Got home from work. Our last day of 100k+ monthly listeners. The big surge happened this day last month, and it's dropped bigly since then… so the number will fall. But I'm hoping we stabalize around 60k and can comfortably remain there. I'm not even sure if these spotify monthly listeners are important. i mean yes they are real people, but will they come to the show? it's listed on the spotify… and according to the stats i've thousands of listeners to the LA area. So they'll see it. Will they come to the show? I don't know. We have our first rehearsal for it this Saturday. Me on guitar/vox, my beautiful gf on drums, and my old friend Lincoln on bass.

You know Lincoln played in the version of Watson Moon I put together in LA. It was 2018 to maybe early 2019 iirc. I was a lot more concerned with playing live then. But I found it far more difficult in LA than Seattle. The caliber of bands we were playing with was massively improved. It was not anything special to be in a band. I was intimidated by all the other bands. Every show I went to, these unknown bands were absolutely phenomenal. And that version of Watson Moon was… not. No offense to the players. We had our New Orleans drummer; god what was his name? PHIL! And a very cool civic engineer for a second guitarist. We played at Silverlake Lounge and Molly Malones. Not pay to play like so many other places. It seems like that has gotten worse. Well our great second guitarist moved to Arizona and we faltered as a 3 piece. Lost momentum. Phil quit not long after. I saw it coming I suppose. We were jammy. We sounded like Phish I always said, which Phil didn't mind as they were his obsession. The focus shifted after that. I never the need to maintain a live band after that. So I pull one together whenever we book a show. Dozens of people have played in Watson by now. That style will continue. And band members are harder to find than you'd think. Email me if you want to be in the live band that plays once a year 😂.

So Lincoln's back. A good guy. Good guy. I think he works in a bank now. Gringotts. Anyway I got Powder Keg kinda blown up on Spotify but what else? It will fall off and where will I be? Still posting. Remember Avi Buffalo? Such a great project. 11k monthly listeners now. Cymbals Eat Guitars, probably in my top 10 bands of all time… 6.3k monthly listeners. I really have more than them? They are legends to me. It's laughable. It doesn't seem to mean much. Of course it actually represents one hundred thousand induvidual people listening to my music, if we can assume there are no bots (not sure that's a safe assumption). 

I just wonder. I put in all this work and I just wonder what it's really doing. It's just numbers on a screen. I wonder if the songs are actually affecting real people. I get people messaging me on tiktok saying they dig the tunes. The occasional IG comment. So definitely there are real people enjoying it. But for some reason it's hard to imagine. I sit alone in this office making all these songs. No one hears them before release. Sometimes my lovely gf (for some reason I'm hesitant to use her name. Scared some internet maniac will find her). But that's it. It's a very private process. And I'm sure listening to them is a very private process for the people who do. All thru the internet. 

Anyway that's why we're throwing this show at the Tiki. I want to see if actual people will come out. People I don't know. People from the INTERNET! I hope it sounds it. I guess I'll have an idea of the sound at our first rehearsal on Saturday. Early work tomorrow. The owner of the music school/record store was hit by a drunk driver. Broke his arm bad. I'm taking many of his students as well as manning the store for the afternoon. Long day. Long day then gym with the GF at night. Had a rough day today. Don't know how much I should talk about it here. I'm a bit scared of saying everything. Anyone can read this you know. In the songs I'm totally free. Anything could be true, anything could be a fantasy. What do I say in the new one?? Kiss me while you still can, we're living in a death camp. Well??? is it true? O dramatic Watson, is this privileged life really a DEATH CAMP in your eyes? That's a whole nother conversation I'm afraid. But I just wanted to tell you… or tell nobody (that's the audience to this blog at this point; no complaints thought) my thoughts tonight. On this september 15 that will not come again. As we hurdle towards some nightmare dystopia. The death camp. I try not to think about it. I'm just one man. I'm no Grindelwald. Besides, wasn't he evil?? He too wanted to turn the world into a death camp… though I'm sure that's not how he thought of it. Ok I'm rambling now. I must go before you get too bored.

