Last spring my friend, neighbor, karaoke regular, Sunshine Prophetess and Moongazer, Elena, told me about a country night called “Mama Tried” that was held at Toots Tavern, a bar in Crockett (the next town over), and hosted by the up-and-coming country and western star Noelle Fiore of Noelle and The Deserters. Maybe a month and a half later Noelle posted on her stories that a local recording studio, Bubudzuki, was offering a special one-day discount summer special kinda deal. It was shortly after the huge Port Costa memorial day weekend sale and my cooperative partner was out of town so I was like you know what? Fuck it. Fast forward to June 5th and I’m in the studio, recording my songs; to July 6th when I post that shit on Bandcamp.
Between those two dates I’d sent my 17yo son, Ephraim, some hand-scribbled notes about what I’d like the artwork to look like: I said I had a photograph I liked and I wanted flowers on either side of me and the title of the ep below and my name written in brutal death metal lettering above. Like an hour later that dude had it done:
(check out his portfolio if you need any artwork done!)
If you know me you know I’ve been writing songs off and on since forever. Around the turn of the century I was in some bands back in KC, but after that mostly contented myself with pickin’ and grinnin’ in the privacy of my own home. Now and again I’d think “maybe I should record this” or “maybe I should cobble a band together to back me up and fill these out” or “maybe I should rob a bank,” etc. But you know how these things sometimes are— they happen when they happen. Anyway, this happened and I have to say: it is a bizarre feeling having these out in the world.
It’s a simple album: just me and my guitar, with minimal studio effects. There are six songs— almost half of my total oeuvre, if you will— written here and there over the course of almost 20 years. I wanted it to serve as a sort of demo of sorts, in that it showcases as much of my songwriting range as six songs can. I call it country or folk punk or maybe just folk and I write about suicide, love and loss and politics, that sort of thing. Someone at Bubudzuki described it as “personal, poetic protest songs for fans of Leonard Cohen, Elliott Smith, etc.” I am still processing folks talking about it in any way so I’ll tell you how that makes me feel later.
I’m working on a hardcopy version of it at which point I will publish a small LINER NOTES ‘zine with lyrics, stories, background, anecdotes, photographs, etc., much of which I will begin sharing here on my substack.
Until then one thing I would really really appreciate is if you went to Bandcamp and bought the album. I set the purchase price at the lowest possible setting— $9 — I wanted to make it 6 songs for $6 bucks but apparently that’s not allowed.
Soon I’ll have it on all the major platforms so you can stream it endlessly and complete my dreams of building a very small passive-income empire and return to landscape construction just for fun. I’ll also have some album art t-shirts and a logo patch because I mean c’mon: that shit’s hilarious. And then after that if I can free up the time and energy maybe I’ll play a show or two here and there. Get famous and hooked on coke and live the lifestyle for a few years before barely dodging certain death and once again returning to the simple life of a provincial carpenter. Anything’s possible right?
PS I’ve added some folk to my subscribers— if you don’t wanna get this lmk/ nbd/ XOXO