flies are crawling across my desk

lots of flies here in summertime

withering summertime

not the full blooming july but september

did drums today for a batch of new songs

the best of which is called I GOT LOST

and it talks about getting lost in a field

 i also put the finishing touches on

ANIMAL YOU'RE AN ANIMAL!!!

which is this other new song i got going with a big smashing pumpkins fuzz section in the middle

it's a bit schizo and all over the place so idk it might not be a release priority even if i like it

it takes like attention lol so i think people may not pay attention

i prefer to release the more immediate ones is that crazy??

have i sacrificed my artist integrity?

perfect BOOM it's gone

now i'm FREE

anyway alyssa in SD today for a very strange costume party

she is dressed as a butler i believe

what's the next watson release?? o yea! it's one where alyssa introduces it

it's got her voice at the top then some lyrics bout Sharks

i AM THE NEXT ELLIOT SMITH (lol)

jk elliot never wrote bout no sharks

but its coming out… gee i dont know when… few weeks?

it'll be fun but i don't think it'll help too much

aint rly a tiktok song… more of a Shark one.

so yea i still put out the weird ones. 

Got yugioh on gameboy from Alyssa for the bday

32 and i finally got YuGiOh!!

My whole life waiting.

anyway i will prob do a lot more work on music today as alyssa is out til late.

so wish me luck.

but that's my update

remember when it started??! i sure don’t. but i guess i did when i wrote this song many years ago. it was a foggy autumn in bellingham wa and we had BIG plans for forever. then all the sudden it was a blazing summer in a haunted house. frat boys clamoring and me writing about a lost love.

I’m kidding when I say I don’t remember. I love NOT remembering…. I love toiling in the present moment or even projections of the FUTURE… but the past is a grotesque animal. but for you the fan I can elaborate.

The year was 2012. I’d dropped out of college and was working at McDonalds. Living at my mom’s house in Issaquah Wa. In college I’d felt the same way I’d felt in high school; directionless, and I was feeling a bit guilty about wasting my grandparents money when I wasn’t even sure I wanted a degree. So McDonald’s it was. For about a year I laid patties on the grill. One night I got home to an empty house and poured myself some of my mother’s scotch. I was desperately sad. I was a passionate loner. I mean, I had passion. I had a passion that was searching desperately for something to absorb into. This aimless passion was causing me a good deal of pain. I believe that morning on the way to work I’d made a pledge to let go of my dream of ever getting a girlfriend. Earnestly, to God, I’d said “Ok. It’s not going to happen.”

Whisky in hand I logged on Skype. Who knows why? Instantly I was being messaged by a girl I’d met last year in college. We’ll call her Tiffany. Tiffany had also dropped out. She hadn’t even made it thru the year. Her restlessness had sent her to some sort of study abroad program in Costa Rica. But now it was Autumn. Sophomore year had begun, and she was back in college.

We began talking and things spiraled insanely out of control. Within the first few days she was begging me come visit. 2 hours up the I5 from Issaquah to Bellingham. “WELL I GOTTA GIVE TWO WEEKS NOTICE TO TAKE A DAY OFF FROM MCDONALDS” I said.

But somehow I did get a day off and I made the trip. What happened when I first got up there? I rack my brain to remember. I think I ate dinner with her and her roommates. They’d all moved into 614 E Myrtle St, a blue house with a red door. A truly iconic location.

(i've inserted a picture of the property here but the internet has failed to allow it jsut f*ckin google it!!!)

I was very shy but happy to be there. Tiffany didn’t care much about going to class. We slept late and went to Harris Ave Cafe (since burned down in a fire) in the sleepy afternoon.

I visited once a week or so, and I was on a cloud. Eventually I ragequit McDonalds after they tried to force me to come to work with the flu. And, having begun to form a band on my frequent trips to Bellingham, I resolved to move back. So ended the McDonalds era. But it was only really when we lived so far that the lavender haze was so thick.

