The inaugural BAMMY Awards show was a total blast. That collection of people in one sold-out room. I loved how none of us could act like we’d been there before. And yet Tarl and his crew, out of thin air, made this event that instantly felt well established. All the basic commentary people have about the WAMIs every year—the pious “music’s not a contest!” platitudes, the cynicism, bitterness, or denigration—were completely absent, and in their place just a vibe of “eff it, why not” and a succession of pleasant shocks—not just for the award winners, who were not notified beforehand, but for everyone of us surprised by such a well executed event. Pro graphics cued up for each segment. Frank Hermans as emcee. The Standard Collective playing a few bars of each just-announced winner’s music (Sam Stranz, you absolute mad man—that was so impressive for you to arrange all that). The incredibly designed and produced trophies. The incredible touch of the “In Memoriam” tribute.
It was a challenging honor to play the tune Ryan penned for The Priggs yet again, but bringing on Paul Becker was a huge boost for the rest of us (Andy Klaus, Tony Warpinski, Alex Drossart, Sam Farrell and me). Starting off with a half-assed Priggs prank would’ve been right up Ryan’s alley. His father, who graciously attended, told us how much he appreciated us bring the music to life once more. Really grateful Tarl asked us to do that.
David Wanie expertly handled the sound throughout the night, as well as the graphics on the projector.
I went to the show entirely ready to applaud whomever won the categories in which I was finalist and leave empty handed, and feel perfectly fine about it. Keep in mind I had sent the mastered “Meta Dada” tracks to the vinyl presser a good three months before the BAMMYs were even announced. Recording that album was so much fun, rewarding in every single way; it was seriously like getting to make my dream album. Then, driving home from Appleton after sessions, I would always resist the temptation to listen back to what we’d just worked on, instead saving it for the decidedly less exciting drive into work the next morning—and those moments were indescribably rewarding.
Then of course there were the record release shows, where I got to experience the thrill of showing the music to the people who took the remarkable chance of attending, with the absurd performances and stellar videos, alongside some of my best friends, my wife, and my daughter (and, by necessity, my baby daughter). I could not feel more fortunate for that experience. Beyond hoping to sell records, I could not ask for more.
The night was already so cool. I couldn’t have been happier for those whose talents were acknowledged. Of course I was happy for Travis, and then there was the criminally underrated Jamie Koebe getting love…. man, I’m going to stop there, though, because virtually every winner felt deserving. And for those finalists who didn’t win—the ranks of which I was well prepared to join—again, the work had all been done before the awards existed, so the music had already been made for its own sake.
That being said, of course it’s an honor to be recognized by peers. What a thrill to win these awards. Like I tried to express in my unrehearsed (preparing a monologue would’ve personally felt wrong, and asking for it to go undelivered) acceptance speeches, this recognition felt very much like a culmination of what I’ve done in the preceding 15-or-so years (much like “Meta Dada” itself).
I’m grateful to have experienced such a fun night, I’m grateful to Tarl and Kylie for making it happen, I’m grateful to the musicians, promoters, venue owners, record store owners, and the surly-yet-cerebral music supporters of the (real®) Bay Area.
These awards are just seriously encouraging. If you’re worried about them going to my head, well, after the ceremony, even in my fancy jacket, I could not get served a drink at a half-empty downtown bar, and I was back to regular work the next morning after changing a diaper. Life goes right on.
Even as some of the boring cynicism starts to creep in about this entirely good-natured event, it’s left me with some lasting inspiration.
First, having seen it in action now, I feel all the more inspired to work even harder to uphold my job as a committee member, if I’m brought back as one. Admittedly I could have spent more time researching the nominees I wasn’t familiar with. I’m hoping next year sees even more nominees, and Tarl mentioned more categories.
Second: yeah man, I want to make more music.
This city has never, ever felt to me like it has a unified music scene—there’s never been a “Green Bay sound,” and even when bands share members the music rarely resembles one another. But dangit, that room on Thursday night—shoot, if only for a night—felt like a bunch of people who happen to maintain our self-issued cards as members of the music cult, had mutual appreciation for one another’s efforts.
That first BAMMY Award show was a gem. Thanks to all who helped make it happen.
-Matty
P.S. My whole #MattyMonday series felt like the right thing to do, and it was fun to try something different, but I kind of assumed I’d be able to somehow make all the streaming platforms take those individual singles and turn them into a single album. Turns out that’s not the case.
So I’ve re-uploaded the album as a single entity. Which, unfortunately, is just going to make all of my streaming accounts look like a duplicated mess. I don’t really know what to do about that, so I’ll probably just leave it as is and rock my records at home and CDs in the car as usual. Turns out I am woefully stupid re: streamsville—not proud of it, just being real—so by all means, if you have advice on this stuff, I am so freaking open to it.
Welcome to the seventh and final edition of #MattyMonday, the streaming debuts of songs from my new album “Meta Dada”. Get caught up on previous releases:
As always, the best way to experience the album is consecutively and on vinyl; records are available at Rock N’ Roll Land and Green Bay UFO Museum in GB, at Eroding Winds in Appleton, and online via my Bandcamp page. But hey, in this cultural economy? I’m glad you’re checking out the songs in any method.
If you haven’t heard the songs before, I recommend listening to them first before reading all the context and lyrics. For those who have heard the music, I hope these posts add mad magnificence to your “Meta Dada” experience.
Man, if you’ve read all of these, I have to tip my cap. Hopefully it’s out of enjoyment rather than sunk cost fulfillment, like when I wasted untold youthful hours watching that awful show “LOST”. Perma-salty about that, even if it did teach me to better value my time. For example, I have no plans to watch the ninth “Star Wars” movie after the seventh and eighth ones were so wack. ….Okay, tough start to this one. I genuinely do want to complete this series. Let’s do it!
Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Ravantha, Cigar Box Guitar: Matty Day
The session
The rest of the album would be recorded at Amano Print House; Ryley Crowe had set up a studio in the back of the shop where his fiancée works, and Sam and Alex were able to work things out to where they could move in and combine recording resources. I mega miss The Refuge. Let me add a bit as to why:
The Refuge
I got to experience such good times there and meet so many people who’ve become so dear to me: Cory Chisel, Sam, Adriel Denae, Oliver Anderson, Ryan Seefeldt, Kurt Kempen, Steve Wheelock, Chad Brady and more—that’s the single location where I met all of them for the first time. J-Council recorded hours’ worth of songs there. The Priggs album was recorded there. I got to do some wild recording sessions with Cory. The first J-Council gig was there. I had friends who lived there. I crashed there a couple of times. We got to hang out with people there of varying degrees of fame (and coolness!). Hang Ten came to exist there. It was the jump-off point for countless car pools to gigs out of town. Fires in the back at night, right on the river. Fresh air by the side entrance before or during sessions. Never-dull run-ins with Scar, the latter-day groundskeeper.
I want to say the last time I was there was when I was heading to Oshkosh to check out a guitar, and I stopped by to see Sam and Alex who were doing a session for… I’d known her as Anna Sacks during the heyday of the Steel Bridge Songfest, but now she has a different last name I don’t presently recall. I want to say the dudes had me drop off a bass for the session. Glad that happened, if that was the last time I was there.
So grateful it all happened! I really liked that place.
The session (continued)
Though I’ve now come to adore Amano, I was initially concerned about the move. “Beauty Sleep” would be the only song to be recorded entirely at Amano, and I was concerned about messing with the formula. Maybe it was superstition; after all, all the gear was the same, if not better, as it was combined with what Ryley had there as well.
Yes, gear heads—didn’t mean to leave you hanging—I did buy the guitar I checked out in Oshkosh.
And that’s the electric guitar on this song. No, I didn’t buy it just for this song, the way I bought the baritone just for “Midnight Diesel”; I bought this one more for using with Country Holla. Still, why not add another new sonic subtlety. More over, its hollow body made for some righteous feedback on the outro, for what Alex referred to as “Pinkerton” guitar. I’d never messed with feedback before—really quite invigorating! I resisted the urge to rerecord the whole album doused in it and changing the name to “Meta Machine Music”.
The one instrument I did buy exclusively for this track was an autoharp. Neat instrument; I just happened to see one in a pawnshop. For the track I did some playing on it while it was out of tune for the sound collage bits, and then tuned it up for the big strums at the end of the song.
I again used CJ’s cigar box guitar, and again in an unorthodox manner; while I did use a slide on it this time, I just did atonal slides doused in reverb and echo.
The other atypical instrument here—and the most exotic on the album—is the ravantha. Bit of a story behind this one. My grandma and her aunt (my great aunt), both widowed, decided to do some international traveling together; my great aunt was quite well cultured. Their first trip was to Vietnam, and they enjoyed the experience well enough that they decided they’d do more. For their second trip, these two elderly-yet-adventurous ladies went to India. That’s where my grandma bought me the ravantha. Incredibly tragically, though showing no signs of duress, my great aunt died in her sleep while they were in India. It was a horrendous affair for my grandma. The best you can say is my great aunt died doing something she loved.
Ravantha w/bow, cigar box guitar, autoharp (foreground: authentic ravantha case made of stitched up single jean leg)
I forgot to mention it in the song credits, but the song also features a large rain stick I was gifted when my great aunt passed.
My grandma was still alive when I recorded this song. She was my only blood-related grandparent I ever knew, and we were incredibly tight. I again used nylon-string guitar she gave me that I played on “Sunburn”, trying to approximate moody, Leonard Cohen fingerpicking.
Sam was an absolute gem on this one. He had the idea for the guitar feedback and helped set it up. He totally accommodated my endless requests for more delay here, reverb there, and the work he did with the wild sound collage in the middle is just great. The percussion he added was totally crucial, too.
Alex found just the right keyboard tone to embellish the vibes. His coolest move was to add the swooping, Theremin-sounding parts toward the end. Both Sam and Alex, as usual, just had no shortage of inspired suggestions, and also helped arrange the vocals on the big ending.
I’ve got to give extra love to Andy on this one, and not just because I gave him a loving hard time on the write-up for “I Need Another Vice”. Andy just nailed this one. Super understated to build up the odd tension of it, before the tastefully big finish. Again, we didn’t give him more than a couple takes on this. I think I feel compelled to try and trick super professional players like Andy into doing something that feels right, and is more instinctive or impulsive, by sort of rushing them in the studio. They’re used to playing perfectly, but this isn’t that kind of record. Relevant and sweet: I read this article Frank Anderson shared right around this time, about how the Romans would purposely mix imperfect concrete.
