Ghost by Pumpkin Friend

This is a collection of my earliest songs.

The album cover is me at the end of my senior year of high school, just before taking the stage for the end-of-year school talent show.

If you’re curious about what sort of songs a weird, maladjusted teen wrote in the 90s then this release might be for you.

Recorded in the bedrooms, basements, and high school auditoriums of rural-ish suburban Maryland, it’s all here in its 90s glory. Songs of horror, teen angst, love and heartbreak, and righteous, misplaced anger back when dead baby jokes and talk of shotguns and double suicides was the norm.

All of the songs originate from about 10th grade to graduation. I played them impromptu at the houses of friends and strangers, once at a church, and for my grandmother’s 75th birthday party!

The aforementioned high-school performance is included on the release as well as two versions of the song from which I take my name—Pumpkin Friend, the sixth song I wrote. Also included are my first recorded spoken word piece and first attempt at a sound collage.

Hear me use the word “eyeball” in a love song.

Hear a song about a “bloody reindeer’s eye.”

There’s lots of “eye stuff” as well as songs about corpses, pumpkins, ghosts, shotguns, graves, werewolves, killers, and romance!

It’s way emo (though not in the genre sense of the word), completely sincere and heartfelt but also extremely silly and not to be taken too seriously.

CLARIFICATION: There are a few breakup songs with themes of guns and/or violence. Back then, this was just normal teenage boy bravado, especially within the group of peers I hung out with—trying to be dark or “evil.” I am including all of these songs in this release because they are an important part of my music journey, but I feel the need to state that although these songs were great tools for getting over the relationships, I do not advocate violence in any form and I strongly dislike guns (in real life).

Note: Tracks 1 through 7 are in the order I wrote them in—my first seven songs. Tracks 8 and 9 were written next but I can’t remember which came first. Open the pages of individual tracks for details about each one if you’re curious.

Sounds & Words. Outsider, bedroom, experimental, folk, indie, spoken word.

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