A year later we were broken up. I’d spent the summer in Los Angeles taking anthropology classes. I returned to Bellingham and rented a house with a few music scene boys. 1234 Ellis. The Jacuzzi House. I was sick with what would later be diagnosed as chronic Lyme disease. I laid in bed and wrote. This must have been 2014. “Remember when it started?” I waxed poetically, weeping and groaning. The whole thing had come and gone like some delerious dream. I recorded some sentimental songs.

I rerecorded this one here in the year of our Lord 2025 cuz I always thought it was a good song. It captured the feeling. All of that for a song. Bellingham in 2012 was a wonderful place to be. (Orange County 2025 is a wonderful place to be).

I wonder what it’s like now.

Anyway that is the story behind the new Watson Moon song WHEN IT STARTED. Next I will tell the story of how I wrote Pennyroyal Tea! Rofl jk that ain’t me and you KNOW THAT. (but we did do a cover)

-watson

i’m going to try to make some music like elliot smith.

what strikes me about elliot’s music (esp figure 8 my fav) is how Perfect it. It ain’t “slacker” rock like my beloved built to spill or modest mouse w the “1st take best take philosophies” In Elliot’s music everything is perfectly placed , perfectly in sync. It isn’t sloppy. it’s the opposite of sloppy. and i’ve been chasing sloppy cuz i think it’s real and human. but i also want to make a beautiful, Musicial masterpiece. Not like a masterpiece of emotion of expression but like a masterpiece of chord progressions and beautiful melodies. i’m trying to say these are two different things. you get pure cathartic release like nirvana and yes they have great melodies but the real magic in it is something else. the character of kurt’s voice. but elliot just Constructed these gorgeous songs/mini symphonies. they were masterful you know? they evolved and morphed over their courses like classical music. so yes that is what i really try to do next with watson. and i’ve already started writing a few tunes in his style. just his style of chord progression. 8 bar loop with augmented lol it’s more than that of course. not exactly technically sure what i’m copying of his. i need to study more cuz elliot is def someone who you can tell STUDIED the craft just in his song structures and arrangements and chord changes. anyway this is what to expect from watson in the next few months.

o speaking of New music, tonight we also have a song coming out called “elliot” about elliot. funny it was written maybe a year ago, this obsession has been evolving. i tried to do it in his style but it isn’t complicated enough to rly be truly elliot esque. hopefully you like it tho. i’m in the parking lot of albertsons just got a celcius soda gotta get some food before work.

peace/love/respect watson

I’m nine years old on the baseball team. The long season has culminated in this. IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT GAME OF THE YEAR.

Win this one and we go up against the Cardinals for the championship trophy. The teammates are ecstatic, imagining Glory, Immortality; the fabled pizza party.

I don’t care much for the game. As usual I’m thinking about anything but baseball. Dinosaurs, space, the mysteries of death and Pokemon Blue. When my team is in the outfield, they stick me way out. So far into the grass I might be guarding second base in a different zip code.

I’ve even missed inning changes before. Lost in stupid daydreams I’ve stood out there while the enemy team took the field around me. Too shy to ask what the hell is going on, I was shepherded back like a disabled sheep.

This game I make it back to the dugout. And the game is close.

Bottom of the 9th. We’re down by one run. BASES LOADED. One run gets us in. Just ONE kid has to make it home. 

ONLY PROBLEM? I’m up to f*ckin bat!!! And I’M THE LAST CHANCE WE HAVE!!!!

A strategic catastrophe on the coach’s part. How did he let this happen? Little League baseball is this man’s entire personality. He has nothing else. He pulls me aside, sweat glistening off his sunburned forehead, eyes flailing wildly.

“Hit the ball with the bat,” he says. 

“O” I say, realizing that’s what I was supposed to have been doing this whole season.

