AMERICAN CAR

"American Car" is the name of the EP we're recording this month. When we finished mixing our last EP, I felt a huge weight lift, like I'd found religion or something. It had been months, rough mixes had been completed in March, but by July it still wasn't done, and my ability to second-guess myself had become a huge roadblock. We finally went to Cacophony Recorders and engineer James Jones (great name, right?) mixed it in a weekend. The last song we mixed was our waltzy, nostalgia/ geography/ masturbation epic "Caroline". James got the mix exactly right on his first try. The sun was going down, the air got cooler (a relative term in August 2009 in Austin), and we were unable to distinguish between the cicadas on the recording and the ones outside Cacophony. I was relieved. I had intended to take a few weeks off from music - at least from our music. Our drummer had just left for a few weeks, our bassist was moving to NYC, our guitarist taking care of his newborn baby - there was no reason to rush.

Then on the way home, I wrote this song, "American Car" in my head. Finally completing the old recordings, they no longer tied my hands. I felt great. I left the studio and immediately started recording again when I got home.

In response to the unintentional fuck-up of taking over six months to home-record five songs, we're recording the four-song "American Car" EP in the next few weeks. Friends around the country are helping out, new band members will be kicking their feet in the creative pool. The intention is to record, mix, post and press the songs very quickly. Hopefully, that will be in just a few weeks. My friend Devender sent me a boss photo he took to use for the cover.