I used to try and put you up on a pedestal
I swear to god that nothing hurt,
nothing made me feel as low as
when I wouldn’t live up to your standards
But lately I’ve been thinking your opinion doesn’t matter

(Source: marcopolio.bandcamp.com)

9:53 pm  •  24 January 2013  •  5 notes

2:00 pm  •  20 January 2013  •  2 notes

Here’s a track that never made the light of day. It is about the moon. Featuring myself on vocals and guitar and the indomitable Jess Rigby on violin. Jess is in a cool band called Super Super Serious Please Don’t Laugh Band, check them out.
Reworking this and a handful of other songs for a tape that will be coming out in April to coincide with a Spring tour. Stay tuned, buy early, buy often.

(Source: marcopolio)

2:00 pm  •  11 January 2013  •  2 notes

HEY BBZ IF ANY FOLLOWERZ WANT 2 BUY ME A XMAS GIFT U STILL HAVE TIME ORDER NOW BUY EARLY BUY OFTEN

12:58 pm  •  25 December 2012

Somehow garnered a bunch of new followers recently.

I’ll take this moment to say, “hello”.

Also, I will take this moment to let you know that this blog is scarcely updated with Marco Polio news (two new EPs and an April 2013 tour with Peter House and For the Kid in the Back are in the works, that is all that there is to report for now), but if you’d like to keep up on my other creative endeavors I have created a page dedicated to my artwork that you can visit by clicking on that hilarious image of a dog answering a phone call. It is regularly updated with writings, images and recordings. If you’re into it, please share and reblog, help a poor artist get by.

Thank you, goodnight.

(Source: shitbrickhouse)

5:41 pm  •  15 December 2012  •  5 notes

The insert for WIRELESS INTERNET RADIATION POISONING, an EP that never wound up actually getting a physical release, mostly because it was written as a love letter to internet users everywhere. I suppose you can print this off when you start bootlegging copies of the EP for your DIY record label.

3:30 pm  •  15 November 2012  •  1 note

I got a request for this song at a show the other night, and earlier today I dug out this old demo of the tune. This recording is a duet with Sara Cilantro.
A cute song that probably won’t ever make its way onto an album, so here it is as a standalone track.

This is a song about one of my cats, “Hobbes”. This is one of several songs that have been written about him (there are others that I didn’t write). I suppose he inspires people.

I know you’ve got a lot to do.
The last thing I’d want is to bother you, but I can’t help but notice the space there on your lap.
How could you do me like that?
And I thought that I knew what it was that made you want to fall in love.
Sever the part that held you close, now I’m not the one you want the most.
And I wish, oh I wish that I could let this go, but there’s some many things, there’s some many things you don’t even know.
You don’t even know!
And I swear, I swear to fucking god that I could let this be… but if your hands are free, then why aren’t they holding me? 

(Source: marcopolio)

7:15 pm  •  14 November 2012  •  6 notes

buildwalls:

Marco Polio is a group that plays what some would call folk punk, but I’m not sure if I’d call it that. Matt Hall, the driving force behind Marco Polio, has an almost huanting voice. It seems like Marco Polio has sort of changed over a long period of time. This tape seems like a straight up…

Got a nifty little writeup from Build Walls, check out the other releases featured over there!

5:51 pm  •  13 October 2012  •  5 notes

This is an updated version of a post I made last December while establishing a stronger internet presence for this project and these songs. Many of these statements bear repeating.

For years now I have struggled with finding a level of Internet activity and presence that I am comfortable with. In terms of having a personal online profile, I don’t feel comfortable using modern social networking sites.
(I SHOULD BREAK AND PROVIDE AN UPDATE HERE: Because of my work as music and PR coordinator with ROTA Gallery, I now maintain a personal Facebook page, however, I don’t really feel any better about it than I did at the time of this writing. - Matt, 10/12/2012)
I understand the conveniences offered, and have experienced their benefits firsthand. However, there are a plethora of what I see as negative factors and results of using these services that outweigh any benefits offered.

