long story short: i was asked to do A Thing for a music conference in boston. i was allowed to invite anybody i wanted for a discussion panel about The Future of Art and Internet Stuff, so i invited Ben Folds, Damien Kulash from OK Go and Neil, because he was in town. and the four of us started an email chain about getting together the night before, and instead of going out for pad thai, we decided to book a recordings studio and WRITE AND RECORD AN ENTIRE ALBUM in one night. we were aiming for 8 songs in 8 hours (thus the name of the band) and we ended up with 6 in 12. which wasn’t as catchy a title. neil kickstarted all the lyrics (by pulling ideas from twitter) and then ben, damien and i would scurry off with them and turn them into songs and add more lyrics. we all pretty much played and sang on all the songs….neil only sang on one, “the problem with saints”, because it required an english accent. the record, called “nighty night” (get it?) was released the next morning, with artwork by cassandra long, who hung out in the studio all night with us and drew a cover based on the ideas that went into the songs.
the next week, we issued a challenge to our fanbases to make videos as quickly as we’d made songs. this one for “because the origami” (which was written and performed by me & ben) is heartbreakingly good.