Out There, In the Yard: ...Wooves

Wooves started out as a joke, a riff; and a completely different name (abbreviated "D's P"). Two old roommates, friends from High School, that I didn't befriend till after High School–riffing is what we do best. Either everyone's life is a well-written absurdist comedy, or we really are the funniest group of males since the Blues Brothers. Rapier wits, and all that. Anyhow.

(The first EP. Crucial real Polaroid.)
We all love music. I've played in a band for years, as had Andy. In the meantime, Tyler had listened to more music than the both of us combined. It seemed only natural that, more than four years after moving out, now living in separate cities–now was the ideal time to make a record together.

(Breaks are essential to refueling your creativity. And tacos.)

Perhaps originally inspired by the album-in-a-month challenge, and then later inspired by late nights that began with pints and ended with Jim Beam Rye, we decided that we should try our hand. We were literate, students of rock and roll, played rock and roll–but aside from Andy, had never really written before. And certainly never recorded/engineered anything beyond aborted attempts at tape collage. The year of 30 was beginning to stare us down, and we were creatively unfulfilled.

(Writing is hard. Especially in a dark, dank basement. With curtains leftover from the 60s.)

In November of 2011, we locked ourselves in my basement with a drumset, some rudimentary amps, and a 4-track. We emerged with 7 tracks, I slapped a few overdubs on top, and we released them as basement demos in February. Somewhere in there, we decided, "Hey, this isn't as bad as it should be. We should probably get a real name." We made a pact to record a full-length by Thanksgiving 2012–with the caveat of not writing anything aside from the spare weekends during which we'd bury ourselves in the makeshift basement studio for 8 hours.

(Jim doesn't judge. But he does make singing easier.)

"Wooves" (a Hoosier-esque mispronunciation of "wolves") won unanimous vote over Belgian drafts, frites, and a sausage plate at the Hopleaf. Though Andy tried to naysay the following day, it was sealed. Over the coming months, we had four or five sessions, including a two-day affair that challenged our creative wells, busted our equipment, constantly edited, revised, and revisited, increased my drumming skills, and, against all odds, resulted in a batch of songs that we were surprisingly...proud of creating. By ourselves.

I hope I'm not exaggerating when I describe it as illuminating.

No, they weren't anything glamorous or refined, just honest portrayals of the creation of something from naught–forming glass out of sand is impressive, no matter how crude your glass. Oh, and it was a lot of fucking fun. So much so, that we've already started planning for LP2, while firming up release plans for the first one, YAWN.

(Part of SmallBox's ThinkKit project.)