On April 29, 2017, my mother passed away suddenly and peacefully. After a few weeks of sorting thru her stuff and my feelings it dawned on me that I could make songs as a means of documenting my feelings. A part of what had prevented me from recording in the past was limitations in equipment, a lack of a proper drum set, a lack of time and a general lack of motivation.

When the first song came to me, rather than hang with it for a while or play it for a few days or even record the riff into my phone I opted to hastily set up a microphone and my 4 track in the bathroom and record the riff i had just come up with on my 12 string acoustic guitar. Once I was done with that, I recorded another guitar, then the bass, then I ran down to the garage, pulled out a set of crappy child sized drums, set them up, and recorded "drums". Following an acceptable take, I ran upstairs, immediately mixed it, recorded it onto the computer and I was done. I liked my result just fine, but I more enjoyed the enthusiasm and the urgency with which I recorded the song.

So, with that first song, the mission was set:

conceive, compose, record/arrange, overdub until all 4 tracks are full, mix and move on.

I decided that I would use as many guitars as possible, I would try as many configurations of instruments as possible, I would try messing with tape pitch, I would try different mic placements that didn't make sense, but most of all, I would NOT put too much thought into the songs. What came to me was what it was, I learned them as I recorded them and often times forgot how to play them soon after recording them.

The sequencing of these songs is the order in which they came out of me. I had considered re-sequencing them but it just makes sense to leave them chronological, kind of showing how scatterbrained my grieving process was through out.

I had only planned to make these songs until it felt natural to stop. On what would have been her 55th birthday I recorded a song that simply had no title but it wasn't until the NEXT song that I recorded that I realized that I am actually finished with this musical chapter and am now moving on to another theme.

Brown Lasers (the blues and r&b band that I play drums in) has a song called "My Mom Has The Internet" that is a direct reference to Deborah Frances Davis and was a sort of catalyst for this process as well. After she was gone, playing the song became extra emotional for me, even though, musically speaking, it has NOTHING to do with her. That was a part of why I decided not only to write a song for her, but to write an entire album for/about her. I must also give some credit to Mac Demarco and Alex Calder for reminding me that you don't always need professional gear and a professional attitude to make sincere recordings.

I miss my mother more than I could have imagined and I can't help but think that she would have liked most of these songs. Aside from her, these songs are for me. I love them. I am very proud of them. I simply wish i never had to write them.

Thank you for reading this many words that I have written.

Sincerely,
Trever Lee Smith