I approach the plate like a man walking to the gallows. Everyone knows the odds. My teammates are hoping for divine intervention. They chant. They scream. There’s desperation in the air. The poor fools want to believe I’m hiding some secret talent. They’ve seen their movies. They want an underdog moment.

The pitcher throws the ball and it whizzes past me.

“Strike one!”

A collective groan.

Again the ball flies by.

“Strike two!”

My blood is boiling. The pressure is unbearable. This is it. My last shot. The pitcher winds up. I swing at the blur.

“Strike THREE - you’re out!”

The enemy dugout explodes. Joy, savagery, bloodlust. It’s a Roman coliseum.

I walk back to the dugout in a daze, trying to pretend none of this is happening. Some kids are merciful. They pat me on the back and say, “You did your best.” Others throw their mitts into the dirt and scream their first curse words. (I later found out the coach was terrible to his wife. It’s possible I sparked a domestic violence incident that very night.)

I already know this feeling. Shame. Heavy, slow-moving shame.

But there is relief mixed in.

Baseball season is over.

Epilogue

The coach got home to his frail and terrified wife. “THAT DAMN KID RUINED EVERYTHING.” He was drunk again. And in that darkened house he unleashed a primordial fury few could imagine. Later my schoolmates would recount the dark rumor. I carried the memory close, later writing a Watson Moon song about the situation. “Leave Your Husband.” That’s what I wanted to say to her. I wanted to take her aside after the game, say ANYTHING. But I was just a kid. And I was terrified. We all were. 

He died eight years later of pancreatitis. My parents toured his empty home as prospective buyers. But even bereft of furniture they sensed an energy so dark. Evil leaves a trace. Hearing the news at 18 I wept in my room. The world was free of an evil man but it was a drop in the bucket. I knew there was so much more to come. I knew I hadn’t seen nothing yet.

It was a brisk summer day in Bellingham, Washington. My friend Addie and I decided to go crabbing in Blaine, a beautiful seaside town just south of the Canadian border. A quick 15-minute drive for what was supposed to be a relaxing day, soaking in the seldom seen sun and waiting for hoards of moronic crabs to crawl into our traps. That’s all we wanted.

Lost in the summer daze, we blew right past the last offramp to Blaine. The last exit to America.

The interstate narrowed, the signs got aggressive, and we realized we were in the long, creeping line toward the Canadian border. We were crawling toward bureaucratic hell.

“Is there anywhere to turn around?!” we groveled, the panic setting in fast. We had brought along 12 ounces of marijuana to smoke as we crabbed… nothing crazy, just a stoner’s picnic. But now it felt like a brick of heroin under a spotlight.

This was the summer of 2017, and the Canadians were on edge. Some nasty drug murders had recently occurred near the border, and security was tight. There was no way to turn around. We were locked into this nightmare.

After what felt like an eternity, we rolled up to the immigration booth.

"We just missed our exit, we just want to turn around," we tried to explain to the stone faced man. 

His hand twitched towards his pistol. “Pull the car over there,” he said, gesturing towards a concrete government building.

We obeyed, now fully spiraling. We pleaded with anyone who would listen as they guided us into the austere facility. They separated us, funneling me into a side room humming with fluorescent lights.

At the time my hair was long and voluptuous. I was also rocking a tie-dye t-shirt for some reason and carried my water in an empty jug of orange juice. I looked like a walking stereotype.

“Have you ever smoked marijuana?” one officer asked.

"Fuck no!" I said, extremely offended by the question. (I had in fact never smoked marijuana in my life).

“And what’s your relationship with the girl?” they continued.

“Well,” I started, “she’s my ex-girlfriend’s old roommate, and she (the ex) is actually pretty upset that we’ve remained friends.” I launched into the details of the breakup. The officer listened intently for five or six minutes before cutting me off like a bored therapist: “That’s great. Back to the drugs.” I denied him again.

