, even if we tried to fully distinguish fact from fiction, it would be impossible; our perception of a real event might be more shaky and less real than a dream we had.

Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
From: howie@metalfistrockout.com

indeed; let’s blog this!

so, what’s your take on the rick ross business, or any case where an artist is caught mis-representing the blend of fact and fiction in their work?  it seems to happen a lot in hip-hop, where i think credibility is emphasized more than in other music.

does credibility play a legitimate role in our enjoyment of hip-hop?  (or other music?)  does it play a legitimate role in our aesthetic evaluation of such music?

it occurs to me that some jazz musicians have faced a similar standard of credibility.

is there a standard for disclosure?  of course, the second we say yes, it creates the opportunity for an artist to violate it artistically…  so what if an artist wanted to blend fact and fiction in their work and avoid misleading listeners; how should they go about accomplishing that?  -h

Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org

I think it would be easy to say that a piece of art should be judged by itself, rather than in any context or with any background knowledge, but I don’t think that’s true or even possible.

During a grad class, I heard about these paintings that were being sold that were supposedly painted by a five-year-old, and people were buying them because for a five-year-old, they were amazing.  As it turned out, the dude who was painting them was actually 45 or something, and everyone who bought the paintings felt boned-over (I think that’s how the story goes).  It seems to me that intuitively, these people had a right to feel screwed, and this guy was able to sell more paintings by lying about who he was and how they paintings were made.

Maybe there’s two different scales to judge art by: one scale might be, “How does this art compare with every other piece of art like it?  Is it better, worse, so-so, etc?”  The other, broader scale might be, “Considering all of the relevant facts regarding this piece art, is it any good?”  One of the relevant facts might be the piece of art’s integrity, or whatever you want to call it.  As I said, I think it’s just about impossible to objectively weight a piece of art in relation to other pieces of art without considering external factors, so I think the second scale is more realistic.

I think the big, murky issue is the expectations that people have.  For example, I expect most writers/musicians/painters to distort and change reality for the sake of art.  Maybe if you were kind of naive and listened to Fountains of Wayne for the first time, you’d think that all of their lyrics were literally biographical: “Wow, he flew a plane for American Airlines and then got fired for reading High Times.  Weird!”  But most everyone sees that it’s storytelling, and FoW would be the first to tell you they’re just making stuff up.

But with rap, it’s more serious, and it’s more about respect and cred, right?  I think a rapper lying to me in order to get my respect seems just as bad as you lying to me to get my respect.  I mean obviously, there are countless differences between you and the dudes from Clipse (or maybe not?), but if you told me a made-up story about how you saved everyone from a sinking ship so that I would think you were cooler, that’s wrong, correct?

Regarding disclosure/presentation: I tink that the best way to blend fact/fiction without being misleading is just to present it appropriately.  I think if it’s done well, people will know.  I know that’s incredibly vague and not at all helpful, but I think that it’s true.

Here’s another distiction with rap that’s important, I think: a rapper might rap about shooting people when he has actually never held a loaded gun or something like that.  But it’s usually never presented as fictional storytelling: usually, it’s presented as hard fact.  Maybe that’s the difference: while rap music is technically art/music, the lyrics are mostly presented as the truth and maybe something kind of separate from art.  With pure art, there are no rules, but with certain types of art (biographies, some rap songs?), there are rules (i.e., don’t make a bunch of shit up).

Thoughts?

Drew’s been up a couple times this week, and will be again today, tracking guitars for Fifty Bears in a Fight.  Sounds pretty vicious.

He’s created some great vintage tones for our guitars, and by that I mean trebly and still with plenty of body.  It’s loud, though.  There is no question; the neighborhood knows exactly what we are doing.

