Out With the Old is the first Moes Haven album released to a wider audience, with a release date of June 10, 2004. Though the duo of Matt Farley and Tom Scalzo had released many albums before this, Out With the Old marks the public chapter of the duo, when they began distributing their music to streaming services via CD Baby.
Before releasing Out With the Old, Farley called CD Baby to confirm that they would help sell his “homemade” recordings. When the company said yes, Farley got to work selecting Moes Haven’s most serious songs to that point, avoiding anything silly or comical. The serious songs appear on Out With the Old, while the silly songs were saved for the band’s second album, Dislocated Songs.
The original version of this album was titled Back in Time: Celebrating 37 and 1/7 Years of Mediocrity. While the “37 and 1/7 Years” portion of the title remained, Moes Haven changed the rest to make it a bit more celebratory rather than self-mocking. This version of Out With the Old also contained the track “Dislocated Surfer”, which appeared on Dislocated Songs. Copies of the album with the old title and extra track still exist, and those who own them hold relics of music history.
In its first two years of streaming, Out With the Old sold just one song, “Life is Beautiful”. By 2015, the album had made just $50 total. In recent years, Farley has not played many of these songs during his live shows; however, on his podcast The Motern Media Infomercial Podcast episode #37 (“Early Moes Haven”), Farley, Scalzo, and Chris “Pete” Peterson performed some selections from the album. These included “And I Think of You”, “Recognize You“, “Not Dead” (with Peterson on guitar and backing vocals), “Slow Down Baby” (with Scalzo on vocals as “Blind Vermont Jones“).
Track listing
| # | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Recognize You | 2:40 |
| 2 | Stay With Me | 2:53 |
| 3 | And I Think of You | 3:33 |
| 4 | Stable Girl | 3:57 |
| 5 | Well-Rehearsed Serenade | 2:26 |
| 6 | Beautiful | 6:44 |
| 7 | The Unnecessary | 4:00 |
| 8 | Life is Beautiful | 0:26 |
| 9 | I Wanna Run Away | 2:33 |
| 10 | Strike II | 2:54 |
| 11 | Early Mornin’ Sympathy | 2:51 |
| 12 | Not Dead | 3:14 |
| 13 | Slow Down Baby | 3:18 |
| 14 | Can’t Go On | 0:19 |
Personnel
- Matt Farley – vocals, piano
- Tom Scalzo – guitar, vocals (“Early Mornin’ Sympathy, “Slow Down Baby”, “Can’t Go On”)
- Chris “Pete” Peterson – backing vocals (“Not Dead”)
Reception and reviews
On July 1, 2004, The Santa Barbara Independent reviewed the record in their Sound Fury column, along with Wilco and The Who. Reviewer Matt Kettmann stated “there’s something worthwhile here, but good luck finding it”.
In March 2005, Indie-Music.com reviewed the album and praised it for being both bizarre and fun.
Farley himself has been both celebratory and critical of the album, saying the main reason for it “was to test out exactly how digital distribution worked.” “It has many all-time classics,” he says in the Motern Media No-Jokes Album Guide; however, he goes on to say that “the lack of variety was a bit of a problem. Also, a few songs, like “Well-Rehearsed Serenade” and “Strike II”, just feel a little too rigid and formal” (Farley, 2026, p. 12).