I'm not going to comment on the Monty Python bits. Rick, Rootwitch, and I were hanging out one day coming up with funny album titles, and many Monty Python sketch names made it into the list.

The general Humboldt Brothers philsophy is "Practice? We don't need no stinking practice!" The Humboldt Brothers get together with some chord charts for new songs and memory for old songs, and we just play the music to entertain ourselves. We rarely play anything the same way twice. The mood of the song depends on the mood of the players that day. The same thing goes for the instrument lineup. Each of us plays guitar, bass, and keyboards, and each of us knows how to program a drum machine.

All of these songs are "live", except where noted. None of these songs were designed to have overdubs (unlike the Sgt. Gershwin's album that was designed as a "studio" album from the beginning).

We're in absolutely no competition against Spinal Tap for loudest band. In many songs, you can hear the pick against the guitar strings.

I do most of the singing, because I'm the only one who's very interested in singing. I'm not interested in learning the words to songs, usually, so any cover songs will have words that I just make up.

Boogie Lou

I like the "Sgt. Pepper's" feeling to the intro. The Humboldt Brothers tune up a bit differently than a classical orchestra. This, combined with the Monty Python introduction, provide a great start to the album.

This is a cover of one of Mark's songs. Rick and Mark are on guitars, and I'm on bass and vocal. This song actually has overdubs on it. Mark and I got bored one day and did overdubs.

On the basic track, voice and bass are on the same track. Both are going through my distortion unit. On the overdubs, my voice is going through the Yamaha RX-50 (Mr. Rex) to do a double pitch-shift for that twilite-zone sound.

Day Tripper

Rick's on guitar, Mark's on bass, I'm on vocals. This could have been put on the Sgt. Gershwin's album, but I wanted that album to be "complete", and this song has the verses in the wrong order and a couple of big botches.

A Weed By Any Other Name

My favorite cover of Slimey Weeds (from the Alamo album).

Rick's guitar lead is short and to the point. There are a couple of botches during the transitions. Again, we're just playing it--we didn't plan the changes.

On Acid

This is a version of David Lynch's In Heaven. We were playing so slowly, that I just made up the words as I went along to fit the situation.

Purple Rage

The intro and the rest of the song are from two different days. I'm on bass on both versions, Rick is on lead, and Mark is on rythm guitar. I love Mark just hammering out those chords.

Like on a few songs from the Alamo album, I'm singing while I have a cold, so I can't hit all of those notes, and I'm out of breath much of the time.

Pink Wars

This was a jam with the Humboldt Brothers and Rich. Rich's guitar is the dirty distorted guitar. I wish we could have mixed that out, because that guitar doesn't sound very Pink Floyd-ish.

Mark is on bass on this one, and Rick and I are doing the call-answer routine on guitars.

In D (Part Humboldt)

This was done at the Baker Street studio, recorded on a standard cassette deck via two microphones on stands. Rick is on keyboards (this is his composition), I'm on bass, and Mark is on guitar. Some of the "noise" on this piece comes from the air conditioner. You can hear me hitting the strings on the bass. We don't play very loudly.

I've Got A Migrane

Rick hates the original of this song. I think he doesn't mind this version! Rick is playing through Mr. Rex to get a pitch-shifted harmony to his guitar. Mark is on guitar, and I'm on bass.

Following the "we don't need no stinking practice" philosophy, you can tell that we didn't plan this because just after the little run, we all stop, none of us knowing what the next chord is! We fake our way through it and just continue.

Gentle SNM

This is a song that I (Scott) originally did with Nancy and Mark (SNM). I thought it reminded me of Gentle Giant, and named it such.

Rick and I each have our Mr. Rex set up to do pitch shift plus delay, so when we hit one note, we get out three. I play it syncopated so that the second note I hit on the guitar is timed with the third note of the echo.

Nancy is also on this one playing keyboards.

Sweet and Soul Blues

The words are from a Tuxedomoon song Suite en Sous Blues. The music is just one of our jams with me on bass, the others on guitar.

Rabbit's Foot

This was done back at the Baker Street apartment. Mark was showing us a new guitar piece he was working on, and I just made up words as I went along. After I said "I learned a valuable lesson today", I couldn't think of a valuable lesson! That's why the valuable lesson isn't very valuable.

I...

This is another version of Purple Haze. This time, Mark is on bass, and I'm on guitar, and I do the "silly" lead in the middle. Rick always does the squealy leads. This was done during the winter holiday season, and Rick and I decided to overdub some vocals on it after a bit of inbibing.

Navaeh Ni

This is a backwards version of In Heaven. This version has Nancy and Rich on vocals as well. It's almost a good version, but it wasn't good enough to play forward because the vocals weren't balanced very well (we had one mic in a large room for vocals), so Rick (I think) mixed it backwards. There were a couple of other backwards songs on the originally cassette tape, but I don't like them. If Rick or Mark wants to release those songs, there's nothing stopping them!

While remastering this song for CD, I had it in my WAV recorder and decided to hear what it sounded like forward. It turns out that with the reverse reverb, I actually like the forward version, even with the poorly balance vocals. You can find the forward version on the The Early Years CD.

3 O'Clock A. M.

Another jam with me on bass, Mark and Rick on guitars. I just made up words.

Unknown Part 1

Unknown Part 2

Unknown Evil

These were done at the Thurin Studio with the reel-to-reel 4-track tape. Nancy is on keyboards. I didn't label the cassette tape, so I don't know the date we did these.

I Haven't Yet

This was done on the same day as the Unknown songs and is a song that I never finished. The "original" version of this song can be heard on the Alamo album.