Sean Traverse
Discography

Happy Unhappy (2010)
Happy Unhappy



1. I've Seen a Face*
2. Urban Decay*
3. I Won't Do*
4. Antidote*
5. Alive to Regret*
6. Blind to You
7. Wages of Sin*
8. Intervene
9. One Bedroom Apartment
10. Centipede
11. Underground
12. Rust Service Quality
13. Stranger





14. Upset (Demo)
15. Intervene (Darker Version)
16. I've Seen a Face (Brighter Version)



This one's a mix of songs from very different phases of life, most from around 2003 and the other five from around 2009. Lots of struggles to finish this album to my liking, in 2017 I finally recorded a version of "Blind to You" that I like, so I think can finally call this one done.
Under the Sun (2003)
Under the Sun



1. Under the Sun*
2. Jackknife
3. Living in Hell
4. Pink Pill*
5. Look Out, Charlie*
6. Escalator*
7. She's All the Way
8. Spiders Are Digital
9. Longest Wait of Your Life*
10. Pretty Void*
11. Marlon Brando
12. Advancing King's Paper Systems
13. Beautiful*
14. Straight with You
15. Family in Ohio*
16. A Self-Important Elf Named Vance





17. Beautiful (Demo)
18. Night and Day




A few boring years into my musical retirement, having resurfaced in Minnesota after stints in California again, Ohio again and Kentucky and Oregon briefly, I bought a digital recorder and started jotting down the song ideas that had been floating around in my head from ’97-’99. I decided to write an album that would be my last stab at doing the whole band thing. I didn't realize it would take almost three years and that by the time I was done, I wouldn't even want a band anymore, but that's what you get for planning. By the end, I finally had something I was confident enough in to send out to indie record labels for them to pee on, and they graciously obliged.
A Way Station in Time (1996)
A Way Station in Time



1. Michelobe*
2. Summer of 94
3. Breath Fresh
4. Can My Pallor Be
5. Throwaway*




My life was at something of a low point by the time I recorded this concept EP, the concept being to take song ideas I thought were too strange to work and making them work. “Summer of 94” was a collage of microcassette tapes from my last days of high school, when I used to carry a little recorder around with me and tape whoever I was hanging out with. After finishing this EP I quit music for a few years in hopes of getting my life together, whatever I thought that meant at the time.
Sick is Pure (1996)
Sick is Pure



1. Silence*
2. Bringers of the Dawn
3. Sleeping the Dream
4. Califone
5. Autobon*
6. One with a Gun*
7. Clockwork Ballerina
8. Dinner Party
9. Static Television Babies
10. Cosmonaut
11. The Life
12. House of Mirrors
13. I Am Past
14. Menthol Joe*
15. Tonic & Tea*
16. Camptown Races
17. In the City
18. Goodbye




19. Space Cadet




“Silence” was the last thing I recorded in Alaska before moving to Ohio, where the rest of the album was recorded. I bought a drum machine, and recorded most of these songs way too fast before I figured out how to use it. Most of this album was recorded after I dropped out of school and was trying to get a band together, in-between short stints working the worst jobs known to underqualified man. The band hunt was met with resounding… what’s the opposite of success? But this album ended up representing the peak of my teenage musical aspirations regardless.
While You Were Dying (1995)
While You Were Dying



1. Chaos Hammer
2. Sickly Trainyard Blues
3. Untitled*
4. Dragonflies*
5. Sitcom*
6. Sueis Flock
7. Image Of...
8. Heart Steak*
9. A Gypsy Wagon Roaming Through the Moonlit Forest
10. Radio Dream
11. Camarillo State
12. Diodes
13. The Mill
14. While You Were Dying
15. The Phoenix





16. The Prophet
17. Disposable Razor




This was really the Alaska album, capturing lots of the strangeness of being there, starting out with the tale of my world music professor’s murder in “Chaos Hammer.” “Sitcom” was the first song I wrote that threatened to garner radio play, thanks to a friend in Santa Barbara. The station ended up passing because the drums were so fucked up. Seeing how fucked up the actual drums were probably would not have helped matters.
The Girl Becomes Lonely (1994)
The Girl Becomes Lonely



1. Reye's Syndrome
2. 2am Song
3. Fourth of July
4. My TV is Lonely
5. Strange Bummer Town*
6. Mary's Blue Room
7. Accidental Jam
8. Cavemen
9. The Man Who Would Not Die
10. Crippled
11. Organ Dream
12. Meet Truly Beautiful Russian Women by Mail
13. My Neighbors are Vacant
14. Nut on Bolt
15. The Arena is Filled with Imposters
16. Through the Underground
17. Shingle Glut
18. The Girl Becomes Lonely*
19. Cat in the Rye
20. Arab Ending*




21. Spider Run
22. All of Egypt




I went away to college half-way through recording this album, and “Strange Bummer Town” was my first impression of Alaska. My dorm-room drum set consisted of a Tupperware snare and a big cardboard box for a bass drum. Writing “Accidental Jam” and “Cavemen” with my roommate quickly led to the formation of a popular local band, which I quit immediately due to not being into bong rock. Recording “The Man Who Would Not Die” with Tim from the eighth floor, however, eventually would lead to the formation of Lola Tilly’s Nipples. Open your window and yell if you need to know more about them.
The Supermarket Has No Windows (1994)
The Supermarket Has No Windows



1. Lame Noise Burrito
2. Guitar Primer 1
3. Honeycomb Noose*
4. Neverending Eyes
5. Father's Day Card
6. Mr T
7. Dance of the Pall Bearers
8. I Love Quincy*
9. Marbles
10. Dragonflies
11. Gone Away
12. Broken Vacuum Cleaner
13. Ohio*
14. Kill the Road
15. LA Song*






