Fresh Finds Podcast Season 5 Episode 1 W/ Cyborg9k

Hello and welcome to Season 5 of the Fresh Finds Podcast, the show about discovering new music with good people. I'm Ryan, and this episode I'm joined by Skyler of Cyborg9k. How are you doing, dude? Good, good. How are you? I'm doing alright. I'm doing alright. It's a nice Saturday. We just had a lot of snow last night, but it's really pretty out now, so, you know. How about yourself? Yeah, we had a whole bunch of snow. I'm in Nashville, and we had our first snow of the year yesterday. Oh, yeah, I saw that. Yeah, it was very, very cool. I have this little four-wheel drive car, so I was having fun. I was totally fine with all the roads. I liked there was no traffic. It was great. Me and my friend drove around and had a great time. It's funny. I grew up with a lot of lake effect snow and everything, and so I'm really used to driving in the snow. Down here, who aren't used to it as much, they got these big four-wheel drive vehicles, and I'm just, like, absolutely cruising past them in my little, like, front-wheel drive car. Well, better a front-wheel than a rear-wheel drive. Oh, 100%. I had a rear-wheel drive car before, and it was so much worse. Yeah, mine goes from rear to four-wheel drive. I have a little Subaru, so I'm totally fine with the snow. Nice. So, do you want to take a minute to introduce yourself and the music that you make and just kind of give us, like, a little bit of background? Yeah, yeah, of course. My name is Skyler. My main music project is Cyborg 9K right now. It is not the first project by any means that I've done, but it's the first one that has gotten, like, any sort of real attention on the internet. I like to make, you know, guitar kind of somewhat pop music. It's always hard to describe what kind of music, you know, you make as yourself, versus, like, a listener. But, yeah, I've been recording for a long time now since I was 13 years old, and I'm 27 now. So, I've been consistently recording for 14 years on, like, DAWs going from. Oh, so we're right about the same age then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am. Nice, right on. I'm 27, and soon it feels like I'll be, you know, 60, like, tomorrow. At the rate everything goes now, but. Yeah. For now, for now, I'm still. I'm still in my 20s, and I'm gonna enjoy that for the next three years until I can no longer say that, so. As long as you can, right? Exactly. So, yeah, you started Cyborg 9K, it looks like, from what I can tell, around 2019, right? Yeah, the earliest stages of it were in 2019. The first actual release, I think, was late 2020. Okay. With the first, like, EP. But the beginnings. The beginnings of what would become that project were from 2019. Though there are some songs that were written as far back as 2015, 2016. Okay. That were, you know, ideas I'd had in my head for a while. But, yeah, the project itself is, I would say, I would say 2020 is, like, the official start, but the embryo kind of existed a little bit earlier than that during my, some of my previous projects that I had right before that. And then. Speaking of other projects, you also, not last year now, but the year before, 2023, had the Wachuka Aerostat project as well. Yes, yeah. And that seems like it was only, like, for the one year, and then you went back to the Cyborg 9K. Like, when you're writing music, do you feel like those two projects are, like, different? And, like, when you're writing a song, you can tell that one's for one and one's for the other? Or is it just kind of, like, based on vibes? Yeah, I wanted to do something. Like, outside of Cyborg 9K, I wanted to try, like, a bit more of, like, a out-there kind of sound, as opposed to, you know, the more, like, pop structure sort of focused, like, you know, very, especially recently, like, acoustic guitar-focused kind of stuff. Yeah, that was just something that I noticed. I was, like, listening to it. I was like, I feel like the Wachuka Aerostat stuff is kind of more, like, that felt like it was more kind of, like, electronic-focused. Not, like, electronic music, but it, like, utilized a lot more synths and, like, autotune and things like that. Yeah, it was experimental structure. Whereas, especially the newest album that you put out, what was that called? Days Become. Years, yeah. Days Become Years, yeah. Like, that is a lot more, like, acoustic and almost, like, folky in a way. Yeah, I've gotten really into that sound recently. The next project that I'm working on is going to be, is probably going to continue down. So, I think Cyborg. Cyborg is going to continue down that sort of, that sort of path for the foreseeable future. Nice. It is kind of interesting, I don't know, just the name Cyborg 9K and doing, like, a lot more, like, you know, less digital, more, like, acoustic type of stuff. I find, like, the juxtaposition of that kind of interesting. Yeah, it's kind of cool. It did start as, like, matching, like, the very early stuff I did was, like, it sounded like robot music. I could hardly play guitar, so it was very much just, like, drum machines, synth bass. But every. Every release, I've kind of wanted to, you know, I've gotten more and more into the idea of pure, like, pure songwriting and trying to focus on that and streamline the rest of the process to allow me to put stuff out, like, quicker and more efficiently. That's kind of where a lot of the acoustic stuff started, was I can. I can mix the acoustic guitar, you know, basically the same way, like, every time to. Every. Yeah, yeah. That cohesion. I don't have to, like, try to sound design synths all that much. And I can focus on really writing the songs themselves rather than getting lost in the production and the, like, engineering of the tracks, because I do all that myself as well, so. That's so interesting. I never would have even thought of that as a reason to go in the acoustic direction. It is. And it's, like, you really don't, like. Even electric guitar, there's so much that you can do with, like, what amp do I want to use? What pedals do I want to use? You know, this, that, the other thing. So, like, in acoustic guitar, this acoustic guitar sounds this way. Yeah, and I have a really good one. This instrument sounds this way. Well, and I noticed that also, like, as well as the acoustic guitar, you also had some banjo, I think? Mm-hmm. You also had. What was the kind of, like, Eastern-sounding instrument on Child of Texas? That is. It's on a lot of them. I actually have it over here. I can show you. Oh, that would be awesome. Yes. I have a lot of, like, random little instruments. Okay. Okay, let's. So, these. This is what I'm here for. These are my Cigarbox guitars. This is a Cigarbox guitar with a resonator inside it. Okay. And it's a little, like, a little sharper, but also. It's a bigger one, so the. It gets a little bit, like, lower. Almost getting into, like, the baritone range a little bit. Yeah, it's like a. It's like a baritone, like, high bass, but with a. Like, the timbre and the harmonics are a little, like, sharper. Oh, okay. Sure, sure, sure. And this is, like, the lead Cigarbox guitar. Instead of a resonator, it has actually, like, some very basic, like, tone knobs, and both of these have, like, electric outputs. Instead And so I take these and then I run them through like pretty heavy saturation and distortion to give it that sort of it's like a very warm kind of filling sound. Yeah. I've found that even on the songs that don't like focus it, I use it on basically every single one just because it helps fill out like that frequency range. Yeah. Yeah. And it kind of like, I use it as like a drone where I play like one of the strings basically. And then the other two just kind of, I tune individually to each song. So that's how it kind of gets that like, that like almost sitar, like similar type of sound is because it's got the one that's playing the lead and then the other two are just kind of like drone strings. This is the main one that sounds like that. This is an Appalachian dulcimer. Yeah, it is tuned. Okay. So I can actually, I can play the, so these two, the, are like a third, I believe, a measure. No, it's a fifth. It's like a perfect fifth. And that's an octave. So with this one, you can just like. It has this like real nice. It's so sick. Yeah. And I'll sometimes use this, the slide too. So you can like. Like, I grew up as a little kid. That's so rad. Yeah, I love, I live in Nashville. And when I was a little kid, I lived here. I moved to Arizona, then moved back. But I really like Appalachian kind of like folk music. And I really like that kind of sound. And I have these laying around my house forever. So I wanted to start using them. In addition to more traditional instruments, I have a banjo that is broken. It only has three strings. And one of the frets on top is like. like busted it's like cracked where it holds the string so i also had i also had to tune that um creatively to get it to sound okay um then i have a little mandolin tune that uh is featured sparingly on that one all these are going to be they're a lot more present on the one i'm working on right now but nice um the uh i got a mandolin a couple years ago and it's really fun but the only thing i don't like about it is i've got like really fat fingers and the frets are so small like it is it is a pain um it's still like i i'm not competent enough at it to use it as like a focal point of the song i normally record it like just to give like a little bit of like it has a sparkly kind of sound you know like the mandolin because it's naturally like a chorus basically because all of the doubled strings it's the same thing as like a like a 12 string guitar yeah it's a chorus and rather than you know sitting around like the the bulk of the sound being around that like three to five hundred sort of like mid-range a lot of the sound like really pops at around like the when you start getting into the thousands you know naturally kind of yeah it fills out that like two to five k range like real nicely without trying which is kind of the range i always kind of have like the the upper mids um or the lower highs like in that transitional sort of range kind of i've always had the hardest time figuring out what to do with that so a lot of these instruments really help with that they they all like they all i found they all work together like really nicely just coincidentally enough that i don't have to do a lot of mixing when i use them i don't have i just have to pan and like turn the turn the volumes up and down a little bit i really don't have to wrestle with them at all well and that's something that i've always kind of like heard people talk about is that like the best way to mix a song is to arrange it well because well-arranged songs don't really need a whole lot of mixing and that's like exactly what you're getting at which makes so much sense yeah it's it's been very as you know someone who's been like trying to wrestle with all that stuff for over a decade like just trying to yeah get it and with how so intuitive yes it's like compared to the wachuka aristat stuff which was more of just an experimentation of like how many different like random sounds i could put into a pop song um coming from that which was extremely hard to try and mix this kind of sound it's like i can write a song and get it finished in like a few days like that's so sick compared compared to how long it used to take me most of most of the the waiting to get stuff out is writing the lyrics and coming up with a vocal melody and an idea for that's also so real yeah yeah not even writing the lyrics it's like coming up with like what do i even want to sing about on this track like what yeah what what's the vibe yeah what's the vibe what's the vibe yeah what what does this naturally want to be about like i could just you know put some random vocals over anything well that's no fun like you want to you want you want to you want these like nice instrumentals you want to bring out like their potential rather than just singing some whatever comes to mind over them so going back to those instruments a little bit because i am curious like where did you find like the cigar box guitars and stuff like that because that's so unique and like you don't find that it's just like a music store typically no maybe maybe out maybe out in nashville because there's like a lot more of like a country scene maybe you could find them more but so um my dad actually got like all of these um i i was living in uh his old house i was paying the mortgage on it because he moved to a different house so i took over his old mortgage and there was a lot of like stuff he had just bought that was like left here like in the attic and crawl spaces okay so as through the time the years i was living here i ended up finding a lot of these that he was using for decoration really to hang on the wall i remember them being here when they do look cool yeah they look very cool and i never i never thought about like actually playing them for the longest time i just it didn't like cross my mind because i wasn't making that type of music it's like you know a teenager when i first moved here but eventually i think i went to get i had a chord organ that was sitting in my closet and i was like oh let me take that out okay um and so the the chord