I added recordings of two of my kids fetal heartbeats to the sound collage. First was my daughter Zuzu, and the second was my then-unborn daughter Edith.
Lastly, we added another recording of Zuzu. Four years ago I brought my memo recorder in to say goodnight to her one night and to record her singing; at the time she loved “The Buffalo Song” (a.k.a. “Home on the Range”). Coincidentally, she happened to sing it in the key of D, which “Beauty Sleep” shares, as it does the 3/4 time signature.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
When we did this song we didn’t know Edith was going to be a girl, but there’s something sweet about featuring these sounds connected to my two oldest and two youngest female relatives on this song. My grandma passed away one month after Edie was born.
I started coming up with this song when Zuzu was a baby, in 2016. I’d sing/rock her to sleep every night, with me often nearly, if not fully falling asleep in the process. Somewhere from that neither-region between wakefulness and sleep I snatched the “Sleep is enjoyable…” line and held on to it for years.
This was another song I imagined would be a Priggs song if I ever finished it, but only wound up finishing it for this album. I let this one come to me slowly. I kept a notepad by my bed to purposely record any odd phrases that came to me as I was beginning to doze. In general I actively maintained this open mindset to words for weeks, and would just jot down whatever mystical words I came across, or misheard at random. In compiling and arranging this random mass I tried to think of it in terms of Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus, who always had a way with indirect lyrics.
I just sort of accepted it as it came. It felt okay to try this out, especially after the tour de force of “Midnight Diesel”. Even fiendish, media-addicted sun worshippers need a chance to recharge.
Granted I did consciously, if gently edit the verbiage I’d collected from in my dreamy state. The shape it took is this surreal sort of love letter to my kids and ancestors.
Lyrics
It never ends
Won’t lose this war again
I’m complete—I can beat that
It’s you, it’s me—new history
Sui generis, true fallacy…
Each other at the back window
Sleep is enjoyable, if there are no toys around
Find soothing in every sound
Issue and source, more northern norths,
Future and once, be here – become – beyond
Bell to cannon
At odds, at ease, hazard a leap
Stars at your feet: there’s your world—verily
Internecine, interregna
All gallons spilt for you
In lieu in light of you
Inkling, intricate
Had it hidden even from myself, after the fact
Before the truth’s smooth mirror
Lidless eyes in dark apartments
Shameful indifference, honorable despair
Clear your head and listen,
Face of pure porcelain
Don’t lose sleep on side effects
Like beauty and happiness
Speak your father’s heart—
No not that one, that one—yes!
Sleep is enjoyable, if there are no toys around
Find soothing in every sound
Through endless hysteria,
Soul-spins and doldrums go ‘round
Still solitude, loftily surmount
Ancestral, celestial,
Eyes to sky, ears to the ground
The highly improbable noontide
Is hereby pronounced!
———————————————————
Thus concludes the #MattyMonday series. Thank you to all who’ve gone through it! I hope you’ve enjoyed these notes and anecdotes, but it’s really all about the music.
As always, the best way to experience the album is consecutively and on vinyl; records are available at Rock N’ Roll Land and Green Bay UFO Museum in GB, at Eroding Winds in Appleton, and online via my Bandcamp page. But hey, in this cultural economy? I’m glad you’re checking out the songs in any method.
If you haven’t heard the songs before, I recommend listening to them first before reading all the context and lyrics. For those who have heard the music, I hope these posts add mad magnificence to your “Meta Dada” experience.
All right, gang. Final stretch here. I’m finally making good on my original intention of just doing one song at a time. “Meta Dada” happens to end with the album’s two longest songs, so let’s give ‘em their own moment to shine.
This next song got the most feedback at the release shows, no doubt thanks to Oliver Anderson’s badass video, which is finally making its digital debut as well.
Electric Baritone Guitar, Upright Bass, Glass Jars: Matty Day
The session
As fate would have it, this would be the last song we recorded at The Refuge. There were some talks about some changes with the status of the property that had us sort of feeling like we were living on borrowed time for quite a while, but we finished tracking this one before any definitive moves were made. Well, almost; there was this weird little bell on one of the doors in the basement there—a door bell, if you will—that quite magically was in this song’s key of B-flat. I discovered this potentially righteous coincidence after we’d shut down for the night, and assumed I’d have a shot the next week to add it.
Alas, t’was not to be, though the song is hardly lacking for sonic curiosities.
For the opening monologue, we’d intended to have Sam’s old German foreign exchange student record it, but Sam couldn’t get a hold of him. As we’d had one of Sam’s friends who natively speaks a foreign language record the opening monologue for “In Our Coldest Time”, that would’ve been a fitting route, but nein.
Then, while visiting some friends at the delightful Green Bay spot Amphora, I was perchance introduced to a lady who lives here, but whose first language is German. We walked outside, and on the sidewalk on Broadway, she graciously recorded the monologue. I was hoping the spontaneity would yield an exciting, unexpected winner of a recitation, but I don’t think I was comfortable coaching her to get the right emotion, not to mention the cars on Broadway were far louder on the recording than they seemed in the moment. This was a bummer—I loved how random it was, the fact that she was a native German for authenticity, and since it’s a driving song, thought the sound of cars passing was a cool bonus.
Then it hit me: Chickenbone. Yes, my friend Jordan, while not a German native, is not only fluent in the language, but has a very distinct vocal timbre, and is an honest-to-goodness 60+-hours-a-week trucker. What he lacked in full-on Germanness he more than made up for with legitimate truckertude. Bless that man’s heart, he must have sent me 30 takes of this monologue, and it was very tough to narrow down to one, but I chose this one on account of the most like a dejected James Dean, and with all the great genuine diesel engine sounds.
My biggest splurge for the album was buying an electric baritone guitar specifically for this song. I tuned it down to B-flat because one of my other splurges was a set of harmonicas in different keys. Typically the low string on a baritone is B, but for whatever reason harmonica sets have a B-flat instead of a B.
Because we love Ryan Seefeldt and beg him to hang out with us all the time, but rarely get to unless there’s recording involved, we got Ryan to do the drums on this one. Oddly it was kind of like “Mild” where we looped him doing a bit of pounding on the toms. Sometimes we just know in our hearts when he’s the right guy for the job. His additional vocal bits are just perfect, too.
Also like “Mild”, my lyrics entirely dictated the structure, so again we basically just made an endless loop of the main groove, I threw down vocals, and then we built around it.
Part of that groove included upright bass. Go figure, with just one song left that needed it, the upright bass I’d indefinitely been lent by my pal Dan Kimpel was suddenly destroyed by my tiny kitten, who seriously weighed a pound, yet with a single bound, decided to jump onto and immediately off of the bass which was leaning in a corner, and tipped it over before it could be caught, landing headstock first on a stereo speaker and entirely snapping off the neck. It was devastating. The String Instrument Repair Shop in Green Bay took one look and said “nope.” Eventually my friend Jason Berken, who happens to be Bob Dylan’s guitar tech, somehow managed to get it rather back together, but that wouldn’t come until later. For this song I was graciously lent a replacement by my Muddy Udders/Gung Hoes/Rodeo Borealis brotha Roelke Barnhart. (I paid Dan for his bass, by the way, and he had several of his own, so it was all good. And I eventually forgave the cat. And bought a stand for the repaired bass.)
The other “instruments” I played were glass jars, which as humility would have it I was tuning (experimenting by filling them with different amounts of water) while my mother-in-law was staying over at our house one night, which made me feel not altogether cool or normal. And then there were the “tools” Alex and I played: electric shavers, blenders, a drill, and a hairdryer. Here’s a clip of us adding those sweet sounds.
Alex also had the idea to add some organ throughout, which turned out to be an ace move.
Then the real star was Marc Jimos. His session for this song predated the one for “Lust”, so this was my first time meeting him. Again, I sure felt cool and not at all ridiculous “playing” glass jars in front of him. He played baritone and alto sax, and man was he good, and was just game for whatever we had him do. I loved his freakout and free jazz playing in the middle.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
As I’ve said, I had ideas for most of this album’s songs for quite a while, in some cases up to 15 years. The idea for this song, though, only came to me while I was sizing up the project and the tracklist. I just started plunking out that incessant riff on an unamplified electric guitar, and it felt like some kinda lost Bloodshot Bill groove. The rest of the riffs and rhythmic sax parts I came up with just jamming around on it. The main riff doubled by sax and glass jar clinks, though, is approximately one that I once brought to a near-supergroup few know was dangerously close to existing, consisting of moi, Travis Pashek, Bill Grasley, and Jason Bank (of Bron Sage, Twelves, and Threadmaker fame). What could’ve been! And still could be. But for now, I found too good a home for that chromatic sucker.
I loved the idea of giving this album some kind of cornerstone, some steady, heavy rhythm amid all the stylistic shifts and key changes and such. Trying to chase down a chord to switch to, as one would clearly assume would happen, proved almost comically fruitless—every time I tried, it felt like I was trying, and I’d laugh it off and just keep going in that same B-flat; anything else felt like it undermined the gravity or betrayed the potential mission. I had read in the 33 1/3 series’ (which is essentially what I’m writing about my own album across these blogs) book on Elvis Costello’s “Armed Forces” that “Big Boys” had been his attempt at writing a song in one key. I didn’t intend to actually meet that challenge, but the theme of the song was also well suited to a ceaseless key.
Like I wrote about “Untrue & Not Enough”, the stage felt finally set to make some kind of statements at this point in the album, which also coincided with the songs being increasingly skeletal as I set about finishing them. The themes of “Lust”, “Lady Circadia”, and “Midnight Diesel” are massive, and it was a trip to try and offer something original and interesting about them.
