Stir Up Summer!

Stir Up Your Grey Matter, the pseudo-label/Bandcamp under which I post my and friend's music, posted a song a day to our Facebook page throughout (most of) the summer. Each track is either thematically tied to summer activities or was recorded during on a summer day sometime within the last 20 years. 

Check out the full collection of tracks below!

1. "Solstice (2012): sing.eg.grat" by Thirsting Quench
from Memphis Transitions & Variations

2. "Burn Hazard"
by Thirsting Quench and the Captains of Industry
from Moving Gates

3. "Johnny, Row That Boat Ashore"
by Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound
from Do Business in Outer-Space

4. "Sky Blue" by Farewell Scalar
from Archives Vol. 1

5. "Suedesugarwatermelon"
by Thirsting Quench
from The Simian Script

6. "Brazil"
by Electric Bolts
from Electric Bolts

7. "Dear Steve pt. 1"
by Casey Bye
from Who Writes the Songs? Why, I Write Them!: Commissioned & Produced Work

"The Spikes Go Down"
by Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound
from It'll Work, and Nothing Will Happen: The Lost Tapes

"Today I Bought a Dog Names Lilo"
by Thirsting Quench
from An American Cup of Wine: The Lost Tapes

"I Go Swimming" by Peter Gabriel
performed by The Literacy Program
from Tarps & Blankets: 15 Years of Stir Up

"The Analytical Engine"
by Today's Lovelace
from 072206 (The Amazing Graduation Day Friendship Jamboree)

"Premise 2: Become the Good Practitioner"
by Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound
from Do Business in Outer-Space

"Fit the Third: Boxes, Portmanteaus, and Bags"
by Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound
from An Agony in Eight Fits

"Think Hard, Pink Hearts"
by Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound
from The Money Goes Up

"nɔʁ....jɔ̃ trāl"
by Thirsting Quench
from /lo͞op/

"Let's Play...Fire Ball!"
by Diametric Correlator
from Diametric Correlator

"Sun Block"
by Farewell Scalar
from Archive Vol. 1

"Oh, Wot a Dream!"
by Casey Bye (written by the amazing Kevin Ayers)
from Who Writes the Songs?

"Grasshoppers"
by Diametric Correlator
from Strikes (again.)

"Swimming with Sharks"
by Thirsting Quench and the Captains of Industry (written by Tom Heil)
from Tarps & Blankets: 15 Years of Stir Up

"Casual Friday!"
by Melkbox
from Protosyrup

"Good Night, Moon!"
by Lauren Svacina
from Oh, My Stars!
 

"Knee-Jerk Cookout" (originally "This Way To...")
by Thirsting Quench and the Captains of Industry
from Moving Gates

"Dick Bacon" (excerpt from "Collage VII: Heroes"
by Universal Chickenhawk
from Vol. III

"Summer Blinds (instrumental)"
by Farewell Scalar
from Faux?! Su!

"Gesture 6"
by Thirsting Quench
from Figurative Study

"escher and dali, and hell, boesch for that matter, all make great dorm-room posters, but as fodder for your skin..."
by Diametric Correlator and the $35 Sound
from D(iametric)-Compositions

"In Retrograde"
by Thirsting Quench
from An American Cup of Wine: the Lost Tapes

"Tonsillitis"
by Thirsting Quench and the Captains of Industry
from Tonsillitis single

"Ars Notaroria"
by The Furry Murrays
from No, Thanks

"Variation: Aug. 16, 2011"
by Thirsting Quench
from Memphis Transitions & Variations

"A Sad Ending for Horace Roye"
by Melkbox
from Melkbox

"Variation: Aug. 18, 2011"
by Thirsting Quench
from Memphis Transitions & Variations

"Quarternity"
by Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound
from Quarternity

"Broken"
by Thirsting Quench
from The (Possible) Origin of...

"Garden Party Rally"
by Lauren Svacina
from Oh, My Stars!

"Variation: Aug. 23, 2011"
by Thirsting Quench
from Memphis Transitions & Variations

"The Man in the Custom Tailored T-Shirt"
by Electric Bolts
from Electric Bolts (Brazil pt 1)

"HWY 16"
by Diametric Correlator
from Cut the Slats

"I Love You More Than All The Other Fishes"
by Thirsting Quench and the Captains of Industry
from The Sentimentary EP

"Concession Stand: Gotta Put Ketchup On A Hotdog"
by Art in Underpants
from Audio Erection

"Domestically Challenged"
by Thirsting Quench
from The (Possible) Origin of...

