Space Camp
Royalty, Etc.
Label: Royalty, Etc.
Available: April 15, 2006

Space Camp’s first album “If You Find The Old Beat Play It” (IYFTOBPI) was released in 2003 to wide local acclaim. Two years later, Royalty, Etc. signed the group and re-released the album on our label under the same name. It charted at #8 on Radio K and completely sold out within a year of it being released.

Ever since Space Camp has been in the studio working on their second album Royalty, Etc. - yes, the same name as the label and same name as the third track on the album. These guys love this name. Read on…

The album starts off with a slow builder, “The Science of the Situation” and the pounds through 14 tracks before screeching to a halt with “Planets,” a track that brings all of the best parts of the Space Camp to another orbit.

Space Camp’s sound is akin to Modest Mouse, Sunny Day Real Estate and even some early Fugazi. This group isn’t afraid to slow down and let you hear their lyrics, but they’re not afraid to rock out, either. “Radio Velveteen,” has a Knack-influenced guitar riff and insightful chorus, “There is nothing left to play, thus the chord,” and my favorite track, “Dance Party,” is a two minute bruiser with an intriguing melodic riff that forces the listener to hit BACK and listen again.

Sometimes Tim Uhl’s vocals sound like a drunken Harry Carey, but the mix is good and by the end of the album, you can appreciate his unique vocals - especially on “The Drowning Team.” And the best part is Royalty, Etc. actually gets better the further into the disc you get.

We sat down with Spacecamp’s Jon Greenlee and Tim Uhl to talk about the band, this confusing royalty trifecta,

First off, who’s in the band?

Tim Uhl, guitar vocals, Jon Greenlee, guitar/vocals, Adam Meyers, bass
and keys, Aaron Seevers, drums.

Okay, with that out of the way - what’s the deal with Space Camp?

Space Camp was a project that basically was the result of Tim and I finally getting together after talking about it for a long time and trying out a few recordings together. We liked it and kept going and ultimately grabbed Adam and Aaron to play with us. Tim and I had been friends for a while bumping into each other at parties while I was a student at the U of M.

How would your fans describe you?

Our fans would describe us as honest.

Your one sheet says IYFTOBPI was released and sold out in 2001? Is
this the same album? I’m confused about the Royalty, Etc link.

Yeah it is a bit confusing. The sold out record you are talking about was our first record. We actually do have a new record coming out and it is called Royalty, Etc. That name has now been used for many things. First, “Royalty, Etc.” was a song we played, then we decided to name the next album Royalty Etc. Then Ty and I decided to start a record label to gather all our favorite music from our little group in Minneapolis into one place. We brainstormed names and ultimately decided that Royalty, Etc. was a good name for the label. So basically all kinds of stuff got named Royalty, Etc. Since there are no rules against naming things with the same name we dodged a bullet.

So basically the group has reissued IYFTOBPI and have a new one on the way called Royalty, Etc., which is also the name of the album (and a song on the album). With that mystery solved, tell me where both were recorded?

We recorded the album at Mike Wisti’s (the singer/guitarist for the Rank Strangers) studio– Albatross Studios. It was done on tape and we really tried to take a long time and get everything like we wanted. Everything was tried and all kinds of experiments failed and succeeded. It was a lot of fun and took a long time.

Who produced/engineered both albums?

Mike Wisti. He is really amazing and is the only other person I have worked with that I would let mix my own music. We worked really closely and it really freed me up to think. I do a lot of recording myself but I wanted to be relieved of all the knob turning and really wanted someone who understood the analog gear better than I did to handle the recording of space camp. I had heard some recordings he did of another local band at the time and was blown away so I sought him out. I’m sure there are other people I would like working with, but Mike is a really saavy analog tape engineer and we get along well in the studio. I really highly recommend him.

What was the experience like?

Long and broken across many months. We had just regrouped after I had
been out of the state for like 5 months working on Frankenstein: The Rock Opera in Charlotte. We had written these songs then I up and left, so when I got back after the musical, I rushed into the studio while the songs were still relatively fresh and just started hacking away at what I hoped would be the “golden record” or the record that I always wanted to make, where we took as much time to get good performances and spent time getting good sounds for the guitars, vocals, etc. I have a digital studio where I use cubase and all that stuff, but I really wanted to record all the space camp stuff on tape and more or less simulate the gear environment of the seventies rock records, and mix down to tape using as much gear that I consider “superstitiously good”, stuff like the Neve board that we did the mixdown through @ Third Ear studios. I call it superstitiously good because you read it’s good so you aspire to use it someday though it is too damn expensive to even check if you like it. Nobody has it except studios you pay by the hour to be in. So I guess you just gather a bunch of opinions and try to use the gear everybody is talking about. All the gear can do mostly the same stuff if you have good ears but it’s fun to think that some things do it better or faster or greener or angrier.

Tell me what the third track on your first album, Beat Up Chevy, is about?
(Tim responding) In the days before the Great War, there existed two steeds that were used in combat: the Chevy and the Cadillac. The Chevy was the swifter of the two, with its lean aerodynamic body. Being but one horse, its horse-power was one. Do not think that it lacked in muscles, for there was many of those hidden underneath its skin, or perhaps just one large flexible muscle. It may be that no one will ever know, and scientists argue to this day. The Cadillac, on the other hand, was engineered for bulk and comfort. Two to four could ride astride this land-walking behemoth in a comfort known only to Kings and Queen-things. The Cadillac also spoke a bit of the Old Tongue, which was useful. There are mysteries many when it comes to speaking of these creatures, for no living Chevy or Cadillac has ever been seen. Certainly, their bones have been found, and do give us information and insights aplenty, yet within even this evidence, there are puzzles. Why, for instance, are there small cylindrical protrusions covering the bone structure? Why are there more of them on the upper base of the neck, and what is their purpose? Why can one twist them, as if they were knobs? There are other anomolies: some Chevy sights–the Impala excavations in particular–contain large hollowed out bones that always come to rest at the posterior of the frame. A waste disposal system? Or some sort of alternative respiration?

As a magician, I am not qualified to postulate on these subjects. I am only allowed the privilege of invention, which has the comfort of being wrong, and so I have shied from the mysteries of the Chevy and the Cadillac. But another magician of my guild has not. He himself went into the barren wastes where the bones of the steeds still litter the sands. What really happened will never be known. He returned years later, addled, hoarse whispers of dread escaping his parched lips. With him were the notes he had taken, so many of them that he had made a sack out of the flesh of his right arm to carry them. He was immediately confined to the the tower and his works assimilated into legend.

I am not surprised that this Cosmic Gathering has translated and transcribed these words of a man gone mad and forced their unwilling syllables into the music of the day. It is typical & fashionable. But much like other texts of origins unknown (the famed Collapstinomicom Blue, for example), the words have been tamed, rearranged, and censored for the good of the peoples.

What’s your favorite track on the old album? Why?
My favorite track is probably static. It was the first tune that space camp sorta gelled on, where it was assembled after aaron and adam had joined. It wasn’t one of the initial tracks that tim and I had hacked together before we sought out a bass player and drummer, so it represented the band figuring it out. Then when we tracked it at the studio, it just sorta came together in a cool way with a strange synth patch, some gang vocals, and the acoustic/electric guitar blend. A lot of these tricks ended up getting used all over the place in the subsequent recordings.

Upcoming shows? News?
Yeah, all shows and news are up on the website www.royaltyetc.com, but for
starters, come down to the CD release party for our new record at the Nomad world pub on April 15th. Should be a blast!

Catch Space Camp at The Uptown Bar & Café with Middlepicker and Mannequins on Welfare Thursday, March 23 @ 9:30, no cover