I’ve been saying it over and over again the past few months, but let me reiterate just one more time and say how grateful I am to have been able to work with so many amazing bands and have the support of some of the most dedicated indie pop fans alive. Our little record label would have fizzled out many years ago if it wasn’t for every one of you.

In addition to each and every one of our bands, I want to thank (in no particular order) Bryan at Shmat, Stephanie Lim, Windy & Carl at Stormy Records, Dave Heaton, Eric Wolf, Jason Voss and We’re Twins Records, Tim Castro, David Barclay, Chris McFarlane and Indiepages, Andrew Churchman, Leah Williams, Mike Turner, Stephen Cramer, Justin Shay, Gabe & Gerry Saucedo, John & Nicole Nelson, Shawn & Veronica Knight, Johnnie Cluney, Colin Clary, Raoul & Missy, Jonathan Westbay, Aaron Demorow, Jeremy Temple, Mike Downey, Martin & all of Yellow Mica, Max & Leslie Soren, Darla Records, Tonevendor, Christian at BSBTA, Jon Rooney, Jhohn Shrum, Mike Gibson, Amy D, Nadav, Jessica Williams, Jeff Cook, Brandon Haney, Emily Powers, Melanie, everyone I’ve forgotten, and of course Corey Williams. You’re all responsible for pushing me forward and helping make Asaurus an awesome, CD-R burning force.

Many of you have written me some really nice emails the past few weeks and I intend to get back with all of you soon. Please know that your kind words are appreciated.

So…. what’s next? First off, I’m taking a vacation. I haven’t had a good stretch of free time since I was 22, so I going to start with that. But in the coming weeks and months, my plans for Asaurus and asaurus.org will hopefully start coming together. Expect a new blog, centered on but not dedicated to music, with several contributors, as well as a podcast or two. Plus, monthly mixtapes, LOTS of free downloads, interesting items from my sound archive, new music from my personal recording projects, as well as updates on the Asaurus family and the Asaurus archive. I am hoping we can keep asaurus.org active and interesting.

I like to think this was a worthwhile effort and I hope you agree.

Thank you, and please, take care.
Matthew

On to much more exciting news, we are very excited to announce our 64th release (technically 81st if count EP Club and 5 cassettes) and what could quite possibly be our last release ever, the new record from the Mathletes, lovingly titled #$%@ You and Your Cool. This record features new recordings of the Mathletes with a full band sound, which you might have heard if you’ve caught one of their live shows. Duh. There’s also new solo recordings from Joe Mathlete if that’s more your cup of tea.

The way I see it, you only have 26 more shopping days to get this and all of our releases. And on top of that, #$@% You and Your Cool is being released in a limited, hand-numbered edition of 100 copies. And thanks to the early birds, a tenth of them are already gone. I should also mention that the record comes inside a bologna sandwich. Not a real one (because that would be revolting) but a close approximation. You can sample all the tracks over at Last.fm or just buy the damn thing.

Before our online store closes in 2 months, we will be releasing our (possibly) last record ever from the Mathletes in a limited edition. More details soon. If you’ve been thinking about placing an order with us, please do so soon, as once our online store closes, we will no longer be making and shipping handmade records. It’s sad, I know, and I’m sorry. It isn’t easy for me either.

Check it out:
http://www.last.fm/label/Asaurus/

I’ve also made a few of our out-of-print releases available for free download. There will be more of this kindness to come.

- A Tape Between Friends: Sold out cassette release. These mp3s are from a cassette rip, so it can be heard the way it was meant to.

- There Were Trees in That Forest: Our sold out Arbor Day compilation.

Untypical of Asaurus, this EP is an actual manufactured CD. I know, what is the CD-R label world coming to? But don’t worry, it will be ok, the artwork is still all handmade and lovingly designed and put together by the band. In fact, there are 4 different covers available for the EP. At the risk of sounding like Burger King, may we suggest you collect all 4?

For more info and ordering, please visit our store.

In other news, I have posted an MP3 from next month’s release (starting to see a pattern??), Patrick Porter’s A Swan at Smiley’s. I can’t tell you how much I love this record. Really, I won’t. But I can tell you it is a collection of mid-fi, hi-fi, and really transcendent lo-fi songs from the highly-regarded songwriter. Please listen to the track “Wait for Another” and see for yourself. Fast readers: Wait for “January 1st” to finish.

