Fish eye

demos iii, bonus

Another day 1 track for the real heads

If you know about this song, you are in the top 0.000001% of fans globally and have been entered into a raffle to replace one of the members of hippo campus! If you win you will replace Whistler on drums. He is not leaving on his own accord, but you are forcefully pushing him out! What will become of him, we do not know, but we welcome you with open arms, new drummer!

This song was written within the very first batch of songs we put together. The official history goes something like, I (Oh) I, Violet, Sula, South, Fisheye, and the list goes on. Where Fisheye fell between the cracks, I cannot say for sure, but this recording comes from our time with Dustin Kiel. The friend with whom we recorded our first album, which eventually ended up being shelved, per the advisement of a local confidant at the time. Listening back now, I hear a well-written song, recorded very capably, and I’m at a loss for why we opted never to release it. Perhaps it was a thread in a greater textile that we felt didn’t represent us fittingly. But after its tenure in the time capsule, it looks different than I remember.

I remember playing a house show in June of 2013. It was a party for DeCarlo’s Birthday. Allan Kingdom and Bomba De Luz accompanied us on the bill. These names were the who’s who of the underground local scene. Naturally, DeCarlo was and has always been at the epicenter of the local scene. So It was no surprise that he played in all of the bands anyway. We had a three-song set that night. I (Oh) I, Fisheye, and Violet. We were playing in the living room of a duplex so it was only courteous to keep the set short. What happened during those fifteen minutes was enough to convince Whistler (and ultimately the rest of us) to defer from his University education and stay in town to keep the band alive. It was the joyful, sweaty, shoulder-to-shoulder reverence typically found at house shows. It was an unadulterated acceptance of music and community. It was one of those glimpses that you’re lucky to get just a few times in your life, that distills clearly what it might all be about.

It seems out of proportion now, but Fisheye was a part of that. Part of the spell that we cast on ourselves to see it through. Why it didn’t make it onto some proper release, I still don’t know, but I hear some of the reasons we decided to pursue this band. I’m glad to hear it again. Thanks for dredging this back up for us.