1/2 Ass Universe Introduction

A question I have never been asked is, “Jared, what exactly is the 1/2 Ass Universe?” Well here’s an explanation/preview/advertisement:::

1/2 Ass Universe is combined/dissociated vision of Dave Webb and Jared Nelson (me!). Through a variety of mediums and styles, we hope to inundate the world with a bunch of music that we’ve created and hope people might like. A variety of projects represent these interests. In the last year, we have been very busy releasing, playing shows, practicing, and formlating our plan for domination over a small part of the world. Our belief is that music has not much to do with form, but more or less, passion and intent. We dabble in prog, bar rock, noise, folk, anthems, ballads, electric guitars, cheap keyboards, home recordings, acoustic guitars, glockenspiels, used artillery shells and more.

To date we’ve released a multitude of music:

Disciples of Sedgwick (2006, CDR run of 20, out of print) — Entire album composed, recorded, designed, produced, and funded by Roman White. The music is best described as power ambience. There are 18 minute subliminal feedback grooves, sparkling songs of summery joy, dissociated, mutated vocal samples, melancholy piano solos.

Boys of Summer (2006, CDR run of 20, out of print) — A joint collaboration between Jared and Roman. Roman’s plan was to capture the sounds of summer. This was primarily recorded on Roman’s four track in about four days. Encouraged by Roman’s vision, we got way out there on this one. Veering from meditative acoustic guitar drone orchestras, happy hooky pop music, broken down bar ballads, and quasi-Tom Waits deranged stops. Mostly recorded on the front porch of our house to capture the sound of the cars driving by. Instrumentation includes wine glasses, spinning ropes, amps the size of cigarette lighters, old country records, breathing into microphones and more. We’re contemplating a re-release in digipaks with new artwork for later this summer.

Nam Shub of Enki, single (2006, CDR run of 10, out of print) — Dave’s grim black-metal recorded on Christmas day all by himself. Dave programmed the beats, played all 1,000,000 million guitars and spent a lot of time making the old religious chants and goosesteps sound awesome. Our roommate and local shred God, Joe Moore, provided the over-the-top black metal vocals. Not distributed in Seattle, but was available at Aquarius Records in San Francisco last summer.

Wolf-Horse/R.I.G.E.L. (2007, CDR hand numbered run of 50 with hand-numbered, screen-printed digipaks, $8) — Roman, Dave and I performed under the names Wolf-Horse and R.I.G.E.L. last summer in free-improv rock sets. This documents two of our performances: the rumbling, eerie, sublime ambient build of R.I.G.E.L. live at Tost in Fremont (with friends Dash Pilcher on percussion and DJ Leopold Bloom on turntables); and an uncut attack on the town of San Luis Obispo recorded by the core trio. From soothing ambience to absolute power violence. Still available!!!!

The Contraband Countryband (2007, CD, run of 1000, $10) — A collection of my songs produced by Dave over the course of a year in various locations and featuring a variety of musicians including Peijman (Secret Chiefs 3, Girth), Jordan Michelman (Patience Please), and Chris Borgia (the Quit, the Tangents, Beer Sandwich). This is our first major release and looks completely professional. A big ol’ rock record with drunken sing-along anthems, towering guitar solos, psychedelia, cry-in-your-tear country songs, meditative folk, power pop, and campfire jams. Available now!!!!

LIVE PERFORMANCES

Currently the 1/2 Ass Universe is represented in person primarily by Wah Wah Exit Wound and Beer Sandwich.

We just finished a two week West Coast tour with Wah Wah Exit Wound that went quite well. Recording will commence on our album this summer. Wah Wah is a straight up prog-rock festival. THe press in Portland and San Francisco seem to like us.

Beer Sandwich is a straight ahead bar rock band primarily performing my songs and covers of Bob Dylan and Neil Young. The antithesis to Wah Wah’s organized attack, the Sandwich is just three dudes drinking and rocking. Performances are sporadic and often at house parties.

Rumor has it some Wolf-Horse/R.I.G.E.L. dates may materialize sometime in August in order to remind us of chaos.

FUTURE PLANS

Dave is slowly working on the completion of his solo album, “From Slayfest to Lamefest,” which will feature the sequel to Nam-Shub of Enki, big rock songs about his friends, and various instrumental compositions. Hopefully out by the end of the year in some form.

