Having just arrived at the college, getting settled in. Didn't know the built-in microphone had optimal quality, so I kept having to swipe the video game microphone every time I'd go home, only to be met with a call from my brother and sister asking, "where did the mic go?" They knew I had started to record my own stuff again. I just didn't want to get busted.
And given that I was on a songwriting roll, much to the chagrin of my dorm mates and neighbors (knocking on the ceiling and walls to tell me to quiet down was a common occurrence back in those days), I managed to keep up the manic release pace I had set a precedent for with the Malkmusian. I even had a lovely spot over at Futures Passed Free Music, a cutting-edge record label changing the way music distribution took place on the Internet.
Unfortunately, FPFM opened up around the same time Bandcamp opened. While Bandcamp stole a lot of thunder, I made the best of a wonky situation - I flirted with simultaneous FPFM/Bandcamp releases for a few months before switching entirely over to FPFM for the foreseeable future. I found Bandcamp too clunky at the time anyway. Besides, with the frequency by which I'd destroy hard drives. I figured that it'd be a better idea for Steve (FPFM owner) to handle archival of my releases. One of these releases was going to be Hamilton, a last-gasp for the video game mic peripheral - where I'd test out a few more multitrack recordings (I think I even began to save the multitracks themselves on my laptop) and even attempt mic placement - before realizing that, over winter break and yet another hard drive crash, my laptop mic recorded in much higher fidelity than the Rock Band microphone - the reason why I thought it was low-quality was because Toshiba's built-in apps added a bunch of noise-canceling filters for webchatting purposes. And thus started the Alexandria Palace sessions, which in of themselves morphed into Day of Truth (year of lies).
Hamilton had a prospective release date of December 11, 2010 - my 19th birthday - but by the time that came around...you know the deal. Thankfully, I uploaded a copy of it onto last.fm, back when you could host music on it...but I couldn't get it back after a while. I had to ask Steve for archival copies of all my FPFM-era releases - only missing Bill, Mary and Tom - because I knew at some point I was going to feel nostalgic for them...
...and lo and behold, over this past summer, I gained EVERY reason to revisit the past. Lost my job AND my beta cells due to things beyond my control (changing market plus conflicting demographics for the first thing; unknown pancreatic issues on my father's side for the second thing)! During my recovery - and it's been hell, with the weird carb-to-insulin ratio fluctuations thanks to my honeymoon period (please approve Tzield for honeymooning people now, I wanna become diabetes God) and the intense mood swings and every moron recommending I go on Jordan Peterson's insane meat diet because Big Bread invented glucotoxicity - I relistened to a lot of the old Malk stuff, the rejected LesCon and Monaural stuff, and the sound collage stuff...and I found it charming in a really shambolic lo-fi way. Like a bit of a Daniel Johnston/Guided by Voices synthesis - granted my voice was still really untrained and warbly, but at my best in retrospect, I could sound like Robert Pollard at times. I hadn't even listened to GbV at that point yet - I didn't even know what a Bee Thousand was, much less a Bulldog Skin. I was just trying to rip off Pavement and Silverchair.
It only proved one thing: Rob Corddry was right. I was the digital-age Robert Pollard. There's nothing to be ashamed of with these releases - okay, save for the wonky lyrics (some of these can be a bit...outdated; it was 2010 Internet and we were all just realizing that we were queer; I got into a fight with a furry forum because I bugged everybody into RPing with me, that's how weird I was) and the generally crappy mixing (the bass is often boosted up way too much) plus recording quality (thanks to AI demixing, I'm gonna try my hand at giving my discog a nice master and remix) plus the lack of drums (which was always an issue with me - I remember asking Carter and Tanner Bransom about possibly laying down some tracks for me). They are an important part of my artistic development. Without them, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be this weirdo diabetic rock-and-roller who lives their life in defiance of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and every health food nut but still makes sure to eat their greens right alongside their Arby's Roast Beef Mid. I wouldn't be this crazy mess who still can't finish the next Buckingham Greene album (it will come by the end of this year) nor start real work on the next Monaural album (which will revisit some of the Malk-era material with updated lyrics - so that way, you're not singing along to mushmouthed Ozy and Millie fanfic; I will revisit "(I Was Once a) Teenage Slave Girl"). I wouldn't be this person stupid enough to reissue the old catalog despite a lack of interest. I...just wanna share all of this old music with you.