Finally they finished searching the car and brought us back to it. Addie was weeping as we reunited. The Canadians had really done a number on her. But apparently they had found nothing.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Let’s get out of this filthy country and go catch some crabs.”

As we climbed back into the car we both saw it: a massive nug of marijuana sitting right on the center console. Out in the open in plain sight. A fuzzy green middle finger to the entire concept of competent law enforcement.

We exchanged a bemused wordless glance. We paid God our respects for the cosmic absurdity of it all.

Then we drove to the Blaine pier, caught 12 crabs in record time, and returned to Bellingham triumphant.

For a week, the entire friend group was eating good.

Canada can keep their poutine and politeness… I’ve seen their dark side. And needless to say, I’ll be crabbing south of the border from now on.

well WES is moving into my house on tuesday. wes from watson moon (bass for live shows.) he says he has a whole smorgasbord of musicial equipment to bring. we plan to turn the big empty back room into a studio. a bonafide studio!! very exciting. i'm hoping it will change the way i record. because i've been recording the same way, in my tiny office for 5 years!! which is a long time. and i feel the location really affects the process don't you agree. 

i'm also excited to explore recording more AS A FULL BAND. maybe it will encourage me to write more songs that work well in that style. i wanna write my I SAW HER STANDING THERE. wouldn't that be swell. or maybe like a GOOD TIMES BAD TIMES. y'know just rock and roll. 

its always good to have Projects to look forward to. build things, create things. don't rot away in front of the computer. computer is strictly for consulting about technical stuff. in my dreams!!! i am obsessed with the computer. and just the most mindless brainrotting videos. but anyway, just very excited about this Wes chapter so I would love to keep you all on this blog updated as we build.

And the house vibe will change a lot too. The girl who is moving out (we shouldn't name her out of respect) brought a very intense “closed door” energy to the place. Many times at 7PM she'd knock on my office door and say WATSON CAN YOU PLEASE GO TO THE BACK ROOM YOU'VE BEEN PLAYING MUSIC ALL DAY." and i would feel ashamed. and i know they were laughing at my vocals as i recorded.

so it will be a long process to throw off that energy. some people make you feel like you can't show your face in your own house. i'm ashamed to have fallen into that. it feels like weakness. but she would whisper to people, turn people against me. And when she couldn't turn them against me she'd turn them against the next guy. So it felt like all my music the last 4 years has been recorded in secret. I wonder what is going to happen now that she's gone. Will I be able to shed that feeling???

-watson

two darker ones. I listen to them and get greasy and nauseous. 2 songs made in the scorching summer.

at first we thought it'd be summer of love and we had our fun for awhile. but some darkness befell us. my closest cousin gone in a flash. i always looked up to him as a kid. "I'm not crying" I said at the funeral home. "it's just a rock in the eye"

of course the summer stretches on. even to this day it wakes us up with its sweaty&noxious gas. the fan just spreads disgusting heat. I fiddle for the doorknob to dodge the roommates, on towards the kitchen where I pace and I make our toast.

so yes these songs are about apocalypse. you hear about it all the time from those pseudo historians on youtube. "this has all happened before." they say. but this time we've got screens. a screen for every lonely soul. a little mirror to gaze into and get lost for a minute or a day. or have you gone longer?

when I'd had my fill of the nightmare I woke up. yes the bed was sweaty like rain but there was a rare moment of cool outside. the summer had abated, if only for a moment. there was a small gash in the blue sky. a large cloud. maybe today it was really going to rain.

if you want to know the truth I made these songs while losing my mind a bit over the cousin. these and the next few too. I lost track of our faithful verse-chorus-verse and I'm afraid I may have rambled quite a bit.

but with the help of my girlfriend and cat (pray he doesn't have rabies from the bat this morning) I came out. there must always be a hopeful ending. and the hopeful ending here is that we will soon return to our regularly scheduling programming: pop songs about love and true crime.

