Ordinarily the purpose of this blog is to highlight the various records in my collection, and other musical musings I may have. From time to time, however, I must go down a more self-serving route and discuss my own musical pursuits. Of which there are many. In and around 2017, I released more music than I ever have in my life – 14 full length albums and 11 singles/EPs. I also wrote fewer songs than I ever have since I started writing (only three songs were written in 2017, though dozens were edited, re-written, amended, and/or solidified). So this is what we are talking about this week.
The genesis of this whole project began in 2008, when I got my "new" 8-track recorder. This new machine had built-in-drums and effects and mixing and everything, all contained into a single unit. I could finally make records that sounded like how I heard them in my head. Not that anyone would mistake one of my records for one produced by Brian Eno or anything but they sure sounded a hell of a lot better than the ones that came before. Which posed a problem. All those songs that came before – 21 years’ worth of them – all of a sudden didn’t sound so good.
In 2011 I got the idea to re-record some of the more "classic" songs for a greatest hits set that I was planning, so that the songs would have a uniform sound when sitting next to each other on the disc. As many of my ideas tend to do, this project got way out of hand and, over the next two years, in sporadic sessions, over 80 songs we revisited. Those songs ranged from the ones I performed regularly to long-lost ideas, and everything in between. In 2014, the most obvious songs from that bunch were released on the album, Reinvent The Lie, and then the rest of the material just sat in the vault. I had no idea what to do with it. I floated around ideas of re-recording earlier albums, but most of those album have at least one or two songs that I wouldn’t want to revisit, or they featured songs that had already been released on the best-of. And then it hit me.
2017 was rapidly approaching and that was to be quite a landmark year, at least in my own musical universe. 2017 marked three different anniversaries for me:
2. 25 years since I recorded my first album.
3. 10 years since I got married.
I decided to mark the occasion with a big musical project – the project to end all projects – and one that swiftly got out of hand. The original idea was to release an album every month, for a year. Most of those albums would utilize all that leftover material, and those songs would be given fresh new mixes and also additional material would be recorded. Albums were sketched out in advance and, a schedule was laid out. About half of these albums relied heavily on those older tracks while the other half featured new recordings. Some of these albums collect these old songs in thematic ways, that span years. Some of these albums reimagine a particular songwriting era. The idea was not to re-record old albums, or replace them, but rather to reinvent them. This allowed me to revise old songs as well as resurrect long-lost ideas that were abandoned before being realized. The resulting albums are among my proudest accomplishments.
Another of my ideas was to play a show every month, where the latest album would be featured. This went on for about half the year before I pulled the plug on that. Audiences were far too slim and it was too much work to prepare for the shows, and that was drastically cutting into my recording time. So I put the kibosh on that and got even more productive in the studio.
The last big thing this year was that my old colleague, Rust Rudolph, approached me with the idea of releasing something of mine on his label, Flyingdeer Records. Initially I gave him an EP called The Trinity Loophole but soon after we came up with the idea of releasing a single for each of the new albums, with exclusive b-sides. The singles and the albums aren’t quite in sync as of yet but those releases have been fun, especially those b-side sessions. Those singles are available on iTunes and Spotify and whatnot, while the full-length albums are on my Bandcamp site.
While this project was initially only for 2017, I’ve had so much fun (and there are still, literally, over a thousand songs that have yet to be addressed) that I am extending it into 2018, and perhaps beyond. 14 more albums have been sketched out and I am looking forward to getting to those. In the meantime, however, we shall reflect….
What follows is a quick guide to each of those releases. If you click the title, it will link you to the release, which you can stream or buy or whatever. Enjoy!
Released 12/3/16
Technically this came out in December 2016 but it is the beginning of this campaign so it is included here. To be honest, I am not sure exactly what the logic was in compiling this tracklist aside from it being a dozen songs, from that giant pile, that were all written within a few years of each other, sounded good together, and were ones that had sort of fallen through the cracks. Of the twelve songs on this album, only "The Importance Of Being" had ever been featured on any release before. The rest were making their recorded debuts here. This album garnered a good deal of positive feedback upon release and was fun to assemble. The title was derived from a line in the song "Counterfeit" and the cover photo was taken in Pompeii in November 2016.
