This site contains links to the music and anything else we could remember about being in this band at that time.
Thanks for reading and listening.
Home (Welcome)
On the 20th year since the band's existence, this web page is a tribute and collection of memories from the band members.
This site contains links to the music and anything else we could remember about being in this band at that time.
Thanks for reading and listening.
This site contains links to the music and anything else we could remember about being in this band at that time.
Thanks for reading and listening.
About the Band
The Comedian was a punk rock band from Plano Texas, active from 1989 to 1990.
I concur that we were the only legitimate band in our school, in terms of originality and integrity. This isn't just pride talking…we cared a lot! ;-) Regarding Iconoclast, I liked that our bands were from the same "tribe," but I remember more about their logo than their music, if that tells you anything.
Plano, TX has a sordid history for teenagers. In 1983, there was a rash of suicides that caught national attention. In 1999, its heroin epidemic made the cover of Rolling Stone. Plano Senior High was mostly upper and upper-middle-class…living in an apartment carried a stigma. Lots of rich kids neglected by jet-setting parents, lots of drug use. One of the precious few things I did like about our school was its size: our graduating class had approximately 1,200 students. It was easy to be autonomous, and there were enough personalities to find a few you could mesh with.
Scott: Bass, Vocals, Drum Programming
Amy: Keyboards, Vocals
Deron: Guitar
Scott: Looking back, it occurs to me that at a suburban high school with something like 2000 students, The Comedian was probably the only punk or indie or alt rock band, and possibly the only half-way legitimate band of any kind. We wrote original songs, had our own sound, played some shows and made a decent recording. Who else was doing that? I don't know of anyone. There was no scene, no all-ages club, and no club that would let us in. No local bands to look up to or follow in the path of. There were just bands on records that none of us had ever seen or heard live. None of that occurred to us at the time, and would not have mattered anyway. I suspect that in 2010, one in ten high school kids is in a band. It really is a different world now, which was a lot of the reason I wanted to put this page together.
Deron: I agree that we were the only legitimate band at our high school. Tim, Graham, Keith and Chris had Iconoclast (not sure if that's what they were going by?), but they only played the one show at Tim's house and never recorded. Definitely not as serious a project. I often remark that when we were in high school, the only people who formed bands were outcasts and listened to fringe music. Nowadays, it's totally normal to be in a band.
Amy: At the start of the 1990s, access to musical means of production was much more limited than now: Scott mentions having to work an entire summer to purchase a drum machine, and my subsequent Kurzweil K1000 keyboard was an unexpected high school graduation gift from my parents. Although creating art is a labor of love in any era, that labor had to extend to obtaining the sound sources and effects back then.
I concur that we were the only legitimate band in our school, in terms of originality and integrity. This isn't just pride talking…we cared a lot! ;-) Regarding Iconoclast, I liked that our bands were from the same "tribe," but I remember more about their logo than their music, if that tells you anything.
Band Name
Scott: The name of the band was a direct reference to the character of Edward Blake from Alan Moore's Watchmen. Part of the character's symbolism resonated deeply with my personal feelings about reality at that time. Calling the band The Comedian was me saying, "Life is a joke and not the funny kind", which I had come to believe to no small degree. I also liked that the band name was singular and had a gender, but it was the band's name, not my stage name or anything like that.
Deron: At the time I was only vaguely aware that The Comedian was a reference to a comic book. Years later when I read The Watchmen, it all made much more sense.
Amy: I was not aware of the comic book reference, but I loved its irony: comedians often draw from a well of despair to elicit laughs, and we drank deeply from that well. The laughter was that dry, speechless guffaw or gasp in the face of something over-the-top (like the southern pride of the original "Sweet Home Alabama" or the crushing violence of "Song for Deadman"). In retrospect, the gender neutrality and one person-one band equivalence of our name goes to show that our intuition was quite sound…something that has proved easy to lose touch with in the face of adult pressures and obligations (at least for me).
Deron: At the time I was only vaguely aware that The Comedian was a reference to a comic book. Years later when I read The Watchmen, it all made much more sense.
Amy: I was not aware of the comic book reference, but I loved its irony: comedians often draw from a well of despair to elicit laughs, and we drank deeply from that well. The laughter was that dry, speechless guffaw or gasp in the face of something over-the-top (like the southern pride of the original "Sweet Home Alabama" or the crushing violence of "Song for Deadman"). In retrospect, the gender neutrality and one person-one band equivalence of our name goes to show that our intuition was quite sound…something that has proved easy to lose touch with in the face of adult pressures and obligations (at least for me).
Timeline
Scott: Despite having been utterly straight-edge in high school, I find this time in my life literally difficult to remember, as in the sequence of events and spans of time. Maybe just because it was so long ago. Anyway, I could be way off on the dates. I don't recall liking much about 11th and 12th grade. I remember that I liked writing songs and practicing with this band in our suburban garages and living rooms.
Most of these songs were written within the first 6 months of me getting a bass guitar and drum machine, which would have been Spring and Summer 1989. I bought the bass some time during my junior year in high school from a friend of a friend's girlfriend. Then, I worked at Braum's Ice Cream during the summer before my senior year so that I could buy the drum machine. Once I had enough money, I bought the device and quit the job. After about 6 months of playing bass and 1 month with the drum machine, I was ready to start a band.
I knew Deron through a friend, and Amy through another friend. I got to know them pretty well over the course of junior year. They were individualists like me, they played instruments, they were my friends, and I knew I could trust them. I was glad that they were interested. I can't remember exactly when we first met for a trial practice. It may have been as early as August 1989, right before the start of our senior year. We eventually played a live 3 times. It seems like we stayed busy with it, practicing regularly, but there were not many opportunities to play shows. I imagine that we weren't too active towards the end of the school year, though at least one of our shows was in the spring. Around the end of the school year, one of us must have said to the other two, "hey we should record this stuff before we all go off to different cities and schools", and I am thankful that we did. In August of 1990 we recorded our songs, and by September we had gone our separate ways.
Deron: I had known Scott for a while through mutual friends. There were maybe 8 or 10 of us punks and weirdos tops, so we were hard to miss. He sold me and some other friends his drum set as he had changed to bass. Once I started playing in The Comedian, Iconoclast went on without me. My friend Graham was in Swim class with Amy and of course we all had secret crushes on her. Being that we weren't Fleetwood Mac everything stayed utterly professional.
Amy: I met Scott in the second half of 11th grade through a mutual friend named Nirav, who I met on the school bus in 10th grade. I remember having summer school P.E. with Graham, but don't recall meeting Deron until I joined the band (although we lived only a few streets apart). At this juncture, I was feeling like an outsider compared to the friends I'd had in middle school and early high school: oversensitive, dissatisfied, too "deep." When I met Scott and Deron, I'd found the kindred spirits I was looking for and reveled in a context of finally feeling accepted. They also had/have a wickedly dry sense of humor and interests in movies, music, and books that were just fantastic from my perspective…these were among my first "guy" friends, and it felt like such a breath of fresh air after recent experiences with superficiality and hypocrisy from certain female friends; I could now refuse to tolerate such things with confidence. On top of that, we were making music, which always felt like home to me. I did have choir throughout high school, but the reference point for the majority of my fellow singers was Protestant (Baptist) church youth groups…more alienation.
Secret crushes is right! I couldn't have guessed on my own, not with such luminaries as Rebecca Sawicky and Amy Kizer in our circle!
I know our first rehearsal was in the summer of 1989, perhaps even early summer. Spring was a period of consolidation and getting to know Scott's musical influences. I remember that being a great summer in many respects: besides regular band practice at Scott's house, there was only one more year of high school, the alternative station KDGE with DJ George Gimarc premiered on Dallas radio, and I was actually having fun in summer school P.E. with fellow P.E. haters.
