With one exception, these were all recorded in the apartment I inherited from Aaron and Mindy Huffman at 15th & Denny on Capitol Hill in Seattle between 2007 and 2011, when I moved out, which also constituted a period of intense misery and relentless writer's block. 

As many charlatans before me have done, I took up the time-honored rationalization that "learning" some of my favorite (morbid downer) songs would somehow impart the secret code that would allow me to start writing again. The culprits, unsurprisingly, included Pavement, John Prine, Blur, Leonard Cohen, Elvis Costello (x3), Big Star (Andy Hummel), Sebadoh, Randy Newman, Husker Du (Grant Hart), the Connells, and Stephin Merritt.

 I recorded them with the Voice Memo tool on my stupid iPhone, the lo-fi for people too lazy to find the power source to the cassette 4-track machine they never properly learned to use in the old days.

The gambit almost sort of worked once or twice. But what it mainly revealed were the limits of the autodidactic minimalism of my piano technique and, but, also, the sonority of my cheap 3/4-scale upright piano (the kind you find in a secondhand store) and the sweet acoustic of the little bedroom adjacent media closet. Also, thin walls demanded that I keep my voice down. Also, I did change that one chord in the John Prine song, just to see what would happen, and nothing did, so I reckon it's ok.

I'm not sure these merit "release" (or, indeed, that this qualifies as one), but believe it or not, these are the best of this little series. I find myself coming back to them quite a bit, the same way I always, always want to hear the demos on re-released versions of my favorite albums.

Sorry Somehow

Actual Sean Nelson