June 9, 2023
HS33 - 7M3 Rock Crown Rarities: A Little Hard, A Little Late
I can’t believe this week marks 26 years since we released Rock Crown. I wasn’t even 26 when we made it.
It also clocks 22 years since the release of Economy of Sound “by the American Post Grunge Band Seven Mary Three,” according to the google machine.
I took a trip down memory lane this weekend and dug up a sketch book with a diary I kept for all of about 2 weeks during the recording of RC.
If you’ve never had the chance to read a journal you wrote half a lifetime ago and page through the evidence of your incredibly uninformed self, then allow me to grease the wheels of your imagination. Imagine being a day into recording a new record, fresh off the road, head full of ego and a few good books (but not nearly enough yet!) and having just discovered the magic of New Orleans. Then imagine writing a few lines thinking you knew something about living or much of anything else.
Reading it back now feels like everyone is looking at me while I try to eat soup through my beard. Which is to say, it’s very, very awkward.
I’ve attached a picture of a page from that journal. I’ll transcribe my chicken-scratch for you:
“So I will start like this:
A little over a year ago, I graduated from college. Our band signed a record deal. We put out a record. Toured forever. I mean forever.
It was a great year until I realized what we had accomplished. So fast.
And we lasted it. I mean the trick. We tricked the magicians.
Seven, lucky seven rolls the dice.
Yeah, that’s right.”
It was a very brief stint in rarefied air. I seemed to already know it was a just a card trick.
I think we recorded 20+ songs for RC; here’s one that didn’t make it, and still makes me feel like I have soup all over my beard and no one’s telling me. I remember trying for something different and not quite sticking the landing. But I can still read my 23-year-old handwriting, and everyone needs a good look in the time-machine-mirror every once in a while.
Hats off to Giti for trying to put a xylophone on a rock record. Christ. We did whatever the fuck we wanted.
A little hard, A little late.
Yours,
JR
You did what ever you wanted - and we were there for it. We still are. ❤️
You were my first (and only) favorite band. I've been a fan since my early teens. Your albums were the only ones I've ever been able to listen to over and over and over again without growing weary of the sound.
I remember getting a "Happy birthday" response from Giti when I wrote to you all on my 16th birthday (many moons ago, now... just celebrated my last 30-something-th bday). Your band was always so accessible, and I loved you all for it. When you all signed my shirt at a Sacramento concert in 1998 (my first of your concerts), I was on top of the world, and you all made me feel special, not like just another fan in line.
Thank you for being such a special spot in my memories, and for still being the tunes I love to have stuck in my head, all these years later. 💗