Released 1/7/17
The idea behind this album was to include some of the heavier, more present FDM material, songs that have always been among my favorites even if they weren’t necessarily "classics". While this album holds together quite well, it is an album of singles and contains some of the strongest material I’ve done. This was my 50th full-length album, so it had to be something special. Every song on this album had appeared on a prior release, in a prior lifetime, and many of these songs were longstanding live favorites. The title was derived from a line in the song "If I Should Fall Down" and the cover photo was taken while at work in December 2016.
Released 1/23/17
For the third album, I went down a different path and picked out songs that were a little mellower, a little more hushed. The prior two albums had been full-tilt so this one was a little bit on the moodier side. Only a few of the songs here had ever been recorded for a prior project – most of these songs were making their debut here. This is also the only album in this campaign to not only draw material from that giant well-spring but it also utilized outtakes from prior album projects. The title was derived from a line in the song "Fever Dream" and the cover photo was taken in Costa Rica in 2012. The end result is one of the most unique albums in this list and a good one for a rainy day.
Released 2/28/17
In 2007 I started participating in something called the RPM Challenge. The idea was to challenge artists to created an album, from scratch, over the month of February. While the rules only apply to recording, I generally write the album from scratch of that time as well. Some of my all time favorite albums were created that way. This year, however, I took a different approach, and instead revisited the cache of material that I wrote for that first challenge. Around thirty songs were written that month, some of which wound up on the album The Importance Of Being, while the rest have been in the hopper ever since. Since this was the RPM Challenge, all of the material on this album was freshly recorded for this project. About half of the songs here are ones that originally appeared on The Importance Of Being while the rest of the material is making their debut here. The title was taken from the song of the same name and the cover came from a stock art website.
Released 3/10/17
This fifth album of the campaign features twelve power-pop gems that were written between 2001 and 2006. The theme here was all songs that could have been singles. Just catchy, fun tracks, some of my all time favorites. All of these songs had appeared, in their original versions, on prior FDM releases and all of these tracks came from that 2011-13 cache of recordings. Unlike the first few albums of this series, these are the original mixes of this material. I remixed the entire album a couple of times but none of the new mixes had the same fire as the originals. The title is not derived from any of the songs on this set but is simply me saying – "this is the best that I’ve got". The songs are this set are some of the nearest and dearest to my heart and I love the way this album plays out. The cover photo was taken at Meadowlark Gardens in Vienna VA, on a particularly beautiful day in February 2017.
Released 3/25/17
Way back in October 2015, I was rummaging though a box one evening and I came across this notebook from 2012 which was called "The Book Of Everything". In it, there was an entry called "Hypothetical New Album". The title of said album was Dengue Electric and there followed eleven songs, the titles of which were totally unfamiliar. While I can now clearly remember writing that entry (in the kitchen at work, while at lunch) I had totally forgotten about it. With some time on my hands, I decided to try my hand at writing this album. I spent about two hours hammering out lyrics for each title, in order, just whatever came to mind. Then I went to bed. Woke up the next morning and set out to put those lyrics to music. In less than two hours, I had acoustic demos of all of these songs. I then sat on this material for a while, mostly out of laziness. Many of these songs made it into my live set and folks dug these tunes. After the Disastering sessions came to an end, I got a wild hair and, in one eleven-hour session, I recorded this album, from front to back. The only album of "new songs" thus far recorded in this campaign, this is one of my favorite albums ever and one of my crowning achievements. It almost saddens me that it was delivered to the world in the midst of this madness. The title is derived from the title of the first song on the album and the cover photo is of me in 1977, just in from a day in the snow.
The Trinity Loophole (fdrec 003)
Released 5/15/17
When Rust Rudolph approached me to release something on his Flyingdeer Records label, I scratched my head, thinking of what to give him. In the end, I put together this EP and it was released to iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc,. The lead song was recorded soon after returning from a summer in Newfoundland (and was originally written on a hill overlooking Trinity) while the other three songs were outtakes from 2016’s Doing Time On The Horizon album. As it was tied with that album, I went for a similar aesthetic for the artwork (which became a recurring theme in the singles series). The cover photo was taken at the abandoned Trinity Loop amusement park, in Newfoundland.
