It all began in late 1992 when composer-artist James Michael House, at the age of 13, first picked up the electric guitar while living in eastern Pennsylvania. Growing up in a musical family, music was not foreign to him. His mother played piano at home, and his grandfather, Ray Butts, was a recording engineer, musician, and inventor. House himself had played trombone for a few years in the school band. However, it was his deep dive into rock and metal guitar that sparked his broader exploration into blues, jazz, and various musical genres.

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House's guitar influences grew to include icons such as Jimi Hendrix, Django Reinhardt, Frank Zappa, Steve Vai, Dave Mustaine, David Gilmour, and Eric Clapton. Not long after picking up the guitar, House began learning 5-string bass, inspired by Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers. He initially played bass to fill the gap for a local garage band in need of a bassist. A couple of years later, House transitioned smoothly to the 6-string bass, influenced by Les Claypool and Primus. His bass playing quickly evolved, incorporating slap-and-pop techniques, two-handed tapping, and other methods inspired by musicians like Victor Wooten, Bootsy Collins, Stanley Clarke, and Larry Graham. Driven by personal interest, House also took up drums, percussion, and piano.

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Recording became a passion almost immediately, beginning with a 4-track cassette recorder in the corner of House's teenage bedroom. By his mid-teens, he had built a basic 8-track digital studio in his basement. Studio work came naturally to him, and he soon began studying sound engineering. By 2000, House had established his own studio, Squank Studio, followed by his record label, Squank Entertainment LLC, in 2001.

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The concept of Squanky Kong first appeared in 1994, inspired by House’s childhood nickname, Squankidonk, or Squanky for short. Aware that there was already a professional recording artist named "James House" (of The James House Band), House adopted "Squanky Kong" as his musical persona, a nod to the video games of his youth, such as Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.

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Throughout the 1990s, House conceptualized a band that would explore a range of styles while staying rooted in progressive and modern rock. In the studio, he often played all the guitar and bass parts, bringing in other musicians only when necessary to enhance the creative vision. For live performances, House envisioned a multi-faceted band where he would switch between guitar and bass, allowing for a dynamic performance and diversity of musicianship. He felt that merely replicating studio recordings live would be boring; live shows should offer unique interpretations of the music. Despite these ambitions, Squanky Kong remained a studio project for some time.

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In 1997, House self-produced a demo tape titled Within the Boundaries, the first recording to bear the Squanky Kong name. It featured House playing all the instruments, including acoustic drums. Only a small number of these tapes were ever produced.

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After moving to western Oregon in 1998, House continued his studio work while attempting to assemble a live band. This proved more difficult than anticipated. The complexity of House's music made it hard to find musicians with both the skill and the willingness to dedicate their time to what was, at the time, just his project. However, he did recruit drummer Dwayne Taylor to join him in the studio.

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In 2000, House completed Squanky Kong's first CD, Just a Glimpse, a demo EP featuring tracks like "A Cool Evening Breeze" and "The Personal Polluter." Though only a small number of homemade discs were made, it marked a significant step in his musical journey. From 2000 to 2002, House used Squank Studio to produce experimental songs alongside other music and business projects, including collaborations with Dwayne Taylor on tracks like "Mirror Image" and "Predator to Prey."

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After a brief hiatus, House returned to the studio in 2004 to record Two-Faced Twilight. Though this rock song was never officially released, it allowed House to experiment with recording techniques and instrument layering, which would shape the future of Squanky Kong's music.

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In 2005, House released a compilation CD titled A Brief Trip to Reality, featuring material recorded between 1999 and 2004. The 15-track album included songs like "Mirror Image," "A Cool Evening Breeze," and "Too Busy to Live."

That same year, House made a significant attempt to form a live band in Eugene, Oregon. He advertised locally and spread the word but still struggled to find a full lineup. Despite the setback, he connected with drummer Paul Smith, marking the beginning of a new phase for Squanky Kong.

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In late 2006, House began production on Squanky Kong's full-length debut album, Under a Raven's Review, featuring a mix of Hybrid Rock and other genres like jazz and Latin-inspired music. House brought in session musicians, including Paul Smith and Erik Avery on drums and Halie Loren on guest vocals. Released in 2008, the album's release was hindered by the Great Recession, resulting in a low-key launch that fell short of House's initial vision.

In 2010, House remixed five songs from Under a Raven’s Review, including "Water Torture" and "The Sun Shall Shine," using his newly acquired workstation and improved mixing skills. These remixes were included in a digital re-release of the album in 2015.

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Around the same time, House began promoting Squanky Kong online, using modest internet ads to rekindle interest in the project. Encouraged by the response, House returned to his Oregon studio in 2011 to demo four new songs. He enlisted Erik Avery for drums and began the search for a vocalist, ultimately recruiting Joseph Michael in 2012. These songs were completed in 2013 as part of the Demo 13 EP, though it was never officially released.

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House’s initial plan was to use Demo 13 to attract private investment, form a band, and properly produce a full album. However, after consulting with industry professionals, he realized more preparation was needed before pursuing investors. By the end of 2013, House was spending more time in Los Angeles, where he set up a rehearsal studio in North Hollywood with the goal of forming a band and re-recording the Demo 13 songs for an official release.

