Episode 13: “arturo huerta and henry marshmallow” with Ethan Geller

This week, Aoife interviews Ethan Geller about “arturo huerta and henry marshmallow” from REDEMPTION ARC. “I kind of like that experience of being surprised by something and then wanting to listen to something by somebody because you don’t know, how many different pieces of music are going to be in that track,” Ethan explains his interest in multi-part songs. “It adds kind of like this weird, twisty form to everything that I’m into.”

Ethan lives in Seattle and works on games, audio research and sometimes music! Ethan is also the co-host of a weekly game show called The Phony Express.

This episode features music by perfect automation. Find more of their music at https://soundcloud.com/automaton-7.

This episode of idol board was edited by Jennifer Cat, hosted by Aoife, produced by Tangereen Velveteen, transcribed by VigilantBaker, and written by Aoife and Tangereen Velveteen.

Listen to "arturo huerta and henry marshmallow" on Blandcamp:

Episode Transcript

ANNOUNCER:

You’re listening to a Fourth Strike production.

[The end of the musical intro plays, followed by the beginning of ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ from the album “Redemption Arc”]

AOIFE:

Hello and welcome to idol board! I’m Aoife, and I use she/her pronouns. In this podcast, I will be interviewing members of the garages about their songs, the creation process, and possible inspirations. My guest for this episode is garages’ band member Ethan Geller. Thanks for coming on, Ethan! Can you tell us your pronouns, your pre-song ritual, and what song you’ll be talking about with us today?

ETHAN:

Sure! Uh, my name’s Ethan. I use he/him pronouns, and my pre-song ritual is a walk around Jimi Hendrix Park.

AOIFE:

That sounds fun!

ETHAN:

Yeah. It’s a cool park.

AOIFE:

Yeah. It’s a good name.

ETHAN:

Oh, for sure, for sure. It’s, uh, yeah, it’s in Central District in Seattle. Jimi Hendrix grew up around here, so there’s a park named after him. And there’s actually a little skate park there, which is really cool to walk by. Um, also the song I’ll be talking about here is ‘henry marshmallow and arturo huerto’. Actually it’s called ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’.

AOIFE:

So, first off, when and why did you join the garages, the band not the team?

ETHAN:

I joined the garages, um, I think right around when ‘volume 1’ came out or a little after that. Um, I had heard about Blaseball. A couple of folks that I follow on Twitter. Uh, Scott Benson, a designer for a couple different games. Uh, Austin Walker from like Waypoint Radio was tweeting about it and talking about it on their podcast, so I wanted to check out Blaseball, and I kind of just joined the Garages because I wanted to support Seattle. Um, but I was super into the entire aesthetic [laughs] of the Garages. I kept reading through the wiki and just laughing at different parts. Just like the motto being “park it” was already so funny to me. That the flannels and everything was awesome and, uh, and I got really into the music, right? I just really into everything on ‘volume 1’. ‘mike townsend is a disappointment’, of course. Uh, ‘about a squirrel’. Um, just some really good Seattle energy to that record.

AOIFE:

Yeah. It’s funny how the Seattle Garages really kind of represent Seattle, even though a lot of members of the garages, the band, like, aren’t from Seattle. [laughs]

ETHAN:

Oh, absolutely. It’s kind of like, um, it’s like more Seattle than Seattle [laughing] in some ways. You know? It’s like Grand Theft Auto Vice City to Miami. You know? It’s like, you go to Miami, and you’re like, “Oh, this isn’t Vice City”, but you go to Seattle, and you’re like, “Oh, this is not the garages’ Seattle”, but I love it because it’s like this kind of really cool version of Seattle. Um, this perfect idea of what Seattle could be.

AOIFE:

Yeah, so next up, what are your musical and compositional backgrounds?

ETHAN:

Uh, for sure. I went to undergrad for music as a music major in music school for composition, and I’ve been a drummer my entire life, and did some drumming while I was there. But mostly I was actually writing a lot of weird atonal music, and, uh, during that time, I kind of slowly started writing more more pop stuff and getting more into, uh, not atonal music, I guess, and eventually into just music technology stuff and recording and electronic music in general. But I’ve always tried to keep performing. I always try to gig. I always try to stay in a band, uh, wherever I am. And I’m in a punk band now, but because of the pandemic, we’re all kind of separated, so I can’t wait to get back with them and play some house shows.

