The Cassette Is So Pretty - Blog Posts

June 1, 2013

June

“I had just finished writing and recording a record with my band Little Big League (littlebigleague.bandcamp.com) and was experiencing difficulty writing new material. The band wasn't really doing anything because we were exhausted. We weren't playing many shows to save up for touring a lot when the record came out.

On May 30th I had a dumpling party at my house where I invited all of my friends to come over and make dumplings. We set up Christmas lights in my backyard and all sat around a lawn table drinking beer and scooping small spoons from a big pot of stuffing and folding them into little dumpling wrappers. I invited Rachel Gagliardi from Slutever and we talked a lot about feeling stuck creatively. I suggested that we start a blog. The conceit was that we wrote, recorded and posted one song every day for the month of June. Two days later there was:

rachelandmichelledojune.tumblr.com

The most important part of the blog was learning how to practice forgiveness. This Isabel Allende quote I read on some blog-- "show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too." that seemed relevant too. Instead of sitting down and creating a list of rules (I've written too many songs in the key of D, no more finger picking, no verse chorus structure, etc. etc.) that completely inhibited me from writing, I just had the pressure of needing to have a finished product by the end of the day to motivate me. Despite my busy work schedule, social obligations, even if I only had ten minutes of free time during the day, they would be spent making sure I got my post for the day.

While there are definitely songs I find completely unlistenable and all around awful, I was very happy with a lot of the material I produced. I plan on developing quite a few with LBL for our second LP. I highly recommend the project to anyone who is feeling creatively uninspired. Habituation is the key.

The album is made up of 28 originals and two covers Day 15 is PAWS' "Sore Tummy", Day 23 is a Liz Phair's "Chopsticks".

Here is a list of some of my favorite tracks from the project:

Day 5, Day 6, Day 10, Day 22, Day 28, Day 30

Dan Hughes made my album cover, Ben Pubusky made my banner!

special thanks to: Peter Bradley my bestest friend who makes me so brave and so powerful, Ian Dykstra my twin Machine, Rachel Gagliardi the coolest girl in Philadelphia.”