RBK wrote, recorded, and released one song every Tuesday from March 10, 2020 to March 2, 2021, with original artwork complementing each song.
Listen here or listen/download over at bandcamp.
As a band name, rushmore beekeepers kinda started (and continued) as a joke. When I saw the film Rushmore I immediately claimed the name, regardless of a lack of both band members and bees. Off and on over the years rbk has had guest musicians, sometimes improv at live shows and a recorded song here and there, but it’s been some time since this was a band.
(Cue dramatic music)
Meet love morris! If you haven’t heard her electro folk mini-album, have a listen here. You may already know love morris rbk-wise from her singing and bass on “the name of every building.” We’ve performed together in various musical settings over the years and, for the first time in many years, have collaborated on a bunch of songs.
love morris (also know as Amanda Hawkins) is all over the new album, co-producing and contributing vocals and a variety of instrumentation. It’s the first album we’ve recorded as a duo (!), which not only makes the songs sound one million times better but is also seriously overdue; Amanda is an amazingly talented musician and one of my favorite people and we should just always be in bands together.
We recorded semi-Postal Service style, mostly because I live on the road and Amanda’s house doesn’t have wheels. I recorded my parts, sent the files to her digitally, and she recorded at her home studio in Arizona. Every time she sent a finished song to me it was like getting a birthday present, or whatever the better version of a birthday present is. The band, as it were, has never sounded so good, and I’ve never been more excited to share new music.
The new album, a reasonable distance, will be available for preorder soon, so until then here’s our first single, “fighting monsters.”
After quite a bit of time spent not writing, I managed to get productive and wrote three songs this October. Carrie shot a video of her favorite of the three, “fighting monsters,” on a cold fall day at Charlestown State Park, Indiana.
Lyrics:
don’t think you have to go down that road alone
someone is on your side
don’t wonder how you’ll do what you need to do
hope is endless as the sky
but it’s long and twisted, the path that you’re headed
there’s no way to get through but to go through it
if you’re fighting a monster, you know how that goes
there’s no way to get through but to destroy it
wind blows cold and leaves rattle, fall on the roof
sirens whine, don’t see the lights
when you do what you need to do you’ll see
hope as endless as the sky
it’s long and twisted, the path that you’re headed
there’s no way to get through but to go through it
if you’re fighting a monster, you know how that goes (2x)
there’s no way to get through but to destroy it (2x)
Ah, fall. When leaves should be changing colors, the air should be crisp, and lyrics should be pouring out of my head. Here are a few songs about the best and most elusive of seasons.
On April 21 I released my third patron-supported rushmore beekeepers song, “a good impression.” It was a quiet song when I wrote it but somehow turned into a rock song with electric guitar, drums and everything. (Well, electric guitar, bass and drums. So not everything, technically.) Read more and find out what book I still haven’t read on the Patreon creation page.
i used to be afraid of seeing ghosts
but now i wish i could
there are people i’d like to see again
and you, yeah you, yeah you, are one of them
i still have the book you said was your favorite
the last time we got together
i still can’t bear to open it up
but i promise i will, i will, i will read it someday
never know when you’ll get a bad news phone call
never know when your days will end
i just hope to leave a good impression
and you, yeah you, yeah you, you know i love you
Indie folk/electro folk duo rushmore beekeepers cover all the pivotal themes in life: love, adventure, impermanence, and occasionally the apocalypse.
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