"Escapism and Pep"
by Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound
from Do Business in Outer-Space

"Dupe On A Stick VII"
by Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound
from Effempty

"It's Only A Lifetime"
by The Literacy Program
from Paradigm Waltzing in a Holographic Universe

Comedy Coven Sampler CD

Music? Good. Free music? Even gooder! This 19-track sampler will be available for FREE (What? Yeah, you read that right, bruh.) at the merch table at this Tuesday's Comedy Coven show. 

The sampler includes some tunes I've recorded for podcasts and videos as well as some tracks from various bands I've been involved in (Farewell Scalar, The Captains of Industry), some tracks the Knee-Jerk Mag guys and I recorded for Kickstarter rewards, and a guide-vocal demo for one of the songs I wrote to be performed in the third act of the Coven show! So come for the Comedy Coven and stay for a free music sampler!

I'll also have a few copies of The Way We Sleep for sale for $10.

Learn how to get tickets for Comedy Coven XXIV: Fake & Gay HERE!

And if you're in need of some music for your next project, drop me a line at caseyjbye@gmail.com.

front cover

back cover

Cover illustrations manipulated from The British Library public domain files.

Ready for the merch table!

10 Things I Learned While Compiling Tarps & Blankets

Tarps & Blankets is a big mess of 50 cover songs I and a slew of friends have recorded for Stir Up Your Grey Matter bands/projects and which have (mostly) never been released anywhere. 

2016 marks 15 years of my releasing music under the Stir Up label (starting with hand-dubbed cassettes, later CD-Rs, and since 2010, via Bandcamp). Some of the recordings here, however, span all the way back to 1997, which, if you're doing the math, you'll realize is more than 15 years ago. Digging through boxes of four-track-recorded tapes to digitize and compile this thing, I found a few surprises in songs I'd forgotten existed and learned a few things.

1. I really have some great friends who are willing to put themselves out there to make some occasionally really grating noise with me.

2. Doing some of these releases to drum up interest for recent and upcoming Farewell Scalar recordings, I can now see it would've been downright logical to shorten the Bandcamp URL to simply stirup.bandcamp.com rather than stirupyourgreymatter.bandcamp.blahblahblahblah.com.

3. As a teenager, I was apparently shiftless (that's probably the most generous way to put it) enough to ask a girl I had a big crush on to come to my band practice to record her breathing to the beat of a song in which I repeatedly sang "I love you."

4. When Eddie Dirtnap and I first went splitsies to buy a four-track recorder freshman year of high school, all I did was learn Pink Floyd songs and record them. And make mix tapes of these recordings to give to the above-mentioned girl.

5. I also apparently have a thing for The Pixies, Spacemen 3, Neil Young, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, and Radiohead whose songs all appear at least twice but as many as four times. None, however, beat Floyd/Syd Barrett's five appearances on the comp. And I didn't even include my nearly complete acoustic recreation of The Final Cut or my 24-minute version of "Echoes" performed on Casio keyboard.

Me in high school.

6. I have many, many recordings of my first band. This band was originally called The Inconsistent Jibberish, but Eddie Dirtnap, the lead songwritter and decision maker, and I argued over whether or not gibberish was indeed spelled with a J so much that we changed to Karp with a K (on purpose). In college, I would learn that there is already a punk band named Karp with a K.

Eddie Dirtnap

7. Like seriously, there are so many Karp/Inconsistent Jibberish tapes in my basement! I'm going to California next week to see Eddie and his brother Stevert Enson (Karp drummer) for Eddie's bachelor party. Gonna surprise them with a CD-R worth of awkward teenage glory. Each song is introduced by some conversation I caught one day after practice while we watched a rerun of Mad About You. We're fifteen. So there are a lot of really stupid sex jokes.

There are surprisingly few Paul Reiser gifs out there.

8. I can't believe I've never recorded a Billy Joel cover! So I've decided it's time to get on that. I'm thinking a track-by-track recreation of The Nylon Curtain. That'd be cool. That'd be real cool.

