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Like a post-apocalyptic America, this page is slowly, but surely being populated. Eventually, this page will have all the album information you could want. By that I mean, lyrics, mp3s, more back stories, maybe even some photos and alternate artwork. Oh, and for those of you who are so inclined, the solutions you arrived at for the album puzzles will come in handy on this page. Month(s) of Yes/Year of Summer |
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Month(s) of Yes/Year of Summer |
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Month(s) of Yes/Year of Summer WSL8 Fall 2009 Just before I left Seattle to return to the Bay Area (in fact two nights before we moved out) I recorded this album. This album represents all the material that was officially done that night. I recorded it in this order, which is incidentally the order that they were typed up. Most songs were done in one take. A string broke on the 11th track. After ODaD, I felt like going back to basics and doing a barely-rehearsed, home-recording. This album will only be available in digital format, for free. For right now, it is only available to Lab Rat Fans, so join and you can get this recording. |
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Of Dream and Delirium |
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Of Dream and Delirium WSL7 Spring 2009 Buy it for
$9.90 on This album was a dream come true. I have always wanted to make a full-band album but I never thought it would turn out this well. This is a true "car" album, filled with great songs to cruise along to, sing along with and tap your toes for. Songs like melody, Life seemed far grayer... and "...nitrogen..." got to come to life the way they have always existed in my head. This was also my first experience in a truly professional studio. Lisa Dewey's set-up is great, but it's not the engineer-behind-glass-black-walls-dim-lights set-up of Blue Universe. The shows we did right before and after the recording of this album were definitely the most fun I've ever had on stage (or in someone's living room). Designing the puzzle for the artwork was a dream as well and if you've solved it go here. |
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Smile Filter |
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Smile Filter WSE5 Fall 2007 I put this E.P. together thinking that I'd turn it into a full length album the coming spring, but that got delayed so that I could start working more steadily with the band. I'm glad that I recorded it though and that I recorded a few other personal demos with it, since the album didn't happen. It's by far my favorite E.P. It was a great learning experience singing with Jon Senigaglia on these recordings. I still plan to go back and re-work the three of these that did not make it onto ODaD. |
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Drawings of Dinosaurs |
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Drawings of Dinosaurs WSL6 Summer 2007 This album contains some of my favorite songs to perform. The few shows I played around the time of this albums release started with Poolside and Follow My Lead. I loved making the artwork for this album even the tedium of it did hurt my hands. |
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The Woo-Hoo E.P. |
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The Woo-Hoo E.P. WSE4 Summer 2006 This E.P. was put together rather quickly as my summer was fast approaching and I wanted to get down versions of these songs before I left my recording equipment behind for two months. It's also available for free on my soundclick site. The cover is a photo of the inside of my guitar case. |
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The Magnificent Bear Pirate |
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The Magnificent Bear Pirate WSL5 Spring 2006 At 23 tracks, this album is clearly my longest effort. If I were to give credit to anyone for the unusual length of this album, it would have to be Mike Horwitz. During the early months of 2006, my friend Mike and I hung out a lot. We’d pick up some food, sit in my tiny bedroom and listen to music. Whenever I had new material I would play it for Mike, and when I felt it was finished material, I would record it. On these nights, I’d usually have one or two things that I needed to record, but Mike would tell me to keep playing. So, I played every sliver of a song I had in my head, no matter how brief. When I ran out of those, I dug through my notebooks, and then my computer, to find whatever I could. That’s how long forgotten songs like “Beverly Cleary and the Dentistry Analogy” came roaring back to life. “The Adventures of Annie Jump-Cannon” was originally written for a band called sadbastard that I never ended up forming with artist Sarah Fox, co-writer of “Jump-Cannon.” Mike was also responsible for me writing “The Loneliest Lieutenant Commander.” While at a beach bonfire of just the two of us, Mike asked me, “What would you play for Captain Picard if he were here right now?” I apologize in advance for the bit of self-indulgence to follow. The title of this album came from a lot of conversations I was having with friends at the time, and the title preceded the song “Life of a Boy” which could arguably be called the “titular track.” At the time, I regularly referred to myself separately as a bear and a pirate. If you recall, back in 2006, pirates were still all the rage. Pirate parties, pirate-name generators, books and movies abounded. Pirates were basically the go-to joke for Amurrica. Anyway, at some point, I started telling people, mostly as a joke, “Bears are the new pirates.” Cut to a short while later, with the help of people like Stephen Colbert, bears are now a great joke for any occasion. Also, they are dangerous and to be approached with extreme caution---just like me! |
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Cool Like Stupid |
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Cool Like Stupid WSC1 Spring 2005 The title of this release was one of the first possible titles of GtM, which is why I chose it for this release. Originally, I made this compilation of early recordings as a gift for a fellow musician. I reworked it a little bit and began selling it on blank discs with no artwork for $3 a pop right after the release of ABHoT. Most of the tracks come from a single recording session, In the Den with the Challah Cover, The artwork includes part of a self-portrait I did senior year of high school and a photograph of a walkway near my old dorm in Berkeley. |
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A Brief History of Tunnels |
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A Brief History of Tunnels WSL4 Spring 2005 This was the first album that came across as feeling complete and in many ways, its still my favorite. Also Ran and Today’s Adventure felt cut and pasted, but this album felt organic. Things turned out the exact way I had imagined, especially having my then-roommate Brian Kawahara provide trumpet. Tagidi Li was the first time I ever tried dubbing over my own vocals. I also had a blast designing the artwork for this album.
