THE STORY OF DAVE
Dave, in its earliest form, had existed since early February of 2020. Well, technically it was earlier, but we will talk about that later. At this point, I had just gotten a bass, and I was just uploading random songs I had made to Soundcloud as soon as I made them. The first song ever made for the album, which at this point I didn't even think I could make an album, was Alice. I called it Alice because I thought it would be funny because Alice is lazy, and the song is very fast. It started with the two beats at the end of the song, separately at first, but then I combined them, then I added bass. I had also made a beat based on double paradiddles, which I then combined with a quicker version of Take Me by Casiopea, which I still don't really know how to play. I had already made a bass part for the last minute, so I recorded that, added guitar, and then sat on it for about a month. You can hear this version on the Code Red EP as a bonus track. I asked around for people to help make a part for the beginning and middle of the song, but no one responded. That's when I put on my big boy pants and decided I would have to just do it myself. Now it's time to break this up song by song so things don't get confusing.
COASTAL
Coastal has a special place in my heart, as it was the first song I ever made with real instruments all by myself. It came to be around September of 2020, when I was bored and home alone, and decided to mess around on a guitar that hadn't been tuned in at least 10 years (that's not exaggeration), and I made something I liked. That's how Coastal was made, you can hear the original and the demo on Soundcloud. While I was happy with it, I didn't really know how guitars worked at the time, and there's this constant buzzing in the background. The remake was meant to fix that, and I had decided to put it on the album cause I felt like it. The problem was, it didn't fit with any of the rest of the songs on the album, so I put it at the front just to mess with people. I thought it would be funny if they heard the first song on the album, were like "okay this is cool" and then they get blindsided by the fast paced, loud, and bass heavy songs that actually represent the rest of the album.
TOVIK
Named after one of my dogs, Tovik was originally a beat I had made that had a lot of dynamics. The problem was, it was hard to play bass to. I scrapped the dynamics, made a new bass part, and re-recorded it like 12 times because it's very fun to play.
Fun Fact: The space in the bass playing between the first and second parts of the song is because I was switching between a pick and my fingers.
Fun Fact 2: The beginning of the song where it fades in with poor sound quality is a reference to the beginning of Steppin Stone by Minor Threat.
Fun Fact 3: This is my favorite song to play on bass of of the album
TUNA AND CARPET TACKS
This came from a video I uploaded to Instagram which was just a beat I made. Then I thought "Hmmmm, what if?...." So I made a bass part, then made a guitar part. I was originally going to call this one Waiter, there's a pog in my rock, but I realized that is a stupid name. Another name I considered was Goofy Clown Shit, but I decided against it.
Fun Fact: The name came from the story of Michael Malloy
YUREI
Yurei, named after one of Charlie's dogs, was originally a bass part I had made for the original version of Tovik. It didn't fit at all, so one day when Charlie asked me to make a song called Yurei, so I did. I made the drum part a few days before the album was released.
Fun Fact: The sample at the beginning is Michael, as a few months before I had asked him to record himself saying that he hates vegetarians. I forget why I did to be honest.
PENELOPE
Penelope, named after Michael's dog, was a song I made just because I wanted to do a song with weird time signatures.
Fun Fact: The first part is in ¾, and the second part is in ⅞
Updated Fun Fact: This is mostly not true. The first part is indeed in ¾, however I wasn’t counting properly when I made the song, and the second part is actually in 8/8
ALICE
See the beginning of the story.
Fun Fact: The sample of me saying "Into the box" is from the original recording of Tovik, as I recorded it by putting my phone in a Swiffer duster box (Does not appear on the remastered version of DAVE)
Fun Fact 2: The beginning drum part is based on Take Me by Casiopea, and the bass part at the end is based on Viet Nam by Minutemen
TED
Ted, named after Nate's dog, was originally called Diablo, but I changed it to Ted because Ted is adorable. The guitar part was recorded by Mac, and was part of a batch of guitar parts he sent me around March of 2020, aka when everything went downhill. I added drums to it in late April of 2021
Fun Fact: There was originally a 2 and a half minute guitar solo during the drum break in the middle of the song. The song was 4 minutes.
SALLY
Sally, named after someone’s bearded dragon, was made up of three beats I made, one of them being Code Red. The second one I had made up on my own, but the third one is based around a marching band drill called Beeker.
Fun Fact: Marching band is a plague on this Earth
MARA
I decided one day to play as fast as I possibly could, and I recorded myself doing that. The bass part is extremely easy in comparison.
Fun Fact: I had trouble breathing for about ten minutes after I recorded that
LIL LUNGS CULTZ LIVE @ WATERTOWN MALL, WATERTOWN SD
This was a bonus track I made as a joke while on a call with Charles and Nate. It kind of came about as a "what if" sort of thing when I was thinking about a live Lil Lungs album. Sam is the only person who has heard it because he bought the album.
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE ALBUM
The album was supposed to be called Pog Rock, and was meant to be all one song
The album was released at 4:20pm on May 3rd (Mara's birthday)
The front cover is a picture of Mara
The back cover is a picture of me in Ace Hardware
The tracklist was finalized the day of the albums release
There are a lot of bonus items that come with the album that no one ever saw because they didn't download it
There are videos of the drum parts for Tuna and Carpet Tacks, Sally, Tovik, Yurei, and Mara
The names of the songs mean absolutely nothing
For most of the songs, I put a shirt over my snare so it would resonate less. That shirt got destroyed
All of the songs were recorded using either my phone, my dad's phone, or my iPad
The name of the album came about due to me being on a call with one of Joseph's friends, named Dave, as I was looking for a name for the album. I thought it would be funny if I named the album Dave, so I did
The idea to name the songs after pets came from the Slint album Tweez, where they named the songs after their parents
There are no lyrics because I can't sing
The address listed as the place where I recorded the album is the address listed for the band KFC Murder Chicks, which is a band tied to the Erratas mystery/ARG/internet legend thing
The person who is listed as playing bass on the album, Dale Nixon, is the pseudonym used by Greg Ginn whenever he played bass on the Black Flag albums, so I figured I would steal it and use it for myself