Foggy Ruins Of Time Best of 2008-Top 50 Songs TOP TEN MIX

I think some people may have been confused about the top 50 songs list. It is in alphabetical order. I know some of you may hate that, but hey that’s how I roll.

However, I realize fifty songs is a lot to track down. So to meet you dedicated readers halfway here is my TOP TEN songs of 2008 IN ORDER to d/l and enjoy as a mix.

You better enjoy it.

1. “Thus Always Horses”-Tinyfolk
2. “Can’t Believe it (Feat. Lil Wayne)”-T-Pain
3. “Anywhere I Lay My Head”-Scarlett Johansson
4. “Cocaine”-Gang Of Virgins
5. “Pygmalion”-Withershins
6. “A Wonderful Year”-Let's Whisper
7. “Let Me Love You”-Candle
8. “Shower”-Watercolor Paintings
9. “I'm On a Talk Show”-Chris Zabriskie
10. “Now Thats What I Call a Circuitous Conversation”-Jaw-Zizzle

Link:
Top 50 songs of 2008

James Eric's Traumnovelle is out now!

James Eric one of the sweetest and most hardworking musicians/artists out there has released a new album today just in time for those Christmas Blues. It's a real treat.

Just go download it now!

James Eric's Traumnovelle

Promotional Video:


Link:
James Eric on Myspace!

Foggy Ruins Of Time Best of 2008-Top 50 Songs

Mac Paint program ftw!

I exponentially listen to more and more music each year and this year proved to be overwhelming, but also exciting.

I really tried to get this list down to thirty, but while hacking away arduously I looked up and realized I was only down to around forty-five. So screw it I’m doing top fifty songs.

Some of these fifty songs represent the best song of the respective artists’ release and some represent the song I listened to more than any other. Some overlap. Either way these fifty songs captured my imagination and inspiration more than any other songs this year.

(note: In alphabetical order)

“Anywhere I Lay My Head”-Scarlett Johansson
This is probably the number 1 song I identify with most this year. Its atmosphere was perfect for my walks back and forth from campus in Wellington, New Zealand or the rainy mornings I spent in Tokyo, Japan.

“August 4th”-Madeline Ava
Acapella songs are really hard, but Madeline Ava makes it seem so darn easy. The first line is simply exquisite.

“Bigger Than Yours”-Girl Band
A collective of sweet gals from Santa Barbara (including Watercolor Paintings), this song is so freakin’ sexy, and funny. The harmonies are incredibly sweet.

“A Bird And A Wire”-Morgan Enos
Lyrically this song seems beyond little Morgan Enos’s years, but I hardly think anyone cares. It’s a beautiful piece of poetry and the words sound delightful.

“Campus”-Vampire Weekend
It was hard to pick just one Vampire Weekend song for this list, but I like this one because it's about school and that is basically my life right now.

“Can’t Believe it (Feat. Lil Wayne)”-T-Pain
OMG I love this song. That’s the only way I can describe this tune. T-Pain is at the top of his game and nobody can fuck with Lil Wayne. Slightly melancholy, no joint was hotter this year.

“Careen”-The Diggs
I don’t really know any other songs by them, but this song rocks so much. I can’t even tell if the lead singer is a guy or girl, but that doesn’t really matter. The mood is perfect.

“Cocaine”-Gang Of Virgins
The best version of the song, Rob and Max truly have created an awesome piece of thoughtful psychedelia. The end hits me the most.

“Crazy”-Your Yellow Dress
Carrie has a gorgeous voice and here it truly shines. Alex’s production is top notch. I love everything about this song. It’s catchy and very pretty.

“Forest of Legs II”-Redbear.
Although I am not in love with all of Hollywood Taoism, this song is fucking great. The song froths and bubbles explosively along with changing time signatures and propulsive drumming. Haunting is the only proper way to describe it.

“Geography”-Thao with The Get Down Stay Down
Vivian Thao is like Cat Power only with a sense of humor. I love the way this song bounces along and nobody pronounces “abandon” better than she does.

“Gila”-Beach House
This song is a behemoth. Buoyed along by a dusty organ line and lighsaber-like guitar licks, Victoria Legrand’s vocals are stuck on permanent reverb in this cavern of despair.

“The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn)”-Weezer
This song is so ridiculous it hurts. This song is so epic it hurts. I know Rivers Cuomo would appreciate these sentiments.

“I Dream Of Antarctica”-Existential Hero
I think this song surprised everyone. I really love it. The song is all about a atmosphere and going to the Antarctic Center in Christchurch, NZ solidified my desire to visit that desolate continent on the bottom of the Earth.

“I Hope...”-James Eric
Leave it to James Eric to make a beautiful song with hope in the title. Really James, you inspire me so much. The ending is hilarious, poignant and really sweet.

“I Tried To Die Young”-Marc With A C
This is Marc’s most well written song. It is so relevant and so telling of this day and age it should belong in museums. However it's probably better that it’s in our hearts instead.

“I Will Not Apologize (Feat. Porn and Dice Raw)”-The Roots
The keyboards are as dirty and grimy as the words themselves here. This song makes me want to fuck shit up. I feel tough when listening to it.

“I'm On a Talk Show”-Chris Zabriskie
This song flows. Initially not my favorite, it has become so thoroughly ingrained in my head I can’t imagine a time without it. I am constantly humming this song. It’s a great song in the pantheon of minimalism.

“I've Been To A City”-Prince Edward Island
Captures the feeling it describes perfectly. One of the most satisfying songs of 2008.

“Just Do It”-A Drum And An Open Window
Although I was disappointed with their new album, this song definitely hits some high marks for me. The drumming is so sure-footed and the harmonies are their best yet. Very inspiring stuff.

“Let Me Love You”-Candle
I love the way the words fly off Kevin Coons’ tongue that work in tandem with the finger-picking acoustic guitar. And when the keyboard line comes in, goddamn what a pretty song.

“Let The Beat Build”-Lil Wayne
This song is so full of joy it’s ridiculous. I love it love it love it. This is why Lil Wayne is the greatest rapper alive.

“Liquid Dance (ft. Palakkad Sriram & Madhumitha)”-A.R. Rahman
I have no idea what’s going on in this song, but it’s probably the best representation of the kind of schizophrenic Bollywood/techno/hip hop music on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack.

“living in an abandoned firehouse with you”-Manipulator Alligator
This song is beautiful pure and simple. I don’t know how this song was made musically, but it feels so right. My favorite Magnetic Fields cover.

“Love You Always Forever (w/The Anchorites)”-SFIAS
It is hardly a cover, but it is probably the most amazing thing I’ve heard all year. It swallows me whole and I’m fine with that.

“Monochromatic World”-Secret Owl Society
Secret Owl Society knows how to make a song. This piece is no less than brilliant, brimming with emotion and a fleeting sense of nostalgia. It surprises me again and again.

“Nine Cocktails (before we set sail)”-Jacob Borshard
The black humor in Jacob Borshard’s songs is so adorable and it’s in full force here. I always smile when he sings, “A little bit crazy is all right.”

“Nom De Guerre”-The Lonesome Architects
This song is so folky, bluesy, soulful and truly joyful. This song is a classic already.

“Now Thats What I Call a Circuitous Conversation”-Jaw-Zizzle
This song brings a smile to my face. Seriously, this guy has an unpretentious flow and great beats. The sampling is hilarious, well; the whole song is so much fun.

“Poor Directions In Rabbits Blood”-Adam Faucett
I played two shows with Adam this year and this song is just so pretty and the ending cuts right through me.

“Pygmalion”-Withershins
It’s only a demo, but I think it was meant to be this way. I really love this song. It makes me feel miserable, but I don’t care.

“Rest”-Patrick Ripoll
This might be the saddest song of the year. I don’t know how one can feel more despair than Patrick does here. It’s almost painful to listen to, but I listen anyway.

“Robocop”-Kanye West
Probably the “happiest” song on 808s & Heartbreak, the strings are so happy for what Kanye’s singing about. It is weird, but I really like how silly it is on one level.

“The Sea In San Diego”-Iamb
Ross says he doesn’t think this works live, but here it feels really real. I can imagine this as part of a film soundtrack and once the banjo kicks in, it’s a really inspirational number.

“Shower”-Watercolor Paintings
For a while I was afraid Rebecca’s lyrics were getting too cute and distant. Then she had to go and prove me wrong. This is probably the most emotional song she has written and I can’t get enough of it.