If all was ultra dandy having found love with Lady C, this one’s a reminder how “at the end of the day” it’s still just you, me—the individual, one’s sole thoughts, and above all, will. Pun intended: what drives you. Swagger in the face of nothingness. Active nihilism. I’ve referenced Nietzsche so many times throughout this album that I just ditch the pretense and start with a direct quote from the master existentialist, though Jung gets love, too, as does Shakespeare again—sometimes you’ve got to draw from mighty strengths and make it all mean something. Imposition, persistence, struggle, tactical monstrosity. Clearly more like beat poetry than any anthem, but I did want to make this a real-gone bit of post-post-Christian motivation for when only the psychotic survive. If the people on that foolhardy Titatnic-exploring submarine had had this song playing in there, they could’ve busted out and swam to shore.
Ohhh okay… sometimes I’m just having fun with words and vocals, like lifting from indecipherable Sly Stone-isms. But the wordplay on its own doesn’t add up to much unless it’s got some sort of ethos or virtue behind it.
Lastly, since the song begins with the quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (the subtitle for which influenced my album’s unofficial subtitle), I tried to have its ending resemble the dramatic music of Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra”.
Lyrics
(Translated from Friedrich Nietzsche:)
O man! Take heed!
What saith deep midnight’s voice indeed?
(Approximately)
Ladies and gentlemen, now I’ll teach you
“Midnight Diesel”, by Matthew Day
I look in my backseat—still empty
We billow like banshees smokin’ wendigo teeth
(Puff puff pass)
Blast with a buzz, my stuff’s up to snuff
I top off n’ roll-a my rocks off the cuff
There goes the sunnn…
I keep on, with my Midnight Diesel, babe
I been up all night, but I’m lookin’ alright
Fine shape for roughin’ it,
Cruise through what I’m confronted with
Find a limit n’ forget it—
High beams n’ white-knuckle grip
If Hades takes the hindmost,
My road’s a blur of signposts—bygone
Thanks to midnight diesel,
Anti-freeze n’ Cecil B. Demille
The streets were damp n’ cinematic
I’m drivin’ with no music
Nothin’ good goes down post-midnight,
But this ain’t about good—evil, either
Initiate my engine with ether injection
If I need to
Whatever it takes, whatever it gives
Mileage and millimeters
No highlight reels
On these here theatre streets
Where the dark eats the details
And I devour midnight diesel
And prevail post-haste
With just a taste—just a measly drizzle
But I got tons: a gazillion glistenin’ gallons!
C’mon: let’s make another last run!
Roll through the tunnel!
Soon the sun’ll come up!
Rev like a devil!
Struggle is your gospel!
Ride the live coil!
Anything is possible!
…This, too.
The only way out is through.
To do, or not to do?
Ain’t but one A for that Q, Matthew
Man, screw the moon…
Shabby second-hand glare…
You who reject reality
And condemn the concrete,
Hem n’ haw like you’re writing a memoir
Last Man fantasy
Oh have fun on ze Autobahn
With your autopilot on!
So solemn, humble piety,
If I could be you…ugh…
To thee it means nada—
Price of beans in Guadalajara
To me it’s everything, the only thing,
My main squeeze—this is LOVE!
Just around midnight
Deeeez what?
Da-da-da-da Diesel
Ooh demoralized, distressed,
In the low-trust Midwest,
Yet onward I press,
The evening my easel
Annihilation assured,
Wrack my brain, frack my past
Tap my private reserves—
Swerve like a midflight eagle
Weave between warlocks,
Pursuin’ proverbial Fort Knox
Ain’t about arriving—
It’s becoming someone who can
And without that need to get through this,
I wouldn’t stand a chance
N’ ‘deed I do!
…With my midnight juice
I sip on, put the slip on oblivion
Tune up! Say the loud part loud!
No right route once the light’s out
No way but your way—hey nowwww
If this ain’t all in my head then where is it?
Grinnin’ like a butcher’s beagle
A boogle of weasels can’t
Cease this upheaval
Let the midnight diesel…
The video
A driving video made quite a bit of sense. I was originally thinking something real goony, along the lines of Rob Zombie’s “Dragula” video. I don’t quite remember when we decided against the green screen—this one came together super quickly, as in, Ollie and I got together three days before filming it. The deer monster was 100% his vision and construction. Sam and Ryan both helped immensely with the shoot.
My good friend Chris Quezada is the owner of that sweet car, a 1951 Chevrolet Styleline, affectionately known as Stella Diver. We filmed this in December, and I completely lucked out: Chris just happens to not winterize his car; virtually anyone else I would have asked would’ve had his car in storage that time of year. I had not thought about his stickers showing up on camera, but I loved how Muddy Udders made it in.
He also brought his stepson Andrew along, which was fortuitous. Not only did we end up needing every bit of help we could on the shoot, but Ryan, who donned the deer monster costume outside, turned out to be too huge to fit in the backseat while wearing it, so suddenly that was young Andrew’s job, and he aced it.
I was already on my way to Appleton for the shoot when I noticed I’d forgotten my switchblade. Go figure, Chris, classic car owner, happened to have one on him. Really blowing apart the stereotypes there, buddy! Really loved what that added, though.
Oddly enough we filmed this outside of Amano Print House and The Refuge, the two studios where the album was recorded. The very last scene we filmed at The Cold Shot. I bought us a bunch of tequila shots as props, not thinking about how free water would’ve looked identical. The bottle of Stella was necessary, though, as an Easter egg reference to Q’s wheels.
The first two videos for the album were obviously a bit more literal, or connected to the music, which is exactly what I’d wanted, and I loved how they turned out. Music videos always operate on a spectrum of being a straight representation of the music being performed, to something abstract and detached from the performance, and this one was clearly the latter. The fact that Ollie managed this absolute coolness for such a long song—while getting the projections for the release shows done and finishing his short film “Four White Owls” for the show opener—just makes him an all-time legend in my book and as impressively reliable as he is creative. Really pumped for his next projects; check out his website for more of his work.
——————————
And then there was one. Tune in next week for the grand finale of “Meta Dada”.
As always, the best way to experience the album is consecutively and on vinyl; records are available at Rock N’ Roll Land and Green Bay UFO Museum in GB, at Eroding Winds in Appleton, and online via my Bandcamp page. But hey, in this cultural economy? I’m glad you’re checking out the songs in any method.
If you haven’t heard the songs before, I recommend listening to them first before reading all the context and lyrics. For those who have heard the music, I hope these posts add mad magnificence to your “Meta Dada” experience.
We left off last week suggesting this album might actual start to stand for something—but what? I’ll tell ya what: falling for anything!
Movie Set: Ryan Eick, Ryley Crowe, Sam Farrell, Alex Drossart, Matty Day
Upright Bass, Electric Guitar: Matty Day
The session
Wow, 11 contributors on this one. Granted it’s got three different parts to it. The main part being the rockabilly part, which is what we tracked first. Ethan was of course the man for the drummin’ job. As I wrote in the blog about “Sunburn”, he was the outstanding drummer for The Blowtorches. Good rockabilly drummers are notoriously hard to find, but somehow this guy just gets it:
Speaking of The ‘Torches, we started this song after I’d finished my four-show run with them. Love how it timed out, what with my rockabilly chops being all tip-top.
It was also after we’d debuted Hang Ten as a live entity and we’d begun putting some cool work into the band. We all happened to be in the studio, possibly to record “Won’t Say It”, when we grabbed the “cut!” scene/section mid song with all five members.
The Dixieland jazz parts were one of the last things we did for the album, just on account of trying to get all the guys from Big Mouth & The Power Tool Horns together. Fittingly, if most uncomfortably, we happened to have those guys into the studio, with no air conditioning nor windows, on what was the most brutally hot, Bayou-like day of the summer. Here’s a clip of Marc, Steve, Bill, and Patrick tracking. Felt wild to have these pros contributing to this record. Sam had recorded Big Mouth before, so he wasn’t fazed.
Alex, every bit his Big Mouth bandmates’ musical peer, had guided Marc on what we were going for, and Marc arranged charts for the quartet. Here’s a clip of Alex doing his part.
The other aspect concerned all those wicked sounds woven into the tune. First, I did a pass or two just peppering it with vocal utterances—a Tony Joe White “uhhn!” here, a Roy Orbison “rowrrrr” there, numerous Bo Diddley “he-heee”s and the like—and Ethan did the same with the gaggle of percussion toys he’d brought.
Jaci, as on the album’s other coincidentally four-lettered title, was game to record a number of vocal snippets, trusting we’d put them to good use. I also grabbed a couple recordings of my dog Batman and cat Foxy, whom I forgot to credit in the liner notes, sadly. (She died peacefully at age 18 later that year.)
Then it was a matter of finding free sounds on the internet. In total I had ~30 sound effects, and mapped out a plan to place them throughout the song. Sam dropped them in, approximately at the intended places, and then for what would be the only time with my fingers personally “working the dials,” Sam showed me how to move the sound effects precisely where I wanted them. Ramshackling’s an art, I do declare.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
If you’ve gotta ask, you might check your pulse! If the previous song was about declaring one’s own righteous liberation, this one answers that age-old query: “now what?” Well, whatever you want—with want being the ever-operative word.
Granted it’s up to each of us to cultivate ourselves and our character to decide what we really want, but there’s no greater problem to have than the task of answering that question. We’re bombarded with round-the-clock bullshit we never asked for, threatening to diminish if not drown out altogether our desires. This song celebrates your innate urges from being extinguished. This album, as obliquely stated out of the gate, is not concerned with Christian morality. Again, though, trolling Christians is a ridiculous pursuit. I’m glorifying lust as an exemplary human impulse, one as gloriously powerful as any when properly applied. Presently, it’s as misapplied societally as it is prayed away. Celibate Christians are banging at exactly the same rate as those who simply lust after another kudo at the office, another episode to binge, another social media dopamine rush, another pathetic porn or weakening video game session—basically all the stuff covered in Track 2. Man, is this the most political track? What can I say, but after 2,000 years of self-suppression and guilt, and amid modern, post-Christian celibacy, and really, in light of the present “hard-on” for artificial intelligence, it feels like a very good time to celebrate our humanity. Such is my case for lust!
Which is to say, that’s also my indulging in some revisionism. There’s no way all of that crossed my mind from the start. I simply came up with this while jamming on an upright bass lent by my friend Dan Kimpel, back in 2016. The Dixieland intro/outro came to me early on, too, perhaps from Gene Vincent’s “Bop Street”—which I totally wink to in the outro, with an additional dash of Alice Cooper’s “Alma Mater”. Then again I’d also done a strolling, descending intro on a rockabilly tune before, with Muddy Udders’ “Rage Red, Sorrow Blue”.
