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.
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.
Performance
Unfortunately, the video of the full “Meta Dada Soiree” release show in Green Bay did not work out as hoped. (Read more about it here.) But—thankfully, my father-in-law happened to record this full song; my mother-in-law had to leave the performance to take care of my baby daughter (since my wife was up on stage for this one), so my father-in-law filmed it so my mother-in-law wouldn’t miss it. Serendipitous:
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.
Matthew t Day 