Call me an artist.

Look, I know it’s pretentious. But I consider my fiction as a piece of an ambitious multi-media art project that will probably never be complete.[1] One part of that is the whole prose thing, and the other major aspect is music.[2] Over several years I recorded some albums in varying states of fidelity, all of which are connected to the fictional world you have been dipping your toes into. I would like to tell you more about one of these bands. They are Desert Buffalo, and their unfinished album is The Cassette Age.

Here is their music on Bandcamp

Deseret Buffalo is a supergroup containing former band members from groups most of you are unfamiliar with: The Great Basin Society, Finngerhutt, The Deviant Headphones, and the Mark Hamill Experience. Adlai, he of the magic name and the protagonist of my "Unfinished Novel," is the leader of our merry band. His once and perhaps future love interest, Amplifier, plays the bass and programs the MIDI parts. And that strange character, Simon, whom you don’t know yet, puts some garage-rock hair onto the sonic proceedings using a guitar and fuzz pedal. And then there is me, or at least a character that shares my name, Justin McBride. He is the producer of the whole affair, supervising, shouting encouragement, telling our hapless musicians to record another take, and even occasionally stepping in to play on a track. And there is drama. Adlai and Amp are comfortable around each other, but Adlai won’t spend a moment in the same room as Simon. So, Simon records his parts alone on days when the other band members are in another zip code. So, yeah, Deseret Buffalo is not a band in the traditional sense: they don’t play shows together or sign records on Record Store Day. Desert Buffalo is a complicated band in a complicated situation.

Well…

That’s the story, anyway.

Honestly, everything you are about to listen to was made by my own grubby little fingers and my sorry excuse for vocal cords. Yeah, my friend, Blair, added some background vocals, but everything else is mine and mine alone. The rest is fiction, made-up, a clever bit of marketing that never worked.

But there is a first time for everything.

So I hope you enjoy what you hear. If you do, let me know. If you don’t, please keep your thoughts to yourself.

Thanks again,

JD McBride

Here is a link to Deseret Buffalo’s music:

[1] Does it matter? Incomplete things fascinate us, like potential lovers we lacked the courage to pursue.

[2] For more on my musical origin story, check out my post about R.E.M.'s Murmur.