Boys of Summer are currently meditating on ideas for their second album, EKTIN, to be recorded sometime in July.

Wah Wah Exit Wound should start recording any day now.

UPCOMING LIVE PERFORMANCES

June 16th, The Monkey Pub, 5305 Roosevelt Way NE, $5, 10 p.m. – Wah Wah Exit Wound & the One and Only True Messiah — we return to play our favorite bar in the city (thank’s Anthony!) with the One and Only True Messiah. Fronted by the “mythical howler” Steve Van Liew, these guys play straight up rock & roll in the vein of the Drive-By Truckers and Wilco. Steve’s voice is the center piece — a wonderful growl of cracked beauty and passion.

June 22nd, location private, The 1/2 Ass Universe Solstice Celebration, free — Beer Sandwich rides again to hail the solstice! Also, a performance by incubatory metal powerhouse, Winter. Beer, chanting, food, and fires are all promised. We’ll see what materializes.

July 6th, the Rendezvous/Jewelbox Theater, Belltown — Wah Wah Exit Wound, Sugar Skulls, Tugnut (Ontario) — Sugar Skulls are a three girls and a dude on drum who play proggy, crazy, poppy great music. Violin-keyboards-drums-bass. They’ve been recording an album and it should be great. Tugnut are gargantuametal from Ontario, Canada.

July 18th, the Rebar, METAL COMPOSER BATTLE ROYALE – Luke LaPlante (Sean, Scary Bear, Spirit of Radio) has been organizing these “battle royale’s” for awhile now. The first one consisted of the Abodox, Girth and Sean facing off in a simulatneous battle of heaviness. The second one had Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls) directing musical games. The third one was a collaborative freak out between many of Seattle’s finest fringe musicians (Bill Horist, Dave Abramson, Julie Baldridge, Luke himself, Dave Webb, and more). This time around, he’s createed a bunch of mini-groups featuring members of some of Seattle’s finest out-there heavy-minded musicians (members of the Abodox, Lesbian, Sean, Sugar Skulls, Girth, Diminished Men, Fortress of Victory, Swarming Hordes, many many many more) and assigned them the task of writing some music and performing it. Dave from 1/2 Ass Universe is in a group with Dave Abramson (drummer for Diminished Men, Climax Golden Twins, Spider Trio), Brad Dunn (guitarist who just completed a tour with Brian Glaze and Greg Ashley), and Arran McGinnis (Lesbian, Golgothan Sunrise). Sure to be an interesting and cool evening.

July 31st, the Rebar, 1114 Howell — Wah Wah Exit Wound & Zdrastvootie. Zdrastvootie are on fantastic indie-label Holy Mountain (Six Organs of Admittance, Lesbian, more) and are coming up from Portland to do a show.

URBAN BOAR

Urban Boar is the literary component of the 1/2 Ass Universe and holds only a loose affiliation. A zine I began in 2005 to spread the word of punk rock and weird thinking in general it has now professionalized a bit more with the assistance of Joe Schell. A new issue is hitting streets soon featuring articles on how many people are dying ’cause their countries aren’t as rich as ours, poetry, art from Alex Rodrigues, photography from Joshua Houston, record reviews by Luke LaPlante and Dave Webb, and interviews with Dave Abramson, John Hammond (blues legend), and Jared Clifton (former frontman for Seattle rockers Radio Nationals). We’re always looking for more help/collaboration/ideas/money/readers.

More information about these projects can be found at our supefluous MySpace pages:

myspace.com/contrabandcountryband

myspace.com/halfassuniverse

myspace.com/wahwahexitwound

myspace.com/urbanboar

1/2 Ass Universe would also like to acknowledge these folks as the top of the game in this fine city of ours in various capacities: Master Musicians of Bukkake, Spoils, Diminished Men, Lesbian, Curious Mystery, Brad Dunn, Milky Burgess, Fortress of Victory, the Abodox, Sean, Patience Please, the Allegro Lounge, the Monkey Pub, the Mars Bar, the Suffering Fuckheads, Randall Dunn, the Cafe Allegro, Trading Musician, S.S. Marie Antoinette, Sugar Skulls, Jay Birkland, Tyler Morrow, and many many more

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