Hey Rainflower blog readers!

Moby from Beefheart and McQuinn here saying hello, howdy and hi! Really excited to be a part of this label and to start sharing our new music! Everything has felt very fortuitous surrounding this project and the connection with this label has not shaken that theme.

Winnie and I met around 18 months ago in Naarm/Melbourne a short while after I had moved there to start a new chapter in life. I hadn’t met many musicians and had been finding the start of life in a new city fairly overwhelming. Making friends as an adult can be really hard! I was passed on Winnie’s details by a mutual friend at a party I was at, being told that he was the guy. We arranged a coffee date and we chatted about music. It was really quite awkward, I think we would both agree. We didn’t know each other and I wanted something from a busy musician that he didn’t owe me and there wasn’t too much to talk about other than the fact we both love Steely Dan and drinking coffee. I know now that sometimes that’s enough to get you what you want in life. I asked if he would be interested in meeting up and playing through some of my songs for my new project ‘Moby Beefheart’. And he agreed. On my walk home Winnie sent me his new record and I listened to it and immediately realised I had met the exact person I had dreamed of meeting and making music with. I went over to his house the next day and we played through some of my stuff but then he started playing an idea he had just had a few days before. I immediately knew I was the owner the B section, an idea I had written a few days before also. These two ideas shook hands and weren’t going to let go. We recorded the track the next week and it was immediately clear there was something palpable and serendipitous about this new connection. Without thinking too much we kept the momentum going, hanging out and getting to know each other alongside writing and recording a new track every week, when 3 months later we we were rather comfortably sat on an album. Some were Winnies, some were mine, some were written from scratch sat under the loquat tree in Winnie’s garden. A few were written four coffees deep, not knowing if we were being blinded by the dazzling shine of a caffeine frenzy or if they were actually good songs. One of these was ‘Do It Again’ a JJ Cale inspired bluesy toe tapping’ choogler. It came together in a few hours and we felt it was a great way to open up the album campaign. Drink 6 coffees, sit back and crank it.

When thinking about album names for this collection of songs, I was drawn, by reason I know not, to an anagram generator online and when inputting ‘Winter and Moby’ into the search bar, I saw two names pop up. Brian Downtime and Barney Midtown. We have a running thing in our friendship where we see or hear random names out in the wild and we write them down hoping to be able to use them for something at a later date (not sure what this something is yet but its entertaining enough on its own). These two names made me laugh so hard. They were in my head running around as these two characters who had recorded this album. I thought about what Midtown and Downtime meant and it felt somewhat like the space we had created to make this record. Middle of town using our downtime from our other responsibilities. Midtown Downtime became the two words to best represent this album, and it was born. I’m Brian, Winnie is Barney. Alias’ are fun and as Paul McCartney will attest to, creating alternate personas for your members can really help you loosen up and create a great record and we feel that’s what we’ve done. We hope you enjoy the record, when it comes out.