Photo by @tesskrope; clothes by @bookivintage

If you wanna skip straight to the artiste-provided liner notes by all means just scroll down past the jump we promise it won’t hurt our feelings, but on the other hand if you’re feeling indulgent then keep reading the full preamble directly below and either way we appreciate your patronage…

It’s to be expected when you listen to your average three-minute-and-a-half-long pop song (broadly speaking) there’s gonna be some unsolved mysteries contained therein—for instance, is Jay and Beyoncé’s 2018 trap-inflected banger “Apeshit” really merely about “livin’ lavish [with] expensive fabrics” or is that an overly literalistic, materialistic reading of a song intended more as a “socio-cultural text destabiliz[ing] Enlightenment universalism and its public/private split”?—and it’s just such questions that pay the salaries of music bloggers the world over so long as the artists themselves don’t spill the beans on what they were thinking…

…and true to form when it came time to review Big Dumb Baby’s sophomore EP Terrible Twos we had many questions to speculate on but before going there you should know that Big Dumb Baby (né Ashley Dumb Baby) is “an actor turned singer/songwriter from Nashville now living in Brooklyn [who] melds her love of 90s indie-rock with influence from her southern roots to create a distinctive and unfussy songwriting style that’s uniquely her own” who describes her music as “goo goo ga ga core”…

….now, normally, we’d speculate on what these four songs mean likely theorizing that “Jenny’s Place” was written as the theme song to a sitcom spec script written by Ashley herself in which she plays the titular Jenny who runs an underground tavern/high-stakes poker parlor/cockfighting ring out of her off-the-grid basement apartment alongside six male housemates (she tells her overprotective father they’re all gay, natch) not to mention one very nosy neighbor so yeah we’re talking Archie Bunker’s Place meets Frank’s Place meets Alice meets Cheers meets Sons of Anarchy and like any good TV show theme “Jenny’s Place” is damn catchy with a warm enveloping sound and lyrics that paint a vivid picture of a setting and a cast of characters…

…but then we thought hey, what if we actually just went to the source and asked Big Dumb Baby what these songs are all about which we figured was maybe just crazy enough to work—granted, we’ve done this a few times before but our short-term memory isn’t what it used to be—and lo-and-behold BDB accepted our offer and came through with a fantastic set of liner notes covering not only song meanings and creative inspirations (such as outright spite, among friends, natch) but also full credits for each song and some nice BTS insights into the recording and instrumental arrangements of the four songs (plus the one acoustic version, making five tracks in all) with technical details kindly provided by the EP’s multi-instrumentalist producer Ian Michael…

…with the latter being a nice, unexpected bonus cuz despite their overall unfussiness these four/five songs are downright ornate at times too esp. when it comes to some of the subtle sonic flourishes contained therein (headphones highly recommended) with flutes and recorders and violins and cellos brought to bear and so with no further ado let us hand over the floor to Ashley and Ian with a set of annotations that bring to mind the golden age of liner notes printed on back covers and inner sleeves of vinyl LPs—or in minuscule typeface in CD booklets—direct from the terrible two of Terrible Twos…

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TERRIBLE TWOS — BIG DUMB BABY

Opening Statement by Big Dumb Baby: Terrible Twos is a collection of songs I wrote in my final year living in Nashville, TN. It’s a celebration of joy, friendship and love and I’m really proud of it! We recorded the majority of the guitars and vocals in my bedroom and the rest in various living rooms and basements. Below you will find some notes on the songwriting process from me, and recording notes from the producer, Ian Michael.

"JENNY’S PLACE"

Jenny’s Place was the name of the house I lived in during my senior year of college. A grimy and horribly maintained townhouse in Allston, MA with an infuriating landlord named Jenny. There, I lived with 6 dudes: Guillermo, Aoun, Eli, Ben, Jacob and Ian. It was such a special time, but definitely the kind of living situation that would only be fun in college and while you are still on your parents health insurance. As you can imagine, it was crusty and probably mold infested. We smoked cigarettes in the basement and threw parties in the glass-dusted backyard that backed up to the loudest train tracks you have ever heard. I know none of this actually sounds fun, but there was nothing more special than coming home to 6 of your best friends everyday. It was such a loving household.

