Hello, Green Bay/Appleton!

Thank you, each of you, for coming here this evening! Tonight represents much more than the album I got to make with Sam Farrell and Alex Drossart, two of very my dearest friends. This all came together thanks to Cory Chisel’s studio at The Refuge and Ryley Crowe’s studio at Amano Print House. This came together with the assistance of over 20 guest performers, and side note, although we used modern technology to capture a few vocal snippets and monologues long distance, every instrument was recorded in person by some of Wisconsin’s very best musicians, which you’ll find credited in your programs. Speaking of programs, those were designed by Jake Phelps, who also designed the album art and fliers, which featured the photography of Lauretta McGee, who took the photos at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center thanks to Director of Production and Facility Operations at the PAC Gerald Henley. Speaking of directors, Frank Anderson, Ridley Tankersley, and Oliver Anderson worked incredibly hard and pretty darn fast to film and edit the three music videos you’ll see debuting tonight, not to mention the outstanding projections Oliver created for a number of tonight’s performances, the live production of which is all being wrangled by the incredible Patrick Metoxen, here at The Tarlton with endless gratitude due to Tarl Knight and Kylie LaCombe/Gibson Community Music Hall with endless gratitude due to Dave WIllems. Yes!

Now… “Meta Dada”. What is?!

Meta, in a hyphenated word, means self-referential, which was a fun concept to play with across a solo album.

Dada was a European art movement begun in Switzerland in 1916 during World War I. Dadaism was anti-war, but it was also anti-everything. It was escapist, unadulterated liberation—the subjective, whimsical attribution and disattribution of meaning and significance at will. In short, who gets to decide what’s meaningful, and what’s not? This spirit would inform countless live performances and stage plays—called Dada Soirees. Dada also influenced fine arts, with its most famous work being Marcel Duchamp’s piece titled “Fountain”—which was nothing more than an upside-down urinal. A more contemporary artistic ancestor of that piece would be absurdist artist Maurizio Cattelan’s 2019 work called “Comedian”, which was nothing more than a banana duct-taped to an art gallery wall. Cattelan actually sold two editions of the piece for $120,000 each. I guess it had appeal(/”a peel”)…

Personally, as far as Dada, I get annoyed by tedious, subjectivity-masquerading-as-objectivity discussions about “What is art?” – “What is anything?!” – or “What is is?!” If that’s your bag, by all means, go argue with your buddies about whether a hotdog is a sandwich or whether cereal is soup but please, do it away from me, where it belongs, at 4am at the Blackstone/in a Lawrence dorm room – cuz I do not care.

I care much more about making and creating than deconstructively picking things apart. Granted, you know—à la omelets and eggs—a degree of destruction is necessary for creativity, and creativity is—without risk of overstatement—creativity is everything.

The creation I present to you tonight is my album, “Meta Dada”. The music is as meta and as Dada as it isn’t—the album title is ridiculous and ridiculously layered—as meaningless as it is meaningful, for everyone and for no one.

The idea for the name hit me in early 2021 from hearing an Englishman pronounce “meta data” as (stuffy British accent) “meta dada” and it somehow it inspired me to envision a sprawling yet idiosyncratic solo album. Never know when it’ll hit ya!

“Meta Dada”, nonsensical as it was, became the veritable North Star for my creative compass! To the point where even when Mark Zuckerberg renamed his stupid social media empire (say like a nerd) Meta some six months later, I didn’t change my course and I decided to keep the name—a decision that would be further bolstered per the recommendation of a focus group that I hired. This focus group bore out the statistic that a full 98% of humans despise Mark Zuckerberg for any number of reasons, including for how he creepily collects their meta data—meaning, 98% of people would appreciate my album title all the more for its bonus impact as an anti-Zuck zinger, so thanks for the extra meaning, Mark!

