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

It Doesn't Fucking Matter: Comedy Coven Songs

I recently wrote three songs and lyrics (as well as some interim dialogue) for the fourth act of the most recent (and two-year anniversary) Comedy Coven show: Fake & Gay.

The setup: The Coven is fed up with dating guys with priors and girls who end up not being gay. Enter Emily's extremely scientific "Intraoral Kinsey Scale and Other Characteristics Thingy," which, with a quick swabbing of your partner's mouth, tells you most everything you'll need to know to figure out whether or not you're compatible. 

The below script (and mp3 vocal guides of the songs I delivered to the Coven) picks up just as Emily tries to pitch a catchy jingle for the device. They did a much better job delivering than I ever could, of course, and at the end had the entire theater slow clapping and singing along "It doesn't fucking matter!"

"THE INTRAORAL KINSEY SCALE AND OTHER CHARACTERISTICS THINGY"

Comedy Coven (L-R): Stephanie Onderchanin; Tricia Chamberlain; Emily Syrja

EMILY

I used to think maybe you loved me now baby I know,

Cuz we both spit on a swab and baby, oh baby, it showed

That we are sixty-seven per-cent compatible-oh-oh-oh.

Although the stuff that she wants in the bedroom makes me uncomfortable.

The intraoral Kinsey Scale and other characteristics thingy Oh oh!

The intraoral Kinsey Scale and other characteristics thingy!

STEPHANIE

Whoa-whoa whoa whoa. [song stops] That entire jingle is hugely problematic, Emily.

TRICIA

Also: holy mother of fucking fuck—what was that Katrina and the Waves shit?

EMILY

It’s upbeat. [Despondent] …Like love should be.

TRICIA

Also-also: uhh what kinky shit is she making you do in the bedroom you’re so uncomfortable with?

EMILY

[blushing, looks down; beat]

STEPHANIE

That’s exactly what I’m saying. You brush that off as if it’s nothing, but the rest of the song totally focuses only on the fact that you matched on the Kinsey Scale but nothing else. I mean come on guys, we all know…

TRICIA, EMILY and STEPHANIE

[TRICIA AND EMILY morose, like children just scolded; STEPHANIE proud] That to correctly look at behavior and sexuality, we need to consider them related but different things.

TRICIA and EMILY

[still morose] Yeah, we know.

EMILY

So… you’re saying you don’t like the song?

STEPHANIE

Just—just let me take a stab at it. We need the advertising to represent our rationale for the all-encompassing magnitude of the product. Okay, let’s see. …Ok. Ok, I think I’ve got it.

"BRAND REFRESH"

STEPHANIE

The one-dimensional nature of the Kinsey scale

Leads to an idea that the more

Attraction you have toward your own gender

The less that you have toward the “opposite”

Gender!

[spoken] What? My Spotify Discover Playlist had a bunch of Tool songs in it this week for some reason. …And I kinda liked it.

We need a brand refresh that’s intentional real quick.

This device will be intersectional or it will be

Bullshit!

It should account for all aspects of compatibility

Like if you found Kristen Stewart oddly sexy in the SNL Willy Wonka parody

She played!

Charlie!

It should tell me if you like the smell of patchouli

Or if you maybe like to tell jokes about dead babies

Like what’s harder than nailing a dead baby to a tree?

Nailing it to a… [upset] dead puppy.

[spoken] God dammit. I hate those jokes. I don’t know why I keep Googling them.

TRICIA

TRICIA puts her arm around Stephanie and strokes her hair

[spoken] There there. This device—it’s causing nothing but trouble.  

But I think I have just the song to make it all better.

[over intro of song] Yeah. That’s good. I like that.

photos by Julia Kramer

"IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER"

TRICIA

Do you remember my boyfriend Chad?

Remember how he could always make me laugh?

I found out he was a flatulophiliac [spoken] That’s someone who’s turned on by farts.

We were still together eight months after that.

So just remember that

It just doesn’t fucking matter

Or how about that girl Emily dated who we all thought was great?

