We pretty much got stuck right into recording after our first sleep. Kathryn, Will’s girlfriend had a thesis due the night after I arrived so I arranged to stay at a motel for a night to give Kathryn a much needed thesis-zone. Will and I drove a couple of miles out of Lafayette and found a Motel 6 on a main road. We set up shop and got down to biznizz.
Will has a very gypsy/folk background and I’m vibing on psychedelic rock and dream pop at the moment. What followed was a frenzied all nighter seeing us slam a slew of unknown caffeinated beverages, beers and cider, chex mix, tacos and the beautiful smoked stained stench of the motel room. The room was pretty nasty.
Will offered a slew of folk instruments: a civil war era banjo, full accordion, fiddle, doumbek, Jew’s harp and many more.
Watching and experiencing Will at work was a treat. He has quite a “real” mentality behind tunes that would otherwise sound looped. He prefers to attack the take for the whole duration of the song, even if the take is repetitive and can be looped. I barely loop my tunes so I could relate.
What surprised me about the “Motel 6 sessions” was that we were able to write in such an organic way, in that we kind of bounced around layers one at at time and took turns adding layer upon layer…and they all sounded pretty gnarly! When we got to a mind block or listener’s fatigue we’d step outside to the freezing night and walk to the servo (or gas station to them lol) and get some snacks. The way we collaborated is alien to how I usually write music. My usual writing method involves an epiphany uppercutting my mind at the darndest of times and me scrambling to find a way to articulate that epiphany into a recording device – usually me humming dementedly into the iPhone’s voice memo. The whole tune, or a majority of the tune will appear in my head…layers and all so multiple voice memos are made….sometimes I’ll need to beatbox and hum a droning bass line to get as much down as possible.
So we lay the foundations of 4 tracks over an all nighter. How I’d describe our music? I think it retains what we did in the past but obviously has 6 years of new influences piled up on top of it. So down tempo, psychedelic, analog keyboard grooves. And MOAR. T’was a magical evening/morning.
Also, we are:
Where did this name come from? Before we even started recording, we were driving around Lafayette and I chanced upon a sign that read, “Paediatric Motor Playground”. I thought that was perhaps the strangest combination of words I’ve seen in a while. Will commented that it would sound great as a band name. I agreed.
So we’d love to show you what we’ve got so far but there’s so much more we want to add to the tracks…and I’d want to bring them home and mix and master them (damn excited for that). We’re going to keep Paediatric Motor Playground’s collabs online, just as we did 7 years ago, or until one of us bites the bullet and moves to either San Francisco or Sydney.
-Chumpy