Most of these songs were written within the first 6 months of me getting a bass guitar and drum machine, which would have been Spring and Summer 1989. I bought the bass some time during my junior year in high school from a friend of a friend's girlfriend. Then, I worked at Braum's Ice Cream during the summer before my senior year so that I could buy the drum machine. Once I had enough money, I bought the device and quit the job. After about 6 months of playing bass and 1 month with the drum machine, I was ready to start a band.
I knew Deron through a friend, and Amy through another friend. I got to know them pretty well over the course of junior year. They were individualists like me, they played instruments, they were my friends, and I knew I could trust them. I was glad that they were interested. I can't remember exactly when we first met for a trial practice. It may have been as early as August 1989, right before the start of our senior year. We eventually played a live 3 times. It seems like we stayed busy with it, practicing regularly, but there were not many opportunities to play shows. I imagine that we weren't too active towards the end of the school year, though at least one of our shows was in the spring. Around the end of the school year, one of us must have said to the other two, "hey we should record this stuff before we all go off to different cities and schools", and I am thankful that we did. In August of 1990 we recorded our songs, and by September we had gone our separate ways.
Deron: I had known Scott for a while through mutual friends. There were maybe 8 or 10 of us punks and weirdos tops, so we were hard to miss. He sold me and some other friends his drum set as he had changed to bass. Once I started playing in The Comedian, Iconoclast went on without me. My friend Graham was in Swim class with Amy and of course we all had secret crushes on her. Being that we weren't Fleetwood Mac everything stayed utterly professional.
Amy: I met Scott in the second half of 11th grade through a mutual friend named Nirav, who I met on the school bus in 10th grade. I remember having summer school P.E. with Graham, but don't recall meeting Deron until I joined the band (although we lived only a few streets apart). At this juncture, I was feeling like an outsider compared to the friends I'd had in middle school and early high school: oversensitive, dissatisfied, too "deep." When I met Scott and Deron, I'd found the kindred spirits I was looking for and reveled in a context of finally feeling accepted. They also had/have a wickedly dry sense of humor and interests in movies, music, and books that were just fantastic from my perspective…these were among my first "guy" friends, and it felt like such a breath of fresh air after recent experiences with superficiality and hypocrisy from certain female friends; I could now refuse to tolerate such things with confidence. On top of that, we were making music, which always felt like home to me. I did have choir throughout high school, but the reference point for the majority of my fellow singers was Protestant (Baptist) church youth groups…more alienation.
Secret crushes is right! I couldn't have guessed on my own, not with such luminaries as Rebecca Sawicky and Amy Kizer in our circle!
I know our first rehearsal was in the summer of 1989, perhaps even early summer. Spring was a period of consolidation and getting to know Scott's musical influences. I remember that being a great summer in many respects: besides regular band practice at Scott's house, there was only one more year of high school, the alternative station KDGE with DJ George Gimarc premiered on Dallas radio, and I was actually having fun in summer school P.E. with fellow P.E. haters.
The Sound
Scott: It was me who started the band, but it was never my intent for it to be My Band. I don't think Deron or Amy believed that for a second, though. Both were smart, creative, and more experienced players than I was, but they both seemed determined to take the back seat, so I drove.
People who knew me back then tell me things that surprise me sometimes, like what an angry or intense person I was. It's hard to remember myself that way, but I guess I can see it. I do know that in my mind, the music was noise, frustration, sorrow and rage all lashing out at once. That's how I envisioned every song and how I wanted them to sound. They didn't always end up sounding like that, but it was not just my band. Deron and Amy were both extremely reserved people. Neither was going to scream into microphones or create monstrous noises with their instruments. When we played together, the music literally came off in that way: a concentration of anger surrounded by a blanket of intense reservation. The music ended up sounding not quite as I imagined it would, but also probably more original than what I had in mind.
Lyrically, it was depression, anxiety, paranoia, jealousy, psychosis, murder, suicide and death by heavy machinery. Pretty much everything I was preoccupied with at the time.
Deron: As Scott says, everyone in our group had their one group that they obsessed over. The others had The Damned, The Clash and The Misfits. I was a follower without one of my own until I discovered The Minutemen. I remember Amy's as being Elvis Costello. Being exposed to Big Black and Rapeman through Scott was a wonderful eye opener. It was more forward looking than most other punk I knew about. It also opened up a way of looking at guitar as a lead instrument without solos. Shaped my playing to this day.
As far as Amy's and my passivity, we had to be 2 of the shyest kids at our school. I know that I was in awe of the fact that Scott and Amy knew notes and were taking music theory. I was lucky to know power chords and certainly wasn't able to improvise.
Amy: When I met Scott, I was a punk neophyte. Besides my dad's ever-present classic rock (particularly The Beatles), I grew up loving the synthesizer-heavy new wave and sparse post-punk I'd heard and seen on early MTV. My favorite bands in 9th and 10th grade were Tears For Fears, Crowded House, Split Enz, OMD, and U2. The summer before 11th grade, 1988, Freddie Oh in my summer school P.E. class introduced me to The Smiths and PiL. By 1989, Elvis Costello released Spike, which opened the door for me to his more rebellious and brilliant back catalog with The Attractions. The versatility of their keyboardist, Steve Nieve, was a big influence on me.
From what I recall, Scott made me two tapes-one at the beginning of our friendship and one near the end of the recording sessions. The first tape was my introduction to Big Black, Rapeman, Skinny Puppy, Sonic Youth, and Ministry-industrial and punk both-and I think the second tape had more of the same. Like Deron, I was floored by Big Black, especially the song "Passing Complexion." Albini and company managed to sound epic, lean, hard, and melodic at the same time, synthesizing what I was used to hearing only in opposites. In terms of unpleasant emotions, my pre-junior year rock/pop influences channeled a passive sadness, whereas these new songs allowed me to own anger, with more of a critical perspective and less overt machismo than the metal my younger sister was into. From there, it was The Clash and The Jesus Lizard…
I was also heavily influenced by movie soundtracks, which found their way into The Comedian keyboard sound. For instance, I remember picking out the theme from Starman shortly after it came out on cable, a sample from which I've recently heard in a hip hop tune on the radio…talk about feeling old!
All three of us were among the most shy at our school, although probably among the most perceptive too. As recently as 9th grade, I had been nervous about something as seemingly small as getting out of my seat to walk to the front of the class to turn in an exam. Accompanying that second cassette from Scott was a short note (along with a soft plastic action figure of sorts and a daily calendar page defining the term "hodad") that included something to the effect of my being the only person he knew shyer than himself!
People who knew me back then tell me things that surprise me sometimes, like what an angry or intense person I was. It's hard to remember myself that way, but I guess I can see it. I do know that in my mind, the music was noise, frustration, sorrow and rage all lashing out at once. That's how I envisioned every song and how I wanted them to sound. They didn't always end up sounding like that, but it was not just my band. Deron and Amy were both extremely reserved people. Neither was going to scream into microphones or create monstrous noises with their instruments. When we played together, the music literally came off in that way: a concentration of anger surrounded by a blanket of intense reservation. The music ended up sounding not quite as I imagined it would, but also probably more original than what I had in mind.
Lyrically, it was depression, anxiety, paranoia, jealousy, psychosis, murder, suicide and death by heavy machinery. Pretty much everything I was preoccupied with at the time.
This also seems relevant... In the Song Notes sections, I've tried to point out any musical or literary influences, song by song, and there were many. But there is just something about being a teenager and discovering that one band that means more to you than any other. For other kids I knew, it was the Misfits, the Clash, the Smiths, or the Damned. For me it was Big Black. I was in the 10th grade in 1988. I bought the Racer-X EP on cassette at Hastings in the mall. I had read a brief article about the band in Thrasher magazine, so I figured it was a safe purchase. I had no idea what they sounded like. The other cassettes in the rack from this band were intriguing, but I chose this one because it was called "Racer-X", and I had been a fan of Japanese cartoons since childhood. I couldn't stop listening to it. I guess it just blew my mind. So, I got this tape, I quit playing drums, bought a bass guitar, saved up for a drum machine, and started a band. I also bought anything else by this band that I could get my hands on.