While the roots for this song are in nostalgia, I actually started writing it out of spite. Two roommates, Eli and Ben, decided to start a music project called Jenny’s Place and DID NOT INCLUDE ANY OF US!!!! So rude. So I wrote this song and didn’t include them :))) 

Production notes from Ian:

As Ashley said before, these songs were the last batch written in Nashville. The general process for the writing went down like this: Ashley writes the songs on the guitar and usually has the main riff and chords sorted out in the initial draft. "Jenny’s Place" started with that descending riff on an acoustic and essentially sounded like the alternate version you hear at the end of the EP, sans string arrangement. 

We were working out full band arrangements of this music at the time and the song had a much faster and more driving rock groove underneath. We actually recorded an entire alternate version with this arrangement during the same basic tracking sessions for "Haircut" and "Tornado Chaser." For one reason or another, it wasn’t clicking and we felt it could be stronger. We were in New York by this point and I made a demo that is the basis for what you hear now. Literally what you hear is the demo guitars and bass with re-recorded drums instead of a drum machine. Ashley reached out to Harrison Patrick Smith, right before The Dare released “Girls” and asked him if he wanted to do a remix and he instead was kind enough to add some percussion and piano, remixed the guitar loops and I believe added an acoustic.

Credits:
Music/lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin 
Production: Ian Michael, Harrison Patrick Smith 
Mixing: Saguiv Rosenstock 
Mastering: Sasha Stroud (Artifact Audio) 

"TORNADO CHASER"

I think this is my favorite track on the EP. I stumbled upon the phrase tornado chaser one day while living in Nashville and was immediately inspired. I started to think about my friend Jack and how they continue to be a hype-man in everyone’s life. They are also one of the most brilliant and chaotic people I’ve ever met. I wanted to write a song hyping them up. I also had a lot of fun with the rhyme scheme for the song as well.

I don’t like laboring over songs, or really anything in general… if something isn’t working I just set it down and come back if I feel the urge. I had been playing around with the chords I use in the verse for quite some time but nothing ever stuck. Once I started writing the lyrics, everything came together quite quickly and easily, which is always so satisfying.

Production notes from Ian:

This song was one of the first written after we released the first Big Dumb Baby EP. I remember Ashley writing the chord progression pretty immediately, I thought it sounded like something you’d hear on a Tropicalia album or something from the 60s. The arrangement and ideas for production came together when we were rehearsing the tune for live shows back in Nashville. We knew we had this song, "Jenny’s," and "Haircut," and that we wanted to record them before moving because we had a pretty great team of people to record with at the time. 

I think it was either in June or July before moving to New York when we tracked those three songs with Jeremy Berstein at his home studio. Jeremy was also the engineer for a solid amount of the first EP and we had a lot of fun tracking with him. I want to give a shout out to Victor Pacek and Aaron Lawson on bass and drums respectively, who did the amazing whole take you hear on this track. Victor has some amazing bass playing on this one, ideas I could never have! 

Credits:
Music/Lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin
Drums: Aaron Lawson
Bass: Victor Pacek 
Guitar: Ian Michael
Mixing: Saguiv Rosenstock
Mastering: Sasha Stroud – Artifact Audio

"BIRTHDAY SONG"

I wrote this song for my dear friend, Ian, who’s my guitarist and produced Terrible Twos. I think we were at his family’s house in Rochester for his birthday and I was just kind of messing around improvising and he was like “wait I love that keep going!!” I think I wrote “Birthday Song” in one afternoon…. Coincidentally, this is the exact same way my song “If Michael was a Dog” came together. 

