Flvxxvm Florvm – Early Instrumentals
Fan Fair
Recorded: 1992
Previously Released on: Flvxxvm Florvm (1993)
3 guitars overdubbed, playing random bits of music, including part of "Powercow". Will Richardson said it sounded like "really crappy Queen".
Headache
Recorded: 1992
Previously Released on: Flvxxvm Florvm (1993)
A tin can, a trombone with a broken slide, some mason jars, and a guitar with something wedged between the strings and the fretboard (a trick I read about in an interview with Sonic Youth). My friend Stephen Harred said "Jeff, music like that starts wars!".
Sounds of Selene
Recorded: 1990 (Commodore 64), 1992 (everything else)
Previously Released on: Flvxxvm Florvm (1993)
Guest Performer: Andrea Barber – vocals (spoken)
Andrea was a high-school acquainence of mine who was not aware she was being recorded. I made the voices backwards so it would be slightly less incriminating. The result has been described as sounding like a foreign porn movie, but we weren’t really talking about anything interesting.
The repeating drone noises (the first sounds you hear) were produced by a program I wrote in BASIC on the Commodore 64. The frequencies and rhythms were based on equations rather than exact musical notes.
Itch
Recorded: 1990
Previously Released on: Great Quest (1990), Theory of Everything (1993)
More Commodore 64 stuff. Most of it is from a game I wrote called Great Quest. Some parts were generated algorithmically, but the beginning and the end were made with a program I wrote that allowed me to "play" music with the joystick.
The Gerrk Saga
A loosely connected group of six songs that were so named when the were remixed and re-released in 1994. "Gerrk" was a term that Stephen Harred and I used to describe when people are speaking English but you still can’t understand them because everything they say is some kind of inside joke. We would use the word but not tell anybody what it meant, and that was our joke.
Knee Deep in the Ed
Recorded: 1993
Remixed: 1994
Guest Performer: Denny Robertson – drums
The name is a pun on "Knee Deep in the Dead" (the first part of Doom) and my neighbor Ed Mayfield of people-suit fame. The whole track was sped up when it was remixed.
Satan and the Single Girl
Recorded: October 31, 1990
That year I dressed as Slash from Guns’n’Roses for Halloween. Part of my costume was a beat-up old guitar, which I didn’t bother to tune as I had no intention of playing. However, I soon started showing off for the girls by playing "Ice Ice Baby" on it. Suddenly I realized that it just happened to be tuned really strangely. I ran back to my house to record it.
Windy Wendy
Recorded: 1988 (guitar), 1992 (everything else)
One of the first guitar solos I ever recorded. Keyboards, drums, and even the wah-wah effect were added much later. Named after a Garbage Pail Kids character, and also because the guitar is somewhat flatulent.
A Ship Defines the Ocean
Recorded: 1998 (guitar and keyboard), 1992 (everything else)
Guest Performer: Lacy Robertson – keyboard
Originally my cousin and I trying to play Bach. Subsequently reversed, sped up, and distorted to hell. Vocals, trombone, and other sounds were added years later. The words are from some poem that was in my 11th grade literature book:
I told the bosun, "A ship defines the ocean."
He said, "horse shit!"
Dissonance Rex
Recorded: 1991 or 1992
Remixed: 1993
Not much to say about this one, except the guitar is pretty ugly. Also makes use of a tiny keyboard that sounds like the one from that "dah dah dah" song on the Volkswagen ad.
Sunny Beaches
Recorded: 1989 or 1990
Remoced: 1994
Guitar and keyboard were originally recorded all at once, with no overdubs. Echo was added later.
Other non-Gerrk Stuff
Miracles of Modern Medicine
Recorded: 1992 or 1993
Includes the sound from switching a TV around randomly from one channel to another. It would’ve been good if I could have kept the guitar and bass in time with each other… the way it is, its just an oddity.
Dance of the Phat
Recorded: 1990 or 1991
A lame attempt at late-80’s dance music in the vein of Pump up the Volume and its ilk. The guitar solo was recorded without listening to any of the other instruments. I’m still amazed at how well its fits… its actually more in time than the guitar on "Miracles of Modern Medicine".