Signing off from my grimy office, with my OneRingToRuleThemAll lamp illuminating my wrinkling face,

Watson Moon

well, you guys all know I’m a huge Harry Potter At least I have been in the last few weeks as I through the books. I guess weeks ago I was feeling kind of inspired by this little baby defeating Voldemort. I wrote and recorded a demo of the who lived in my bed.

well, I often throw the demos into logic to reference them as I build up the actual songI used tools to align the demo to the click and it worked wonderfully. So I just the demo and recorded over it, adding  and an extra vocal layer and some distorted guitars to the chorus. but a lot of it is demo. So that’s a new way of working for me. Explains why some of the lyrics are a little bit muttered. 

make no mistake. It’s distinctly about Harry Potter. He is a powerful guy chased by Voldemort. Oh, I shouldn’t have said his name. My friend Christy said “no this has got to be about facing darkness in a bleak world.” I said “yeah well kind of. if youre Harry Potter in the darkness is the evil fascism of Lord voldemort’s government.”

i’m on the deathly hollows right now. How the heck does he have so much influence over the ministry of magic? Why have they changed their entire system into like blood purity testing grounds? I mean he’s just some evil guy on the loose. Comparable to a leader with a bunch of crazy followers in our world. Why does the of magic automatically just turn into this weird fascist thing? First, the previous administration was already treating centaurs and House elves  like scum so it doesn’t seem that different..

Anyway, I didn’t expect to enjoy the book so much coming from Lord of the rings. Of course the writing is a little more elementary, but you can’t deny that the stories told are top-notch. anyway gotta teach a student now so I will say more about that song later.

well i've been making so much music lately that i had to venture to the distributor's site to remember what these two are called… Extra Thermal Theatre and THE BOY WHO LIVED… which is about harry potter ofc, which i have been reading intensely. i just started deathly hallows.

but anyway the first one… EXTRA THERMAL THEATRE, really doesn't have much to do with a theatre at all. had to use the old billy corgan naming trick for that one. you know: “Say you write a song about a chandelier, and the chandelier gives off light. And the light is the color red and red reminds you of the color your not supposed to wear around a bull. So you name the song ‘Cow.’”

ggood old billy. anyway that first new song is are kinda like swaying and classy i think. got strings and voices going “ooo” it's old timey. but then i speak with my bass guitar which was broken and is actually just a pitched down guitar . “i was never meant to roll” i say “now i'm running w/ this girl i barely know” and the some erupts into this beautiful garden. really some of my favorite stuff i've done in awhile. the TEXTURES! i love the textures. and of course it crescendos with me whining about the modern world. that's all i'll say about that one for now. i can dig in deep to the 2nd one later.

powder keg somehow caught onto a spotify algo or something so it's been doing big numbers. we're almost at 100k monthly listeners!!! we are at 99.5k or something!!! what will happen when i cross that threshold?? and seeing as most of our fans appear to be on streaming services and not really social media, i thought it would be an interesting idea to throw a show. to see how many people would actually turn out if the show is displayed prominently on the spotify page. and also most of our listeners are from the so-cal area so we know there are 1000s of them listening. if only i can get the venue to post the show on their site!! i need a good poster. i better one. but anyway these are the things i'm dreaming of. 

wrote another “beautiful” song last night (i thought) so they are oozing out of me. as i say in EXTRA THERMAL THEATRE “kiss me while u still can, we're living in a death camp.” so i try to get as much out as possible. and it seems there are people actually out there enjoying it!! for the first time in my life. so that warms my heart.

keep around people!! we are very excited for watson moon and i have much left inside me to say!!! god bless you and love you all!!

ok we got a new song. not sure what it's about but it appears pretty dark. just another man walking around a post apocalypse city and then everyone dies. lol. but yes i do think it is pretty cool. I like the lines To your death throes, We make love, in the black dusk,The world explodes around us,So naked with the blood and gore.

that's what it feels like right now to me in the world. but i'm also whipping up some awesome new songs i've been obsessively sitting at THE COMPUTER occasionally picking up my instruments. So lmk if u love or hate the new song and i will adjust my music accordingly. or will i?? no way to know!! powder keg blowing up on spotify too!! for some reason. just keeps getting recomended to people thru the radios. so that's pretty cool. but as you can tell from my frenetic writing, lots to do lots to do. deep in the middle of this song about a HAUNTED HOTEL. back to it now wish me luck!! and lmk what you think about (the curse of the) BLACK DUST!!

watson

OK, so I’ve been thinking about ways to get the fans more involved recently. Recently we had that big surge in powder keg numbers. Not exactly sure how people are finding it, but I think a lot heard it on tiktok. 🤷

I welcome all of our fans to brainstorm ideas on how we can connect with the fans.

Should I make personal videos talking about myself or maybe just music videos?

I was also thinking about making a monthly newsletter. We these before, but I got discouraged thinking many people were reading them, but maybe I should get back at it.

if you have any ideas, please don’t hesitate to send them to watsonmoonbooking@gmail.com

or literally just comment below! that might be the easiest way.

we got an awesome new song coming in a couple weeks thank you guys so much for your support! 

ps:  here’s my custom nonchalant emoji I made I thought you guys might like it. It has a LOT of applications.

ok it's about Epstein island!?! that's what ya'll wanted???

