Its so fucking indie!  If you remember music from the mid 00’s you might recognise a lot of stuff here.  There’s hints of Biffy Clyro (before they started making money) Interpol, Modest Mouse, and even a bit of Incubus and System of a Down.

When was this stuff done?  Just before uni.  I didn’t really have a job.  I worked about 4 hours or so an evening cleaning a hospital.  The rest of my days were spent preparing for uni or recording.  I distinctly remember I would have a break at 1 to watch Seinfeld with a desert of Spongebob Squarepants.  My days were sunny and my weekends hungover.  Such fond memories of this period.  

Lyrically, who the fuck knows.  I think only Hairy McMary has any concept behind them.  Most of the songs have singing simply because they needed it.  This was still in a period where I was essentially recording ideas with the view I would return to the them one day and develop the best ideas.  NFG doesn’t even have any lyrics!  The only time I’ve sung lyrics to this song was at a gig I did at uni.

Looking back on it musically, it sounds like I was really enjoying recording music.  A lot of the ideas were being tried out for the first time and I think you can hear the excitement coming through.  Oh god my production was so bad though.  I didn’t even know about basic shit like low pass filters, or compression.  But everything has a lovely bright feel to it I still find myself surprised at.  There just seems to be so many good ideas from blending clean guitar with distorted, using a vocal mistake I found funny as the intro to a song, or recording odd drum hits using some old drum pad thing from the 80s I found myself in possession of.  

I really cant say enough good things about these songs, so I’d best not for fear of ruining any chance you might have of finding your own enjoyment in them.  But I will say that there is a sense of discovery and enjoyment in these songs that if you can find your way to hearing, make up for the amateur production.  Whereas pretty much everything else I’ve done sounds like it was co-written with Eeyore and produced by Marvin the Paranoid Android, for a period I seemed to write more cheery music.   I think a lot can be read into the lyrics “What the fuck do you sing about when you’re happy!?”

Hairy McMary

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17 - 06 - 02 Waghorny Mike Mix A7

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