First up, Seattle Wave Radio is featuring the entire Quizshow album on their new site, in both the “Rock” and “NW Prime” stations. So while you’re listening to the best music from the Pacific Northwest, any of the 10 new Obol tracks may come up! SWR is also featuring 6 of the new Obol tracks directly on their home page as Quizshow is a “featured new release.” It’s a huge honor for us and we’re so thankful and thrilled to have the exposure.

If you have a even a second, head over to SWR and check out their new site! It’s such a cool radio station and there are so many new artists to discover. You can even vote on the songs you like and help push Obol to the top of the charts!

SWR HOME

There is a link to the EPK here.

The EPK is a weird beast. We have to be succint in how we talk about the band and our music. So if you’re interested enough to click the link and check it out, please tell us how we did in describing and promoting ourselves below!

Art by McPtato.

There’s just a quick snippet per song, so you get a sense of each hook and unique sound!

Quizshow is set to be released in October 2021.

10 tracks. Mastered by the great Evan Wickham. Tell us what you think!

Recently, our longtime drummer Will Tooker left the band. Rob already knows the Obol songs like the back of his hand, and has been key in providing feedback for the Dreaming and Quizshow recordings and sketches during his time away. We’re beyond excited to have him finish the Quizshow album with us.

For more on Rob, you can read up on his interests and background, here.

Updated: We managed to get Rob recorded on all the songs featured on the upcoming Quizshow release. Rob will be playing with us to promote the Quizshow release, which includes several shows this fall.

Thank you Rob!

For people who don’t know SWR, check ’em out… they have different channels for different musical tastes http://seattlewaveradio.com/seattle-wave-radio-online/ .

Big thanks to Mark Gordon and everyone at Seattle Music.

Info:
Song name: Dreaming
Written by: Barry Craig, 2009
Performances on this recording: Barry, Jun, and Jeremy
Last updated: Added Jun’s guitars August 2018. Mixed in Jeremy’s drums and some new edits September 2014. New verse guitars and lyrics, March 2012.

Lyrics:
I’m letting it sink in slowly, swirling the taste inside my mouth. Let it out. It’s not like I came here wanting. Pit of my stomach tumbles tumbles down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Wouldn’t you like to see it through? Feel it again my son. I love. I love. I love. You need to get past this feeling, fall on your knees on solid ground. And sometimes I realize I’ve grown so dependent on your warmth. If I just could just speak to you, you’d know you saved me. You saved me. Until… no cheerleader, no confidant, no pride. Just the sounds of emptiness inside. But when you were in my life, I never needed anything. Anything. Let me dream. Let me dream. These days, I’m afraid to feel this. Siphon the pain and let it out. You’ve go to keep it moving, now that your team is down to one. That’s when I realize. Seems I’m dependent on your smile. And if I dream of you, I’d know that you’re smiling. You’re smiling, but no… no cheerleader, no confidant, no pride. Just the sounds of emptiness inside. But when you were in my life, I never wanted anything. Anything. Let me dream. Let me dream.

Insights and Interpretations:
I have lost my best friend and I didn’t realize how that would eat at me after he was gone. I used to be a badass. Now I’m an insecure mess. Years later, I am still not “over it”. I hope this song is relatable to anyone experiencing a loss, especially if that loss had a lot of love anchored to it.

We’re currently looking for a fourth and final member. This person would be playing the second melody line in the songs, which is usually (but not necessarily) a piano, strings or cello. If you like Obol, know how to play keys or cello, and are curious to learn more, shoot us a message.

For example, I have always had a hard time functioning around people, authorities, groups. My father and brother are charismatic charmers, but it feels unnatural and gross to me to even speak to family. To be clear: It’s not a fear of embarrassment or failure; I never thought I was “wrong” or that I’d be seen as “foolish”. It’s just that the world is full of politics, pecking orders and social opportunists jockeying to pull the wool over each other’s eyes. In some ways, social interaction feels more disheartening than TV commercials, which are at least straightforward in their propaganda. Friends and colleagues seem to relate best when I explain my distaste for “gossip”. It’s not that I’m concerned that they’re gossiping about me; it’s that the behavior is depressing, and the last thing I want to be is around it, partake in it, or be part of it.

So I still struggle with talking, and I outright fall into a fetal position if I have to untangle some misunderstanding on the phone, where I can’t see people’s faces. When I’m left alone, I can flourish, so those environments where I can log in and start working around midnight, so the presentation is done by 8am the next morning… I am able to crush those expectations and impress a lot of people. They’ll say nice things. They’ll hint at me working there full time from 9 to 5. They’ll eventually find out how weird I am, and that I cannot possibly be around them.

