Foursquare Neighborhood Band

The Foursquare Neighborhood Band is the working name of a studio-only musical collective that writes, performs, and produces a satire about a menagerie of ungovernably-diverse neighbors who attempt to livestream their neighborhood meetings/band recording sessions.  

The Foursquare Neighborhood Band is also the name of the fictional band. 

All music, lyrics, and dialogue are written, performed, and produced by members of the Foursquare Neighborhood Band, and are copyright Foursquare Neighborhood Music, Inc. (ASCAP.)  

All of the characters in the musical satire “It’s a Tribal Thing!” are voiced by members of the Foursquare Neighborhood Band.    

All characters in the musical are fictional. Any resemblance to actual individuals – living, dead, or undead – is purely coincidental.  

The events described in the musical satire never happened – but they always do.

Doxing the Band

The members of the Foursquare Neighborhood Band would prefer to remain anonymous, and simply let their musical creation stand (or stagger around) on its own. 

But given the subject matter of "It's a Tribal Thing!" the usual suspects may try to dox the band.  

As the band's songwriter and librettist, Boomer is the person most likely to be the target for doxing. Since he's married to Sunny, she would also probably get doxed. But beyond that, the other participants would be harder (and even more pointless) to identify. Therefore, the decision was reached that Boomer and Sunny would release enough information that a reasonable, fair-minded person could make an informed judgement about whether the two of them should be allowed to exist outside of the confines of a FEMA camp.  

Voices: The real person whose stage name is Boomer voices the characters of Boomer the Bass Player, Crash the Drummer, Picker the Guitar Player, and Mr. Keyes the Organist.  

The real person whose stage name is Sunny voices the character of Sunny, the leader of The Fourettes.  

In real life, Boomer and Sunny have been happily married for 36 years. In "It's a Tribal Thing!" they appear to be married, but the back story is lost on a floppy disc somewhere. As a result, we're not sure if Boomer and Sunny are married. But it's pretty to think so.

All of the other characters in "It's a Tribal Thing!" such as Miss 88, Strummer, Stormer Schmidt, Two-Ton Turner, Igor the Incurable, Sum N'z 2 a-PEER, Dolph, and Shabazz X are voiced by people who prefer to remain anonymous. And they have their reasons.

Songwriter/Librettist: Boomer wrote the songs over the last 40 years, and wrote the libretto over the last few years, once he realized that he was actually writing a three-act musical satire. The rhymed conversational raps voiced over "The Swagger" at 88 bpm were written from 2015 through 2022. 

Location: The songs were written and re-written and recorded and re-recorded in multiple locations in Illinois over the past 40 years. The fictional Foursquare Neighborhood is in the imaginary city of "Rustville, in Random County, Illinois." 

DAW: Early versions of some of the songs were recorded in Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 in the 1990's and then Sonar in the 2010's. After Gibson went bankrupt in 2018, all of the recordings were switched over from Cakewalk to PreSonus Studio One. Boomer did the tracking, mixing, and mastering.  Blame him if you don't like the way it sounds.

Musical Instruments: Boomer played all of the stringed instruments: bass guitar, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, slide guitar, and mandolin. He also played tambourine and blew two full notes on a harmonica. (And fortunately so, because those two notes certainly made the record.)

MIDI: The drums and Latin percussion single-hit sounds came from BFD3. The keyboard and horn sounds came from Native instruments Komplete. Some of the parts were played by Boomer on a keyboard; others (including all of the percussion sounds) were clicked into the piano roll view one note or one hit at a time with a mouse.  Time consuming; but you'll notice that the drummer never missed a practice, never missed a beat, and never stole the band's money to pay their rent. Which is better than some of the drummers Boomer played with over the last 60 years.

And now, it's on with the show...