There was no other reason for a punker kid to save up for a drum machine. Had I picked out The Hammer Party cassette instead of the Racer-X cassette, I would have never given this band another listen, The Comedian would not have sounded like The Comedian, and I would have had a very different life.
Deron: As Scott says, everyone in our group had their one group that they obsessed over. The others had The Damned, The Clash and The Misfits. I was a follower without one of my own until I discovered The Minutemen. I remember Amy's as being Elvis Costello. Being exposed to Big Black and Rapeman through Scott was a wonderful eye opener. It was more forward looking than most other punk I knew about. It also opened up a way of looking at guitar as a lead instrument without solos. Shaped my playing to this day.
As far as Amy's and my passivity, we had to be 2 of the shyest kids at our school. I know that I was in awe of the fact that Scott and Amy knew notes and were taking music theory. I was lucky to know power chords and certainly wasn't able to improvise.
Amy: When I met Scott, I was a punk neophyte. Besides my dad's ever-present classic rock (particularly The Beatles), I grew up loving the synthesizer-heavy new wave and sparse post-punk I'd heard and seen on early MTV. My favorite bands in 9th and 10th grade were Tears For Fears, Crowded House, Split Enz, OMD, and U2. The summer before 11th grade, 1988, Freddie Oh in my summer school P.E. class introduced me to The Smiths and PiL. By 1989, Elvis Costello released Spike, which opened the door for me to his more rebellious and brilliant back catalog with The Attractions. The versatility of their keyboardist, Steve Nieve, was a big influence on me.
From what I recall, Scott made me two tapes-one at the beginning of our friendship and one near the end of the recording sessions. The first tape was my introduction to Big Black, Rapeman, Skinny Puppy, Sonic Youth, and Ministry-industrial and punk both-and I think the second tape had more of the same. Like Deron, I was floored by Big Black, especially the song "Passing Complexion." Albini and company managed to sound epic, lean, hard, and melodic at the same time, synthesizing what I was used to hearing only in opposites. In terms of unpleasant emotions, my pre-junior year rock/pop influences channeled a passive sadness, whereas these new songs allowed me to own anger, with more of a critical perspective and less overt machismo than the metal my younger sister was into. From there, it was The Clash and The Jesus Lizard…
I was also heavily influenced by movie soundtracks, which found their way into The Comedian keyboard sound. For instance, I remember picking out the theme from Starman shortly after it came out on cable, a sample from which I've recently heard in a hip hop tune on the radio…talk about feeling old!
All three of us were among the most shy at our school, although probably among the most perceptive too. As recently as 9th grade, I had been nervous about something as seemingly small as getting out of my seat to walk to the front of the class to turn in an exam. Accompanying that second cassette from Scott was a short note (along with a soft plastic action figure of sorts and a daily calendar page defining the term "hodad") that included something to the effect of my being the only person he knew shyer than himself!
Live Shows
Scott: We played live 3 times. Our set was everything but "Leaves" which I think was not written until after what would be our last show. Also, from the beginning, we had a cover of Sweet Home Alabama in our set. Most of my favorite punk-type bands had trashed a popular song at some point, so I figured we would too. Our cover was not so much a cover of the Skynyrd song as it was a rip-off of the Killdozer cover of the Skynyrd song, which I was really into at the time.
Amy: I adored the Killdozer cover/parody of "Sweet Home Alabama" that we covered and thought it would add to the absurdity to import wholesale the signature piano bit from the original Skynyrd song and ram it down the listener's throat…just chugging along with this virtuosic display sticking out like a sore thumb. It was a fun way to mess with expectations and thumb our noses at the ridiculous elements of our "southern" locale.
Scott: Our first show was in my living room while my parents were out of town. A handful of songs were played to about 10 people in my living room. Volume-wise, we probably rivaled a television.
Deron: Scott's parents were out of town, so it was a good opportunity to play to friends. All I remember is playing Sweet Home Alabama with Amy rocking out the piano part.
Amy: Our first show at Scott's house during the summer of 1989, before senior year, was probably my favorite. We rehearsed there most of the time, so it felt comfortable and intimate. Plus, it was thrilling to be debuting the tunes to a handful of friends who were excited about the bits and pieces they'd been catching.
By this time, my keyboard had acquired a small puffy black-and-white ghost sticker. I don't remember how it got there, but Scott or Deron must have stuck it there. From that point on, it was the band keyboard. Deron's guitar emblem was a large black-and-white peace symbol sticker.
Scott: Our second show was at our friend Tim's house party. We thought it went very well. We were ready, we played as we would in our best rehearsal and sounded like we wanted to sound. Listening the recording from that night, I have to say we had it together. Not a lot of applause or anything, but hell, we were not a Sex Pistols cover band. I don't know what anyone might have expected to hear that night, but I'm sure we were not it. The audio from the show is available on the download page here. Hopefully we'll get the video online as well.
Deron: It was originally supposed to be at a different house, but when we showed up, the cops had come, so it got moved to Tim's. Iconoclast also played, but unfortunately I can't remember much of their set. One important aspect of the show is that I borrowed my brother's friend's Kustom amp to use as a PA. Later, when I went up to Denton to college, it was still around and became the bass amp/PA for 80% of the shows I ever played. One of the most important pieces of gear in my entire musical history.
Amy: The house party at Tim's upped the ante. This was our first public gig, and my first band gig period…I think it took place in the fall of our senior year. I remember feeling a bit nervous and wondering how we were going to be received; since Scott was overseeing the logistics, Deron and I mostly spoke to one another, and his humor and kindness put me at ease. This was my proper introduction to their circle of friends en masse. Iconoclast carried themselves more confidently, perhaps, but I thought we blew them away musically. Afterwards, I felt really bad about a wrong note that I kept hitting during our cover of "Sweet Home Alabama." Nevertheless, the experience was a rush, and I felt like we'd arrived as a band.
SHOW #3: Amnesty International Benefit, Flagpole Hill Park, Dallas.
Scott: I was involved in A.I. at our school, so that's how we signed up. I was very excited because we were playing in Dallas, and not at a house. However, the show was a bit of a disaster. We played first, and were basically the sound check for a day-long outdoor battle-of-the-bands. I recall that the vocals were over twice as loud as the rest of the entire band, which startled me to the point where I was afraid to actually shout into the microphone. It was my first-time-ever encounter with a "sound man" or anything related to the big live sound experience. I broke a string in the first song (another first, perhaps not yet having realized that this could even happen), and was thoroughly mortified. I borrowed someone else's bass, and we managed to finish an abbreviated set without me having a heart attack. All this was in front of everyone I knew, and both sets of parents. We survived, then I sat in my mom's car for an hour or so, wanting to disappear forever.
Deron: The main issue was that the organizers had told us that there would be speakers and amps there, so I didn't bring any cabs. Of course, they just meant that there would be a PA, but we were too naive to know. Consequently, the keys, guitar and drum machine all ran through some techno bands rack mixer to get to the PA. Also, the sunlight made it impossible for Amy to read the display on her keyboard. Definitely a case of just hoping you make it to the end of the set alive.
Scott's friend Judd's band (Scissorlock) played later in the day. I don't think they won, but they certainly had an easier time of it than us.
Amy: Like Scott, I was in Amnesty International at school and was happy that our next gig supported a worthwhile cause. While our previous gig at Tim's house started our senior year, this benefit show ended it…much time had passed. At this point, I was actually dating Tim (my first semi-long-term relationship and a mistake that experience and more self-esteem could have prevented). I remember that several mishaps occurred that affected our set, but Deron and Scott's commentaries brought the details flooding back. That day, I was preoccupied with Tim being difficult: he came to "support" me but clearly didn't want to be there, due to jealousies he was too narcissistic to admit to.
