Marathon Sprints

June 2007: I get an idea for an intro song for Citizens Banned while peeing after listening to The Mars Volta's "Amputechture" for the first time. I record it in a month's time. It's called "Typosgraphy".

November 2007: Feeling the Banned break apart, I opt to bring "Typosgraphy" over to the Patch realm. Spending a day by myself at Fort Snelling, I come up with a number of different ideas relating to "Sound. Of. Static."

Winter 2008: Researching the culture of rock and roll. My thesis: rock is the center of pop culture. It embraces the art of lethargy with a ton of enthusiasm for change, difference, and energy. Nothing ever changes, though, because in the end people either don't have the stamina to make change, or they didn't really care for change in the first place. Art as a mass commoddity is lazy. After reading and taking notes through some 3000 pages, I finally gain enough insight into other people's theses on the topic to feel confident enough to embark on my own thoughts, ready to step on some toes.

March 2008: While writing "The Architect", the main focus for "Sound. Of. Static.", I feel overwhelmed with a need to do the record right. I feel like embarking on something else, something a little more DIY in the meantime. Finishing up "S.O.S.", I book myself a stay at Motel 6 at the end of April.


April/May 2008: "I Source" EP is written within a week's time, three of the four songs having been written in one night at Motel 6. The songs I tend to attribute to this stay are "Solitaire" and "Trachomanic". I was nervous, was high off of too much caffeine, the heat was raging, I looked a mess.

Summer 2008: Record "Trachomanic" with Schuyler producing. The project is excruciating and frustrating. A three minute song becomes a three month long nightmare of trial and error. I think that the rest of "I Source" might be a little tough to complete in a timely fashion, so I figure on making a sample platter of some of the more easy to record songs in my collection.

Fall 2008: Spending a lot of time by myself on walks and hikes, I start getting ideas to make a second EP to coincide with "I Source" called "Hue". Many visits to coffee shops are had, and an old riff from early college is recycled for a sprawling mid-tempo piece explaining a turning point in the storyline for the two EP's, "In Hopes to Mend". This song is the quintessential Northeast Minneapolis piece, as many walks around the area were had while formulating both the writing and recording of it. I'll always think of warehouses and train yards when I hear this song. Another EP, "Karmath", is also written during a fit of laziness with writing "Hue". Chasing the muse, "LCD", a mid-tempo for "Karmath", is recorded in November and December.

Winter 2009: Knowing the final tracklisting for the sample platter, I embark on revamping the old "Typosgraphy" file. It's more nightmarish than the "Trachomanic" recording process, for some reason. "In Hopes to Mend" is also recorded with much more ease and relaxation due to a complicated process of recording dealing with Multi-Files (hard to explain), but it made it easier in the long run.

Spring 2009: The last two songs, "In Hopes to Mend" and "Switch", will be finished. The working title for the platter is "Schematics". It will be a culmination of two years' worth of pondering, brainstorming, overthinking, writing, and recording.

This weekend: "In Hopes to Mend" will be finished. One step closer.

The Mars Volta -- "Meccamputecture"