R. Stevie Moore / Jason Falkner
“I Am the Best For You”
scum stats: one-sided lathe-cut single limited to 60 hand-numbered copies, just came out today, they gonna be gone soon, hop to it!
Sadder Day Records does it again with the limited edition lathe cut!
My intro to R. Stevie is pretty funny.
At the time, 2005 or 2006, I was corresponding pretty consistently with Kelley Stoltz. He had just put out his “Below the Branches” album on Sub Pop and in some comment section in a video or whatever, someone said “eh, it’s nothing R. Stevie Moore wasn’t doing twenty five years ago.”
Having never heard of Moore, Kelley immediately searched out his songs and sure enough, Stoltz was convinced…there wasn’t much difference from what RSM was doing in the 70’s to what Stoltz was doing at the time.
(For the best example of this, check out the RSM track “Cool Daddio” recorded twenty years before Stoltz released his first album.)
Stoltz asked me if I’d ever heard of him but I hadn’t. We then both bought as much as we could directly from RSM via his website. I remember asking around Detroit if anyone had ever heard of the guy. I’m talking a dozen or so grizzled, hardcore record collectors.
Only ONE had ever heard of him, and all they could recall was his FIRST album.
Fact of the matter is that RSM has been self-recording and self-releasing for longer than most of us have been alive. Long before home recording and/or DIY was de rigeur, RSM was truly living the ethos.
For that, he has my eternal respect. He deserves to have yours too.
The song included here is a collab with Beck & Brendan Benson co-conspirator Jason Falkner. Originally released in 2015, this sucker cooks. It’s worth your time. It is but a speck of the thousands of songs across hundreds of albums that RSM has birthed into the world over the past 50 years. The least you can do is buy a copy, you cheap penny-pinching bastard!
That being said...I’m giving away a copy of this $10 valued single for the comment left here that tells the best story of doing it yourself. Ideally I don’t want to hear about music. Tell me about fixing up your house, refurbishing an old Caddy, the time you extracted your own wisdom teeth. Make it good. Ideally make it truthful. But most of all….make the comment before October 14th, as that is the arbitrary day I am closing submissions.
Buy the record here: https://
By far my biggest DIY project was raising my kid. Didn’t really plan to do it solo but that’s how it worked. Made some mistakes along the way and had some laughs along the way. He’s a good kid, even if 26 and still at home. I still make mistakes and still have some laughs. All in all, not my worst DIY project.
Worst mistake, not catching the next flight home when he got sick while I was on a business trip. I believed the doctor that it was a small thing that was clearing up yet that night he went into cardiac arrest. I should have been there for that.
Best move, buying him drums at age 12. That move and all his hard work changed his life. Look for album two over the winter or early spring.
I saw an album being given away with a link to buy one. So instead of waiting on luck, I ordered one myself.
Only 10 left for purchase…..
The real comment… Daily, as a Certified Fraud Examiner I assess, stop, and prevent fraud. In the process, saving many consumers, including you all, lots of lost money. Identity fraud is no joke, I’ve seen lives ruined, always check that credit score for any red flags.
A comment on, “doing it yourself”…
Me and some friends of mine recently started our own theatre company. We all have worked on productions together throughout college, and we’re all interested in creating new original works. I have a play that I wrote, “In The Pines” (Leadbelly may have had everything to do with that title) that kind of falls into a horror/Southern Gothic genre. So, I thought “hey this could be something we try to do around Halloween”. Well that’s exactly what we set out to do. Let me tell you, we have run into so many road blocks. For example, we looked at a couple of different theatres for space to rent out for the production, and our main pick fell through after it looked kind of promising. But after a few days of brainstorming and making phone calls, we found a new space that we could host the show at. Instead of doing this play in a traditional theatre, we’re now doing this thing in a local bookstore on October 18th and 19th. And on top of that, since we’re doing in a bookstore, we came up with the idea to do an open-mic scary story session before the play as a curtain warmer. We’ll see how that all goes soon, but there’s a lot of buzz about it, and we’re expecting a good turnout.
After a riveting Johnny Chainsaw show at the Avalon, a second floor dive bar at Belmont and Sheffield in Chicago, around the corner from locally famous Medusa’s and The Vic, I found myself slam dancing, alone. Metallica’s Whiplash coursed through my veins as I thrashed, again, alone, on the dance floor with a few bystanders watching. Suddenly, I was on the ground. Looked at my knee, something was definitely awry. The kneecap seemed out of place, so I harshly popped it back to what seemed normal. Continued my solo dance, for my own amusement and found myself on the floor again. Damn knee. Bought two bottles of beer, took a bar towel and tightly wrapped them on either side of my bad knee, hence cooling and supporting it. Stayed for another song or two, made the executive decision to drive back to college, 60 miles away instead of going home, 4 blocks away, because I didn’t want my Dad to know I was in town and not away at school. Needless to say, he had to pick me up from NIU in DeKalb, 60 miles away the next morning because I couldn’t walk, my knee swelled up bigger than my thigh and arthroscopic surgery for a torn anterior ligament and dislocated knee cap was in my very near future. Luckily, my Dad was cool, no judgement, the knee was professionally fixed, tho a bit creaky these days and I have an awesome video of the surgery that gets played at parties with Pink Floyd’s Fearless as the soundtrack.
I have a vintage orange vinyl sectional couch from my late parents house that they had ever since I can remember. It has some holes in it from my brothers poking pencils in it when they were little, so my best attempt at DIY repairs was to put orange duct tape over them, but now the color is mismatched. I heard that Jack used to work with upholstery so I wonder if he has any advice.
I will tell you I’m not really a do it yourself kinda guy. I’m more musical and not very good with my hands. I did have to help my brother in-law demo and put in a new shower. it took forever and we got super wet when we didn’t fasten one of the unions before turning on the water. it was a great bonding time. It has also inspired me to try to do more stuff around my house in Wyandotte. I’m even about to replace the boards on my front porch deck. I’ll fill you in on how it goes.
I have attempted to win a vinyl offering from you for-what-seems-like-ever. You have asked us to tell you our “best story of doing it [ourselves]”. In this instance, I will tell you a mediocre story of doing it myself…
Instead of writing something that will prove yet again to be a losing submission, I purchased one of 60 albums myself. I hope that I don’t ironically win this vinyl. Two may of these may be one too many. For what it is worth, I have already been informed that it has been shipped.