“People are stupid and I hate them” — Shmed

Formed in 2009, I Give Up was a concept originally conceived by Mike TV of Get Set Go.

“I wanted to write a record that captured exactly what I was going through at the time that I was recording it. Despondent, feeling like an utter failure, having had a tiny amount of success only to drop back into obscurity. And feeling like I try and I try and I try, only to fail.” — Mike TV

“Making it in music was always more about good looks, rich parents, lots of money, and connections. Now that the industry is (falling apart) it brings me much joy to know all those spoiled brats and evil A&R guys are losing their jobs and hopefully jumping out of high windows” — Shmed

“The songs on this album had a special resonance for me. I’ve come close to giving up playing music more times than I can count (seven). Crippling depression and emotional paralysis are kind of my thing.” – Eric Summer

So, Mike began penning the songs that would eventually become I Give Up. However, the typically fun and easy process of song-writing was facing some serious impediments. After having written four complete albums, releasing 69 songs, Mike found that putting his thoughts into song was a little bit more difficult this time around.

“I’ve always been a bit of an addict, and although I had conquered my addiction to drugs and alcohol, I had discovered the joys of online gaming, and spent thousands and thousands of hours gaming over the past two years, retreating deeper and deeper into a little cocoon I had made for myself. Cocoon’s are nice. They’re warm. Like a womb. But without all the gooey juice.” – Mike TV

But fortunately, despite the tug and distraction of yet another insidious, albeit slightly silly, addiction, Mike managed to cobble together 16 songs.

“I knew this wasn’t gonna be a Get Set Go record. It’s just not the sorta thing that our record label gets excited over. I also knew that I wanted the whole record to work as a concept album. I wanted the whole band to be a concept band. I wanted the record to feel like it was being played by guys that were sick of trying to ‘make it’. They were worn out, beat up, and now just making music for each other because it was the only thing they knew how to do. Which, actually, was not very far from the truth.” — Mike TV

“I think the I Give Up project is actually a bit of a let down. Mike TV, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is clearly not giving up. If he really wanted to put his money where his mouth is, he would have hung up his guitar years ago. That’s what quitters do- they quit. Mike TV is a feeble quitter at best.” — Dave P

“The first song I wrote was The Secret of My Success. That’s the song that goes, ‘You try and you try and you try but you fail.’ And that basically set the tenor for the rest of the record. It was gonna be about being a loser. But not just any type of loser. We’re not talking about the kind of loser that gets the girl at the end of the movie. We’re talking about the kind of loser that gets run over by a truck, has his organs removed mistakenly by the hospital, and just as he’s declared his love to the girl of his dreams, who is probably about to get double-teamed by the two paramedics that delivered him to the E.R., is wheeled, due to mistaken identity, into the O.R. where he undergoes a trans-gender surgery that goes horribly awry. That’s the kind of loser that I wanted to depict. You know, the way it happens in real-life.” – Mike TV

“Good song writing hasn’t been in style since 1977″ — Shmed

“I had also just broken up with my girlfriend of four and a half years. So the heartbreak and pain of that was also fueling a lot of the songs. It actually leaked into all sorts of songs that it had no business being in, like One Perfect Day. It was sorta like an infection or cancer, running unchecked throughout the record. Damn relationships. So far, Sarah’s made it into every goddamn record I’ve written except the first.” — Mike TV

“I think it’s important to precede each new creative endeavor with a breakup. The resulting period of wallowing, accompanied by marinating one’s liver in cheap wine and listening to music in one’s apartment by oneself, not leaving home for days at a stretch, is the only thing that can effectively catalyze the creative process. I am not sure I’d recommend this for everyone. This is probably why musicians make so much money.” – Eric Summer

Over the course of a couple months, Mike recorded acoustic demo’s for the entire album and made them available for a thirty dollar donation to Get Set Go fans.

“We had discovered, almost by complete accident, that we had a small but fiercely loyal cadre of fans, or as I like to call them, ‘hyper-intelligent, preternaturally good-looking super-beings’ that were willing to help us raise the funds to actually record this steaming pile of self-deprecating magic.” — Mike TV

He also got the acoustic demos to Eric, Get Set Go’s viola player.

“The initial idea was that this record would sorta fall in line with Ordinary World. (Get Set Go’s second release) It was gonna be a piano, viola, acoustic guitar record. With no drums, lots of harmonies, lots of oohs and ahhs. But after a while, after talking with Dave, I figured, drums actually are a good thing, so I hooked him up with demos. And then I realized, fuck, if I’ve got Dave and Eric, I should probably get all of Get Set Go involved.” – Mike TV

I tried a lot of slightly different things when I wrote my parts for this album. They’re probably things nobody listening to the album would ever pick up on or care about, but I know they’re there, which is enough for a viola player. – Eric Summer

However, budgetary issues kept him from including the whole band.

