under construction
Ben Mendelewicz and Matthew Cutler meet, and
become friends. Their first musical project together is a ska band
(name unknown) where Matt plays trombone, and Ben plays drums during
middle school. They aren't the only two members, but the identities of
the others remain unknown. its also unknown how long the band existed
for. (my estimate is about 2 years at most, based on nothing but guessing)
Matt noted that his trombone sounded very flat when talking about
it. (and Ben corroborated this!) Ben said he had a giant niel peart
sized kit.
Ben has recordings of the band playing, but i doubt they will ever be surfaced ) :
Ben and Matt enter highschool. While in highschool, the two discover the band Yip-Yip.
Yip-Yip becomes a major influence of the duo, and the two would see
Yip-Yip live an unknown amount of times, even asking the members (Brian Esser and Jason Temple) to sign merch. They would befriend Yip-Yip, more notably Brian Esser. You'll hear more about him later. (also, he helped me with some of the info on this site and with writing the macula dog wikipedia page. thank you Brian!)
around the same time, Ben and Matt join their second band: Monsters.
Ben and Matt, alongside their friend Ross Whetsone, form a band called Monsters by 2007 at the latest. their first release seems to be a pair of demos released in 2007. They are lost, but these are the names:
cover for the furry ep / demo
Their next release is a demo EP called the "Furry EP" or the "Furry Demo", with two songs that im assuming are more evolved versions of the previous demos. again, the music itself is lost, but the tracklist seems to go as follows:
Ben starts to write songs under the name Tumbleweave.
its hard to say what all Tumbleweave stuff was made around this time,
as the only proper evidence for Tumbleweave's existence this early is
the creation of a last.fm page, as well as a shout on Ben's last.fm in december asking about Tumbleweave demos. Tumbleweave wouldnt have any music released (to my knowledge) until the next year, so ill hold off on talking more about Tumbleweave until then.
Finally, an actual date!
Monsters release their next (and final) EP / album (I've seen it referred to as either) titled just a diamond unicode symbol, or "Diamond". To go along with it, they start styilizing their band name with the diamond symbol replacing the O.
there was a release party show that day with their friends Conestyle, along with Hear Hums and Row of X's at Soma Center in Lake Worth, Florida at 8pm. They sold hand-made CDs of the album at these shows and on their Districtlines merch store. Diamond was also released on Bandcamp and can be listened to there or on Youtube. As of right now, Diamond is the only Monsters release to be publicly available, all others are effectively lost, and probably will stay that way. The only way for them to resurface is if some old fan still has the files 16-17 years later and uploads them (unlikely) or if Matt and / or Ben still have them and uploads them (slightly more likely.) The problem is, though, that Ben does not like any of their old music. He doesn't even like some of the earlier Macula Dog releases anymore, and Matt's only "thing" at the moment is Macula Dog and he is (understandably) nearly silent online outside of that.
They would continue to tour that summer, even driving out to play in other states neighboring Florida.
In the latter half of 2009, Monsters would break up, as each member had to move out and away for college.
Ben moved to New York City to attend SVA, while Matt moved to Sarasota, Florida to attend New College of Florida. Matt pursued a degree in Economics, Ben probably something in graphic design but I don't know for sure. Both would continue to make music seperately during this time. This is where Tumbleweave comes in, as it was Ben's musical project over this separated period.