So the Compendium begins. First releases are old unmastered works. On streaming services, most cover songs have been pruned (mostly for licensing and money purposes - insulin ain't free until the revolution). Over here on Bandcamp, however, cover songs remain intact. What you're gonna get is authentic Bulgarian miak - or high-octane Malk, now with 100% more Vitamin R! This includes all my old stuff, catalogued as such:
MALK-XXXX - Malkmusian-era releases (all unremixed/unremastered)
TGIE-XXXX - pre-Malkmusian releases (sound collage and "shitpost" albums)
CLIK-XXXX - archival work (most stuff in the vein of Lesbian Concentapes; namely unreleased projects, excluding material recorded for Mercy Machine and Shaking Hands)
LESC-XXXX - Lesbian Concentrate/early Monaural-era releases (all remixed and remastered with bonus tracks); I think I own Mercy Machine and Swish (my two releases on Andrea Robbins' former label I Thought You Were a Marxist), right?; even Solarcaine for Followers will get a remix!
And most importantly
CLIQ-1006 - the Compendium (all Malk-era songs remixed and remastered; will not include cover songs, sound collage, shitpost works, unreleased archival, and LesCon/Monaural works - everything from Basitar to >sex art)
CLIQ-1007 - Emotional Inventory by Buckingham Greene
and
CLIQ-1008 - the new Monaural album (hopefully, this will gain me enough traction to the point where I can get Clicker distributed by a real major label and get Sony Music to buy me the Fiasp factory).
Consider this the start of the archival. See you on the other side.
----------------BEGIN TRANSMISSION--------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
The Malkmusian, the entity therein, consists of:
Shane Smith - vocals, guitar, bass, songwriting (except for track 11)
track 11 written by Dana Simpson (rainruin.bandcamp.com) - sold many copies of Phoebe and Her Unicorn at the bookstore; Shiver is such an underrated album - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CHECK IT OUT
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Shane Smith (loosely)
Recorded from August to December 2010 at my dorm room, North Georgia Suites, Dahlonega, GA
Album art by Shane Smith, using elements from Nashville by Robert Altman
Cover model: Henry Gibson as Haven Hamilton
SHANE SAYS THANK YOU TO THESE LOVELY PEOPLE: Sean McGann; Violet McLean; William Caretto; Peter Gritsch; Juli Reed; Jack Beam; Joe Suthers; Elizabeth Southwell; Mia Mendez; Tommy Merritt; Joseph Champion; Machi Coart; Cameron Banks-Jenkins; Jonathan Pargas; Jim and Helen Allen; Trent Allen; Kaitlyn Smith; Charles Kieser; Rob Corddry; Andrew Leeds; Scout Tafoya; Ryan Barfield; Will Ross; Landon McClure; Joshua Schaffrick; Carrie Schrader (writethatdamnscript on Instagram); Jo Mosher; Lee Diamond; Josh Elek; Zachary Christopher (RIP); Elliot Swanson; Kari Garner; Rosie Runde; T.C. Boyle; Kendel Blanchard; Connor Brown; Jordan Cadiz; Kaveh and Mary Dabir; Sean Stephens; Seth Scofield; Julie Best; Foy Tootle; Shawn Jacoby; Kevin Perjurer; Sara Funk; Samantha Funk; Dana Simpson; Sasha Bonilla; Seth Fulkerson...congrats on the CD-i game pastiche; Charlie Heinrich; A Problem Like Maria; ThornBrain...thank for giving me the push to rerelease all my old stuff; LuckyOddy; Chris Schaefer; and too many to count...
Long live Mr. K's. Long live Rockathon. Long live the Malkmusian.
Cardiacs has finally reached Bandcamp. This is genuinely one of my favorite albums, especially with the varied compositional styles, the mixture of psychedelia and prog rock, and Timmy's lyrics. Clicker Records
A sprawling, 25-song set from Pete Yorn complete with covers of Springsteen and The Smiths capture him at his unguarded best. Bandcamp New & Notable May 16, 2020
Pairing lo-fi indie rock with silvery folk instrumentation, the self-described "bedroom pop wizard" casts a cozy, poignant spell. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 11, 2024