organ sounds on that are a real chord organ as well and then i was like wait i have i have a tambourine too i could use like i i stopped using it for a while but i could use it and these little shakers and then i was like oh hold on there's there's this like cigar box guitar i know is somewhere that's or it was a banjo first i knew there was a banjo somewhere and then i kept just like looking around and remembering like new instruments that like i had seen around here and now there are there's like a dozen just like random little things different electric guitars there's like a there's one of these cigar box guitars somewhere that has like a like a license plate it's made out of like an ontario license plate um that's amazing there's this one with like i can this one's very strange i've never used it and it's it's not even tuned whoa it has like three like different sets of strings so it's not tuned at all yeah and it comes out of tune extremely easily and the way to tune it also there's like little pegs you have to like get like pliers and like turn it whoa but um maybe i'm i'm gonna use this on these ones i'm working on now probably it's almost like a floyd rose bridge a little bit with like how you have to tune it yeah with the i don't know exactly what that is but i know that it sounds like like strange and not standard and yes that's so cool this is also strange and not standard well and you also just get like a lot of like cool textures and stuff out of like that kind of instrument oh yeah i've i'm very much like um i've i've taken the texture pill recently i really i really like um i try to find a place for every single one of these instruments in the new songs i'm making now i'm not going to force it if it doesn't need to be there but from what i've found with the style i've leaned towards there's always like a place for them okay i kind of write i kind of write songs with the idea that i'm going to be using these in mind and from the get-go i found that regardless of what instruments you have um you mentioned before that it's in the arrangement i found that if you go if you do your prep work and you think about like what's going to go into this song like what is what do i want this to kind of sound like and you start writing the song with that in mind um i have found that that is a much like more streamlined kind of process for getting a finished product out than the standard way that most people myself included do which is to just start with a riff or something and just add stuff like as soon as you think of it which is very fun but it's very easy to kind of get lost in the sauce i've found oh 100 and just like add a whole bunch of stuff yeah like doesn't really add anything or like it's all in the same frequency range and so you have to do like a ton of eq carving and stuff no i've found that if i need more than like like on the eq if i need to do more than like take out like below the hundred for like high instruments maybe you know up to the two to the 400 for like high percussion and stuff or if i need to do more than just add like a little shelf around like like 9 10k like by a little bit of time and then i can just add a few decibels then something else is the problem and not the eq i very i very rarely like eq for more than like 20 30 seconds on anything it's really funny because i've actually gotten into like a lot more of kind of an intuitive thing with like my mixing and arranging and stuff like that with the stuff that i do as well and i think it really does come down to like there's kind of like a like a bell curve almost of like starting out barely eqing anything because you don't know what it does yeah really so you don't know how to utilize it very well then you kind of get to like the tip of the bell curve and that's kind of where like you start just doing like tons of bands and you're like like frequency hunting you're like taking out like really narrow notches and shit and then you kind of get back down the hump and you're like no if it needs this much work i just need to arrange it better or record it better yeah or yeah yeah or something a lot of the times i mean that that's the other thing too like microphone choice like affects things a lot too yeah and and also the the performance itself i know it's like it's that's the worst when like you you you write this super hard piece and you think you get it and there's just like a little bit of like maybe you're hitting the pick too loud and you're trying to eq that out and it's like the hard pill to swallow is you just gotta like scrap that recording and do it again like 100 percent yeah it sucks you take like like say like 30 minutes straight just doing this little part and then you think you got it and it's just like you're you're wrestling with just like no you just need to like go back out of the box and maybe like maybe if you're using effects out of the box you know maybe there's too much of something on it maybe your tone in that recording is just like irreconcilable syllable i don't know how to say that word i've only read it maybe maybe it's just like you need to create new source material because that's why i always record a di too just in case you need just like a different tone or whatever i almost always record everything completely dry like every single instrument i do i record with like plenty of headroom like no real effects or anything on it um with my guitar i i record an electroacoustic as well like i plug it in and then i also have a mic on the fretboard like yeah yeah the same same time and like around the 12th fret somewhere around yeah exactly depending on depending on the song and you know that normally just having that like really clean image of like that clean dry image of your thing that you've played is infinitely better for you in the long run than starting out with this really cool sound and you record it and it looks like a brick wall like in the recording it's like there ain't much you can do with that you know you need a lot less effects than you think you do i've found that's so true i've i've also noticed like even when dialing in like traditional guitar tones and stuff like that i'm like i am turning the bass on my amp down so much now because i've realized that like you want the bass guitar to be taking up that range like all that that's going to do is just make it muddy basically yeah yeah the more the more that you can like do do out of the box before you're even messing with eq i found yeah the better it works yeah yeah if you know that you don't need like 80 hertz and below on your like lead guitar or even your rhythm guitar you can you know cut that maybe if you're not going to cut it like all the way out you know still you can lower it by like 10 15 decibels just to like save yourself a little bit of work later so another thing that i find really interesting about you and your music and kind of like the way that you approach um like promoting it is the way that you present yourself online specifically like on twitter and stuff like that like it's very very kind of shit posty and like kind of has this uh like to me it almost has this like uh like tumblr era like like aesthetic to it a little bit like like especially with like the cyborg 9k like character that's like a drawing and like all that i find that really interesting yeah it's uh it's really just because like i don't i don't know like i didn't grow up with it with social media or even a phone like i didn't have a smartphone until i was 19 years old so okay that like that knowledge of how to like actually navigate like a digital space properly is not there but i know that as an artist like it's important that people know who you are and can um like pinpoint like your music with like like they remember that you exist constantly you know so i also i mean i'm unmedicated bipolar so a lot of that too is just like okay a lot of that too is like straight up just like me like kind of going crazy on the internet and just like i don't think about what i post i i i have like if i think it's like a really dumb or silly thought i just like tweet it and forget about it so yeah i don't i don't follow the the traditional um like internet sort of uh like playbook uh most mostly to the detriment of myself but it's uh it it's fun i find it silly and certain people do like there's a certain type of person who grew up during that era and in those sort of online spaces where that was like that's how i was socialized on the internet you know the like forums like tumblr like youtube comment yeah kind of stuff so i i also i also think that like it is it's like a fun in in the same spirit of like you know people who you know they they like to like shit post and troll people on the internet and stuff and they're kind of mean um i i try to have some of that spirit but without like the negativity and without some of the like the malice that's behind it and just leave like the fact that like i think the internet should be a place to be silly and have fun and not take yourself too seriously it kind of reminds me of like a gen z version of like what bill murray is doing for their music with like the very shit posty kind of deal and like even down to like like you talk about like like weightlifting and stuff like that a lot and they do a lot of that too like i was just thinking about that the other day i was like these are actually kind of similar approaches to like promoting music in a way which is interesting yeah i think i think it does you know make make some people like curious that's like what could this person's music possibly sound like and then i think it's even better like the fact that the music is like very different from yeah i'm like like i i i put a lot of actual thought into like my my music and what i sing about and i try to sing like very genuine songs so i think it's funny i think it's funny to like portray yourself as like this silly like like like nonchalant kind of guy and then people like and then be very sincere in your art yeah yes yeah i i like i like that uh that angle quite a bit um i think i think that and a lot of people have told me they find it very interesting that they've really connected incredibly with the stuff i've made and they just think it's so funny that like i'll just post like like three a.m i'll post something about like uh like like like like skibbity toilet or like something like that like i i love internet culture i i love like all sorts of internet weirdness um from all like aspects of it i i think it is very like it it's it's kind of like the new version of like you know like like scenes you know like as i'm sure like a lot of people are aware like versus you know back in the day there was you know the new york sort of like cbgb scene with like television and talking heads yeah and stuff and you know you can go to the um what was that i don't remember what what the scene was but it was in like north carolina or something with like archers of loaf and super chunk and ben folds five and stuff like all these little like oh yeah yeah all these like local sort of like scenes that have their own sonic identity and like also like personality to them and like the way they like they portray themselves to the world and i think that the internet is a similar sort of compartmentalized little space but it's a lot easier to be able to like to explore like other little spaces like i can explore 100 yeah i love i love going from you know talking to people on like the twitter like diy scene to like some of the like furry music scene to like some of the like people who make like break core and like more discord like kind of stuff it's uh it's it's very fun to kind of like i feel like instead of regional like in the world it's kind of like whatever your pocket or corner of the internet is it is kind of kind of like basically the same thing and then of course you do still have you know the physical world the bands that are around you playing live you know whatever but i do think that it's interesting that there's kind of like that secondary thing of like your own pocket of the internet basically i think we're very fortunate to live in this sort of like very very tumultuous time in a lot of ways but through like the way the internet is and hopefully will continue to be well that'll remain to be seen the way things are going the last few years with you know changes in algorithms and ai like curation and stuff so hopefully that doesn't kill like the beauty of the internet but yeah all these little spaces that you're you're you know born born to uh was born too late to explore the world born too early to explore the galaxy but you're born just in time to like play on the computer like i love playing on the computer it really is so real yeah i love i love playing talking to my friends on the computer all the time i'm like always like doing something since i you know do music and i don't have like an actual job i do instacart and stuff to make money like gig work and then i get my music and merch so i i am always trying to stay tapped into like what's going on on the internet i don't want to be now that i'm 27 i'm gonna be 28 29 i don't want to be like the toilet is or like doesn't like keep up with like whatever the newest like shit posts like little shared like videos and stuff are on like on reels or tiktok or