"fuck what you said now I'm not ok / better off dead than trapped in this place / I'll go away..."
"Ripoff" is the first single off of shep treasure's debut album "500 dead or alive".
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3nhc3f5TS5wpJXashZfT3z
https://sheptreasure.bandcamp.com/track/ripoff
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3nhc3f5TS5wpJXashZfT3z
https://sheptreasure.bandcamp.com/track/ripoff
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFSScUSiYoeR9K967uQaPeA
"Ripoff" was the first single off of shep treasure's debut album 500 dead or alive.
Written by songwriter and multi-media artist Sabrina Nichols, 500 dead or alive is an intimate exploration of childhood, family, relationships, loss, and the defining moments that mold our perceptions and memories of these formative pillars in our everyday lives. Like photos flashing through the slides of an old projector, Nichols conjures nostalgic memories of her childhood through vivid lyrical imagery and a starkly raw production that paint a hyper-specific yet universally experienced story of life.
The title 500 dead or alive comes from a yard game Nichols would play with other kids who lived in her neighborhood. The rules are simple. One person throws a ball or an item, and everyone else tries to catch it. When thrown, the thrower calls out an amount of points, and whether it is dead or alive. Alive means you have to catch the ball in the air, dead means that the ball has to hit the ground 1st and everyone can squabble over it to earn its points. Once someone reaches 500 points they become the thrower.
“I chose this game for the title of this album, because I like the contrast of the intensity of the name, for such a simple game.” Says Nichols. “The songs on this album look back to times in my life when I would play this game outside, and they’re also about how I struggle to keep a sense of playfulness as I get older, so a yard game felt right.”
Though at times playful, the stories Nichols tell often brood a hint of the fantastical.
“When I picture this album title, I think to a specific time I would play this game.” Says Nichols. “I was in elementary school and living in Indiana at the time, and me and a group of kids from my street were playing 500 in an empty lot. It was incredibly windy out, which made this game extra chaotic and thrilling. We were becoming more excited and crazy as it got windier. The sky was overcast, and eventually turned a sickly green. We knew that was bad, but we were having fun and didn’t want to leave. Finally, the tornado sirens started, indicating that a tornado was approaching the area, and the noise of them combined with the wind was enough to send everyone running home as fast as we could.”
Like children playing a yard game amongst the winds of a tornado, contrasting extremes and clashing elements permeate the album sonically and thematically.
On Pappy Loop, imagery of warm beach sand, glistening moonlit nights, and sleeping on a couch all afternoon give way to feelings of longing, a cold east coast winter, and the impact of familial loss. “Pappy Loop is loosely based on a trip to Florida to visit my grandparents when I was little, and about my grandma who passed away during the pandemic.” Says Nichols. “They always had a sunny house and were very nice and we would go to beaches with them and collect shells.”
The songs on 500 dead or alive not only depict these memories through lyrical storytelling, but at many times feature artifacts and sound recordings pulled directly from Nichols’ family videos and objects found around her family’s home. One instance of this, is the delicate acoustic guitar that features prominently throughout the album.
“I mostly taught myself guitar on a toy guitar that my sister got but didn’t use much.” Nichols reflects. “It is a small nylon string guitar that I later painted green… I wrote a lot of these songs on that small green guitar. I love how it sounds, so we used it a lot on the album. Any acoustic guitar you hear is that toy guitar.”
“I love the green guitar. We went to a beach one time and Sabrina brought it, and it had a lot of sand in it probably for a lot of the time we were recording with it.” Adds Keegan.
For “Yellr,” Nichols and Keegan created a time-traveling sound collage to provide the song its timeless, lived-in atmosphere. “We recorded the green guitar onto my Radioshack tape player because I like the hum it makes; it kind of breathes and mimics my own breathing, which can be heard in every guitar take we did when it’s soloed. The end of that song has a clip I found from a VHS tape in my family’s home videos, of my sister on the deck of our old home when she was maybe 4, singing and clapping about our dog Shep, while he happily walked around her, and I played on the ground beside them.”
Self-recorded, mixed and mostly performed by Nichols, along with the help of Kitchen’s James Keegan who serves as co-producer and mixer on many tracks, the album sounds warmly homespun and infinitely expansive. “One more struggle was that I was trying to learn how to record and mix during this. There was a lot of trial and error and redoing things, or else setting it aside for months if I was frustrated.” Says Nichols. “I learned a lot from James, who has recorded every Kitchen song himself, and he recorded and mixed most of these Shep songs while I watched and helped.”
“When we started recording the album I was in school for music, so I was kind of in a mindset that things had to be done right. I think I lightened up as the process went on.” Keegan reflects. “There aren’t a lot of albums that I love that don’t sound weird and fucked up in some ways. I think a lot of people who are recording stuff or mixing stuff on an amateur or semi professional level have a desire to make things sound clean and professional that can outweigh the desire to make something that has its own character. I think we ended up making a lot of choices that went against that urge, which I’m happy about.”