Half-way through recording my second album I finally bought a four-track, and “I Love Quincy” was the first song I recorded on that. Tired of using the drum pads on my $10 keyboard, I also built a drum set out of trash cans, pan lids, and low standards. It was summer vacation after graduating from high school, and I had all day to make noise and think up rhymes for “gasoline.”
Meet the Apathy (1994)
Meet the Apathy



1. Coat Hanger Veins*
2. Supermarket Sneakers
3. Disco Bitch
4. Lime*
5. Making Payments to God
6. Here Comes the Apathetic Groove Monkey
7. Cloud Ocean
8. Slow-Motion Dog Biscuit
9. Folk Muffin
10. Tearing Out the Herring
11. Jesus Loves You
12. Moonlit Corn
13. Ring the Roses







This was my first album, though at the time I was just messing around with tape recorders and didn't even think of it as an album. This was recorded by taping one instrument on a boom box, then playing that back while singing along and recording to a second boom box, etc. As you would expect, the sound quality trumps anything possible in multi-million dollar professional studios. At the time I didn't think of myself as a musician and didn't take any of this very seriously, as the song titles indicate. Regardless, there is still some of the inevitable teenage pretension on display. But hey, how timeless were you when you were seventeen?




A Noise Sandwich (1996)
A Noise Sandwich



1. Prelude
2. Cycle Phase
3. Phasing
4. The Ocean Floor
5. The Human Race (Part 1)
6. The Human Race (Part 2)
7. Waltz of the Bombs
8. Empty Cycle
9. Acid in India - Dance
10. Acid in India - Dream
11. Cycle of the Never*
12. Attack of the B-Sides
13. Nintendo Theme*
14. Science Fiction
15. Memory
16. I Dream a Dream
17. Some Kind of Voyage
18. Impressionism
19. Say Goodnight to China
20. The Blue Danube
21. Elvis Pants
22. Asshole Freak-Out




A collection of instrumentals recorded throughout 1996, most of them improvised. The first eleven tracks formed one long piece about the end of the world, the rest were odds and ends that didn't fit on my proper albums. "Nintendo Theme" was one of many instrumentals written on "Mario Paint" for the Super Nintendo during slow moments that year. I would later find out that my friend Scott ended up with one of the original 4-track tapes from these recordings and didn't realize he was listening to the backwards side, turning the already strange recordings into something just short of satanic. This amuses me greatly.
Aditya Mathur and Sean Traverse: Live from Thousand Oaks (1996)
Live from Thousand Oaks



1. Manifest Destiny
2. Bring Out the Drums*
3. Harrangue
4. Liquid Dreams
5. Little Italy
6. Mean Streets
7. Satan's Foot
8. Choking Blues
9. March of History
10. Moonlight Sonata
11. Overrun
12. Incoming Transmission
13. Chronogram
14. Bravado
15. Pristine Thoughts
16. Chaos Bloom
17. Classic Rock Session
18. Logic Failure
19. Strawberry Fields
20. Destroyer Fleet




Two improvised guitar jam sessions with my friend Ad, featuring his classic rock stylings and my extremely detuned noise approach, which made for a nice balance. Probably the least lame thing that's ever happened in our home town.




Here & Now (In Progress)
Here & Now



1. Walk in the Sunlight (Demo)
2. Lee's Lullaby
3. Feeling Real Low (Gjertson/Traverse)
4. Old Time Blues
5. Toynbee Idea
6. Here & Now (Demo)
7. All Night and Day (Demo)
8. Who (Demo)
9. Do Later (Demo)





The newest album, still in the very early demo stages.







Bees Core (In Progress)
Bees Core



1. Fir Tree (Gjertson)
2. Hedges Outside Your House (Corbit)
3. I've Lost You
4. I Will Not
5. Fading Out (Demo)
6. Dusty Bushworms (Pollard)
7. Magic Mirror (Johnson)
8. Child of Nature (Lennon)
9. Richdale's Lament
10. Junk Drawer
11. Elevator Music
12. Undone
13. Oh No
14. From a Dream





Sort of an odds and ends album I'm working on, to house the extra songs I cut from "Happy Unhappy," several songs that have been floating around for years without an album to call home, and some covers I've been working on.

Oh, and "Richdale's Lament" is a scrap of a song written for the Cappers for Cancer (Pro-Cancer Benefit Album) that keeps threatening to get made every few years. "One Bedroom Apartment" and "Rust Service Quality" were both written for that as well when the idea first came up around 1999.
Past Bastards: Volume One (In Progress)
Bees Core



1. Coat Hanger Veins
2. Supermarket Sneakers (Demo)
3. The Prophet
4. I Love Quincy
5. Kill the Road
6. Lime
7. Heart Steak
8. I Am Past
9. Dragonflies
10. Sickly Trainyard Blues
11. Sitcom
12. One with a Gun
13. Cosmonaut
14. While You Were Dying
15. Autobon
16. Sleeping the Dream
17. Menthol Joe
18. Tonic & Tea





Another thing atop the mound of unfinished projects, this one is aimed at re-recording the best songs from my early albums to take advantage of what I've learned about recording and not sucking over the last fifteen years or so. Should be fun if it ever sees the light of day.




St Lapre (In Progress)
St Lapre



1. Waiting Lately (Demo)
2. Departure (Demo)
3. Monster Island (Demo)
4. A Sharp (Demo)
5. Two of Us (Demo)
6. 100% Recyclable (Demo)
7. Just Following Orders (Demo)





St Lapre should have its own page, but I figure we need to finish an album first before I get carried away with that. This is me and my good friend (and rock legend of the South) Jim Corbit. We recorded these rough tracks in... 2003(?) and I've been procrastinating about forming them into a real album ever since.