The Importance Of Being / Imperial Jane (fdrec 006)
Released 7/21/17
After The Trinity Loophole worked out, Rust and I worked a deal to digitally release one single from each album of this campaign. One of my biggest pet peeves about digital singles is that they almost never include b-sides. Everyone knows that b-sides are the best things about singles. So came the idea to record exclusive b-sides for each single, and those songs would come from the same era as the a-side….the same day, if that’s even possible. As such, the single drawn from Hymns Of The City was paired with a new recording of "Imperial Jane", which was written three days after the a-side. Of all the recording projects I’ve done this year, the b-side sessions were among the most enjoyable. Uncovering songs that would not have otherwise been considered for a project, or breathing new life into some neglected old song, it’s been awesome.
Released 8/14/17
This is the album where the specific-era idea really started to coalesce. All of the songs on this album were written in 2002-2003. The first seven songs came from that cache of earlier recordings and the last six songs were newly recorded for this project. Many of these songs had originally appeared on the album, Spontanuity, as well as several other albums that were recorded around the same time. "Doppelganger Girl" was the first song I ever wrote for my now-wife, Krissy, and is appearing on a non-private release for the very first time. I’m not sure where the album title came from – just popped into my head when I was planning these albums – but it immediately conjured a cover image in my head that my good friend Alex Koeppel very graciously (and adroitly) realized for me. This album made Rust Rudolph’s year-end best-of list.
Thirty Years Flat / Underfounded (fdrec 007)
Released 8/18/17
The second single in the series, this track from A Heap Of Sighs was paired with a new recording of a song that was written in the same sitting. "Underfounded" was always one of my favorite of the "lost" songs and I can’t really explain why it was never recorded for any other project until now. Listening to the initial playback of this version made me very, very happy.
Released 8/28/17
By this point in the project, the wellspring of previously-recorded songs was running dry and the leftover songs were all too varied to go together, so they all got spread out across various releases which were then built up with new recordings of other songs from the same era. This album was the first one based on that tactic and the first to rely more on new material than old. Essentially, this album is more or less a reinvention of my 1995 album, 4:20pm. Nine of the thirteen songs on this set had originally appeared on that album, while the remaining songs are ones that had been written for that album but left on the shelf. While that original album, at least in my world, was the product of a very special and interesting time in my life, and can never really be replicated, albums are really about songs, and this new set redefines these songs in a way that they really deserve. The title of the album isn’t based on any of the songs but rather a suggestion to look at the new album for what it is and not compare it to the past. And, oh yeah, "Fortune Hunter" is amazing.
Fade Into Blue / The Julies (fdrec 008)
Released 9/1/17
The third single in the series, this track from Begging For The Dawn started out its life on a 2004 EP called The Hum Crisis. A few weeks before that, as I was trying to break in my new studio, The Sidebar, I recorded an EP called Quadraphobia that was never released. One of the tracks on that EP was a little power pop ditty called "The Julies", which I always imagined was the theme to some sort of adorable Hanna Barbara cartoon band.
Released 9/20/17
As I mentioned earlier, 2017 is the 30th anniversary of me as a songwriter. With all of these new albums celebrating various eras of my writing, it’s only natural and fair to base a set on those first songs. While that sounds like it would be a tough project, it was, in fact, one of the most enjoyable recording project I’d ever undertaken. A few of these tracks dated from those earlier sessions but most of this was recorded over the course of a weekend in August 2017. Many of these songs were written with my early bandmates, Andrew McCain and Bryan Howard, and one of them was written with Errickson Wilcox. They are youthful, they are naïve, but they are fun. I can’t stress enough how much I love this record. After several unsuccessful attempts to title this record, I named it after one of my favorite songs, and the cover photo was taken in the woods in Bergen Norway, in February 2017.
Ripsy’s Gift / One For The Vault (fdrec 010)
Released 9/29/17
The fourth single of the series, this track from Disastering was a previously lost song from the writing sessions that went down during my first RPM Challenge, in 2007. How on earth this song got swept under the rug, I’ll never know, but I’m glad it got its due. Written on the same day was a song that was destined to be a lost song. In fact, that’s what the song is about. It’s right there in the title. But I’m glad it escaped the vault. It’s stupid but it’s fun.