“That’s one of my significant frustrations with this band. I really wanted to get all the Get Set Go guys playing on I Give Up. I mean, they deserved it. They had gone through the exact same thing I did. It was only fair. But I ended up spending every dollar I had on this record. I emptied my bank account, moved out of my apartment, and cut my expenses to zero to be able to afford to make this thing. And I still didn’t have enough money to fly everyone up to Montana where we were planning on recording.” – Mike TV

In November of 2008, Mike TV, Eric Summer, and Dave Palamaro climbed into Dave’s little red Saturn and made the 18 hour drive up to Missoula, Montana. They had made plans to record at a new studio, Club Shmed Studios, which was owned and operated by their good friend and Los Angeles-expatriate, Ryan “Shmedly” Maynes. Shmed had made significant contributions to three of the four Get Set Go albums, having played piano, synth, percussion, and accordion wherever those instruments were heard on the Get Set Go recordings.

“I moved to Montana to make music with no chance of success because I’m tired of failing” — Shmed

“It was an opportunity to record on the cheap, because Shmed gave us a really great deal, and it was also loads of fun to visit Shmed and his ridiculously cute family.” — Mike TV

The boys went up on a Thursday, started tracking on Friday, and by Sunday the drums and viola were recorded and Dave and Eric were on their way back to Los Angeles. In those couple days, however, the duo managed to lay down some extraordinary music.

“I’m certain Dave must think I’m insane. Because sometimes he’ll suggest a perfectly acceptable beat and I’ll shoot it down. And then other times, like with One Perfect Day, he’ll come up with something totally left-of-field and I’ll be like, ‘that’s fucking perfect!’” – Mike TV

I’d say that out of the 130 or so ideas for drum parts that I have pitched to Mike over the years, he’s shot down approx. 129 ½ of them. But that’s what making great music is all about: collaboration.
Dave P

“It’s been said that the sound of the viola, more than any other instrument, most closely approximates the sound of a baby being set on fire.” – Eric Summer

“Of course, one of the great things about recording at Shmed’s studio is that he’s part of the package. He’s one of the most accomplished studio musicians I’ve ever met. Also, it helps that he too is a workaholic.” — Mike TV

“The normal music listener is as about as sophisticated…as a 5 year old going to buy a cabbage patch doll” — Shmed

“Shmed’s basically the song-writer that everybody in our little music scene was trying to emulate. Even if they didn’t realize they were. And so, it was always great to have him, the Man Himself, actually playing on our records. Whether it be Get Set Go, or this brand new project.” – Mike TV

“As with the most recent Get Set Go album, I think everybody brought their A-game to Nobody Cares. The combination of song- and part-writing is beautifully homogenous. Our next task, and it’s a ball-breaker, is to get the music-listening populace interested in beautiful homogeny.” – Eric Summer

I think that the I Give Up album turned out fantastic. Every aspect of the recordings turned out pitch perfect…..except the drums could be a bit louder.
Dave P

“One of the saving graces of recording this record with Shmed was that he allowed me to stay at his place while we were working on the record. Which meant that I didn’t have any housing costs. I was spending every dollar I had on this recording. Any other big ticket costs woulda broke the bank. It was really pretty incredible to see how everyone came together to help this record get made. I owe these guys my life.” — Mike TV

“I blame MTV and the Guitar Center for making every kid want to be a musician. I feel like a 4th generation plumber in a town [full of wanna-be plummers walking around thinking they are all cool with there fancy wrenches.” — Shmed

“I actually do owe these guys my life. If I hadn’t of gotten this record made, I wouldn’ta had anything to bring to New Maximum Donkey and the Power Cords to get Square Tire Music up and running. It wasn’t until much later, after we were already working on the site and all of the content that I realized, ‘Oh hey, maybe Get Set Go could be part of this.’ I mean, I didn’t even think that maybe the record label would be interested in letting us represent Get Set Go.” — Mike TV

“I should have known I never stood a chance when the public let the Jellyfish fail and made Dave Mathews a millionaire.” — Shmed

“Oddly enough, I guess I didn’t really give up. I Give Up was actually the record that got me charged up about making music again. But this time I wanted to do it for myself. And I wanted to reinvent the wheel. And I felt it was important to have a record out there that illustrated how low a person can get when they are forced to try, repeatedly, to make a living doing what it is that they love, that they are sure in their hearts they were born to do, only to fail, over and over and over again. I’m not sure where Square Tire Music and I Give Up will go. It could be another miserable failure waiting to happen. But somehow, call it unbridled optimism if you will, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen.” — Mike TV

I can’t sum up right now, I’m currently writing a new album’s worth of drum parts for Mike to reject.
Dave P

I think this project goes much further than the old metaphor about pouring old wine into new bottles. It’s more like skinning a bunch of corpses, switching the skins around, and then reanimating the corpses in the middle of Grand Central Station. Then you get the corpses drunk on the old wine, and they stumble around trying to figure out whose skin they’re all wearing, and which bottle goes with which wine. Meanwhile, everybody in the middle of Grand Central Station is coping with the fact that a bunch of re-skinned zombies are walking around drunk down there. That, to me, is the essence of I Give Up. – Eric Summer