I Confess (LP)

“Album of the year right here. Has the vibe of a 40s B-noir and hits like a mix of Johnny Thunders and BONE MACHINE-era Tom Waits” 

William Boyle

Author of Saint of the Narrows Street and Shoot the Moonlight Out

Here is what Tyler has to say about making I Confess: I’d reached a double-dead end. No money. No band. Then I got a notice from my landlord. The rent was going up. Didn’t really know what to do but I started to look at my stuff with the terrible thought of packing it all up. Looking through my closet I found my Tascam Portastudio 4 track cassette machine. The material dictates the art. Four tracks: guitar, drums, bass, and vocal with percussion (tambourine and maracas) and harmonica on the same track. Microphone. Reverb unit. Not knowing what else to do and certainly not wanting to pack up my junk, I made a record.

I’d been traveling around the country for work the last number of years. Lots of visionary landscapes—places in the mythic (and mystic) West. Ghost blue highways. Lonesome motels. Pocatello, Twin Falls, Lemon, Flagstaff. Little trails down into empty canyons. Old Rt 66 ruins. Open prairies of Native lands. Big sky, yellow tides of wheat. Kicking around dilapidated Old West parks. Little Big Horn. Wounded Knee. Sacred spaces. I’d usually have a day off or an hour to check things out between job sites.

Most of the time I spent in rooms with sunken, concave beds, true crime TV, and domestic disturbances in the hall, peeking through the keyhole, a little light coming from the bottom of the blinds. Western books and detective novels. Loneliness. The smell of some unknown bloom on prairie wind. Sound of a train coming round the bend. Regret. Notes on Super 8 stationary. And a guitar.

When I had a few days (or late nights) off earlier this year I put the machine on the kitchen table and plugged in the mic. I wanted to catch the first mind ideas. The mistakes. The awkward forming of a song. It still feels like the first time I used this machine twenty five years ago. The moment of creation is what I’m after. And I love the way it sounds. It may seem self-indulgent but considering my extreme lack of commercial success I really don’t know who else to indulge but myself. But they aren’t making many of these so you better get one while you can.

Track List:
Side A

1. Out on a Limb
2. Lost in the Desert
3. Buckskin Girl
4. Black Cloud Blues
5. High Plains Drifter
6. I Should’ve Know It Would End Like This

Side B

1. I Confess
2. Coming of Age
3. Heart of Hearts
4. Woke Up Dead
5. I Had to Let You Go
6. My Spirit Was Raised Inside