The computer has been behaving better, but not perfect.  It had been giving us blue screens of death, but after cleaning out the heat sink, I’m just getting a new soft error about ProTools not being able to pull audio off the E: drive fast enough.  It could be heat, or that our sessions are getting huge.  (There are currently 10 tracks of just *my guitar* in “Cold Burn.)  I think I’ll take the case off for today’s session, and see what that does.  The fan noise won’t make a bit of difference, given Drew’s guitar volume :-)

Unfortunately, the Allendales had to cancel their performance at the PS Collective on Friday, June 19th for Lincoln Invasion (they scored a second night opening up for country star Chuck Wicks, I believe). Fortunately for me, I was asked to perform in their stead.

So, I will be playing a solo show at the Pizza Shop Collective (6056 Maple St, Omaha NE 68104) at 9:30 pm on Friday, June 19th. I am thrilled to be playing; hopefully you’re able to make it (I play first, precisely at 9:30). I’ll be playing new songs that will be on my upcoming record (out sometime this fall) that will, with any luck, make you want to make out with a bonfire. I’ll probably throw in a few Sleepover songs as well.

Lincolnites: if you want to come, you’re more than welcome to catch a ride with the wife and I there and back; we have room for two (2) people aside from us.

Thanks!
Cory Kibler
www.myspace.com/corykibler

Here’s the second part of the Listening Project series; As our fifth birthday approaches in September, I’ve started listening to every release roughly in order, making notes as I go.

• MFR 010 – Bike, “Stroke Me Gently, Lady Luck” EP
• This EP turned out to be a preview of “A Wind I Can Lean Into.” Only the single minute of “I Take Pills Everyday” isn’t duplicated on the album.
• I think the mastering is ever-so-slightly different, though

.

• MFR 011 – Sally Ride, “Don’t Let Them Take Us… ALIVE”
• My memory of writing the riff and first lyrics to “A Come-on” is very clear; sitting outside on the grass behind Frees on campus at Doane, with Cory in the sun, just goofing off. Spring 2002, maybe? Or ’03? Probably ’02. Like “God Bless The Strokes,” it was immediately apparent it wasn’t a howie&scott song.
• Building off of “A Come-on,” the idea was to write a big love letter to the college rock of the late ’80s / early ’90s – Weezer, Pavement, Radiohead, etc. It seemed a little fanboy-ish to do it straight, so we invented the backstory that our uncles had been in this band, and we’d found the tapes somewhere.
• Cory’s uncle Dave – known as Dave Ryan In The Morning to those in the Twin Cities – plays Emerson Biggins.
• The drums are cut, pasted, and sampled from old Shacker recordings. It was a cool challenge to figure out how to do little fills and things that would sound natural and fit the live-in-studio vibe.
• Sally Ride was supposed to be a one-off band, just for this record. We didn’t have any idea it would continue.
• I love the scuzzy bass tone, and the guitars that are really responsive to touch; distorted when played hard, almost clean with a softer attack.
• “…ALIVE” set a precedent for MFR projects. It was lurking in the background of h&s and Shacker activities for ’02, then ’03, then ’04… never getting to the top of the list. Finally I moved to Minnesota and buckled down. Now, of course, taking years to record something is our typical M.O.
• “…ALIVE”‘s significance in creating for me the freedom to write different stuff probably can’t be overstated. It was so much fun to adopt a certain voice for a set of songs, and not feel like that voice had to be C. HOWIE HOWARD speaking earnestly to listeners, and know that once the record was finished I could hang that voice up and not have to use it again. Of course, paradoxically, that freedom from expectation is precisely why I’ve continued writing as Sally Ride.
• Cory really struggled hard to figure out what guitar leads and backing vocals would sound like, but he ended up nailing stuff. His solos are the ultimate anti-shred, which I love

.