“Souled Out!!!“-Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
The title itself is worthy of praise. Conor decided to ditch the Bright Eyes moniker this year and make a set of songs filled with lots humor and heart. This song is the best of them.

“Spaces Between”-A Kit Fox
There is so much earnest desperation in this song. He reminds me of me back in the day. I really dig this song a lot the more and more I listen to it.

“Start A One Man Band!”-Mexican Kids At Home
This song rocks harder than anything else this year. Stomping rhythms, steady marimba and fierce guitar, Mexican Kids At Home know how to bring it.

“Strawberry Swing”-Coldplay
Another disappointing album, but in the ashes this song shines through. Breezy, whimsical and romantic, it’s very sweet.

“Temporary Tattoo”-One Happy Island
I know the metaphor is silly, but the music is so melancholy and the melody so perfect I have become obsessed with this One Happy Island song.

“This (old) House”-Linguistic Banter
I love this song so much I covered it. Written at fifteen by Grace Noel Glasson, it is smart and melancholy and whimsical all at the same time. And if I am correct this was her first song!

“Thus Always Horses”-Tinyfolk
Can everyone just tell me to shut up now? This is probably my favorite song of 2008. I’ve listened to it way too many times it isn’t funny. It is the best Apocalyptic R&B-tronica song released this year.

“What Do We Do Now?”-The Just Joans
This song is one of the other saddest songs of 2008. The samples reinforce the general feeling and at this point in my life the sentiment is all too real.

“Whatever You Like”-T.I.
Sorry I live in a vacuum. I know lots of people find this song annoying, but fuck you I like this song a lot. The beat is hot, the bass engrossing, the tone chill and T.I. is totally coasting in a good way.

“When It Breaks Our Bones”-Jon Crocker
This song is amazing live and is no slouch on The Dust Will Settle. It is Jon at his most passionate. The album version has these great circus interludes that really add to the atmosphere of the experience.

“A Wonderful Year”-Let's Whisper
I’ve been throwing the word “sweet” around like there’s no tomorrow, but seriously Let’s Whisper have it in spades and this number is catchy and great. No cynicism allowed here.

“You Can Do Better Than Me”-Death Cab For Cutie
This song is over the top, ridiculous and really great. Never has there been a better use of sleigh bells in music than here. It’s saccharine, sarcastic and awful, but feels very true.

“Your Ghost”-Ryland Bouchard
Hushed and slightly off-kilter, former Robot Ate Me dude gets even quieter. This song is not of this world; ethereal and fleeting.

“14 Forever”-Stars
We’ve always needed a rallying cry for immaturity that didn’t involve the words “fall,” “out” and/or “boy”. This is it.

“123456 Pokemon”-Lemon Demon
The creator of Potter Puppet Pals apparently makes music. This song is random and silly, but with just enough feeling to get stuck in my head and make me laugh.

Phew! That was a lot of work. I wish I could give you a link to every song, but that’s a little unfeasible at the moment. The links below should help for the not-so-mainstream artists and DIY musicians.

Join me sometime next week for the top 20 albums of 2008.

Link:
CLLCT for most of your DIY/Lo-Fi artist needs

A Year In Review: Tinyfolk 2008

This is a segment I hope to do once a year where I pick one artist I really admire and trace their journey through that respective year.

Naturally for 2008 I chose Indiana’s Tinyfolk, Russ Woods and (sometimes) Meghan Lamb.

It’s no secret the praises I sing about Tinyfolk and how much coverage I have allotted to them, but trust me when I say Tinyfolk is the most interesting DIY act out there right now.

2008 was a unique year for Tinyfolk, chock full of releases, but only one true album. Is this indicative of changing times? Does the album format even work anymore? I’d like to think so, but Russ’s interests came in little bursts of Garageband folk, cataclysmic R&B, schizophrenic electronica and by the end of the year stripped down ukulele pop with all of it wrapped up in a nice Post Easy Listening bow.

So let’s do this release by release with a bit of other news thrown in for good measure.

Valley Forge (February 2008):


Released in hardcopy (still never got mine!) on Sanitary Records in March, this split with Manipulator Alligator is most directly a follow up to 2007’s Bill. The songs display a beginning obsession with the Mac’s Garageband program and use its tools to bring on the weirdness in a fun, if solemn way. “Valley Forge” uses a standard click track with Tinyfolk’s signature baritone ukulele to weave a tale somehow relating George Washington and the film Hustle & Flow. One of Russ’s first instances of sampling appears on “On Fire” to a frightening effect. “Golden Fur” recaptures if not trumps the epicness of Bill with its stomping rhythms and harsh guitar playing. The split ends tenderly with a reading of a poem (I can’t remember the author) and it’s terribly pretty.

Jack’s Broth (March 2008):


As I wrote in my original review of this teaser EP, Jack’s Broth is in many ways an exorcism of everything before to prepare us for Sic Semper Equis, his next album. “The Antelope” follows in the same tradition as Valley Forge with pitch corrected vocals and lots of minor chords. Meghan finally shows up again on a cover of “The Duke Of Earl” that is truly magic. Also on this baritone ukulele-free EP is two songs relating to the love life of Dumbledore the master wizard from Harry Potter. Both songs are delicate and “Before Our Beards Were Long” is really really sad.

Sic Semper Equis (June 2008):


There is before Sic Semper Equis and there is after Sic Semper Equis. My hyperbole praise of Tinyfolk’s postmodern masterpiece is probably irritating by now, but I still can’t get enough of it. “If I Was a Person,” a classical guitar prologue, quietly builds us towards the epic R&B auto-tuned “Thus Always Horses,” my favorite Tinyfolk song and one of my favorite songs this year. The song washes over you like a cold shower or a dive into a cold lake. Its imagery of panicking animals in response to Y2K is at once hilariously absurd and fittingly melancholy. The whole album straddles that line with songs like “Little Goat,” the “I told you so” animal in the forest, “The Forest Knows” a hip-hop exercise featuring Redbear. and Mike Lightening observing the total chaos around them and “Animals Are Stupid,” the other epic beast on the album that wraps up the story, but leaves us with plenty of questions to ponder.

Steel Magnolias (July 2008):


So what do you do after you’ve created a masterpiece? If you’re like Russ you say “Fuck it” and make your half of a split with Brother Bird into a bizarre series of electronica tunes that eschew most melody and traditional song forms for blips, bleeps and buzzes filled out by clever samples and lyrics that are probably more upfront than ever before. It really grows on you I must say. The lumbering “Is There Sex After Death?” one of the more traditional songs on Steel Magnolias is anything but actually. Necrophilia has never been sexier.

Catfood Shotgun Goddamn (August 2008):


Mostly comprised of Podcast theme songs, Catfood Shotgun Goddamn is a coming to the surface from the proverbial trenches dug by Sic Semper Equis and Steel Magnolias. “Ear Drugs Theme,” the new intro for James Eric’s Podcast, is a beautiful little song that samples the Golden Girls tv show of all things. The highlight and star of this album is Tinyfolk’s cover of the Hello Shark song, “Bubble Guns.” Truly one of the most melancholy techno songs, it has a fierce sense of energy and a linear revelatory follow up to Sic Semper Equis.

Look To The Sky!: Tinyfolkian Scraps (October 2008):


As it says in the name, Look To The Sky! is a collection of b-sides and offshoots even more random than Catfood Shotgun Goddamn. Tracing all the way back to 2005 til now, this collection works surprisingly well as an album. “Lost In Found,” an old school baritone ukulele Tinyfolk song provides a sweet contrast to the bumping and pulsing electronica, “Sleeper Sofa,” which in turn careens us into “Stay Poor,” a terrifying nightmare cover of a Real Live Tigers song. “A Terrible Crash (Magic Horses!),” seemingly follows up “Bubble Guns” with more techno beats, but it is more obtuse and a lot of fun.

The things we cherish are small indeed. (December 2008):


Things come full circle with this four song EP recorded on baritone ukulele with no overdubs outside on Russ and Meghan’s porch. The two recently got engaged and this EP, especially “Lunches,” Tinyfolk’s most touching song this year, is evidence of this in many ways.

It should be noted that throughout the year Tinyfolk appeared on several tribute albums (21 Love Songs and The Roaring Nineties), did a collaboration two song EP with Mike Downey together called A Football Fields and was a regular contributor to the monthly CLLCT compilations.

