Recorded in Brooklyn, New York / June 3, 2015

CANNONBALL ACTION was a nickname given to me by a friend in the NYC scene in the early 2010s. In June 2015, I decided to make some new recordings of some of my “greatest hits” of that era that would reflect what my live set sounded like at the time – and I released it under the name CANNONBALL ACTION instead of Cannonball Statman, because of how it seemed to exist in an alternate reality from the new music I was writing at the time.

9 years later, in 2024, I recorded my self-titled album as Cannonball Statman, which reflects a completely different reality from this one – so it’s interesting to compare the two. CANNONBALL ACTION is a much more fast-paced and raw experience that’s more what growing up in NYC actually felt like – and the 2024 Cannonball Statman draws on the slower and more grounded experience of living and working in other parts of the world, while still carrying a lot of this intensity and enthusiasm.

One thing I’m happy about is that I removed the word “obese” for the new version of “Cannonball Becomes the One Armed Man”, which I think is just a much better version of the song overall than the one on CANNONBALL ACTION – you can hear the new version on my 2024 self-titled and in this 2023 live recording from Amsterdam:

I have no idea if it’s generally regarded as ableist language or not, but the issues around ableism are one of the main themes in my work, and something about the use of this word didn’t sit well with me, personally – both in the version of that song on CANNONBALL ACTION and in the 2013 version that’s on my Rarities compilation and the Dogs vs. Cats EP.

Also, the word “obese” doesn’t even do a good job of conveying what that part of the song is about – in the new version, I say “I want everyone to sit and eat”, which conveys what is actually happening in the song – so in my opinion, the new version of that song is better, and the one on this album you’re listening to now is simply not as good – but that’s just my opinion. Some people prefer this version, and you may, in fact, be one of those people!

There are a few other lyrics on this album and some of my others from the 2010s that I got rid of in the new versions, because of how they leave the door open for ableism in a similar way – since a lot of these songs are about psychiatric abuse, the point of singing a line like “they think she’s kinda crazy” in this version of “Stranger Dreams” is obviously not to encourage the violence that’s taking place against this character in the song – and the end of the song turns this all on its head – but on its own, that bit leaves the door open, which can still be harmful.

This is also one of the last recordings I made when I was playing in the “Frankenguitar” tuning, which I’d adopted because of my hand injury in early 2012 – it has a unique sound and playing style that goes along with it, which this album captures really well.

The other albums I made in this tuning and style are Icepick, Shriekofafreak!, Live on the Independents Tour, and Year of the Swimming Dogs – along with a few of my out of print albums that are not available online, and my half of the Dogs vs. Cats split EP with Phoebe Novak.

released June 3, 2015