….But let me clarify, amid this pubic meditation on meaning, that it means the absolute world to me that you would all attend this show tonight. And I absolutely mean it when I say I hope you enjoy every second of this music and that you get a kick out of whatever on earth my friends and I are about to do up on this stage…

~Introductory speech to the “Meta Dada Soiree” – January 26/27, 2024

There it is—thus has flown the fastest year of my life. Out of gratitude for the people who made it so cool, and for the sake of remembering so many good and interesting times, I’ve got to try and write a bit about what’s happened—and, wildly, what will! Maybe this’ll also prove insightful for other independent musicians and you can borrow, learn from, or improve upon this slapdash blueprint.

To recapitulate, working one weeknight a week for most weeks, from April 20, 2022 to August 31, 2023 I got to make my dream album, with no pressure beyond what I put on myself. To do so I shamelessly called on help from countless talented people I know, or who my friends knew:

• Engineers/producers/musicians Sam Farrell and Alex Drossart
• Studio havers/musicians Cory Chisel and Ryley Crowe
• Musicians Tashi Litch, Evan Snoey, Marko Marsh, Ryan Seefeldt, Frank Anderson, Andy Klaus, Ethan Noordyk, Brent Turney, Bill Grasley, Mark Jimos, Steve Johnson, Bill Dennee, Patrick Phalen, and Ryan Eick
• Vocal contributors Valentine Michel, Jordan LeMay, my wife, several of my kids, and a few of my animals

Some might note the absence of my other bandmates from that list; I think I needed to mentally distinguish these tracks from my long-running groups.

Leading up to the recording sessions, though, I had privately decided to quit making music (!), made a drastic career change just before COVID-19 hit the world (!!), then went back to back to school thanks to COVID stimulus checks (!!!). The two bands I’ve played the most gigs with—Muddy Udders and J-Council—both unceremoniously dissolved amid this period, with our last gigs happening late 2019.

After Sam and Alex agreed to helm the sessions I began to full-on Scrooge McDuck-dive through my vault of accrued song ideas, lyrics, beats, grooves, riffs, etc., looking for pieces that still grabbed me (some bits being 15+ years old) or even resonated in new ways. After completing a marathon, 24-credit college semester, alas, I got my first full-time writing job, the likes of which I’d sought for a good dozen years. I mention that because of the interesting timing, as that job would whip me into a shape of creative discipline I’d never known, weirdly teaching me how to get things done—and I totally credit that ethic and approach for helping shape the songs for “Meta Dada”.

During the sessions, it so happened my bands The Foamers? and The Gung Hoes hung it up, and my bandmate Ryan Peerenboom died in an accident (miss you all the time, man). I also had a stint playing guitar for The Blowtorches, which more or less amounted to the band’s farewell run of shows. A year later, fall of 2023, saw the first shows of Country Holla and Goulash, with the latter later renamed Rodeo Borealis. My wife brought our sweet little baby girl into the world that September. My grandma, who meant absolutely everything to me—the only one of my blood-related grandparents I’d ever known, let alone met—died in October. How I loved that lady.

It was also around that time I left my full-time writing job—which, oddly enough, my last day on that job happened to be the day of the final recording session for “Meta Dada”—to riskily have a go at freelancing. I supplemented that by working a bit for my friend Justus Poehls’ tree service. Right around that time I was invited on the Rooted Wisconsin podcast, hosted by one of my college instructors who I’d really gotten along with, Brad Zima. The interview well covers where my head was at at the time:

To summarize the release of the album, I got permission from Gerald Henley to be photographed by Loretta McGee at the Fox Cities PAC; benefited from the design talents of Jake Phelps to create and submit the album art; worked with the great Justin Perkins once again for mastering; worked with Gotta Groove Records (per Justin’s recommendation) to realize the vinyl; conceived three different music videos and two promotional videos; and managed to create, round up all the props and costumes, do some week-of/day-of rehearsal, and perform for the “Meta Dada Soiree” release stage shows.

And Then What?!

Oddly enough—and seeming all the odder after rehashing that wild run—everything through the release was in some ways the easy part. Clearer, anyway. Sure it was a ton of effort, and I was publicly doing a lot of stuff I’d never done before, but I at least had a sense of what I was doing and how to try and do it.