It seems in 2008 that with the release of Sic Semper Equis it would have been impossible to try and follow it up in any traditional form. So instead listeners were treated with a bevy of EPs and single tracks that experimented so wildly that the only place Tinyfolk could end up at the end of the year was back to where he started.

Funnily enough Tinyfolk, inspired by James Eric, just released Owling, a greatest hits album going all the way back to Russ’s first project A Pilgrimage To Save This Human Race.

So where will Tinyfolk be heading into 2009. Well rumors are afoot of a new album and a gig composing a student film. Little is certain in the Tinyfolk universe other than that it’ll be weird and pretty darn awesome.

Youtube version of "Lunches"


Best of Tinyfolk 2008:
"Valley Forge"
"Duke Of Earl"
"Can You Feel The Love Tonight?"
"Thus Always Horses"
"Is There Sex After Death?"
"Rabbit Washington"
"Bubble Guns"
"A Terrible Crash (Magic Horses!)"
"Lunches"

Links:
Tinyfolk on Myspace!
Tinyfolk on CLLCT!
Previous Tinyfolk articles on Foggy!

Existential Hero's "New Zealand Trilogy" Is Available Now!

Spanning 7 months and three countries, the humorously dubbed "New Zealand Trilogy (The Storm Of The Century, The Great Sublime Melancholy! and Eating Grapes And Whale Bones)," is the newest, latest and greatest release from the human being known as Existential Hero. These albums have been carefully constructed to blow your mind.

Admittedly these albums are a bit self-indulgent, but it is fully appropriate.

I'm damn proud of these records and they run the gamut of styles, but contain only satires, flirtations with and deconstructions of the previous Existential Hero you thought knew. Don't worry, you won't remember the old records anymore after these three bad boys. For the first time instead of compromising between my actual abilities and my vision, these albums truly achieve the sounds I had in my head. If I had the budget these albums would come with footnotes and commentary.

The Storm Of The Century



Perhaps the least conceptual of the three, however it doesn't step down from the fight. It mostly focuses on frustration and all its manifestations: ranting, venting, worries, fears, gossip, primal scream, etc.

The artists that most directly influenced the album are Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Tom Waits, Neutral Milk Hotel and Patrick Ripoll.

The Storm Of The Century

The Great Sublime Melancholy!



This was the first album concept I had dreamed up and is the most atmospheric of the three. It is an environment to get subsumed in, emotions to contemplate and feelings to ponder. The past, the future and the present are open books and web pages.

The artists that most directly influenced the album are Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy album, Chris Zabriskie, The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Motifs.

The Great Sublime Melancholy!

Eating Grapes And Whale Bones



This one came out of nowhere and quickly dominated. Aggression and fierce motivation are represented here and the refusal to step down. Everyone has a chance to be great, this is that acceptance of that challenge.

The artists that most directly influenced the album are Lil Wayne, Tinyfolk, The Roots and Outkast.

Eating Grapes And Whale Bones

There are a slew of collaborators including:
Pocketful.
Mandie Russell
Tinyfolk
The Top Grossing Films Of 1984
The Elated Sob Story
Linguistic Banter
Your Yellow Dress

I'm so excited for all of you to listen and comment and turn these songs into your own. I can't wait to play them live for you. Thank you everyone for listening and especially those who have so so supportive the last 6 months.

Some last bit of housekeeping, if you are interested in ordering fancy handmade copies of any of these albums I will be able to start mailing them out in a few weeks. I am also in the process of ordering buttons and t-shirts but they most likely won't be available until August.

thank you again everyone, these albums are yours now.

Some Notes:

The individual tracks will be uploaded later tonight, now you can d/l the three albums as a .ZIP file.

The "thank you" section is different for all three albums.

to anyone I've sent "in progress" mp3s, you can delete em, these are the mastered proper versions. You can keep em if you are into collecting =P

Links:
Existential Hero's Myspace!
Existential Hero on CLLCT.com

Existential Hero Will Release The "New Zealand Trilogy" On July 15th

A bit of self-promotion for my music project Existential Hero:

Sorry I've been keeping you waiting, some of you know bits and pieces already but I am happy to announce that July 15th I will be releasing THREE ALBUMS humorously dubbed the "New Zealand Trilogy". They are called:

The Storm Of The Century
The Great Sublime Melancholy!
Eating Grapes And Whale Bones

I did not think I was going to make three albums but in light of everything that has been going on in my life in the last five months it was probably inevitable.

The Existential Hero you know from A Winter's Tale Told In Spring and before has greatly evolved into a new fiercer and weirder form, but I think these albums are the best thing I've ever done and all three are products of great devotion and concentration. Instead of a compromise between my actual abilities and my vision, these albums truly achieve the sounds I had in my head.

I'll say a few words about the three albums to "set the scene" if you will.

As a note, Luke Of Secret Owl Society drew the cover art for all three albums and they look simply jaw-dropping.

All three albums will be dedicated to the late Heath Ledger.

The Storm Of The Century


The least conceptual out of the three, it mostly focuses on frustration and all its manifestations: ranting, venting, gossip, primal scream, etc.

The artists that most directly influenced the album are Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Tom Waits, Neutral Milk Hotel and Patrick Ripoll.

Tracklist:
1. You're Always Late
2. Waiting For The View
3. She Aches, She Makes, But Will She Break?
4. Amateur Alcoholic
5. But Reaching's All We're Meant To Do
6. I Want To Be In A Relationship So I Can Be Anti-Social
7. Clear Clear Clear
8. The Two Most Important People In The World
9. Deep Conversations
10. Ginny O
11. Guilty Song
12. You're Still Always Late
13. Meet In Japan
14. The Storm Of The Century

Tease Mp3:
"Deep Conversations"

The Great Sublime Melancholy!


The most conceptual, it deals with quiet sadness, deep introspection and longing as normal states of being. An environment to get lost in, think atmosphere and small details.

The artists that most directly influenced the album are Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy album, Chris Zabriskie, The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Motifs.

Tracklist:
1. The Great Sublime Melancholy!
2. I Dream Of Antarctica
3. The Cherry Orchard
4. Goodbye Mr. Ledger
5. Piano Bashing
6. Until The Very Last Moment
7. Meant To Carry Me Along Intro
8. Meant To Carry Me Along
9. Static Waltz
10. Just Like Welly
11. Charlotte
12. A Skype Love Song
13. The Road Begins At The End Of The World
14. Slope Point

Tease Mp3:
"I Dream Of Antarctica"

Eating Grapes And Whale Bones


Certainly the most aggressive thing I've ever done, it is a refusal to stand still and a rejection of feigned modesty. It's about being great and taking the reigns of your life so no one else will. A recovery from disappointment and an energetic push forward into the future.

The artists that most directly influenced the album are Lil Wayne, Tinyfolk, The Roots and Outkast.

1. Arrested, Part 1
2. Arrested, Part 2
3. TV
4. Lyrical Sunday (Six Strings)
5. 48 Hour Competition
6. I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING
7. Do You Know What Film Theorists Are Like?
8. Underwater World
9. Fotography Girl
10. The Washer Ghost
11. Orientation
12. Narita International Airport
13. I'm Coming Home
14. Eating Grapes And Whale Bones

Tease Mp3:
"I'm Coming Home"

Think of the albums like this; there was a problem, I thought about it and then I made up my mind. The three albums represent these steps.

All three albums include a guest or two including Mandie Russell, Tinyfolk, The Top Grossing Films Of 1984 and more.

They are essentially done I'm just waiting for a few collaborators and I will be doing a bit of mastering when I return to the states.

They will be released for free on CLLCT of course, but I will be making some super fancy handmade copies for anyone who would like them.

In addition to these three albums, today I will be putting up an extended preview of the albums and my work in the last five months, Colin McKenzie's Dream: A Collection Of B-Sides. Demos, covers and b-sides, it'll be for all of you to get a taste of the "New Zealand Trilogy" and the processes I went through to create them.



