So it’s the first day of 2020!
Something about repeating numerology always summons a science-fiction narrator in my head. I hope the novelty of how futuristic this year sounds doesn’t wear off. And while I’m not much of a new year’s resolutions kind of person, I do enjoy sitting on such an obvious fence in time and looking both backwards and forwards. For today, I will talk about the forward stuff.
First off, I have started a new project. I actually started it a while ago, but I am beginning to release it. It’s called “Human Mother.” I got the name from a friend’s wedding, where the woman leading the service said something along the lines of: “This is not only seen by the heavenly father, but also by our human mothers.” I laughed a little louder than I should have, but putting “human” before otherwise normal words always makes them suspicious!
- “Are you enjoying your human dinner?”
- “I’ll gladly come to your human party.”
- “Let’s shake human hands on it!”
And this continues my tradition of naming projects after things I bump into the wild that make me laugh. Trying to come up with a meaningful and cool name is a drag. Or it is for me. I never enjoy it. So names like “Radical Face” and “Human Mother” it is.
But as for what this project is? Well, I miss making music that focuses on production, uses electronics and samples and whimsy, and is not quite so personal all the time. That used to be the space that “Electric President” filled for me as a songwriter, because Alex and I always hid little jokes inside the songs, or just treating practices as a way to have fun. And I really miss that. Alex and I haven’t played together in over 5 years now, and with us living on opposite coasts and me becoming more of a hermit, I don’t know if that will really happen again. Maybe I’ll get him to throw bass on some of these songs long distance? I’m not sure. But even that is really the point of this project. Something that is more based on whims, weird processes, a sense of humor, and bothering people along the way.
I put up a track for the project recently, and I made a video for it with the O’Shea Brothers, who are responsible for the wonderful skate video series “A Happy Medium.” I met them in 2011 when they invited me to the premiere of “A Happy Medium 2” after giving them a bunch of music to use in it. After I finished this track for Human Mother, I had a nightmare where I cracked my head open skateboarding and fragments of memories starting showing up (I grew up skateboarding, so this isn’t as odd as it might sound). So I decided to film this weird dream. Needing some skaters for this, I reached out to the O’Sheas, and they recruited Aaron “Jaws” Homoki to be the lead for the video. Aaron is both a maniac and genuinely sweet guy (he did this for free! … I think I just gave him a DVD set of Attack On Titan as payment, hahaha), and the whole project was really fun, despite being in Arizona in the summer.
So yeah, Human Mother will be my home for my more electronic and experimental music for the foreseeable future. I have a lot of other tracks already done, and none of them really sound the same, and I’ll be putting them out whenever I have time, or I’m in the mood. Nothing about this will be overly scheduled. I have enough of that in my life already. Cheers for chaos.
Beyond that, this year will have a lot for Radical Face in it. I am about 30 demos deep for “Into The Woods” and starting to make more final versions of tracks. For how I work, that means I am about 30 percent into the album. But I am really getting my finger on the new direction/sound, which is one of the most exciting phases of making a record. So I’ve been pretty happy to spend as much time recording as I can these days. And this will come out this year. Now that I am putting records out myself again, one huge advantage is I don’t have to wait until a record label has an open slot for me to release it. I get to pick for myself this time. Yay!
And to flex that very thing, I already ave a B-Side from this run of songwriting that I’m going to put out really soon. Just a random single, really. But I can do those things this time.
I also have the US tour coming up really soon. This might be the last traditional tour I do for a while, so if you have any interest in seeing a show, this is your window. And from the European run, Jon Bryant was kind enough to send me some photos from the shows, because I never think to shoot pictures when I travel. Thanks, Jon! I’ll post a few below. And thanks again for everyone who came out to the European shows, and for being such an attentive audience. It makes all the difference.
Beyond those two projects, we are also releasing a record for “Photostat” later this year, and then have more releases coming for Bear Machine as well. I’m happy to finally feel settled enough to get back to the pace I used to have, around that 2007 - 2011 period, where I spent the bulk of my time creating things. It’s my favorite way to live, whenever life allows it.
I hope everyone is well … IN THE YEAR TWENTY-TWENTY!