Hey, There's Tommy! Hey Tommy, Where's Mom & Dad?



'Hey, There's Tommy! Hey Tommy, Where's Mom & Dad? 'is the first record written and recorded by Humming Bird. It was released on October 15, 2011 at midnight (PST), for free, under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license. The first single, "True Poet," was released as a music video shortly before on Thursday, October 13.

Writing and recording took place primarily on Saturday, October 1 and Sunday, October 2, at Jack Mergist's home studio. The album had several names before one was eventually decided on. Other names include A Desk in Los Angeles; And Where You're Going; The Space Becomes Wider and Wider; Long Hours, Intensity; The Treasure Should Be Over Here; Welcome Back, Kemosobe; Because This Is a Congress; and Tell Tale Signs that You're Drunk.

Inception
The band was capriciously created while watching TV one night. There was a documentary on about humming birds.

Writing and Recording
Humming Bird was first announced on the All Things Weezer message board by Martin Michalek inside a thread centered on speculative discussion about the Milk follow up release. Said Martin, "Whatever rumors you've all heard are false . There are only solo projects right now: Plume, Humming Bird, Two Pale Zeros, Sandbaby, etc." Interestingly, at the time, Humming Bird was only a practical joke band, being tossed around by Jack and Martin on Twitter. No songs had been written as of then (September 29, 2011). That weekend, the four members would write and record six of the ten tracks in their entirety.

Most of the songs were written for the album in a span of roughly five to fifteen minutes (with some being written in less time than it actually takes to play them). The songs were recorded immediately after they were written, with most songs usually being finished roughly 90 minutes after they were written. For this, Ed Hpeoj tracked drums in his basement (he was not present during any of the recording) and sent the files to Jack and Martin via Dropbox. Originally, most of the songs featured Marisol (whom Martin liked to call "Paz Cola") as the lead vocalist. A falling out between Marisol and the band, approximately right as the album was mixed, prompted Martin to scrap all of her vocal takes, which Jack supported. Her vocals were then re-recorded and she is no longer in the band. (Paz Cola, however, was at no point singing lead on "True Poet," "Suckerstick," and "Sarah, I Know.")

Says Martin:

''"The purpose of Humming Bird was to throw out all the bureaucratic nonsense that keeps records from being done quickly. Instead of over-thinking things, or waiting for a 'mood to hit,' we just wrote the songs. The first idea that came was almost always the one that got used, and as a general rule we tried to not spend more than ten minutes writing a song. Once the song was written, we went into the studio. Ed would lay down drums. We'd tinker or move them around and then start recording. First takes were almost always the ones used. We did a lot of modular recording. I'd sit down and record a part for "Dizzy Wednesday," then tell Jack I was bored or had the munchies, and he'd sit down and add a part. The neat thing about doing it that way, though, was finishing a recording and then having a song you've never heard before. So it was fun to listen to them. Whereas, on Milk, we'd played and heard those songs probably a hundred times before we recorded them. It was also interesting to go back and realizing these very cohesive themes about nostalgia, fatalism, existentialism, etc, had somehow popped up in almost every song. It's almost like our id burst through: the first idea was the deepest and we didn't even know it. It's too bad Freud can't analyze what it means."''

Themes
The memebers are convinced the themes manifested themselves subconciously. As opposed to typical writing, the songs were not ruminated on for long. The tracklisting was arranged relatively quickly, and after the first listen, Martin and Jack were surprised to realize that ideas presented in songs like "Suckerstick" were revisted in "Dizzy Wednesday;" or, that "Raincloud Love" would introduce that binary opposite of an idea re-visited in "Coats of Sunshine."

Humming Bird has said that the album's main motif is nostalgia, with each song somehow representing an attempt at happiness rather than actual happiness. The songs deal with finding meaning through communicating shared experience; they deal with the loss of innocence and childhood (as an allegorical "heaven"); substances; love as a shelter from subjective reality; and the ephemeral nature of everything (living, relationships, the "cosmic heart monitor," etc).

Release
thumb|400px|left The release date was announced on October 10, 2011 on All Things Weezer first, and later on Facebook. Reactions were skeptical, given that Jack, Martin, and Kody are all somewhat notorious for spending long gaps of time between releasing records. Some members speculated that the album would actually be a "prank record," like the false Homie 2 release Jack and Martin created almost an exact year prior, in 2010. (The Homie record had verse-chorus of "Sunshine O" and the rest of the songs were from Mer de Noms.)

The album was released at 12:00 a.m. (PST) on October 15, 2011.

Track list
All songs written and composed by Mergist/Michalek, except where noted.

Side one Side two

Download
The entire album can be downloaded for free here: http://www.mediafire.com/?l7uvy059aq5fcrx