Listen and/or download “January 1st”

Today we start with ASA001, Tune’s EP. Tune was a band I played in with Corey (of Wally Pear), along with our friends Aaron, Josh, and Jeremy. Tune came about after our previous band, Bugg Superstar, broke up. Looking back, both bands were more or less the same, with Bugg Superstar being obsessed with Smashing Pumpkins and Tune with Hum. It doesn’t take very far to get from one to the other. But both bands had different main songwriters, so, at the time, it felt like we were going in very different musical directions. More on Bugg Superstar in the next installment.

Tune was one of those bands that practiced constantly and never played a show, because “the songs weren’t perfect yet”. Right. But I guess we did play our drummer’s girlfriend’s birthday party. I still have the $6 we made in tips that night.

Two of the songs on the EP, “Infrared” and “Less Ordinary”, were recorded by Jeremy onto his 4-track in my basement. This was probably around 1998. “Man-Made Stars” was inexplicably recorded in the common area of Jeremy’s church, for no reason other than we could. If that song sounds particularly different, “warmer”, that’s why. I personally think it sounds the worse.

The fourth song on the EP, “Instrumental”, was just a demo recording on 4-track that was originally just guitar and drums. When I decided to release the recorded Tune output on Asaurus as an EP a few years later, I added keyboards and bass to the track so it would sound a little more finished. Did it work? A working title for the song was “50’s Love Song”. Those of you who own A Tape Between Friends have heard another demo version of this song, designed to teach Corey his bass parts.

So, you’re probably wondering, how did EP actually come about? Tune barely recorded anything, never played a show, and was totally unknown outside of my parent’s basement. Before I started the label, I became obsessed with archiving my collection of analog recordings digitally. I was convinced the clock was ticking on all of my 4 track cassettes. Disintegration was inevitable and I wasn’t about to lose the 30 odd versions of “Man-Made Stars” we recorded.

So my first project was digitizing the Tune songs we properly tracked. My only copy was a second or third generation cassette. And those layers of copied tape hiss are what you’ll hear on EP. I have no idea how good (or bad) the original recordings may sound. For me, the hiss provides another dimension to the recordings, a sort of retro-fitted nostalgia that wasn’t necessarily there originally. This of course can really only be experienced by me and other members of Tune, but I never said running a label wasn’t a wholly megalomaniacal operation. Plagued by trying to relive small, magical moments of my teenaged years, mere nanoseconds passed before deciding to properly release the Tune songs on Asaurus.

Corey was working on I Like How You Like Planes and its imminent release was the impetus for Asaurus Records. Before the label started, I had three collections of digitized recordings, from Tune, Bugg Superstar, and Monotone, already finished. They all seemed ripe for repackaging and helping pad our non-existent catalog. Hence, the first three releases in our catalog come from three unheard-of bands posthumously.

Now, with this series being named Secrets Revealed, I suppose I should start doing that. “Man-Made Stars” originated from a loop of the Twin Peaks theme I had on my sampler. Aaron heard me messing around with it and when I played the loop backwards, something clicked in his brain that caused him to work on what would become “Man-Made Stars” for, I don’t know, months. So the Twin Peaks theme, played backwards, is what can be heard throughout the song, as well as running water. The end of song contains a sample from one of my many microcassette recordings. Perhaps also inspired by Twin Peaks and Agent Cooper, I was in the practice of carrying around a microcassette recorder and, much to the irritation of my friends, randomly recording conversations and found sounds. The girl you hear is genuinely pissed.

“Infrared” and “Less Ordinary” are both pretty standard “spacey” rock songs and both more or less about girls. But I love them both dearly and do not care if anyone else does. They were both worked over and over ad nauseam, though many of the keyboard parts were added at the last minute during recording. Oh, and the little robot voice at the end of “Less Ordinary” is reading a line from Douglas Coupland’s “Girlfriend in a Coma” and it serves no purpose.

And what about the hidden track at the end of the EP? The improv “Ice, Ice, Baby” cover was something me and Corey found buried in the middle of a cassette tape, originally recorded with our friend Russ one afternoon after a Tune practice. It captures everything I loved about that time in my life. It’s also terrible and that’s what hidden tracks were made for.

MP3s:
- Tune - 50’s Love Song
(from a practice tape made for Corey by Aaron and Jeremy)

- This Bank Holiday - Man-Made Stars
(An unreleased, cover outtake from A Tape Between Friends)

So that’s the first installment. I apologize for any jumping around or lack of coherence. I hope to have individual bands contribute to this series and write about their own releases. Obviously my insight is limited on records I wasn’t personally involved with.

Follow-up questions will be answered in the comments.