AOIFE:

Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of members of the garages are kind of hoping for that too, with their own personal bands. So back to the song that we’re talking about today, how did this song start, like, what was the inspiration there?

ETHAN:

Sure. So when I started this, I had I had just finished ‘park it’’, which was the first song that I’d written for the garages, and when I wrote ‘park it’, I wanted to make something that was, uh, pretty heavy and match the energy of the garages. But I think guitar is my worst instrument. I’m a really bad guitarist. In particular, I’m really bad at using a pick for guitar, um, so I wanted to do something that was like more in line with my comfort zone, which is this kind of knock-off Steely Dan piano rock aesthetic. Uh, that is kind of my comfort food, you know? Uh, so at the end of ‘park it’ there’s this part where, like, the Mike Townsend skit ends, and he says, uh, “My name is Mike Townsend, and I’m a pitcher for the Seattle Garages”.

[A clip from the end of ‘park it’ (a song from ‘the garages kill the gods’) plays, highlighting the line, “Hi! My name is Mike Townsend, and I’m the pitcher for the Seattle Garages”.]

Always in the back of my head after that, I always wanted little [in falsetto voice] “Seattle Garages”, like, little [laughs] falsetto, uh, vocal hit after that. Um, it’s like, uh, if you ever listen to, like, “Speakerboxxx” by Outkast, there’s this, every so often throughout the album, there’s this little [in falsetto voice] “Speakerboxxx” thing that happens. I wanted a version like that, so it starts with that little [in falsetto voice, along with vocal clips from the song] “Seattle Garages” falsetto thing. And after that, I just started kind of adding to it, um, different layers, tried to add a groove. Yeah, mostly realized, like, I started with Mike Townsend, and I just started going through the pitchers, um, and it brought me to Arturo Huerta and, uh, Henry Marshallow.

AOIFE:

So, on the first listen through, the song seems almost like two songs rather than one. Why did you write it as just one?

ETHAN:

Yeah. I mean, I’ve always kind of loved multi-part songs. You know? Whether it’s like a 1 minute or 90 second intro in a song or, uh, something that seems like it has like a twist at the very end. Like a bunch of Kendrick Lamar albums, uh, have stuff like that. Right? Where i’ll have like one beat, and there’ll be a beat switch up two minutes in.

This is gonna sound like a huge tangent, but there was this [laughs], like, weird economics paper I read once. I’ve never taken an economics course in my life, but someone sent me a PDF of it about, um, clothing stores, and, like, clothing stores oftentimes, like, incentivize people to come back if they don’t know what’s going to be in the store next time they visit. Because if they leave the clothing store, and they’re like “Oh! Maybe next time I visit there’ll be something completely different!”, or maybe it’ll be completely the same, just not knowing that will make them want to come back, make them return. And it made me realize, kind of like, oh, with songs, you know, if someone sees a six-minute track from somebody, but that person does multi-part songs, and they’re like bored at minute three, maybe they’ll be like, “Oh, I’ll stick around for this just in case there’s like a switch up five minutes in to something that I do like.” You know? Um, so I kind of like that experience of being surprised by something and then wanting to listen to something by somebody because you don’t know, like, how many different pieces of music are going to be in that track. It adds kind of like this weird, twisty form to everything that I’m into.

AOIFE:

Yeah! So what’s really interesting about the song is the two segments, which are very different, very much flow really well together, and I was wondering what techniques did you use to, like, what is it about these two segments that makes them flow together so well?

ETHAN:

Oh, that’s a good question. So there’s, like, three main parts, right? There’s the Arturo Huerta part, which I wanted to be, kind of, ghostly, right? A little bit mysterious.

[A clip from ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ plays, featuring the section of the song about Arturo Huerta. Vocals sing “Arturo, Arturo, Huerta!”]

And then there was the Marshallow part, which is, like, this really kind of jaunty, loud, energetic thing.

[A clip from ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ plays, featuring piano and drums in the higher tempo, energetic section about Henry Marshallow.]