Tracklist:
1. Sinking Ship
2. Worldwide Travelin' Blues
3. I Heart Josh & Rebecca (Demo)
4. Oh Inspiration, Thou Has Forsaken Me! (Demo)
5. We Are All Artists (Demo)
6. Ghosts Never Die And Neither Will You! (Demo)
7. Down To The River And Pray (Allison Krauss)
8. You're Always Late (Piano Version)
9. I Don't Care About Love (Piano Version)
10. She's Holding On (Piano Version)
11. Just Around The Riverbend ("Pocahontas"/Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz)
12. Jordan (Paul Baribeau)
13. Until The Very Last Moment (Demo)
14. I Want To Be In A Relationship So I Can Be Anti-Social (Demo)
15. The Two Most Important People In The World (Demo)
16. Sailing To Byzantium (W.B. Yeats)
17. The Motivation Song (Demo)
18. If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out (Tinyfolk/Cat Stevens)
19. The Great Sublime Melancholy! (Demo)
20. Do You Know What FIlm Theorists Are Like? (Demo)
21. Lyrical Sunday (Six Strings) (Feat. Deep Owls) (Single Version)

DOWNLOAD HERE

AND there's more.

I am in the process of ordering buttons and t-shirts! That's right, I know some of you have been dying to get some Existential Hero swag so here's your chance.

So I hope you guys are excited as I am I cannot wait for all of you to hear these albums composed of blood, tears and lots of chai tea.

Link:
Existential Hero on Myspace!

Tinyfolk: Sic Semper Equis (2008) + Part 2 Interview With Russ Woods

Hi folks, today I have Part 2 of my interview with the illustrious Russ Woods of Tinyfolk, the Lo-Fi-ish, Post-Easy Listening, formally-ukulele-wielding-now-Garageband commanding sensation. You can read Part 1 here. After the interview is my review of Sic Semper Equis. Let’s get it started.


Taken by Adam Zolkover

Foggy: Often your albums would have the phrase "and sometimes Meghan Lamb". Do you have to beg her to sing on your songs or is it more collaborative? Or does it fluctuate?

Russ: I begged her to throw some vocals on Sic Semper Equis. It didn't happen. I love making art with her, but basically we get really really silly when we write together. If you've ever watched any of the Forever Wolf music videos, you'll know what I mean. I think if we were trying to do more serious things together it would be difficult just because we think so differently about music and art. Our brains work very differently, and that's why I'm consistently so amazed at the music and art she makes. I could never do anything like that. I wouldn't even think to come up with something like that. Iron Like Nylon is one of my biggest influences, honestly, and I beg Meghan for feedback on every song I write. I think I like to play up the fact that she's in the band a lot, even though she doesn't actually participate much in the recording or writing of the songs, or some of the live shows. I like to play it up because I feel like I get a lot of ideas from her, and I feel like my exposure to her tastes in art and music has directed a lot of where Tinyfolk has gone in the past two years.

Foggy: Could you explain the Y2K theme a bit more?

Russ: Basically the theme of the album is exactly what is presented in the lyrics of “Thus Always Horses” and (to a lesser extent) “Animals are Stupid.” A forest full of animals panics because they hear about Y2K coming, and they work and work and work to fix it, and when it comes, nothing happens, because they don't have computers.

Unless you mean "Why2k?" in that case, I decided to use it because a) I think it's hilarious, b) I wanted to do something that was about nature, but sounded as "unnatural" as possible, i.e. with the voices of the animals all being auto-tuned and robotic, and the only acoustic, unprocessed song being the one that was about being a person. I wanted to do a lot of mixing of the "natural" and the "synthetic" as a means of sort of confusing the two, questioning the rhetoric of naturalization, blah blah blah. Pff. Fuck that. Y2K is funny. That's why I decided to write about it. There's a short story that l wrote about UFOs and Y2K that sort of bridges the gap, thematically, between Bill and Sic Semper Equis, and I definitely got some of the ideas for Sic Semper Equis from that story.

Foggy: Did you have any concepts of sounds you wanted to do while recording or did you mess around in Garageband until you found sounds you liked?

Russ: Basically I messed around in Garageband until I found things I liked. Sometimes I would basically realize the songs as they were and just replicate what was in my head (that was how it was with “Trampled Underhoof)” but most of the time it was me coming up with one part then adding another, then another. I knew that "The Forest Knows" was going to be a hip hop song when I made it, but Mike and Pat made up all their own lyrics, so I didn't have any input in those. When I made "O Deer Lord" I liked it so much that I decided that it would be the blueprint for how I was going to do the rest of the album, and everything else was me trying variations on that formula (with the exception of "If I Was a Person").

Foggy: Why auto-tune vocals?

Russ: I love hip-hop and r&b, and I thought it would be really cool to use an effect that's basically only commonly used in those genres and do something different with it. It's neat because as I was making this album I really fell in love with Lil' Wayne's music, and his newer stuff uses tons of autotune. Though I think Sic Semper Equis has more Auto-tune than Tha Carter III (the album he's dropping this summer) will. I sure do hope someone else compares Sic Semper Equis and Tha Carter III besides me.

Foggy: How do you think you'll perform the songs from Sic Semper Equis live if at all?

Russ: I'm trying to work something out, but I don't want to give it away quite yet, as I need to do some more fooling around first.

Foggy: You've said you like singing songs about animals more than people because “people are boring,” but why do you think people are boring?

Russ: I think people are boring because everyone writes about them. That's actually a huge oversimplification. I really don't think real live people are boring, but I think the way they're portrayed in songs takes for granted the fact that we're humans and they're humans and that's understood so lets relate to these people like they're humans without even thinking about it. I hope it makes people a bit more aware of the emotional and relational aspects of a song every time you realize that I'm talking about two horses and not two people. Not to mention I just think it's hilarious.

Foggy: Any particular reason for the animals you choose?

Russ: I wanted it to be all ungulates (hoofed mammals), but i ended up with "The Bird Of Y2K" as a song because Meghan came up with the title for that one, and it being her only tangible contribution to the album, i wanted to use it. Mike Lightning used all kinds of jungle animals that I didn't even think of for his rap song. Which is awesome and I'm totally cool with. I don't think any of the animals I talked about would actually live in the forest, except maybe the bird and the centaurs.


Taken by Adam Zolkover

Foggy: With the recent closures of many DIY labels Valiant Death, Pop Monster, Sanitary Records, Agriculture Records, etc. how do you think this will affect the Lo-Fi/DIY community?

Russ: I think you just listed every label I've ever put anything out on with the exception of Dance Machine Records and Ought Implies Can Records, both of whom went under shortly after releasing something by me. I think I'm cursed. I guess WeePOP! hasn't gone under yet. I should warn them. I think Tract Records has stopped making stuff too, so there goes that as well. I don't know about anyone else, but basically CLLCT has filled the void that record labels used to fill for me. I don't see any reason to put anything "real" out anymore, unless I'm doing some serious touring, in which case I guess I can make some homemade release or something. I guess if I was going to be doing a multiple-month tour or something I would probably want to have CDs from a label. I'm embracing the Internet more than I ever have right now, to the point where it almost feels quaint to even buy a CD.

Foggy: What's next for Tinyfolk?

Russ: Next for Tinyfolk is...well, I imagine the Brother Bird split will come out in a proper version. I've got some fragments of songs that I've been messing around with, but nothing fully finished since the Brother Bird split. I feel really content and comfortable with making songs on the computer now. It feels good to have so much new material out and circulating. I'm excited to see people's reactions. I love reading what response people have to things I've made. I'm hoping for full reviews for Sic Semper Equis and the Brother Bird split from Foggy Ruins of Time, for sure. I'm working on how I'll do the live thing. It'll be a lot different, but hopefully cool. I want to do some more hip-hop. I'm thinking maybe a Dead Dead Meat album or a Deep Owls solo album might happen at some point. I kind of just want to be Jib Kidder.

Foggy: One last question. As I get closer and closer to graduating college the more tired I am at doing what I love as work. Do you think it'd be better to have a job you like, but reserve what you love as hobby?

Russ: I think the best thing to do is to have a lot of things that you do, all of which you love to some degree. I have no idea if I will love my job as a librarian once I finish library science school. I hope that I will. But, if it's just something that I do and am indifferent to, that's a success as far as I'm concerned, because there are lots of things that make me happy. I think if some people didn't make a living doing art or music or whatever, then we'd have about a tenth of the wonderful art that we have. I guess for me I just don't want to do something where I feel like I have to be constantly pushing to get ahead. I don't want to have to be competing with everyone all the time. Maybe sometimes I want to work hard and get recognized for it, both in my job and in my hobbies, but I don't want to feel like it's always something I have to do instead of something I want to do. A routine job is great for that kind of thing, and that, more than anything is what I'm hoping for right now. Maybe I'll change my mind. Maybe I'm naive.