anything like i think it's very easy to dismiss stuff like that as you know stupid like ah gen z is they're they're dumb or gen alpha whatever they have these toilets and you know these these brain rot content it's like we were like watching the same stuff we were watching mlg videos on youtube and and fun the unicorn or like whatever else it's it's all like it's all such a fever dream it's always like silly and stupid and like i think it's like a really like a beautiful sort of like reflection of like the the the whimsy that uh is innate in the human spirit and i think yeah i think it's important not to get not not to forget that and not to think that like you know the kids are just into like dumb shit now and like we were you know we we were the last like you know normal generation or whatever like no like it's always gonna be this way it always has been like yeah it's an extension of like absurdism which is like you know comes from that whole like you know post-modernist sort of it goes all the way back and it's not going to stop so you might as well continue to engage with it if you would appreciate art i think that like memes and stuff are our shit posting is art everything is art and anything humans express is art so it's of like earnest and like respect even if no matter how silly it seems to just that that's a very long tangent on like the way i post on twitter like it seems it seems just like stupid or whatever but there is meaning behind it and methodology you know no but like i mean i even saw something uh you know a while back that was like basically talking about like the different eras of like online meme culture and being like oh yeah this is kind of when like online memes went postmodern. And then this is like when it got to like being absurd. and like it it was really interesting seeing like a um seeing somebody treat it the way that traditional art gets treated in the way that it's like uh you know the way that people are like thinking about it yeah and it's like it moves things move so quickly now because yeah culture is dictated by the spread of information and when you can instantaneously spread information amongst a large group of people with like the internet it's going to evolve like so much quicker and like permutate on itself and create these little pockets that like you know little buds that grow off the tree that yeah like the internet and then they fall off as a fruit and they're like their own isolated ecosystem now like it's super cool i'm i'm i'm so happy to be alive during this time period where you have all this at your fingertips like anytime you want and you can like explore all these different like like ways of of looking at the world and socializing just by hopping on like a different discord server yeah it is really interesting and speaking of like that online community like that's also kind of how you got into the for once in my life blit collab thing yeah that was the most recent thing that you put out with full-blown meltdown and the acid flashback at nightmare beach how did that kind of come together so when i think i think before i was even putting out a um the wishuka aristat record i i had seen will's stuff all over uh twitter and i was like wow this guy like knows what he's doing with like image and yeah motion like dude is a like a genius when it comes to that stuff he is just a naturally like he is a gifted like socializer and promoter and like just uh you know all around like good guy just without even without even trying and i i was messaging him and i was like hey like i really you know i found his music through doing that he was the one that introduced me to your music actually because he uh he was on the podcast a little over a year ago and we were just kind of shooting the shit like afterwards and he was like hey have you heard this wishuka aristat shit and sent it to me yeah he's all you know he has this like this this sort of effortless like ability to bring people together and i like admired that as someone who you know i'm very like analytically minded somewhat whereas like i'm very much kind of in my own head thinking about all this stuff and not nearly like as naturally gifted as like putting myself out there i'm definitely more of a tinkerer than like a like a promoter and so i was talking to him uh just a little bit because i found his stuff that i never would have found just by the way he like shared stuff on the internet and i found a lot of cool stuff through him and i was getting like tips on you know like him telling me like yeah just go out and do stuff like it really like stopped me from being scared of just like talking to new people and we became like pretty yeah we became pretty good friends through that and then like you know i didn't even like i didn't even try to like show him like my music like i i don't like to like promote myself in the same way that like i don't want to come off you know as like i am some i want to get something out of you and your platform and like shove what i've made in your face you know i yeah i tend to go into things with like wanting to learn from that person and so i didn't bring up like i didn't send him my music or even bring up like what it was called or anything but he just went out of his way to listen to it and he really liked it from what he told me and so we were just you know and i really liked the stuff he did as well i mean i mollify was i remember pressure incredible album i was i was pressure washing my um my fence for the first time in forever like like okay when when it first came out and so my memory of the album is i just listened to it would listen to it like on on loop for a few days like while i was just slowly like pressure washing this like giant like wood fence around my house so i remember it like very well and it was right after i had went through like a breakup with like the first partner i had had who had ever like i had ever lived with like she moved from like where she lived to my house and was here for like a year and then broke up so it was like it was a very like like um not necessarily tumultuous like it wasn't a bad breakup by any means but it was like a sort of like like a a new chapter sort of feeling of like yeah for sure this is like real adulthood like i have you know this is my my girlfriend like she moved like across the country and lived there and it didn't work out and moved back like very adult sort of things happening i wasn't living with like roommates anymore for the first time i was living alone after she left and i was in this house that i had all the time and i was always you know shared with like people for the last like six years so i really connected with that album quite a bit and you know since since then we've just been you know pretty pretty good friends and both like mutual admirers of each other's work so he him and lonnie were had this idea to do this thing and will put it by her to get me on it as well because we were all solo artists and wanted yeah do something like we we all understood that we were all solo artists like the the pros and cons of being like a solo artist you know it's a lot easier to create like very unique sort of pieces of work because of the limitations and like it's all coming from you so you can do whatever you want but at the same time you know it's a lot harder to play live it's a lot harder to like tour it's a lot harder to like do the traditional band stuff if you are just doing it completely by yourself um so we we were able to connect over that and just had a lot of fun to each other's stuff trying to like someone would send something and it was like so good i was like well i can't use the one i was going to use now because like this one is like so good i need to make something that's like that good and so a little bit of like friendly competition to yeah it was kind of pushing yourselves to be like as good as you can be yeah no no no one wants to have the song that's like you know standard deviations worse than like the other people's like obviously you know different people are gonna like you know like different songs better and that's kind of end up ended up like was what happened it's like there's you know with that with that split there are a lot of people who like liked all the songs and then there are people because they're so different who gravitated towards like one of the three styles which was very cool very very cool sort of like dual dual purpose little like triple single split thing where it functions as both a very short ep as well as like you know three separate singles that like you could like listen to that are all different enough from each other to but it's a lot of fun but they're also all cohesive in a way too which is what i really like is that like they're so different but they also like make so much sense together they do yeah as far as i understand you also like each kind of like provided input and like did things to each other's tracks right yeah exactly so the um all all three of us wills was the first track lonnie's was the second and mine was the closer and they were all initially like you know just written like by the way by us basically but then as we you know sent them back and forth like we would do like mainly it started out with like harmonies and stuff on each other's and then like she'll say like hey can you do like a harmony here and i was like oh yeah i also did you know i put i recorded harmonies for the whole thing so you can just so you can just like cut and like use whatever you want what you want yeah so we we all sent like a whole bunch of extra stuff as well that was that ended up being put into each other's tracks so we all sent like a whole bunch of extra stuff as well that was that and then they were also all like like mixed like again and post and mastered together just for the explicit goal of like making them sound cohesive and like they belong on the same project making them have that and that was all done by by tony who produced uh mollify right yes yes and it does it does have that like same sort of like sparkly like really like i love that i love their production the mixes are so bright but not harsh which is a really hard thing to pull off because i feel like a lot of people who have really bright mixes they also just tend to have way too much like information in the upper range that kind of makes it sound harsh they can get and they do such a good job of like making it bright but also like really like pleasant to listen to yeah i i i i noticed that with mollify um when i heard it i was like i love just like how it sounds like candy you know it's like it's like it's like bright and and like sugary but it's not it doesn't hurt it's not like it's not like a lightning strike or like a sugary is such a good way it is you know it's bright and light but it's pleasant it's not it's not like bright to the point where it's like a like a blinding light in your face it's just like a nice like it i i love i love their mixing like quite a bit i i i've tried to you know move a bit brighter but for the most part not super distorted i found that as well like highs and distortions when you put them together they're really hard to kind of tame but with acoustic you have a little more leeway with like these type of instruments you can boost a little like the highs of the mandolin and whatnot a little more than you can like a distorted like lead guitar and like hi-hats and whatnot 100 that's actually i was actually talking about this just yesterday on on twitter i'm just funny i'm wearing the pup shirt because the new pup song like the first single off of the new album came out yesterday and i was like man i love this song but i hate the way that it's mastered because it's like really kind of squished in the upper like the high end is really harsh and i think that that's exactly what you're getting at is that it is like really distorted guitars and they kind of tried to make it like bright and punchy but it you kind of distortion is inherently a compressive um listening like thing you can't It is nigh impossible to make a distorted guitar both, like, punchy and heavy. That's why, like, the punchy kind of guitar, that, like, sparkly, like, emo stuff that you hear, that's very, like, spiky and very dynamic, isn't normally done with a lot of distortion, you know? There's a little saturation on it, maybe. But all those little, like, twinkly guitar solos are. Like, it's very, like, clean. It's closer to that, like, kind of clean fuzz kind of deal. Like, almost like what, like, the original fuzz pedals were kind of doing. Yeah, yeah. Like the Rats and Big Muffs and those old kind of. Even a little earlier than that, honestly. But, yeah, real low, just, like, a little bit of that, like, that bite to it. But it's. Just enough to start adding that little bit of compression and little bit of character to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Man, this has been a good conversation. I've. I've been having a lot of. Yeah, yeah. A lot of fun with this. I love talking about, like, mixing and stuff because that's, like, you know, I know not all. There's, like, there's, like, some musicians that, you know, they do the music and that's what they focus on in the touring. And, like, that's what they're. Yeah. That's what they're really good at. And that is not what