David "Pudge" Gervais - The Last Stand of Unsophisticated Display (2018)

This album consists of music I have written while living in Reno, NV. While in Reno, I’ve been fortunate enough to perform, study, travel and hang with countless amazing musicians and people, and I’ve had many life-changing experiences for which I'm grateful. These compositions are my attempt to reflect the best and worst moments of my development as an artist and human being. Working on this music has taught me how each moment of happiness, sorrow, stress, and love has been essential to my life’s process; being able to play and share my music helps me make sense of the world and my place in it.

The title track, “The Last Stand of Unsophisticated Display”, was inspired by the music of Michael Formanek as well as Cuban Lucumí batá drumming. The tune/album title is based off a Walker Evans photography exhibit that I saw in San Francisco; the title immediately stood out to me as a beautiful representation of the musical and artistic aesthetics that I find important. “Wu Wei” is my earliest composition of those on the album; I wrote it when I was 18 after learning about the philosophical concept of Wu wei and beginning to focus on mindfulness, non-doing, and self-care. “Meadow Flower” is a recent composition for solo drum set regarding the perfect order of nature contrasted by the confusion/chaos of human interaction and intimacy. “Taïm (More Than Ever Before)” is a piece I wrote to perform with Tim Berne’s combo at the SIM Workshop 2018 during my first trip to New York City; that experience changed my life forever as I was so energized by the music, art, food, and vibe of the city. I decided to read a poem over this tune about a painful experience I had before that trip with somebody I care about deeply, where a nightmare from my adolescence seemed to come true (this dream inspired the album art as well). I wrote “The Desert is a Lizard” this year with the landscape and music of Joshua Tree, CA in mind. “Soy Chub” is dedicated to Macy and Noa Remaklus and is simply a piece embracing who I am and what I admire/feel. “Caffeine Dream” is a piece heavily inspired by the music of Ralph Alessi and is about my experiences with the intense and vivid dreams I have as a result of stress, sleep deprivation and caffeine. This morphs directly into the final piece, “Jewel”, which is dedicated to a person who greatly affected my life these past few years. I hope this tune inspires gratitude for what and who you have in your life at this very moment.

Thank you to the musicians for bringing my ideas to life and for being so open, creative, and focused while rehearsing and recording this music. Y’all are my best friends and I love you. Thank you to Landon for recording us and being easy to work with and to Alex Breckenridge for letting us use his microphones. Thank you to my oldest and closest friend, Wyatt Leonard, for putting so much time and care into mixing and mastering this album as if it were his own. Your intelligence, talent, creativity and personality are one in a million, and I’m grateful to have a friend like you. Thank you to my favorite artist, Parker Winans, for the time and effort spent painting and designing the album artwork. Your art inspired many aspects of this music, so it’s an honor to have your work on the cover. Thank you to my many amazing mentors for helping me grow as an artist and person; Dr. Andrew Heglund, Cody Remaklus, Chance Utter, Brian Judkins, Tommy Arnold, Ralph Alessi, Adam Benjamin, Peter Epstein, Hans Halt, Ed Corey, Michael Spiro, Colin Douglas and many more. Finally, thank you from the bottom of my heart to my family, friends and all of you listening to my music for the love and support.