The main part is like a mix of Elvis’ “Treat Me Nice” and T. Rex’s “I Like to Boogie”. With the sound effects and everything, I wanted to lean into a post-modern feel; it’s so, so difficult to capture a real ‘50s vibe—Eddie Clendening is the king of that—so rather than try I wanted to take this one the other way, and capture the lively spirit of rockabilly rather than the sound. I’d really gotten into The Polecats for a while and loved how they used ‘80s production techniques to make something totally unique. Same with the aforementioned T. Rex track from 1976, which gave me the idea to add a super bouncy electric guitar part throughout the whole song. There’s also some fairly spare lead guitar work going on the whole time, giving it this groovy guitar gumbo vibe, especially with all the other sounds and percussion. I purposely kept the guitar solo short to keep it out of that more traditional rockabilly structure.
Lest you intellectuals believe yourselves above all this barbarism, note the lyrics laced with Latin, and Greco-Roman mythology.
Final note on the construction: the sound of the clapboard/slate for the “movie set scene” is in fact a real one. Sam nailed the timing of that!
“Lust” was actually nominated for a BAMMY Award, though it didn’t make it as a finalist.
Still thought that was rather cool, in light of the song not yet being streaming, and although I have a hunch who nominated it, I still appreciated it getting highlighted. Alex, Sam, and I all found it to be a highlight on the album, with Sam, who admits he doesn’t even really dig rockabilly, saying it might be his favorite.
Harmonies: Ryan Eick, Ryley Crowe, Sam Farrell, Alex Drossart
Keys: Alex Drossart
Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Electric 12-String Guitar, Whistling: Matty Day
The session
While Ryley wasn’t featured on Side A of the album he continues to factor in big time on Side B. I wanted him to drum this one because I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted it to turn out—“‘60s” is a very general term, but I knew he could help take it to wherever it ought be taken.
That was kind of our approach through the whole song. Some touchstones would be older groups like The Zombies, The Kinks, and on the choruses, Milwaukee’s The Robbs, building up to where all five members of Hang Ten are singing together. Absurd comparison, but it’s not entirely unlike the members of CSNY singing on each other’s records.
While the more obvious touchstones were classic ‘60s sounds, there’s again T. Rex (the lighter stuff like “Electric Slim and the Factory Hen”), but also a big Brit-pop influence on this one, too, between The Smiths, Oasis (“sunsheeeine”), and Suede, and as I mentioned on Into The Music (about 56 minutes in), The Dukes of Stratosphear/XTC.
Other notes: Sam helped me to figure out how to do the arpeggios on his 12-string. That’s my mate Travis Pashek’s Gretsch once again in there, at least on the bridge; I needed that Bigsby to make it sound all weird. I succeeded in getting a wah-wah pedal into The Refuge once more. A line of Spanish adds to one additional foreign language being featured. Then at the end, I originally planned to do some whimsical vocal bits like at the end of this Smiths song, but the whistling was a nice tie back to the intro.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
My first ever love song? Maybe. There have been a share about lost love, past love, heartbreak, loneliness, and frustration. Maybe “I’d Trade It All for You”, and even “Tingly Hot Chick” and “Date With a Dead Girl” off of “Bloody Murders”, but those are all increasingly askew. I guess it makes sense to be more able to write about love the more I got to know it. Here the protagonist practically deifies his love interest.
If this song isn’t quite as sure of itself as some of the other songs, though, I’m okay with that. Love songs should be a bit vulnerable, and by the end of it the song does find itself. Almost all the songs on this album feel that way to me, though.
Lyrics
I never knew it was sunny outside
I’d skid along broke-down assembly lines
Perpetual question marks,
Central Park was never my scene
Way too green
For me there’d be no one,
Not even illusion
The clouds and moon, routine
Suppressed in the shadows
Where everything bad grows
Then, on cue: my queen
Lady Circadia
Oh how I’d await ya
When finally you came to romantic rescue
I knew I’d need no other muse…
I thought my heart had been played out
I bid “adieu” to a barrage of doubt
Whatever I thought I used to want,
I needed you all along
Dawn and dusk
Love and trust
With you there’s no pity,
Just possibility
A rosy pinky swear
You lighten the abyss,
My luminous goddess
With gold cascading hair
Lady Circadia
My senses, I came to
Since I’ve obeyed ya, it’s been so good
(Shinin’ on, flyin’ on, and feelin’ brand new)
Lady Circadia
The stars coronate ya
The crestfallen hate ya, they haven’t a clue
(No they don’t, no they won’t)
To dim to sing another tune
Withering without her, fading in the shade
Blighting in the nighttime
I’m in retrograde and grim
Without your warm rhythm
Oh how you upgrade me,
Sweet Lady Circady
You’re my very sunshine
You get my to see right,
My vitamin D-light
Revealing, concealing
Heliocentric lipstick: I’m so optimistic!
Lady Circadia
A Literal Day Maker
By nurture, by nature,
Right down to the roots
(Cheerin’ up, clearin’ up, n’ no longer blue)
Lady Circadia
Eres mi Dulcinea,
My Freyja, my Phaedra, and my Peggy Sue
(Wakin’ up, makin’ love, from mornin’ ‘til noon)
Only gloom ‘til there was you…
——————–
There we go, gang. Two tracks featuring Hang Ten and a boogle of others. Rounding out the three most traditionally structured songs of the album.
As for the other related BAMMY Award nominations, “Meta Dada” is a finalist for Album of the Year, and I’m still in the running for Artist of the Year. Gnarly, gnarly stuff and super touching.
Next week, the final of the three “Meta Dada” music videos!
As always, the best way to experience the album is on vinyl; records are available at Rock N’ Roll Land and Green Bay UFO Museum in GB, at Eroding Winds in Appleton, and online via my Bandcamp page. But hey, in this cultural economy? I’m glad you’re checking out the songs in any method.
If you haven’t heard the songs before, I recommend listening to them first before reading all the context and lyrics. For those who have heard the music, I hope these posts add magnificence to your “Meta Dada” experience!
Boldly barreling into Side B this week with two more compositions, starting with perhaps the most *striking* moment of the record.
Alex really made this sound super Dylan-esque, not just with his spot-on piano part but with suggesting what I did on bass. Not that there’s a ton to explicate on this one, but I talked about it on my Into The Music interview (about 30 minutes in) among a whole lot more.
Sam is ultimately the real star on this one, though, for taking it riotously over the top. I knew we needed the lightning strike sound, and I recorded my dog Batmanhowling, my then-two-year-old son crying, and as a nod to Hamlet my then-living rooster crowing, which I recorded just before I cut his head off (he’d started viciously attacking my kids; might have to write a blog on that). I hated that bird, almost as much as I hated killing him; in the cosmic scheme he’s been immortalized on this track, so call it a wash.
I had to step out of the studio at some point when Sam was whipping up this sonic masterpiece, and when I came back he and Alex were giddy with the results. They’d opted to lower the pitch and distort the crying to make it sound trippier and actually less disturbing. The other sounds—the twinkling bells, storm sounds, and volcano—were their inspired choices.
I want to say that was the only song we worked on that night. Tough one to follow!
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
Again, I tried to explain the inexplicable on Into The Music. But what developed a nickname of “Bob Dylan Dies and Goes to Hell” started out not quite as mischievous. Years earlier I’d come up with the lyrics out of some annoyance at generic Americana music, but we got to joking in the studio and it very quickly turned into Dylan parody. In whatever sense taste can be considered, believe it or not we did use some restraint, opting for the muffled sounds versus the poor vocalist yelling utterances like “Infidels!”
Tough to call anything audacious these days, but let’s just say I was overjoyed that one friend of mine in particular—who happens to work for a certain celebrity who happens to have created music which coincidentally resembles that which we’ve made here—was not offended by this piece.
The title is of course a Greco-Roman-centric play on Beethoven’s work. Give the gods their due.
Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Cigar Box Guitar: Matty Day
The session
First we set up Ryley to try and get the right drum groove for the verses—less a repeated part than a general vibe, somewhere between The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” and Aerosmith’s “Jaded”. Here’s a snippet from that session.
I knew Sam could nail the harmony on the choruses. He and Alex did the response lines (i.e. “it’s not the saaame”) during the verses. Sam also came up with the arpeggiated guitar part to add jangle to the choruses, and Alex added organ super tastefully.
You can see in the credits I added cigar box guitar. This was a gift from my late friend CJ Edwards. He had just gotten into building them, and he gave one to all three of us in Muddy Udders—on the condition that we play them on an album. That never happened with MU; the best I’d done was including the guitar in the stack of instruments on the back of The Priggs’ CD.
You’re supposed to play those with a slide, but I wanted to use the sitar-type sound it made when strummed open, so we just tuned it to the right key and added some effects.
For the actual slide part, that’s all Wild Bill. These sessions were never about shoehorning people in just for the sake of having them on the record. That being said, I loved getting to finally be on a song with Bill. We’ve been buds for quite a while and have certainly jammed live, but never on a recording. I knew I wanted him to play the slide lick during the verses, but it seemed kinda silly to not have him do much else. I want to say that gave me the idea to add a bridge, which was the right move, and I absolutely love Bill’s work on that part.
For the solo, I tried in futility a number of times to make it up on the spot, but ultimately had to put some time into it at home, using the Justin Hawkins technique of writing a solo just beyond one’s capabilities. Since “Sunburn” is an instrumental, this is arguably the first guitar solo on the album.
For the lead riff, I’ve got a wah-wah pedal on but stationarily, for a bit of, ya know, edge. I’m told this was the first time a wah-wah had been used in The Refuge. A true honor!
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
I showed a sketch of this song to Alex after The Priggs’ album, thinking it’d go toward perhaps our second album. The verses were inspired by trying to do an impression of the type of stuff Kevin Barnes was doing for of Montreal, where an unusual chord progression is tied together with a catchy vocal line.
Wish I had more insights than that, but like Rob correctly nailed, we were going for a Raspberries type of sound. It’s funny how aiming for something rather retro lands you somewhere less so; this tune sounds very ‘90s in a way I also appreciate, like Gin Blossoms or even “Tiny Music”-era STP.
