Tuesday, July 26, 2011

NEW RECORDINGS: ENJOY THE SUMMER...




















Enjoy The Summer, It Will Pass By Quickly
Download at Bandcamp | SoundCloud

You're Not Dangerous At All by Sinners, Repent!

The Boys Won't Sleep by Sinners, Repent!

Summertime by Sinners, Repent!

These are the first three songs I'm releasing from the Enjoy The Summer, It Will Pass By Quickly collection. There are going to be more songs, but they'll come piece by piece over the next couple years. It seems like a reasonable way to release an album in these wild days of the not-too-distant future. Flying cars and nanobots and 4th-dimensional record releases. These three songs represent a concerted effort I've made over the past couple months to undo my own bad habits by finishing and releasing my recordings. I had originally intended to complete 5-7 songs and have them properly mastered - but in the interest in handing in my half-assed homework for C- instead of an incomplete F, here are the first three. More will follow. Eventually.

I probably can't adequately stress the importance of "summer" to my childhood and adolescence (which is why, instead, I'm writing a bunch of songs about it). Economy, entertainment, enlightenment, romance, hate, heartbreak, etc. all spun from the summer. My childhood/teenage friends and I - reunited by social media, trading pithy commentary on major life-events and posting YouTube videos of Smurfs or whatever - have been getting a bit misty-eyed and nostalgic about growing up in our very small towns. Its all very quaint and simple and endearing and intangibly American in retrospect, instead of being suffocating, small-minded, boring, frustrating and invariably tragic like it was at the time. In writing these songs, I'm trying to walk the line between the blind pessimism and solipsistic worldview of youth and the selective memory and broad forgiveness of adulthood.

As an adult, its a well-earned right to enjoy a summer day by cracking a beer or stealing away somewhere cool and quiet with your sweetheart - and which is wonderful. As a teenager, it was impossible to crack a beer or find 15-minutes on a couch with your sweetheart without getting hassled - so when you did, that was wonderful, too. But let's not all turn into weeping softies about it, OK?

Specific thanks to Nash Grey and Chris Patterson, who wrote sweet guitar licks for "You're Not Dangerous At All", and Chris Cloud  and Ross who let me record vocals and mix at their house, in the only air-conditioned room, and helped with handclaps and enthusiasm.

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