What followed was different, though, and fittingly unlike the afterglow of any album release I’d been part of. Ordinarily, sure, you make a bit o’ hubbub for a release show, but it’s essentially a regular concert except people can buy a new release for the first time, and from then on it’s available at future performances. But with “Meta Dada”, there’d be no other performances.

First order of business was to get the vinyl to my three most-frequented record stores: Green Bay UFO Museum and Rock N Roll Land in Green Bay, and Eroding Winds in Appleton.

I had never sold music at any of these stores, and they were all so damn cool about it. GBUFO and RNRL telling me they had sold all their copies and wanted me to bring more—I’d just never gotten to experience something like that. Not pictured above, but it was also cool to meet Isaac Lamers from the Present Age and Zebra Mussel at Eroding Winds.

Other than getting the records to these three stores, the only plan I half-had was to digitally release the songs each week with an accompanying blog series, containing song/video links, lyrics, session notes, and a stab at figuring out what I was going for with these songs. To whit:

• 2/5/24: #MattyMonday – “Satan Gave Me Sunglasses” and “Media Casualty”
• 2/13/24: #MattyMonday – “In Our Coldest Time” and “Mild”
• 2/19/24: #MattyMonday – “I Need Another Vice” and “Sunburn”
• 2/29/24: #MattyMonday – “Ode to Jove” and “Untrue & Not Enough”
• 3/4/24: #MattyMonday – “Lust” and “Lady Circadia”
• 3/12/24: #MattyMonday – “Midnight Diesel”
• 3/19/24: #MattyMonday – “Beauty Sleep”

At the Green Bay record release show, my Live from Stadium Drive brother Tommy Burns was kind enough to film the performance, setting up a tripod focused on the stage. What I hadn’t thought of, though, was for him to set up a “room” microphone, to capture the crowd reaction and represent the wonderfully lively atmosphere. As such, when I had “the cast” over for a watch party, the result was unfortunately underwhelming, being limited to a single static shot, no audience represented, and a soundtrack of basically the songs themselves. Still glad to have it as a memento, but unfortunately it’s not worth publishing as is.

However, one full performance was most fortuitously captured by my father-in-law—and if there was one song that I could’ve picked, this would be it:

One of my most literary friends, John Pigeon, also reviewed the show quite delightfully:

A META DADA KINDA SHOW

Review by John Pidgeon, 1/28/24

Friday night last at The Tarlton Theatre in downtown Green Bay, this sleepy community of ours was affronted by a multimedia barrage of music, film, and stage antics via a cultural event christened, yes, Meta Dada. So, what is META DADA? My wife, who would know, insists it means to be among the deliberately odd and non-conformist. And that’s as good a definition of any of the album release party which turned out to be nothing less than an assault of infectious, off-kilter artistry perpetrated by one Matty Day, singer, songwriter, stamp collector, and his cohorts: Sam ‘the ham’ Farrell, Alex ‘where are my keys’ Drossart, Ryan ‘how did I get into this’ Seefeldt, Jaci ‘he made me do it’ Day, Zuzanna ‘pick on someone your own size’ Day, and Oliver “I’m going to Hollyweird—no really” Anderson.

Let me describe it for you: in a quaint, darkly-lit theatre, among other unsuspecting attendees, you see before you a low-lying stage backed by what must be the largest white-screen in the city, when suddenly yon screen is illuminated by images of animation so softly impressionistic, so surreal yet naturalistic in its subject matter, that you are all but compelled to watch. Yes, it was that engaging, especially surrounded as it was by a musical score that somehow was able to only enhance the fantastic visual experience.

The film, titled ‘Four White Owls’, is the work of two local creative artists: Oliver Anderson, whose animation provided the stunning visual experience, and Alex Drossart, who composed the equally accomplished musical accompaniment. One can only liken the viewing experience to Disney’s 1940 epic Fantasia, except that instead of a ‘G’ rating, this one would likely earn an ‘M’ for its imaginative use of the human form in various modes of sensual expression. The reader may opine that this reviewer is only indulging in hyperbole when he states that this wonderfully collaborative product should be making its rounds of the short film fests this year, including the one with the little gold statuette clutching its staff or sword or whatever it is out there in southern California.