In some ways this song and the next two are the three song-iest songs of the album. Surely anyone who’s made it through the previous seven tracks has earned that! The earlier Shakespeare reference in “Mild”—the line “will we ever get past the prologue?”—feels like it’s finally resolved. Whatever arc there is to this album, it seems like, after a pair of lyrically scant tunes, it’s just now ready to assert itself following this power-pop kiss-off.
Lyrics
Darlin’ if you’ve been untrue
Then I will have to set you free
It’s gonna be so hard on you
You’ll wonder
How you blew your shot with me
And how forgiving I can be
Since the day you winced away
I have been so happy
Now I’ve seen what lies beneath
Your sweet velvet wrapping
(It’s not the same)
Such a cryin’ crime to consent
To self-kidnapping
Couldn’t tell if the spells we’re under
Were overlapping
(It’s such a shame)
Darlin’ if you’ve been untrue
Then I will have to set you free
It’s gonna be so hard on you
You’ll wonder
How you blew your shot with me
And how forgiving I can be
Is not enough
It’s not enough for you to miss what we had
That’s not what love should be
(It’s a luxury!)
I spent so long singin’ swan songs
You nearly made me make a martyr out of me
I’m settin’ you free!
(You’ll wonder)
Trusted you to heal me through
Some pseudo-Tikkun Olam
I handed you my heart and soul
You just freaked n’ stole ‘em
(Got to reclaim!)
Darlin’ if you’ve been untrue
Then I will have to set you free
It’s gonna be so hard on you
You’ll wonder
How you blew your shot with me
And how forgiving I can be
Is not enough
To take you back—NO
The video
Ridley Tankersley did excellent work Hang Ten’s video for our song “Don’t Get Me Started”, so heck yeah I was wanting to work with him again. He had this great idea of getting us a soundstage from one of the buildings at Lawrence University, where he’s an alumnus, and Sam’s girlfriend works, so they figured it out. Admittedly I didn’t quite know what a soundstage meant, but it was perfect! I mean, we couldn’t drink there, but other than that.
I had the basic idea of doing a “band” video based on the context of the “Meta Dada” Soirees; with everything having been so abstract and dashing expectations for actual live music, I thought it’d be a cool, sort of grounding moment to have a representation of a band in the mix. Goes without saying I love n’ adore these dudes, so the chance to act like we were a band was a blast.
Couple other notes: 1. Sam had the idea for the giant pick, which I loved as a nod to my using a pick to play bass on this one, which I hadn’t done since “Stinky Hole Epidemic” for the first Muddy Udders album. 2. Alex is briefly seen playing the cigar box guitar in the video, too. Miss you, CJ.
I hadn’t given Ridley any direction beyond “you know, like a band video,” and I felt pretty bad about it, so I started to write what were some general suggestions but got super carried away, and ultimately gave him this huge document of time-coded shots and sequences for the entire video. Swung the pendulum from underguided to micromanaged. So I tried to walk it back and told him to take or primarily leave whatever ideas he wanted from it, but that dude seriously, mind-blowingly found a way to bring that mess to life, and do so way cooler than whatever I would’ve pictured.
Further, additional props for Ridley. Dude had total command of that soundstage, leaping across ladders, programming lights, scaling curtains and the like. Then he edited it masterfully and totally creatively. Man’s a gem. Ultra-talented musician, too. Thank you forever, Ridley!
And thank you for diving deeper on these tunes! We’re now two-thirds through. For some timeline context, at this point in recording we took a couple of months off; I had gigs with The Blowtorches and The Foamers? to study up on, and Hang Ten had our first shows to prepare for.
Just this morning my latest interview published—a phone chat with Rob at Into The Music. Rob came up with all these great questions, like asking what my humor influences are, and played four songs off “Meta Dada”, including some that have not yet been released via the venerable #MattyMonday series.
This is the first time I’ve gotten to chat about the songs since the record’s been out, and the whole thing was a ton of fun. Check ‘er on out!
I’ve been a fan of this show for quite a while and it was an honor to be on ‘er. Exact same goes for my recent interviews on Rooted Wisconsin and Fox Cities Core.
Local independent media is totally unique and vital. Hope you’ve been getting a kick out of the “Meta Dada” media dash, and longer term, please support, follow, and share these platforms.
LPs are available at record stores in Green Bay and Appleton as well as on my Bandcamp page, but each Monday I’ll be rolling out the songs online—you name the platform, they’re gonna be on it. If you haven’t heard the songs before, I recommend listening to them first before reading all the context and lyrics. For those who have heard the music, I hope these posts will add to your experience.
*Note* — I am and likely always will be an Album Appreciator, and if you happen to also fall into that niche, you might consider waiting ‘til all these songs are out (or, dude, just buy the record now) because I truly did try and shape these 12 songs for a single, continuous listening session. No judgment either way, though; mostly glad you’re checking out the songs, however be your bag.
Eyyy, it’s Side A! I keep thinking I’m gonna slow down to one song a week, but as is, it’s been so tough to not share all these at once. Enjoy another two-fer for today, anyway!
I had Andy in mind for drums on this one because I hoped he’d bring a bit of extra musicality to some country drumming the way he did for The Priggs song “It Will Be Too Soon”. Boy, was I ever wrong. Iiii kid. I gave him no direction, yet Andy was fantastic. To a bit of his chagrin, we kept what may have been his second, at most his third take on drumming it. Andy’s an outstanding musician, but he’s not altogether used to working in more of a slapdash style as we embraced for these sessions. “Perfect is the enemy of good”—is that the phrase? It was certainly the ethos, and though I felt a pang of sympathy for Andy, he should never have questioned his completely loose and naturally spot-on playing; in fact that punk should’ve just been glad we let him hang out with us. Why can I not write this without ripping on him. I love Andy Klaus like a brother. He’s my daughter’s piano teacher for two years running, and just one of the greatest dudes. That’s him cracking open a cold one (of pop, if I recall) toward the end of the song.
And hey, I got a taste of this sort of trust-your-instincts-and-studio-engineers situation myself, as I went in intending to play bass in a very simple, unobtrusive way—to “serve the song,” as it were—but Frank Anderson was having precisely none of that. He told me to play… I forget how he would’ve worded it, but basically to play more interestingly. As per usual I hadn’t prepared my bass part, and with this newly insisted direction, I was unsure kinda like Andy must’ve been, but I didn’t whine about it like he did, that crying whiner. Granted, Andy may recall all of these events a bit differently, so I look forward to reading his blog responding to these allegations. The floor is yours, Andrew. Anyway, Frank was right. (Holy Concert Café flashbacks.)
Frank’s a brilliantly bold fellow, someone whose wisdom is cherished by many of us musicians. Cumulatively, I talked to Frank on the phone more than I talked to anyone else last year, largely at random moments, and primarily about music. Frank’s described himself as a Forrest Gump-type figure with music. (Check out the first interview and the second interview he did on Fox Cities Core. [He did a third interview with his excellent band Zebra Mussel, too.]) One of my favorite how-in-the-world moments of his was when he was in the parking lot of the mental hospital where/when The Cramps were performing inside. Frank’s dislike of The Cramps is one of the only areas where he and I disagree, but always respectfully.
Beyond his passionate opinions, Frank, having been a session musician for Butch Vig during the heyday of Smart Studios, is a boon to any session for musicality as well. Funny thing, though: when I asked Frank to play pedal steel on this song, I’d never actually heard him play before.
Soon as he plugged in I was floored—as advertised and then some. We decided that day to add a key change coming out of each instrumental interlude; I liked starting in the same key “Mild” ended in to somewhat orient the listener after that wild ride—but the key changes felt write for a country song with a simple melody/structure. Frank nimbly worked around those. We had him play a clean track, coming in after the second verse and going through the whole song. After this session I got to do a few gigs alongside Frank with Boy Howdy and The Electric Ranch Hands, and I gleaned all kinds of wisdom from Frank regarding instruments staying out of each other’s way (which I’m hoping to employ for Country Holla) and he did that masterfully on this track, just intuitively.
Originally I intended for Frank to take the first half of the solo on steel, then Alex have the second half on keys, which was also what we did for The Priggs’ “It Will Be Too Soon”, albeit with Bob Parins, then of the band of Montreal (and still, as we were shocked to find out, a Green Bay native) on steel.
But then Frank used some effects pedals that made his instrument sound incredibly like something Sneaky Pete Kleinow would employ, and it was pretty exciting since I’d expected him to just play it clean. I don’t know if we discussed Frank taking the whole solo, but it felt totally right.
For almost all our Wednesday evening sessions, I would leave work in Green Bay and drive straight to Appleton, and we did try, honest, to have dinner on occasion. I was told Frank’s a big McDonald’s fan, so got a bunch of that to eat—yet another glorious vice in the subtext.
Cory popped in for this session and suddenly it was a party. We showed him what we’d been working on and he started talking and singing in this crazy cartoony voice, and there was no way it wasn’t gonna make it on the song. Just way too fun. Fortunately I had the wherewithal to snap a few pics:
Andy KlausFrank Anderson, setting up his steelSam, dialin’ n’ profilin’Andy, Cory, Frank
We bookmarked where we wanted Ryan’s Peppy LePew lines and had him add at another session. With retroactive apologies to Valentine, the actual French speaker on “In Our Coldest Time”.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
Sometime in 2011, Tom Smith asked me to do a solo set to open for The Hooten Hallers at the Crunchy Frog. I think my Muddy Udders bandmates couldn’t do the date. So I challenged myself to not only play my first ever solo show, but to learn some new covers (Redd Kross’ “Play My Song”, Beck’s “Nightmare Hippy Girl”, Bowie’s “Black Country Rock”, and a one-man band, cigar box guitar version Alice Cooper’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy” a la Pat MacDonald) and to write and play a set of entirely new material. I was going to do almost the whole thing on acoustic guitar, with a tambourine around my ankle, and I bought a harmonica rack and some harps in different keys to make it happen.
I cleared a nice early summer day to just work on songs on my back porch on Stadium Drive, looking out at Lambeau Field, and finished a number of songs, some that were already started, others that I started and finished that day. A couple of these are good but still shelved; one was recorded for the fourth, still-shelved Muddy Udders album; two appeared on MU’s third album (“Rage Red, Sorrow Blue” and “I’d Trade It All For You”), and then “I Need Another Vice”.