I'm good at at all. I don't. I don't know how to organize a show. I don't know how to plan the logistics of, like, playing live. People always ask me to play live. It's, like, I don't know how. I don't know, like, who I would, you know, even play. I don't even know how to go about, like, doing that yet. And I'm trying to, like, talk to people to learn. But when it comes to the songs themselves and, like, making them. When I get to nerd out on production, that's my favorite. Yes, yes. No, I love, like, all kinds of, like, production stuff. I've got to a point that I've been doing it so long where I have, like, my. Especially with the last album, like, with the one I'm working on now, I really haven't had to change a lot in the production style. I have started using a little bit. I have a bit of reverb on my vocals now. I was always actually very, like, minimalist in terms of, like, reverb. I don't know. You might have noticed, but I don't use a lot of reverbs or delays on, like, a lot of my new stuff. It's very much just the playing itself and where they are in the stereo field and the mix. But I've gotten a little bit more comfortable with. I feel like you do enough, like, harmonies and, like, other things that, like, it kind of doesn't stand out as much. Like, if you just. If you just have a single vocal and it's, like, bone dry, then you'll notice. But I feel like if you start to have, like, other, like, harmonies and, like, doubles and things like that. No, I do a lot. It's not nearly as obvious that it's super dry because you have other things kind of, like, working together with it. Most of my songs I think I use. Normally there are, like, five or six different vocal tracks. I have. I'll have two, like, Elliot Smith style, you know? Where they're both center. Okay. And they're, like. They're both center. One's a little quieter and they're mixed, like, very similarly to get that kind of thickening effect. And then I'll have the doubles of that, like, panned maybe, like, 35 out of 50, you know? Like, versus. Some people use 100-100, but on Ableton, which I use, it's 50-50. So, like, halfway. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Halfway sort of between or all the way. And then whichever one I use, the other one, I put the, like, harmonies. And then I like to do this trick where, like, for the harmonies in anything. A lot of things, really, that have, like, a left and a right, I will send it. I'll use a send. And then I'll put a reverb on it that's, like, 100% wet and turn it down pretty low. And then I'll put, like, a utility plugin on it and I'll swap it. So the reverb on the right channel is coming from the left dry. And the reverb of the left is coming from the right dry. And. That's really common to do on, like, electric guitars and, like, rock music. And stuff like that, too. Yeah. It makes them sound sort of full. And I use that on. Because I use so little effects, I just make it real quiet and use that on a lot of things to sort of, like, balance out the stereo field where, like, you know, this one sounds a little different than this one, but the reverbs are swapped. So this one is, you know, they're crossed in a way. And. Yeah. You hear a little bit of each. It really makes it sound like you're kind of in a space where that music is happening, I've found. Like, there's a lot of crossplay. And sort of bouncing around of, like, what basically becomes, like, you know, the classic, like, reverb sound. But it's mostly just done with different layers of different things, like, panned all around to kind of get that sort of effect. No, 100%. And I do like that approach to kind of, like, making something sound more full in that way. Yeah. Rather than just slapping a reverb and a slapback on it and calling it a day. We've all been there, though. We've all, you know, we've all crossed, you know. The bell curve you were talking about. To get to the point of, like, that minimalist sort of philosophy, you have to understand what everything does and experiment with all of it to, like, realize that, like, you don't actually need all of that. But you know when you do need it now. You know, like, when it will be. It's learning how to use it as opposed to just using it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Putting a reverb on everything because, you know, it sounds better. Because just because you think you're supposed to. You think everything. You think everything needs, like, effects or it's, like, amateur. Like, you think that the more effects are on it, the more work you're doing and the more professional sound, which oftentimes. People get that way with, like, compressors and stuff like that, too. They're just like, oh, yeah, I'm just going to throw a compressor on it. And it absolutely, like, destroys their guitar tone because they think that it needs a compressor. But like you said, distortion already acts as a form of compression anyway. Yeah. And so a lot of the time you don't. I don't think I've ever put. I mean, I have, but, like, for the recent, like, actual, like. Cyborg, Aristat, like, kind of stuff, I don't think I've ever, like, needed to put a compressor on an electric guitar. I look at it, I throw the compressor on it, and it's, like, already a square. Like, what am I going to do? What am I compressing? I'm just turning down the volume. I'm not compressing anything. Like, if it's already a brick wall, like, it's already, like, here, right? And you put a compressor threshold, like, here. All you're doing is, like, turning this down in volume, basically. You're not, like, doing anything. Yeah, exactly. And then you compress it, and then you put, like, the makeup gain on it, and it turns back. It's, like, all you've done is, like, make it, like, even, like. You've just turned it down and then turned it back up. Turned it back down and turned it up, and you've lost, like, even more dynamic range than you already had. Like, you've taken out, like, the tiny little bit of dynamic range you still had. And it's, like, and then you do that, like, you know, ten other times to, like, every instrument. And it's, like, you have just, it's just, like, it's just a brick wall. And there are ways to make that sound cool, but I don't think compressing every single thing and putting a million effects and everything is the way to do it. I don't think you can do it, personally. No. So, is there anything else that you specifically wanted to touch on or talk about before we move on to sharing some new tunes together? Not particularly. Like I said, I've talked about a lot of the production, and I've mentioned a few things. So, I'd love, I think it's a good time to, you know, take a break from the nerd talk and, you know, let's hear some music. I'm sure we'll find our way back into the nerd talk eventually. Of course, of course. So, we can take a break for now. All right. So, I'm going to start out with my song. We're going to go back and forth, which is going to give you the closer. That works for you? All right. All right. Lovely. So, my first song is actually a brand new band. It's their first single that they've ever released. It's a band called Benji Howard, and they are from Kentucky. They've got a new EP coming out in April, and this is the first single that they released, I believe, back in December. Yeah, December 13th. So, it's been out for almost a month now. This is called Keeper of the Letdown. I'm breaking hearts, it's just for show Can't retract the bullet hole I put through your stomach My ego is righteous Forgive and forget Can you blame me? I guess One foot on the gas One inside of my chest It's a complex reset Reversal request Can't change a little up in a letdown Down in the end I can't fix the damage that I've done I built a grave inside a garden Now you're buried in my thoughts With the old me I can't fix the damage that I've done I built a casket from a memory Now you're buried Forgive and forget Can you blame me? I guess One foot on the gas One inside of my chest It's a complex reset Reversal requests, can't change who I've been, I'll let them down in the end I can't fix the damage that I've done, keeper of the letdown And now you're buried in my thoughts and I'm on shaky ground Forgive and forget, can you blame me, I guess Put one foot on the gas, one inside of my chest It's a complex reset, reversal requests, can't change who I've been, I'll let them down in the end Forgive and forget, can you blame me, I guess Forgive and forget, can you blame me, I guess Put one foot on the gas, one inside of my chest It's a complex reset, reversal requests, can't change who I've been, I'll let them down in the end I can't fix the damage that I've done, keeper of the letdown Even though it stays pretty close to that, it doesn't just assault you with like a brick wall of like guitar, like the whole way through. Like there are times where the guitar drops out, where the drums get like quieter and a little slower to like build up. And yeah, I wrote that, based on that first song, I'm probably going to end up writing all of these down and going back to all of these because that was really good. Hell yeah. I always try to, I got really bad at it at the end of last year. I need to update it. But I always try to, when a new episode comes out, put all of the songs onto a playlist separately so that you can just go to each season and be like, oh, these are the songs that were featured on this episode. Yeah, yeah. I like that. I'm definitely going back to that. So what do we have up next? All right. I'm going to start. So I have a few that are like, I tried to get some DIY like artists that aren't as active on Twitter and stuff. And maybe people might not know of. And like, you know, a little closer. To the kind of sound I have, you know, still somewhat like DIY, a little bit like emo influence, but, you know, a lot like poppier. But I'm going to start to lead into that. I'm going to start with a Twitter DIY band that I had never listened to. I saw them recently live in Nashville a few months ago. And are they a Nashville based band? No, I believe they're Cleveland, Ohio, somewhere, somewhere in the Midwest. Okay, cool. Cool. But I saw them. It is a Manor Gates. I'm sure you're. Yes. So I had never heard of them. Those are my boys. Yes. I saw them playing live at Arcane Workshop, which is like a venue we have down here in Nashville. And I was like amazed by the like technical proficiency of these guys, like just on their instruments. Like I know those like twinkly guitars, you know, like they're I can't even do that. But not doing that. But he was singing and also playing rhythm and going back and forth between that and rhythm and singing. And it was. Yeah, it looked completely effortless. Like I was like, this is not a backing track or anything. Like I saw his fingers. They're just like like wasn't even trying. They do play to tracks. I do know that. But but yes, he's absolutely doing all of that shit live. Yeah, it's like it's like others or like other parts or whatever. And there were there were there were the backing tracks and it was so impressive because it was. It was like on the tempo. It was it was like locked in to that like track like that little. Yes, that's super hard lick. Like I could hear the difference. Like it's a slight difference in tone between the live and the backing track. And it was I was it just blew my mind. So the rock solid. Yes. The song I've chosen is there. I believe their most recent one. Type three fun. Hell, yeah. That's the one I saw live. And I was a fan immediately when when I saw that. It was very cool. So. We're going to listen to that. I just want to. Looking at the floor. Thinking I can give my shit to gather enough. Be better enough to make it out the goddamn door. If you want to come over. And watch me figure things out. I don't ask for help so much. But there's plenty of room on this. Maybe I'll try again in the morning if I'm feeling it. It would be so much better if I could never ever have to leave this room. Been thinking about a while. It's really not my style. I just want to stay home. Now it's another sun, it brings me back to one This is just type 3 fun. I don't think it could get any worse. Even if I put it in reverse. This still feels like a fucking curse. I don't ask for help for much. But there's plenty of room on this couch. I just want to stay. It would be so much better. If I could never ever. Have to leave this room. I wouldn't change my mind. Even if I was someone kind. I'm checking the time. Looking outside. Oh my god. Great song. That's definitely the one I heard. Because I remember. I remember seeing. The singer. Playing those while singing. At the same time. It's insane. I was like wow. Some people are just really good. At their instruments. So much better than I am. Or anyone that I know in real life. There are people out there. Who are just modern day virtuosos. It looks like. Every one of those guys. Are so insanely talented. Like the. It's really interesting. Because I have like a very. Guitar centric background. Like I. That's the main instrument. That I play and everything. But I am always so. Like drawn to the drums. In their. In their songs. Like Jim. Jeremy. He is such a. Like killer drummer. Everything is so. Like crystal clear. And articulate. And like just dead on. It's amazing. Yeah I mean. Like the whole. All of their instruments really. That's a very good way to describe. Their sort of sound. Like all of it is very like. Like what I noticed. Even live. It's super like articulated. It's like. It's punchy. It's very like. It's very accurate. For lack of a better word. Like where you think. That should be. It's there. Like you couldn't. It sounds like you couldn't like. You couldn't take that. Into like a. Like a waveform. And like quantized. Like and make it sound like. Any more perfect. Than it already is. Like it's. It just sounds like. They're great. They're great. I was a big fan. I followed them immediately. After I saw them live the first time. I'm like everything. Their production is also crystal clean too. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah I like. I like them a lot. I've gotten more into them. In the last like month. Have you listened to their record too? I assume. I've listened to. The. You're referring to. Because they don't have a new one out. I don't believe. No. No. I'm. I'm referring to. So much. Yes. Yes. I listen to that. Basically like. Right. Right after. Like I saw that show live. Like on the way back. Now granted. I don't have a. I don't have a speaker. System in my car. So I only heard it on my phone speakers. Driving back. For the first time. And then I've. Heard it. Mainly while I drive. So that's. When I listen to music. I do it like. While I'm doing like. Driving an Instacart and stuff. So there are a lot of bands. That like. I have yet. To hear on a proper. Like. Sound system. To get the full experience. Yeah. And that. My album. My album is. One of them. So I actually think. I recently got. Some like. Bone conductor headphones. Like. Oh. Okay. A week or so. To like do. Driving around gig work. Type stuff. So I think I will. Since you reminded me. Go back. And experience that album again. With the proper. Setup. So I could hear. That mix. Yes. Yeah. The. From the ones I've heard. The mixing is incredible. Yes. No. They. They were telling me. Because I had them on. An episode. A little less than a year ago. But they were telling me. That they. Specifically went to a guy. Who does like a lot of like. Production for like. What they call. Butt rock acts. Specifically because they know. That they can make it sound. Really big. And clean. And that's like. And that's like. A lot of the aesthetic. That they were going for. Which makes so much sense. I also thought it was interesting. Listening to this song. This was. What introduced me. To the idea of. Type one. Type two. And type three fun. Which I thought. Was interesting. I've never heard of that. What is. What is type one. So it was. I need to look it up. Exactly. But it was like. Type three fun. Is basically. Stuff that like. In the moment. Maybe isn't like. Super. Fun. Like. Like it's not something. That you would go out. To do. But like. It makes for really great. Stories. And like. You tend to like. Look back on those moments. In retrospect. And be like. Oh. That was such a good time. Like. Like examples. Of it. Is like. Getting lost in the woods. Or something like that. Like. As you're doing it. You're like. Oh shit. This sucks. Like what. What if it. What if we never have. But like. Over the course. There's so much bonding. And things like that. That happen. That you look back on it. Like so fondly. Even though like. In the moment. You may have like. Almost hated it. Yeah. That's why you're doing it. That makes sense. I like that. It's a. I just thought that. That was really interesting. Like that. That introduced me. To that concept. Because I had never heard of it before. I like that as well. All right. So. My next song. Is going to be from. A Michigan band. That I first saw live. The same time. That I saw. Manor Gates live. It was the same show. But it was. It's a band called Atticus. They are from. Marquette Michigan. Which is. Way up north. In the UP. If. You're familiar with. The. Geography of Michigan. Yeah. Yeah. But. I plan on like. Like. Quick tangent. Like. It's. At some point. I want to. If I can get. Enough. Like. Money. Just passively. With music. I have this like. Concept. Where I like. Want to find. These like. Cheap. Like. Little houses. And like. Tiny towns. Across America. And like. Rent them out. Like. For short. You know. People who will rent them to me. For like. Six months. I'll be like. Hey. Like. I'm making money. And live there. And make. Like an EP. Or an album. While I'm living. In this little small town. Maybe get a job. At like a local. Like gas station. Or something. And get involved. In this like. Community. Of a town. Of like. A few thousand people. And then like. And like. Make a. Make an album. Inspired by my experience there. And then move on. To like. A different place. And do that for a few years. And the Upper Peninsula. Is one of the places. Where I want to do that. I want to. I want to live. In the. Upper Peninsula. For maybe like. Six months to a year. And like. Record music. And like. Experience what it's like. To a. That's such an awesome idea. And it's also really interesting. Because I have a very similar thing. That I would love to do eventually. Which is. I've always said that like. If I won the lottery. Or somehow came into like. A bunch of money. What I would want to do. Is build a recording studio. Somewhere in the UP. Around like. Marquette area. Somewhere like that. And also like. Build like. A house. And just have bands. Do like. Like residency sessions. Yeah. Where they do exactly that. Like just kind of like. Live away. Like in nature. For a while. And like produce like. An album. Or an EP. Or whatever. Yeah you know. That you and I have. Very similar ideas. Yeah yeah. The Upper Peninsula is one. Like New England. Like rural Maine. Or something. Oh that would be cool too. Like right on the coast. Yeah. And then like. North Dakota. I think is another one. Because I don't know. What really goes on up there. You know. The Plains. Is another one. And then. Somewhere either in like. NorCal. Or like Oregon. Washington. Those are the four like. Regions. I would like to spend. You know. Six months or so. In this little house. Of a town of like. Two to like. Five thousand. Just like. I feel like you're almost. Getting into like. A Sufjan Stevens thing. Of like. Doing like an album. For like. Different like locations. Or whatever. Yeah. So I'm excited. To tangent back. To the band itself. You're talking about. Yeah. I'm excited to hear. Kind of what's going on. In the Upper Peninsula. Yeah. So this is a band. Called Atticus. And this is from. Their self-titled album. Which came out. In July. Of last year. They actually. Had a run of tapes done. Through. Leave it at that records. Which I also bought. And I first saw them live. In April. Of last year. At a show. Where they came. Down here. So this is the final track. Off of that album. And it is called. Sensitive. They're calling it sensitive these days. I wonder why. It's overdramatic. Too much for an uncomplicated mind. i've always been delicate but why is that such a crime i hate feeling guilty when i let you see me cry i feel it's emotional and maybe a little uptight when i didn't laugh at your terrible joke and you couldn't hide i know i'm defensive i never can help it it's not a lie i still feel bad for asking if you take a moment to think this time i'm not i'm not sensitive oh i'm not i'm not traumatic you well another banger of course i'm not yes of course i'm not surprised i know so a lot a lot of that um some of that like songwriting is like pretty similar to some of the other songs that i've listened to in the past i'm not surprised i know so a lot a lot of that um some of that like songwriting is like pretty similar to some of the other songs that i've listened to in the past it's like pretty similar to some of the stuff i kind of try to go for there's a certain level of like kind of like poppiness in the sense of like like kind of 60s like sunshine a bit like psych sort of you know beach boy like harry nielsen kind of stuff with that with that like octave style like kind of bay like yeah it's very um very unique in the context of like diy and emo stuff a lot of stuff from kind of that area tends to be a lot leaning into like kind of indie rock bordering on like psych blues and like a little bit of like power pop that's kind of like the general like mix up there i know i know it's a power pop a lot i mean that's my biggest influence is like um not in terms of sound design obviously but in terms of songwriting i i very much like like the power pop kind of style of squeezing all you can out of those like verse chorus like pop structures and kind of getting creative within those confines um i think they make for like cashier songs like i remember i can still remember exactly what this song like like because of that like really all the melodies are just so catchy they really are yeah and that's that's why i love that kind of pop stuff like i'm i'm i'm real big into like you know the more pure like emo and especially like the you know midwestern sound but the stuff i i end up you know going back to the most in that genre is where they kind of blend like pop sensibilities and like kind of like a bit of like sparkly clean cleanness to the yeah the writing i like i like that a lot i think i think that it that emo and diy and indie kind of lends itself very well to the genre and i think that's kind of where i'm at right now i'm kind of to that sort of like like like i said 60s like the association sunshine pop jangly kind of sound um exactly yeah yeah i like i like that one quite a bit as well i wrote i also really like the lyrics on this one because it i i feel like in the modern age like they really hit home where it's it's talking about like being called sensitive for or like over sensitive over sensitive over dramatic for like you know uh seeing like the atrocities of the world and like you know and i think that it really is such a thing um i think it's also interesting coming from a female perspective as well because like oftentimes they are seen as being more sensitive yeah people just brush off like things like you're just being sensitive you're just like exactly women right you know it's it's very like it's established trope um and so i really like the perspective there of like no these are like this shit is happening in the world this sucks i'm not sensitive this is terrible things that are going on maybe you need to be more sensitive to stuff like exactly i mean i'm being so jaded like look at look at what's happening in the world i cannot wait to hear what like they're what they're cooking up because i think as far as i know i think they're working on new music and so i'm really excited to see uh what they have coming up the pike yeah now i am i wasn't before because i didn't know who they were but that's that's really make sure you yeah i need i need to tap in to you said you have like playlists of like all of these now like it's well all of them you said you got worse at doing it but i i need to update it but yeah uh i i have a playlist for each season of the podcast that has like all the songs that have been featured by the guests and myself yeah i like that one quite a bit too and again like i said another up band uh so if you're uh if you're interested in if you're interested in that that's the type of stuff that's coming out from this area yeah and i mean i i like that stuff quite a bit let me pick i'll pick another one too what do we have up next okay i'm gonna i'm gonna the second one also i'm gonna go with a a more classic like diy emo kind of sound before i get into some some stuff that people probably haven't heard of as much this is a bad one you might know them they're called dumpster pussy out of nashville um i have heard the name but i don't think i've actually listened to them before yeah they're they're they're a lot more it's an easy name to remember i'll tell you that much they're a lot more of a local like sort of thing i mean they're not like super you know huge on streaming or anything but i had heard them for the first time a few years ago and a thing we have down here in murfreesboro which is like a which is like a yearly little like bike music like hangout festival thing oh that's cool and then i liked them and then i heard i think they were just starting out back then there i thought it was pretty cool i was sitting on the grass drinking a beer and like a with my bike you know like it's kind of kind of the vibe such a such a vibe yeah yeah people were drinking just hey it was like an outdoor thing behind like a little like tiny little like brick store and people were just drinking and like talking and stuff um and i thought it was pretty good and then i heard them again they kind of fell off my radar a little bit for a few years and i heard them again a few months ago at this like brewery i think it was like a trans day of remembrance sort of thing that i that i went to and they were playing and they had i i felt like i remembered them play this this song i'm about to play and it sounded so much more like refined like and so much like their sound had gotten really really like it sounded like just the growth between those two times yeah and they're like stage presence and everything just elevated so much and i just this song had uh stuck with me uh