And that, ladies & gents, was just the Pre-Show! The night’s feature presentation, which also made use of the big screen, as well as the Sensurround speakers, was META DADA, Matty Day’s album release extravaganza featuring several well done music videos and multiple light-hearted stage shenanigans, all of it accompanied by the grandly eclectic mix of Mr. Day’s new song cycle, featuring honkytonk (‘Satan Gave Me Sunglasses’ and ‘I Need Another Vice’), frenetic aggression (‘Media Casualty’), early-to-mid-Beatlesque (‘In Our Coldest Time’), slow-rap-sliding-into-latter-day-disco (“Mild”), followed by the zany stage pantomime of “Sunburn”, a fine set-piece of musicalinguistics. And that was only Side 1.

After intermission, Side 2 proceeded with “Ode to Love” (sic), which held my attention to the point of my seeing now that I neglected to take notes; “Untrue & Not Enough”, featuring an excellent music video by Ridley Tankersley; “Lust”, to which Matty and his better half, Jaci, performed a nicely turned jitterbug; “Lady Circadia” (a great title among many), an upbeat progressive piece, also my personal favorite of the entire song cycle; and “Beauty Sleep” a lovely ballad with attitude.

Here then is one critic’s choice of the best songs (each written by Matty Day) comprising META DADA: “Sunburn”, “In Our Coldest Time”, “Untrue & Not Enough”, “Mild”, “Beauty Sleep”, and “Lady Circadia”. Happy listening to all . . . and to all a good night.

“Meta Dada” media blitz

Having decided against traditional gigs, to support “Meta Dada” I forced myself out of my humble comfort zone and made myself get more visible than I ever had. It began with the two promo videos Tommy Burns produced, and picked up with the Fox Cities Core interview leading up to the release.

Really, Andy from WCZR had already given me a couple of pre-publicity on his show, asking my dear friend Frank Anderson about the album:

After the release, in February, I also got to be interviewed by Rob on the Into the Music podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2128759/episodes/14527934

I’d become a good fan of both Fox Cities Core and Into the Music, particularly during and coming out of the social-distancing COVID era; feeling so newly and abruptly disconnected, I maybe felt a bit more drawn to local culture than I’d been before. Having tuned into many episodes, it was pretty damn fun to get to be a guest.

One of the coolest endorsements for the album came from prodigious promotor Tom Smith, someone I’ve revered since my teen years, and truly a consequential figure for Wisconsin music. My wife and I both cherish Tom’s influence on us from our formative years on; we individually became better friends with Tom over time; and it would be at a show Tom booked that my gal and I, then in our early 20s, first crossed paths. When we got hitched, we asked Tom if we could get him ordained and preside over the ceremony, which he expertly did. For the wedding I took him to buy a white suit, and he looked dapper as hell.

Goes without saying, but I respect the man, so when Tom told me he was going to review “Meta Dada” for the Green Bay Press-Times I flipped out a bit. I’d been reading Tom’s reviews since our days writing columns for Frankly Green Bay, but I don’t think he’d ever taken aim at any of my music. Press-Times is a bit spotty about publishing its articles online, so here are photos of it:

Tom’s incredible review helped to make the record one of the top sellers at GBUFO for a while, which was surreal to find out.

Amid the encouraging local enthusiasm, Todd from Rock N Roll Land turned Dr. Pat Warpinski onto “Meta Dada”. Dr. Pat is a weekly DJ at 91.1 The Avenue, co-hosting a Saturday Night Spotlight show, where over the course of a five-hour broadcast they cover a theme such as songs/influences of the Beatles, songs from the year 1975, duets, Bonnie Raitt, etc.

First, Dr. Pat sent me a message to say some very nice things about the album, and asked if I’d send him files for two of the songs to add to The Avenue’s rotation.

