The Short Wave Mystery- Sophomore Slump CLV 006

1) I'm a Toad
2) Fan
3) The Beach
4) Thoughts in a Haze
5) The Tenth Grade
6) Unfortunate
7) Lauren
8) What You Did to Me
9) Nothing Makes Sense
10) Last Year
11) The Last Night

Matt Elliott- vocals, guitars, bass, electric drums.

Recorded in the Summer of 2005 (with the exception of Nothing Makes Sense, which was made in the Spring prior), this album displayed a significant jump foward in all areas of Matt's music. The first "side" (tracks one to six) was recorded within a week when Matt was still in a highly creative phase coming off his emotionally volatile first year of college. The second, written and recorded mostly toward the end of the Summer, relfected the influence of emo-pop and the melodic lessons learned series of classes Matt took at the Berklee of Music in the middle of the Summer. As with the debut, Matt remixed and resequenced this album in 2007 to conform to his new indentity as the Short Wave Mystery, swapping "Dennis" (a song and recording that wasn't even remotely from the same time period) for "Last Year", recorded in the same sessions but forgotten until now. New art, a self portrait in the band practice room of Matt's freshman dorm where the States rehearsed, replaces the old photo.

The Short Wave Mystery- s/t (CLV 005)

1) The Ballad of Bobby Brown
2) Ghost Town by the Sea (semi Jandek cover)
3) I Hate Everything
4) The End
5) Tuesday at the Beach
6) Ice Cream Girl
7) Zombies in the Supermarket
8) Bartly the Bat
9) Garden Gnome
10) I Know You
11) Regarding the Stand
12) On a Star
13) Let Me Get Away
14) Where

Matt Elliott- vocals, guitars, bass, electric and acoustic drums
Brian Tobia- drums on 12

This is resequenced and remixed version of the CD Matt handed out to his friends and family in 2004 under the name Upstairs is too Far. Matt decided to produce a new edition when he changed the project's name to the Short Wave Mystery. Thus, though it was not recorded with under the band's current name, it essentially counts as the first Short Wave Mystery album. It comes with a number of bonus tracks, including the original demo of "That's My Bag", the Fridays' barnstomping punk rocker. New art, a drawing of Matt's cartoon character Louis Lump

When were they made?

The tracks sound incongruous partly began they are: they were recorded in four separate bursts in 2003 and 2004. Originally meant to follow the Basement EP, the album was put off many times as Matt became involved with the Fridays and subjugated his solo project to the band. Many of these songs were therefore meant as solo demos for the Fridays and had Fridays versions as well, but most were never recorded, making these the only versions that exist. "The Ballad of Bobby Brown", "Ghost Town by the Sea", "The End", the version of "where" selected here, and "Garden Gnome" were all written and recorded in the Spring and Summer of 2003, just as the Fridays were beginning to rehearse (though the version of "Ghost Town" here is from the Summersteps compilation The Corwood Variations, and the version of "The End" selected here uses a revised drum track and guitar solo done sometime in 2004). All of them except "Garden Gnome" were intended for this original Fridays album Matt put on hold when Cliff and Seed joined the band. "On a Star", Regarding the Stand", and "Tuesday at the Beach" were part of Matt's December Project in the fall of 2003 in which he tried to write a song every day in December (he gave up by the 5th). Up until this point, Matt was writing all his songs with the intentions of using them in the Fridays. "Ice Cream Girl", recorded in the Spring of 2004 and rejected by Fridays guitarist Mike Seed, marks the point at which his solo project became its own entity. The songs recorded after this were made with a solo band in mind, and Matt took the chance to fully indulge his weirdest impulses without the worry. "Bartly the Bat" and "I Know You" were originally part of an EP recorded not long after "Ice Cream Girl" called War Doves, and released on the internet under the name Justin Bailey and the Metroids (upon discovering an incredibily similar one-man band with the same name, Matt began to record as the States permenantly, though he'd originally been reserving the name for a project with drummer Brian Tobia that never came into being (though Brian's drums, in the form of an old loop from 2002, did eventually make it onto the album). "I Hate Everything", "Zombies in the Supermarket", and "Let Me Get Away", as well as the version of "Ghost Town selected here, were made in the Summer 0f 2004, when personal resentments and summer jobs had all but broken the Fridays up.

Matt Elliott- vocals, guitars, bass, electric and acoustic drums
Brian Tobia- drums on 13