Production notes from Ian: This was the last song I remember being written for the EP. We did a couple acoustic recording sessions in Ashley’s room in New York. I think we had the idea to have this be a chamber pop style arrangement pretty early on but needed to figure out how to do it. Sean Brennan was the one writing the arrangements for this tune. One day, Ashley and I were having a phone call and the idea popped in my head of having Chase Ceglie play the clarinet and flute parts because I had worked with him in the past and knew he was more than capable of playing the arrangement Sean was writing. 

We shot Chase a text and he recorded his parts from his studio in Rhode Island. There was a recorder part written in the arrangement and I played it on an Irish penny whistle that I had since middle school. Easily, one of my favorite moments recording was working on that recorder part in my bedroom. 

Credits:
Music/Lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin
Guitar: Ian Michael
Production: Ian Michael
Mixing: Saguiv Rosenstock
Master: Artifact Audio – Sasha Stroud
Recorder: Ian Michael 
Arrangement: Sean Brennan
Flute and Clarinet: Chase Ceglie
Violin: Lily Desmond
Cello: Sean Brennan
Upright Bass: Victor Pacek


"HAIRCUT"

I had a mental breakdown early pandemic, and shortly after went to residential eating disorder treatment where I was diagnosed as Bipolar. Before seeking professional help and getting on meds, I never recognized my intense periods of anxiety and hyperactivity as manic episodes. I find it hilarious now because in retrospect it was so obvious. "Haircut" is me making light of a heavy situation, switching the perspective and viewing as an outside spectator. It was a ridiculous and horrible time period in my life, but being able to find humor in it now is a sign of growth. Like, woah… that happened. Ultimately, "Haircut" is a celebration because, to quote the song, “I’ve been feeling sooooo much lighter, I’ve been feeling much more like myself”. 

Production notes from Ian:

When we tracked this at Jeremy’s, I had this idea of the tune being recorded in a kind of chaotic manner. There’s a part in the song where you hear a metal clanging sound and that was Aaron knocking over a mini gong from his snare drum. One thing I want to make note of too was when we were recording at Jeremy’s, Aaron and Victor were in the main studio room and Ashley and I were technically upstairs in the kitchen with the door shut to the studio, only looking at them through a small window in the door. I think I told Aaron to play bad on purpose or something. All that said, Ashley and I had no idea if that track worked or not. I remember there were actually a lot of heated debates about how I conducted that part of the session. 

The catch was, the drums were great but we couldn’t use the bass or guitar. For "Haircut," "Tornado," and the first "Jenny’s," I recorded all the guitars in Ashley’s parents house in her bedroom. She had a closet I used as an iso-booth for my amp and I’d play as loud as I wanted, very fun. When it came time for "Haircut," I remember tracking the bass part at the kitchen table at their house, and playing for her parent’s dog Ranger. The bass on "Haircut" is one of my favorite recording moments. 

Credits: 
Music/Lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin 
Production, Bass, Guitar: Ian Michael 
Mixing: Saguiv Rosenstock 
Mastering: Sasha Stroud (artifact audio) 
Engineering: Ian Michael, Jeremy Bernstein 
Drums: Aaron Lawson

"JENNY’S PLACE" – Acoustic Version

Anyone who visited Jenny’s Place knew it was a special house. So when I wrote this song I knew I wanted a second version that would encapsulate my sweeter memories of it. My friend Sean Brennan was a frequent flier at Jenny’s place and also happens to be a sick composer, so I immediately called him to create a string arrangement. He killed it as usual. 

Production Notes from Ian:

One aspect of the EP that was considered very early on was having rock tunes and more ornate folk arrangements. Sean Brennan is someone who has always been in the fold with Big Dumb Baby and truly is a brilliant arranger. We talked about this song having a chamber orchestra arrangement and figured out some names of who to record for these orchestral parts. Seamus Guy was a “Jennys” affiliate if you will and was immediately thought of to record violins. He tracked his violins at his house in California. 

