The History of Moes Haven (By: Matt Farley)
I met Tom Scalzo in 1996, when we were freshmen at Providence College. After knowing each other about a month, we wrote our first song together. It was called "For Now, For Now." We have recorded it several times, but it has never been released.
We shared a love for the music of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, among others.
We would write songs here and there together until senior year, when things exploded. On a Wednesday in February of 2000, Tom came to my dorm room to experiment with a new guitar pedal I had purchased. We ended up spending about 6 hours recording Pink Floyd-influenced experimental songs like "Jazz Odyssey," which has never been released.
Through May of that year, we had at least one of these 6-hour writing/recording sessions each week. Our plan was to create the greatest concept album of all time. It would be called EXPLORATIONS IN MADNESS, a sprawling, 90-minute epic that would far surpass anything ever released by Pink Floyd, Radiohead or The Beatles.
In April, we achieved our goal. EXPLORATIONS was complete. We made about 15 copies on 90-minute tapes and distributed them to our friends, most of whom did not listen.
Shortly before finishing the album, we entered a Battle-of-the-Bands at Providence College. We performed five new original songs. We lost. I think the winner was Jim Gilroy and one of his bands. He was a guy who played guitar at Providence College. Everyone loved his music. No one listened to ours. I was jealous of him.
Through April, we recorded another 90-minute album, CALL AND 13 MONTIFS. Side one had 13 singer/songwriter type songs. Side two featured two 22.5-minute instrumentals. We didn't bother making more than a copy for each of us.
Two days before graduating, we spent 4-hours writing and recording a 90-minute album. It was called TASTELESS. There were 60 songs on it, all of them featuring just vocals and guitar. (Some of those original recordings ended up getting released on later CDs. It's funny to think that songs written and recorded hastily in a dorm room are now being sold on itunes.)
In July, Tom spent a weekend with me at my parents' house. We were going to a Dylan concert. Before and after the concert, we recorded another 90-minute album, THIS IS MY PLANET.
In December, Tom came to visit me at my new apartment in Manchester, NH. We spent a week writing and recording a 180-minute album called OH THE VOLUPTUOUS DELIGHT IN EXCESS!
With that, we had made five album in one year. Almost no one had listened to any of them. It was time for the world to hear us.
But all of these songs were recorded hastily on a 4-track tape recorder.
So I bought a digital mini-studio and we spent the next year re-recording all the best of our songs. We also wrote and recorded a bunch of new ones. By the end of 2001, we had more than 10 CDs filled with our best songs. We made copies and gave them out to friends and family. But I don't think anyone listened.
In 2002, we spent the whole year writing and recording songs for our 24-hour album. Yes, it was made up of 24 CDs, each with an hour of music. In November of that year, we had a listening party in my apartment. It started on a Friday at 8:00 in the morning, and ended the next morning at 8:00. About a dozen friends stopped by to experience the party. Mostly, it was just me and Tom playing video games and listening to the songs we'd written. It was fun.
In 2003, Moes Haven took the year off because I spent most of the year driving around the country in my minivan. I brought 500 copies of our albums with me. I handed out copies to strangers that I passed on the streets. I left copies on park benches, in libraries and coffeeshops, etc. Every once in a while, I get an email from someone who ended up with one of these discs. It's nice to know that they're out there.
In 2004, I was back in Manchester, NH. Tom, who lived in Boston, came up every couple of months to record albums with me. In June of that year, I discovered www.cdbaby.com, a website that provides distribution to independent artists. So we released OUT WITH THE OLD, a collection of some of our best acoustic ballads. Not many people bought it. But it was nice to know it was out there.
We also released DISLOCATED SONGS, a collection of our silliest songs, and SVETLANA FINDS SOLACE IN THE ARMS OF ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS, a concept album about Samuel Johnson and James Boswell.
Around this time, I started mailing out copies of our CDs to strangers around the country. I'd go online and find interesting websites. If there was a mailing address on the website, I'd send them a free CD. Over the next two years, I mailed out 3000 CDs.
One of those CDs was sent to a coffeeshop in Wisconsin. Someone from the coffeeshop invited us to perform there. They offered to pay $25. We agreed. Tom and I spent $300 on gas to get to the coffeeshop. We performed in front of about 20 people and then drove home. It was our first live performance since the Battle of the Bands.
In 2005, we released SOMEONE ELSE, the saddest album ever recorded, and IF NOT US, WHO?, a companion piece.
Later that year, we compiled all of our best songs on four albums:
EXPLORATIONS IN MADNESS: the finished version of our first album.
SIR PAUL MADE RAM. WE MADE THIS.: a bunch of songs inspired by the work of Paul McCartney.
MOE'S HAVEN: a raw, gritty album, inspired by TASTELESS, the album we made two days before graduating college.
DOWN WITH MEMORIES: a collection of 29 songs that didn't seem to fit on the other albums, but should be available to the world.
Then, in 2006, we recorded 30-minutes of music for each day of the year. Yes, 365 albums, each about 30-minutes long. At the end of each month, we released an album named after that month which featured the best songs from the last 30 days.
Each of these monthly albums are available at itunes, except for APRIL: WHAT A CRUEL MONTH, an experimental album that can only be purchased at www.cdbaby.com.
In February of 2007, I hosted a listening party where I played all 365 albums in a row. It lasted for 8 days, with music playing around the clock. About 30 people attended throughout the week. Tom and I played an entire season of Baseball Stars on Nintendo while listening to ourselves. It was fun.
After that, we decided not to release another album for five years. In January of 2012, we will release two albums. Between now and then, we will be working hard on these albums. For more details on our five-year-plan, listen to "Moes Haven's Five-Year-Plan," the last song on our DECEMBER album.
In May of 2007, Moes Haven's 3rd concert happened in Tim's Basement. Tim is some guy who received a free CD from me several years ago. In the Spring of 2007, he emailed me and asked if we'd do a show in his basement. Tom couldn't make it, but I obliged.
If anyone else wants us to play a show in their basement or backyard or living room, just send an email to moternmusic@hotmail.com. We'd prefer to play in New England, but we can be easily convinced to drive several days to perform in front of a small group of uninterested people.