horse ep

Released in 2005 // Written by me and my friends Senneca, Tucker, Jon, and Snit, and recorded, mixed, and not-mastered by me.

I think it’s rad to put the old, embarrassing shit out there, even if it’s a personal exercise in mindful wincing. As a music fan, especially when I was a much younger musician, I appreciated hearing where the musicians I appreciated began, how their voices sounded when they first started singing, how imprecise everything was.

That’s why I love this EP still. It was the first one, written and recorded back in 2004 when my pals and I were still in college, and, man, is it bad. But also cool. At the time, we were crashing in a horrific and painfully drafty house in Allegany, NY. It was in the dead of winter then, and I was sleeping on the couch. I can remember drifting off to sleep most nights while watching the blanket we had duct taped around the window expand and sag, expand and sag, an ice-cold breeze dancing across my face. No wonder all my vocal tracks on this EP sound like I had a stuffy nose. Because I did. I was sick all the time.

My buddies and I thought to make a record just for the hell of it. The punk band was over. We had acoustic guitars lying around, and creative energies that needed satisfying. I had a Dell laptop, a $50 copy of Acid 4.0, a demo version of Fruity Loops, and a bootleg mixer routed into the computer’s microphone jack. Sound City this was not. But we made this thing that exists, and how truly wonderful it is to have it now, to hear it and wince and laugh and to feel a little proud, too.