Hey folks, I've got a new EP out today. I've wanted to record a few cover songs for a long time and I've finally gotten a chance to do it. I treated each one of these like it was my own song. These are a few songs that have always stuck with me over the years, and it was a really fun project!
If you haven't seen the article Saving Country Music posted about Spotify accusing me of streaming fraud, check it out here. I just wanted to add a couple things on that subject.
I'm happy to attach my name to a middle finger pointed squarely at companies like Spotify and Tunecore. However, this comes with some concern. I am worried about coming across as a phony. I am planning to redistribute my music on all streaming platforms except Spotify. I can't even rule out the possibility of maybe going back on Spotify after a while. I'm going to try without first. We'll see how it goes. I just want to be perfectly honest about this. I value integrity and can't in good conscience pretend like I'm not thinking about it.
My main goal with music is to make something that isn't like anything else. I just want people to hear it, and hopefully even like it. I'm not dumb. I know Slackeye Slim is not for everyone. Falling well outside of any established genre means you don't get much press. Getting no press means no one can find your music unless they really try to dig it up. I've been scouring the internet for years looking for overlooked bands who are doing their own thing. I've noticed how much harder it has become to find underground music you like without going on Spotify. So I kind of need to be on streaming until a better alternative arrives or people start getting angry at the fact that they pay for a service and what the music they use it to listen to might vanish at any time.
The money I make from streaming is not much, but it adds up over time. This income and album sales are what I use to fund Slackeye Slim. Not having that little bit coming in to set aside for better recording gear, website hosting, mastering, artwork, paying musicians to play on songs when I can't do it myself, etc is going to become a problem sooner or later. It gets expensive fast.
That's all I have for now. Thank you for reading this, and for listening! I sincerely appreciate all of you.
It's been a while since I've posted anything here, so I figured I'd send out an update. Even though I haven't talked about anything publicly, I've been really busy.
First, I have an EP coming out on Perpetual Doom Records very soon. I'm calling it the Perpetual Doom EP because, well, isn't perpetual doom a good way to describe how the rational among us feel anyway?
We don't have a release date yet, but the songs are recorded and ready to go. It will be soon. My right hand man, Jered Davis mixed the audio. and I mastered it.
The Perpetual Doom EP is a collection of six cover songs that I reworked and adopted as my own. I've wanted to record a handful of covers for a long time, but I didn't have a reason to do it until I was asked by Perpetual Doom. It ended up being one of the most fun projects I've ever done. It allowed me to think about the songs and artists that were the most influential to me and reimagine these songs as though I wrote them.
For this EP, I recorded everything through a shitty old Shure mic preamp that I found in the dump in Wisconsin a long time ago and recently fixed at my kitchen table. The EP has got a nice lofi quality throughout and I'm very happy with how it all turned out. I'll send an email when we have a release date and details. I recorded way more than this, but these ones made the cut. I can't wait for you to hear them! Perhaps there will be a Volume II sometime in the future?
For now, why not head over to Perpetual Doom Records and check them out if you're not already familiar? I already feel like I've found a home among other genreless outsiders who just make the music that's in their heads without worrying about fitting in anywhere. It's art for art's sake. I'm into that.
1 - Cowboy Dan (Modest Mouse) 2 - Cold Cold Ground (Tom Waits) 3 - Heel on the Shovel (16 Horsepower) 4 - Climbing up the Walls (Radiohead) 5 - Anthem (Leonard Cohen) 6 - Mack the Knife (Kurt Weill via Louis Armstrong)
Click the Anthem Link to download the file. Or just stream it at the bottom of this blog post.
The other big project I'm working on is a film score for an arthouse Acid Western that is currently in production. If you don't know what the Acid Western genre is, I'd recommend the films El Topo by Alejandro Jodorowsky or Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch. Both have been influential in my songwriting. Where do you think I got the line a "from each wound my bullets make, a snow white dove shall come" in the song Judgment Day on El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa? El Topo, my friend.
The film is called Lovelock and it's loosely based on the story of Orpheus & Eurydice. It's being created by a man named Eric Key and his team. Here is a writeup about what our process has been like so far. I'm really excited about this project. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to write a film score.
Lovelock is still in production, but we are hoping to have the film completed by fall of 2025. Eric has a rare spinal cancer and that dictates the pace at which he can work on this. He's got a really interesting story. If you're interested, check out this video about his film making journey in the video below.
Oh yeah, and I'm still slowly writing for a new album. Like I said, I've been busy. Stay tuned. This is going to be a good year in the Slackeye Slim camp.
I've been writing a whole lot of new stuff. Most of the songs would make absolutely no sense played solo. This one almost does. It's based on a story I picked up at the playground.
Why would I be posting this cryptic bullshit and this poorly mixed demo of a new song? Could it be that I have a project in the works? But Slackeye Slim, you didn't wait 43 years between projects. No. No I didn't… More info soon.
No update from me right now. I'm just writing a bunch of songs. I'll get ‘em to you as soon as I can. In the meantime, I want to try to drum up some support for my friends Idanha. They showed up on my radar last fall with their debut EP “Slow Horses, Bad Whiskey & Good Friends.” The only complaint I had about it was that it wasn’t longer. Well, now they've got their first full length record out. It's called “Valley Junction.” It's some seriously great western storytelling. Go get it from https://idanha.bandcamp.com/album/valley-junction. It's damned good.
Just dropping by to say, if you're a reddit user head over to r/darkamericana and join our community! I'm working with a couple friends to resurrect the sub and provide a space to talk about gothic country, dark americana, etc. We've got a lot of plans. A lot of us have been left behind and the publications that once wrote glowing reviews of our music won't even mention it on the upcoming releases calendars. Hope to talk to you over there!
Happy New Year folks! I'm officially olden. I turn 41 on Friday. Yep, that skinny kid who used to play punk rock dive bars with a shitty acoustic guitar through an old Sunn amp got too fat to fit into that thrift store 1970's cowboy suit and learned how to play the theremin. I still have the Sunn though.
I'm dying to share these songs we've been working on, but alas, I cannot. They aren't finished. For now, I thought I'd just let you all know that we're slowly recording new stuff and working out new songs all the time. I'll keep you updated!
I've gone off all social media at least temporarily. Sitting and scrolling isn't good for anyone's mental health, and honestly I can't see how it's even useful for a musician who doesn't fit in anywhere to participate in anymore. What's the goal? To go viral? No thanks. In my opinion, the days of building a community around music via social media are over.
In the meantime, I'm here working on a bunch of new music and enjoying the beginning of winter here in Montezuma County, Colorado. Living in a piñon-juniper forest that's covered in snow it's pretty inspiring, and when the clouds come in it looks like some serious wizard shit is happening up on Mesa Verde just to the south. I'll be sending out updates from now on only to my mailing list, and I have lots of things in the works, so please sign up at slackeyeslim.com/news. It's at the very top of the page.
I made a video for We Were Lurkers. It was pretty fun running around in the woods like I'm not 40. Hope you enjoy. Just anything. Enjoy whatever you want. I don't care.