In Sean’s basement, I tracked him and Victor playing cello and double bass. It was a fun experience and one of the first times I engineered strings so it was quite the learning experience. I tracked Ashley’s guitar but I believe she recorded her own vocals. 

Credits:
Music/Lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin
Guitar: Ashley Mayorquin
Production: Ian Michael
Arrangement: Sean Brennan
Violin: Seamus Guy
Cello: Sean Brennan
Upright Bass: Victor Pacek

 

Mixing jazz and rock is never an easy prospect. For every blazing Birds of Fire style powerhouse there’s at least a dozen tepid Jazz Odysseys. And for every sleek, sophisticated Aja there’s hundreds of schmaltzy smooth-jazz/soft-rock hybrids pumped directly into the dentists’ and orthodontists’ offices of this great nation. But here at DeliCorp we’re not afraid of tasty licks nor extended chords. And don’t even get us started on syncopated bass lines favoring non-triadic embellishing tones over more quotidian root notes…

…and the Hudson-Valley-by-way-of-Brooklyn musical quartet Monarch (est. 2021) clearly aren’t afraid either as demonstrated on their latest single, “No Vacancy” (recorded live in one take!) which seemingly (but surely not in reality!) effortlessly walks the line between emotional resonance and technical dexterity with Sarah Hartstein’s alternately silky ‘n’ gritty vocals adding a layer of coy come-hither-but-keep-your-distance bluesy sensuality that’s likely to bring to mind Carroll Baker’s titular vestal vamp in the 1956 succès de scandale Baby Doll for all those fans of mid-century cinema out there…

…and if you play the track back-to-back with the band’s preceding EP Sweet Little Things it’ll feel like the glory days of 2002-03 all over again with Come Away With Me and Belly of the Sun and Frank hitting the CD racks in quick succession seeing as Monarch pulls off a similar stylistic balancing act as these records where musical chops don’t preclude the ability to write a solid pop hook (“out of sight / out of mind…”, for instance) with “pop” as the leavening agent that keeps the other musical ingredients from getting too puffed up and overwhelming the recipe…

…while also setting those ingredients in sharper relief which helps explain why the instrumental components of “No Vacancy” pop like they do such as in the rhythm section interplay between Alex Alfaro (drums) and Jesse Hartstein (bass) locked in like the gears and springs of an intricate antique clock and then there’s the guitar wizardry of Nick Pappalardo moving fluently from jazzy comping to playful interplay with Sarah’s vocals to solos juxtaposing the tastiest of tasty licks with flamenco-like strumming at one point not to mention the groovy ambient-flavored guitar work heard on the song’s instrumental prelude “Melomanie"…

…and all this talk of perfect balancing acts is pretty apropos to the lyrical theme of “No Vacancy” which is all about finding balance in one’s life and maintaining interpersonal autonomy in the face of another party who’s alluring enough to be described as one-of-a-kind and the personal vicissitudes induced (“I know it seems like / I’ve got myself together / but I promise that / changes like the weather”) or as Sarah herself puts it: “[the song] captures the essence of a person’s fear of letting anyone else into their life…explor[ing] the importance of self-preservation and the need to prioritize one’s own mental and emotional well-being…no matter the temptation"…

..and when you really think about it [pause] relationships are a lot like jazz-pop-rock fusion songs ammirite cuz for one thing there’s gotta be an initial spark with any new romance and that’s the pop-style sweetness that lures you in but in any relationship there’s also power dynamics that develop over time whether you like it or not and that’s the rock side of things and then there’s always plenty of improvisation (figuring it out as you go, experimenting, etc.) that has to happen between partners too to make any form of coupling or thrupling or whatever work in the long-run, or heck even the short-run, and that’s the jazz side of relationships obviously so go check out “No Vacancy” and listen and learn… (Jason Lee)