• MFR012 – XMAS (Compilation)
• XMAS is accomplishing its mission, I think, which is to create holiday music in the tension between tradition, kitsch, and integrity. I didn’t really know *how* we were going to do that when we started, and each year has brought some surprise.
• Each Christmas song I’ve written has been one of those surprises. The first one, “Merry Christmas” in ’02, seemed to pop out of nowhere fully formed; I don’t think it would work to set out intentionally to write a holiday tune. I figured it would be my only one. Then “What’s My Baby Want’n?” arrived the following year. ’05 brought “Mary be the One this eve,” one of my favorites from my whole songbook. I like that the guitar figure feels slightly Irish, to match the memory of Big Ben, and the minimalism, the melody’s meter, the bridge bit, and the clear rendering of one of the traditions of my household; the electric candles in the north windows whose bulbs had to be screwed in each night. “Snow is a Bear” was also unexpected. Somehow Joel’s draft lyrics and melody twisted into a Christmas thing for me. Now, I think I have something for ’09.
• I can be pretty self-conscious about tracks like “Merry Christmas” and “What’s My Baby Want’n?” It’s not my strength as a writer to go out there with straight love in all its awkward glory; I’m more about the cool observation, the provocative abstraction, and the call-to-arms. Yet, something about the season must call it out, since I return to that more raw emotion year after year.

.

• MFR013 – echoes, “Be A Ska Rat” EP
• “I Don’t Even Know…” has a sort of manic energy that’s cool.  The chorus is pretty good, I guess.  It doesn’t quite gel for me as a song, though.
• In general, I think this EP is packed with cool ideas, and I like that the arrangements and textures fly fast and furious, without being super-busy.  But somehow, it doesn’t add up the way I imagined it would.  It’s almost too smart for its own good.  The exception to this is “J. Cougar Mellensong,” which continues to be a pretty visceral tone poem to a certain feeling and need.
• Looking back, I’m pleasantly surprised by the drumming, though!
• I had just discovered Ted Leo + Pharmacists before I recorded this, which explains a lot.
• “Assassination Love Mission” quotes the Clash’s “Clash City Rockers.”  The lyrics are abstract, but it’s just a story about how “fake it ’til you make it” works out in life.  The rock-out part still rocks.
• Cari Ann asked me what “J. Cougar Mellensong” is about, and I was silent for several minutes.  It’s not a story, and it doesn’t have a message.  Eventually, I came around to saying it’s about needing a rush of energy and affirmation from the past – familiar places, familiar music, etc. – in order to take the next step into the future.  It’s hard to find words to describe it; the lyrics to this tune are very unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness stuff.  They’re the first words that rang true to the feeling of the music, unedited.

Matt just left.  We finished recording what will be Sally Ride’s third album, “There is Something and not nothing,” tonight.

It will be two years in the making by the time it’s mixed and mastered, and it’s semi-odd that it will be my third because it’s really the fifth SR record written, after “Ventura” and “You Have To Wear The Boots.”

Thanks for your patience.  Thank Matt for being a good man, a great friend, and an incredible drummer.

Tearing down gear that’s been set up for a while is always a bittersweet feeling.  (Two of Matt’s drum kits have graced my bedroom and sitting room for… more than a year.)  I love the recording process and experience so much, it’s hard to let go of a part of it and know that what we’ve done will stand in flawed glory as witness to a given time.  But it has to give way if we’re going to get anything released, which is the purpose of the whole exercise.  It’s a whole mini-loss; death and rebirth.  Makes me sentimental; I’ve got to move on.

\\\\

Last night’s solo show with Church was a blast.  Thanks to Church, Chelsea, Cari Ann, Tim, Jill, B, Sarah, Micki, Roy, Doc J, Dave, and Peggy for their parts and for listening to mine.  I should do this more – probably won’t, until I’m not writing/recording so much – but should.

The setlist: 1 Coast & Plains – 2 Cooky – 3 While I Was Moving About Flyover Country – 4 Green Christine – 5 Open Columns – 6 Iron Horse – 7 Set You Ablaze – 8 Holy Moses – 9 Out – 10 Were In Love – 11 Lost

As our fifth birthday approaches in September, I’ve started listening to every release roughly in order, making notes as I go.

