Quakers and Shakers and Puritans

Catholics, Cowlicks and Unsure-itans

Faux Jean is a singer-songwriter from Duluth, Minn. Each week he adds a new song to an evolving record series over on Bandcamp and writes about it here. “From the Mixed Up Files of Mr. Matthew T. Schindler” is somewhere between a fake newsletter and a faux press release for the eponymous wabi-sabi private label album series that continues to evolve over there. Thanks for checking it out.

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This is a special Friday edition of FTMUFOMMTS in honor of Bandcamp Friday!

Here is today’s new song addition to FTMUFOMMTSV6:

Faux Believers,

I hate change as much as the next guy.

Like, back when the Oldies station started playing Billy Joel and Billy Squire, I was pissed—‘cause in those days I was tuning in to KOOL 108 so I could hear Danny and the Juniors and the Everly Brothers, not Billy Joel¹ and Squire! Let alone Journey.²

But change is constant.

It’s the one thing you can count on.³

So when I heard the rumors that Epic Games was going to sell Bandcamp to a company called Songtradr, I was kinda like, “Oh crap!”⁴

I don’t want it to change!

Eventhough I have used Songtradr in the past to distribute some music, and they might even be a more sensible owner for Bandcamp(?), this change increases the chance of change, and as I mentioned above, I hate change as much as the next guy.

Bandcamp as it exists today seems kind of perfect to me.

The artist controls their presence and can let people stream for free to a degree before one must buy the music.⁵

Bandcamp takes a small cut to cover their costs, and every so often on the first Friday of a month, like today to be exact, they waive their fees altogether.⁶

Pretty cool, right?

And the interface is pretty cool.⁷

Bandcamp started as an alternative to Myspace, which kind of jumped up as a replacement to mp3.com.⁸

Both of these sites allowed artists to share music and reach an audience but never figured out how to compensate artists.⁹

Both of these sites kind of went “POOF” and were gone.

Bandcamp has figured out how to compensate artists.

My fear is that Bandcamp, as a result of this latest change, may go “POOF” and disappear.

Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen.

I like my little world over there.

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Enough of the business side, let’s vibe this “new” song¹⁰ . . .

From the Summer of 1998, the working title of this song was always “Y'uns were on your way to church.”

I vaguely remember running into some friends coming from brunch after a few too many bloodies who were heading into a church on a lark, seeing what all the fuss was about.

Vaguely.

That’s how this song came about.

No song was too silly for me to pour hours of my time into exploring—this is proof of that.

Thanks for listening.

I remain your humble servant,

OX&C,

FAUX JEAN

The Sony cassette that I recorded this song on was called a “CD-IT Pro,” so high was the caché of CDs at this moment in time.

Y’uns were on yr way to church 670-860.

Here are the lyrics:

Y'uns were on your way to church

Y'uns were on your way to work
When I saw you last
Drunk downright disorderly
Oh you say you have to pass
You wanna see why they don't smile
What makes their way the best
Searching looking all around
Still you come up with nothing

You got Quakers and Shakers and Puritans
Catholics and cowlicks, Unsure-itans
And I know that I'll see you at the next revival
You say that it's part of your survival
blah blah blah

Y'uns were on your way to church
When I saw you last
Drunk downright disorderly
With a smile on your face
Said you wanna see why they don't smile
What makes their way the best
I shrug my shoulders, oh I don't know why
well I guess I gotta go

You got Quakers and Shakers and Puritans
Catholics and cowlicks, Unsure-itans
And I know that I'll see you at the next revival
You say that it's part of your survival

Y'uns were in a family way
and you say that it's the best

1. If you look at the word “Joel” long enough, it seems kind of weird, right?

2. Insert grimace emoji here.

3. Old man yells at cloud.

4. Eventhough I was worried when Epic bought it from the founder, Mr. Diamond.

5. Every now and again, someone will buy my entire discography on Bandcamp—it could take years to make that same amount from Spotify royalties at the rate I’m going.

6. So please bounce over there and buy some Faux Jean music today!

7. I mentioned in a previous post that you can play the game DEFENDER on the stats page if you need cheering up.

8. In my eyes at least.

9. Although I did get a check from mp3.com for $144.00 before it imploded. The implosion came when they decided one day that everyone should pay 20 bucks a month to use the service.

10. One can listen in the player at the top of this page.