Pretty fruitful day for me. Here are a couple shots from the show, billed as Matte Jones:
Pulling the tambourine over my shoe.
Worth mentioning that other than that show and a solo set I’m so glad I played at my grandma’s retirement home (about a year before she passed), the “Meta Dada” shows were the only “solo” performances I’ve ever done. I was glad I did that first one at the Frog, not just for the songs I wrote for it, but in the sense that it taught me I really wasn’t interested in playing solo, which was largely the reason why until this album, I never wanted to go it alone.
In 2012, on perhaps my favorite night of my favorite tour, Muddy Udders/F*ck Knights, after having a blast playing at two different house shows in Murfreesboro, TN, we hung out in some giant old house and passed a guitar around. Kyle Lewis was there, who I haven’t run into for a bit (looks like he’s still playing guitar for Maggie Rose). Roelke told me to play something I’d written. It was probably 4 a.m., but this one had stuck with me enough to remember it, and until “Meta Dada” I hadn’t played it since.
Lotta history there, huh. For the song itself, of course I’m showing a progression of attempts to fill The Void. Placed in the context of “Meta Dada” it works to further this evolution of figuring out how to get through life. The old kicks lose their thrill. It’s an ill-fated search for meaning, rather than actively creating it for oneself, imposing it a la Nietzsche’s active nihilism. I say ill-fated because that last verse—which so perfectly contained the happy accident of Frank making an atonal slide noise after his solo, perfectly sounding like a speeding car on a highway—I’d really intended as pondering suicide as some morbid final vice, and I’d meant for that last B Major chord to go minor and simply ring out for drama. Sam felt otherwise; particularly in that great studio setting, he was the one who pushed for it to end on a party, which made for Cory’s hilarious ad-libbing and everything, effectively taking what I’d intended as a low point and making it a high one. Just a great call.
After the sonic far-out-ness of “Mild”, about the only move was to 180 to something rootsy. Seemingly, at least; we tried to do something similar to Pete, Paul & Mary’s “I Dig Rock & Roll Music” where the accompaniment morphs with each verse.
Spiritual Chant: Ryan Seefeldt, Alex Drossart, Sam Farrell, Matty Day
Additional Electric Guitar: Sam Farrell
Keys: Alex Drossart
Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Upright Bass, Acoustic Baritone Guitar, Acoustic 12-String Guitar, Whistling: Matty Day
The session
I’d known Ethan for probably a decade. He was the drummer for the Overserved Gentlemen, featuring our mutual friend Craig Baumann (who I’d met back when he was in the Milwaukee band We Are Your Father), as well as Dan Kimpel. Dan not only plays pedal steel for Country Holla, but he lent me the upright bass I play on much of this album.
One day I went into my favorite local brewery, Stillmank, and was totally surprised to see Ethan working there—I had no idea he’d even moved to Green Bay. I’m still pumped about that; he’s such a good guy, and I’ve gotten to do some ice fishing out at his place on the Bay. Like Frank in the previous track, though a few years later, Ethan was also a session player at Smart Studios. He got that gig after drumming for a rockabilly band called The Blowtorches. Coincidentally, I was asked to fill in for the ‘Torches in 2022 for what would be their four-show swan song. The singer and bass player, Steve Golla and Dan Howe, are with me doing Country Holla now. Tidy stuff, huh?
Ethan’s mostly been playing jazz, both for the Standard Collective and for the Green Bay Jazz Orchestra, and occasionally filling in with Brass Differential. He was stoked to play on something a bit different. He was always totally inventive playing with Overserved Gentlemen, and he was game for anything, even my customarily underperformed demo. He brought a huge box of percussion instruments to add to this one. But his drumming and preparation were just incredible. Sam and Alex had never met him before, and he knocked their socks off.
I got to play an acoustic guitar with nylon strings that my grandma had given me; she had an idea to try to learn it in her 70s, but figured I’d get more use out of it. I also got to use Cory’s acoustic baritone, and my man Travis Pashek’s Gretsch electric, the red one I often played with The Foamers?.
Brent came recommended by Alex from playing together in Big Mouth and the Power Tool Horns. I’d always imagined trumpet there, but we had to wait quite a while to track it, really toward the end of all the recording, because of scheduling issues. In the meantime, I’d actually considered commissioning Theremin for what was going to be the trumpet part. I’ve followed Via Mardot on Instagram for a while, and she put out a post saying she was open for some commission work. I had this clever idea that she could try to harmonize two Theremin tracks, and I thought she’d be really excited about it, too, not to mention the cash I’d send her way. Turns out I was quite out of my league: she was soon busy recording with Roger Waters his updated solo version of “Dark Side of the Moon”, which struck us all as pretty funny when we found that out—Matty Day or Roger Waters; tough call there! The Theremin idea was really just me trying to come up with an unexpected, potential improvement due to the scheduling issues, but I loved what Brent did on it. He drove to Appleton from Stevens Point and knocked out his part with aplomb in like half an hour.
While I’d consider this song an instrumental, it was just begging for some sort of intense utterances or chants, which clearly meant we needed Ryan Seefeldt again. Ryan, Sam, Alex, and I—known, by us, as The Deadbirds—threw our hearts into this chant of Ryan’s concoction. Like David Lynch discussing “Eraserhead”, Ryan describes this chant as incredibly spiritual, but refuses to expand on that assertion. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we originally overdid the very-fun-to-do “wee-a-wop”s, and trimming them down was a comically serious endeavor.
Alex brought in all kinds of color to this one, and Sam added the wounded electric guitar swells before the buildup.
Another huge assist on this one goes to Domenic Marcantonio, leader of Beach Patrol, for which I was bassist for a year. I was desperate to add castanets to this song, but no one I knew had any, so I was prepared to drive to Oshkosh to buy some for over $100. I made one last desperate trip to Heid Music in Green Bay to see what I could possibly find, when I ran into Domenic, and when I told him my idea he suggested I use musical spoons instead, right there on the shelf for $10. Yes, yes, yes! I owe you one, Nick!
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
This is another tune based off an idea I’d held onto for a long time; I just found a partial demo of it from 2011, oddly enough like “I Need Another Vice”.
Of course it’s got this southwestern flare, but I’d still classify it as a surf tune. My first foray into instrumental surf was “Rugburn” for Muddy Udders. That one was sort of my attempt at a Ventures style song. Then I pushed myself into more of a Dick Dale direction with my next one, and called it “Drugburn” , also for MU.
I decided to name the track “Sunburn” so’s to complete a not-terribly-connected trilogy. I’d always imagined giving it a big cinematic sound, like The Shadows meet Ennio Morricone. I never could quite imagine Muddy Udders in a studio session that would be able to suggest that scope, but we never got around to trying it regardless, and instead the “Burn Trilogy” completes here.
The sense of “Sunburn” here, suggests an overdoing, with regard to “Vice” before it. But it still feels like an empowering piece rather than weakening, especially moving past the cold and dungeon vibes of earlier, not to mention replacing the dingy electric glow of screens with healthful sun.
Lyrics
(Approximately)
WEE-A-WOP
Half way through the album, six down and half a dozen to go! All gratitude to the fine folks who helped make these recordings.
LPs are available at local record stores and on my Bandcamp page, but each Monday I’ll be rolling out the songs online—you name the platform, they’re gonna be on it. If you haven’t heard the songs before, I recommend listening to them first before reading all the context and lyrics. For those who have heard the music, I hope these posts will add to your experience.
*Note* — I am and likely always will be an Album Appreciator, and if you happen to also fall in that niche, you might consider waiting until all these songs are out (or, dude, just buy the record now) because I truly did try and shape these 12 songs for a single, continuous listening session. No judgment either way, though; mostly glad you’re checking out the songs, however be your bag.
I only meant to do two songs last week to introduce this concept, but I kinda like the way the two different songs can play off each other, so at least for this #MattyMonday, here’s another duo of “Meta Dada” ditties, starting with a particularly chill number:
This song, ornate as it came off, was perhaps the most brisk (pun: accepted) of all the album’s songs. The structure itself is quite straightforward, and beyond Valentine’s monologue, it features no guest performers, which can’t be said for any other tracks on the album.
For whatever reason Alex wasn’t around when we started tracking. I had the structure/chords, the lead guitar line, the vocal melodies, the lyrics, and an idea of what the drums should do; as I did with “Media Casualty”, I had completely forgotten to come up with a bass part. I showed Sam my impression of what the drums should do, and he wound up recording himself doing an improved version and looping it. For what was to be a pensive late ‘60s song, it had a surprising, underlying groove. That foundation helped me play the guitar parts more delicately, but also inspired me to play the bass part more groovily, too, doing some Donald “Duck” Dunn-type runs. We may have considered using the drum loop as a scratch/placeholder, but there was something so satisfying about it, and by that time we’d built around it, so we delightfully kept it. Again, I was so pleasantly surprised at this rhythmic bedrock—I’d never messed with loops before, nor would this be the last time on this album—after which Alex joined and added all this delightfully baroque, pastel color.
From start to finish this song took us four hours, including chill time, naturally.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
I’d had the main melody, sans lyrics, for perhaps six years. This is the first of three songs on the album I had imagined would be Priggs songs.
Not that they’re nonsense, but the lyrics were almost entirely made to match the melody. Other than the recurrence of the song title, it’s a bit all over; Van Dyke Parks style of wordplay, with some pseudo-rhymed finishing phrases (“Andalou”/”out the blue”). Maybe it corresponds to some sort of icy, detached academia, though sung warmly enough with double-tracked vocals. Blue coldness + red warmth = perfect for purple prose?
I’d had the idea for the French monologue intro, probably inspired by T. Rex and The Mystery Girls. Sam happened to have a French friend, Valentine (“val-en-Teen”), and wonderfully she was game to do record and send a simple phone memo recording. I had used an online translator to change my English-written intro, but she graciously cleared it up—though to this day I don’t know exactly what she says. One change, though, was that originally I’d had her use the French word for “Day” instead of saying my last name as is, but then it just sounded like a random snippet of French dialogue, so she graciously re-recorded it, and Sam dropped the file in and timed it up over Alex’s keys. Merci beaucoup, Valentine!
