Hey all,
It’s our most bittersweet day of the year as we commemorate another Juneteenth with both hope and despair. Maybe you know our drill by now: release a three-song EP and donate all funds to charity. Once again we have chosen a cover, a brand-new Royal Chant original, and then an acoustic reworking of something from our back catalog, and packaged it all together for a Bandcamp-only release that sees 100% of all funds going to Change The Record and Black Rainbow.
Change The Record seeks to address the root causes of Indigenous incarceration and works to prevent imprisonment. Black Rainbow advocates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBQTI communities.
Choosing our cover this year involved a somewhat circuitous process, as we came across this gem during a random re-watching of “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp” at some point last year.
It just seemed so perfect that we had to do a little digging to find out more, which led us to composer/songwriter Craig Wedren and this acoustic version by the man himself.
After hearing that stellar piece of work we of course went “oh damn!” and had to keep digging, which led us to his bio where we find out that he was the frontman for Shudder To Think, which means he was responsible for one of the two greatest and most impressive soundtracks that shaped some very important & formative years as we were trying to figure out who and what we were and are.
and this goldmine (pun intended, obvs)
And that sealed the deal right there, really. It was no longer a discussion or up for debate, it just had to happen.
But of course we kept digging a little more a stumbled upon these bits of Shudder To Think from before and beyond the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack, and it reminded us that before Nirvana completely dominated the conversation, when the alternative underground first broke in America, it seemed poised to take a number of wildly divergent directions, and for that brief moment when record label scouts & executives were signing anything and everything that smacked of otherness and traditional media were scrambling to keep up there was something truly wonderfully bizarre and alternative before it all became “Alternative™”.
And then of course we recorded a new song, because once a year we like to pretend we’re big enough and mysterious enough to warrant such a thing. This is “Hospital”, a tune I was mucking around with for a while and decided to finish once we had the chance to go into a proper studio and work with a proper producer again. Don’t get me wrong: I LOOOOOOVE home recording and DIY, but just because I’m on a diet doesn’t mean I can’t look at the menu.
Anyways, despite the very svelte production of course I thew together an indie fill clip to go with it. No one is making any money in music these (well….no one WE know), and it’s always a good time to remember and embrace that fact.
Thank you all for listening and reading, and keep spreading the love in any and every way.
You’re the best,
RC xoxo
slantrhyme 