Stare Case, “blues roots” Wolf Eyes offshoot, fills debut full-length with scales, notes, and Clapton-inspired dread

Stare Case, "blues roots" Wolf Eyes offshoot, fills debut full-length with scales, notes, and Clapton-inspired dread

It was a dark and stormy night. John Olson had just returned from the Hair Cuttery and was hard at work on the packaging for his favorite American Tapes release yet — a 2xCD-R + c60 by Tipple Thief, the HNW project of Olson, Alivia Zivich, and Darren Gunt (label head of Sternum Pierce Cassettes). Strewn across the drafting table were back-to-school Target ads, printouts of Invasion of the Body Snatchers stills, and a pile of thick permanent markers. John mused on the possibility of releasing 50 copies of the set before quickly settling on a more manageable edition of 11. He took a pair of scissors and started to cut the backpack off a child wearing a Mossimo t-shirt when he heard a faint rumbling in the driveway — a sign that Nate Young was back from the Army Surplus store.

“New Spykes material?” Nate asked, kicking his boots off on the rug.

“Nah, Tipple Thief collection. Killer stuff, ‘specially the tape. Sounds like fuckin’ Masonna meets the Necronomicon audiobook.”

“Rad, save me a copy. So I had this idea for a new setup we should try sometime. I’d learn bass guitar, and you—” John was already up out of his seat and flicking switches on the reel-to-reel. 40 minutes later, the duo had over six hours of usable tape, which they immediately started editing into a series of two dozen 8-inch lathe cut records. This still left roughly 30 minutes of prime material, which they sequenced and designed cover art for on the spot, and an hour later they had a record deal with De Stijl, who started gathering press material that same night.

“I say we call the album Save Tonight,” Nate whispered around midnight, drunk.

“Nah man, Eagle Eye Cherry got there first. How ‘bout Lose Today?”

“Coool… and the band name ‘s—” He looked around John’s living room. “Boots. Wait: Coat Hook. No… Staircase.” One misspelling later and the project was complete. Nate drifted off to sleep and John used the raw recordings of his snores for a new Spykes tape, released the following morning.

Lose Today tracklisting:

01. Days Like Faces
02. First Fire
03. Lose Today
04. Bed That Eats
05. Don’t Get Caught

• Stare Case: http://americantapes.us/starecase.html
• De Stijl: http://destijlrecs.com

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