When we were down in Austin in March, we booked a lot of sessions. We booked way too many sessions, biting off four times more than we should have chewed. There were four sessions that – like guests on late night talk shows which have to be unfortunately bumped to another night when the night runs too long – we had to call off. It was for sanity’s sake and it was for time constraint’s sake, as bands jammed up into other bands. We grudgingly jettisoned four great bands – David Karsten Daniels, Dodo Bird, Land of Talk and Young Knives. Mr. Daniels is the first we’ve atoned for. Dodo Bird is in the studio today and we’re working on Land of Talk for later in the summer. Daniels, as luck would have it, played the Mission Creek Music Festival in Iowa City March 31 st, just a few short weeks after we’d returned home and we were able to reschedule for a Saturday morning session. They drove on a stormy night to our place after their early show, arriving just as a Saturday Night Live re-run with Arcade Fire as musical guests was coming on. Drummer David Crawford immediately told us that he’d been in the studio audience that night. He then proceeded to go down the line and rattle off the list of all the studio audiences he’d been in. Every show imaginable, he’d been at a taping. He loved Leno, hated Letterman. We handed out the wireless network password and everyone did the Internet thing. Daniels blogged about sleeping here that night and as I was in the other room, read his post what must have been minutes after he’d put the final punctuation on it. John Ribo shared stories of our mutual friend Bill Baird of SOUND Team. He and Big Bill were college roommates. Verrry nice. Daniels lost a nickel bet (perhaps it was a dime) to Crawford as he questioned that eruptive was a word. We had a great nice. Sara Morris – a former high school cross country coach – went on a run around the neighborhood in the morning before we snagged some coffee and they played a magnificent session. Then like the Dirty Projectors before them drive a maniac’s run to the west – epic and into a blizzard. – Sean Moeller

First song
Beast (David Karsten Daniels) [4.90MB] [1281 downloads]


– original version appears on Sharp Teeth If you sweep a problem under the rug, the time will come when it will have to be dealt with, one way or another…This one is a lot of fun to play live. It’s the most vicious song in the set.

Second song
Jesus and the Devil (David Karsten Daniels) [5.00MB] [1268 downloads]


– original version appears on Sharp Teeth
When you are growing up, the difference between right and wrong is mostly obvious. It’s really only a matter of being ‘bad’ or ‘good’. As you get older everything starts to look more and more gray.

Third song
American Pastime (David Karsten Daniels) [2.80MB] [1288 downloads]


– original version appears on Sharp Teeth
David O. Russell’s “Three Kings” is a really great movie about the Gulf War. There’s a scene in there where an Iraqi is trying to surrender to a U.S. soldier. Neither person speaks the other’s language so in the confusion the Iraqi just ends up getting shot..