I kid I kid but seriously this song is kind of about Epstein island. I didn't really get the idea until halfway into writing it but once I got to the second verse I had these dark references to a mysterious island and uncomfortable SEX. and i said "it's epstein"." so i rewrote some lines. “i'll comb thru all the files for what you've done” but as for some of the other lines, who knows? is epstein holding ME at the beginning of the song?? where am i rushing to to make it ON TIME? and who is this person doing terrible things to pay their bills?? these questions remain to me so if you can help me figure them out i would much appreciate.

the other song is called THE PARTY. it is about this girl from indiana who planned to kill her boyfriend by speeding her car into a brick wall. and she planned to just have the passenger side collide with the wall. and she succeded in this terrible plan. but there was another unfortuante soul in the car as well :( . after this happened she was living it up on social media. people suspected her but there wasn't any evidence… until they retrieved her car logs that showed her driving that route to the brick wall 8 times the day before the murder!!! “practicing”

so she was early and thankfully put in prison. 

“Mackenzie Shirilla was convicted of murder for intentionally driving her car at 100 mph into a brick building in Strongsville, Ohio, killing her boyfriend Dominic Russo and their friend Davion Flanagan. She was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.”

you see i am not making this up!!! tho to be fair i make up a lot of things. and many of my songs and posts are just fantasy worlds you may or may not wish to behold. but shudder not, there is forever an alternate fantasy being constructed in my office right off from the kitchen. 

about the party, i like it well enough but i'm worried the organ is too loud in the chorus. also the first bit is drenched in reverb then all of that reverb disappears when the beat drops into the chorus. so you see, there are things i will forever worry about in this song. but that is the case for every song i'm afraid. overall these are just the creator's lamentations. i'm sure you noticed neither of those sad details.

don't you love the rain rain rain rain rain chant in the second verse? lots of fun stuff in this tune with an awesome sax performance for andy morrell.

been listening to WILCO - YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT studying it, thinking about having LESS. my songs are o so maximal you know? o to be silent and meaningful. we'll keep the chaos but we'll have room for it to breath. i haven't begun experimenting with this style yet, and another 3 songs are lined up to be released SOON. i pushed the release date to be SOONER because i want to be forced to work on new stuff. can't say “o i got 3 weeks til those three songs come out i'll be fine.” nah i gotta whip sumthing up!!!

those 3 songs i think you'll love. posted one of the soundcloud secretly if you're a true fan you can go get early access. but um yeah wilco experiments hopefully coming soon. i think about blonde too when i think about that SPACE. but wilco's reverb is a lot more natural and subtle. BLONDE is kinda FULL but still minimal. Wilco has legimente space. I think about some radiohead songs too. like that one all the girls want to make out to that came out as a b side of a song from the bends… what was that damn song called? TALK SHOW HOST. that is a song with SPACE. i was amazed it was from the bends era. Sounds like some in rainbows shit. But yes radiohead does space well. anyway just thoughts on this noxious night. july 27, 2026. trip with the family complete. but i can't get into all that. thank you anyway for listening! stay tuned!!

-watson moon

we got two new songs!! they are “love song for a liquor cabinet” and “you're frightened of growing old.” 

now i have a challenge for you. listen to these songs before you read this...

done???

ok now answer this riddle: what is different about these 2 compared to all my other catalogue? i'm very interested to know if you can tell they were recorded very long ago. i was just a kid of 18. i was new to songwriting.

but would you have known?? to me they feel not so distant from my modern output as one would think. so they are. two new ancient songs reborn for the modern world. some of my first passable songs. i was working at mcdonalds living at my mum's house. i think you can hear the mcdonalds influence in the tunes. i was fresh out of high school, all friends gone away to college. i stowed myself away in my mother's basement and recorded my first real album.

i've updated just a few elements for this release. i've layered the vocals with modern ones. but i only had the masters. no individual instrument tracks. so i could not have altered the mix much even if i wanted. so the songs are mostly the same. could you tell???

send ur answers to watsonmoonbooking@gmail.com

My friend Dan Pritchard said to me “I love the new album, not many people make Concept Albums anymore.”

I said “huh.” Although I'd thought of the themes and wanted some to consistently appear, I didn't intend to make a concept album. Listening back I already see changes I'd make. I think it would have been wise to have Concrete & Cobblestones and track 2, in place of I Left Home. (But there are many changes that could have been made. I do like the album as it is.)