I think it was obvious that I was going to love this record, but really it wasn’t that easy. I will spill a little secret.

When I was first introduced to Lo-Fi music (Watercolor Paintings, Blanketarms, Tinyfolk, Super Famicom, Redbear., etc.) I liked Tinyfolk the least out of all of them. I had “Love Is A Thing,” “Seasonal Anxieties,” a demo of “She Wore Antlers,” and Caj’s duet with Russ, “Let’s Date.” I remember making Lo-Fi mix CDs before I had ever bought one off of any artist (just Myspace downloads). And although I liked “Love Is A Thing” a lot, none of the others compelled me to take notice of Tinyfolk in any other way than his cute voice and ukulele.

Then funnily enough in June 2007 I had a chance play a show in Santa Barbara with him, Real Live Tigers, Jon Crocker and A Lime Tree. His performance coupled with the song “Desperation” (off of "Platapeasawallaland") made me rethink Tinyfolk and I began to understand the animal-centric, but still very intimate approach.

And now a year later, after other artists’ outputs decreased to a trickle, gone defunct or are in hiding, Tinyfolk, Russ Woods (and sometimes Meghan Lamb), sets the bar for where music is going and the opens the door to limitless possibilities.

Initially I had hyped myself up to believe that Sic Semper Equis was going to be so great that their entire discography before it would become meaningless and that I was going to throw away my own baritone ukulele. Now, retrospectively this is a bit silly and no, Sic Semper Equis doesn’t make Tinyfolk’s older music invalid at all, it simply makes the listening experience all the more astonishing and gratifying.

Sic Semper Equis, a concept album about animals fearing Y2K is more relevant than anything he’s ever done. Where singing about animals at times was a novelty, “Antlers” or a really clever “If I Were An Owl,” on Sic Semper Equis Russ infuses self-awareness within these stories that adds gravity while also being humorous and incredibly insightful. The opener, and reminiscently titled, “If I Was A Person,” purposely creates a bridge from the “Old World” of Tinyfolk and leaves you unprepared for what will happen next. I almost wish Russ had kept the rest of the album a secret so that the transition from track 1 and 2 would be even more shocking. As it is, the song is quiet, portrait painting and shows Russ playing an intricate classical guitar while addressing the listener, “If I was a person/If I was a little boy/Would you hear my story/Would you hear my story now.”

Nothing could prepare you for the next song and possibly one of my favorite songs ever. “Thus Always Horses” is a mega-epic and quite possibly the most beautiful thing Russ has ever written. It’s startlingly punchy for being a slow, almost R&B ballad. It is melancholy and hilarious while driving consciousness into your brain like a rocket. The beat is meticulous and melancholy, the piano subtle but insistent and Russ’s Auto-tune vocals are haunting. The song serves the function of a Chorus in context of the album, setting a summary of what’s to come.

But how do you follow up that? Russ pushes us further into the narrative of the world with the Phillip Glass-eque instrumental, “Bird Of Y2K” that gets more beautiful and more resonant each time I hear it. The flute is the voice of a bird, like the angel Gabriel, signaling the animals and spilling prophecy upon them.

All the songs on the album are beautifully articulated using only Apple’s Garageband as a source of instrumentation. From the beautiful piano plucking of “What Will Become of Our Poor Foal If He is Born into a Post-Technology World?” to the baroque cries of anguish on “Centaur Work Song” and “Cry Of The Centaurs” to the punk euphoria of “Little Goat” (containing one of the best lines on the album, “I know that people often don’t think things through/Horses are this way too.”), Sic Semper Equis is easily Tinyfolk’s most diverse album to date. But, it only gets stranger as the millennium approaches.

“The Forest Knows,” featuring MC Mike Lightning and Redbear. is perhaps the only song that is hampered by the effects that Tinyfolk has laid out. It’s a little hard to hear all three artists’ vocals clearly in the mix. With that said, it’s a cool hip hop track that allows for a little breathing room before the more chaotic second half of Sic Semper Equis.

On “Oh Deer Lord, Deliver Us From Y2K,” Tinyfolk’s most tension-filled song, the animals are going crazy as the fear consumes them all. “New Year’s Eve pt. 1” loses all voice completely with the exception of an eerily distorted sampled “da da da.” On Russ's cover of Prince’s “1999,” this previously orgiastic declaration of the apocalypse has been transformed into an unrelenting funeral march. When he sings, “I was dreaming when I wrote this/Forgive me if it goes astray,” it no longer sounds like a sexual plea; it sounds like a threat.

After listening to “New Year’s Eve pt. 2,” I was a little let down. Sure it’s wacky and danceable, but it was anti-climatic considering the build before it. And that’s exactly it; the deflated experience is perfectly articulated in the brilliant closer, tied for second place as my favorite song on the album, “Animals Are Stupid.” Y2K didn’t happen, the fanfare was for nothing and as such, how could we expect an epic, cathartic ending. Well, “Animals Are Stupid” is cathartic for a different reason. Russ poses this question, “What’ll we do when/ our screens all turn blue and/What will we say when/Y2K happens?” Yes it didn’t happen, but Y2K could stand for anything here. What will happen when everything we rely upon, family, friends, technology, our own sense of self, etc. disappears?

Sic Semper Equis ends with another question, “How could we be so stupid?” Constantly and consistently in our everyday lives we humans, who are capable of such brilliance and kindness, find ourselves failing to live up to our potential. We cheat, we lie, we act afraid, we act lazy, we refuse to care, we ignore, and we get jealous; we are irrational beings who constantly shoot ourselves in the foot. Yet, we are still here breathing and living despite all our efforts. Sic Semper Equis’s reframing of these issues within a harrowing story of animals in a panic about the collapse of technology says more about who we are now than anything previously and is a confident, brilliantly crafted, humanist and wonderfully resounding work from Tinyfolk. It is by no means perfect, but looking at the material with which Russ had to work with, it comes pretty darn close.

Mp3:
"Thus Always Horses"

Links:
Download Sic Semper Equis on CLLCT
Tinyfolk on Myspace!
Articles/Reviews of Tinyfolk on Foggy Ruins Of Time
Video of my cover of "Thus Always Horses"

The Roaring Nineties (2008)

Put together by CLLCT’s Secret Chief (Luke!), better known by most as Secret Owl Society, this Lo-Fi compilation, The Roaring Nineties, covering the greatest hits of the 90s, is like most compilations, brimming with some amazing songs, some good and some bad. To keep this two-disc, twenty-six track beast at bay, I’ll just describe some of my favorites and mention a few others.

The Brooke (a tiny ocean) has graced us with two (that’s right) two awesome covers, her cover of Oasis’s “Wonderwall” being my favorite. Just an acoustic guitar and her dream-like voice, she manages to recontextualize this song, not in its sound or delivery, but in its emotional impact. It hits almost ten times harder than it did originally.

Shelby Sifers, along with help from the Sarcastic Dharma Society, cover Del Amitri’s “Roll To Me” a song I remember instantly, but don’t ever recall the original band’s name (or even the song title). Shelby manages to cover some new ground, articulating her voice in ways that sound more down-to-earth than ever before. It’s sweet and gives us a glimpse into an alternate universe where she would be selling millions of albums and the world was a better place.

Tinyfolk’s cover of the Elton John classic from the hit Disney film The Lion King, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight,” starts off a bit slow, but the Usher-influenced ending is totally perfect. If you like Bill and Valley Forge era Tinyfolk, this is a good reflection of that style with a hip-hop twist.

Dustin And The Furniture’s take on Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” was probably my most anticipated cover on The Roaring Nineties and it is everything I hoped it would be and more. It is acapella, focusing solely on Dustin’s “sleepy brown bear” voice. What more could you want?

Uggamugga’s acoustic cover of “Wannabe” by The Spice Girls is so hilariously cute. Sung almost off key and featuring boy/girl vocals, there is something so infectious happening here.

Fudge’s almost acapella cover of the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Suck My Kiss” is so ridiculous you have to love it. Featuring a chorus of kazoos, handclaps and vocal sound effects, it reminds me of Weird Al Yankovic at his most insane.

Perhaps the most stunning cover is SFIAS with The Anchorites’ cover of Donna Lewis’s only hit, “Love You Always Forever.” Essentially a wall of noise, they only hint at the melody lying deep within the chaos. It is beautiful, heartbreaking and sublime.