So I’ve always been a loner, professionally. I’ve figured out ways of making it work for me. AND I’ve still managed to pursue a lot of what I dreamed of as a kid, including building and sustaining Obol, designing the Dungeons & Dragons books and Magic products for Wizards of the Coast… just the best dream projects, and all on my own (late-night, freelance) terms. Imagine how weird it was being the lone designer in the Wizards of the Coast offices at 3:00 AM in order to get the next set done in time. If that is not success, I don’t know what is. Granted, it is not everybody’s cup of tea, but in a world where the fulltime employees always feel overworked and want to escape to CONs and long vacations, I have developed a reputation as a capable badass that can step in and help with designs, illustrations, and all sorts of things. In short, I was able to achieve my dreams despite my inability to hang out with people and play the social ladder network game.

Plus, there are some “super powers” (in the X-Men sense, weaknesses at worst, a mixed bag at best) to being on the spectrum. For example, I am hyper-sensitive to lighting, colors (part of the reason I was drawn to design) and smells. I have always mimicked voices and sounds, a disturbing talent when you are young (just ask my parents) but useful as an adult musician, and it had me thinking that I should go into show business as a kid. I’ve also received visual images from music my whole life. Without drugs, I see visuals — like a movie — in my head whenever a song clicks for me, including characters, narrative, etc. When the song doesn’t click for me, I don’t see anything, and I’m fatigued or even repulsed by the song as a result. As an adult, I am learning this is a symptom of Asperger’s syndrome, similar to how Travis Meeks (of “Days of the New”, and one of my heroes) talks about it:

“Part of Asperger’s is associating sound with vision, so I see what I hear. That’s how I write. That’s how I continue to write my records.”

It is important to me that someone like Travis, who apparently has the same condition that I have, has achieved such success, and I also happen to love his music. I am drawn to the weird layers and changes, and even though his music is sometimes classified as “country”, it is the rare example of country that I like, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that he is another Autistic musician.

I also hear songs in my dreams, sometimes the songs repeat once or twice before I wake up. And when I wake up, I grab my vocal recorder positioned by the bed, and try to record the song parts and details that I can remember, although they quickly fade away. Sometimes my attempt to groggily sing them is off key and that causes me grief trying to record that part accurately, and subsequent parts are lost. But I have to try. I try to get enough of it recorded so that I can build the song back into existence.

This is, partially, what Obol is all about: My friends Jun and Gibson are helping me make these dream songs exist. Since I feel the songs are “sent” to me — from God, I guess, like I am supposed to share them with the world — the process of building them back with this band gives me a feeling of extreme achievement, beyond anything else professionally or socially. When I’m working on the songs, I feel like I am living my life’s purpose, and doing what I’m “supposed” to do. I wish this upon everyone and anyone, but as I grow older I realize how truly rare this sense of purpose is.

The song Gender is an easy example of this. In the dream I am sitting in a Spanish cafe, and this song is playing in the background that I like. The song is surprisingly heavy considering the public surroundings, but I’m thrilled because I’m overseas and this song is great and the situation is refreshingly weird. I notice the “push her away, push him away” chorus being repeated, and a person sitting across from me in the dream is asking me what it meant. At that moment, I realize that I am being interviewed, and this is, somehow, my own song. Very exciting, and of course that spike in excitement causes you to wake up. I remember in my groggy state, while stumbling around recording the “Push her away” bit, wondering what that meant. Since then, through hundreds of practices and performances, my conscious self has finished and refined the lyrics a bit, and now the song has taken cohesive shape around the inability to connect with my parents, and my father never liked how effeminate I was as a young man.

People are still a random x-factor. It is tough for me, for example, when I don’t have full control over the way the songs evolve. Jun may want to change his guitar part. This is scary for me, obviously, as I try to steer the boat and preserve what was in the original dream. But I’m practical enough to know that I cannot control this process. If I were to act up and throw a fit, I risk losing Jun, and then I don’t achieve my goals, at all. So it is an inherently challenging and sometimes absurd process, but it is my purpose, so I stick with it.

As I occasionally meet with musicians, I am gradually realizing how rare the visual-music connection is, and how rare the music dreams are. I only learned recently that this is associated with “being on the spectrum” of Autism. It is trendy to embrace such a label, I’ll admit, but it is also incredibly comforting and reassuring to know that I am not alone… that there’s a reason, a name, for why I’m weird. And that’s pretty cool.

-Barry