Mmmm… the sweet taste of non-defeat! I had a ridiculously busy day and came home to find a package from Headphone Treats – several handfuls of these little babies for my CD release show (April 7th at Windows on the Cumberland). The order page should be up on the site by the time most people read this and hey – if you’re looking for some background info on the disc, here ’tis.
I performed the EP entirely by myself except for two guest drummers, who added their talents to 3 of the 5 songs – Eric Stroud (of Superhype) on “Liquid Girlfriend” and “Proscription Day”, Dave Ray (The Coal Men, The Pinks) on “Together and Alone”, though he played drums on a couple songs for the EP that didn’t make the cut.
It was recorded in my home studio last summer and mixed/mastered by Jimmy Ether last fall.
The first track “Together and Alone” is probably a clear departure from anything on the first two albums, hopefully preparing the listener for a totally different experience. My Dad died, and while I wrote a lot of songs about the subject I kept all of them to myself except this one. I don’t think the world needed to hear a record’s worth of songs about my Dad dying of cancer. Maybe just one song will do.
“America” is a little romp about a near-disastrous trip to England and how we weren’t sure if we’d ever be able to get back home… trying all the while to enjoy our brief stay without the benefit of cash. Luckily our buddy Russ took care of us and we didn’t have to starve to death 
It was too much excitement for our little minds to process, so this is a little song about “that whole thing”. Good luck deciphering the lyrics (bonus points for being able to tell me what A=443 means).
“Girl U Want” is one of the first songs I remember hearing as a child. Those guys were way ahead of their time (their work from 1974-1982 is my favorite). I had big plans for reworking this Devo classic but I realized at the last minute that Mark Mothersbaugh, Jerry and the boys were already master arrangers so what would be the point? Whenever Devo did a cover song, it was often unrecognizeable but instantly fun (“Satisfaction”, “Are You Experienced?”) and clearly remade in their own idiom. It would only be fitting to redo the song as I’d see fit… but no, they already did all the work for me. I chickened out. My version is basically as faithful as it gets. I read somewhere that the song was an unsuccessful single because of the deceptive placement of the beat at the beginning. People would start dancing to it and then get confused when the drums started.
“Liquid Girlfriend” is the first song that I’ve done without rhythm guitars. I’m tired of guitars always getting in the way, saturating my ears with their endless buzzsaw sounds! Thus I whipped out a family heirloom – my 1969 Baldwin Fun Machine. Yes – Fun Machine. I set the keyboards to varying stages of “cheese” and used everything improperly. It’s about a dream I had wherein people were using this new device to correct their sloppy singing without using a computer program that made everything sound artificial – the device was called the “Liquid Girlfriend”. I woke up from my dream, wrote the song, spent far too long working out the harmonies on the guitar solo and voila – a song was born.
“Proscription Day” – what if we still had public beheadings? Would it be part of the reality TV craze? Would we be “text messaging our votes”? In any case, the public are waiting to see if the condemned man is going to crack… will he? A garage door slamming at the end is a comically poor substitute for a guillotine, but you have to give the people what they want, eh?
Anywho, enjoy the new disc. Or don’t. It’s entirely up to you.
Sincerely,
Jeepers Creepers
