This is free for a reason. It's pretty much exactly what the title describes.

A few years ago my roommate and I tore through almost the entire X-Files series in a single winter. At the end of it I decided I should try to make something of it so that it hadn't been a complete waste of time-- so recording a southern rock version of the theme song seemed to be the logical choice. It was a weird winter.

Apologies to Bob Dylan for "Tangled". You're probably aware that he often re-writes or re-arranges the lyrics of this song when he plays it live. So I thought I'd try to do the same in order to turn it into a song that was actually personal to me. This is what came of that, for better or worse.

I included "Fake Palindromes" by Andrew Bird because it was recorded when I had just started writing songs, and I used it to start to figure out song structure, how to sing, and all that. And also because it's one of my favorite songs ever, for reasons I've never been able to explain.

If you grew up in the 90s watching a certain syndicated show about California lifeguards, then you'll know "I'm Always Here".

If you made it all the way to "Nightcrawlers" um... congratulations? This song has no right to be appear anywhere public, but it amuses me endlessly, so there it is. It came about from maybe the oddest, most pointless practical joke ever. Bored at work one day, a friend and I tried to convince another friend, a Radiohead superfan, that there was a Radiohead song that he hadn't heard. We started making up snippets of lyrics, referenced fake blog posts, etc. And many of the lyrics referenced a particular "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episode. Like I said, very weird and very pointless. And then I decided why not-- I'll go home and write/record the song. The whole process took about four hours, and this abomination is the result-- me trying to imitate the Thom Yorke wail that ended up sounding like a combination of an off-key Prince and a dying baby. And then a totally out-of-place-even-for-this-song Miami Vice-ish synth riff at the end. But like I said, every time I hear it, it cracks me up. So here it is. And for the record, Radiohead is probably my favorite band of all-time, so much so that I know I should never ever try to pull off an actual cover.

("Mine Disaster" is included as a bonus track because it's the prime example of a very weird failure-- all over the place musically-- and because it's the second time I crib from that brilliant Richard Brautigan poem.)