ofc i'm being dramatic and i rly do like the songs. esp the rock in the eye. but i can't help but feel a bit anxious picturing our normal fans listening to these ones. it's like you build up an AUDIENCE, no matter how small it is, and then you do something that feels totally different and it kinda feels like a punch in the face in the audience? and it ain't like THIS is anymore my TRUE SOUL EXPRESSION than the older tunes. it's just what i happened to make during that darker period. everyone tells me i have to just create for myself and forget what anyone else thinks, and i DO. that's how we got these songs. but putting them out into the world i start to wonder… does the world need more DARKNESS? i am quite indulgent in the darkness in these tunes. the fantasies about apocalypse. how it's a relief. i'd like to be more positive. but at the end of the day i'm gonna just keep putting out whatever i write however i rly “feel about it”… cuz it ain't about me. aight rant OVER.

“1999”

I wrote 1999 during one of the wildest stretches of my life. It was 2018. I had just moved to Los Angeles. I was living in this three-bedroom apartment in Culver City, working at the Boys and Girls Club of Conejo Valley. I was enthralled by the city as we all are when we arrive. LA is a magical place. It really has an energy to it.  Especially when you first get there…

For some reason I kept thinking about childhood… not because it was all that idyllic, but because it was simple. There were rules, rhythms, a mother me buying wine, (forcing me to share a glass with her) a brother flicking coins into fountains. Those moments felt like postcards from a world I couldn’t get back to.

Clonazolam was like a balm for the insanity of the city. You'd be forgiven for having no idea what that is. We on the reddit forums called it Clam, an experimental benzodiazepine synthesized in the 60's. It was too strong to put on the market so they shelved it and went forward with the now classic Diazepam and Alprazolam. 

I think the song’s main idea is that nothing external, not drugs, not music, not a job… of course not SEX, really fixes anything. And there is this misguided narrator telling this depressed guy “If you did THIS you'd be fine” la la la la …  

The original recording of the song was done in one long late-night session at the apartment home studio. The vocals were mostly done in one take. I didn’t want to overthink it. I wanted it to sound how I felt when I wrote it — tired, reflective, and a little distant. But the released version was a rerecorded one from 2024. Maybe someday I'll release the original recording.

The Story Behind “At Least It’s Simple”

At Least It’s Simple was written after I saw the recent documentary about Gabby Petito. I didn’t know her, but her story hit me hard. I followed the case closely, like a lot of people did. Something about the footage of her on that road trip, the happy moments, the body cam footage, the way everything spiraled, made it impossible to look away. It was heartbreaking and horrifying.

The song isn’t a retelling of the case, but it was directly inspired by it. I started thinking about what it means to be in a relationship where someone slowly disappears… emotionally, physically, and what it feels like to watch it happen. Some of the lyrics are from the perspective of someone trying to justify their own detachment — saying “at least it’s simple” when really nothing about it is. The line “O Gabby what went wrong” is direct. It’s not rhetorical. It’s the question everyone had. But that's one of my least favorite lines lol. I thought I'd replace it later but I work quickly now. With deadlines. Lest I fall into the trap of becoming a perfectionist and never releasing anything.

The last part of the song — “She’s not here / She’s not anywhere now” — is what Brian knew and nobody else did. Everybody was searching and searching. “Is she here??” No. “How bout here!?” No. Really, she's not anywhere.

There was a removed section at the end… if you go to that  tiny piece of desert where they found here… you can still feel her. Her family said that.

I went psychedelic with this song. Lots of phaser and chorus on the guitars. From Guitar Rig 6, the very cool plugin. Very cool effects they have. But I feel it was written to be more of a rocker. Actually I wrote it for my other band MOLLY, but they were moving too slow. So I said “I gotta record this before I lose the spark.”

More good songs coming soon I promise!! It's gonna be a Watson summer!!

Putting on the Chopin Complete Piano Works to help me write this one.

We played a show on Friday at the Tiki Bar. 

Watson played first. 