Man! Knowing the station’s style, I picked “In Our Coldest Time” and “Untrue & Not Enough”. I never actually heard the latter on the radio (others told me they did), but I did catch the former, and happened to record a bit of my silly self geekin out to it:

Then, for April, Pat (a.k.a. The Rock Doctor) incredibly chose my album to feature on the Saturday Night Spotlight show; it doesn’t not appear to be common for them to focus on a local musician. Mega yes there. He asked me to write a few things about the album and about each song, some of which he worked into the broadcast while adding his own commentary, along with Rob’s high-character groovitudes.

The night the episode aired, I had been invited out to dinner to celebrate my dad’s birthday with my parents and sister who was in town, and I definitely diminished the occasion by sneaking out to my car to try and record the parts when “Meta Dada” was on; everyone understood the conflict, but it sort of encapsulates how it’s felt to do work as a solo artist: makes you feel quite selfish at times, even in fleeting moments.

Alas, we all recognized this was rare and special, so I was able to capture most of the introductions to the songs, recorded from my phone, as well as my awesome wife setting up my laptop to record from the radio into GarageBand. I’ve compiled the clips here, starting with my ridiculous attempt to film myself in my car during what I thought was going to be the beginning of the broadcast:

After the way-too-wild, inaugural BAMMY Awards where I was named Original Artist of the Year, and “Meta Dada” Original Album of the Year, I had received another larger-local-media invitation when one of the hosts of WFRV’s Local 5 Live morning show reached out and asked if I’d be a guest. As a non-morning person, and having never performed the songs live—not to mention, having been part of some exceedingly poorly produced morning news performances in the past—I was reluctant to accept. But hey, if I’m proud of the work and want people to hear it, wouldn’t it be worth a try? Yeah man. So, I pushed myself to go do it, and scheduled to be on the show that week following the Avenue spotlight.

At the station, it just so happened Brad Bordini—a talented bloke I first met in my late teens—happened to be at the studio that morning, so that was very cool to see a friendly face at that hour.

It was an extra trip not having a vocal speaker or monitor, and just playing out to a news production crew, but other than a couple of botched lyrics and slightly overzealous tempos I did okay. The interview threw me a tad; almost from the start when, as ticky-tack as it may be, the co-host thanked me for reaching out to her, whereas, again, I’d had to work up the good sense to accept her invitation. I don’t emphasize that out of pride, so much as the error felt mentally magnified amid my first ever solo appearance on TV. I split-second decided not to belabor a correction—you may not even notice in the clip below—rather, I just tried rolling onward.

As mentioned in the above clip, that next weekend I was invited to Rock N Roll Land for Record Store Day, to set up a table and sell/autograph records. Again faced with what could’ve been a very awkward affair, I figured I ought to get over myself and take the opportunity to spread word about something I’d worked hard on. And by golly, that day turned out neat, too! I sold and signed some records, got to meet people, see friends, and when I had a minute, dig through the 45s.

Tom Smith actually mentioned the album again in his following month’s column, reviewing King Louie Bankston’s “Harahan Fats”. (I admittedly only knew of King Louie from his rad band with Jay Reatard and Eric Oblivian, Bad Times; there’s so much good garage stuff out there to discover yet. “Harahan Fats” is quite cool, though.)

In May, local legend Frank Hermans invited me to be on his Frankly Green Bay segment on the local CBS affiliate. I’ve been a fan of his since my parents would take me to see the Frank’s Dinner Theatre shows at the S.C. Grand. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but he and his brother Heath were in attendance at a wedding reception I played at with Muddy Udders, and I remember those two getting a good kick out of us. Then when I went to see The Monkees (Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Mike Nesmith, after Davy Jones had died) in Milwaukee in 2014, I saw Frank at the show, and between that and his notorious Elvis appreciation the man pretty much gets my coveted All-Time Cool Pass™.

