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. (Adriano Celentano’s Italian-gibberish jam “Prisencolinensinainciusol” is another that achieves the feat.)
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!
Matthew t Day 