We were originally going to play last, but Molly (a band I help play guitar in) said it was be a good thing if they got the headlining spot. Having arranged the show and worked out the setlist order with the other bands over the course of months, I said “alright.”

And the other bands were furious. A man from Emerson Void (another of the bands) held his lit cigarette to our bassist's cheek. The police were called but we waved them away. The show hadn't even begun yet.

Watson took the stage, our first show with our new lineup. There was Alyssa, my beautiful gf, on drums. And Wes, a phenomenal bassist and great guy, on bass. A 3-piece. Nirvana style. Modest Mouse style. We even covered Trucker's Atlas… though that was the one that forced the venue to cut our set short (we didn't get to play Karma Chameleon).

The show was fun. I remembered how fun it is to be the frontman of a man. Guitar and vocals, that was my job. And I sang the songs as we'd rehearsed and danced about a bit and looked over at Alyssa for the cues. I didn't look over to Wes much. Later I found out some evil local psycho had dosed him against his will (sending him hurtling towards a land where his physical form could not “function” in the traditional sense) with those gas station mushrooms they now sell. So he bailed silently and I did not notice he had dipped til the next day when he texted me to explain the situation. 

But his bassage was solid. And Alyssa was amazing on the drums. She didn't make a single mistake. She hit all the cues, she just nailed it.

So what's next for the Watson LIVE thing??? I have no idea. I really do like this lineup and I feel like we could get it to sound really good if we put the work in. This new craigslist guy John wants to play guitar with us but I'm not sure. He's a cool guy but do I want to commit to having a full on BAND and regularly playing shows when we are at this LEVEL? I mean, I really think I can get us to a higher level through promoting the studio recordings on Tiktok and then, when we will actually draw FANS beyond our friends and family, THEN we put together a killer band.

The other bands were cool too. Mad Menace was especially energetic. I watched their whole set. But MOLLY my other band didn't watch any of the other bands and sat out back drinking the whole time. I just don't think they understand how important it is to build relationships if we want to be a part of a SCENE. but then again, they just don't care. And to tell you the truth I don't much either. I just figured if I was already there at the show, I might as well meet some cool people and witness their music.

So overall the show was good. People loved “Leave Your Husband.” My brother Andrew drove down from Simi Valley and he even said “I thought that was a cover.” Compliment received. 

No shows planned right now but a LOT of studio stuff coming this summer. I'd like to do a whole separate blog post about that. Maybe I will after this. I was thinking it would be cool to get some room mics in the backroom of my house and just record our covers of Karma Chameleon and Surfin' USA. Just for fun. Just to have. Maybe I'll pick a weekend and do that…

WATSON BACKROOM RECORDING SESSIONS

Call it the Backroom Sessions

Pick a weekend

-set up mics in the back room and record covers of KARMA and SURFIN’ and TRUCKERS (or second half of truckers which is a jam and make it into its own song) or even like that cool live version of O VEGAS or GRANTED.

We did have a very cool version of O Vegas that we didn't get to play. Cut for time. The sound guy said to us over the monitors “one more song.” So we asked the audience and they wanted “Leave Your Husband.” Can you believe that? Anyway live show was cool. Let me make a separate blog post about the studio songs.

I sang it in a park. There were screaming children in the distance but this spot was quiet. I thought about my childhood and the mimed the words. The song has been out you know, almost 16 hours now. Time for a video. The video is me in the park with a guitar, playing and singing the words. I really like it. That's all you need. In this day and age? I'm not sure. They need entertainment. But the song is out and we are very happy with it. I would love to explain what it all means but right now I'm just lying with Alyssa as she drafts up the artwork for the next incredible release…. which are some of my favorite summer songs I've done. One is called Coward's Way Out but I swear the other one is ever better. “A Rock In The Eye” I call it.

Big show coming June 6!! It's in less than a week! Bring your friends, bring your family to the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa. We will see you there!!!!

-Matt