Released 10/6/17
The fifth single of the series, this track from No More Than This was originally written and recorded for a 2006 album called Static Blue.. This song has always been a favorite of mine and I was thrilled when I resurrected it and gave it a home. A maddening 19 songs were written on the same day and one of them is the goofy, rockin’ "Shifty Sally Ann", which is getting its first release here. This is one of my favorite b-sides.
Supertwist / Doctor Who (fdrec 012)
Released 10/20/17
The sixth single of the series, this track from A Perfect Mess is a bit of a whirlwind. I’m still not 100% sure that it was the right choice for the single but it’s done so it is. The general rule for these singles is to source the b-side material from songs written in the same sessions, however the songs that were written for this album were all done in one sitting and there were no leftover songs. So I took this goofy ditty that I came up around the same time and gave it a shiny new recording. And it is currently my #1 song on Spotify. Why? Because everyone knows that Doctor Who fucking rules.
Released 11/6/17
1998-2000 was a very interesting time in my musical world. I wasn’t really making albums but I was writing a fair bit and sowing the seeds for the band, Ebb, which I would play with for a couple of years. Songs and ideas would appear, from time to time, on my many "notebook" tapes and sometimes they would reappear, for a band or project, and sometimes they’d stay hidden. This album focuses on that particular era and includes some dark and epic songs as well as some fun, quirky ones. Only one song on this set is a holdover from those earlier sessions – the rest were recorded in August 2017. The title was derived from a line in the song "8x8" and the cover photo was part of a series that I took from a moving train in Norway, in February 2017.
Sucker Window / Reload, Reload (fdrec 013)
Released 11/17/17
The seventh single of the series, this track from So What If It’s Raining? is a big ol’ burner. Originally recorded for the 2002 album, Kitestrings…andotherthings, this song has always been a favorite of mine. Recording it during these sessions was a treat, and it was an obvious choice for a single (though, in retrospect, I probably should have edited the intro). The b-side was written a couple months later and the original version was kind of obnoxious and this was always one of those joke songs, the ones that were never quite taken seriously. I’m not sure what happened during this session, though, but this song was totally reborn and turned out to be an absolute monster.
Released 11/25/17
The period after 1995’s 4:20pm album was a bit of a wilderness. It would be two years before I made another album, but I was writing and playing almost constantly. I was also eating a lot of mushrooms and occasionally dropping acid, and smoking a hell of a lot of dope, and all of that was starting to creep into my music a fair bit. Not that my musical textures got particularly "psychedelic", but there lies certain trippiness to many of the themes and the lyrics, which are all about that sort of thing. That particular phase did not last long but I do appreciate its impact. Some of those songs would eventually be recorded for 1997’s Flying Dachshund Music album while many of them fell by the wayside. Only one of these songs came from the earlier sessions and the rest of this album was recorded in September 2017. One cool feature of this album is that it starts out rockin’ and then quickly gets a bit crazy before starting a long, slow, mellow descent. You know, like a trip. The title, which derives itself from the song of the same name, is obvious. The cover photo was taken in Mainz Germany in October 2017 and then played with.
Hypnotica EP (fdrec 014)
Released 12/8/17
The eighth single of the series, this track from Nevermind The Shadows was always destined to be a single, even back when it was recorded for 1995’s 4:20pm album. I can still visualize my idea for the video whenever I hear this song. Rather than just dropping a two-track single, I wanted to make this release a bit more special. As with its parent album, this EP features two songs that originally appeared on 4:20pm as well as one song that was written for it but never recorded until now. A solid, goofy, fun little EP. One day I will make that video.
Released 12/15/17
Originally this catalogue slot was to be occupied by a record called This Green Thing. But then I messed up when creating the artwork for that record and so the release schedule got a bit switched up. The songs that make up this album were part of a massive writing project I undertook in 2005, which resulted in the album, The Agony Of Self Defeat, four EP’s, and a whole bunch of stuff left in the vault. Just as that writing session had gone awry, when I set out to record this album, 27 songs wound up being recorded before the sessions got derailed by the holidays. The answer to that was to divide it into two albums. This particular set features all the big songs, the pop songs, the memorable songs, the serious songs, the singles, and arranges it all into an album that is just astounding. Most of the songs on this set had once featured on one of the aforementioned releases while three of them are getting their first shot here. The album title was actually one that had been slated for a different project and repurposed for this set, while the cover photo was taken at Vigeland Sculpture Park, in Oslo Norway, in February 2017.
