The album time was cut down from the original 90-minute cassette in order to fit on the CD. Only one track was left out (Hedgehog School -- the only song that has me playing banjo and fiddle), and several tracks were cut down in length in order to fit.

I had no mixing console, so I used a Radio Shack® microphone mixer, which is simply a volume mixer with no panning capabilities. You get either complete stereo, or mono!

Emit (Parts I & II)

These are actually the same piece of tape. On Emit I, I played a Frippertronics-like piece and recorded only the source note. The echoes simply went out via my amplifier.

I modified the delay time twice and recorded the echo's onto tracks 2 and 3. I then turned the tape over, modified the delay time one more time, and recorded that echo onto track 4.

The outcome is a Frippertroics loop with the echos timed differently than the source track, with one backwards track. During the mixdown of Emit I, I think I piped the source track back through the digital delay to add one more different delay length.

Emit II is Emit I backwards, with the source and two echos being played backwards, and one tape echo and one mixdown echo going forwards.

I would use this technique of changing the echo times again on the album Random Acts of Kindness.

A Forest (The Cure)

This is one of the songs that I brought into the Humboldt Brothers sessions. I had four tracks now instead of two, so I decided to do a version.

April Fools

One of the guitar lead tracks is a backwards version of the forward track. This song is a very blatant example of the limitiations of my mixer at the time. Most of the song is in mono. However, when I mix in the second guitar, I flip the mono/stereo switch on the mixer, and the song is in complete stereo. I love the Mattell Sinsonic Drums®.

Some day, I may put words to this song, as well as Poppycock (from the Alamo album).

Prelude to Television

I think this was done via cassette-to-cassette (or there is only one track on it), so this is probably the earliest piece on the album. This was the first time that I used the Roland Juno 106® as the source for a Frippertronics loop. I would repeat this experiment a few more times, including The Point Is Taken on the Goleta Daze album.

Boogie Man

I think this was inspired my music from Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth. The runs that go up and down came from a jam with Mark McDaniel and Nancy Early (SNM) where Nancy and I were playing an electric piano. One of those really heavy 100 pound Fender Rhodes. Nancy was playing some chords, and I was running up and down the keyboard. We called that song Penguin Cafe because it reminded us of music by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

Boogie Man was originally supposed to be a circus song. I think it sounds a bit evil, though, so I changed the name.

Because I had the four-track now, I could easily add backwards tracks, so one of the guitar tracks is backwards.

I mixed down the song in mono, then piped that through the digital delay for a very short echo, and send the echo to one channel and the source to another channel. During the mixdown, I played the Juno in a 'wooden block' sounding patch, so there's one instrument that isn't echoed.

Rain (Lennon/McCartney)

This is the fastest version of the song I've ever played. This is in an arrangement used by the Humboldt Brothers. And with the four-track, I was able to actually put the final vocal on backwards!

Man or Machine

This piece has two basic influences. I was listening to a Steven Reich CD (Music for 18 Percussionists or something like that) that had only drums on it. I really like the rythm, and I picked up the mandolin and started playing chords to it. I created a drum loop (that's not even minutely as complicated as the Steve Reich stuff!) and played the music.

I was also in need of a new outgoing message for my answering machine, so I did a few verses of answering machine material. I chose one verse for the machine, and I liked the others, too, so I put it on the album.

Surf Tune

I had long finished being in a surf band, and I was trying to get an early Beatles-ish sound. This one is fun to play live.

Crash (Tuxedomoon)

Nancy early plays keyboards on this one. The lead guitar, strings/keyboard, and a simple drum track are backwards. The piano and main drum track are forwards. I played the drum machine pretty much by hand on this one. The arrangement is very close to the original. I think this one would be fun to play live, recording the first set of tracks, then playing them right back.

Brizillian Nuts

This, like most of my songs, is just a "let's see what happens" tune. I had picked up a ukelele at a garage sale and wanted to see if I could do anything with it. This is another one of those songs that's really fun to play live. I remember recording a live Humboldt Family version of this song during a party. Some day, I may dig through more tapes and see if I can find it.

Oddly enough, I have another song named Brazilian Nuts as well. The other song is based on a piano, so I'll probably name it something including the word Tango.

Beer Barrel Kolo

This is a "lets's see what happens" song after my mom purchased a Bulgarian bagpipe for me from Bulgaria. I had the speed-change set on my echo (used for flanging techniques), so the bagpipe sounds out of tune. Oh well.

Esquire

Mark McDaniel and I did a very early version of this during the Green Winter album. We spent about one-half hour kind of jamming on something, Mark on bass and me on guitar. Each "verse" through, one of us would add something until the song built up into pretty much the arrangement you hear here. I think I used the echo unit to double the guitar, because my 12-string electric was very hard to play this fast!