Amy: I adored the Killdozer cover/parody of "Sweet Home Alabama" that we covered and thought it would add to the absurdity to import wholesale the signature piano bit from the original Skynyrd song and ram it down the listener's throat…just chugging along with this virtuosic display sticking out like a sore thumb. It was a fun way to mess with expectations and thumb our noses at the ridiculous elements of our "southern" locale.
SHOW #1: Scott's house.
Scott: Our first show was in my living room while my parents were out of town. A handful of songs were played to about 10 people in my living room. Volume-wise, we probably rivaled a television.
Deron: Scott's parents were out of town, so it was a good opportunity to play to friends. All I remember is playing Sweet Home Alabama with Amy rocking out the piano part.
Amy: Our first show at Scott's house during the summer of 1989, before senior year, was probably my favorite. We rehearsed there most of the time, so it felt comfortable and intimate. Plus, it was thrilling to be debuting the tunes to a handful of friends who were excited about the bits and pieces they'd been catching.
By this time, my keyboard had acquired a small puffy black-and-white ghost sticker. I don't remember how it got there, but Scott or Deron must have stuck it there. From that point on, it was the band keyboard. Deron's guitar emblem was a large black-and-white peace symbol sticker.
SHOW #2: Tim's house.
Scott: Our second show was at our friend Tim's house party. We thought it went very well. We were ready, we played as we would in our best rehearsal and sounded like we wanted to sound. Listening the recording from that night, I have to say we had it together. Not a lot of applause or anything, but hell, we were not a Sex Pistols cover band. I don't know what anyone might have expected to hear that night, but I'm sure we were not it. The audio from the show is available on the download page here. Hopefully we'll get the video online as well.
Deron: It was originally supposed to be at a different house, but when we showed up, the cops had come, so it got moved to Tim's. Iconoclast also played, but unfortunately I can't remember much of their set. One important aspect of the show is that I borrowed my brother's friend's Kustom amp to use as a PA. Later, when I went up to Denton to college, it was still around and became the bass amp/PA for 80% of the shows I ever played. One of the most important pieces of gear in my entire musical history.
Amy: The house party at Tim's upped the ante. This was our first public gig, and my first band gig period…I think it took place in the fall of our senior year. I remember feeling a bit nervous and wondering how we were going to be received; since Scott was overseeing the logistics, Deron and I mostly spoke to one another, and his humor and kindness put me at ease. This was my proper introduction to their circle of friends en masse. Iconoclast carried themselves more confidently, perhaps, but I thought we blew them away musically. Afterwards, I felt really bad about a wrong note that I kept hitting during our cover of "Sweet Home Alabama." Nevertheless, the experience was a rush, and I felt like we'd arrived as a band.
SHOW #3: Amnesty International Benefit, Flagpole Hill Park, Dallas.
Scott: I was involved in A.I. at our school, so that's how we signed up. I was very excited because we were playing in Dallas, and not at a house. However, the show was a bit of a disaster. We played first, and were basically the sound check for a day-long outdoor battle-of-the-bands. I recall that the vocals were over twice as loud as the rest of the entire band, which startled me to the point where I was afraid to actually shout into the microphone. It was my first-time-ever encounter with a "sound man" or anything related to the big live sound experience. I broke a string in the first song (another first, perhaps not yet having realized that this could even happen), and was thoroughly mortified. I borrowed someone else's bass, and we managed to finish an abbreviated set without me having a heart attack. All this was in front of everyone I knew, and both sets of parents. We survived, then I sat in my mom's car for an hour or so, wanting to disappear forever.
Deron: The main issue was that the organizers had told us that there would be speakers and amps there, so I didn't bring any cabs. Of course, they just meant that there would be a PA, but we were too naive to know. Consequently, the keys, guitar and drum machine all ran through some techno bands rack mixer to get to the PA. Also, the sunlight made it impossible for Amy to read the display on her keyboard. Definitely a case of just hoping you make it to the end of the set alive.
Scott's friend Judd's band (Scissorlock) played later in the day. I don't think they won, but they certainly had an easier time of it than us.
Amy: Like Scott, I was in Amnesty International at school and was happy that our next gig supported a worthwhile cause. While our previous gig at Tim's house started our senior year, this benefit show ended it…much time had passed. At this point, I was actually dating Tim (my first semi-long-term relationship and a mistake that experience and more self-esteem could have prevented). I remember that several mishaps occurred that affected our set, but Deron and Scott's commentaries brought the details flooding back. That day, I was preoccupied with Tim being difficult: he came to "support" me but clearly didn't want to be there, due to jealousies he was too narcissistic to admit to.
The Recording
The recording took place in August, 1990.
Scott: We seem to have waited until the last possible moment to document ourselves. Amy's dad had a really decent home studio setup, and he knew how to use it. Mr. Frishkey was kind enough to spend a day recording us, but also assumed a traditional "producer" type roll. The recordings themselves were good, but the production ended up having a decidedly mellow and quiet feel to it. It was not exactly our sound. I tried to explain to Mr. Frishkey how it should sound, but he was not to be won over.
We had several conversations like this one:
Me: Can you put distortion on the drums?
Him: You already have distortion on the guitar AND bass AND vocals.
Me: I know.
Him: Well, you can't just put distortion on everything.
Me: We do.
Him: No way. It won't sound good.
And this one:
Me: Can we re-record that last part? I bumped into the mic on the word "bitch".
Him: You don't need to re-do it. It sounds fine.
Me: It sounds bad. It sounds pretty ugly.
Him: It's an ugly word.
This was excellent preparation for those future trips to recording studios where I would really have to stick to my guns with some engineer about basically the exact same things.
The recording itself has a lot of rough spots. The songs were basically done in one take each. If you got through your parts with about 80% accuracy, then that was a keeper.
Deron: Amy's Dad was a blues player and had a great collection of guitars and good recording gear. Unfortunately, he also had me record entirely direct through a preamp. It was the only recording experience I've had where we completed every song before moving on to the next one.
Despite our inexperience and the chasm between his and our idea of sounds, we were really lucky to have someone with the equipment and knowledge to do a real recording. There's no way we could have afforded to pay a real studio and our own efforts would have amounted to one mic into a tape player. I was happily surprised at the sound when re-listening.
Amy: The quality of the recording has stood the test of time, and I will always be grateful for our band benefitting from my dad's generosity and refusal to settle for anything less than hi-fi sound equipment. He had bought a Tascam eight-track reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1988 and recorded us in August of 1990. His first recordings were of covers and his own songs, and he was eager to test his production skills on others' projects. Luckily for me, he pushed me to contribute vocals and keyboard parts on some of his songs: embarrassed to be performing in front of him, I held back quite a bit, but it was a necessary first step…if you can perform in front of a parent you butted heads with, you could perform in front of anyone! It was during The Comedian sessions that I discovered a true joy for working in the "studio." As might be expected, it felt like the process forged an even stronger camaraderie between us bandmates than before, even though it was only a month before we took divergent life paths.
My dad's production style was top-down, with little wiggle room. This was partly personality (believe me!), but it also might have been because he too new at it to go "off book." It inspired me to witness Scott's calm determination when confronted with his sometimes emotive expressions of impatience. Deron's sense of humor helped immensely. I remember feeling really angry that my dad's preference for guitar (as a blues-rock guitarist) resulted in what I felt was a guitar-heavy final mix, but it sounds balanced to me now…funny.
All told, some happy accidents arose in the gap between intention and realization. I remain extremely proud of our demo, and can't thank Scott enough for creating this blog to give the recordings their due.
Song Notes: Peacemaker
PEACEMAKER
(download)
Scott: The name of the song comes from the 1960s comic book character The Peacemaker, who was the basis of the Watchmen character The Comedian.
The references to the Peacemaker and The Comedian are not coincidental, but their respective symbolisms here had nothing to do with each other.
