I have mixed emotions. I love to gig, but I also love getting our material out there for the fans. I was hoping that the album would be done by Christmas, but with gigs on the horizon, and the Gangrene Film Festival in the offing, I’m not sure we are going to make it.

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As of last week, we roughed in the music–1 mic room recordings–of act one. I think its sounding pretty good. Tonight we will either continue to rough in tracks or we will lay down the music for act one. Either way, I am happy.

We’re starting to get ancy to play out again. I guess I’ll have to drum up a couple of summer gigs.

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Last Voyage of the Black Betty $10.00 (free shipping) The story of Captain Stark and his nemesis, Captain Henry Ramos.

The Flight of the Filthy Vicar $10.00 (free shipping) The memoirs of a condemned pirate, rotting in his cell, awaiting his time to hang.

Tonight is rehearsal. We have been mopping up the music to go behind the spoken word parts of the album. It’s sounding pretty good. I always enjoy this part of the process because it is so collaborative. We all sit in a room and put up ideas. It’s like: “How about this?” and everyone jumps in. Pretty soon we have a song. Most of our songs come to the band pretty complete, at least lyrically and musically, from one musician’s standpoint. The spoken word portions of the albums are truly a melding of everyone’s ideas.

Aside from the 3 spoken word acts, there are two more songs in the offing to appear on our third album: one written by Rick Nef (sax player), the other written by Nate Peck.

We’re getting close, man; I can feel it.

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It’s funny, but I’m having some trouble with this song. It seems on the surface that it should be easy to score, but this is not the case. I tried a funky bridge, smack-dab in the middle of a heavy metal bed, and didn’t like it (although I might steal the bridge and use it somewhere else). At the height of my frustration, my midi controller keyboard broke down. I don’t know what happened; it just gave up the ghost and stopped working. Thoroughly frustrated, I had to shut everything off and go to bed.

On a better note, RUSTMONSTER rehearsal happens tonight. There are 2 items on deck: Rick’s song, and the backtracks for the spoken word parts of the album. Either way, I expect to have a blast.

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The problem is, I still want to produce this script. I’m thinking about wrangling together a few actors and putting down the VOs then scoring it myself. It feels a little bit like the art rock, filk classic, War of the Worlds.

If I decide to do it, It will be a pretty big endeavor. It will probably span 2, or maybe even 3 albums. One reason I want to do it: I love collaboration. I think it would be a kick to work with some actors in producing it. I have a lot of talented friends that I’m sure would help out. Or maybe RUSTMONSTER might kick in if I show them the script. It needs a bit of revision before I would allow anyone to read it.

The other thing to consider is: I have two side projects on the table right now. I’m working with Scott Brough on a comedy heavy metal album, and I’m still planning on getting a Halloween themed album out this year. I can’t open another project and expect to close all three in a timely manner.

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I have to say, I love Rick’s new song. It’s the first song Rick has written outright and brought to the table. Rick, of course, brings a ton to the creative process with his brilliant sax chops, but its nice to work on something that he has written. His song has kind of a tango feel to it, which is really fun.

As for scoring the music behind the spoken word parts of the album, I am always afraid of this process. I feel like we are going to bomb out. Then, as we begin fiddling around with different riffs, it comes together. I end up saying to myself, oh, yea, I forgot, we CAN write music.

Scoring to the spoken word parts of the albums has a different flavor of pleasure. Nobody in the band can claim writer ship of these grooves because they are so collaborative. Someone will lay a melody or a riff on the rest of us and we will all just jump in and see what happens. In the end, I feel that these grooves are, in some ways, the strongest parts of the album.

I’m excited about the third album. We have redoubled our efforts and hope to have it finished pretty soon.

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A very short scene in an obscure Rutgar Hauer film called THE BLOOD OF HEROS inspired this discussion. This film came out in 1989. It starred Rutger Hauer and Delroy Lindo as part of an apocalyptic sports team that travels from city to city playing a death sport that involves shooting goals with a goat skull while beating the ever-living tar out of each other. It really is a great film. I would recommend it. It feels like Hoosiers meets Mad Max.

In one scene, the whole town parties after a particularly bloodthirsty match. In a single shot, an apocalyptic band plays some music. The instrumentation is a combination of found percussion, scrapped together instruments, and an accordion player. When I saw the band in the film, I said to myself, someday, I want to do that. The result, roughly 6 years later, was RUSTMONSTER.

I feel I have to say that RUSTMONSTER is much more than my vision. There are 7 fine musicians that make up the band. Every one of them brings his talent and perspective to the band. I am only 1/7th of the creative process. But, from my perspective, this is what inspired RUSTMONSTER into existence.

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Yesterday, out of the blue, Scott showed up at mediaRif unannounced. We rehashed old times. We talked about our philosophies on art, farting, and the cuts of people pants. I got to spend 2 whole hours with him. It was a delight.

I’m excited about the Acid Holiday project. Like all other projects I get involved with, this one is for laughs. I don’t think we’ll have too many sales with song titles like Death Sandwich and Fecal Explosion.

-Craig Nybo

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That leaves Rick Nef’s–sax player–song on deck next for recording. After that, we have 2 more, one from Larry and one from Nate. We then have to record music under the spoken word parts of the album, then we are done.

We talked last night about getting a few more gigs. We are all feeling a little ancy to perform. The only problem is, with rehearsal only happening 1 day a week, it’s either finish the album or tighten up the set for a gig. If we gig, we will put off the album release. We decided, reluctantly, to put the gigs on hold. Although I am going to contact the Ogden Amphitheater to line something up for this summer.

Just a side note, Aaron Ozminski–tbone player–competes on the circuit as a marksman. He takes it serious, practicing 3 hours a day in his garage. He recently sol Rick Nef his gun. Aaron took Rick to his first competition and, at rehearsal last night, Aaron said Rick didn’t do too bad. This doesn’t surprise any other members of the band; anything Rick does, he does well. We are all rooting for Aaron and Rick in their marksmanship endeavors.

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We are currently rounding down on our 3rd album. It will be a continuation of the story on our second album, Flight of the Filthy Vicar. We are looking forward to finishing. Tonight, we plan to lay down a new song, The Ballad of Barnacle Backed Billy. This one was written by Mike Terrell, the guy who wrote Blood and Bone, and Still A’Smilin’. He’s a good writer. His new song is solid. I think people are going to like it.

Currently, we have recorded 6 of what we call minus tracks for our untitled, 3rd album. Minus tracks are songs that are incomplete. They are songs, minus the vocals, solos, horns, or some other part of the arrangement. We have 2 songs on deck: Barnacle Backed Billy, and a song written by Rick Nef, the sax player. The last 2 songs of the album haven’t been written yet, but Nate Peck, singer, aux percussion player, accordion player, and Larry Nybo, drummer, have ideas they want to flesh out.

Once we get these last 4 songs down, we will have our customary 10 songs plus 3 acts of story commentary. Boom, album 3 is born.

-Craig Nybo

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