For those keeping track, so far you’ve heard English, Latin, and French—who knows what else you’ll encounter on this expedition! Not Italian, though, as I mentioned in this list:
I won’t belabor the album concepts/motifs introduced/perpetuated in this song because they’re probably pretty obvious to you, though maybe the Chronos/Greco-Roman mythology bit deserves mention. But in terms of album arc, by my estimation, so far we’ve rejected Christianity, amused ourselves to death, and found ourselves left in the cold. Le sigh…
Upright Bass, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass: Matty Day
The session
This song has three basic parts, which required at least three, several-hour, Wednesday night sessions. It started with getting the main upright bass riff, then have Ryan pound away to that, and then do another pass or two adding some more improvised fills. Loved bringing Ryan in to do something so far out; Sam, Alex, Ryan and I have played countless shows together, with Cory Chisel, J-Council, and Adriel Denae, but also backing up Shannon Shaw, Chuck Auerbach, Rev Sekou, and tons more of incredible one-offs.
Building up that groove was a blast. Cory popped in and bolstered the vibe, and somehow the idea came up for Ryan to shake one of those giant tubs of cheeseballs for percussion. Alex did some free jazzish piano plinkery, Sam filled in the low end with some murky electric bass, and I added something of a trip-hop guitar line. We did this before I knew what I was going to do lyrically, so we actually recorded quite a bit more than we needed. Loved the disoriented, hypnotic groove. We decided it would add to that by disregarding a more rhythmic cadence for the vocals, opting for laconic sing-speak.
For the second part, as per usual I supplied an awful demo, and Alex simply took it home and made a full righteous synth piece. We dirtied it up a bit with some distorted breathing a la Depeche Mode. Doing the low octave on the vocals was wild; it felt like Syd Barrett singing “Maisie”.
I hadn’t planned for a third part—I was thinking it would just menacingly fadeout—but something about it suggested Alex request I go full-on pop with it. With that bit of homework, I came up with the vocal, and we went as pop as possible. Jaci was game to record some “Vogue”-esque vocal snippets for us, Sam came up with the Nile Rodgers guitar part, and I added the Peter Hook bass. At some point a Shirley Temple was drank.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
Great question: I’ll… get back to you on that.
Well, I had the first bass part in my back pocket for almost 15 years, and for whatever reason always imagined it going from this organic dungeon to something darkly electro. Going to something brightly electro was a mid-session revelation. On it’s face this is the weirdest song I’ve ever been part of. I’ve so primarily worked in rootsier genres, but electronic music started blowing my mind in my late teens and shattered my rigid sensibilities of what rock’n’roll is.
Writing lyrics across the drastic changes, it sort of feels like this move from (self-)loathing to radical (self-)acceptance—a warming up process of sorts, after the previous song, but hey, careful now: the pendulum may swing too far in the coming tracks!
Lyrics
(Heavy) like a gas can
On the side of a highway
I endure this blurred survey
What I had for the week,
I went through by Tuesday…
My whole life is a Mild seizure
I move like a action figure
I squander this tenure
For strangers
I’m ex-ex-extroverted
Exoteric *and* subversive
I summon the sun
While you call the curtain
Mild
And yet I cannot get a witness
I’ve got a healthy sickness
I’m an analog mess
You’re wireless
So we do the new dementia
You resent me, I repent ya
Disparate business,
Compliments offend ya—
How can we even talk?
Frankly, I’m a flawless angel
All my ideas are anti-fragile
It’s true by degrees I wager danger
Eternal Blaise Pascal
I burn internal bridges
Endless
I drive private wedges
Creative differences
Nix my solo projects
Cautious, on the fence
Still I will this selfish slog…
Will we ever get past the prologue?
Condemned to engine
I wanna be your cog
Mild
The sound of a robot breathing
Half-open blinds, Venetian
Dialed to mild
N’ no longer freezing
I haven’t come to complicate things
Benevolent manipulatings
Keep it on the D.L. I am
M-I-L-D, my friend
You wear a silver harness
You call it virtue
I call you a masochist
Snow in June
Kicked out of the scene
Stylishly realize your mildest dreams
And when she wants some good
She comes to me—mildly
That’s how I put it
So mild…
———————————————–
Just like that, you’re a third of the way through the album, and yet—as I bat my bedroom eyes—fully through to my heart for reading these so far. ‘Til next Mondee,
Welcome to the first #MattyMonday, the streaming debuts of songs off my album “Meta Dada”. The vinyl is available at local record stores and on my Bandcamp page, but I’ll be rolling out the songs online. If you haven’t heard the songs before, I recommend listening to them first before reading all the context and lyrics. For those who have heard the music, I hope these posts will add to your experience.
*Note* — I am and likely always will be an Album Appreciator, and if you happen to also fall in that niche, you might consider waiting until all these songs are out (or, dude, just buy the record now) because I truly did try and shape these 12 songs for a single, continuous listening session. No judgment either way, though; just glad you’re checking out the songs, however’s your bag.
To start this series with a big ol’ bifurcated bang, this debut post will feature two (2) songs off “Meta Dada”.
Harmonies: Cory Chisel, Sam Farrell, Alex Drossart Mandolin: Tashi Litch Fiddle: Evan Snoey Piano & Organ: Alex Drossart Acoustic Guitar, Upright Bass, Banjo: Matty Day
The session
We knocked this out quickly, in two, or was it one session? Alex was able to have Tashi and Evan, two students at Lawrence, recommended from someone in the music department, and they came to The Refuge, did one warm-up pass (both recording on the same track), and then nailing it on their second try. They said they’d been playing bluegrass a lot lately and yeah, they played super naturally. Cory was absolutely wonderful—I knew he would know exactly what to do, based on his outrageous music knowledge, and same thing, two takes at the most. My vocal take used was I do believe my first vocal take we laid down, intended at first as only a guide/scratch vocal, but when we went to replace it as intended, there was a solemnity to it that just fit the part, so we kept it.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
I came up with this song maybe 15 years ago, when I was very much appreciating the melodies and harmonies of The Louvin Brothers’ gospel music. I was living in Milwaukee, but I remember going to the Green Bay Exclusive Company and sheepishly buying a CD of the Louvins’ “Songs That Tell a Story” compilation, worried Tom Smith (who I mega looked up to from the Concert Café/Rock n’ Roll High School days, but hadn’t yet befriended) would laugh me out of the store. Tom was open-minded about my selection, though, and with my heathen guilt absolved, I enjoyed the music and eventually came up with this song, my own modern crack at the style.
One of the luxuries of working on this album so privately was the ability to confound nonexistent expectations. In this case, I guess I thought it’d be funny to make people wonder if I was using this album to declare my newfound Christianity. We managed to play it straight until the end. Upon repeat listens, it serves as about as bonkers an intro as I could have imagined, and toyed with scope and sincerity in ways that sort of blow the record open.
Additionally, pseudo-Satanism has gotten kind of annoying; as “badass” as musicians think it is, operating within Christianity’s framework is ultimately more reverent than it is transgressive, at least by now. If I wrote this to piss off anyone, it wasn’t meek-aspirant Christians who “turn the other cheek” when attacked—where’s the fun in that? If anything it’s to weed out people who claim to be atheists but are still superstitious, or squares who don’t think their square, or people with rigid or absent senses of humor. If someone listens to this, gets a kick out of the confusion, and is still on board to hear more? Then we’re on the level! Said listener can and should proceed to Track 2.
Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Bass: Matty Day
The session
Marko from The Lately struck me as the guy for drums on this one. My direction for him was basically to drum nonsensically, and to play to emulate a kid playing with the drum settings on a keyboard who keeps hitting the “fill” button at random. Marko’s an adventurous beast of a drummer and he laid waste to this one. Mike from The Lately also happened to be at The Refuge for this session. Alex and Sam helped to make it a bit more psychedelic and noisy at the end. I always intended it to be a fadeout, but we nearly kept what we had because of how fun it and candid the track ended. I’m glad we did keep it, because as is, both sides of the album seriously stressed the capabilities of how much music can fit on vinyl before the sound quality degrades.
Once again this was all first- or second-take stuff that made it. This would be the first case of something that happened a few times, where I didn’t recognize until the session that I had no idea what I was going to do on bass. Sam suggested just playing a simple one-note driving part, which is 100% the reason this song works.
Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here
I came up with the guitar part perhaps seven years ago at Travis Pashek’s house before we started a Foamers? practice. I thought it might go toward that band, but I never pushed myself to make anything of it. The main riff always struck me as a Velvet Underground style, and the “chorus” like something The Hives would do. I only came up with the other, Eb to B part when I finally set about making a song out of it for this record.
I didn’t have any idea what it’d be like vocally, though eventually the “chorus” melody popped in my head in a real Eagles of Death Metal way. Lyrically, the concept of a media casualty struck me over the last couple years, particularly with people who just seemed to have this new, entirely modern vacuity about them, whether jaded or humorless, which seems entirely the result of over-ingesting screen-based content. I’m hardly blameless in this regard, but I’d like to think I haven’t content-consumed my wits away (though, in a Dunning-Kruger sense, who wouldn’t want to think that).
At any rate, I’m empathetic; we’ve never been faced with the awesome addiction of media stimulation, and I worry about the human brain’s ability to handle it. Just like the poor “acid casualties” of the late ‘60s who burned themselves out seeking… something… media casualties essentially do the same, though with far more socially acceptable (and in the case of iPads/phones given to toddlers, parentally mandated) means.
I write this as a recovering childhood television junkie (among other media maladies), who also got to experience a good portion of pre-internet childhood. Though I have that perspective, I’m not promoting abstinence. Your brain is invaluable; seek what makes it stronger.
Note: the song (and album, really) is laden with references to the works, philosophies, and anti- if not pre-Christian “immorality” of Friedrich Nietzsche. If Track 1 “took the toys away,” I had to try and offer not an outright (certainly in the metaphysical sense) replacement, but a means of overcoming one’s existence. Active nihilism—the willful imposition of meaning, not the shirking, passive whiling away of screen addiction.
Lyrics
Ladies and gentlemen: We’ll be doing away with dying.