The lyrics came about because I had this record by the Dutch hardcore band Balthazar Gerards Kommandos, and in the song "Blank Stare - Sharp Shot", I could make out the lyric "somewhere in the city, some crazy army vet...". I couldn't make out any other lyrics in the song, but that one phrase really stuck in my imagination. I ran with the idea, writing a song about a crazy army vet somewhere in the city.
Frank Miller's 1986 graphic novel Daredevil: Born Again featured a mentally unstable, drug-addicted super-soldier who also had an impression on me.
Naked Raygun had a song called "Peacemaker" which might have literally been about the character, and which was written before Watchmen was published. I was aware that I was stealing the title of this song, but didn't think it was a big deal.
The melodies were written on a toy Casio keyboard before I had bought or played a bass. The bells in the drum track were there so I would know when to switch riffs.
Deron: Not sure what the clean guitar tone is all about. Also, I seem to have started my lifelong battle with rushed timing. Amy and Scott hold it together well.
Amy: This was the first song that we learned as a band, so it brought me a great deal of excitement and anticipation…I still shiver upon hearing that opening bass line. I also think the guitar and keyboard timbres work in perfect sync with the bass to create a desolate atmosphere of delusion. These are reasons why this song, for me, encapsulates our band identity.
I never realized this before, but "Peacemaker" evokes the murder ballad tradition. I dare say we beat Nirvana's Unplugged album to the punch in that respect.
Although the bells before the instrumental chorus served as a musician's cue to be removed in the final mix, I couldn't imagine the song without them now.
(download)
Scott: The name of the song comes from the 1960s comic book character The Peacemaker, who was the basis of the Watchmen character The Comedian.
The references to the Peacemaker and The Comedian are not coincidental, but their respective symbolisms here had nothing to do with each other.
The lyrics came about because I had this record by the Dutch hardcore band Balthazar Gerards Kommandos, and in the song "Blank Stare - Sharp Shot", I could make out the lyric "somewhere in the city, some crazy army vet...". I couldn't make out any other lyrics in the song, but that one phrase really stuck in my imagination. I ran with the idea, writing a song about a crazy army vet somewhere in the city.
Frank Miller's 1986 graphic novel Daredevil: Born Again featured a mentally unstable, drug-addicted super-soldier who also had an impression on me.
Naked Raygun had a song called "Peacemaker" which might have literally been about the character, and which was written before Watchmen was published. I was aware that I was stealing the title of this song, but didn't think it was a big deal.
The melodies were written on a toy Casio keyboard before I had bought or played a bass. The bells in the drum track were there so I would know when to switch riffs.
Deron: Not sure what the clean guitar tone is all about. Also, I seem to have started my lifelong battle with rushed timing. Amy and Scott hold it together well.
Amy: This was the first song that we learned as a band, so it brought me a great deal of excitement and anticipation…I still shiver upon hearing that opening bass line. I also think the guitar and keyboard timbres work in perfect sync with the bass to create a desolate atmosphere of delusion. These are reasons why this song, for me, encapsulates our band identity.
I never realized this before, but "Peacemaker" evokes the murder ballad tradition. I dare say we beat Nirvana's Unplugged album to the punch in that respect.
Although the bells before the instrumental chorus served as a musician's cue to be removed in the final mix, I couldn't imagine the song without them now.
Song Notes: Stress
STRESS
(download)
Scott: I wanted to write a song with a fast hardcore punk beat like early Minor Threat, Bad Brains, or one of the faster Ministry songs of the time and combine that with a more Floyd-ish down-tempo part.
I wrote another sing-songy keyboard part which ended up sounding less Floyd-ish and more like something out of a John Hughes movie. It was the '80s, after all. In my mind, the fast part of this song was pummeling and relentless (as all the songs were supposed to be), followed by the didn't-see-it-coming slower part with dual vocals which was going to be a monolithic wall of sound, but it didn't really work out that way in the studio. We rehearsed quietly in garages and living rooms with little practice amps... I really did not know the first thing about how to produce a wall of sound outside of my imagination. It did work live, though it's a shame we never tried the dual-vocals at a show.
Amy: Reading Scott's comment, I found it interesting that he conceived the song with a dual vocal in mind; I don't remember knowing that at the time. Perhaps he asked me if I could pull it off. I thought it was my suggestion, but, then again, I've always loved singing harmony to any melody I hear. In any event, I was very happy with the vocal blend. Reflecting upon more recent listens, I think the dual vocal does indeed achieve a wall-of-sound effect, especially with its intentionally blunt monotone…although, if I had performed it with Scott live, it might not have protected my intense adolescent self-consciousness enough!
Perhaps more than any other on the recording, this song captures the irony that ran through Scott's music. A sing-songy keyboard line buffeted by a major key, juxtaposed with lyrics about maddening anxiety, our signature doleful keyboard timbre, and melody lines moving down, down, down. Not to mention the fact that this section brackets a ska-on-meth interlude of angst that finally succumbs to a machine-gun round…the sweet hard candy surface masking a bitter core. "Hiding from the rain…hiding in the rain." Incorporating its opposite only heightens the tragedy.
Deron: The kick in after the machine gun drums still astounds. Very effective. At first I was kicking myself for my poor timing during the fast break, but it's still hard to nail even now.
(download)
Scott: I wanted to write a song with a fast hardcore punk beat like early Minor Threat, Bad Brains, or one of the faster Ministry songs of the time and combine that with a more Floyd-ish down-tempo part.
I wrote another sing-songy keyboard part which ended up sounding less Floyd-ish and more like something out of a John Hughes movie. It was the '80s, after all. In my mind, the fast part of this song was pummeling and relentless (as all the songs were supposed to be), followed by the didn't-see-it-coming slower part with dual vocals which was going to be a monolithic wall of sound, but it didn't really work out that way in the studio. We rehearsed quietly in garages and living rooms with little practice amps... I really did not know the first thing about how to produce a wall of sound outside of my imagination. It did work live, though it's a shame we never tried the dual-vocals at a show.
Amy: Reading Scott's comment, I found it interesting that he conceived the song with a dual vocal in mind; I don't remember knowing that at the time. Perhaps he asked me if I could pull it off. I thought it was my suggestion, but, then again, I've always loved singing harmony to any melody I hear. In any event, I was very happy with the vocal blend. Reflecting upon more recent listens, I think the dual vocal does indeed achieve a wall-of-sound effect, especially with its intentionally blunt monotone…although, if I had performed it with Scott live, it might not have protected my intense adolescent self-consciousness enough!
Perhaps more than any other on the recording, this song captures the irony that ran through Scott's music. A sing-songy keyboard line buffeted by a major key, juxtaposed with lyrics about maddening anxiety, our signature doleful keyboard timbre, and melody lines moving down, down, down. Not to mention the fact that this section brackets a ska-on-meth interlude of angst that finally succumbs to a machine-gun round…the sweet hard candy surface masking a bitter core. "Hiding from the rain…hiding in the rain." Incorporating its opposite only heightens the tragedy.
Deron: The kick in after the machine gun drums still astounds. Very effective. At first I was kicking myself for my poor timing during the fast break, but it's still hard to nail even now.
Song Notes: Instrumental
UNTITLED INSTRUMENTAL
(download)
Scott: I have it in my notes as "Intro". Amy might have had a title for this song, but I don't think it was ever spoken. After learning the three songs I had when we started the band, I began asking Amy and Deron if they had any song ideas. After a time, Amy brought in this one. It sounded so much more advanced than anything I would have come up with. Deron and I thought it was so good that we didn't want to ruin it. I carefully came up with parts that I hoped would not detract from what was already a complete song, as far as we were concerned. I thought that this song made all of the other songs - and our band - sound more legitimate.