Maybe the concept album idea arises because I purposely made the intro song as an “opening the book” song. It says “Ok, these songs are just tall tales accumulated thru my life, now have a seat and listen.” So begins the album.

But anyway, the themes. What are the themes of this album?

Well I'll list what I think they are then I'll consult a profressional.

I'd say

1. Childhood Abuse
2. Escapism
3. Disillusionment about the modern world
4. Searching for transcendence/God in this nightmare 21st century
5. Maybe… crime??? Lots of seedy characters that appear

These pop up a bunch… but there is no real narrative. The narrative is that these are all vignettes / recollections by the narrator (the character Watson Moon)

The Oracle notes the reccurance of HELL, saying:

Hell isn't elsewhere

One phrase keeps resurfacing:

• "I was in hell."
• "I am in hell now."
• "I was back in hell."
• "Now I'm in hell when I planned for heaven's door."

Hell isn't presented as punishment after death. It's everyday existence:

• work,
• boredom,
• addiction,
• modern America,
• loneliness,
• failed relationships.

The songs suggest heaven is imagined constantly but rarely reached.

"I think of heaven / I think of heaven / I think of you."

There is longing for transcendence, but earthly life repeatedly drags Watson downward.

It also brings up MOTHER a lot. I guess I do bring her up.

"I call my mother on the way and tell her what I've done." That's talking about the guy who killed Gabi Petito

Anyway I feel like I'm just glazing myself writing about my own lyrics in this way. If you have any specific questions ask me!! 

UPDATE: THE SONG AREN'T ACTUALLY COMING OUT TIL FRIDAY THE 19th!! So bookmark this away and save til then.

The songs we have this week (You're Frightened Of Growing Old and Love song for a Liquor Cabinet) were written and recorded a very long time ago. Here is the story.

I wrote these songs while working at a McDonald's, living at my mom's house. I'd just dropped out of college after freshman year. The reasons are a bit hazy now. I'd made a few friends, but I didn't feel it was the right place for me. Something was just pulling me away. I can't say if it was a good or evil force but I surrendered to it.

My mom had bought a new house and there was a basement. I took refuge in a little room that would later become  wine cellar. I 'd been making music starting maybe 8th grade. Watsonish music. Primitive Watson. And after 4-5 years of much fun, now faced with no real prospects, I decided what better time to make an album.

Or did I decide that? In those days it was just go go go. I was a manic creative, it came effortless (not trying to glaze myself because it does NOT come that easily today). So I don't remember what the “goal” of this album was, but I started making music in that basement. I even remember getting the McDonald's “you're hired” call between guitar takes in that basement.

I think I wrote most of them in my room, on acoustic. Then I would bring them down to the basement and doll them up. I programmed drum parts for all the tracks I remember that. Exporting some solo drums and then recording in Audacity!! Yes these two songs were done in Audacity. And I had a crazy pedalboard back then so we were recording chaotic sounds straight from the Spider 2 into my SM57 (by that time I'd finally gotten an interface instead of direct to USB mics). O gosh the memories the simplicity. We didn't know how good we had it.

The reason I bring these two back now is because I don't really have a song ready 100% for my usual monthly drop. I've always liked these 2 songs. I like a lot of them on that album. I think 18 was when I started writing songs I actually was proud of. You be the judge!!! That ain't to say I definitely wouldn't have done a lot different now. But that's the beauty of it. 

Anyway they sounding very thin at first. And I was just mixing in lame headphones so you know how the bass can get BIG. I only had the masters So I cleaned them up and recorded some layers vocals on top of what was already there. Added a master reverb subtly to tie it together in a room and make it not so brittle. But pretty much just that. 

Much changed for me after I angrily quit the McDonald's call over being super sick and all that's another story. Anyway enjoy the songs if you want I thought it was a fun story.

well i made it. i lay away many nights comtemplating this album.

i wanted to give a voice to the kids who were terrorized by their parents. 

we all know how we can retreat into our own imaginations and build SHIELDS. and we can weave tall tales. walk around the playground at recess. who knows what the other kids are doing we are CONSTRUCTING.

and this album is an ode to that. i think of each song as a child's fantasy. there are bad things in their lives and these are the worlds they build. til it's light out at the end and their mother tucks them into bed.

but then the EPILOUGE and they're a teen, deep in the nightlife… perhaps a prelude to the next album. or a prelude to SEE YOU OUT THERE or GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL… nightlife albums. maybe the albums go in circles. i will be more clear and answer more grounded questions about this album later. tonight, as i release it, i'm caught in a pink wind. you know you've been there!

hope you all enjoy the STORIES!!

watson