9. I had no idea what you are supposed to do with your mouth or throat or air or anything when it comes to singing until I was maybe 28. And now that I do know what to do, I still don't know how to do it.

I searched "can't sing" on Giphy.com. It was mostly Miley Cyrus gifs. That's cold.

10. When I originally started talking about compiling this thing back in 2007, my best-man, friend for life, guy who officiated at my wedding, bandmate Jeff/Dr. Kamikaze informed me that he did not in fact write the words for "Don Santa Grants Rudolph His Wish," a piece we performed as The Knights Who Say Ni! in 2000 (due to some revisionist history now credited to Dr. Kamikaze and the $35 Sound). Only then did I find out this was in fact a Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo fame) piece set to music the band improvised. My best-man, friend for life, guy who officiated at my wedding, bandmate: big liar. Our bass player served cookies with whipped cream and poured dixie cups of milk for the audience during this piece.

It was a big hit for us.

Anyway, if you want 50 cover songs of vastly varying quality check out Tarps & Blankets and celebrate 15 years of getting some tape-hiss-filled music out into the world!

Follow Stir Up Your Grey Matter on Facebook to hear when new music comes out and to hear regular Youtube samples.

Farewell History

d.auge reminded me of a bit of history behind the forming of Farewell Scalar. I thought it might be worth sharing as the two of us continue to debate whose idea it was to actually form "a real band."

View fullsize

2/4 of the original Diametric Correlator: 2005

Eddie Dirtnap

In 2005, d. had make-shifted part of his home into a fairly decent recording studio. The two of us, along with friends Eddie Dirtnap and Eric Wolfram got together one fall afternoon and recorded a few droney improvs. The next time I saw d., he handed me a CD-R with the words "Diametric Correlator" written in squiggly Sharpie. Years later, these five songs were added to the Stir Up Bandcamp page as a self-titled ep (which you can download here) with a cover image featuring Eddie passed out in d.'s basement, wearing what we called "the Whiskey Wizard" hat and holding a drumstick like a wand. 

the Whiskey Wizard

In July, 2006, for my college graduation party, d. and I organized a jam session in my parents' garage. d. and I again disagree on who came up with the idea to learn a few simple cover songs. The trend seems to be for me to want to put d. in the driver's seat for any inciting incidents in the story of Farewell Scalar. I do know I came up with a list including songs by The Dandy Warhols, Brian Eno, My Bloody Valentine, and The Jesus and Mary Chain and d. augmented that list with some Pavement, Violent Femmes, and Silver Jews. We rehearsed the songs on guitar once, wrote out bass tabs for whoever wanted to join in, and set up the drum kit for whoever wanted to figure it out.

Friends who have appeared all over Stir Up recordings--Eddie Dirtnap (Diametric Correlator, Universal Chickenhawk, $35 Sound); Dr. Kamikaze (Diametric Correlator, $35 Sound, Complete Audio Destruct); Elliott (Melkbox); David Jensen (The Literacy Program, Complete Audio Destruct); Lauren Svacina (The Literacy Program, solo)--took a turn on a song or improv, much tequila was drank, and, I think, a grand time was had by all.

L-R: me, Eddie Dirtnap, d.auge, Elliott

d.auge's then girlfriend, Stacey designed this amazing cling along with a t-shirt for me to wear in honor of the celebration. She also videotaped the entire drunken mess.

Now, it wasn't long after this that I remember d. asking me to form a "really real band." d. recalls me wanting to push things forward. The name was certainly d.'s as evidenced by the fact that he knows what it means and I kinda sorta really don't at all.

d. says we formed to play a fundraiser for the soon-to be-defunct Undercurrents section of the Riverwest Currents newspaper for which I was, at the time, a staff writer. I do know I brought the fundraiser to his attention and that it would become our first show. And I remember trying out a drummer and then disliking the drummer and having to back out of one fundraiser show before recommitting to the second, later fundraiser once we had Corey in place. If d. and I had a band by the time I became aware of Undercurrents likely demise and the earlier backed-out-of fundraiser, I'm not so sure. 

poster with red augments by d.