Amy: I actually never came up with a title. The keyboard patch here was the same forlorn one as on “Peacemaker” and “Stress,” but the use of chords rather than single-note melodies brought the timbre to its fruition. Listening to the song now, I can hear how much the bass line I wrote was influenced by Scott’s bass playing at the time, with its stoic militarism. The first time I heard it on bass instead of keyboard confirmed my suspicion that it would sound perfect: I was absolutely delighted. But it didn’t end there. The guitar line that Scott wrote, coupled with Deron’s guitar timbre, gave the song a much-needed edge. I love how its appearance in the second verse begins in unison with the bass, then branches out into its own form of commentary that becomes a full-fledged statement in a chorus that sorely needed one.
“Untitled” also marks the first time that I ever presented any of my songs for others to hear or realize. If it hadn’t been such a “safe” and encouraging experience, who knows if I would have continued in other bands…
Deron: Scott and I were excited not only to have Amy write a song, but were impressed by the composed quality.
Thanks to Scott for coming up with a part for me. Between shyness and inability, I don't think I wrote a single note of any of the songs.
(download)
Scott: I have it in my notes as "Intro". Amy might have had a title for this song, but I don't think it was ever spoken. After learning the three songs I had when we started the band, I began asking Amy and Deron if they had any song ideas. After a time, Amy brought in this one. It sounded so much more advanced than anything I would have come up with. Deron and I thought it was so good that we didn't want to ruin it. I carefully came up with parts that I hoped would not detract from what was already a complete song, as far as we were concerned. I thought that this song made all of the other songs - and our band - sound more legitimate.
Amy: I actually never came up with a title. The keyboard patch here was the same forlorn one as on “Peacemaker” and “Stress,” but the use of chords rather than single-note melodies brought the timbre to its fruition. Listening to the song now, I can hear how much the bass line I wrote was influenced by Scott’s bass playing at the time, with its stoic militarism. The first time I heard it on bass instead of keyboard confirmed my suspicion that it would sound perfect: I was absolutely delighted. But it didn’t end there. The guitar line that Scott wrote, coupled with Deron’s guitar timbre, gave the song a much-needed edge. I love how its appearance in the second verse begins in unison with the bass, then branches out into its own form of commentary that becomes a full-fledged statement in a chorus that sorely needed one.
“Untitled” also marks the first time that I ever presented any of my songs for others to hear or realize. If it hadn’t been such a “safe” and encouraging experience, who knows if I would have continued in other bands…
Deron: Scott and I were excited not only to have Amy write a song, but were impressed by the composed quality.
Thanks to Scott for coming up with a part for me. Between shyness and inability, I don't think I wrote a single note of any of the songs.
Song Notes: Leaves
LEAVES
(download)
Scott: I'm sure this song had a title, but I don't have it written down anywhere. I think it was "Leaves" but I don't remember for sure.
I figured that if the Beastie Boys could just appropriate the drums from "When the Levee Breaks", then I could too, and it was some kind of artistic allusion. Though not really a Zeppelin kind of guy, I thought it was one of the coolest drum parts ever, and listeners would get it.
The song has only one riff that goes on forever. At first I felt guilty about this, as it seemed like lazy songwriting, but ultimately I just liked it how it was and didn't try too hard to shoehorn additional riffs into the song. I decided to actually sing and try to let that be the interesting part. So, Deron and I were just playing the same thing over and over while I sang. Then we asked Amy if she had something she could play over the top of it which might sound different, and she came up with the incredible keyboard part. Again, she comes up with this stuff that makes us sound like a real band. I have a feeling that Amy was more musically knowledgable with regards to classic rock (from her dad, maybe), and certainly a real musician with understanding of theory. Anyway, it was years after we created this song before I heard other Zeppelin songs like Kashmir and wondered if she was intentionally riffing off of my stolen Zeppelin drum beat. I would have never gotten the reference at the time, but I'm guessing the rest of the band did.
About the lyrics... during the 10th grade I got into the habit of skipping school. There were a lot of fields in Plano which were the undeveloped subdivisions of the future. So I would skip school and find a clump of trees or bushes or a ditch to spend the day in, listening to headphones, reading, sleeping, and obsessing about how much it sucked to be alive. The song lyrics are basically a suicide fantasy about dying in a forest, and I was reminiscing about those days.
Not that this has anything to do with anything, but I while re-listening to this tape, I noticed that the similarities between this song, structurally and lyrically, to PIL's "Poptones" are uncanny. I mean, singing in falsetto about dying in a forest over a single, looping riff. I first heard "Poptones" in 2003, honest. It is my favorite PIL song; maybe everyone's favorite.
Amy: The repetition in this song conjures an expanse of landscape that never seems to end. Those fields in Plano had that quality. I always liked how, in the lyrics, the perception of being surrounded by eternally treacherous forces transforms into a peaceful feeling of surrendering to/making peace with those same forces (albeit through self-inflicted death). Friend or foe…it's mostly in your head.
I remember this photographed "leaf" of lyrics very well; Scott made us each a copy. I remember the song title being "Leaves" too. I didn't realize what an awesome follow up to "Untitled" it was on the demo until today, 8/25/10; together, they make a fittingly mellow middle act that reflects the craft that Scott put into the song order.
His drum part did indeed prompt the evocation of "Kashmir" in my keyboard line, a product of growing up in a classic rock soundscape (thanks to my dad, yes). I found the meeting of references to be great fun! I came up with the core melody and then decided to elaborate in certain spots as the song progressed: a theme-and-(ever-so-slight) variations.
Scott calls his vocals "falsetto," but they sound like full-fledged chest voice to me! : You can always count on his melodic contours to mirror the message.
My dad punched in at 4:45", just before the first sounding of the final note by the guitar and bass…you can hear it if you listen closely.
Deron: Really great after all these years! Everyone playing just right thing and well. Not only does it show off a great keys part by Amy, but illustrates Scott's great drum programming. He really was able to put humanity into every song. Definitely, the drum programming is a linchpin to the maturity and agelessness of the songs.
(download)
Scott: I'm sure this song had a title, but I don't have it written down anywhere. I think it was "Leaves" but I don't remember for sure.
I figured that if the Beastie Boys could just appropriate the drums from "When the Levee Breaks", then I could too, and it was some kind of artistic allusion. Though not really a Zeppelin kind of guy, I thought it was one of the coolest drum parts ever, and listeners would get it.
The song has only one riff that goes on forever. At first I felt guilty about this, as it seemed like lazy songwriting, but ultimately I just liked it how it was and didn't try too hard to shoehorn additional riffs into the song. I decided to actually sing and try to let that be the interesting part. So, Deron and I were just playing the same thing over and over while I sang. Then we asked Amy if she had something she could play over the top of it which might sound different, and she came up with the incredible keyboard part. Again, she comes up with this stuff that makes us sound like a real band. I have a feeling that Amy was more musically knowledgable with regards to classic rock (from her dad, maybe), and certainly a real musician with understanding of theory. Anyway, it was years after we created this song before I heard other Zeppelin songs like Kashmir and wondered if she was intentionally riffing off of my stolen Zeppelin drum beat. I would have never gotten the reference at the time, but I'm guessing the rest of the band did.
About the lyrics... during the 10th grade I got into the habit of skipping school. There were a lot of fields in Plano which were the undeveloped subdivisions of the future. So I would skip school and find a clump of trees or bushes or a ditch to spend the day in, listening to headphones, reading, sleeping, and obsessing about how much it sucked to be alive. The song lyrics are basically a suicide fantasy about dying in a forest, and I was reminiscing about those days.
Not that this has anything to do with anything, but I while re-listening to this tape, I noticed that the similarities between this song, structurally and lyrically, to PIL's "Poptones" are uncanny. I mean, singing in falsetto about dying in a forest over a single, looping riff. I first heard "Poptones" in 2003, honest. It is my favorite PIL song; maybe everyone's favorite.
Amy: The repetition in this song conjures an expanse of landscape that never seems to end. Those fields in Plano had that quality. I always liked how, in the lyrics, the perception of being surrounded by eternally treacherous forces transforms into a peaceful feeling of surrendering to/making peace with those same forces (albeit through self-inflicted death). Friend or foe…it's mostly in your head.