You see, long ago when the tiger smoked and the rabbit talked to dragons and all that crap…
We begin our sprint down a predetermined digital path.
Now, rather than stare at the void annoyed, miffed with infinity,
A canvas can piss me off only so much before I glorify it.
A work in progress—pre-apocalypse.
A mess o’ molecules n’ memories
Why plant a flower in a field of weeds?
The end of history, birth of tragedy
Alright: alligator prayers it is,
Ads for graveyards.
You didn’t ask but you got all access.
Faberge eggs to the dregs, keg stands of NA beer…
The virgins think it’s sexy!
I wrote this song while you were all asleep
Oh so susceptible to messaging
Some people call it “compassion fatigue”
No one bemoans a Media Casualty
Oh no!
Tonight the bottleneck cheered me up
Yes I’m intense—but I just live once
I mean…
What kind of sad-sack would I be if I said “no”?
I don’t ever wanna know!
Get it off me!
Bits of tail still stuck in my teeth (spit)
See, I never woke up this morning,
Cuz I never really went to sleep last night.
Nope. The The…
Teenage clicks, the elder scrolls,
And the baby swipes…
Unconscious stream-o’-genealogy o’ more-er’-less in hyper-real love
I want ALL of the above!
…Great service: but a bad product
Hook it uppp
I need some shuteye or a viral tweet
Deciding between death n’ dopamine
Crawl on your knees for authenticity
Someday you’ll wish you had a man like me!
I am a thing, you’re an idea
Let us not perish via media!
We’ll grab a front-row seat to this Shinola show.
In latine: ecce homo
Gimme just a minute to convince myself I care
Ya know, it’s harder than it seems to keep these wise words
From you baby birds n’ ne’er-do-wells
And if you don’t believe me, I don’t know WHAT I’ll do!
But consider this a warning I never got:
Trading arms to buy new boxing gloves…
Abandoned to novelty’s charms…
I would if I could but FINE—
Cauterize my bleeding heart!
Easier done than said—
Lean into the struggle, baby!
Bruce Hornsby n’ brunch…
Doing whippets n’ watching “Zeitgeist”…
This GENEROUS universe…
I’m giving Ma Nature a brand-new vacuum.
But we can’t just bond over the things we think suck—
That’s not enough!
Society’s a social construct!
Brainwashed, sloshed, n’ noshed by subtle cults…
You Are Hereby Absolved of All Matters Grey, Matty Day!
Activate the consumers!!
…Paedomorph blues…
The video
When Frank Anderson came in to record on Track 5 we showed him the other songs we’d done, and he just loved this one—he made Sam pause it so he could adequately take it in. Almost immediately he said he wanted to do a video for this song, and he had the concept from the start. Filming was incredible. I even kind of trained for it because I knew how hard he would push me, and even still, what a rush! Frank is brilliant, and he and I will one day unleash mindblowing future work together.
Enjoy this clip from before the video/album debuted:
The night before the first show, all three music videos were completed. The day of the first show, Oliver’s short film was completed. Four hours before the first show, the records arrived.
Those who’ve long endured my hopeless ways couldn’t be less surprised. Maybe I can blame my English heritage; I recently heard the assertion that an Englishman is at his best when it’s almost too late. But damn if it didn’t feel inevitable that this thing would come down to the wire.
We did it, though. I owe perhaps the biggest thanks to Oliver for his Herculean effort: creating the projections; finishing the “Midnight Diesel” music video; and finishing “Four White Owls” in time. During the shows he was also our stage director, making sure the stage effects and millions of props were ready on time.
Patrick Metoxen, who I’ve leaned on for countless live productions (including my wedding)… I’ve never leaned harder on him than for these shows. He was responsible for making sure each of the four videos worked; that the sound and projection were on point throughout; and switching to the music videos during the show, went off without a hitch.
The “cast”—Sam, Alex, Ryan, Jaci, and Zuzu—the fact that they were willing to do this with/for me will always blow my mind. I painted us into a ridiculous corner with these shows, and we somehow came out of it glad that we went through it! Unreal.
The venues: The Tarlton troupe were unbelievably cool throughout. Kylie is a pro’s pro. Ditto for Dana. And Tarl and Mark for accommodating the whole thing were just awesome. Kylie generously letting us rehearse there three days before the show proved indispensable—the sole reason the shows worked (to the extent they did).
And Gibson in Appleton, Melissa and Aaron were incredible for the day of. The absolutely huge thanks goes to Dave Willems for being willing to let us move the Saturday show to Gibson so last minute.
Originally the show was set to be at The Draw, which happened to be the site of what would be the last gig for The Priggs. We’d been working with John Adams who owns the building as well as first-floor tenants Coffee Wizardz (yes, Green Bay fans, they’ve got a second location in Appleton!) to pull it off. John’s a long-time amiable collaborator, and Sam from Coffee Wizards, shoot, we go back to freaking Kindergarten at Aldo Leopold, staying in touch when we both lived in Milwaukee in our 20s. The nature of these shows was entirely touch-and-go, but ultimately there were just one too many boxes we couldn’t quite check to make sure The Draw would be ideal. In light of it all, nothing but mutual love abounds.
The fact that Gibson happened to be available on a Saturday night was just a huge stroke of luck. My only regret is I hadn’t been able to promote the show’s happening at that location sooner, but it was clearly the right decision, difficult as it was to make.
For both venues, I also had to inform them the week of the show that I potentially would need to postpone; after monitoring the progress of my records being pressed, it was getting scarily apparent and increasingly likely the records might not be ready. That Tuesday was unbelievably stressful, when I had to absolutely decide whether to keep the dates as planned or push them back, and with only incomplete information to base it on: when you pay for a legitimate company to press your records, they can’t guarantee when they’ll be finished, because they need to inspect the records first, and there’s quite a bit of room for error in the vinyl medium. I’ve since heard from a friend who forced a company to jump the gun for his band’s records, telling them there wasn’t time for inspection, and later learned a good many of the records were damaged. I was not willing to risk that.
I was willing, however, to drive to Cleveland to pick them up if I needed to. I basically got to the point where if it took that extreme measure—even if it meant wiping me out with a 16-hour round trip before the show—I would do it. If there was any way to make it work, I’d make it work. I had numerous people traveling for these shows, including some from across the country. Another potential option was paying for overnight shipping, something to the tune of $500.–
You can imagine it sucked to consider all that. There were entirely logical reasons to push the bummer button and postpone the shows. I’ll forever be cosmically grateful that it worked out. Huge props to Gotta Groove Records for managing to hit my drop date. Bands, I know it’s tough, but I would not recommend booking your release shows unless you’re absolutely sure (even to the point of having them in hand) when your vinyl will be done. I left a three-and-a-half week cushion between my delivery estimate and my shows, and it was clearly inadequate and immensely risky.
Which is to say, this whole thing’s been decidedly less than assured. Would people come out to hear music they’ve never heard? Would people be pissed when they realized the shows wouldn’t have any live music? Would we—who’ve never tried anything like this—be able to make it not-a-disaster, let alone moderately entertaining—and with holding our first rehearsal just six days before the debut?! I also had nothing to base this on; the closest ideas were Alice Cooper, Tom Waits, and Sha Na Na, but those performances, theatrical and coordinated as they are, still had live music.
I had to just hope people would get it. Between all the different players and the myriad production magic, there was no way we were going to do these songs justice live. Not to mention, being absolved from having to play these songs live was a huge source of studio inspiration. But we needed to do something more eventful than just doing listening parties, too. So there you have it.
Still, once I’d committed to this outlandish release show concept, and even as I’d come up with the parts/scenes/vignettes/props/actions, and even after seeing Jake Phelps’ outstanding design for the programs for the shows, at least once a day I regretted what I’d gotten us into, and my cast mates probably more often than that!
And yet, the weekend worked. Even the ways in which it didn’t work, it worked. We got a standing ovation from a sold-out crowd at The Tarlton! And Appleton was just as cool—people being way too nice and telling us we should take this on the road. A number of people came to both shows! All the better, because as I’m sure is now understandable, we won’t be doing this show live again.
Tommy Burns did film Friday’s show—which we’re going to get together and watch at a private “wrap party” for the cast this week—but as a document it’ll be just that; if you missed the experience, what with the surprise of what we were going to do and all, now that that’s revealed there’s no re-revealing it.
On that note, it was very hard to keep this all a secret while promoting (necessitating Aaron Rodgers-esque obfuscation [Q: “Who’s in the band?” A: “The performers include…”]) and I’m just totally, completely touched people took a chance on coming to something so weird. I leaned entirely on whatever reputation I’ve built over the course of all the bands I’ve been in and projects I’ve done. I cashed in every favor and bit of goodwill to the point of indebtedness. I spent more time and money on this than any rational man should ever do, but hey, in the dada spirit, rationality is subjective, too.
Endless gratitude to all—cast, venues, audience, video producers—who made the “Meta Dada” Soirees possible. Here are some pictures people graciously shared—have a look (find even more on my Instagram highlights) and then see below for the plan on getting the music fully out there:
Photo by Tiffany FellenzPhoto by Tiffany FellenzPhoto by Tiffany FellenzPhoto by Tiffany FellenzPhoto by my dadPhoto by Elizabeth EnglePhoto by Elizabeth EnglePhoto by Tiffany Fellenz
For my Bandcamp page, to clarify, I set that up primarily so people could order records through it. I do not have the music streaming there, or anywhere yet, but that’ll soon change—or start to.
A lower-key idea I’ve had for releasing this album is to release the music online a song or two at a time. Tomorrow will be the first #MattyMonday of however many it’ll take to roll out all the tunes. I’ll also be writing blogs about the songs, putting the lyrics online, and publishing the music videos as applicable.
Again, I don’t have much precedent for this strategy, so it will likely not be perfect, but I wanted to do something different, because again, since we’re not playing this stuff live, once all this music’s out there, that’s kinda it in terms of whatever eventfulness I can do for it.
If this is the first way people hear the individual songs, cool! I hope it’s fun to get a new song every Monday. Or, if you’re already familiar, I hope you’ll enjoy the extra context/content for them.
Tomorrow I’ll be rolling out the first two songs: “Satan Gave Me Sunglasses” and “Media Casualty”.
Matthew t Day 