500 dead or alive arrives on CD and digital services April 7th on démodé recordings.
"Ripoff" was the first single off of shep treasure's debut album 500 dead or alive.
Written by songwriter and multi-media artist Sabrina Nichols, 500 dead or alive is an intimate exploration of childhood, family, relationships, loss, and the defining moments that mold our perceptions and memories of these formative pillars in our everyday lives. Like photos flashing through the slides of an old projector, Nichols conjures nostalgic memories of her childhood through vivid lyrical imagery and a starkly raw production that paint a hyper-specific yet universally experienced story of life.
The title 500 dead or alive comes from a yard game Nichols would play with other kids who lived in her neighborhood. The rules are simple. One person throws a ball or an item, and everyone else tries to catch it. When thrown, the thrower calls out an amount of points, and whether it is dead or alive. Alive means you have to catch the ball in the air, dead means that the ball has to hit the ground 1st and everyone can squabble over it to earn its points. Once someone reaches 500 points they become the thrower.
“I chose this game for the title of this album, because I like the contrast of the intensity of the name, for such a simple game.” Says Nichols. “The songs on this album look back to times in my life when I would play this game outside, and they’re also about how I struggle to keep a sense of playfulness as I get older, so a yard game felt right.”
Though at times playful, the stories Nichols tell often brood a hint of the fantastical.
“When I picture this album title, I think to a specific time I would play this game.” Says Nichols. “I was in elementary school and living in Indiana at the time, and me and a group of kids from my street were playing 500 in an empty lot. It was incredibly windy out, which made this game extra chaotic and thrilling. We were becoming more excited and crazy as it got windier. The sky was overcast, and eventually turned a sickly green. We knew that was bad, but we were having fun and didn’t want to leave. Finally, the tornado sirens started, indicating that a tornado was approaching the area, and the noise of them combined with the wind was enough to send everyone running home as fast as we could.”
Like children playing a yard game amongst the winds of a tornado, contrasting extremes and clashing elements permeate the album sonically and thematically.
On Pappy Loop, imagery of warm beach sand, glistening moonlit nights, and sleeping on a couch all afternoon give way to feelings of longing, a cold east coast winter, and the impact of familial loss. “Pappy Loop is loosely based on a trip to Florida to visit my grandparents when I was little, and about my grandma who passed away during the pandemic.” Says Nichols. “They always had a sunny house and were very nice and we would go to beaches with them and collect shells.”
The songs on 500 dead or alive not only depict these memories through lyrical storytelling, but at many times feature artifacts and sound recordings pulled directly from Nichols’ family videos and objects found around her family’s home. One instance of this, is the delicate acoustic guitar that features prominently throughout the album.
“I mostly taught myself guitar on a toy guitar that my sister got but didn’t use much.” Nichols reflects. “It is a small nylon string guitar that I later painted green… I wrote a lot of these songs on that small green guitar. I love how it sounds, so we used it a lot on the album. Any acoustic guitar you hear is that toy guitar.”
“I love the green guitar. We went to a beach one time and Sabrina brought it, and it had a lot of sand in it probably for a lot of the time we were recording with it.” Adds Keegan.
For “Yellr,” Nichols and Keegan created a time-traveling sound collage to provide the song its timeless, lived-in atmosphere. “We recorded the green guitar onto my Radioshack tape player because I like the hum it makes; it kind of breathes and mimics my own breathing, which can be heard in every guitar take we did when it’s soloed. The end of that song has a clip I found from a VHS tape in my family’s home videos, of my sister on the deck of our old home when she was maybe 4, singing and clapping about our dog Shep, while he happily walked around her, and I played on the ground beside them.”
Self-recorded, mixed and mostly performed by Nichols, along with the help of Kitchen’s James Keegan who serves as co-producer and mixer on many tracks, the album sounds warmly homespun and infinitely expansive. “One more struggle was that I was trying to learn how to record and mix during this. There was a lot of trial and error and redoing things, or else setting it aside for months if I was frustrated.” Says Nichols. “I learned a lot from James, who has recorded every Kitchen song himself, and he recorded and mixed most of these Shep songs while I watched and helped.”
“When we started recording the album I was in school for music, so I was kind of in a mindset that things had to be done right. I think I lightened up as the process went on.” Keegan reflects. “There aren’t a lot of albums that I love that don’t sound weird and fucked up in some ways. I think a lot of people who are recording stuff or mixing stuff on an amateur or semi professional level have a desire to make things sound clean and professional that can outweigh the desire to make something that has its own character. I think we ended up making a lot of choices that went against that urge, which I’m happy about.”
500 dead or alive arrives on CD and digital services April 7th on démodé recordings.
No comments:
Post a Comment