Released 12/22/17
In late 1992 and early 1993, I hit a particular breakthrough in my songwriting, one that inspired me to actually start making albums, and one that inspired me to assume the reins of the blues band I was in and turn that into Carpe Diem. The youthful naiveté of my early songs was gone, but I had yet to hit my stride as a writer. It was that weird transition period that every young writer goes through. And the result was a bank of pretty interesting songs, especially when revisited. Lots of long songs, lots of different directions, lots of vibes that would remain fixed in their era. Most of the songs on this set were originally recorded for my first three albums, and most of them were played by Carpe Diem, at one point or another. For some reason that I can’t explain, this particular batch of songs has always reminded me of the color green, hence the album title. The cover photo was taken at Creek’s Edge Winery, in Lovettsville VA in November 2017.
Jump Rope (fdm098)
To be released 1/4/18
To be released 1/4/18
As mentioned before, 27 songs were recorded during the sessions that resulted in the album, Pretending To Fly. The quick fix was to split them into two albums. The obvious "big guns" were released on that album while the quirkier numbers were reserved for this set. If you imagine both albums as a giant version of a 7" single, the first album is the smash hit a-side while this album is the quirky b-side. Only a couple of songs from this set have ever seen release before, and all of these recordings are brand new. This is a fun record that’s a bit different from the others on this list and is one that I dig a lot. The title of the album came from a long brainstorm session, to come up with a playful title. The cover is a closeup of a very old piece of paper. I was going for something simple and vintage and, while it did not turn out exactly as I had envisioned, it still turned out pretty cool. It allows the music to speak for itself.
The Wall / Kingdom’s Castle (fdrec 015)
To be released 1/5/18
The ninth single of the series, this track from Just For Kicks quickly re-entered my consciousness and became quite a favorite. One of the better songs to come from my formative songwriting years. So, naturally, I paired this with one of the more ridiculous songs from that era. When I originally wrote this song I’m pretty sure I was trying to make it sound like Dio or something but it of course came out sounding like a shittier version of myself. That said, I had fun recording this b-side.
House On Beacon Hill EP
To be released 1/19/18
The tenth single of the series, this track from Watching The Clouds was a song that was originally written for Ebb and we spent more time working on this song than just about any other. And then, for some reason, we abandoned it. Newly resurrected, this is one of the highlights of one of my favorite albums of this campaign. The b-sides come from that same 1998-2000 batch of songs and feature the quirky "Two Fences" and "Another Dumb Pop Song" (which, at one point, was to be the single). This is a fun EP.
Monalise EP
To be released February 2018
The eleventh single of the series, this track from Alice And Other Stories is a banger and one that I am glad to make a single. "Unwound" is a new recording of a song that was written around that same time and originally appeared on the Flying Dachshund Music album while the trippy "Indian Spring" is a holdover from the 2011-13 sessions and is making its debut here.
So that brings us up to date. Without a doubt, the busiest release year I have ever had. One of the busiest release years anyone has ever had, I might suspect. The downside to this, of course, is that no one is really paying attention to these records aside from just a couple of people. Because it’s just too much, and I know it is too much. But, at least at this point, I’m not terribly concerned with that. This project will continue at least through 2018 and I have a lot of really cool albums planned. And even after that, there is still so much material to address. This project could go on for years.
At some point in 2018, I do want to take some time out and write some new songs. It’s been a while since I’ve written and it might be cool to do something like that. I might play one or two isolated shows in 2018 but I think the live-hiatus will generally be sticking. I am also considering releasing the entire BG catalogue online, perhaps on its own Bandcamp site. I may also create a Bandcamp profile for pre-2008 FDM releases, and I also intend on updating the live recordings on the Internet Archive. And, you know, record 14 new albums and release a bunch more singles.
I have long since released the notion that I am going to be a big star or highly-respected musical artist. I am not making these records to be in search of anything like that. I am pretty accepting of the fact that, unless I wind up very lucky, I am on the back half of my life. While it still makes sense to push forward, it also makes sense to work on my legacy. A project like this allows me to do both. One of these days, be it within a few years or maybe decades from now, someone will stumble upon my hundreds of albums and maybe they will be inspired. That’s all I can hope for. Unless someone wants to give me buckets of cash…
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