It was around 2014 that I also got to be a columnist (along with Tom Smith) and events list editor for his Frankly Green Bay magazine—now defunct, sadly, ending shortly after the untimely death of its editor, my friend Andrew Kruse-Ross. Which is all to say, I’d had some background with Frank, made all the more fond after he hosted the BAMMYs. And like Fox Cities Core and Into the Music, I’d watched a lot of his interviews before, so I was very happy when he asked me to be on his show. Though filmed in May, the segments aired in August:

Meanwhile, I played a number of gigs with Hang Ten, Rodeo Borealis, Country Holla, and played with Cory Chisel at Mile of Music. I got to DJ again at the Symco Weekender, too, spinning all 45s, many of which I’d bought from Rock N Roll Land while hanging there on Record Store Day, and another stack I’d bought while dropping off “Meta Dada” copies at Eroding Winds. But other than the portions of songs I played on the morning show, in an otherwise highly musical year, I never performed any songs off the record. Kind of weird, but I guess I’d determined that’ way’s how it’d be.

Something a bit more encompassing was even weirder about the year, but I’ll get to that later.

Amazingly, favorable mentions of the album seemed to keep popping up, in local media, on social media with pictures of people with the record on their turntables, and in person. One special instance: local songwriter Erin Burnheart had this great series of posts about songs she was digging (she had mentioned Hang Ten earlier) and featured “Media Casualty” on it:

I got introduced to Erin after that post, too, which was too cool, and really just wound up meeting a ton of great people from around here who I’d never met before, who’d say hey or drop a line after they’d heard the music. Does it get better than that? I’ve released quite a few bits of music into the void before, so compared to that, getting feedback from people was positively lovely.

To round out the year, I got to do a fun cameo on Into the Music’s Christmas episode, and then, no foolin’, a few songs on the album were selected for best-of-’24 episodes of The Avenue’s Saturday Night Spotlight, Into the Music, and Stereo Hysteria.

Wow?

Yeah man, t’was not a dull year for me. Did this thing race to the top of the Billboard charts? ‘Course not. But as always, my efforts were between me and… I don’t know, I’ll just say Rock’n’Roll™/”the gods.”

Still, as relatively active as I was, following the release, the vast majority of my efforts—as one could expect of someone with a decently-sized family—have gone toward my wife and kids.

To be pretty dang candid, it was also a tough stretch in the non-music sense. Freelancing can be great, in terms of flexibility, but I devoted a large part of that early flexibility to preparing for the “Meta Dada” release, having eased off of my writing gigs in the months leading up to it. After the record, which cost considerable cash (some of which I incredibly recouped after the release) I had a ton of work/income I needed to make up. Trying to make ends more than meet, in that high gear, naturally impacted my social life, too. To hit writing deadlines, I actually pulled more all-nighters in 2024 than I ever did in college. (I’ve since quit caffeine, four months strong, as if my brain’ll forgive me.)

But, no question: it was totally worth it.

So much came together on this album. It all existed entirely because two of my best friends had studio access and ascending engineering and production skills. Then there was the crazy willingness of so many contributors—to the album, its promotion, and the live show production. And the people I’ve gotten to know who have podcasts, shows, newspaper columns, or simply generously, independently use their social media accounts to shine a light. Then the fact that the records arrived four hours before the first release show.

What came together in my life was this backlog of insistent song ideas; my process of falling out of and back in love with music; my work ethic from the writing-on-steroids (not literally!) job I worked at the time; and my wife and kids’ willingness to let me focus on writing, studio time, what have you. A year on, and my kids still want to listen to the album, so that says something. Typically I don’t listen much to my past recordings, if only because I don’t want to get sick of them (or excessively/needlessly self-critique), but it was just irresistibly sweet of the tykes to ask to hear it again and again, and act out scenes from the release show.

Yet amid all the work and everything, it was quite a trip to put out this album and then not perform it live at all, while getting these reminders of its existence.

If I’m gonna get proper reflective…

Learn anything?

Yeah. Beyond concrete things about vinyl production:

-Make sure to include/represent the audience when filming a live performance.

-Dance choreography is hard.

-I don’t think I’d do the whole “release a single or two a week” thing after the release shows. If I could do it over, I’d put all the music out at once, and proceed to highlight the songs afterward.