I remember this photographed "leaf" of lyrics very well; Scott made us each a copy. I remember the song title being "Leaves" too. I didn't realize what an awesome follow up to "Untitled" it was on the demo until today, 8/25/10; together, they make a fittingly mellow middle act that reflects the craft that Scott put into the song order.
His drum part did indeed prompt the evocation of "Kashmir" in my keyboard line, a product of growing up in a classic rock soundscape (thanks to my dad, yes). I found the meeting of references to be great fun! I came up with the core melody and then decided to elaborate in certain spots as the song progressed: a theme-and-(ever-so-slight) variations.
Scott calls his vocals "falsetto," but they sound like full-fledged chest voice to me! : You can always count on his melodic contours to mirror the message.
My dad punched in at 4:45", just before the first sounding of the final note by the guitar and bass…you can hear it if you listen closely.
Deron: Really great after all these years! Everyone playing just right thing and well. Not only does it show off a great keys part by Amy, but illustrates Scott's great drum programming. He really was able to put humanity into every song. Definitely, the drum programming is a linchpin to the maturity and agelessness of the songs.
Song Notes: Song For Deadman
SONG FOR DEADMAN
(download)
Scott: The Intro part of the song was literally the first thing original thing I hashed out on my first bass, before I had an amp. I was looking around the fret board for "2-note chords"... things I could do with more than one string at a time, having really no concept of a chord. The sounds rang out from this un-amped, hollow-body McCartney-type bass, and I thought "that sounds like a Sonic Youth sound. Is this all they are doing?"
I found all the 2-note-chords I could find on the fret board, and I jammed them all together into a little "acoustic" riff-thing that I thought could be the intro to a song. I was thinking about the way Metallica's "Fight Fire With Fire" started with a classical guitar thing before moving right into the thrash zone. I figured I could do this with a punk song. Once I came up with the Deadman parts, I put this intro in front of it and the song was done.
The drum machine had 49 drum samples on it, and most of them were boring as hell. My two favorite sounds were the gated snare and gated kick, as they sounded the more aggressive, unnatural, and industrial. I detuned each and made a drum loop out of it. I loved the pattern and jammed with it over and over, just enjoying the beat and playing what came to mind.
The body of the song is the simplest thing in the world but I fucking loved it. I had quickly realized that the main riff of AC-DC's "Back In Black" was just 3 open notes, and if they could do it, so could I. The second riff was just a small piece of the intro passage, which tied all the parts together perfectly.
Where I got the idea that I could perform the song by myself is beyond me, but it worked, and I have been doing that kind of thing ever since to some degree. I suppose I had played it over and over and worked it all out before bringing it to rehearsal. I had envisioned Deron and Amy playing feedback or some kind of noise during the song, but neither was comfortable with that kind of improvising as I recall, and I was really OK with playing this one alone. They thought it sounded good "as is", and I agreed. It was the only song that I really thought it made sense to play solo. For "Pools" or anything else at the time, playing solo was not the original intention.
Heavily influenced by several passages on Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising, which is the only Sonic youth album I ever really liked. I was even chant-talking like Thurston Moore, whether or not I realized it.
At that age I had a lot of thoughts, fears, or fixations related to annihilation running through my head. One such recurring image was of being hit by a large truck, so I wrote about it.
This aesthetic - the distorted interval "half chords" played on bass, solo, with or without drum machine - it really stuck. It is the activity that has brought me the most creative enjoyment throughout my entire life, and it started here, 20 years ago, with the first song I wrote on a bass. That makes this song very significant to me.
Deron: Really loved this bass part. Remember sitting at home learning it myself. Another great drum part too.
Amy: A heroic bass line that belongs in the annals of punk history. This was also the one place on the demo where that "blanket of intense reservation" in our sound, as Scott puts it, was completely stripped. It was raw anger, and extremely poignant for that. Perhaps it represents best what he originally intended for The Comedian to sound like. The feedback at the end is classic. Scott's background as a drummer shines through in the subtle touches of his drum programming here, too. I agree that the gated kick and snare were the best samples on the Alesis: my dad had a slightly different model, and those were the ones I played with.
While Sonic Youth influenced the bass line and vocals, the song structure and drum loop always reminded me a lot of Big Black's "Kerosene."
As in the first run-through of the lyrics, "Truck wasn't hurt, truck was a Dodge…" was supposed to come after "You should've seen his back, man, you should've seen his legs" in the second run-through, instead of closing the song. My dad felt it was fine as is, and it was onto the next track. But the screaming vocal climax, followed by the resigned utterance at the end, works.
(download)
Scott: The Intro part of the song was literally the first thing original thing I hashed out on my first bass, before I had an amp. I was looking around the fret board for "2-note chords"... things I could do with more than one string at a time, having really no concept of a chord. The sounds rang out from this un-amped, hollow-body McCartney-type bass, and I thought "that sounds like a Sonic Youth sound. Is this all they are doing?"
I found all the 2-note-chords I could find on the fret board, and I jammed them all together into a little "acoustic" riff-thing that I thought could be the intro to a song. I was thinking about the way Metallica's "Fight Fire With Fire" started with a classical guitar thing before moving right into the thrash zone. I figured I could do this with a punk song. Once I came up with the Deadman parts, I put this intro in front of it and the song was done.
The drum machine had 49 drum samples on it, and most of them were boring as hell. My two favorite sounds were the gated snare and gated kick, as they sounded the more aggressive, unnatural, and industrial. I detuned each and made a drum loop out of it. I loved the pattern and jammed with it over and over, just enjoying the beat and playing what came to mind.
The body of the song is the simplest thing in the world but I fucking loved it. I had quickly realized that the main riff of AC-DC's "Back In Black" was just 3 open notes, and if they could do it, so could I. The second riff was just a small piece of the intro passage, which tied all the parts together perfectly.
Where I got the idea that I could perform the song by myself is beyond me, but it worked, and I have been doing that kind of thing ever since to some degree. I suppose I had played it over and over and worked it all out before bringing it to rehearsal. I had envisioned Deron and Amy playing feedback or some kind of noise during the song, but neither was comfortable with that kind of improvising as I recall, and I was really OK with playing this one alone. They thought it sounded good "as is", and I agreed. It was the only song that I really thought it made sense to play solo. For "Pools" or anything else at the time, playing solo was not the original intention.
Heavily influenced by several passages on Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising, which is the only Sonic youth album I ever really liked. I was even chant-talking like Thurston Moore, whether or not I realized it.
At that age I had a lot of thoughts, fears, or fixations related to annihilation running through my head. One such recurring image was of being hit by a large truck, so I wrote about it.
This aesthetic - the distorted interval "half chords" played on bass, solo, with or without drum machine - it really stuck. It is the activity that has brought me the most creative enjoyment throughout my entire life, and it started here, 20 years ago, with the first song I wrote on a bass. That makes this song very significant to me.
Deron: Really loved this bass part. Remember sitting at home learning it myself. Another great drum part too.
Amy: A heroic bass line that belongs in the annals of punk history. This was also the one place on the demo where that "blanket of intense reservation" in our sound, as Scott puts it, was completely stripped. It was raw anger, and extremely poignant for that. Perhaps it represents best what he originally intended for The Comedian to sound like. The feedback at the end is classic. Scott's background as a drummer shines through in the subtle touches of his drum programming here, too. I agree that the gated kick and snare were the best samples on the Alesis: my dad had a slightly different model, and those were the ones I played with.
While Sonic Youth influenced the bass line and vocals, the song structure and drum loop always reminded me a lot of Big Black's "Kerosene."
As in the first run-through of the lyrics, "Truck wasn't hurt, truck was a Dodge…" was supposed to come after "You should've seen his back, man, you should've seen his legs" in the second run-through, instead of closing the song. My dad felt it was fine as is, and it was onto the next track. But the screaming vocal climax, followed by the resigned utterance at the end, works.
