UFO near 4ever Boner

In December 2021, in the midst of the 3rd album writing spree,
when Brian was sending new songs to the group text every other day and there was already talk of it being over 30 songs long, a Philly show got cancelled, but I decided to drive down from Boston anyway to record a new song in his bedroom studio. We’d all been doing nyxy nyx as a band for 6 months and I’d found myself accidentally writing this song with a bunch of the chords I’d recently learned, so it felt appropriate.

I’d had a bad Thanksgiving, and having joined a cult of rock & roll all summer, I felt like I’d found an exit and a new way to do family. I showed up around 4 and we watched the sun go down and got down to it. He had a small combo amp with a bunch of surprisingly cool effects, a keyboard for synth bends and drums and wacky percussion, the teeny tiny tamborine I’d heard on a million nyxy nyx songs, and one microphone, on a stand when I tracked it live, but mostly just laid flat on a pillow on the floor for the overdubs. I bonked the first note and we laughed.

He uses some very old and obscure digital recording program that only allows like one “undo” before you lose what you erased forever, so it was kinda like working on tape, but even more “forward motion only” style, taking risks and trusting luck.
“Do you trust me?” In fact, I actually hadn’t yet realized that we were permanently erasing things as we worked, and by the end of the night, the last couple minutes of the outro zoner had gotten chopped. Somehow I didn’t feel too worried or bad, my faith in luck was stronger than my fear of lost options.

(That whole year, recording had become so magically easy that I’d learned to trust luck to always leave me a trail of crumbs to follow. I’d sit down to sift through the stacks of improvised takes, excited and relaxed, exploring the endless incidents of un-intend-able perfection, surfing the mystic, manic momentum of a hundred sonic accidents accumulating into narrative sense of their own volition, watching the songs take their fated shapes while I clicked around, listening.)

So the next morning I woke up early and rolled off the couch, went down to their basement, and re-tracked the longer ending, just on the acoustic into my computer, so we’d have the bones of my lost original version to track over.

Then later that day we went over to Dan’s old place near 4ever Boner and the two of them put some takes of live drums on it, and I built it up with a bunch of guitars, and I went home to Boston with a bunch of fun sounds to blend into a song.

Brian kept working on it himself. He sent me and Dan a couple newer versions over the next few days. Then he sent this final version with a whole different ending, where the nyxy nyx “rock & roll” chords continue forever. I felt flattered that he’d gotten obsessed and made it his own. It was a special experience and I’m glad it’s documented. I’ve listened to it a lot over the last few years and I still think it’s beautiful.

I made this video on Dan’s old roof near 4ever boner in December 2023. When I looked back at the footage, I saw this crazy ufo dancing and it became the star of the show. It’s pretty unexplainable to me. But also somehow just playful and casual. I like him.

Thanks for the visit alien friend.