The Diamond Stretch, loveably bizzare oddballs in the local punk scene, will release their debut full length entitled 2010 at their tour-kickoff show at Dan Akroyd’s House tonight. Packed into a surpringly tuneful 25 minutes are seven songs with titles that describe their content far better than I ever could. “Steve Gutenberg Bible”, “Go to the Playground and Rub Chunky Peanut Butter on the Kids”, “Heavy Metal, Speed Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Goth Metal, Black Metal. Also Fishing.” — hopefully you get the idea. 2010 is a blast of assaultive, experimental screamo (or skramz, if you prefer the vernacular of the kids) — with a heavy dose of vintage Jupiter (or You’d Prefer an Astronaut) atmospherics. While I’d previously questioned the ability of a recording to adequately capture the energy of the group’s batshit crazy live show, 2010 comes pretty close. I was able to sit down with co-lead vocalist Jake Mott, guitarist Nick Brannock and bassist Matt Farmer (who also recorded and mixed the album) earlier this week.
Stream “Go to the Playground and Rub Chunky Peanut Butter on the Kids”
Smile Politely: So the album has seven songs on it. How long did it take you to record?
Jake Mott: (laughing) Too long! We started recording all the music way back in May.
Nick Brannock: I think me and Matt started actual preparation back in March, right? Or was it April or something? It’s been way too long!
Jake Mott: I finally got around to doing my vocals last week, so…how long had the guitar and drum tracks been done?
Matt Farmer: Probably about two months man. It’s been a while.
Nick Brannock: So a long time in all, about six months.
Smile Politely: So was this a more complicated recording process for you than usual?
Jake Mott: It was actually one of the easiest things that we’ve ever had to do. The other recordings we’ve done we were just really hasty with.
Smile Politely: Do you usually track all your parts separately, or do you prefer to record live?
Jake Mott: Well, our first recordings, two bassists before Farmer, we recorded all the music live, and then Greg [Clow] and I went into do the vocals separately.
Matt Farmer: But since I’ve gotten better recording technology, it’s been separate.
Smile Politely: Who did the cover art for the album?
Nick Brannock: It was myself and my aunt and uncle.
Smile Politely: Your aunt and uncle? How’d that come about?
Nick Brannock: Well, my aunt and uncle have Photoshop, and are pretty good at it. I was like “I’ve got this design in my head!” It wasn’t exactly the one that we have now, but it’s what it turned into.
Smile Politely: Do you have a favorite song on the album (or barring that, which one was the most annoying to record)?
Nick Brannock: “Luc Longley, We Hardly Knew Ye” was the most annoying to record, I fucking messed that thing up so many times.
Smile Politely: How did you come up with that title?
Jake Mott: I did. I love Luc Longley — I’m a bit of a fan of 1990s Chicago Bulls players.
Smile Politely: Can we expect the next release to have a song about Ron Harper?
Jake Mott: Probably not, although he was in one of the better episodes of Keenan and Kel. He slipped on the orange soda in Rigby’s, remember?. Most annoying though, I don’t know…what did I mess up the most? There was one thing I had to rerecord like four times…oh! It was Luc Longley. I kept running out of breath. As far as favorite, I really love “Go to the Playground and Rub Chunky Peanut Butter on the Kids”, and then I also really like “Clown Nouns”
Stream “Clown Nouns”
Nick Brannock: My favorite, I don’t know…either “Clown Nouns” or “Metal”. The full song title’s so much longer, it’s just obnoxious to say. If you buy the CD, it’ll say it on the back of there.
Smile Politely: I got the copy you sent to me on mediafire, but it just says “Metal”…
Jake Mott: Yeah, because we’re too lazy to type it out, it’s like half a paragraph.
Matt Farmer: My favorties would be Pat Bright or Playground, because they’re really heavy.
Jake Mott: So this is Farmer’s first tour.
Smile Politely: Oh yeah? What are you expecting?
Matt Farmer: I’m expecting a Bravada full of men, a stinky one.
Jake Mott: Follwing an even-stinkier Cavalier full of men [Texas Instruments]
Smile Politely: So you’re taking a Bravada?
Jake Mott: We are taking a Bravada. Last tour we took a Mountaineer, the tour before that we took essentially a hopes and dreams mobile [Greg’s old van]. But I’m stoked about this, I’m the only one who gets to drive since it’s my mom’s car…so yeah, I’m stoked for tour, and I still have to shrinkwrap fifty CDs.
Smile Politely: How’d you get the CDs made? Did you make them yourself?
Jake Mott:: We hand-cut every sleeve and glued them together, and then we spray-painted all fifty of the CDs and we’re individually numbering each case. We’re in the middle of making fifty inserts, and then we got a shrinkwrapper so we’re gonna shrink-wrap ’em, and the first fifty come with a button.
Nick Brannock: It’s essentially arts and crafts!
Jake Mott: Yeah, arts and crafts that I had to take off work on Thursday for, ’cause I’m apparently the only person in the band who’s operated a shrinkwrapping machine before.
Smile Politely: Where in the world did you find a shrinkwrapping machine?
Jake Mott: Our buddy Nathan found it on Craigslist and has had it for a while apparently.
Nick Brannock: He also does guest-vocals on the album, along with Ryan McCoy from Fresh Kills and Brendan O’Connor from Leonard Hatred…they’re on Pat Bright and Luc Longley.
Stream “Luc Longely, We Hardly Knew Ye”
Smile Politely: So you have the release show on the 19th, and then a tour with Texas Instruments. How many dates are you doing?
Jake Mott: We’re doing six — Iowa City on the 20th, Kansas City on the 21st, and then Independence, Kansas and then Joplin [Missouri], then St Louis and we’re back home for tofurkey day.
Smile Politely: Has this tour been easier or harder to book than previous ones you’ve done?
Nick Brannock: This one was easy!
Jake Mott: Yeah, this one was really easy because Texas Instruments booked half of it, and we booked the other half.
Nick Brannock: It was pretty much all done by texting — this is the first tour I’ve ever had a hand in booking where I was just primarily texting, it was pretty awesome.
Jake Mott: It was really advantageous that both us and Texas Instruments have houses to play out of, so we get show trades.
Nick Brannock: That’s the best thing about having a house venue is you’re pretty much set for shows wherever you want them.
Jake Mott: Everyone’s looking to hook you back up.
An abridged version of this interview will air tonight during Smile Politely Radio WEFT (90.1 FM or online at weft.org)