As I hit the big 30 here, let me thank you for your indulgence, to the extent that you’ve actually been reading/listening. I’m marking this round number with another whole album, this time the debut full album by The MayTricks from 1992, cleverly entitled The MayTricks. As this was really the first full-length album I worked on, it definitely has a special place with me, as weird and lo-fi and inconsistent as it is.

This was compiled in late 1992 with recordings recorded over the previous year and a half or so, all after the previous spring 1991 demo. Read the rest of this entry »

At last, here’s the final tune from the 1991 MayTricks demo (which I’ve made a new page for), “Her Skin Is Only Warm.”

The song was written by Steve and was our most bombastic. It was modeled on The Rolling Stones’s “Steel Wheels” album, meaning it has kind of awkward “Rock! Rock!” lyrics, but it was actually describing a particular situation where Steve’s roommate had a thing for some woman. In some of the verses, Steve and I switch off lyric lines, and we harmonize in a somewhat out of tune manner. There was keyboard playing during this song, but the only thing I can detect is the occasional “ping!” sound on the first beat of a few phrases. This was actually the song that, after the fact, made said keyboardist quit the band, as I think he thought it sounded godawful, but we liked it!

A somewhat more technically correct version, still pretty spastic, was completed for the So Chewy album.

Three songs today: cover tunes by The MayTricks from 1992 or so. Specifically, the Police’s “Can’t Stand Losin’ You” (which I sing) and Talking Heads’ “And She Was” and The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” (both of which Steve sings).

These are actual, multi-track studio recordings done with probably as much care as many of our actual album tracks, recorded as part of a demo to impress frats and fratty clubs and other places we should probably not have been playing as a sort of underground, Beatles White album-inspired somewhat psychedelic band. Read the rest of this entry »

Correcting my previous post, apparently this is my first recorded original composition: “The Funny Train.”

While I had always assumed this to be a traditional melody, a quick web search reveals no previous versions, so I hereby claim it. However, I note that “There was a little man, and he had a little can” appeared previously in a prohibition-era song called “No More Booze.”

How does the little man relate to the train? Is he driving the train? No, qua prohibition-era hobo, he is likely getting a free ride, violating not only the law but his own dignity. And what are his possessions? A can. Perhaps he realizes that “man” and “can” rhyme, and possesses the can just for that reason, making himself an art for the ages’ display. The next line gives us a stronger clue: the can was full of worms, which he then puts in a soup. How extreme is man’s degradation, to be forced to subsist on worms! Or is this a life choice? Is he living his life as an art, not only through living a rhyme, but in choosing worms, the replenishers of all life, which by eating corpses and transforming them to arable land themselves symbolize nature’s triumph over death. Is the man, in fact, dining upon his own death? Read the rest of this entry »