-On that note, choosing to not release advanced singles was a thrill. It worked out, on account of interest I’d built up ahead of time, and since debuting the music was the purpose of the release shows. Advanced singles definitely make sense in other cases. What I do like, though, is a concept I nicked from Redd Kross: choosing to not perform forthcoming material live ahead of its release. Again, something of a luxury.

-Trying to earnestly start up a state-wide entertainment website during this stretch was quite a bit more than I could handle. I do badly want to provide that resource to people—it kills me every time I see someone asking if there’s anything going on, any live music happening, etc.—but boy is it hard to find the time to maintain it.

-It’s not easy doing this stuff solo. I mean, doing music independently is tough to do no matter what, but without a team of other collaborators with equal skin in the game, and to bounce ideas off of, or pool money with, keep up morale, lean on and even celebrate with—it leaves a lot for one person to call the final shots. Granted, it’s always hard to find the right people to work with, whose tastes, talents and work ethics line up. Going it alone, you can lose perspective, checks, and balances, e.g.: Was I stupid to not gig? Or, did I overdo promotion/exposure? Or not enough? It did force me to trust my instincts a bit, and I’m better for that.

-Counterpoint against “going it alone”: the following quote I just came across.

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing weas ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

~John Steinbeck, East of Eden

-Lastly, I would also not wait for a year to pass before trying to write up some kind of recap! Rather I would’ve highlighted things better along the way. Again, though, time felt a bit out of my control.

On that last note, thank you for joining me on this document.

Man, doesn’t that just bring up that all-time brain-bender:

Now what?

• Well, it’s been a year and a half since the last session “Meta Dada” recording session
• I’ve recorded with Hang Ten, and did the LFSD Packer parody song.
• I got to be part of Joey’s Song (which, I’m overdue to do some recap posts on that), shows with Hang Ten, Rodeo Borealis, and Freedy Johnston.
• I wanted to do the West Songfest, because (Steinbeck or not) I wanted to try collaborating like that, but I couldn’t break away from work. Maybe next year.
• I think I’m going to try and make lyric videos for a couple of the songs on “Meta Dada”, just cuz I’ve never tried that. I’ve also got the funny lo-fi demos for the tracks that I kinda want to put out there sometime.
• I also need to get The Foamers? and Muddy Udders music online. (That fourth, unreleased MU album [recorded with the late Dan McMahon] is just too odd to never be heard.) I’ve got the online distribution account space now since posting the LFSD song.
• I’m about three months into devoting at least half an hour to making music everyday, regardless of how busy I am. (Cue romantic image of dude dozing off mid-fingerpick.) That may not sound like much, but I’m highly aware the world does not stop turning if I don’t make music.
• I had hit up Alex Drossart about doing some duo shows in our downtime. We wound up booking a show at a private party during the upcoming NFL Draft, and I wanted to get us into La Vie Taverne for a live warm-up gig—but the way it worked out, instead, I’m first going to do a solo show there on Wednesday, March 5. This was very much a “book now, figure it out later” affair, but for two hours, more than a year after releasing a solo album, hey, I’ll finally be playing a solo show—just my ~third ever.
• I’m up for a number of WAMI awards! If you’ve read all this, and want to help more people hear the album, I hope you’ll help to vote Here:
  • Rock Song of the Year: “Untrue & Not Enough”
  • Rock Album of the Year: “Meta Dada”
  • Album Art of the Year: “Meta Dada”
  • Video of the Year: “Midnight Diesel” (these last two are of course entirely due to Lauretta, Jake, and Oliver, respectively)

Is this the final word?

Never! But largely. I needed to compile this digital scrapbook before I could meaningfully move on.

I don’t know what I’m doing with future solo tunes yet, but you can find the upcoming solo gig amid the fullest music calendar I’ve had in at least six years.

Thank you all so much for the support! See you soon,

–Mattie Fresh

Bonus: “Meta Dada” album shoot outtakes (by Loretta Crowe)