ARTIST: Bad Astronaut
TITLE: Twelve Small Steps, One Giant Disappointment
LABEL: Fat Wreck Chords
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 220kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 50m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-11-14
RIP DATE: 2006-10-20
Track List
----------
1. Good Morning Night 3:53
2. Ghostwrite 3:56
3. Beat 5:31
4. Stillwater, California 4:01
5. One Giant Disappointment 2:59
6. Minus 3:08
7. Best Western 3:56
8. San Francisco Serenade 4:33
9. Autocare 4:01
10. Violet 1:59
11. Go Humans 1:49
12. The "F" Word 8:02
13. The Thirteenth Step 2:19
Release Notes:
Bad Astronaut is the indie-rock side project of Joey Cape, lead singer and
songwriter for the flagship Fat Wreck Chords band Lagwagon and 1/5 of the
all-star punk cover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Formed in 2000, this
7-piece band has released two dark, mature, studio-heavy full lengths (2001Æs
Acrophobe & 2002Æs Houston: We Have a Drinking Problem) influenced by serious
songwriters such as the Flaming Lips, David Bowie & Elliot Smith. The band is
rounded out by former Lagwagon drummer Derrick Plourde, Sugarcult guitarist
Marko 72 and producer, engineer and owner of Orange Whip Studios, Angus Cooke.
Rather than serve you with some bloated, superfluous evaluation of their new
(and final) record, IÆll let Joey describe, in his own heartfelt words, how this
special album came to be and the influence of the passing of his dear friend
Derrick Plourdeà
ôI have been working on Bad AstronautÆs third and final album, Twelve Small
Steps, One Giant Disappointment for almost 4 years, the last year without my
friend, our drummer Derrick Plourde. If you donÆt already know, Derrick took his
own life in March of 2005, leaving family, friends and admirers devastated.
Before that day I considered not completing the record. I thought, as a whole,
the album could be vastly improved. I knew it was a lot of work and I was
already very busy. We spent so much time working on songs but none of them were
finished. None of them sounded fully realized. A lot of the song writing seemed
relatively unworthy when compared to our earlier records. Still, I knew this
record had potential and when I recovered from the shock that followed DerrickÆs
suicide; I knew what I had to do. I had to finish the record for him. I had to
pick up the pieces, sort through them and make our last collaboration worthy of
his greatness.
Given the material I had to work with, I had a long way to go and much of it was
going to be unprecedented ground for me. I spent the following weeks writing new
songs and quickly recording a completely reactionary album called Resolve with
my band Lagwagon, an equally necessary effort to honor Derrick and an essential
part of the road to recovery. After completing the Lagwagon album I continued
writing in grief. I knew many of the songs on the Bad Astronaut album would need
to be reconstructed or re-written entirely. I spent a month directly patched
into a Pro Tools session with a guitar, playing along to DerrickÆs drum tracks,
trying to re-establish the effortless chemistry he and I have always had. At
times it felt like self-inflicted torture. Other times it was a spiritual
experience. Regardless, I truly believe I grew from it all. Throughout the 4
years we spent periodically working on this record, Derrick was often in no
condition to record. Sometimes I had no idea where he was sleeping or whether he
was even alive. During one of his lapses I resolved to finish the record with a
close friend of ours, Jonathan Gorman, a drummer Derrick deeply respected.
Derrick and I never got the chance to record some of the songs we had rehearsed
for Twelve Small Stepsà In retrospect, I can see the value in releasing only the
songs featuring DerrickÆs drumming, but this wouldnÆt truthfully document the
process of making this album. In the end I did some drum editing and Derrick did
not play on the entire album but I feel it best represents what he and I wanted.
The album has a split personality because it was recorded before and after
losing Derrick. It emotes the feelings I felt throughout this entire period of
my life. I am very pleased with the album and I hope Bad Astronaut fans will
appreciate it as well, especially because it is one of Derrick PlourdeÆs last
musical contributions to this world. I consider this record to be the final Bad
Astronaut album because without Derrick, there is no Bad Astronaut. Ironically
Twelve Small Steps, One Giant Disappointment is a title that was conceived by
Derrick and I during a rehearsal prior to