Chaperone Picks - You'll Have To Deal With Me

"Thought Slipping Away" is a song about thoughts and dreams. Sometimes I wake up and can still remember them. But within a few moments they just fade away, no matter how hard you try to hang on...

Here's what I had to say about the album:

so i wrote and recorded this album on 6 may 2020. exactly two years ago today. i was sitting at my desk @ home and listening to an awfully boring zoom meeting for my little job. instead of participating in the meeting i wrote the lyrics for these 10 songs in this graph paper notebook i was using called a jeffer's journal (which i've since tossed in a fire). as soon as the damn thing was over i went into the pass-through between the main house and the studio/garage and recorded these songs with my old airline acoustic and my sony tape recorder. i like the natural reverb i get in there. it was a nice day and i opened the window. i enjoy setting up the lyrics and the recorder on the ledge and i often record this way. i strummed a bit and got a basic grasp of each song and recorded it right away. brought the machine back into the house, plugged it into my mac and mixed down quickly into audacity. listened to this for weeks. months...

it just never felt right to release it. truth be told i was done with chaperone picks. i was done with everything. i made a choice years ago to stop trying to write and record perfectly. my favorite albums have always been rough, and i often prefer the demo versions to the finished product. i think i kept this one for me. my motivation was to record a set of songs that i could perform solo at an open mic or someone's party. a new cycle of songs that i could rely on.

i have tried releasing these songs under various monikers and album titles for over a year. i'd put them up and then take them down within a short timeframe. i really don't know why. but today it seems right to release them on the anniversary of making them. i make no apologies for their sketchy sound. to me they are complete. i make no apologies for my verbosity. i like writing and talking about music. i've heard that you really shouldn't put yourself over but i don't care. i don't know any other way to do this.

Party's Over

Thought Slipping Away

Backyard Lab Idea

Gets You To Try

written and recorded in august/september 2018. quick takes as time permitted. used a sony tape recorder with a built-in condenser mic for the drums. sounds are squashed beautifully. overdubs on 4-track.

i did a mixdown of this record on 14 october 2018 and put it on my ipod. listened to it hundreds of times as i moved into late fall. i was inspired by guided by voices "sunfish holy breakfast".

"finally brilliance" is flawed and unfinished but accurately captured where i was in that place. these are songs about new experiences. the raw nerves. warm summer weather and the sound of the trees. a journal entry for a moment in time.

Finally Brilliance

In The Face of Uncertainty

from the album, "Springtime Quit Sensation"...

Springtime Quit Sensation

Nickels in the Cost That Bought You

Premiere: “And Follow Through” – Chaperone Picks

October 18, 2019

I’m always going to be interested in expertly-done lo-fi work. Even though much lo-fi work is marked by limited instrumental palettes and lack of technical polish, that just means it has to have to make up for all of that with actual songwriting. The prolific Chaperone Picks knows this and turns out work that’s heavy on the important stuff and light on the bells and whistles.

The opener to his latest work Haiku Houses cuts everything down to the bare minimum not just in instrumentation but also in length. “and follow through” is only 66 seconds long, but both the verse melody and the chorus melody are catchy. The rattling percussion matches perfectly with the bright acoustic guitar. The roaring backup vocals contrast beautifully with the chill/deadpan delivery of the main vocal line. It all comes together into a perfect little package: an acoustic lo-fi track that I can’t get out of my head that’s almost literally gone in 60 seconds. If you’re a fan of lo-fi guitar singer/songwriter stuff, you’re gonna love this track and its subsequent album. 

Stephen Carradini

https://chaperonepicks.bandcamp.com/album/haiku-houses

Haiku Houses

And Follow Through

Topped

Strange Creature

from the album, "Cold"...

https://chaperonepicks.bandcamp.com/

Cold

Now I See

"Raw, enthusiastic, lo-fi singer/songwriter with some country overtones. For those days when it seems like no one doesn’t use autotune and maxxed out production values, Chaperone Picks is there for you. Realness." - independentclauses.com