when i when i heard it i like the songwriting on this a lot both lyrically as well as structurally i think they're all they're all very talented and i think they're gonna get a lot bigger they're already decently well known around like this insta insular little like nashville sort of area but i feel like yeah as they continue to put stuff out they're all very talented so this is a chapter three by dumpster pussy do you think if i and i maybe i'd rematerialize and be your perfect little girl and i don't want to see you cry but if you would only try and give the pronoun thing a whirl But I cannot deny myself I cannot deny myself And maybe if I was a girl And bigots didn't rule the world There'd be love for boys like me But life is not a fairy tale And I will never catch this whale And no reprise in chapter three But I cannot deny myself Yeah, I cannot deny myself I can't escape the bitter truth I am not a boy to you But I am an old man enough for me Bind my chest and cut my hair I am just too fucked to see I'm too fucked to care I'm too fucked to care But I cannot deny myself Yeah, I will not deny myself Yeah, I will not deny myself Yeah, I will not deny myself Do you think if I had been dying Do you think if I had been dying Maybe I'd rematerialize Maybe I'd rematerialize Maybe I'd rematerialize And be your perfect little girl And be your perfect little girl And be your perfect little girl I love the build on that, oh my goodness I love the build on that, oh my goodness It's so good The way that it takes so long The way that it takes so long at that just like only guitar and vocals at the end of the song - That's one of the other things that I find really interesting about nashville is barely anybody uh who lives there is from there as well as barely anybody who lives there actually lives in the city everybody lives like outside but i was also like maybe it's also just coming from like the cities that i went to growing up was always like detroit and chicago and like maybe like you know we would we flew out and went to new york a couple times or whatever and all of those are like really big cities or even if the city isn't necessarily big the urban sprawl is very large like if you're in detroit you're you have to drive for like over an hour to get out of what feels like the city even though it's not technically detroit anymore whereas like that's one thing that i kind of like about nashville is that the suburbs feel less city-like yeah which i think is kind of cool they are basically like attached to nashville there is there is a lot of city-like stuff but i think it's kind of cool there is no like countryside between them it's like it's a gradual sort of change though yeah like where i live in murfreesboro there's like murfreesboro which is like very like you know suburban feeling and then there's smyrna which like starts to feel a little bit like nashville a bit more like a city and you get to laverne and it feels even more you know use it's just like a gradual sort of like going from here to like the city center of nashville it's just like before you know it you're on all these crazy interchanges and you see the city but it definitely is it definitely is not just like city and then you know when you're out it's like you kind of don't notice the chain yeah yeah until you're until you're right there then you notice all of a sudden like oh i'm just in the city now yeah all right so i think it's a good time to move on to the next song this is a currently unreleased song but uh it'll be released by the time the actual uh episode comes out but this is the first single from uh the band great wide nothings upcoming album they are a uh kind of like prog progressive like alt rock band basically from atlanta and they do some really really cool stuff with like synths and like you know just like really progressive song structures and stuff like that this is the first single off of their new album the song is called rules of engagement and it comes out on the 24th and it's a really cool song and it's a really cool song and it's a really cool song and it's a really cool song how high a price can you put on your peace of mind because if you wanna win you've got to give it all how thin a thread can you hang by until it breaks and how prepared are you to stop the through the bar it is in love that sets you up above the rest it's blowing every fuse to light up your own at best you only move from siege to occupation you've got to fight till nothing beautiful when will you get him through your head that this is a numbers game you exchange every moment you doubt your duress and you don't complain these are the rules everyone's accepted so why don't you feel the same shut up and play you've got nobody to blame because this is a numbers game make no mistake the odds were never in your favor and it won't change anything to hope for more than blindly chasing ever shifting expectations till you hate yourself and crumple to the floor how does it feel to find your dreaming counts for nothing till it's sterilized and quantified to death don't shoot the messenger just sit down at the table where you'll bet your life till you've got nothing left when will you get him through your head that this is a numbers game you exchange every moment you doubt your duress and you don't complain these are the rules everyone's accepted so why don't you feel the same shut up and play you've got nobody to blame because this is a numbers game what if i won't take that for an answer and what if i won't swallow the excuse what if i would rather take my chances tell me tell me what if i refuse what if i refuse what if i won't take that for an answer and what if i won't swallow the excuse what if i would rather take my chances tell me tell me what if i refuse when will you get him through your head that this is a numbers game you exchange every moment you doubt your duress and you don't complain these are the rules everyone's accepted so why don't you feel the same shut up and play you've got nobody to blame because this is a numbers game this is a numbers game this is a numbers game that is the last thing i expected to be be listening to was a was a prog rock straight out of like you know 19 like 77 or whatever see see that's what i'm saying it's kind of like this like uh like late 70s early 80s kind of sound especially with like all those synths and stuff like that kind of like they really like nailed that sound i don't know if i'm gonna be able to i would like i would believe that that would be like from that time period like they were incredibly like accurate and like what they were going for that straight up sounds like some like arena like prog rock like elp type like everything the production on it the the playing like the the melodies like that's so that's so cool it's like the the beginning i was thinking reminded me of like some of the dreamcast era like sonic adventure games a little bit oh all right interesting like like some of the like i know sega like to use a lot of kind of like 70s and 80s like influences and a lot of their soundtracks and some of those synths and stuff reminded me a lot of like especially like the bass lines kind of remind me of that too actually because they do a lot of like the very active like kind of like almost jazz bass like yeah it's like it's like japanese like prog like jazz a little bit exactly yeah and i love that kind of stuff like like it reminds me a bit of um you know all that that whole wave of i mean there's there's so many artists and they all have like japanese names i'm not like super familiar with but uh cassiopeia is like the big one people like or the harumi hosano i think he's he's the guy with the with the surfboard guitar on the cover possibly but all that kind of like that prog like little bit of like city pop kind of bass line like stuff i i was i was a big fan of that um I like I like Yelp a lot, too. Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Oh, yeah. and yes and rush like all that all the all the classic like big um big prog rock bands um and yeah they did they did a they did a great job i'm glad that people are still making that kind of music in 2025 now well and whoever plays the keys they can shred oh yeah yeah just going up and down like insane like multiple octave like melody runs yeah they have they have the skills to recreate that that's a very hard genre to recreate because it is it has such a high skill floor to like make it even sound like that at all let alone like make it sound like a faithful like spiritual successor to like that kind of stuff for like the modern age also the production is just so massive sounding it's got that ring of sound it's got that like it does it sounds big and full and like all like in your face and it's got that glam like hair kind of style to it it is it's almost like you hear it and you almost picture it in a giant arena yeah yeah like they're like like sports they're a diy band playing like shows just around like atlanta and small venues and stuff like that but you're just like oh no they are in a massive arena when they're playing this shit yeah straight up that is that's super cool it's been a long time i don't i don't know if i've ever heard like modern like prog really i don't think i've ever like gotten into that and that's really cool i mean it makes sense that it's still being made it's just like i never i never thought it was i never at least not in that style anyway yeah i feel like a lot of modern prog kind of like goes in more of like the periphery gent kind of yeah yeah it's like that yeah like the the classic like synth driven kind of like traditional prog stuff i had no idea there were still people out there doing it so well and they've got a few other albums as well they're uh i've forgotten about them but they're they're they're get if i can pull it up yeah uh they've got two albums since 2020 that are uh both volumes of the same thing hymns for hungry spirits they've released uh volume one and volume two in true prog fashion this is one of my favorite things uh volume two which came out in 2023 the last it it's a 41 minute album with only five tracks the final track being 20 minutes yeah like that is so prog it's amazing like i like that stuff i like prog i like uh i like prog derivatives i think muse is one of my first favorite bands as like a teenager or like 12 year old and they have a oh yeah they have a bit of that like like prog kind of influence to them um especially like with the way that they do their synths and stuff like that i can see that for sure yeah yeah yeah not they're not super long songs but the synths and the production stuff is very like proggy um so i appreciate that quite a bit yeah no this stuff is super cool their last album i got on cd uh at one point and um i'm really looking forward to this new project i'm really glad this was actually a direct submission if you are listening to this episode and you are interested in sending your music for a possibility to be featured on the podcast you can send that to me at fresh finds pod at gmail.com but uh yeah i'm so glad that you guys are watching they sent this to me early to check out because it is incredible yeah that was that was really good what do we have up next um i think okay i've gone through the uh the emo ones now i'm gonna get just like you did with the prog i'm gonna get a little bit less uh no this is still a decently popular artist we're starting out more cohesive and kind of branching out as we go a little bit this is um still somewhat known artist in certain circles this is a guy called carter c the not one i'm familiar with i can tell you that so they're um they're a musician and the i believe if i if i remember correctly it's either portland or seattle i think it's seattle okay i think they're seattle based but they started this uh this little like diy record label up there uh friend's house records that i found i found uh carter c their stuff good few years back just on soundcloud or something and sure i really enjoyed it and then i've i've listened to i have i have it on one of their albums on cassette even that i ordered and i've gone down the sort of not necessarily rabbit hole that's funny because they have a little fursona guy and they're a rabbit but um the other people on the friend's house record like collective sort of thing it's just a whole group of people around like seattle making this like kind of like power pop like indie jangle pop uh sort of sort of like stuff and i think okay i think i think that more people i don't think they're you know super active on this you know the diy side of twitter so maybe i can introduce some people to uh their stuff this is their song oh son the one that i found from them first from 2022 um back in the day ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ earlier uh pieces that i found a few years back and i really enjoyed i really like the kind of raw aesthetic of it where it sounds very clearly like um it sounds like a band recording live off the floor to me like just the way that the way that it moves i would not and then there there a whole little collective as it has this certain sound like that that i really like like it just sounds like like people just playing music together and they all like kind of do stuff together on each other's projects and stuff