Now I’m sad to say that both of Patrick Ripoll’s covers didn’t do much for me, although the first bit of “How’s It Gonna Be (originally by Third Eye Blind)” is actually quite cool and very different for Patrick, it sort of teeters off aimlessly. I do like the nice use of the Amen Break though.

Both Fire Island, AK covers are a bit dreary and I wanted to like Manipulator Alligator’s cover of TLC’s “Waterfalls” more than I did.

But, I can see what some of the artists were doing here. Some were trying to take these glaring monuments of mainstream ideology and turn them into what they are, manufactured dribble. I think that’s taking the easy route. Many of these songs, no matter how manufactured still spoke to us and the best covers here are ones that reflect the deep loving or enjoyment we had of these songs back when we were growing up.

Sold to raise money to help maintain CLLCT, the amazing community of artists and musicians that ALL OF YOU should be a part of, it is now available to download for free! Enjoy!

The Roaring Nineties

Links:
The Brooke (a tiny ocean)'s site
Shelby Sifers on Myspace!
Tinyfolk on Myspace!
Dustin And The Furniture on Myspace!
Uggamugga on Myspace!
SFIAS on Last.fm!

*anyone know anything about Fudge? I can't seem to find anything on them.

Mp3 of the Week: "I Hope..." by James Eric

James Eric is the kind of guy who still sings about things I wish I could, but sadly do not have to the spirit to.

And despite all the things James has gone through he always sings with a level of energy and passion that startles me from time to time. On his much overlooked Fire In The Mountains from this year the song "I Hope..." is an anthem that has a great marching rhythm, stomping piano and is full of that classic James Eric sincerity that I so dearly adore.

This song's message is simple, but born out of a life of complications. It is so steadfast I can't help but wish to sing it aloud. And it's the kind of song that must be sung that way and even if you don't believe its message, the more and more you sing it you will eventually.

Mp3:
James Eric-"I Hope..."

Link:
James Eric on Myspace!
Download Fire In The Mountains on CLLCT!

Interview With Russ Woods Of Tinyfolk + Mix!

In anticipation of Tinyfolk's new album Sic Semper Equis, Russ (one half of Tinyfolk, the other half Meghan Lamb) was kind enough to answer my questions about his past, present and future. Now It's no secret I am a big fan, but I hope you can read his words and maybe get a greater sense of one of music's most inspiring and intriguing bands propelling us into the future.


Taken by Adam Zolkover

Foggy: What do you think of the term Lo-Fi and where do you think Lo-Fi music is going to go in the next couple of years?

Russ: I actually like the term lo-fi, unlike most genre terms that could have been used to describe any of my music. I think the problem comes when the term becomes something more than just a way to describe an act who uses a certain method of recording. I think lo-fi music is something that, for the majority of music listeners, will never be anything that they really hear any of, outside of perhaps a moldy peaches song on the Juno soundtrack (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I think lo-fi is important to the larger musical world in that it is a wonderful influence in challenging artists to think outside of the box. I don't think The Mountain Goats would have been able to make the studio albums they're making now if John Darnielle hadn't gotten his chops recording loads of hissy tape demos and selling them. I think the Mount Eerie is especially interesting, as basically he's gone from making lo-fi folk music to making something that is a somewhere between folk and Sunn O)))-style stoner metal. The only other band I can think of that's doing anything like that is someone like Lightning Paw. I think lo-fi itself will very likely stay where it is, but I think we'll see a lot of lo-fi musicians branch into very different genres and incorporate a lot of new things, many of which will push them out of the catagory of "lo-fi," for better or for worse.

Foggy: What stereotypes do you think go along with the term Lo-Fi?

Russ: I think the neat thing about the word lo-fi is because it's tied to a specific method of recording, there can be many different things that lo-fi can exist as. I've heard lo-fi country and lo-fi noise. I can't think of many other descriptors that can encompass both country and noise performers and not be seen as a stretch. I think it's cool. I don't think what I do is lo-fi anymore. Perhaps home-recorded (as I do record at home), but I think ever since I started using a condenser mic (basically Bill-and-after), I have wandered outside of the realm of lo-fi, except when I'll occasionally record something with some hiss on it. I think Tinyfolk's music is still very lo-fi influence, though, as there always has existed an element of sloppiness that I'll never quite be able to clean up, and I can't see that changing, no matter how hard I want it to sometimes. Hopefully it's endearing or something.

Foggy: What do you think of Twee? It is a category some would say a few your earlier albums fit into. Freak Folk?

Russ: I like twee. I think it's fascinating, and I love hearing all the different ways it exists/has existed. I'm not sure that many of my albums would fall under a strict definition of twee (i.e. one that is based around Sarah Records and Black Tambourine and full bands with drummers and jangly electric guitars), though I know some include Beat Happening (who kind of did both sometimes) and all the American lo-fi acoustic acts they influenced. There are loads of cutesy bedroom pop projects being created at any one time, and the word "twee" is definitely something that's being used to describe them, whether you think that's accurate or not. I'm not really in a place to say. Either way, I like lots of music of this type, though lately I've just been listening to other stuff, I still quite enjoy musicians like Dennis Driscoll and Rose Melberg and (of course) Watercolor Paintings. Not to mention stuff like The Sugargliders and Eggstone and the Television Personalities.

As for "freak folk," it's a descriptor I dislike enough to put quotes around it whenever I have to use it. I really dislike the emphasis on weirdsybeardsyness that the genre name implies, because I feel like it deifies the whole artist-as-madman trope but not in a way that seems aware of what it's doing. Maybe that's a lot of agency to put upon some sort of vague category. Probably I'm being somewhat unfair and generalizing. I like some music that people could call "freak folk." I like Little Wings. I like the Jeweled Antler Collective a lot (I'd been listening to The Birdtree a whole bunch when I first wrote the song "Antlers"). I guess there are a few Tinyfolk songs someone could call "freak folk" if they wanted to.

Foggy: Do you think promotion is a necessary evil or do you embrace the challenges?

Russ: Promotion has presented interesting challenges for me, and is really kind of fun in a lot of ways, mainly because I am so adverse to the way a lot of people advertise their music, and I think a lot of people are with me on that. I don't think the answer is to not advertise, because everyone advertises, they just do it in ways that don't always seem like advertising. And that in itself is probably one of the most interesting challenges. To come up with ways to make your music available to be found without seeming preachy about it in the least. I think the most common answer is to let a label do it for you, then it no longer becomes "Look how great this thing I made is!" but rather "Look how great these people are! I'm putting out their album, you should listen to it!" Which in itself is a lot more palatable to people. But smaller labels are usually run by one person, maybe two if they're lucky. There aren't usually people whose job it is to focus on just promotion, and there isn't usually any money to actually do any type of promotion that would cost. It certainly presents an interesting problem, and one that isn't easily solved, but I think in the long run its just going to make us creative people have to be creative not only in making music but also in how we present it to people.


A young Russ (and Meghan!), playing in a Lo-Fi stadium aka living room.

Foggy: Where did you come up with the name Tinyfolk?

Russ: It's a dumb story. Basically I was at a Mirah show and there was this girl that I had a crush on who was a friend of a friend. We were all there together and I was sitting next to her. She was a fairly small person, as am I, and someone else wanted to sit on the bench and I said, 'you can probably fit, we're tiny folk.'" I liked the phrase, so I made it an instant messenger screen name, and then a livejournal, and then it was my username all over the internet. When I got sick of playing music under the name "a pilgrimage to save this human race," I decided I needed something new. Tinyfolk was the first thing I thought of. I remember asking my friend Zeb if she thought it would be a good idea if I changed my band name and she said, "No!!!!! I love "A Pilgrimage to Save This Human Race." Then she said, "What would you change it to?" and I said "Tinyfolk" and she said, "Ooh! Yes! Do it!" So I did.

Foggy: Did you have any goals when creating Tinyfolk and if so have they changed? Do you have goals now as opposed to before or vice versa?

Russ: My goal when writing my very first pilgrimage song was basically to create something that could exist as a song in the universe. At the time I was compiling songs with the word "supergirl" in the title, as that was my nickname for my girlfriend at the time. I got the idea to record my own supergirl song, so I did. And that was my first song: "My Supergirl." No, you can't hear it.