And then, it kind of moves directly into this third, kind of, Henry Marshallow monologue. Right? And I wanted to kind of be set up like a live show, right? If you ever go to, like, a live band where there’s a band leader, and then at the end of one song they’ll just count off the next song immediately. Uh, that’s kind of how I wanted the Henry Marshallow part to get into the monologue part, was I wanted that song to end, and I wanted him to be, like, kind of like this, like, really kind of cheesy band leader. Right? To just go like “two, three, four” and then for the drummer to come in.

[A clip from ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ plays, featuring the transition between the Henry Marshallow section and the monologue section. Music stops very briefly and “Henry Marshallow” says “Ahh! Thank you, thank you!”. He counts off the next song “Three, Four!” and the drums begin. Finally, Henry goes into his full monologue. After a few seconds, the monologue fades out.]

And for the first two parts, it’s actually kind of weird because I think they work mostly because it’s such a jarring, um, pivot. Right? Where they are in two completely separate keys. If I remember, I think the second, yeah, the Marshallow thing is in C major. The first one is in E major. And it’s kind of like you have this, like, sort of, “park it” hit when everything is getting super mysterious, kind of really cloudy, really ethereal, and you’re suddenly back into a completely separate key, completely separate tempo. Um, but the same mix, and kind of the same group of instruments. So I think that really, like, maybe it’s just the set of instruments that are playing that anchors it, um, which allows me to do basically everything else completely different between the two sections.

AOIFE:

So, with the song being so different and varying throughout it, there are a lot of different instruments on it, and I’m wondering, like, how many different instruments did you use for this track, and how does one person make a song with that many different instruments?

ETHAN:

Oh, it’s mostly, yeah, let me think about how many instruments are actually in it. So my general setup, like, the meat and potatoes of my setup is: I’ve got an electronic drum set, I’ve got this Roland that I use to perform on, for drumming. And then I’ve got a digital piano which is this other Roland thing that’s plugged in via USB that is right behind it I kind of pivot to. And then I’ve got a basic guitar that are in it, and then, uh, I’ve got, like, a Prophet synthesizer, which I mostly just use for, like, goofy flourishes, like, near the end of, uh, Arturo Huerta, when things get kind of wacky. I use, like, some electronic stabs from there.

[A clip from ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ plays, with only the synthesizers highlighted.]

But it’s mostly just those four, of drums, bass, piano, guitar. And it really is actually for Marshallow, in particular. Right? It’s just, like, the drums, bass, and piano, um, are, like, the constant throughout it, and the guitar kind of comes in mostly just for the solo.

[A clip from ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ plays, featuring the guitar solo.]

Yeah, other than that it’s really, I try to keep it to, like, those four instruments, and everything else is just, like, wacky little, like, vocal backup one shots. But those are all the only four, uh, instruments I can really play, unfortunately. And I’m mostly okay at drumming and piano. And at guitar, I’m less good. So I keep the guitar solos short, and I keep them pretty, like, melody heavy without doing anything that is beyond my skill set.

AOIFE:

In my personal involvement in Fourth Strike, you’re someone who has been mentioned a lot, and someone who people, kind of, talk about. Like good things. And I’m just wondering, like, to you who is Ethan Geller?

ETHAN:

[Laughs.] Oh, uh, I don’t know. I think, I like to think that, I try to write, like, generous music that is entertaining without necessarily, um, platforming myself or, like, putting myself in the spotlight. You know? Like, I think that other people tend to have more interesting things to say than I do in terms of the music that they’re trying to create. Like the voice, the creative voice that they’re trying to add to a song. I like to think of myself as, like, a session musician. You know? Maybe for the garages, like, somebody who can maybe, like, add some bass, add some drums, um, add some backing stuff that songs need. But not, like, a front person. You know? Not somebody who is, like, uh, in the spotlight. Uh, somebody who’s just, like, in the studio, laying down some tracks in the background.

AOIFE:

That’s an interesting answer, because when we announced that we’d be interviewing you, a lot of folks in Fourth Strike got very, very, very excited.

ETHAN:

Oh really? [Laughs.] That’s, that’s awesome!

