Balloonerism

Here we are The time has come As long as you have been waiting for this day I assure you I have been waiting longer.

For those who don’t know I met mac during Macadelic and recorded maybe the last third of those songs. When he moved to LA I became his main engineer there until he moved to NY (when G AM came out). We definitely needed some space for a while but we did work on Swimming together some and we remained close even if we were far away.

For Balloonerism, aside from those who actually played on the record, I was largely the only other person there so after so much lore and legend, I felt the need to give you all (the deep macheads specifically) more context because it truly deepens the experience. I have known this since we turned in the album almost 2 yrs ago but you needed to hear it first before I could color the perspective.

I’m so thankful you have an official release and all the parties involved have really done a lot of work to bring you something so magical and authentic. The t-shirt and poster from the screening was really sweet. Nothing is Impossible t-shirt gives me a deep joy and I love how everything looks and feels. I got the vinyl and I love the book and all the details on the packaging. I gotta be honest - I also wondered why the price tag was so high. I can see now we are paying the print shop no doubt for all that articulate work and detail.. Miller has always been dedicated to the vision. *Another day for the time I met miller and my prize possession of Mac memorabilia. You gotta remember I am a fan too.

I wrote a weaving and emotional rant after the screening but I will forgo that for clarity of context.

I knew nobody knew anything but I realized from the little bit of press interaction I had (along w a lot of your comments) that people naturally presumed we “finished” the album. We never went back to any of these songs after the initial writing. Mac almost never did. Thats a big part of why this album stayed unreleased - he was always making something new. As such, the only thing we did was mix the album and define the playlist from existing playlists. What you hear on the record was almost completely done within the first two weeks of March 2014. The oldest track is TWNK - which was done a few days before Colors and Shapes when Space Migration Tour almost finished in LA. Literally the first moments back in the studio after being on the road in both cases. The quiet studio had a melancholy feeling that cane through in the music. Already by March those felt kinda old. The youngest song is Ricks from April 9th. This is what I mean by a moment in time. The album was done in two weeks

The mix was not easy tho. Something about the crappy tracking mixes was magic. Even at the time I tried cleaning some up because the songs were so good but they heavily resisted being cleaned up. E worked exceptionally hard to mix this record (he restarted multiple times) He had to find the right balance of his sensibilities (since he would have been the one to mix it at the time) and the magic of the refs. He nailed it of course. He is a level 10 mensch and personal hero of mine.

The second major misconception : A lot of people guessed that the “features” were there to complete the work. I want to tell you now clearly - there were no features.

SZA is on DJs because she was there. Thundercat and Taylor are on most songs because thats what they did most days - pull up and jam. Thats how these songs started. Those three were like a band, and a purely improvisational one at that. Taylor on keys, Thundercat on bass and Mac played the drums (via keyboard no less). No one brought any ideas in or said hey lets try this riff in F major … they would just be hanging out and one person started playing and instantly the others hopped in.

If you want to know what that sounds like, listen to Mrs Deborah Downer. It is exactly this scenario , untouched except for one edit for time. Mac went back and sang on it. He asked Ashley to do the drug order because she was there hanging out. One take, it fit perfectly

He finished the songs as he always did, same day or the next. Once a song started he was driven to finish it. Even the songs with more sophisticated production like Destination were being revised only a couple times. If he had an idea, we would just get it done.

Would Mac have changed things if he had put this out - absolutely. Thats the one thing I know for sure. He was dedicated to the art of the track list. You might be surprised at the amount of energy he put into them. I went through this process w him many times and if there’s one thing I know - only he could do it. There was always something unexpected. There was always anxiety and pain lol. For those of you who have the deluxe 10yr of WMWTSO, you know all about the legendary track list email..

Long way to say we did our best - we looked at all the playlists, the surrounding songs and projects, and finally, we listened to the music to let it tell us what needed to be done. I can’t see it any other way and I’m personally very happy with the result.

Really tho, this official version is not very different from the pirate prints, or even the original lee ek w the ballon muppet cover. It was great to see that almost none of you had heard Shangri-La or Rick‘s. (I was worried there wouldn’t be anything new for you..) Ricks was the one I struggled with. I always wrote it off because of how silly the intro is, but when I listened to it after we found it on the last known playlist I really understood. I always said it was his mailbox money - his “simply the best” - “The best is yet to come” - but I had forgotten the ending. Listening to it now, to a man in the deepest depths of a philosophical debate about life and death… like his own private Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance… yelling at God at his own funeral.. powerful questions. TMWNK continues this profound master class of questions for the man in the mirror.

Background on Rick Rubins Piano - you get one guess - Mac recorded himself on his phone at Ricks piano the first time he ever went over there while waiting for Rick to receive him. When he returned we did a (very) rough chop of that recording, looped it out and away we went. Dylan sang the hook and he did verses and then he added the ending in one stream of consciousness, layered it roughly and it was done.

All the other puzzle pieces were in place leading up to the Sergeant Pepoers-esque anthem of Manakins (Like Avian from WMWTSO, I challenge you to fit this song into anybody’s playlist ever anywhere) - I understood what was probably an intuitive understanding for Mac when he put it on the playlist. This was the finale.

There were a couple songs that were widely missed by the community tho so I want to address them specifically :

Pure - Good AM. Might even have been the same year (2014) but it is a whole star system away from Balloonerism. But who knows, maybe it would have ended up on there? The playlist with Ricks was done around that time

Smile - ROS is a catalog release. I would love to see those hit streaming. ROS II in particular has no samples actually (outside of the clips I added) nor does Smile so I could see that being a very reasonable thing to do.

Smile is another one of my all time favorites. We recorded that in a Nashville hotel room on Space Migration Tour. My best friend had just committed suicide (I had to leave mid rehearsing the band for tour, days later we were in the UK playing the album live for the first time) and it hit me pretty heavy. Its a beautiful ballad of finding hope through honesty in a dark place and I’m glad its touched so many of you

He Finally Sleeps - this was always part of a sister project based around the band concept completely. Largely instrumental, this was one of the only songs w lyrics. This would be a great candidate for a deluxe (as would the whole sister project).

Bob’s Dementia - this was also from the sister project but it had legs for some reason.. Landed in Balloonerism for a minute and then Mac pulled it to give it to Hodgy. Maybe Hodgy never got it? I would consider it for a deluxe as well.

And its very important to note - a deluxe is wishful thinking. There’s not one rn. I would love to see the existing projects continue to expand into the songs that almost made it, that were and are part of those projects. I would love to see more stuff released in general but it needs to make sense. Mac was very careful and specific about his catalog and it doesn’t feel right to fill it w B sides and compilations. Really, they’re only appropriate for you - the deep macheads who can string together these magical constellations of meaning. Who have a deeper appreciation for the man behind the music

We can talk about future projects another time, but for now - Balloonerism is here. Soak it in, in all its glory. I would love to hear your impressions and I will answer any questions I can.

Thank you for reading Thank you for loving Mac Thank you for carrying his legacy so well There would be no place for me to put this if this sub didn’t exist

Thank You

PS . I have written a minor novel here on the subject, and we have barely even touched on the philosophy… another thread for that