Welp. This is the second time publishing Duck House Season 6. A second round of white-screen-of-death befell sgp.com a month or two ago. I think we only lost a few posts, but the energy level and enthusiasm to rewrite this one is low!
Here’s the album!
Check the discography page, find it on Bandcamp, or go right to the Google Drive!
And here’s the teaser that originally went up in October 2024.
The band Doozywop got their start in the mid 70s. After working the doo wop circuit and finally getting signed, they set out to record their first album. Disaster struck only a few tracks into the process when their sound engineer moved. Unable to recover, the band lost focus and ultimately parted ways.
The former members of Doozywop spread across the United States, settling in DC, Chicago, Philly, New Orleans, and Dayton, Ohio. They took up new hobbies like yoga, rock climbing, and gourd collecting. It seemed as if the Doozywop story would end there, but the tragedy of 2020 brought them back together.
After getting word of Wilford Brimley’s passing, the band reunited with the goal of honoring Wilford at his funeral. At the service, all hopes of celebrating the great Quaker Oatmeal spokesman’s life were quickly dashed as the crowd was unappreciative of the band’s music. It would have been easy for Doozywop to pack it in and return to their lives. They would not choose the easy road.
Fueled by the sting of the funeral show, the band wrote a double album that would honor their late friend. Eschewing the the doo wop revivalist scene from their past, the resulting compositions reflected the changes within each member’s lives and the music that influenced them since their fateful recording session so many years ago.
The title of the album was to be From Wilford to Brimley, A Collection. Unfortunately, after recording three songs, the sound engineer moved to Australia. The recording studio lay dormant, and any chance of completing their homage to the silver screen legend was lost.
What is left is the energetic yet soulful EP that smallglowingpig is able to present to you today: Doozywop’s Remembering Wilford. Check it out on Bandcamp here or on the discography page.
According to Southernliving.com, the foremost authority on philosophy and chronology, Marty Rubin once said, “Time does not pass, it continues.” If you don’t know Marty Rubin, he is, of course, the Canadian author of The Boiled Frog Syndrome. This is a book I must admit I’ve never heard of. It is also a fascinating title.
Anyway, time is crazy, because as I post Duck House‘s Season 5, it has now been four years since the last release. I’m not sure, but it might be even worse that we began what became the Duck House project nearly 10 years ago – in 2012. This means we’ve been making Duck House albums nearly half as long as Small Glowing Pig has existed. What.
And with that, we present to you Season 5. This project began when Steve and I listened to Season 2 and thought to ourselves, “This is weird. We should do something weird again.” Also it started by wanting to make a dance song (it would become “The Butcher Shop”).
Enjoy the muzak over on the Bandcamp page or check it out on the discography.
-Mike
Soon…
Admittedly, it has been 2021 for almost a month. Is it everything we thought it would be? Probably!
Kate shares her voice and lyrics with the SGP family on her very own debut EP, “The 2021 EP”. This was a project that started back in late November, when Kate came up to Vienna House 2b and was inspired to throw down some melody on a guitar progression I (Steve) was messing with. From there we found ourselves writing about 2.5 songs in basically one session; the two complete tunes ended up on this EP.
For these first two, Mike was kind enough to take some rough mixes and record understated drum parts, which really fill out and liven up the tracks. I had initially tried some programmed and live-recorded drums myself, but my rhythm wasn’t jiving with, er, the other instruments I recorded? Well, I was glad to play more of a producer role and get to hear and choose some tasty fills for the songs!
The third track was actually written and recorded right around (and after) New Years. I think we came up with the chorus during another Kate visit to the Viennas, and kind of sang it to each other for a week or so. I finished up most of the instrument recordings by mid-Jan, and recently Kate laid down her vocals.
Look for more projects with Kate in the future!
-Blonski
An indeterminate amount of time ago (a year… two years?) I enlisted the help of couple buddies to haul a Wurlitzer organ from across town (in the rain) and into my basement. Not being an organ player (or piano or keyboard player of any kind), it has mostly enjoyed a quiet existence observing family members passing on their way to retrieve clean laundry. This fall seemed like the right time to put it to work.
Each of the three songs on what would become Information Speaker‘s Go Ahead and Look Foolish started differently. I began writing “Frank Starts Out as a Truck Driver” with electric guitar, “Egypt Has Pyramids” with organ, and “Fiasco” with acoustic chords. While I tried to keep some consistency in tone for each instrument, the way each song was written led to somewhat different feels.
The lyrics were all taken directly from Amazon reviews. Read about the products that inspired the songs below!
The Irishman (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Le Creuset Stoneware Mini Round Cocotte, 8 oz., Marseille
Thanks to Jim Hernovich for the awesome guitar work on “Egypt Has Pyramids”. I was struggling to record a solo when he came over and laid one down in all of about 15 minutes, never having heard the song before.
Check out the muzak over on Bandcamp or in the discography.
-Mike
Cleaning out old external hard drives is much more interesting when there are gigabytes worth of lost music on them. Just a quick update today to share some NotGrllBrush practice recordings from July 2014.
Catch a Star by Men at Work
Home at Last by Steely Dan
Too High by Stevie Wonder (into Home at Last)
You Part the Waters by Cake
While the winding path that is 2020 has not led us to destinations envisioned at the start of the year, it has provided some opportunity for creativity. Steve and I originally hoped to be wrapping up work on Steve Blonski and Our Forefathers right about now, but instead we’ve got a different album to drop. After displaying a focus and dedication uncharacteristic of our usual endeavors, Blonski and I have put a bow on the second Ear Buds EP.
New to this album: overdubs! Unlike Volume I, Steve and I agreed to lay down some tasteful additions to a few of the songs. We stayed away from the “wall of sound” approach and instead looked to incorporate subtle harmony or even a balalaika or pan flute.
You can cop the new tunes over here on Bandcamp or here on our discography page.
Just a quickie… General Pancakes played some rock and roll in a gazebo yesterday. Credit to Henry with some solid camera work in the video below.
Ear Buds continues to make progress. Late September / early October release hopefully!
-Mike
The Ear Buds have finished writing and recording demos for the latest EP. The original goal was to have final recordings ready for mixing and mastering by the start of September but time and power outages and going back to school during COVID makes fools of us all.
A week or so ago Blonski and I met virtually to listen to the demos and talk lyrics. We decided it only made sense to do so while slaying hordes of undead nonsense in Diablo III. Naturally we recorded it.
We’ve got pieces of two songs laid down for the final album and hope to get moving on the rest in the coming weeks. More info as it comes…
-Mike