I feel that the increased use of social networking sites, and mobile technology in general, have had and will continue to have harmful effects not only on individuals, but also on our environment. It is my opinion that social networking sites and mobile technology capitalizes on our desire to be connected to the people and things that we love. In a sense, they are simply providing a service that attempts to act as a constant bridge between you, your desires and your loved ones. But at what cost? It is becoming more and more common for an individual to have twenty four hour access to the Internet, through devices that are almost constantly on their person. What effects does that have on an individual?

Let’s get the big one out of the way- wireless radiation. While studies on the effects of cell phone and wireless use are still amassing information, there is mounting evidence that wireless radiation can cause cancer. Wireless radiation from some devices was recently classified as a class 2-B carcinogen by the World Health Organization. There are increasing numbers of people reporting sensitivity to wireless radiation, and stories are constantly coming out about harm caused to individuals and their environments suspected to be the result of exposure to wireless radiation. Let’s be clear here: there is no 100% conclusive evidence linking wireless radiation to cancer. But the research is still being done. In the meantime, why don’t we just stop and think about all the radiation we’re exposing ourselves to on a daily basis. Aside from obvious things like microwave ovens, we are exposed to radiation from our computers (desktop and laptop), cell phones and other wireless devices, Smart Meters on our homes, not to mention the overall increasing wireless Internet network that is covering the civilized world. Do you think that those things add up? Do you think that it would be a good idea to be prudent until more conclusive research is done on the risks? I’m going to allow folks to do their own research here, but remember that cancer causing products are sold to us on a daily basis, even ones that are legally declared as safe. For example, growth horomones in our milk and meats. 

The FDA claims that there is no difference shown in cows that are treated with hormones and those that are not. However, there is conclusive evidence saying otherwise, and the hormones are banned in many places outside of these united states. My point- don’t believe the hype. There is a whole lot of money to be lost if products are seen by the public as agents of cancer and death, and time and time again we’ve seen the measures that are taken to manipulate public opinion. Do some research, come to your own conclusions.

It used to be that when you left your home, you were largely unavailable for personal phone calls. Now, with mobile Internet, texting, and hands free and implant technologies, you can be available for contact at almost anytime. I hear people express grievances on a daily basis over their annoyances with being constantly bombarded by text messages and phone calls, but they choose to keep their mobile devices for fear of losing touch with their friends and loved ones. I can only speak for myself. but I’ve been without a cell phone for a while now and have not experienced any such thing, and in fact have become even more active with my friends and in the community. 

It is also in my opinion that social networking sites and mobile devices capitalize on a desire to become more productive and efficient. This often leads to multitasking, and people will attempt to use their mobile devices to hold conversations, browse the Internet, receive updates and information, or simply entertain themselves while taking on unrelated tasks like work, school, driving and face to face social interactions. Multitasking, however, is biologically impossible.

You may think that you are able to do two activities at once, but the brain actually switches between activities, and re-focusing our attention requires both time and energy. Have you experienced frustration with this phenomenon, either in yourself or with other people? Can you visualize how such behaviors could be detrimental or even dangerous? However, that’s not the only way we stretch our brains. How many people do you know that have more than 150 contacts on their “friends” lists on whatever social networking sites they choose to use? The human brain is only capable of maintaining about 150 stable social relationships. This idea is called Dunbar’s number, you should look into it.

Beyond stretching ourselves to try and keep up with such a large number of “friends”, the depth and speed of the Internet have given us unrealistic expectations of ourselves and our society. We expect our “friends” and the things we want to be constantly available to us, and those things and “friends” in turn expect the same from us. But what stress does that put on everything? We still live in the real world, and the things of this earth will always move at their own pace. We cannot make things move faster without some sacrifice, without losing something essential to the very things we trying to speed up. We see this in the effects fast food has had on obesity and general health, pharmaceutical drugs and their effects on individuals and our expectations for healing, sweatshop labor and its effects on the workers in those places, as well as in many other products of our increasingly fast paced and industrialized civilization.