After that, basically I was just so excited about making anything at all that it was just an experiment to see what I could pull off. And that's what it's been ever since. So, I don't really feel like I've had any goals with the project other than to follow my impulses. Which is why I switch up the way I do things a lot, to keep myself interested.

Foggy: Bill and Valley Forge were very experimental and purposely busy aesthetically, any reason for why you pushed away from the simple ukulele albums of before?

Russ: Basically I wanted to see what else I could do. When I was recording Love Doesn't Grow on Trees, the guy who ran the label that wanted to put it out, Erik from Agriculture Records, said I should add lots of things to the recordings rather than just singing and playing the song like I would live. He said "make it a masterpiece." Ever since then I've basically been doing the same thing, adding things, trying to make it a "masterpiece." Bill was the first time when I had the capability (thanks to PJ) to add a significant amount of things and make it sound okay. Valley Forge was the first time I had that capability without anyone else helping me. Sic Semper Equis is basically me stepping back and saying, "Well, I can do all these things. Now what do I want to do?"

Foggy: Why no ukulele on Jack's Broth your latest (CLLCT exclusive) EP?

Russ: It's amazing how perfect a classical guitar sounds after having played a cheap baritone ukulele for years. It's like they're made of magic silk sound fluid.

Foggy: So you have a new album coming out called Sic Semper Equis. Besides the fact that it will be entirely recorded in Apple's Garage Band is there anything else different about it compared to everything else you've done? In what ways is it the same?

Russ: Well, basically the fact that (apart from one song) I never touched an instrument making this album makes it hugely different. Also, the fact that I came up with the concept after having written one song and then wrote all the others after the concept makes it different from all the albums except the Cat Album. It's also much longer. The longest release I've done up until now is probably about thirty minutes, and this one's around forty-five minutes. That feels really good, especially because I don't feel like I'm someone who tends to stretch songs out and make them long, so when I write a five minute song, I feel like it's got a lot smashed into those five minutes. Probably just because I'm not totally used to writing five minute songs yet. There are more long songs on this album. Four of the tracks are over four minutes long, and one is just about fifteen seconds short of that mark. That makes it way different from any album I've written, except maybe Valley Forge, which had two longer ones. Doing the same vocal effect, drum machines, and generally keeping everything made in pretty much the same way made this album a lot different to make, though its stylistically all over the place more than anything I've ever made. Because I was using drum machines I could let my love of hip-hop shine through a lot more than I ever have before. This is probably the first Tinyfolk album that will rattle your subwoofer. And it will rattle your subwoofer. The first time I burned some of the tracks to cd to hear how it sounded in a car, I had to turn the volume way down because the bass was so loud. It was embarrassing. I guess that's what I get for making bass-heavy recordings on a laptop, where I can't get a good idea of how the bass even sounds. I had to go back and turn it down a bit in the mix.

This album is the same in that it's still me singing about animals, and that's really comfortable. It's the same in that I'm still a pretty silly guy, and that shows in my lyrics and some of the choices I made musically as well. I want people to laugh sometimes when listening to this stuff, but I also want it to be the kind of thing that doesn't get old after the joke gets old.
Also, I heard that Erykah Badu's new album was recorded in GarageBand. So, I'm in good company.

Foggy: If you could say one thing about Sic Semper Equis to prepare listeners for when it comes out what would it be?"

Russ: Here's the album's tagline: "Y2K was hard on us all. Goats, Deer, Horses. Centaurs. Everybody."

Foggy: favorite online community, social network or website (besides CLLCT of course)?

Russ: Catbook.


Taken by Adam Zolkover

So there you have it folks I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Russ for taking the time to answer my questions. I am saving a few extra questions & the responses to go along with my review of Sic Semper Equis. It is coming out soon so keep your ears posted. Learn Tinyfolk's music so everything you know will be deconstructed when Sic Semper Equis drops.

...AND SO I finally got my ass in gear and present to you a SUPER MIX. Not only am I presenting to you a ten song retrospective on the music of Tinyfolk, but a silly song I wrote and recorded about them and a collection of songs that showcase Russ and Meghan’s various (side) projects, collaborations and more.

Tinyfolk Retrospective:
"If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out" From Thirty-Six Cat Songs By Tinyfolk
"Millions Of Leaves" From Love Doesn't Grow On Trees
"Love Is A Thing" From Little Mice And Other Things That Go Skitter Skitter
"If I Were An Owl" From "Platapeasawallaland": A Rainy-Day Owlbum
"Really, Really Blue: A Tale Of Unrequited (Perhaps) Romance And Lizardry" From Bill
"Do Animals Get Lonely Late At Night?" From Pizza Under The Sea on Wee Pop! Records
"Stay Poor" From Life Is Easy: A Real Live Tigers Tribute
"Valley Forge" From Valley Forge on Sanitory Records
"Duke Of Earl" From Jack's Broth
"Thus Always Horses" From the forthcoming album Sic Semper Equis

My Ode To Tinyfolk on a super-secret EP coming soon!
Existential Hero-"Hey Russ, Why You Singin' 'Bout All Those Animals?"

Various (Side) Projects, Collaborations And More:
A Pilgrimage To Save This Human Race (The first incarnation of Tinyfolk with just Russ)-"Were You Dating Me Just For The Mix CDs?"
Bikeweather (A band featuring Russ from Tinyfolk, Isaac from Blanketarms and Adam from Jenny Is A Boy)-"And We Can Read Emma Goldman At The Top Of Our Lungs To The Tunes Of Car Alarms (Original Version)"
The Spooky Ghosts (A Lo-Fi Pop Duo With Isaac from Blanketarms and Russ)-"Solitaire is a Two-Person Game. You've Just Been Playing It Wrong"
Tinyfolk and Secret Owl Society (Secret Folk Collaboration)-"We Are Hedgehogs"
Iron Like Nylon (Meghan Lamb's solo outing, a must listen!)-"The Tolling"
Forever Wolf (Russ and Meghan's "serious" side)-"It's All Coming Back to Me (Celine Dion Cover)"
Dead Dead Meat (Russ's Horror Rap Project)-"Braaaaiiiinnnnsss"

Links:
Tinyfolk on Myspace!
Download Tinyfolk's entire Discography if you please on CLLCT!
Articles/Reviews of Tinyfolk on Foggy Ruins Of Time
Buy Valley Forge Split with Manipulator Alligator on Sanitary Records!

CLLCT Is Better, Faster, Stronger!

Around December 2007 a mysterious boy/creature Secret Owl (of Secret Owl Society) birthed the 001Collective from his gut and heart. The idea was simple: create a site where artists give their music away for free. Why? Well, these artist love their music and love sharing it more, it wasn’t (isn’t) about money.

This site quickly grew and its small but strong form wasn’t enough so then it evolved into its current form CLLCT. Although it has shed its skin many times since January, CLLCT is better, faster, and stronger.

The site not only has more music, but there is so much more you can do with the music (as an artist or fan). There are artist pages, album pages, forums, blogs, etc. etc. All of the progress towards this site has been towards this central idea that will make this free music relevant and that idea is community.

A community is what CLLCT has become. Whether it’s getting advice for what kind of ukulele to buy, getting tips on a song, shooting the shit about music or politics, booking shows and other things, CLLCT is a place where an artist can feel welcome to say (and sing) about whatever their heart desires.

I was initially skeptical about 001Collective when it first started. Being raised in music capitalism that is the mainstream I had the difficult time of accepting that it is okay to give away your music for free. In many ways I myself have gained many more listeners because of this site (and in turn friends). And it is this community that truly won me over (plus all the Tinyfolk, Real Live Tigers, James Eric and Shelby Sifers one could handle).

If you haven’t been there yet and you are a music fan, especially of Lo-Fi or music that comes from the heart and gut then you owe it to yourself to check it out. And if you are an artist or musician and you don’t have your stuff up there yet I have two words for you: DO IT! Seriously you won’t regret sharing your music, people will listen.

On a promotion-atory note:
Up for order right now is The Roaring Nineties, a compilation of your favorite CLLCT artists covering your favorite songs from the 90s. Artists like Tinyfolk, Dustin And The Furniture, Existential Hero and Patrick Ripoll cover Elton John, Third Eye Blind, Destiny’s Child and The Fugees respectively plus more! It’s only thirteen bucks and it goes towards keeping the site running smoothly and effectively. There are only a hundred copies so order this collectible fast before it’s gone!

