A split cassette tape with one 15 minute Matilda side and one 15 minute Songs from the moon side. The Matilda side was recorded in the "possible 3rd basement bedroom" of the house I was renting in May of 2011.

The idea behind it was one that came up quick. Jon [from Songs from the moon] asked me in passing after a rehearsal, I think. "Hey, I think we should do a split tape, half your stuff and half the band." Seemed like a good, simple idea. One that could be executed easily and would give us both something to work towards.
So it was done [the idea was done, it was whole... the work hadn't started yet], and we set a date of when we thought we could get it done by and set up a show to release it.

A good, simple, and easy idea.

Long story short, we both hit some major road blocks, changed things around 100 times each, worked long, long hours putting together 15 minutes of music on a medium that no one cares for anymore aside for nostalgic purposes. I recall one day where I spent 16 recording, and the day before that I spent 6 hours trouble shooting. Then mixing, re-recording, editing to fit time constraints of the tape, re-mixing, etc.
And dubbing 50 tapes [15 minutes each tape (I didn't have high speed dubbing), plus prep time, plus time to hand draw on each cassette as well as make the sleeves] took more than 24 hours of work time in total. And all of that work was just for my side. Needless to say we were literally still working on tapes hours before we were to release them at our show.

The album has a loose sexual theme that moves throughout the songs lyrically as well as musically, hence the name, "XXX on TV." But the album [minus the cover song] also has under/over tones of settling down, leaving the party scene and understanding the one you love, even when it's possibly not a conventional understanding or love for that matter.

On a more literal page, the album is very much auto-biographical of how I felt when recording down to intimate details of my love life [emotional as well as physical]. I set out to write "I love you" songs, and they turned into, "I love you, your body, our relationship, our inside jokes, your private parts, our obsessions, our fetishes, our lies, and our truths."


-----------------------------------

Also:

I want to thank everyone for being supportive of this strange trip that is "Matilda" - It's been a weird 8 years, and some of you have been there since the get go. I always wanted the "Matilda" project to be something neat and strange to show my friends and relatives, and so far, the project has been so much more for me. It's been a savior in the best and worst times of my life. So thanks again for everyone who has came along for part of the ride, or even all of it.

With that said, this is the first piece of music I will be charging for. I just put so much work into actually hand-making each of the tapes, tape sleeves, and everything else it feels like this one is worth something a bit more than the others.
*I'm going to be giving away bonus pictures and videos with downloads.
I don't expect anyone to buy it, I just felt like I should put more value on my music since I've been working at it for over a decade.

**Please note, if you really want an album and can't afford it, e-mail me, and I'll send you the MP3s free of charge.

Maybe one day I'll repay all of you with some truly great and inspiring music. Until that day, I hope you enjoy the odd-basement-noise-folk that this project has turned into.





xoxo