Song Notes: Pools
POOLS
(download)
Scott: The most wince-inducing song on this cassette. I think it is not a bad song, just very under-cooked.
I was experimenting with the drum machine, just seeing what I could make it do, and then I played along with that. I had heard the last song on Ministry's Twitch LP, and thought 'I bet I could do that with my HR-16". I de-tuned the drums so they would sound like industrial samples and turned them into this machine-gun noise pattern.
Anyway, it was the tail wagging the dog, and made for too much of a canned song. The first time I played it for Deron and Amy, I asked if they had any ideas for how they could play along. Deron said something like "it sounds good just like that" and Amy nodded in agreement. I should have pressed the issue, but there was already precedent for me playing solo while the rest of the band hung back, so I suppose it didn't seem like a bad plan. It really should have had everybody on it just going nuts, and I think it could have been a pretty frightening song.
The inspiration for the lyrics came from an ad in a 1986 Thrasher magazine for a Losi skateboard deck called "Pool Dreams". I liked the graphic on the deck. I just took that image and ran with it, describing what I thought it would be like to be in that pool dream. I guess the graphic was supposed to look like a dream-come-true for the obsessed pool-skater. Despite the palm trees, I thought it looked like a nightmare.
On the studio recording, it's evident that I intended to improvise the ending, but that didn't work. When it's time to go to the studio, one should know how the song ends.
Deron: I think this is one of the most successful songs lyrically. "I'm scared of what I used to love, scared of what I can't control" resonated then and now.
Amy: I didn't know many guys into punk and alternative at the time who wrote songs that empathetically described what a woman was thinking and feeling. I really liked how her perspective became Scott's own.
I thought the song sounded fine without additions from me or Deron because it already sounded so full. The machine gun pattern of the drum machine passes for distorted guitar, and the rhythmic texture is thick. I remember Scott improvising the ending…the timekeeping of his bass line is a little wobbly, but I never thought it sounded half-baked.
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I was experimenting with the drum machine, just seeing what I could make it do, and then I played along with that. I had heard the last song on Ministry's Twitch LP, and thought 'I bet I could do that with my HR-16". I de-tuned the drums so they would sound like industrial samples and turned them into this machine-gun noise pattern.
Anyway, it was the tail wagging the dog, and made for too much of a canned song. The first time I played it for Deron and Amy, I asked if they had any ideas for how they could play along. Deron said something like "it sounds good just like that" and Amy nodded in agreement. I should have pressed the issue, but there was already precedent for me playing solo while the rest of the band hung back, so I suppose it didn't seem like a bad plan. It really should have had everybody on it just going nuts, and I think it could have been a pretty frightening song.
The inspiration for the lyrics came from an ad in a 1986 Thrasher magazine for a Losi skateboard deck called "Pool Dreams". I liked the graphic on the deck. I just took that image and ran with it, describing what I thought it would be like to be in that pool dream. I guess the graphic was supposed to look like a dream-come-true for the obsessed pool-skater. Despite the palm trees, I thought it looked like a nightmare.
On the studio recording, it's evident that I intended to improvise the ending, but that didn't work. When it's time to go to the studio, one should know how the song ends.
Deron: I think this is one of the most successful songs lyrically. "I'm scared of what I used to love, scared of what I can't control" resonated then and now.
Amy: I didn't know many guys into punk and alternative at the time who wrote songs that empathetically described what a woman was thinking and feeling. I really liked how her perspective became Scott's own.
I thought the song sounded fine without additions from me or Deron because it already sounded so full. The machine gun pattern of the drum machine passes for distorted guitar, and the rhythmic texture is thick. I remember Scott improvising the ending…the timekeeping of his bass line is a little wobbly, but I never thought it sounded half-baked.
Song Notes: Women
WOMEN
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Scott: Written at the same time as Peacemaker, using my step-dad's toy keyboard before I had a bass, hence the up-front arpeggio synth line which was not Amy's fault.
The most egregious Big Black rip-off out of all the Big Black rip-offs. Reference Ugly American, RIP, Cables, or L Dopa. I wanted to write a song with The Big Black Drum Beat, so it was one of the first things I set about once I had the hardware. Being one of the first songs I ever wrote, I suppose I had to get that desire out of my system right away.
I had absolutely no frame of reference for anything I was talking about in this song, including relationships, sex, being cheated on, or calling anyone a fucking bitch. When the song was written, it had been at least a year since I had so much as been on a date, so if these lyrics were personal in any way, it was probably because I just liked some girl and she didn't like me back.
The toms at the beginning of the song were just there as a click track, and weren't supposed to be in the final mix.
Amy: I have to admit that the lyrics made me feel uncomfortable at the time. They appeared to be about all women, and I am a woman…but Scott was my friend. What to think? If the title had been a particular woman's name, perhaps it would've been different (although not entirely). Of course, "Fucking bitch, need me a new one," coming from Scott, had to be modeling a style rather than expressing a personal viewpoint! I knew that deep down--look at the lyrics to "Pools," for instance--but I took the lack of irony a little personally nonetheless.
I remember the toms at the beginning being left in by mistake…one of several mistakes that my dad didn't feel the need to correct. Another piece of evidence that he wasn't about to try to understand the modus operandi of the band, generous as he was about recording us.
I chuckle now at the combination of Deron's Steve Albini guitar impression (pretty darned spot-on, if you ask me!) with my grandiosely goth-sounding keyboard timbre. I think it captured the sentiment quite well.
Of course, I managed a bum note at the end of the very last song on the demo, after all of the other instruments cut out. Sigh.
Deron: Another case of explaining what the guitar sound should be and not getting quite there. Although for asking a blues guy to mimic Big Black style buzz, this is closer than it could have been.
The most fun song to play on guitar. My shining moment!
(download)
Scott: Written at the same time as Peacemaker, using my step-dad's toy keyboard before I had a bass, hence the up-front arpeggio synth line which was not Amy's fault.
The most egregious Big Black rip-off out of all the Big Black rip-offs. Reference Ugly American, RIP, Cables, or L Dopa. I wanted to write a song with The Big Black Drum Beat, so it was one of the first things I set about once I had the hardware. Being one of the first songs I ever wrote, I suppose I had to get that desire out of my system right away.
I had absolutely no frame of reference for anything I was talking about in this song, including relationships, sex, being cheated on, or calling anyone a fucking bitch. When the song was written, it had been at least a year since I had so much as been on a date, so if these lyrics were personal in any way, it was probably because I just liked some girl and she didn't like me back.
The toms at the beginning of the song were just there as a click track, and weren't supposed to be in the final mix.
Amy: I have to admit that the lyrics made me feel uncomfortable at the time. They appeared to be about all women, and I am a woman…but Scott was my friend. What to think? If the title had been a particular woman's name, perhaps it would've been different (although not entirely). Of course, "Fucking bitch, need me a new one," coming from Scott, had to be modeling a style rather than expressing a personal viewpoint! I knew that deep down--look at the lyrics to "Pools," for instance--but I took the lack of irony a little personally nonetheless.
I remember the toms at the beginning being left in by mistake…one of several mistakes that my dad didn't feel the need to correct. Another piece of evidence that he wasn't about to try to understand the modus operandi of the band, generous as he was about recording us.
I chuckle now at the combination of Deron's Steve Albini guitar impression (pretty darned spot-on, if you ask me!) with my grandiosely goth-sounding keyboard timbre. I think it captured the sentiment quite well.
Of course, I managed a bum note at the end of the very last song on the demo, after all of the other instruments cut out. Sigh.
Deron: Another case of explaining what the guitar sound should be and not getting quite there. Although for asking a blues guy to mimic Big Black style buzz, this is closer than it could have been.
The most fun song to play on guitar. My shining moment!
Lyrics
Prototype lyric sheet, to be included in our 12" EP.
Hey, it could have happened.
Working lyrics for Leaves:
Hey, it could have happened.
Working lyrics for Leaves:
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