AOIFE:

And I think that’s because it’s been a while since the garages have been blessed with an Ethan Geller song. Do you think you will come back to us, and when would that be?

ETHAN:

Yeah! Absolutely! Um, gosh, I feel [laughs] so bad that I had not realized that I had left? I guess. I’ve been doing a lot of different things. Um, you know I’ve been focusing on stuff not necessarily outside of music and recording, but, like, there is, I guess I have not been on the Discord as actively, or Discord in general, as actively. Um, but I really want to come back. I think that’s, gosh, like, garages as a family is so cool, um, and I’d really like to invest more time in that, so I guess I’ll commit to… So, I have a song about Tot Clark that I’m like halfway through, um, and it’s pretty heavy, and I think, at the very least, I’m going to finish up that song, and maybe put together a sequencing of the pitchers of Seattle with a little intro and a little outro, just to make like a cool little programmatic, uh, half an hour thing. But also, if anyone ever wants me to, like, record drums for them or anything, I’m happy to oblige. Uh,I’m pretty well set up for just like recording, uh, backing tracks.

AOIFE:

Well, that’s great you heard it here first, folks. That we’re getting a new song. So that’s very exciting. Hopefully by the time this comes out, it might be even done by the time this comes out because we have quite a long turnaround when it comes to this sort of stuff.

So, we talked to some folks inside Fourth Strike, and we have a couple of questions. So, first off, em grace asks, quote, “Given that jazz is a genre built on improvisation as a backbone, I’ve always been curious, how much of the monologues were improvised?”

ETHAN:

Oh my gosh! [Laughing] That’s a good question! So, I basically, like, write them out, um, in like my notes app in my phone, and then I will start riffing on those notes, um, with, like, no real edit pass. I wish I could improv like that, but I have to keep myself to some sort of form or else I’ll just start rambling. Yeah, it’s pre-written, but I try to keep it as unedited as possible.

AOIFE:

Yeah, it’s the way that, like, some of the people that I’ve interviewed here. Like I remember bird, uh, said that they just improvised the lyrics for their songs.

ETHAN:

Oh really? That’s awesome!

AOIFE:

Like, I very much, I’m in your camp, for, like, improvisation. I can’t imagine, just…

ETHAN:

I mean there’s also so much lore and details to the game of Blaseball and the history of baseball…Blaseball that, yeah, it feels like to improvise would be so difficult to me because I would really need to internalize, like, very specific details to make sure that I didn’t need to fact check it afterwards. So, that’s awesome.

AOIFE:

Yeah, so our next question is from mother love blone. They ask “Why Arty and Hank?”

ETHAN:

Oh, that’s a really good question. Um, yeah, so Arturo Huerta, you know, like, when I started recording that part, you know, I started with the [in falsetto voice] “Seattle Garages” falsetto, and I started kind of riffing on that introductory groove. And I was thinking like, “Oh this is pretty, like, it’s somebody sneaking around. It’s like a ghost.” And, at that point it was like Arturo Huerta is a ghost. He doesn’t really have that much of a corporeal form or anything like that, so this would be a good fit for him.

And then Henry Marshallow. There’s, like, a couple of reasons why. First off was this this really dumb joke that I was thinking in the back of my head, was that, I was imagining that, like, it must be really fun for Arturo Huerta and Henry Marshallow to watch Ghostbusters together and see the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Uh, the thing is, just like, oh, this is something they can watch together and kind of bond over because it has ghosts, uh, it has sentient marshmallows. Uh, it’s the best of both their interests and character traits. Right?

And then, also, there was like a weird funny diabetic detail, where it’s, like, I have type 1 diabetes, and I was thinking it’s really funny to try to inhabit this character of Henry Marshallow who is, like, literally made of sugar. You know? Like, uh, somebody who is like in many ways the polar opposite of someone like me, who is, uh, has to be very wary of eating sugar.

[A clip from the monologue in ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ plays, where Ethan, as Henry Marshallow, shouts out various people with type 1 diabetes, including himself (Ethan Geller).] It was kind of fun to play around with that in the skit. Talk about, like, how, uh, you know, like, if he was turning to a s’more, if you tried to eat him as a s’more, your body would need to be like 20% insulin, etc. Uh, so it was kind of fun to inhabit that character, um, from the perspective of being diabetic.

