Ned Darwin, a name as ubiquitous with home recording as the likes of Johnston, Moore, Fair & Fair, and countless other autodidacts. Darwin's practice, however, defected from what was ostensibly a mandatory insularity that his peers embodied in their fledgling days. Though the de facto ilk he has since been lumped into was an often pining bunch, Darwin, however, was never without a woman on his arm while walking the U of M strip in the height of his powers. This spawned one apocryphal story after the next with the alumni of the school. This was much to the chagrin of Darwin, who was always battling with the inner dichotomy between showboating and clandestine dating practices. It wasn't, of course, until Darwin's untimely death in 1990 when his tapes were found and his inaugural public broadcast was made on the local college radio station WAOS. In those halcyon days of college rock, this may as well have been a Rolling Stone cover for Darwin (though he would have to wait for that, when Mudhoney bassist Matt Lukin wore a sharpied Ned Darwin shirt on the cover of RS in 1994- though partially obscured by frontman Mark Arm). Darwin's shoddy recordings won favorability with the indie masses who were tired of being inundated with sterile, over produced rock music of the time, all the while being a more docile crowd than what Stephen Malkmus would call the "truck driving Nirvana or Chili Pepper listener" (pardon any paraphrasing). Although Darwin never imagined public release, his eclectic style was welcomed with open arms and openly emulated by then-Ohio school teacher Rob Pollard, an early apologist of his water damaged retro indie smorgasbord, who, with great deference, would be a large proponent of 90s lo-fi leaning indie in Guided by Voices. Darwin's motives, however, were less driven by an urge to craft indiscriminate kitchen sink opuses but rather to cater to his one person audiences. For his flannel wearing fling Virginia, he fashioned a fuzz-lined proto-slacker pastiche. For his John Fahey fancy Pam, he mustered all he could with his Kay parlor guitar. The list of imitations go on, but his warped sensibilities create a through line. Presented here are a curation of his most direct ploys for a woman's heart, and though a lot of songs were found untitled, they have become affectionately referred to in shorthand by their dedications. Here are six for digital consumption in promotion of our full length tape, available on the corner of Classon and Quincy.

-Steven Hurt, Bright Idea Records