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Despite efforts to find musicians in LA, House encountered challenges with finding a consistent lineup. By 2015, he decided to change direction, promoting Squanky Kong as a solo composer-artist project rather than a traditional band. He adopted a fluctuating lineup of session musicians to maintain creative flexibility, with rotating members for live performances, aiming to provide unique interpretations of his music.

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In October 2015, House released the Imminent Insurrection EP, featuring reworked versions of the Demo 13 songs. Although it was recorded in a rehearsal studio due to budget constraints, it marked a new chapter for Squanky Kong. House's vision of a fluid, adaptable live performance and his relentless pursuit of musical exploration continues to shape the future of his work.​

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With Squanky Kong now firmly established as a solo project and a roster of talented musicians in place, House set out to get the live band performing in 2016-2017. However, a significant obstacle quickly became apparent: capital. Now that all the musicians needed to be paid, getting the band mobilized was a financial challenge. Most venues around Los Angeles offered little to no pay for new bands. House could finance a few shows out of pocket, but it wasn't enough to build momentum. Although he could have potentially scraped together funds for more performances, the limited opportunities for a relatively unknown band in LA didn’t seem worth the effort. Meanwhile, the four songs from Squanky Kong’s earlier EP were beginning to feel dated, having been written nearly seven years prior. House realized he needed fresh material to truly capitalize on his new lineup.

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In 2018, House decided to put live performances on hold and return to his Oregon studio full-time, while keeping the band roster based in Los Angeles. His new goal was to record a full-length album of brand-new material. This time, however, he was determined to produce the higher-end production he had long envisioned. With renewed hopes, he set out to create an epic new collection of songs that would, at last, bring together the years of studio work and live performances into a cohesive vision.

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Production for this ambitious album began in the fall of 2018. House laid the foundation by tracking drums at the renowned Village Studios—Studio A in Los Angeles. In 2019, he continued working in his Oregon studio, adding bass and some rhythm guitars. He also made several trips to record vocals in Los Angeles at Clear Lake Studios and laid down keyboard tracks at Ocean Way Studios while visiting Nashville. The plan was coming together, and for the first time in Squanky Kong’s history, House was poised to deliver a production of unparalleled quality. By late 2019, the album had a title: Dawn of the Cataclysm. House planned for its release in late 2020, after which he would return to LA to reignite the live band.

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But the world had other plans.

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In early 2020, as House was preparing to wrap up the guitar recordings and preparing to add other elements like horns and additional vocals, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The sudden lockdowns made it clear that returning to LA in 2020 would be impossible. Deflated by the global disruption—and reminiscent of the setbacks he faced during the 2008 album release and the Great Recession—House took a break from production.

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During the second half of 2020, House began reevaluating the album. Without the possibility of adding horns or redoing some of the vocals as planned, he reimagined the production some. After months of tinkering with new ideas and doing extensive editing, he returned to the studio in early 2021 to finish the guitars and revise some parts to align with the updated vision. By the summer of that year, mixing and mastering were completed, and plans for the release and a return to LA were in motion.

 

However, due to the pandemic's financial impact, the release suffered from a lack of marketing budget. Despite the challenges, House pressed forward and released Dawn of the Cataclysm—making the most of what he had available.

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Dawn of the Cataclysm was  released in October 2021. It featured eight never before released songs, including a few songs written decades before along with fresh ones hot from the creative fires. House had plans to relocate back to Los Angeles to reassemble the live band. Even though the pandemic had scattered many of the musicians, who had taken on new directions and projects. Just as he was preparing for the move and the next phase of Squanky Kong, life threw another curveball—House’s father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia. Faced with this reality, House made the difficult decision to put his music plans on hold and remain in Oregon to care for his father.

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While staying in Oregon, House began exploring new ventures with Squanky Kong. At the end of 2021, he ventured into online streaming, experimenting with both music and video games. His intent was to familiarize himself with streaming as a platform, with the goal of eventually hosting more original music-related shows online in the future.

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In the fall of 2022, House finally released the long-anticipated animated music video for the Squanky Kong song "Pressure Tank" (originally from the 2015 EP Imminent Insurrection). The video, a mixed-media stop-motion animation created by artist Linsey Doylan, had been years in the making. House had commissioned the project long before, and although the video had been expected to release alongside Dawn of the Cataclysm in 2020, it was delayed—like many things that year. The song featured in the video was a re-recording of "Pressure Tank," updated alongside the new album’s material.

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In August 2023, House’s father passed away. After his father’s death, House paused regular streaming and began restructuring his goals. As 2024 approached, he started developing new plans that included finishing and releasing a couple of songs that hadn’t made it onto the last album and possibly revisiting some older tracks that had been left incomplete due to the pandemic.

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Additionally, House began exploring emerging generative AI technologies, seeing them as tools that could help expand Squanky Kong’s capabilities and boost productivity. With these new technologies in mind, House envisioned endless possibilities for the future of Squanky Kong, including more animated music videos and other creative ventures that could push the project forward in exciting new directions.

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To be continued...

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