Bulleted lists aren’t displaying correctly on the site, and bold/italic text hasn’t for a while, either; I’m starting to ponder a re-design. -h

• MFR 002 – echoes “nickel EP”
• Better than I remembered; better execution, better arrangements/production.
• Good snare sound, which I’ve always strived to re-capture.  Maybe it’s Mom’s high ceilings.
• The guitars are sort of buzzy/fuzzy, but round enough to work.

.

• MFR 001 – Shacker “Knowing Her Best, Blackbeard Defends the Open Sea”
• Criminally underheard, which is our fault.  We barely played beautiful tunes like “Save You From Me” or “Maybe Tomorrow” live, which had to do with travel and school schedules
• My kit sounds great.  Love it.
• The breadth of Cory’s writing, from “Prove It”‘s warped riff and beautiful/trashy progression to the pure power-pop of “One Stereo.”
• The title and art are so packed with meaning for me, and I’m not sure if that comes across.  In short, they go back to the Don Quixote story, which I love; the nobility within and significance of the impossible or ridiculous quest – tilting at windmills.

.

• MFR 003 – Shacker “The Dimly Lit Room”
• Hearing this brings back strong sense-memories of the night we made this record.  It was in my parents’ living room, James, Cory, Annie and I sat in a circle with mics and things plugged in.  It was raining softly outside; we turned out the lights and lit some candles.  We just pressed record and played; a few songs got second takes, but most were first.  I remember playing the different guitar leads to “Sophia,” and saying goodnight to Annie at the front door.  I can smell the rain and feel the air on the porch, under the porch light.
• Cory loves how our verse lyrics in “Autumn” – “so much/slightly” – don’t match
• When Cory recorded “Goddamn the Scene,” he inexplicably said “hip-ters” – we had to overdub the “s” to make “hipsters.”  I think it turned out pretty transparent; no one would know, except I just told you.

.

• MFR 004 – Bike “How Is That Possible”
• I love this record; it’s comfort music for me.  When I’m anxious, it’s aural serenity.  Not because it’s easy listening.  In fact, the opposite; the distance, tension, dissonance, and vague uneasiness of some tracks (“Robot Love,” “He Came To Steal Your Children”) reassure me that I’m not alone.  Of course, other tunes (“Bad Attitude,” “Out of Control”) are pure beauty.
• If MFR ever had a particular sound, it started to diversify here, and I’m proud it happened so early in the catalog.  Nate is a friend of Cory’s from his California days, and his music was an unexpected gift at several levels.
• I have a very specific memory of driving home from Minneapolis listening to bike in winter ’04-05 – freezing cold and frosted ground, but no real snow – the sparse stretch between the northern Iowa border with Minnesota and Ames.  Mostly, a certain small bridge in the middle of a shallow S-curve; I’m sure I’d know the spot again, even now.
• When Nate brought the “Great Distances” bonus track to me, I was skeptical at first, because I loved how the album ended with “To Cure.”  I’ve come around; “Great Distances” is essential to my hearing of the album now.  It’s a coda, playing while the credits roll, after “To Cure”‘s conclusion to the record.

.

• MFR 005 – Beach Puppy (Cory Kibler) “Creepy Eepy”
• One of my favorite MFR releases.  I love the minimal aesthetic, and the piano lines, which came to my imagination in unexpected places: lying on the couch watching The Daily Show, in the car (which I’ve since found is a great place for writing harmonies and overdubs), etc.
• “Nature vs. Nurture”!!!
• The piano belongs to Bob & Nan Woodburn, who I rented a room from during my year in the Twin Cities.  My longest mic cable only put the mic within about 10 feet of the instrument, which turned out to work in our favor; their fairly large, high-ceilinged sitting room created a nice natural reverb.

.