These are only a handful of issues that I have with the Internet, and if you dig a little deeper you’ll probably find more ways than you can count that it is used to oppress living things. But it is because of all of those things that I have decided to keep my use of social networking, mobile devices and the Internet in general to a minimum. I do not maintain any extensive personal Internet presence. However, I like to write, record, perform and share music. I have no intention of working with a major record label to help me do those things, so I choose to do them independently. I record my own songs, make my own albums and book my own shows and tours. As any independent musician can tell you, doing those things today are almost impossible without occasional aid from the Internet. The same goes for almost any independent venture, whether it’s starting a small business or starting a sports team. So you can maybe see where my conflict arises.

However, for me, music has long been a form of activism, a way to possibly bring attention to oppression and injustice and to hopefully inspire some action against it. Records by bands like Dead Kennedys and The Clash really brought a lot of things to my attention that are still persistent problems in society today. But while they brought those things to my attention, that was all they did. It wasn’t until years later that I understood how to actually combat oppression, and not just speak up about it. Now, this is not to say that speaking up and taking notice are not vital steps in the process, but I recently came to a personal understanding that art by itself can only inspire change, not literally facilitate it. There are exceptions here and there, I know, especially the personal liberation of individuals who find their voice through punk rock. But for myself and the goals I’ve set out, putting out tapes and going on tour can only go so far. Recently I’ve become the Vice President on the board of a non-profit, downtown cultural center in my city, and I’m becoming increasingly more active in our local General Assembly.
(A SECOND UPDATE: The General Assembly here in Plattsburgh fell apart much like the rest of the “Occupy movement”, however, it was a noble effort and a good exercise for people to stand up their communities and publicly and collectively recognize that there is something wrong with the situation that we’re all in. My only regret is that we could never all really seem to come to a consensus on what the problem is and where it starts.)Between the two organizations I have been able to take part in more community outreach than I ever have in my life. The projects are time consuming and often thankless, but that shouldn’t be new to anyone coming from the DIY punk scene. For a long time I put my focus into art and music, maintaining a strict DIY ethic, feeling sick about outsourcing tasks like distribution of my recordings to websites like MySpace or Bandcamp. But I did that because I felt that displaying that sort of fierce rejection of technology would make my message even more effective. But it hadn’t dawned on me until recently that singing about getting away from the Internet and putting the songs on hard to find cassette tapes was preaching to the choir at best. Most folks who I share music with have already cut themselves from the web.  I had a vision, a revelation, and I came to understand my place better. I can’t expect it to be completely understood, I can’t expect it to not come off a bit grandiose and pretentious, but all in all I’m trying to say that my goals have not changed, although my tactics have. So internet, please, take my art. I’m not saying that I’m totally comfortable with you, but my words make more sense inside of you than outside of you.  I can no longer put so much focus on method and aesthetic. Songs are songs.  Humans, get in touch with me. I will stay play shows, and I will still make you mix tapes with handmade art and letters and other goodies, but only upon request. I won’t be making loads of tapes ahead of time and hoping to sell them. I can’t endorse buying new materials and manufacturing my art, no matter how small of a scale it’s on.  I can’t put time or focus into that. I can however put time and focus into other things (as mentioned above), and if you’re interested, check them out, and if you’re in the area, get involved. And if you’re interested and not in the area, think about how to adapt similar ideas to your community. Okay? And enjoy the songs, if that’s your kind of thing.

(Source: marcopolio)

11:13 am  •  12 October 2012

TOUR IS OVER

THANKS TO ALL WHO HOSTED US, PLAYED WITH US AND ALLOWED THEMSELVES TO BE SUBJECTED TO US

THIS VIDEO WILL SUM UP ALL OF MY OTHER SENTIMENTS REGARDING THE TRIP

10:59 pm  •  3 September 2012