Since then, Scalar has broken up, d. has turned the make-shift recording studio into a pretty damn fancy recording studio called Sound Encampment, Scalar has continued to finalize old projects, and Diametric Correlator has become a beast of d.'s burden (a sort of catch all for recordings gathered from impromptu Sound Encampment sessions) where I only infrequently show up.

This is the new (old) stuff. Available for download/listening MARCH 30.

I'm not even entirely sure if d. and I began collaboratively writing songs in 2006 and then decided to form a band or vice versa. I'd tend to believe the earlier as we had a set of at least seven originals at the Undercurrents benefit. I likely was the one to suggest writing together even if I had no intended results for the music. I liked some things d. had written on his own and his jangly, experimental pop sensibilities. 

I suppose the point is this: memory fails, so good thing we recorded just about everything we possibly could.

Nema Reve Third Anniversary

Three years ago I recorded this little jam called Nema Reve. I've recorded a lot of junk ever since I was fifteen and first went halfsies on a four-track recorder with my then bandmate and good buddy to this day, Eddie. And then I handed out or sold for a buck cassettes of things I would make under the "label" Stir Up Your Grey Matter. One day in October of 2010 I realized I had put together forty-nine "albums" between myself, my bands, and a few friends' bands. So I figured I should mark that momentous occasion with a very special fiftieth release.

The problem was I hadn't written any new music in a while so I had nothing recorded to compile into a release and not even any songs to record for a new project. I was listening to a lot of Stereolab and Steve Reich that month so drones and minimalism were on my mind. On the El ride home from a day of tutoring, I came up with the idea to mix the two by using layered instruments playing either one note or simple melodies all in the same key (occasionally shifting from major to minor) in various time signatures, then using that backing drone to develop various chord patters that would segue in and out of each other. I named the idea "Variations" and labeled the different patterns with roman numerals. One track was guitar-based patterns, the other piano-based. I was, at the time, finishing up the first draft of More Like a Siren, Less Like a Bell , and had written about seventy pages or so while listening solely to Reich's Music for 18 Musicians on repeat. So that's definitely in the piano-driven piece.

Over a two-day period I recorded these two tracks along with the below shorter track, "Gypsy Pogo," which was based on a similar concept of shifting chordal drones and interlocking synthesizer patterns/melodies that would develop to a natural climax.

The final track, "Nema Reve," was simply a looped synthesizer track with effects (delay, reverb, deterioration) gradually added and faded in over the course of the song. Another looped track of field recordings of various mechanical devices is layered above this.

My then girlfriend, now wife, Jessa had this weird photo of her playing on the counter at her grandmother's house which just happened to have been shot right as the TV next to her displayed some creeper, wide-eyed and close-up, as if some creepy-deepy Exorcist stuff was about to go on.

My wife, Jessa, being possessed by a TV demon. This may be why, to this day, we're forced to watch so much Netflix.

Anyway, that's my pretentious way of saying I threw together an album in two days to mark an occasion that no one gave a butt about except for me. I posted Nema Reve   to my bandcamp on November 2nd, 2010 and, somehow, it struck some sort of chord with people who download obscuro music online, or at least one very important person who downloads obscuro music online.

Author, Warren Ellis (Red, Transmetropolitan ) found it a few days later and wrote the following on his blog: "I’m listening to the first track right now. It starts like an outtake from 'Fur Immer' (I’ve been listening to NEU! all afternoon, which made for a weird moment when I had to check if I was streaming audio or still in iTunes).   And then it stops.  And then they sort of go through a time-travel portal and put their other foot directly into 90s postrock while still strumming the motorik.  At which point, yes, it’s total comfort food for old rockist tendencies, but by the time they start digging power chords out of their guitars with rusty screwdrivers, I’m off with the fairies.  Thirsting Quench and the Captains of Industry, we salute you."

Then a slew of other blogs, having read Mr. Ellis' ridiculously kind post, gave Nema Reve  a listen and wrote their own kind thoughts on it. Outside of some of the larger shows I've played with bands (mostly battle of the bands type situations), Mr. Ellis granted me the largest audience I've ever had for my music. And I've been chasing that feeling unsuccessfully ever since. Thanks for making happiness and fulfillment so unobtainable, Warren Ellis.

 NEMA REVE CAN BE STREAMED AND DOWNLOADED HERE