WOOD ANNIVERSARY
released OCTOBER 4, 2021
ALBUM 38, RELEASE 103
The 5th anniversary of Hello Whirled was a fun time. I started playing live a bit more frequently, I had a website where I (get this) listened to my entire discography and wrote about it, and I made this cool big album where the songs have really long titles because I thought it would be funny. "Chance Encounters With Everyone I Thought I Loved: A Fiction" is, in fact, what the title says it is. I think the tuning was F#ADGBE. I thought it might be a neat idea to put a huge slow burn in the opening slot. You can do that with longer albums. The delivery of " I am floating in the water trying to escape what isn't gone, you are electric as you've always been to keep me from moving on" is one of my favorites in the entire HW discography. The guitar solo that follows it is pretty strong too. The key change at the end wasn't intentional, it just sort of fell that way. It works. "Crown of Fools" was written for No Victories, and when I canned it I used most of the lyrics for a new song titled "New Crown". I decided that actually I was still right the first time and the song was worth saving, so I wrote mostly new lyrics. There's some killer bass runs in verse 2. I like "Route 999" but it reminds me of something annoying I did all over this album: the vocals are fully on the offbeats. It's a symptom of what at the time was a new and raging obsession with mid-period Kleenex Girl Wonder/Graham Smith. There are other examples of this across the album, but I'd rather talk about other stuff by then. "Teacher Takes Drugs In Front Of Students" is a neat song about coming back to my alma mater right after graduating to teach a 1/4-credit course. The title refers to me taking Ritalin in the student break room (the "U-Lab") before class. That was a truly surreal thing but it was a paying job and it forced me to come to terms with graduating during Covid. The guitar sound comes from a delay with a short delay time and a good bit of feedback. "There Goes My Guesswork" is a fiction about one of those people who breaks news about evil big corporations and get killed for it. It's like all those Boeing whistleblowers. I didn't realize the drums in "The Girls of Roselle Park" took so long to come in. I didn't need to do that. It's not one of the biggest hits here. "There Is No Life In These Eyes" is one of my favorites on here. It's mostly instrumental and it's fairly spooky. It's kind of a precursor to what HW sounds like these days, at least some of the time. "Maximum Riffage And Cartoon Violence" is another winner. The organ and guitar don't always play the same chords, and that's why the song's so good. There's a cheap Staples hotel bell at the end. The lyrics may be the first time I ever alluded to having thoughts about my gender, something that happened very occasionally for years but never dominant until summer 2025. If memory serves, "God It" was the first song I finished for this. I think this is mix 3 or 4. It was in danger of getting axed until I finally had the levels balanced. "They'll Make A Movie About My Life But It'll Be A Bad Animated Kids Film Exclusively Starring Washed Up Actors" is mainly relevant because of its goofy title that's too long, but 5 years and 1 gender later, I hear something almost commercially viable. It's not quite there, but there's a classic radio hit in there somewhere. "Crystal Time Star Dream Journal" is a beautiful song when the words run out. I originally wrote "Let's Dance" for a video game I was working on (I participated in a number of game jams in late 2021). "Three Songs Played At Once At Incorrect Speeds" is what the title says it is. I'm not happy with the mix of "Labor Day" but the song itself is great. The harmonies in particular are some of my favorites I've ever done. I worked Labor Day that year and I had a breakdown during it. I had to make some real life decisions after that. "Full Blown Makoto" is my pop-punk song, which I'm not jazzed about because I didn't write it to be one, but that's totally what it is. People liked this one. I performed this one pretty often for a year or so, but I found it exhausting to sing (see also "Cheerleader") so I retired it. The titular Makoto is a reference to the Makotos of Trigger Happy Havoc, Persona 3, and Persona 5. "Voicemail" is one of my dumbest songs. I played some riffs over a weird voicemail I got. All my voicemails are AI bullshit now. I miss stuff like this. "Wallpaper" is an actual short story I wrote at my purgatorial mall toy store job. I remember taking my first Delta 8 gummy ever before I recorded the spoken word. You can hear it kick in at around the 8-minute mark. I took too much and greened out that night, and was so spooked I didn't take another bite of a gummy for a month. I don't think I've taken a break that long in years. The piece itself? I'm not even really sure how to talk about it. It's not really a song even though there are bits with singing.