Her browser history was full of Vore, and I don’t mean to throw shade

But that’s fetishism for swallowing your partner whole after you mate.

So they both joined a student-run Vore club at Michigan State.

So just remember that

It just doesn’t fucking matter

I hope you didn’t think I’d leave out Stephanie.

She dated a girl who left her for a Brony.

Also Stephanie got into dudes wearing female doll masks—it’s called “masking.”

But that girl and that Brony are now happily married.

So just remember that

It just doesn’t fucking matter

TRICIA, EMILY and STEPHANIE

Oh-oh!

It doesn’t fucking matter

Oh-oh

It doesn’t fucking matter

[start handclap, encourage audience to join in]

Oh-oh

It doesn’t fucking matter

[repeat]

[good nights and thanks for coming over drum beat fadeout]

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.

Hello, Farewell Scalar

In 2006, my friend *d.auge asked me to form a band. Farewell Scalar quickly found a bass player, struggled to find a drummer, played a handful of gigs, and called it quits during my first semester of grad school after having moved two hours south to Chicago, which I think was a letdown to d. As time has passed, it's become so for me.

Fortunately, it was right around the time Scalar formed when d. began amassing recording equipment. We wrote most songs collaboratively, and we wrote quickly. And as we did so, we recorded what we came up with. Working like that didn't always produce gold, but what it did produce always felt fun, fresh, and energetic. 

So when we began discussing recording an album, we were looking for ways to promote it (MySpace had done a lot of the work gathering those who might be interested in the type of music we were making--mostly lo-fi, Pavement-esque indie pop). d. came up with the idea of writing 30 songs for the first 30 fans to pre-order the album. We called the project The 30. And we went to work.

Cactus Club, Milwaukee WI, May 2007: d.auge and me

But, as I mentioned, grad school happened. Chicago happened, with all of it's cheap concerts and comedy shows and bars and cute girls and new people to collaborate with. So hours--days--worth of The 30 recordings went unfinished (a missing vocal here, a missing bassline there). Beyond that, I found excuse after excuse not to come up to Milwaukee to work on the album proper (although bits and pieces of that managed to get recorded too).

I had become too busy for Farewell Scalar. Or I thought I had. Or maybe I had always thought I had been too busy. Listening back to the sessions for The 30, you can hear hints that I might think I'm better than this band picked up by the mics between takes. Following a performance I obviously didn't approve of, I'll say something along the lines of, "Well that's gonna be some sucker's song. Sorry," pitying whichever fan was going to receive the free track. At another point, about an hour and half into a recording, we begin a new song only to have me bring it to a halt to ask if d. "has to play every song with your fucking wah pedal turned on?" I was 24. I thought I was a good guitar player and a better songwriter. I was a self-important shit.

What's funny is I remember having a great time working on The 30. I just didn't show it. Maybe subconsciously I didn't want to give any weight to what we were doing. I was about to go to grad school. I was about to get a real girlfriend (or at least a girlfriend who refused to add me on Myspace but insisted I add her cat's page, most likely because she didn't want anyone to know about me because I wasn't actually her boyfriend but the guy she was cheating on her boyfriend with). Maybe she would be my future wife. And I was going to get a real job. Or at least prepare to become the type of person who could get a real job. I was in no place to put any serious focus or effort into a silly band.

Stonefly Brewery, Milwaukee WI, April 2007: Corey, the drummer. Although he doesn't drum on any of The 30 sessions, so there's little else to add about him in this piece. Even so, I will add, he had a good sense of humor.

Five years later in 2011, I was about a year into trying to upload any old material I had collected under the Stir Up Your Grey Matter banner to a then new Stir Up Bandcamp site. The 30 came to mind. I began to record those missing basslines etc. and waited for d. to record his missing vocals. This time around, it was d. who had become too busy for Farewell Scalar. And so, again, the recordings sat and waited.

