First things first, $10 is more than we've ever charged for music. Just want to acknowledge that it's unusual... we're in the process of making an album right now and thought this might be a decent way of supplementing funds. If you're not able to pay $10 for this, that is very understandable, and if you reach out to us we can hook you up. Also, if you pay $15 or more and send us a message we can mail you a t-shirt for fun. Maybe just check to make sure we have the design you want in your size. If you live in or around Toronto we will probably be able to just bring it to you.

Near the start of the pandemic, Dan McLay gave me a Sony-O-Matic reel-to-reel tape machine that was near the end of its life, a few rolls of tape, and instructions to record a bedroom album. I kept writing songs that I wanted to play with the band and never got around to writing a whole album just for the reel-to-reel. I did get antsy and bored enough to want to livestream some music via twitch, though, and decided to record the performance with the reel-to-reel, which sputtered out dead immediately after the recording.

So the sound quality here is a little rough. I didn't think to, for instance, wipe the reel for the first half of the performance, which was recorded over a 1976 new year's eve radio broadcast counting down the top 20 charting country songs of the year, and which can still be heard faintly behind the first eight tracks. There are some little hiccups of silence and crackling pops that aren't too intrusive but are definitely there and I just want you to know that.

The whole performance lasted two hours. I chose eight songs for this release and Rob did some mastering and we edited down some of the banter to try to preserve the feel of the performance, even though it does make me a little embarrassed to listen to. Skip the banter if you want.

I put a lot of prep into this performance, incorporating multiple instruments and found sounds recorded onto a cassette deck that I played along with for a few songs. Two of those are included here. I also played a whole lot of new material but we've decided to only include the one new song that won't be on the next album, though it may be on the next next album. We'll see.

Ok. Bear with me here. Also near the start of the pandemic, I made a twitch account for the first time to celebrate the release of the Little Kid album Transfiguration Highway. Once I had a twitch account, I thought I might see what the platform was all about. When I was a kid I loved Super Smash Brothers and have always thought it was neat that people play it at a very serious and professional level.

I became quite obsessed, devouring old tournament footage and watching streams from top players daily. It's my weird pandemic hobby. I invited Alex into a discord call and hopped into mew2king's stream and paid mew2king five dollars to shout out Alex. I did the same thing in Armada's stream and PPMD's stream with Rachel and Rob but mew2king's shoutout was just so funny and it became an affectionate little joke with all of us. So that's where the title comes from and there's where the bit of banter about mew2king comes from.