Link:
CLLCT.com
CLLCT forums
Collective Common, the CLLCT blog
Order The Roaring Nineties compilation!

Tinyfolk: Jack’s Broth (2008)

What is Tinyfolk now? The days of “Love Is A Thing” are far-gone and the new EP from Russ Woods and Meghan Lamb, Jack’s Broth, feels like a watershed for Tinyfolk, a change is in the wind.

First of all, if I’m not mistaken, Tinyfolk’s key instrument, the baritone ukulele, is nowhere to be heard. Most songs use acoustic guitar, piano or are acapella. Aesthetically most of this EP recalls a more stripped down approach of early Tinyfolk, but is more assured and more purposely minimal.

“Antelope” appears to be a purging of the more self-described “bloated” and zany Tinyfolk of the Bill/Valley Forge albums. A Spaghetti Western-esque musing on looking for food, it contains various voices to provide its humor in its rhymes.

This cover of David Bowie’s “Five Years” is probably one of Russ’s most impassioned performances on tape. And by tape I mean the sound of song. It has an intentional “on the radio” sound that works well with how bare it sounds.

“Wandlight” is the first out of two songs that were supposed to go on a concept EP about the relationship between the wizards Dumbledore and Grindelwald from the Harry Potter series. It’s sensual, features some subtle production work and is quite moving. Russ’s singing on this song is quite exceptional.

The acapella cover of Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earl” is probably one of the most adorable songs in the Tinyfolk canon. Featuring Meghan Lamb’s heavenly voice more prominently, it is intimate, silly and fun.

“Before Our Beards Were Long” is the second song about the romance between Dumbledore and Grindelwald and again for not being a Harry Potter fan I am extremely moved by this song. It’s incredibly sad.

Jack’s Broth is all about re-contextualizing familiar Tinyfolk behaviors, themes, motifs, etc. “Antelope” uses Bill-esque arrangements but infuses it with the vastness of Little Mice And Other Things That Go Skitter Skitter. “Five Years” takes a glam-rock song and brings the level of intimacy seen on "Platapeasawallaland". “Duke of Earl” plays off the twee cuteness of early Tinyfolk but is now acapella. Both of the Harry Potter romance songs use humans (wizards) as the subject for deep emotion instead of animals as on all other Tinyfolk albums.

So Jack’s Broth is a mish-mash of songs that work surprisingly well as an album (EP) and all hint at a new future for Tinyfolk. I wait with excited anticipation.

Mp3:
Tinyfolk-“Duke of Earl”

Links:
Download Jack's Broth for FREE on CLLCT
Tinyfolk on Myspace

Patrick Ripoll: Praise The Lord! (2008)

Many people know Patrick Ripoll through his glitch pop/noise/sample album Disorient, but before the samples he was making his own angry brand of folk. That album, Open All Winter, was admittedly hard to listen to because of the primal scream-esque approach. But, on Praise The Lord! Patrick’s skills as a musician and songwriter have beautifully come together to make it easily one of my favorite albums of 2008.

For the most part Patrick plays these songs straight, and really it works best this way. Half the appeal is its cathartic feel and when you could easily get turned off by some of the screaming and wrenched vocals by any other artist, here it used effectively and we scream right along with him.

For example, a song like “Second Place,” works best because it in many ways is a wonderful anthem for downtrodden souls everywhere. By the end of the song I’m shouting the lines, “Can anyone drive me home/I’ve had too much to drink/I apologize to the groom and bride/For vomiting in the sink,” at the top of my lungs.

The album is not without tender moments. “The Day I First Knew I Would Love You” takes a progression from The White Stripes and transforms it into a wonderfully detailed treatise on an errand trip that has far more implications than one would think. And, It has one the sweetest set of rhymes on the album, “And for each other we got DVDs/Punch-Drunk Love and Love Actually/And they were buy one get one free/We split the savings…50/50.” Pure gold.

One of the most contentious songs on this album is “Generation”. This song talks about leaving The Moldy Peaches buried and declaring to DIY artists, “Put the ukulele down son/You don’t know shit about life.” Now you know a movement/scene is dead when they lose their sense of humor (I’m talking to you punk!), so just laugh along and besides, “Nothing personal, really/I wish you twee sumbitches the best.”

The album climaxes with the song “Rest” that chokes me up every single time. Musing on giving up Patrick sings with resignation, “I'll give up all ambition that I ever had/ Go work at the post office, doesn't really sound too bad.” It’s simply heartbreaking. I hope he doesn’t mean it.

I could probably say something about all nineteen tracks on Praise The Lord!, but its fruitless to try and capture the brutal honesty and sheer drive that Patrick exudes. He sings like he’s running out of time, but I hope that he keeps creating and creating.

Mp3:
Patrick Ripoll-"Generation"

Links:
Patrick Ripoll on Myspace
Download Praise The Lord! for free on CLLCT!

Ghosts Never Die And Neither Will You!

I’m not sure if everyone knows, but Isaac of Blanketarms, Isaac Arms, The Spooky Ghosts, and the man behind the beloved Pop Monster Collective has called it quits. While I am deeply saddened we all do what we need to do and I’m just happy Isaac is letting the legacy live on by allowing us to post the entire discography onto CLLCT.com (or as much as possible). Today I personally put up Blanketarms’s masterful double album Sweet & Sour along with their side of the activist-minded One Small Fist split. I also put up Isaac’s solo record that I won’t shut up about. Russ of Tinyfolk is also working on uploading more material and if any of you have something that we might not have let us know!

I like to talk about how I got into lo-fi music a lot lately (or at least the events behind it) and I just remember Blanketarms being one of the first bands I listened to. The first song I heard was “Heartbreaker,” the version off of their tour CD-R (anyone have the entire disc?). I was transformed completely and utterly forever. I never heard something so raw, so honest and so unexpected. From that moment I had to find more. I was freshman in college and I was vulnerable and open and I wanted to consume everything lo-fi; luckily Pop Monster Collective was right around the corner. I immediately started snatching up records from Blanketarms, Tinyfolk, Real Live Tigers, Super Famicom, Jon Crocker; you name it I was listening to it. And not just Pop Monster either, but I would follow myspace top 8s to get to any artists that sounded like the perfect fit.

It wasn’t just about listening to all these wonderful artists, but it was about the spirit of DIY and how it didn’t matter if your guitar was a twenty-five dollar toy guitar, if it was broken, or if it was a thousand bucks. You could record your songs on cassettes using headphones, using iPod mics, or even the recording device that comes with windows; it didn’t matter. For the first time in my life I knew that if I made music someone would listen because in this community everyone was willing to give you a chance.

I mean I can honestly say that my entire train of thought was effectively altered forever because of Blanketarms, Pop Monster Collective, and all of you fine folks out there doing what you love no matter what. I grew up in place where most people had ZERO passion and suddenly discovering so many people who cared deeply about what they were doing inspired me to become a more driven and confident person.

So what I do is for all of you. I want to make Isaac proud, Pop Monster proud and all of you proud of what I do, you do, what we did, what we do and what we will do. We are all artists and no matter what, we always will be.

The legacy of Pop Monster Collective will never die and I suggest for those uninitiated check out every artist that was a part of that family.

Mp3s:
Blanketarms-“Heartbreaker (Unripe Version)”
Isaac Arms-“Us Vs. Stuff”
Real Live Tigers-“No Regrets”
Tinyfolk-“Dear Apollo”
Rambling Nicholas Heron-“Only This And Nothing More”
The Spooky Ghosts-“Ghoul's Night Out”
Super Famicom-“I Evaporate”
LA Beard Club-“ Harder Than It Has to Be”

Links:
The Pop Monster Collective site
Pop Monster on myspace
CLLCT.com where the legacy lives on!

Blanketarms-"Ya Basta!"

Get up and out of bed and in your car and off to work

Complain cuz greatness passed and you're just stuck with common jerks

So you've been lost so long just like a cog it's not the end

And it won't kill you to destroy yourself and start again

But I refuse to believe that no one gives a shit

And I think we, we watch ourselves sink

Just because we're used to it

You know how nacho cheese it gets real stiff when you let it sit

Well I think your eyes are pale

And your soul is stale cuz you don't do shit

Just ride a bike or read a book or send a letter home

Or build a new friendship cuz we weren't meant to be alone

But I refuse to believe that no one gives a shit

And I think we, we watch ourselves sink

Just because we've given up

But enough is enough