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The "Champions, Stars, Pioneers and Guards" E.P. |
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The "Champions, Stars, Pioneers and Guards" E.P. WSE3 Fall 2004 Download the whole thing here. The cover photo was taken by Adam Greenspan after a hike with some of our campers. The e.p.’s name came from the names of the four groups of kids that I worked with that summer (Alufim, Kochavim, Chalutzim, Shomrim). This was the first e.p. that really felt cohesive and it was the first e.p. that I posted to the internet for free downloading. |
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Today's Adventure |
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Today’s Adventure WSL3 Spring 2004 This album was a real fun experience. I decided that the do-it-yourself thing was great for my profit margin but not so great for the final product. So, I took the money I had made off of the first two albums and spent it on actual studio time and professional manufacturing. I recorded the album at Lisa Dewey's Kitchen Whore studio in San Jose. I was so nervous about the cost that I practiced my ass of for weeks. I ended up recording almost the whole album in one hour and a half session. Most songs were recorded in one or two takes. Lisa was surprised, to say the least. I brought my good friend Scott Peltz in to back-up vocals a week or so later, and that was pretty much it. I had it manufactured by Mastertrack and though there were some mistakes (on my part) this album is still what I would consider my first professional piece of music. The tracks were divided into sections based on when I wrote them and how they felt together and given titles as if they were separate E.P.s. I was also really pleased to be given permission by Daniel Brummel to cover one of his songs. |
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Also Ran |
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Also Ran WSL2 Spring 2003 Also Ran was almost the name of Geek the Mighty. It was so likely to be the title that the last set of demos for the album were called “Prelude to Also Ran.” The name itself came from a conversation I had with the grandfather of band mate, Jon Senigaglia. His grandfather, Don Atlas, used to own racehorses and one night, he explained to me the concept of an “also ran”. Basically, a horse that races but never places, is an “also ran,” as in, “Cornbread came in first, Snake-in-the-grass came in second, with Sucker Punch coming in third… Mama’s Little Helper also ran.” I liked the idea that I wasn’t putting out music to be number one, I was just there to do it. The artwork for the album came from photos I surreptitiously borrowed from his grandfather's house. The black and white photo of a buff man next to some weights was Don working out while stationed in the Phillipines in WWII. As I mentioned below, each recording session was set up better than the last and Also Ran was the first time I recorded with real microphones and with any kind of sound proofing (comforters were attached to the walls). Unfortunately, Eric and I were having some difficulties on a personal level and it understandably affected our working relationship. This resulted in the album wrapping up before I was really ready and so a few of the songs still don't feel done to me. After an argument about money, Eric and I dissolved Emzine Records and our friendship. It's a real shame because without Eric, I just don't think any of this would have happened. If you're reading this Eric, thank you for all your hard work. |
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Race Tracks |
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(I don't have any copies of this E.P. If you do, please send me the track list. Thanks.) This E.P. was put together a little hastily in February, as a promotional effort for the quickly approaching April release of Also Ran, set to coincide with a youth conference in Washington, D.C. that many of my friends and fans were going to attend. By, “put together a little hastily,” I mean my friend Dan Novack and I wrote the tracklists on the sleeves while on the plane to D.C. Only fifty copies were made. |
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The '$22' E.P. |
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(I no longer have a copy of this E.P., so I don't remember the track order. If you had a copy, please send me a message with the track list.) This E.P. was slated to have a different name originally, the Love Monkey Novice E.P. (Extra points if you figure out my joke, Lab Rat Fans.) I lost interest in that name, and after I bought the blank CDs I needed to burn the E.P., I renamed it after the amount I had to spend on CDs and sleeves, $22. I really only used about $11 dollars worth of the CDs for this E.P. and I think I used the rest for the following E.P., Racetracks. |
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Geek the Mighty |
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Geek the Mighty WSL1 Spring 2002 This was my first real album. Eric Markow and I didn't really know what we were doing, but we learned a lot throughout. Before each recording session, Eric would figure out a better way to set up our sound, so I would completely rerecord the album each session, until we got things right. I wasn't a very consistent musician back then, so each time we recorded a song it was different. Looking back, I think some of the songs were better when I started (G'head and Best Day used to be fast numbers). I remember that Teen Pride Anthem had so many words and I kept messing up. It took over twenty takes to get it right. When I finally finished the last take, I had to kick Eric awake so he could press stop on the recording. The cover photo was taken by my friend Tommy Walsh. Eric burned the CDs and I printed and stamped on the covers. My mom helped me print and cut all the inserts at Kinko's. This album remains my bestseller and because everything was done by us by hand, it remains my most profitable album to date. It was an incredible experience and if it hadn't happened, I don't know if I'd still be this dedicated to my music. |
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In the Den with the Challah Cover |
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In the Den with a Challah Cover WS0 Winter 2001
We only made a few copies of the demo which I gave away to some friends. After a computer crash, I was able to find the tracks but not the playlist which had them in order, so I have no idea what the track listing was. If you were one of the few people who had a copy of this demo, drop me a line and tell me what you can. |
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