Thank you everyone for your kind words regarding the passing of producer, engineer, & legendary studio owner James Bentley. As well-known and respected as he already was, I can’t help but think that in another world, set amongst a different musical landscape, his name would have been even more widely recognized. Yesterday, James Carthew (Royal Chant bassist), came across a very good article on James, written by David Weiss for Sonic Scoop. At nearly the same time, I came across this home-made video set to a Creeper Lagoon song that I had previously never heard. In a sad collision of sorts, they seemed to fit together, so I thought I’d present them to you as our own requiem for someone halfway around the world.
My favourite line from the article is from Bones Howell, when he finishes his remarks with, “He was servicing the garage and indie rock community with a high degree of low fidelity, if that makes sense somehow.”
Yes. Yes it does. That was exactly what we’d been searching for by the time we hit Brooklyn, and we walked out with a single was as close as I’ve gotten to the sound in my head. We had a laugh when only weeks ago, a DJ from one of Australia’s “big” stations (and no, it was not Triple-J), wrote back regarding the track. “Hey ______, had a listen and it’s a good track! It feels like it needs a better mix / master though. Is it a demo?”
No, you sad corporate twat, it’s not a demo. That’s how music actually sounds. A high degree of low fidelity indeed.
Be extra nice to each other this week…let’s see what happens.
not so long between posts this time, which is a nice change from the usual turtle pace. There’s a long convoluted story buried in here, but there’s a very large part of me that just can’t be bothered to take the time to do it properly, because it’s a very narrow tale with very fine strands of narration, and after thinking about how to go about it I realize that even if I told it perfectly it still wouldn’t be that interesting. It would be like doing an excellent job at telling a very mediocre tale, so I’ve decided to quote my own on my own song lyric in the title and say it like a caveman:
Designer Mutts is a new band I’m a part of and this is our debut EP.
The “How” and “Why” are the boring details, but let me also add that Royal Chant has a new member and somehow, at the very bottom of it all, those two things are intertwined. So, with that being said, I am proud to present A Day At The Wauchope Races. If You’ve got 23 minutes to spare I think you might enjoy the story it tells, or tries to anyways.
Keeping in the spirit of the age, we’ve given up on trying to make any money at this, so if you like what you hear please feel free to download it for free without any guilt whatsoever. It’s the way of the world, and we’re cool with that. If you like it we’d be happy just to hear from you, so holler back! If you really want to help out a struggling band then you can do us a solid and tell a friend or share it with someone, (if you actually like them.) We like the small, personal steps. It means more.
So…some of you that have been with us a while would know all about the trials and tribulations of being in Royal Chant, and it should probably come as no surprise that we shed and replace members from time to time. This past March, immediately following our show with Bob Mould, we found ourselves without the services of our long-time drummer. I can’t really say I was surprised, and in fact I had an intimation for well over a year. It’s not for nothing that the last song we recorded together, “Did You Pay Cash For That Panic Attack?”*, closes with the line It’s almost over, and Goddamn! That was fast/It’s almost over, and it don’t come back.
Thinking back on this band, if you were inclined to put things in a typical Hollywood-style narrative then the story would be about a band that got close but never quite made it. As nice and tidy as that is, it’s also a fair amount of BS. This is work. It takes longer than you can imagine, and if you skip any steps in the process you will wind up paying in one way or another. Don’t believe me? How’s the latest crop of X-Factor grads doing? We thought as much.
Anyways, rather than panic (as poetically perfect as that might be), we carried on, and eventually wound up with what we consider the score of the century. We are happy to introduce…Stephen Hopkins! Rather than more words, I thought I’d let music do the rest of the introductions, so here’s your first glimpse of Stephen, playing some brand new tunes from our upcoming Small Town Bruises EP.
There’s more to come about all that, but that’s pretty much the gist of it. If you compared snapshots of me from 4 years ago and right now, you’d find me sitting at the same desk, still booking gigs and still doing all manner of banal minutiae that I still find strangely satisfying, for better or worse.
That’s all from here, for now. We’re always curious to hear what you think. It’s hard to know if we’re really saying what we think we are…
-M
ps–I received an email early this morning from a dear friend in Brooklyn, informing me that James Bentley had passed away. If that name fails to ring a bell, James was the producer/engineer of “Did You Pay Cash For That Panic Attack?”, which we recorded at his studio, The Fort, in Brooklyn while we were on tour in the US. My friend didn’t pass along any details, as he didn’t know any, but I was saddened by the news and wanted to mention it, for whatever good it does. As a requiem, we thought you might give it a spin, (really loud, of course) and remember that it’s all happening faster than we think.
Just a semi-literate musician with thoughts on what would appear to be a variety of subjects, but really just wind up being different takes on music, literature, the occasional poetic investigation, and some generic social grumbling. An American ex-pat living in a small town on the Mid-North Coast of Australia. Expect frequent bouts of homesickness and general amnesia.
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