Download individual songs...
The Space Leech Invasion
Creamsicle Nebula
Glitter Formulation
Backalley Altair 6
Kessel Run in Twelve Parsecs
Eisenhower Interstellar System
Jim's Beaming It In
...or download it all as a zip file
Full EP
I'm using Mediafire to host the MP3 files. They're a legitimate site even though they may look predatory. Please forgive the ads on the download pages.
All these songs were recorded a year to six months ago, ( except The Space Leech Invasion which I cooked up somewhat recently ). That's enough time for them to sound foreign to me, like a stranger recorded them. The mind that produced them is different than the one I'm carrying around now and it's been less than a year.
All these songs were released one by one on this blog ( again... except The Space Leech Invasion ). Not too many people downloaded them, but here they are together as one unit. Hopefully the new EP context will breathe new life into these songs, and people who just started following this blog will download them and hear them for the first time.
As for the band… let me tell you all about that… I imagined The Galactic Ashleys as an institutional rock band, like GWAR ( except with less spectacle and better music) . The kind of band where the members don't matter, and it's more about the uniform, aesthetic, and sound. The drummer could die unexpectedly in the morning , a new one could be found that afternoon, given a uniform and a handbook, and be able to play a quinceañera that night, and no one in the audience would bat an eye.
It would be a live rock band franchise, designed to create a party wherever it played; not an adult party where people are flaunting status and jockeying for social positions and slimy seafood hors d'oeuvres are resting on beds of ice, which are resting on gold plated plates, which are resting on white gloves which are covering tense, angry brown hands. Nor would it create an adolescent party where pheromones and alcohol get in the way of real fun. The party atmosphere we'd create would be akin to an eight year old's birthday party, where everyone is hopped up on pizza and sugar, and are out of their heads and running around like maniacs screaming and dancing without any inhibition.
It would be a four or five piece and would have a live drummer. The music is supposed to sound familiar, with simple melodies and structures, but weird instrumentation, and wiggle room for improvisation. We would all wear white suits splattered with flecks of day-glo orange and magenta paint, shiny black shoes, and dark ties, and have merit badges we'd wear on our guitar straps ( the drummer would have a merit badge vest ). Some of the merit badges I brainstormed are pretty funny. Take a look at my journal where I worked out some of them. I especially like the Rage Enducer badge. I still feel like getting someone to punch you in the face just by playing music is a sign of accomplishment.
I was going for a psychedelic Boyscout aesthetic, where things can be sloppy and structured at the same time, both loose and precise, like a room recently dusted and vacuumed, but still cluttered and filled with neat junk. It would be highbrow in a low budget sloppy way… like the original Star Trek and William S. Burroughs.
I haven't abandoned the idea but I have another musical project with my good friend Ben Gebo, a more stripped down, guitar and drum two piece with vocals. It's more manageable and fits our apartment dwelling lifestyles, but if two other people with musical chops, and an easily accessible rehearsal space in Boston or Cambridge Massachusetts dig the idea and want to join forces they should let me know. We can become The Galactic Ashleys -- Southern New England, the flagship Galactic Ashleys franchise, providers of wholesome rock n' roll entertainment to civic centers throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Southern New Hampshire.
I did most of the heavy lifting on these songs but here are people who've contributed riffs, ideas, sound clips, and influence ( whether they're aware of it or not ) to make these tunes…
Ben Gebo ( co-writer of Jim's Beaming It In and Glitter Formulation, bandmate, fountainhead of positive psychic energy )
Abe Edelman ( guitar and keyboard meister on Backalley Altair 6 )
Daniel Dubois ( album title, aesthetics )
Matt Kenney ( inspiration for Jim's Beaming It In )
Gene Rodenberry ( low budget outer space grandeur )
William S. Burroughs ( sound clips, sloppy-high-browedness)
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