Now, it's 2016, and I don't know what's changed, but The 30 is finally being finished and soon will be available on the Bandcamp page. I'm married and have a step-daughter and that real, grown-up job grad school kind of mostly didn't prepare me for. I have less time than ever, but somehow more for finally getting this thing finalized. d. is, as far as I can tell, pretty much same as he ever was, but now somehow too has been able to scrounge together time to return to this now decade old project that was meant to be a quickly pulled together promotion for a band that was going to move on to more serious things.

Stonefly Brewery, Milwaukee WI, April 2007: d.auge and a tiny bit of bassplayer Jim, who wrote some great basslines, and was kind and always generous with a smile and homemade guitar pedals, but also does not appear on The 30 sessions.

The only obvious reason for this (other than the fact that I hate leaving things unfinished) is tied directly to the reason I was so flippant and quick to agitation while doing the original recording. Which, itself, ties directly to the type of person I became when I drank whiskey in college--the kind who was quick to leap from utter silliness to mocking cruelty because, in that state of mind they seemed very much the same. Both extremes felt warm and comforting and put me in a space where I at least believed I was witty and fearless and where I (again, at least believed) I was pushing myself as much as I was others' buttons. And in that state of mind, both extremes seemed very, very pleasurable. I could act like a self-important shit, but what was maybe worse than even that was that I kind of believed people wanted me to act that way. 

I can't speak for d.'s recent availability to finish this project, but I think there's a bit of that silly, old, cruel whiskey drinker in him as well. The collaborative work between the two of us always created a similar juxtaposition where the work felt frivolous but also important and where I could be cavalier about the process while still taking pride in it (at least enough pride to get up in arms over a stupid wah pedal). The self-important 24-year-old shit, d.'s earnestness, the clashing egos, the willingness to try things and experiment, everything, is what made Farewell Scalar as fun as it was. Listening to the completed songs ten years later, I'm proud of them for what they are, not dismissive of them for what they aren't.

All in all, The 30 turned into about 60 completed songs, double the intended goal. All of which we'll be putting up on the site (complimented by about a dozen actual album demos and improvs, a few of which actually even include Jim and Corey!). And each of them, including those I wouldn't call my favorites, has its charm and it's little moments of swagger and wit and silliness and even sometimes seriousness, with some songs as short as a minute straddling a lilting and jangly wistfulness and a pummeling aggressive battery.

With our audience dwindled due to MySpace becoming a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a website, I doubt very many people will find their way to these songs. But it's been worth going through the process that The 30 probably needed to go through not only for it to be complete but for me to fully enjoy it. At least I can get it off my to-do list.

Archive Vol. I will be available for download March 30 at stirupyourgreymatter.bandcamp.com.

In the meantime, you can listen to/download some other Scalar tracks  here and Archive samples here.

*UPDATE (3/22/16): d.auge says the band was actually my idea. If this is true (I'm questing my memory now), this would make me an even bigger shit than stated in the above post.

Out of All Doors

Oh, hi there, Blog. I haven't seen you since you stood me up at that One Direction concert this past summer. Well I'm over it. I wanna make this work.

But mostly I wanted a venue to spread the word about a new podcast I'm involved in called Out of All Doors. It's hosted by and was created by my friend Adam Drent (who's Mispronouncer album I worked on earlier this year). Basically, it's a fun little piece of absurdity that pretends to be about people who love the outdoors, but ends up going all sorts of directions. I contributed the opening theme, most of the interstitial music, a theme for a segment called "Squall Takes the Bait," and a cheesy new-agey bit for the closing visualization activity in each episode. So far, Adam's up to three episodes, and starting with this one I'm contributing some segment material as well (my little bit starts at the 60 min. mark if you were curious). My fellow Knee-Jerker and Converstaions with Stever, Steve contributes the Harrison bird watching segment which is hilarious in how heartbreakingly sad it is.

Each episode has been better than the last, but come on there's only three so far, so listen to them all, why doncha. They're available on iTunes, which I know you have, so just download it already. Then subscribe, maybe write a review, and stay tuned next month for another ridiculous episode of Out of All Doors.

But for realz, thanks for listening if you do.