like they all live kind of locally i think that's super cool too yeah it's i'm i i don't i don't know any of these people personally i've talked with carter c like years ago and we're both aware of each other's music and both like you know like some of each other's songs but we're very far apart kind of doing our own thing but um yeah i'm i'm a big i'm a big fan like i said i i have uh i have their their little uh their little cassette oh nice um that's sick with their little little rabbit guy on it that i ordered a few years back when they when they released first it's one of the few cassettes I own so I'm a big big fan of that style I I can see that sounding really good on cassette too there's something about like that aesthetic and like the extra little bit of like saturation and like whatever else like listening to it on a cassette that just makes sense to me yeah yeah it's it's definitely like it fits to be on a cassette I mean it just sounds like that sort of like 90s really like 90s DIY like almost uh like jangle jangle pop kind of uh like early sub pop like type stuff I was gonna say being from like the pacific northwest also just makes so much yeah exactly it's like they have such a unique little thing going on in sound um it's it's car's record label I believe like I said I'm I'm not super like involved so there's I could have like be giving wrong information as far as like the ins and outs yeah but they they are at the minimum they are like very um active and very much like a part of the decision making and the leadership and like you know kind of organization of their whole little like thing they got going on so I do believe that they were the one that started it along with um a few of their friends but yeah big all big fan of if you just go to carter c on spotify you'll see almost all the you'll see almost all the you'll see almost all the related artists are like are also on that label yeah and then I'm I'm there a little lower if you click expand I'm also there right on so we have we have a little bit of like crossover sort of crossover fan base going on but yeah it's they're they're very cool I'm glad that there are still people like doing these making this little like music collectives in the traditional sense like yeah and making like these you know these lo-fi like their new stuff isn't as lo-fi you know their production is like cleaner but especially this early stuff it really has that spirit of that like early like sub pop type sound yeah it does a lot it also kind of reminds me of like some of the stuff that came out like early on like polyvinyl a little bit too yeah yeah yeah I hear that I hear that as well too some of the like early like of Montreal I believe I believe that's polyvinyl as well correct that sounds right I think so I think I ordered a polyvinyl like mystery box one time and one of the vinyls one of the vinyls I got was of Montreal so I assume I assume they are I also like on this song specifically I really like the uh like the vocal harmonies are really interesting they kind of almost harken back to like a late era Beatles thing for me a little bit with like the way that they did their harmonies like there's just something about that that I can't like tangibly be like that's what it is but like there's something about the way that they did those harmonies that reminds me yeah they're very similar to the way that they did those harmonies like kind of that era of the Beatles which I really like as well they're very they're very warm and like inviting and very like it's just very very pleasing sort of like style in in Carter's music that I've always I've always enjoyed um and I've always come back to through the years since I discovered them yeah I'm looking forward to checking out more of that because that was uh was really cool yeah a lot they have a lot of like closer to traditional like DIY emo stuff but it's it still has that same sort of that sort of energy to it you know yeah yeah yeah all right so my next song is uh gonna be from one of the kind of like bigger up-and-coming uh like DIY emo bands at least to me seemingly it's from uh Mudwell and I haven't heard that name yeah yeah they just released a new album back in November that was called Humans Pretending to Be Human which uh great title I really like that a lot but um this song that I'm gonna play is called Figure Out and I think that it was it was a one of the more different songs that was kind of like an album cut that seems like it probably wouldn't have gotten as much attention so that's specifically why I chose this one was to kind of highlight a song that less people would have likely heard off of the record so uh let's play that right now so here we go looking out for progress finding nothing here but dirt holding on to something keeping me to find out what it's worth I'm lost waiting for the words that all mean nothing silence sounds much worse as if I could we'll see who things are I feel numb I feel so far gone I don't know where I've been keep me straight keep me up so I don't fall asleep I've got it from the top got it way back since the autumn that is my religion all my sins all my self I don't need to suck inside my head I'm trying to get back to that place fear of all these things stuck inside of my head I'm trying to get back to that place fear of fear of fear of fear of fear of Trying to get back to that place Here we are Here we are Here we are Here we are I think they were the first band to play on day two, if I recall. And was absolutely blown away by the couple of songs that I saw by the time I actually got there. But they were just incredible. And so when they started releasing new music, their singles were really good off of this too. And I like how they kind of blend the emo and the grunge a little bit where they have some of the more shouty, screamy kind of vocals and then they have some of the more shouty, screamy kind of vocals but then they also do some of the more mellow, lower kind of stuff. Yeah, I didn't even realize that's what. why it kind of had that vibe to it like that it was like kind of grungy but as soon as he said it i'm like yeah it is it definitely has that like heavy like grunge kind of feel to it um i've never really heard emo grunge i i was trying to think like i've never i haven't really heard anything quite like that before and i was i guess that's probably why i got so locked in like in just kind of immediately which is letting it like hit me because it was like a new sort of dopamine rush like hearing a new combination of sounds um that's that yeah i i highly recommend this whole record it's also kind of cool so they did a vinyl run of this and the thing that i think is super cool is they have a random color splatter for every single one so none of them are gonna look the same they all have like these really cool kind of swirly patterns to them i i just think that it's so interesting doing like the random thing of like here's the colors that kind of like make sense with the color palette and just they'll do whatever i think that it looks super neat like i've been seeing people finally starting to get them in the mail and i'm like all of these just look so different and so cool oh definitely i i'm gonna tap it i'm gonna tap into that probably probably tonight as well oh 100 when i'm when i'm laying in bed now that's some great like laying in bed in the dark bed type music such a vibe so uh what do we have up next um i'm gonna go with this one next this is a bit also a bit even further out this is by a an artist her name is doe friends and she put out this project very recently i believe in 2024 i discovered it really late 2024 um let me let me see when it came out january okay early very early 2024 never mind so it came out really early you discovered it really late 2024 and you're like oh i discovered it really late i discovered it late yeah okay it came out january 5th and i had not heard it but a friend of mine recommended it to me or i saw it on their like top album list and um i always trust her top album list i listen to anything i see that she uh recommends and the first track off this album is not the one i'm playing but at the end of the song there is a sample off of star trek tng which i love um and i almost used that same sample for one of my songs about the character uh reginald barclay off of okay tng and i have a i have a version of one of my songs i put out about him that used the exact same sample from the episode that she used i ended up cutting out the bridge because the song was already like five minutes long and the bridge would add like another two minutes of just like a vocal clip and i was like i don't really need that it's kind of long already i'm just gonna condense it i always i always try to like cut out some of the fluff of my songs to make them like just quicker like you know easier like to digest like listens um see i think that that makes sense like to me there's almost a difference between like if you're cutting something because you're like oh the song's too long it's not going to perform well on social media or something like that versus like and this is this just needs to be paced a little bit better let's just cut it out i couldn't didn't really add anything to it and no i get that so i ended up cutting it out but then i listened to the whole album and i was like the whole album and i've listened to it quite a few times this um all the tracks are very different on it it's a bit like weather day if you're familiar with them at least not there i would highly recommend it but the album is not but this song is closer to that kind of stuff um it is called remember which one i picked i don't know if you hate or love me by doe friends it's raining outside every day is just the same now and i don't know if this is something i can keep upon everything if i try my hardest and god knows i've tried my hardest this must be so far don't take me and i'm stuck in here and i can't try what i see i don't know who i am but i wanna be and i don't know if i can and i don't know if i can and i don't know if i can and i don't know when it won't go away maybe i'll finally feel at home when i get caught it's like my heart this song is just the same Now, won't you only be loud and toxic with it until you start listening? You start listening. This must be some fucked up daydream. I'm lost out here and I can't trust what I see. I don't know who I am or who I want to be. I don't know if you hate or want me. All the little sound design stuff at the end is so cool. Yeah, the sound design is super cool. I mistook that song for a different one. That's not the one that sounds like Weather Day. There's one that sounds kind of like Weather Day. That's more of like, I don't know if you're familiar with Debbie McCallion and the other black dresses or black squares, like girls rituals side of. I'm not familiar, no. It's a completely other little scene that I'm also really into. It's kind of like, it's its own kind of little thing, but I'm real into that kind of stuff. It's very like, it's like guitars still, but it's super like electronic kind of bass, still using guitars and bass guitar and whatnot. But that sound design stuff is very prevalent in this sort of style, like manipulating these guitars with like filters and chops and making it sound like real digital. That's the thing I was noticing is it's like, it's distorted, but it sounds more like a bit crusher kind of like thing. Like it almost sounds like it would be like a guitar coming out of like a Game Boy or something. Yeah, or like those old like keyboards that have like the built-in drums that you like. Oh yeah. Like those speakers. And they're just super crunchy and kind of terrible sounding, but they're also kind of a vibe. Yeah, they're kind of also like super cool. And like, it sounds like you took like a microphone and captured that direct sound rather than like, like. Like running it through something. It's really hard to like recreate that specific kind of like saturation, low bitrate. Like it's a very nostalgic and specific sound, I think, that resonates with a lot of people. And I enjoy stuff like that quite a bit. It's not, it's like lo-fi, but like a different type of lo-fi than like standard like lo-fi. It's like digital lo-fi, I would, I would kind of call it. Instead of analog lo-fi. Yeah, yeah. Like tape recorders and, and cheap mics and stuff. Like you say, it's like Game Boy sound chips and small like digital speakers on old like hardware that we grew up like listening to. Yeah, there is definitely like something very nostalgic about the sound of it. I think also just like musically something about like the, the melodies and stuff of it just kind of feels like this very like kind of coming of age. Like college era of your life type of thing and like, and like listening to the lyrics as well, it kind of makes sense. It is like very much about like, you know, kind of coming of age, like personal growth type of things and, you know, wrestling with your personal relationships with people and things like that, which just again, for the specific style of music feels like it makes so much sense. Yeah, yeah. I just can't get, I can't get enough of that kind of stuff. I cannot, I cannot get enough of that like vibe and that like sound recently, especially like I have recently