by That one time I produced an EP of my songs.
Artist: Mrs. Brown’s Lovely Daughter | Album: The First Date [EP]
Mrs. Brown’s Lovely Daughter was the natural evolution for my work as a musician following the break up of my college band, Monkey Porn Machine.
Monkey Porn Machine
When I first got to college, I was inspired to pick up the accordion. My brothers and I had started to dabble in song writing in high school, and a girl I liked turned me onto They Might Be Giants. So, picked one up off of this brand new website, eBay for $100. Cheap!
Then I started writing my own songs. Shitty songs. Terrible songs that should remain buried and hidden from the living.
One day, I see a flyer with tear away phone numbers. I call the number and she tells me to come to a show that she’s playing at the Cheshire Cat Coffeehouse on campus to check out her music. That fateful night of the show the drummer was also in attendance because of the tear away flyer.
And Monkey Porn Machine was born, with me on accordion, Ariel on vocals and guitar, and Brian on drums. We wrote songs about microwaves and boxing nuns. Eventually a friend of a friend knew a keyboard player who signed on. We wrote more songs and played out as often as we could.
Tex-mex, punk, zydeco someone called it.
Break up and Transformation
Our keyboardist was planning to move to Japan and our drummer was having some personal issues. So it came to pass that the band broke up, but Ariel and I wanted to keep playing and we kind of did. She took up drums and I doubled on guitar and accordion. I even managed to book a show as the opening act for one of my favorite bands with one of my favorite bands, The Icicles. My brother suggested we call ourselves Mrs. Brown’s Lovely Daughter.
Cool. We even expanded again by adding a cellist and a keyboard player. It wasn’t sustainable, so that line up disbanded. Meanwhile I was still writing songs.
At some point my other brother, the flautist, and I started playing together and the “classic” line up was born.
Recording
We practiced a lot more, mostly during our famous “ribs bbq & margs” sessions. As we played out as a duo, I realized that we should probably have a recording to sell or something. So, I downloaded some free software from the internet and started the recording process. I hated it.
It requires too much precision and I don’t really know what I’m doing. Hope you enjoy.
