This is the story about a bunch of time I wasted. Well, I wouldn't call it wasted because I had fun and don't regret anything except the not-actually-releasing-anything part. See I decided to start a "record label" AKA a small project where I would release music by my friends or people that I thought had neat little musical endeavors. These were most likely going to be put out on CD-Rs and cassettes, except for the Ben Carr and Gee-off albums, which I was going to get done on professional CDs or at least mimic the process best I could. Either way they were gonna look nice and "real". This didn't work out. The reasons were probably these: I had dropped out of college and moved from Omaha, NE back to my hometown and back into my mom's house, plopping me right back into depression and anxiety. This is the typical story, I had no idea what to do with my life, couldn't get a job, lived with my mom again, hated my town, blah blah, etc. Same ol' bullshit everyone goes through. This made me lazy and kind of a slob. So, you know. Then also pretty much everyone involved in making the music that was going to be released was busy with their other bands, which they all had. Which wasn't a problem of course, those bands were better than the stuff they were going to release on SJ, it just made it harder for them to get around to furthering their SJ projects. I've got more excuses but who cares? What's important is that I was going to start releasing music by some friends and I didn't, it didn't work out. So here are the few releases which were either done or somewhat done and never saw the light of day. Enjoy.


1) Ben Carr-37 Songs About Dogs

Yeah, you read that right. A concept album with 37 songs entirely about dogs. This was my stupid idea and I bugged Ben until he agreed to do it. I got the idea from Tinyfolk, a lo-fi musician who made an album about cats, with 36 songs total. It was supposed to be sort of a "DOGS RULE, CAT'S DROOL" thing, a friendly fuck you to Tinyfolk(who I don't actually know at all but also don't hate, so it's nothing like that).
Ben got about 14 songs done, or at least he gave me 14 songs, who knows what's hiding in the depths of his computer...They are all quite short(the longest clocking in at 2:03), fun, poppy, funny and silly. Ben and I were going to take 37 polaroids of different dogs we saw around his town and then write little made up biographies about the dogs (ie-"Sparky here used to work for the fire department until one day when his supervisor walked in on him and Spots playing a little too friendly in the front seat of the fire truck. Spots gave birth to 4 wonderful little puppies soon after and Sparky was promptly relived of his duties. He now lives in a rusted out station wagon in the woods and comes into town only to bum cigarettes off of the local high school kids.")
We also took a picture at some Daschund Day thing in Carrboro, NC to use as the album cover. All kinds of weiner dogs were dressed up in all kinds of costumes and we took a picture with a little guy who was dressed as a hot dog stand. Unfortunately we never got to see the picture again.
Here's the 14 songs that I got.

Download: Ben Carr-14 Songs About Dogs



2) Gee-off-38 Songs About Sharks

This again? Really? Yep, sorry. Geoff took it upon himself to trump Tinyfolk AND Ben with an album about a more badass animal that would have, count it, one more song. This also never got finished, as you probably figured. Geoff's own words as to why (you have to imagine this in a whiny voice): "But that's a lot of songs!" Boo-hoo. But it really is a lot of songs, especially about an animal that he didn't really know anything about. He made it to only 8 songs, although his songs were all longer than Ben's, so it's understandable. Geoff's shark songs are a lot more somber than Ben's dog songs by the way. Check them out.

Download: Gee-off-8 Songs About Sharks

The picture posted below is a tattoo that Geoff got. It will make sense once you listen to "Party Shark". Apparently Geoff's brother and sister also got this tattoo for some reason. Family fulla crazies, I say.

3) Puss Bubbles-Pizza Patrol EP

Now it's the last of the concepts. This is a lot heavier than the last two postings. I used to call it Pizzaviolence. Hopefully that helps you understand what this is gonna sound like. My friend Steve from Kansas is responsible for these ear punishing tunes that are all about being obsessed with pizza. 7 songs, under 10 minutes, some parts are fast and screeching, others are slow and stomping. You can't really sing along or hum to this one, except maybe to the first part of the last track, Pizza Patrol. I love this.

Download: Puss Bubbles-Pizza Patrol EP


4) Man or Fire-Mao Zedong U Da Bomb EP

More from Steve! Yes! This was very close to being put out as a cassette and would have been the first actual release. Oh well. Man or Fire sounds like jangly, jerky punky stuff. Song titles like "Mad Dad", "We Reul" and "Dragen Ball Z" give off a stupid-in-a-fun-way vibe to the whole thing. That's a good explanation of it actually. Man or Fire sounds like stupid fun. Don't listen to this if you are uptight.

Download: Man or Fire-Mao Zedong U Da Bomb EP

Steve is actually obsessed with China, I guess, so that's why the EP is titled the way it is. He visited there, wants to learn Mandarin and even gave me a cool pink shirt with pandas snuggling on it or something retarded like that. It's now too small for me because I washed it once. Fun Fact: I actually joined Man or Fire for a quick second to play keyboards. We even had a show booked and everything. We were going to (unknowing to the people who booked us of course) not actually play any songs but instead play the theme song from the Muppets on a loop and just destroy everything in sight and pick fights with everyone who showed up. Sadly this never happened. What fun it would have been...

5) Lechies-Wanderer/Intruder

If you can't listen to self indulgent experimental music then skip over this right now. Lechies consists of lots of different sounds all thrown together in an attempt to make them all blend and form a wrecked collage of noise. I can't really give an example of other artists that sound like this because I don't really listen to this kind of thing too much, so my description is going to be lacking. Intruder and Wanderer were originally two different releases but then I decided they'd fit better on one tape, with Wanderer being Side A and Intruder being Side B. I uploaded them as two folders, so just listen to Wanderer first and Intruder second. If you listen at all, of course. There's nothing fun or silly about this one, there's nothing loud about it either. No screams, no feedback. No themes, no jokes. Just experiments with sound. It's nothing amazing and it's not intended to be either. It is what it is.

Download: Lechies-Wanderer /// Lechies-Intruder


6) The Drowsies-We Really Need A Drummer! Demo EP

The Drowsies played pop punk, simple as that. Well it wasn't really that simple pop punk, but it wasn't striving to be something else or to mix in more genres. They were a pop punk band with clever, fun songs about being in love with Bjork, playing with Pogs and food. This demo thing was released as a way to find a drummer. They planned to get their name out and get a little attention and then hopefully through that make contacts which would eventually catch them a drummer. Well, they did find a drummer. But more importantly, they put out 10 great acoustic pop punk songs. With hits like "Christmas Rules", "Don't Shoot Heroin", "How To Make A Quesadilla", "My Bladder's Out of Control" and "I Love Lasagna", The Drowsies will have you -BLAH BLAH BLAH- just listen to them! Like I said, the versions of these songs included are all acoustic but they did become a full band after finding a drummer. They are now broken up and playing in seven thousand different bands.
This was originally going to be the first release I focused on. The Drowsies already released it themselves but I was going to kind of re-release it just for fun, not to find a drummer. I think I really like these acoustic versions better than the electric ones (maybe because I heard them first and listened to them a million times?) and that's why I wanted to re-release it. I don't remember. If I remember correctly I actually did make a few of these and sold some too. Not too much though. Anyway, here you go.

Download: The Drowsies-We Really Need A Drummer!