Sasha Frere-Jones:
It was extremely hot in July of 1993. Excello had recently
opened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the main room, quite
large, was still entirely open and unobstructed. Our engineer
Stevie McAllister was best known for doing the Corrosion
of Conformity record. He had recorded songs for my friend
Dave's band, Wider. Wilbo had only recently joined the band.
He showed up for the sessions with a pickup filled with instruments
I didn't know he played: tuba, timpani, banjo, recorder,
etc. It turns out he didn't play them but that didn't stop
us from using them.
On July 4, many firecrackers were set off in the neighborhood.
We recorded an hour's worth of this sound and some of it
can be heard at the end of "I Will Not Make Inconsiderate
Requests". We ate mostly what Stevie called "Cuca-Rican" food,
which came from a Chinese-Cuban restaurant around the corner.
I thought it was Mexican food. Clem slept in the corner
a lot and read the newspaper. We were worried about him
but everything turned out OK. We recorded 14 songs and
used only 7. That made for a pretty expensive EP, which
had blossomed from the cheap, black-sleeved 12-inch called "Disco
Bag" Justine at Hemiola originally envisioned. She
was understanding about the whole process and agreed to
do expensive 4-color art even though it ensured no one
made a profit.
The mixing was all done at Baby Monster Studios between
midnight and dawn. This is, in general, not a great idea
if you are awake during the day. We spent the most time
on a song called "Young Men And Women". While
working on this song, I decided to smoke pot for the first
time in 5 years. We were recording handclaps and the tape
was rolling but I decided to run out of the room. I hugged
the studio manager, who refused to call me a car service.
I eventually calmed down. (This song did not end up on
the record.)
Stevie was very understanding about our childish desire
to be dubtastic, pushing the bass up way too high all the
time. He said it would get rolled off when the vinyl was
cut and he was right. When mastering the CD in September
of 1997, John Loder discovered the original bass levels
on the master tape, which we had forgotten about. We realized
why Stevie thought we were nuts.
We were happy in 1993 when this record first came out
and we are just as happy now.
I don't remember much about recording The Sharpie other
than it was the first time we used the very big room at
IIWII. Greg Frey's wife, Pat, sings in the background on "Skeletons",
half of which had been recorded a year before. We thought
we were already behind the curve in 1995 by including our
take on drum 'n' bass, as heard on the title track. Oh,
what larks.
RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 23, 1998 |
