Another wondrous piece of Why Make Clocks history now available in download form: the self-released CD-R EP originally released in 2000. Enjoy!
link: http://whymakeclocks.bandcamp.com/album/why-make-clocks-ep
February 4, 2012
December 30, 2011
Favorite Albums of 2011
Every year, Dan asks members of Why Make Clocks to list their ten favorite albums of the preceding twelve-month. And every year, I put it off like a bum. This is due to nothing more than the fact that I don’t really buy a lot of ‘new’ music each year. Most of my listening consists of ghosts of years past. On top of that, almost everything I listen to is what Dan listens to, so our lists usually ending up looking rather similar (or would, if I bothered to jot anything down). This year, however, I’ve single-handedly put a spike in Amazon’s mp3 store quarterlies, because of the sheer volume of interesting names and works that have wandered across my desk, as it were. So here they are, in no particular order, my favorite albums of 2011. Forgive me.
The Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck
Cults – Cults
Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place
The Seed of Something – The Seed of Something
Colin Stetson – New History Warfare – Judges, Vol. 2
Tom Waits – Bad As Me
Russian Circles – Empros
Fetal Pig – Autopia
Wye Oak – Civilian
Darren Korb – Bastion Original Soundtrack (This is, in truth, the soundtrack to a video game released this last July, guys, but it plays through like a proper album. All originally composed by Darren Korb and performed by a small group of musicians from southern California, I think, in concert with Supergiant Games, the developer of the game in question, Bastion. Check it out, it’s almost as good as the Zelda theme.)
December 29, 2011
Favorite albums of 2011
Every year I ask the members of Why Make Clocks to come up with their favorite albums of 2011. So, here is Dan’s 10 favorite albums of 2011 list.
These are the albums I listened to the most this year-my only criteria is that is has to be:
1. A full-length album of all new songs (no compilations or live albums)
2. Not my own album
As always, it’s a bit varied-but that’s a good thing-there were a lot of albums I expected to love this year, but just didn’t.
Here they are:
1. Left Is West-”Souvenirs of Past Lives”
2. the Seed of Something-”The Seed of Something”
3. Richard Buckner-”Our Blood”
4. Tom Waits-”Bad As Me”
5. The Dears-”Degeneration Street”
6. Russian Circles-”Empros”
7. Samiam-”Trips”
8. Warbringer-”Worlds Torn Asunder”
9. Loney Dear-”Hall Music”
10. Idaho-”You Were A Dick”
Free Download for you!
As a holiday gift & gesture of appreciation to all our loyal fans & friends we present a free download of this little-heard set of Why Make Clocks demos from 2002. Go to this link, download, enjoy!
http://whymakeclocks.bandcamp.com/album/rocket-transfer-demos-dec-2002
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Why this particular set of demos right now? Two reasons:
1. It includes the song “Christmas Is Ruined,” sure to brighten your holiday.
2. New versions of three of these songs are in the works (already pretty much all tracked at Flat Black Studio) to be included on the next Why Make Clocks album. We’ll leave it a mystery which ones!
Merry Christmas and thank you!
–Why Make Clocks–
whymakeclocks.bandcamp.com
November 7, 2011
Micro-solo Tour
Dan will be doing a short stint of shows w/Adam Goldman of Class M Planets/thebrotheregg this week-see shows list for details
September 5, 2011
Help Craig Schumacher
Craig Schumacher, owner-operator-engineer of Waveland Studios where he engineered the 2nd Why Make Clocks album Midwestern Film, has a cancer situation:
Craig Schumacher is a wonderful engineer and needs some help. He is the owner/operator of WaveLab Studios in Tucson where, among many others, he has recorded; Neko Case, Calexico, DeVotchKa, Animal Collective and Iron and Wine.
Earlier this year Craig was diagnosed with head and neck cancer. His doctors believe that with the proper treatments (which have already begun), he stands a good chance of beating this. The bad news is that the treatments are painful and costly. The out-of-pocket expenses will be enormous, not to mention the fact that there will be periods in which Craig will not be able to work.
