Robot Cousin Soundworks

I have been a huge, long-time fan of Tripping Daisy. When Wes Berggren (guitarist) passed away in October of 2000, I felt sad. Both for the loss of Wes, and also for the loss of that beautiful sound.

After TD understandably called it quits, they released one more album, self-titled, and on it held the magificient opus Tragiverse. I believe I’ve already spoken about that.

Anyway, Tim Delaughter (singer and ‘leader’ of Tripping Daisy) went on to form ‘The Polyphonic Spree‘, a 20-or-so member musical troupe that is always uplifting and magical. But despite being a fan, I always thought that the slight ‘edge’ that was in TD’s music was lost when it went in this new direction. So, I kept up with some of the Daisy’s old members, more specifically Ben Curtis.

Curtis, after Tripping Daisy, went on to form The Secret Machines, who are very excellent, and I strongly suggest getting their first 3 albums, September 000, Now here is Nowhere, and Ten Silver Drops.

Curtis left TSM a few years ago, and I’d still be sore about that (he’s just so damn good!) if he wasn’t doing an AMAZING job, along with the Deheza sisters, rocking it out as the School of Seven Bells. I find it really tough to get into new music (crank old man here!) but I just can’t help but love SVIIB.

This is one reason I don’t mind not having him in TSM.

I’m about to start work on something big. Something (in my world) that is the biggest yet. I can’t reveal what it is just yet, but in the coming months, if we (a filmmaker-friend/colleague and I) get funding, the creative floodgates will finally break open, and my god, I’m going to keep the pencil moving.

What we’ll be doing isn’t very large on the Hollywood scale of things, but with the scale we’re using, I don’t actually think it’s been done before. If there has ever been a cause for me to get my thoughts and ideas in order, this is it.

I wish I could say more, but I’m sworn to secrecy and all that.

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My fiancée, who’s recently studied colour theory, has let me know that the colours for this site don’t really “work” as well as they could. My whole purpose for the look of this place was to make it seem young and fun, but not in a Gap-sort-of-way. Truth be told, I was 110%-directly-inspired by this album. Their music was like candy, like sweet chaos to my ears, and I will always think of them as one of my primary inspirations, whether it shows or not. Tim Delaughter, you have a wonderful mind. In fact, the whole reason I changed my site over to this blog format was because I stumbled across his blog, and thought “I should post the stuff I’m doing.”

I digress. The colours on the page might be changing in the next little while, but the layout itself is staying right where it is. I enjoy it too much (And it just plain works!) to change it again so soon.

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Well, all of that aside, I think sometime today (later today) or tomorrow, I’ll finally be re-uploading “Nothing Fancy” for all to enjoy (again). I had a ton of fun and a ton of headaches working on that album, but it was worth it in the end. Headaches? For a 9-track, 28-minute album? Yes. Many. You see, I ran out of ideas after the first 3 tracks, and strained and strained for months. All the while, this was meant to be a Christmas present for my friend Ben (who still owes me a 100×100 pic for linkage to his excellent artwork and comics), so I wanted it to be “good enough”.

More stories to come when I actually post it.