AOIFE:

Yeah that’s a really interesting way of looking at it.

ETHAN:

Thanks!

AOIFE:

So, next up, what’s your favorite part of the song? What are you most proud of?

ETHAN:

Oh, my favorite part, hands down, is, um, the last monologue part, and specifically the very last thing that I did for this song was, uh, that monologue, and then my partner Jennface, Jennifer, recorded the publicist part. And I knew that I wanted this publicist interaction, because there’s a couple parts in the monologue where Marshallow refers to a publicist. It was kind of like a really funny, kind of, theatrical moment. Right? Where you know I asked Jennifer about it, and basically, you know, gave her a few lines of direction of, like, “Oh here’s the script that Marshallow says, and here’s, like, some things to say.” But for the most part, it was just like “Here’s a microphone, here’s headphones”, and basically I closed the door, and she was able to, she just recorded the whole thing.

[A clip from the monologue in ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ plays, where Henry Marshallow, played by Ethan, speaks without much of a filter, and his publicist, played by Jennface, tries to interrupt and warn him not to speak poorly about diabetics.]

And it was just really fun hearing that come together. Um and laughing at it, and her being part of this monologue was a really fun, special moment for sure. Yeah! Shout out, shout out to Jennface!

AOIFE:

Hell yeah! So, what has the community reaction been? Like for you both for the song and the garages as a whole.

ETHAN:

Oh, I didn’t know there was a community reaction to the song. Um the garages, it’s incredible. Um, I mean it’s well deserved. Honestly, like, both from an execution standpoint, like, the garages are so good, and the music and the discography is so solid, and also, just from like a concept that it could work. Right? That like this group, everybody is in different locations. Right? And there are folks on the Discord who, like, really put in a lot of hard work to make sure that it comes together into these albums that really feel like albums. And this music that really feels like it comes from a single, singular unified band, even though everyone’s kind of bringing their own voice to it. So that has been amazing to see, and honestly I’m just, like, at this point, I feel more like a fan than a member just because I’ll listen to it, I’ll just be like “this rules”. It’s just so cool to see it come together and hear it come out of people that I talk to. It’s really special. It’s really cool.

AOIFE:

Yeah, definitely! So lastly, outside of your work, what do you consider to be the most underrated garages song?

ETHAN:

Ooh, that’s a really good question. Actually do you know ‘face to the name’? Yeah, it was perfected automation was the name of the artist [https://soundcloud.com/automaton-7], and there’s a song called ‘face to the name’ that, like, honestly, just like shreds. It almost feels like a Fall of Troy song. It’s like a post-hardcore thing. It’s really mathy, it’s really groovy. There’s a little while during it that I was just, like, playing drums along to it. Uh, and, like just having a lot of fun listening to that track and playing along to it. So shout out to ‘face to the name’ by perfected automation.

[A clip from “a face to the name” by perfected automation from the album ‘in the feedback’ plays]

And “the angels in the outfield are unionizing” is a personal favorite for mine.

AOIFE:

Thank you so much for joining us on “idol board”, a podcast where we interview members of the garages, an anarcho-syndicalist blaseball band from the fictional location of Seattle. We make song s about being gay, the apocalypse, and fighting the gods, and you can find our music at blandcamp.com (with an L), Spotify, or on Youtube. We’ll see you next week. Now here’s ‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ by Ethan Geller of the garages.

[‘arturo huerta and henry marshmallow’ plays in full.]

ETHAN:

Oh? The name of the song? It’s, it’s, okay. I believe it’s ‘arturo huerta and henry marshallow’, but I accidentally named it ‘henry marshmallow’ and I say “Henry Marshmallow” throughout the song. His name is actually “Henry Marshallow”, as I found out just after finishing the song. [Laughing] Unfortunately.

ANNOUNCER:

idol board is edited by Ada Quinn, BONES, Jennifer Cat, nuclear tourist, and zack.ry, hosted by Aoife, produced by Tangereen Velveteen, transcribed by SigilCrafter Aya, Merry, and VigilantBaker, and written by Aoife and Tangereen Velveteen.

[outro music plays]

That was a Fourth Strike production.