Last year, Craig’s wife Karen was diagnosed with breast cancer. Following treatment she is currently cancer-free. Needless to say, these back-to-back cancer diagnoses have been tough on them, emotionally and financially.
Message from Dan:
Please take a minute to visit this page to help out our friend Craig Schumacher.
Long story short, Craig Schumacher is an all around great guy, a phenomenal engineer that has definitely left an imprint on modern music whether it be through the fantastic records he’s recorded and they way they sound or his numerous contributions to Tape Op magazine over the years.
Among numerous others, Craig has worked with:
- Neko Case
- Iron and Wine
- Calexico
- Giant Sand/Howe Gelb
- Richard Buckner
- The Jayhawks
On a more personal note for me, he recorded/mixed most of Why Make Clocks 2nd album, “Midwestern Film”, and the time we spent working with him, is still one of the best times in my life.
Please go here and chip in what you can to help the man out. Every bit helps.
September 1, 2011
be of our space world
Hey we’re doing some playing this weekend! Ritual Cafe tomorrow night for Kim Hutchison’s art reception, along with Kate Kennedy, and House Of Bricks on Saturday night with M.I.R.S.
I think Fetal Pig might be playing somewhere next week? The Seed Of Something is definitely releasing their cassette album Saturday September 10 at Vaudeville Mews and Going To Grandma’s is playing that show too.
Also, Facebook Page.
March 13, 2011
729
Had a nice show at Ritual Cafe for last night’s illmatic arttastic event. I’m glad to have finally learned where all the changes are in “Winner Takes All.” It was good to have all the three of us playing again, and more statements made regarding near-future work on the new album, and new songs.
Fetal Pig has a couple shows coming up, both a Vaudeville Mews. March 25 is that all-ages early one with The Great Sabatini and Omens (involving Luke Rauch of Druids), and April 2 at 8pm is the 21+ one with Jucifer and Sad Fucks.
I set up the Why Make Clocks bandcamp page so you can get downloads from it now. I have some ideas about extra things we could possibly put out as download, so maybe there will be some nifty surprises coming up there.
January 26, 2011
communing with the ancient ones
The Fetal Pig album is coming along well. After hitting Flat Black again on Sunday we’ve got pretty much everything tracked and even a song left over for a future EP or 7″ or something. My bass amp kinda went south as we got set up for the session so I had to use a SansAmp but it sounds fine. We’ve got a lot of art-concept built up around the record, including artwork and a comic book by noted artist, former Why Make Clocks member longtime Why Make Clocks cohort, and all around cool guy Nathan Thrailkill. All we need now is to mix it, master it, and figure out how on earth we’re going to manage to actually put it out. We’re seriously considering an LP, plus the comic, but none of us have any actual money right off the bat. Hopefully something interesting will work out.
With all that tracking done, we can probably get more seriously back to work on the next Why Make Clocks album, which we have a lot recorded for but a lot we’d still like to do with it. Why Make Clocks is at no shortage of ideas, that much is for sure.
We had a good time playing an all-ages show at Vaudeville Mews for the birthday of Connor from The Chatty Cathys. I was glad to finally get to see Pocket Aristotle, The Chatty Cathys, and especially The Longshadowmen since Dan always has rave things to say about them. Was very cool to meet Isaac.
Since the winter is halfway through, it’s about time for us to start thinking about booking some shows out of town again. If you’ve got somewhere you think we should play at, we’d love to hear about it, so get in touch.
December 16, 2010
it’s hard to tell
Fetal Pig recording has been coming along quite nicely! We’ve got some rough mixes and they sound pretty sweet. Why Make Clocks plans to get back to work on gigs and our next album early next year, starting with a sweet early show on a Saturday Night at our usual local spot, Vaudeville Mews. Meanwhile, check out Going To Grandma’s's “Christmas party” show with North Of Grand this Saturday night 9:30 at Carl’s Place, which is at 1620 Woodland.