• MFR 006 – GiLMO “Points of Parallax”
• Scott and Allen made these tracks for fun, but I’m happy they’re a part of MFR.  Again with the diversity!  And they get catchy with repeated listens; I start to anticipate what’s coming, and get the pleasure of being right.  Plus, these guys can both wail.
• There was an “As Seen From C” track that was cut from the project; the improvisation didn’t match the level of A or B.  There was also a weird track of all 3 takes playing at once; what was interesting was which recognizable parts of which songs jumped out in moments where the others were relatively quiet.

.

• MFR 007 – D-Rockets “Matt Wisecarver’s Secret Fantasy”
• Derek, formerly of The Return, is another of Cory’s California bros and it continues to be our honor to host the music of such a gifted artist.
• Count the cowboy hats on the cover!
• Derek has some other solo stuff released under the name The Ashtray Life – if you can find it online, enjoy!  I have a few tracks on my laptop, which is currently un-turn-on-able due to a blown power supply.

.

• MFR 008 – “Furious Instance” (Compilation)
• “Furious Instance” doesn’t seem to have gelled quite the way I hoped it would.  For myself, I tend to write *albums,* so I don’t have extra tracks/b-sides or lone songs without a home on a record.
• “…Instance” is kind of uneven, due to the nature of the thing, and some of its weaker tracks are mine (the acoustic “I Don’t Even Know How Right This Sounds,” the live “Tweaky”).  On the other hand there are absolute gems like “Lunch By Yourself” and “Try Harder Or Not At All.”  “Cooky” and “Lost” are good tunes, I think, but will end up on a record eventually; they’re slotted for my “Rogue Demon Hunter,” which will be an album of pop songs entirely devoid of an organizing concept.  (In some ways, heir to the original echoes EPs.)
• “Pretending to break strings” *never* fails to brighten my day; I always laugh, or at least smile idiotically.

.

• MFR 009 – “Nebraska Verses” (Compilation)
• “NV” was an attempt to create something listenable out of the vast minidisc archives of mostly live, acoustic recordings from what amounts to my and Cory’s college years. MFR didn’t exist when this stuff was put down, but these songs contain the basic idea; Cory’s music, mine, and our friends’.
• I’ve always like the cover, with the old state highway sign. It was especially resonant, as I put the comp together after seriously moving away for the first time.
• The comments to each mp3 file contain some good info about times and dates of each recording.
• The “Yes” interlude at the end of my “Staircase” demo foreshadows the direction h&s was heading, almost two years before “signs.comets.”
• I love how Mike, Scott’s dad, basically tells the story of h&s in about 45 seconds for the intro to “Mightier Than The Sword.”
• For a long time, I basically strummed the guitar as hard as possible all the time. (I guess I drummed that way for a long time, too.) It was part immaturity, part from idolizing Dave Matthews, and part trying to match the saxophone’s volume.
• Listening to “JATC,” I realize what a gift it has been to have started writing songs with others’ poetry as lyrics side-by-side with my own. Charles Muff wrote all but the “Just around the corner” line to this one. For another example, Aileen Nowlan wrote for the unreleased “Wish U B Happy,” also a really early tune. I’m hearing now how the example they set for freedom from rhyme and stock phrasing is something I’ve continued to explore.
• Besides being a test run for the new ProTools system over Thanksgiving ’02, “God Bless The Strokes” was the first song I didn’t feel had a home in howie&scott. Pure pop/rock/punk just didn’t feel right next to our other stuff. In that way, it’s a major marker on the way to MFR and everything that’s happened since.
• The insane snare reverb on “One Stereo” came off a dry soundboard recording, meaning that the sound guy was adding it *on top of* the natural reverb of Butler Gym. I could punch him. (Also, for not turning my backing vocals on until partway through the next song.)
• Ohhh… flat. :-(
• ScoMo tears into “After Hrs. War,” I love him on that!
• It’s weird that the three howie&scott songs that end the project are all in 6/8 time; those just happened to be our best performances from that night’s recording. The rhythmic interplay between Scott and I has always seemed to work really well in 6/8. It’s a rich foundation for musical conversation.