Primacy Effect
The beginning of new friendships and romantic relationships was the beginning of Primacy Effect. Three Bostonian transplants from three different countries united under a common umbrella of laughter and shoegaze. Lugging around their drums in a shopping cart, the band played a slew of art galleries, book stores, basements, record shops and night clubs between Boston, Long Island and Caracas. After recording two EP’s under the engineering and brilliance of Ken Korb, they broke up.
The Done Days of Piano Row
We named all of the track titles about things we love in Boston which is where we go to school. Out of the Blue being the art gallery that we always play at in front of nearly nobody. It’s owned by Tom Tipton who is more or less the greatest human being alive.
Haley House is a soup kitchen that Tyler has volunteered at for the past two and half years. The song is framed after this religious church song Which Tyler grew to love while attending a local youth group throughout high school.
Flower Girl comes from not only the feel of the song as a wedding song, but the weddings that the band has crashed in Boston.
Am I Wearing the Godhead?
The band started playing together in their dormrooms. They experimented with different instruments (Winter Garden features a melodica, drowning out features tyler hitting the strings of an acoustic guitar with a chopstick while playing drums with another hand) and different styles.
A month into playing together, they took their first trip out to Long Island where they had less than 48 sleepless hours to record these four tracks. Friends coming and going all weekend helped record bass and group vocals and extra guitar. At the end of recording (6am Sunday morning) everyone cut up a pineapple, ate, had a crazy long drone jam, and all fell asleep to the loop they’d made.
PRR Plays the Hits Vol. 1
Practice Room Records Plays the Hits is a compilation of covers.
“Personal Tornadoes” performed by Marblemouth (originally performed by Trouble Books on the album The United Colors of Trouble Books, 2008)
“Eventually, All At Once” performed by Trestin Eeling (originally performed by Joan of Arc on the album Eventually, All At Once, 2006)
“She Did A Lot of Acid” performed by Primacy Effect (originally performed live by Neutral Milk Hotel, c. 1997)
“Go” performed by Sonoak (originally performed by Daniel Johnston on the album Respect)
“Born on a Train” performed by Jason Lerman (originally performed by The Magnetic Fields [The Charm of the Highway Strip, 1994], but Jason had only heard the Arcade Fire cover version [c. 2005] when he recorded this)
“Derwentwater Stones” performed by Tapestry (originally performed by Robin Pecknold on the E.P. Three Songs, 2011)
“Give You My Lovin’” performed by Glass Frog (originally performed by Mazzy Star on the album She Hangs Brightly, 1990)
“Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” performed by Cloud (originally performed by Leonard Cohen on the album Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1967)
“A Spindle, a Darkness, a Fever, and a Necklace” performed by Ena Alvarado (originally performed by Bright Eyes on the album Fevers and Mirrors, 2000)
“Merchandise” performed by Male Unbonding (originally performed by Fugazi on the album Repeater, 1990)
“He Doesn’t Know Why” performed by Raw Paws (originally performed by Fleet Foxes on the album Fleet Foxes, 2008)
“Bankrupt on Selling” performed by Michael Brandon (originally performed by Modest Mouse on the album The Lonesome Crowded West, 1997)
“Our Last Night Together” performed by Moviegoer (originally performed by Arthur Russell on the album World of Echo, 1986)
The Players (album art, clockwise from the bass neck)
Greg Salwen, Samira Winter, Tyler Taormina, Michael Brandon, Jason Lerman, Kyle Oppenheimer, Ena Alvarado, Nolan Eley, Kenny Korb, Cole Verderber, Lorena Alvarado, Brendan Mattox, Casey Jacobs, Michaela Weglinski, and Konrad Kamm
Recently, I was interviewing Brooklyn artist & musician Taraka Larsen. In the course of our conversation about an end of the world karaoke event she and her sister, Nimai, put on several years ago, she dropped this interesting thought about singing other people’s songs:
“You’re willingly opening yourself to being possessed,” she said, “like, if you’re singing an Elvis song, and you’re really good at it, you’re channeling Elvis.”
At the same time, I finally got my shit together and started organizing the dozen or so tracks that other members of PRR had sent me to compile into the compilation you’re currently downloading (thank you for reading this and not, god forbid, looking at porn or Pitchfork).
Taraka’s observation has stuck with me. Why play the hits? It’s not like it’s hard to find the original recording of anything anymore––they’re streamable, buyable, and audible from the quad of your local college.
But nothing quite compares to picking up an instrument yourself and trying to arrange someone else’s song. Our bodies are so different, so unique. Often times it requires more than just a set of tabs from Ultimate Guitar and a six-string acoustic.
I’m at a loss to describe just what that is: I think it takes a loving, deep connection to the song that you’ve chosen to cover. You need to know original so intimately that your stupid fingers can compensate for what it does not know how to do, and replace that essence of the creator with your own.
-Brendan Mattox (aka Marblemouth)
Thanks to:
All the artists whose awesome music we covered.
Brendan Mattox for organizing and compiling these songs.
Ken Korb for the beautiful original album art.
And a big, big thanks to Kyle Oppenheimer for mastering!