gotten really into it and I'm already super far along the album I'm working on where I'm not going to, it's not going to sound like that, but it does make me want to incorporate some of that stuff into the next, next project because I mean, the one I'm working on is done basically i just don't own a bass guitar so i have to wait for my friend to record the bass line which spoiler alert the ah the the next song is going to be one of her songs to to close it off who's oh nice but i'll uh i'll get to that after all right so my final song of the evening was another direct submission it's by a band called zephyr and they are from denver colorado they're a pretty traditional punk band uh in in the way that they do their stuff uh they their record label dumb ghost records has been sending me each of their singles as they come out and so i've kind of been watching the rollout and this is the last single that they're releasing which came out as of recording yesterday on the 10th uh it's called cry the dawn and uh the full album is i believe going to be coming out next week on the 17th so this is cry the dawn by zephyr cry the dawn it's hard to notice you're not alone and i can't do it cry the dawn cry the dawn cry the dawn cry till it's gone it's hard to notice that you're not around and i can't do it yeah We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Like, a little bit of those, like, you know, Titus Andronicus a bit? I'm not familiar with that, with them specifically. It's just the guitar, the guitar riffs are that, like, it's not like, not like hardcore, you know, like, like punk, like, just scream, like thrash, you know, like real hardcore, like. More like traditional punk. Yeah, yeah. That real, like. Yeah. Real melodic kind of classic punk. A bit like the, uh, the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX intro was, uh, was, which I love. Okay, yeah. I, I, I will sometimes just listen to that song because the guitar solo. That was my shit back in the day. Oh, yeah. Also, just the, the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, uh, opening is incredible. It's so different, but it's. Yeah, yeah. I, I love that. I've been, I've been getting, I've been getting back on, like, a Yu-Gi-Oh! kick recently. I, like, never, I never played it competitive or nothing. But, like, I, it's, like, you know, when I'm going to bed and I'm looking for something to watch, I've been watching this channel that, like, analyzes, like, duels from the, from the anime and, like, points out, like, any misplays people made and stuff, which is really. That's wild. Really funny because you realize they play, like, terribly in the show for the sake of the plot. It's, like, yeah, you could have won, like, right there, like, based on the cards you had, like, on turn two. It's, like, sports analysis. Yeah, yeah. It's, like, sports analysis for, like, a, like, 30-year-old, almost, like, TV show. TV show. I'm pretty sure. That's incredible. Yeah, that was really good. So, this is actually going to be their second album that they released. Their first album came out in 2020, and it was called Don't Worry About It. And I'm really looking forward to hearing the whole record because, like, it really is just, like, some no-nonsense, like. Yeah, straight up. It would be amazing to see live punk music. Like, this is, like, the type of shit that, like. Hydrax or something? Hi. What's that? What was their name? You said, like, Hydrax. Hydrax or. Zephyr. Zephyr. Very different words. Z-E-P-H-R. Very similar vibes. There we go. You're right. Yes. Hydrax, Zephyr. They do have very similar vibes. I was, like, yeah. It's some cool word. I remember it was, like, a really cool-sounding word. Yeah. Yeah. With a Z. And, like, man, they just. Like I said, it feels like it would be a great band to see live. Yeah. Just, like, the energy of it would just be incredible. You just go to, like, a dive bar or something like that, and they're just rocking the fuck out. You just get a cheap beer and drink it and go there with your buddies and, you know, dance. That's the vibe. Yeah. I could definitely see that. That's, like, the. That is the perfect music to just, like, kind of just, like, let loose a little bit, too. It just. It's not. It doesn't. It's not trying to take itself, like, super seriously or try to, like, you know. You need to sit and analyze this. Like, no. You just need to, like, listen to it and, like, dance and, like, have fun and, like, it sounds cool, you know? It's like a Hot Wheels. Yeah. Like, Hot Wheels. Like, fire. Like, fire flame t-shirts and hair gels and stuff. Like, it's just awesome. It's just cool stuff. It's a classic. And, like, you said, like, the type of band to, like, have fun, too. Like, this isn't hardcore. You're not going to get crowd killed to this or anything, but, like, you know, it's got the energy. It's heavy. Also, I like that this song is, I mean, it has lyrics, but it's kind of just, like, a guitar jam song because, like, it's got just the same repeat. It's got the repeated lyrics over and over just a couple times, and the majority of the song is just a guitar jam. It's just so fun. I love it. I had to make sure I wrote that one down, too, because I'll listen to it. I'll get in moods where I want to listen to stuff exactly like that. Normally, when I'm, like, hanging out with friends and we're, you know, we're in the car, like, going somewhere to do something fun. Yeah. Like, that's, I'll put that stuff on, like, pretty regularly so I can see myself coming back to that. Hype music, basically. Yeah, yeah. Free game. Free game. Free game music. Yeah. So, and again, the whole album comes out next week, so before this episode even comes out, so you can check out the whole thing. It's going to be great. Yeah, I'm always looking for new stuff to listen to. I listened, recently, I've been listening to a lot. I listened to a lot of new stuff. I've been listening to a lot of jazz recently and going back to, like, old stuff I missed. I've been getting real into Archers of Loaf the last few weeks. Okay. But I, it's somewhat new, but, like, I'm getting deeper. I'm getting deeper into them. It's real, real fun stuff. This is another one, another thing to add to my repertoire. All right. So, how are we, how are we ending the episode off? All right. So, this next song is actually, it's by a very special person. Her name is Lilac Roadkill. Ellie is her name. And she is a very good friend of mine. And also, she is the bass player on my recent album. All the bass lines are her. Like I said, I don't own a bass. So. She wrote all the bass parts, Today's Become Yours. And she did such a great job because the bass lines are, like, really good. They're not what I would have done. They, like, they're way better than I could have ever played. She is just a, she is an incredibly talented musician. She did, she gave me mix notes for the album, too. I mixed it myself. But she gave me a lot of very detailed notes on things that I could fix on places I could. Having a separate set of ears is so crucial to actually, like, having a good mix. Oh, yeah. Because you can get so in your head, especially if it's your own music, because you can, like, even little things like, eh, it's not a bad performance, but there's this one little thing that I don't like about it. And so you're just, like, going to, like, bury it or something like that. And they're like, no, bring that out a little. It helped. It helped a lot. I mean, there was two whole pages of super detailed notes she sent me of, like, frequency numbers and, like, specific things I could try to. Oh, wow. She's really technical. She is, like, one of the most talented people I know musically. Like, honestly, she's just a great guitarist, like, great songwriter. She's in Philadelphia and does stuff up there in the. but yeah definitely more people should check her out because she especially if you like the album um she had a huge part in it um throughout the production process she was you know there on my discord server you know hanging out after recording we'd like play games and stuff together with the rest of our friends and i've uh i've visited her and her uh her friends up in philly uh super cool person super talented musician and this is one of her um more recent tracks a little more experimental kind of thing she did that i think she killed it on this one is called with off of her uh her most recent little split called without where the other song is called out um and perfectly open seven days of night time pierced by a firework this intense love love love love love electric heat that comes running down my wrist i begged for wind april must have heard third time i've been lied by the chin i got so sick and warm third time i've been spun around lying so could you pull a splinter out of me third time i'm trying so so Glory eyes, spotlight, I don't want any advice I'm going face down on the ground, I can't use this while you cry Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why Why, how, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why I'm going face down on the ground, I can't use this while you cry dedicated sort of group of people so normally i just release it when it's ready and people people find it and kind of do the do the word of mouth the very the the purest form of diy for sure of release you know just release it and the people who like it who believe in your work will um the community will share it itself um but that that is about it just making sure people know i'm still active and working on another thing this soon after the last one i try to be very prolific i try to put out a few things a year if i can a few full albums maybe an ep um because i don't do anything else but record music and everyone else everyone else should do music as well if you haven't i always like to end things off anytime i do any sort of public thing if you like my music or anyone else's music really um you can just put out your own too and people like some some people will hear it eventually and if people don't hear it you just put out another one and then you just like everyone can put out music and like get like some fans it's not nearly as hard it's not nearly as hard to do and even just having like a few people who it's like it's so easy to get caught up in the numbers game but just having a few people who like like the music you make and believe in you and want to hear more and like let you know you have the art you have made like has affected them emotionally is such a great feeling that you cannot understand just by like listening like until you create something and you hear someone say that the thing that you put your like emotions and your time and energy into has made somebody else's life like measurably better for having heard it it is the most rewarding thing um you could possibly experience and i think it will make the entire rest of your life better so if you're if you like my songs or anyone else's any any band you know get active and make your own project as well learn learn an instrument or even just get a da by legal or or other means if you you know if you'll find it somewhere find it on the side of the road somewhere um it fell off a truck they'd be doing that sometimes who knows who knows there's so many places you can find them but um just put some sort of song or any sort of art draw or make a song or write or make videos it's so important to create and not just to listen that is that is what 100 that is what i want to to end off everything on is make art however you can if if that's all that you do um find a way to make something and you will be rewarded for it more than you could know i like that and also be sure to listen to days become years and for once in my life this has been the fresh finds podcast the show about discovering new music with good people fresh guitar solo I can't because I'm stuck in a rut I want to walk away I want to sell all my stuff I want to travel across the country in a can truck Maybe one day I will finally find a place to call home But I think I'm getting pretty good at going alone Like that's a mental over is the only life I know So if you miss me let me know and I will pick up the phone And I know that I'll reach where I'm fitting to be But I hope that somebody will be there with me And I'll be falling in love In the bed of my can truck Yeah, you seem pretty cool I want to converse with you I don't know how to speak But when I drink I feel like I do I'm a folk, I'm a mystic Universe passing through The things that make up other people Seem to make me confused When the cops and the killers Do the same drugs The modern world Is an IED waiting to blow up That's the commies and the fascists All the same cops But in a truck you roll We all live the same life And I know that I'll reach where I'm fitting to be But I hope that somebody will be there with me And I'll be falling in love In the bed of my can truck And I know that the world Is a beautiful place I awake every morning Waiting for a day When I'll be falling in love In the bed of my can truck And I know that I'll reach where I'm fitting to be But I hope that somebody will be there with me And I'll be falling in love In the bed of my can truck And I'll be falling in love in the night In the bed of my can truck And I'll be falling in love in the night