Announcing The Seed Catalog

It’s been a year since my record Be Here Instead was released into the wild. In honor of this anniversary and in honor of the wilds into which we have all been released, I announce the start of the Parker Millsap Seed Catalog.

The Seed Catalog is a music series I will be releasing on my Bandcamp page comprised of demos, alternate versions, early versions, live takes, remixes, and other sorts of sonic sustenance that I find lying around in my archives. 100% of the money generated by the Seed Catalog will go straight to the Nature Conservancy, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and protecting our planet.

The first volume in the Seed Catalog includes early versions of “Dammit” and “The Real Thing”. With this version of “Dammit” you will hear how much a song can change between conception and release. For what it’s worth, I think this ballad version is pretty great, and I think Chris Stapleton or Adele would kill it. (If you know their people, let’s talk). On the other hand, this version of “The Real Thing” shows the opposite - there are a few tiny changes but, by and large, the song came into the world fully formed.

Check it out HERE.

I hope you enjoy these tunes, and please consider donating more than the asking price. The Earth thanks you!

Cover art by Lauren Cierzan

To Be Real - Out Now

Parker TBR Final.jpg

Surprise! I've got a new song out in the world today.

To Be Real is the story of a computer becoming sentient, realizing that it is missing out on the complexity and mystery of the human experience, and begging to escape its cold prison of hard logic. This song was written and recorded alongside the tracks on Be Here Instead, but it is different in that it is the only song from this batch that was written from a perspective that isn’t mine. While it wasn’t intentional, I feel like this song is an answer to “The Real Thing”, which grapples with what it means to be human in the digital age, while “To Be Real” asks what it might feel like to be a cluster of silicon and glass reaching for a conscious and fleshy life in the anthropocene.

Musically, this song began as a fun chord progression. After I came up with a melody for it I used GarageBand to make a demo. Eventually I got carried away and added gobs of digital synths and guitar parts. When it felt sufficiently maximalist, I sent the demo to the band and we rehearsed it about ten different ways. They helped me scrape the goo off of it and we figured out a way to do it live without any of the GarageBand tracks. We recorded it like that: live with the full band. Then I tried to add some of the original iPad synths back into the recording, and use the GarageBand autotune for the vocals, and it worked! This song couldn’t decide if it wanted to be human or digital, and ended up being both.

Listen here: https://orcd.co/tobereal

"It Was You" OurVinyl Session

I recently got together with the folks over at OurVinyl to film acoustic versions of a few of my songs. The video for “It was You” is OUT NOW!

This song is a love song, a hymn, an ode to my wife. I hope you have someone in your life that this song could be about. “It Was You” is on my newest record Be Here Instead which you can get HERE or come check it out live on tour starting in September. Check out my tour dates to find a show near you!