A month-long Round 3 of the “My Band Rocks!” Digital Reissues concluded today! Since all the reissues were EPs, I dubbed it “Extended Play in the Month of May.” EP discs are weird; they’re often the first release by emerging indie groups. Not a single, not an album, but maybe more of a bargain than either, an EP needn’t be encumbered by concepts or themes inevitably attached to full albums. An EP is free to be the incomplete opening salvo in a band’s never-ending war to make people care. Here’s what came out and when:
5/3: Honey White: My Band Rocks! EP (2002)
Honey White’s first release My Band Rocks is both a demo and EP, with all the benefits and drawbacks of both formats. However it also displayed more range and promise than we had any right to expect after only four months playing together, and that was down to all four band members. It featured our de facto theme song “Unprofessional,” as well as the tour-de-force “Lightning Rod” and our cover of the traditional “Wayfaring Stranger.” It got us gigs, got us press, and got us on the road to making a full album.
This My Band Rocks reissue, up on our Bandcamp page, isn’t actually much different songs-wise—the three above tunes plus “You Let Me Fall” and “The Sandman” are still there—but I redesigned the cover artwork to balance the classic Volvo theme (our two wagons carried us everywhere in 2002) with some on-brand honey and white. The 18-page PDF booklet also sports one of my characteristically pompous mini-essays, full of background and trivia about this release.
It’s a bit like watching a minor league baseball team—not quite ready for prime time but showing lots of potential. Listen at this link if you dare!
5/10: Honey White: Corridan EP (2011)
“Extended Play” continued with Honey White’s Corridan EP from 2011, commemorating our November/December 2010 reunion rehearsals, the first time we’d played in over three years. This release was named for the art gallery on Milpas St. in Santa Barbara, and we rehearsed there often in our latter-day incarnation of 2005-06. We were always surrounded by art, so it was an inspiring place to play.
The EP is packed with then-new (and new-ish) tunes in loose, demo-spare takes—several of which would be refined by our later bands (like “Tempting Fate” by Radblaster and “Dreams” by The Neuro Farm). “Nightfall” and “Green Hills” had seen live performance in ’05/’06, but others like “Historical Friction,” “Dilemma By Design,” and “Becalmed” were brand-new, and only appear on this release.
For the reissue, we added seven more songs from those same late-2010 sessions, ranging from HW classics to older Mojo Wire covers. The 18-page PDF booklet is also brand-new for this re-release, since the first time around there was only a JPG cover image. Like the other re-releases, it contains a retrospective quickie-essay from me, plus photos (with unashamed radial blur!) and liner notes.
Corridan was a casual, informal release at the time and remains so today. Listen at this link.
5/17: Radblaster: Hecho En Naranjastan EP (2011)
“Extended Play,” Part 3: Radblaster’s Hecho En Naranjastan EP from 2011, documenting the reunion rehearsals of the Mojo Wire’s original 1996 lineup! During seven weekends stretched out over two years, your heroes Adam, Bryn, Keir and Kevin packed our gear into locations in San Clemente and Anaheim, bashing out Mojo Wire classics and new Radblaster originals. It was indie-garage-retro-rock. It was rad. It was a blast.
For the reissue, up on Radblaster’s Bandcamp page, we added seven more songs from those same 2010 & 2011 sessions, ranging from not-quite-ready-for-prime-time demos to not-quite-perfect-but-still-rad covers. The 16-page PDF booklet is also brand-new for this re-release, since like Corridan, the first time around there was only a JPG cover image. Also like the other re-releases, it contains a retrospective quickie-essay from me, plus (low-res! smartphone! snaphots!) studio pics and liner notes.
5/24: Keir DuBois: Rotten Miracles EP (2015)
The “Extended Play” series wrapped with Rotten Miracles, my solo EP. Released in 2015, this sparse, eerie set of bass-driven, ambient demos is big on low end and perfect for pre-dawn listening. It’s a bit like the Weapon of Young Gods soundtrack, but with lyrics—delivered in an un-Keir-like raspy whisper.
After twenty years and more than a dozen releases with three bands, I chronicled my decade-plus design career with all its trials and tribulations; it’s less “dark night of the soul” than “meh night of the skull.” These seven short swallows of 21st-century SoCal noir are drenched in aural molasses to make them go down easy (but not too easy).
The 2019 Bandcamp-only reissue features instrumental versions of all seven songs as bonus tracks, plus a 28-page PDF booklet of illustrations, lyrics, liner notes, and a characteristically pompous album history essay, all by me. Listen at this link, and thanks for keeping up with the latest round of reissues!
See a brief recap of the entire reissue project here on the Tight Ship website passion project page
