Dad’s tape recorder
I’ve been obsessed with recording ever since I was a little kid. My favorite thing to do was make my recorded voice play back at higher or lower pitch. The first time I achieved this effect was by accident with my dad’s tape recorder. Its batteries were in a certain sweet spot of death where the recorder still functioned, but it operated at a much slower speed. I recorded myself in that magical low-battery mode and when I plugged it into a wall outlet and played it back at normal speed I sounded like a chipmunk. It worked the other way around, too: I’d record on wall outlet power, unplug it, play it back on almost-dead battery power, and get what I called “Jabba the Hutt” playback.
Akai XR10 drum machine. I’ll bet I still wouldn’t be able to figure that sonofabitch out.
Once guitar playing and song ideas entered the picture I became really obsessed with getting a 4-track recorder. The only problem with that is they were way out of my budget. In the spring of 1993 I couldn’t take it anymore and began renting a drum machine and 4-track cassette recorder from Eclipse Music in West St. Paul. MAN I loved that place and those guys. And they loved me too… I gave them a lot of money! It’s so good to see that Guitar Center hasn’t killed them off, I was a little worried about that when I googled them.
The Fostex X30. “Uh, whaddo all them buttons do?”
The first weekend that I rented the stuff was a wash. There were no manuals so I spent most of the time figuring out how it all worked. The second time around was the weekend of May 16-18 of 1993. I ended up with a whopping 19 tunes! I was so proud and excited that I’d just cut my first album. I called it “Planet Ekim” and made a cover with liner notes for it and everything – thanks to those liners I have the exact recording dates and a complete list of all of the equipment that I used. The fruits of that weekend’s recording efforts were billions of light years away from what I originally set out to accomplish due to not knowing what the f*&k I was doing with the recorder or drum machine. It was basically a lot of blind button pushing, fader sliding, and hoping for the best. I was expecting to make a Mike Satriani album but ended up with a sonic casserole of weirdness that sounded like what one might get if Ween and Steve Vai teamed up to form a band when they were 11 years old.
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As mentioned in my post from last week, my music from back then is of legal drinking age now. That’s just crazy! My goal to keep from going batty with cabin fever this winter is to digitize, clean up, and preserve all of my old master tapes. Recently I started chipping away on that first Planet Ekim tape. There’s one track on it that my mom always got a kick out of and asks about, that being “Credit Card/On Sale (Credit Card reprise)”. I admit that it’s one of my favorites too just because it’s so fucking stupid. What can I say, good taste runs in the family.
That song was a result of being slaphappy after 12-15 straight hours of trying to figure out how to work the drum machine and recorder. Hell if said slaphappiness and being numb with exhaustion was going to stop me from recording more. The rental clock was ticking and I had to savor every precious minute of it! It was probably 2AM and I had just concocted a weird 5/4 drum beat and bass line on the drum machine but didn’t know what to do with it.
I’d exhausted all of my guitar ideas by that point so grabbed a microphone and started experimenting with sending my voice through a pitch shifter effect. Just like old times! I hit RECORD and mindlessly rambled over the new drum/bass pattern for a few minutes. The dialog was inspired by a couple of older ladies who worked mornings at Target. I worked nights and as I was stocking the last of the toy shipment would often hear them yammering on about their husbands and daily goings-on a few aisles down in housewares. At one point in the song I say “Sorry about that interruption there..” I thought I woke up my parents so took a quick peek out the door. The hall was dark and empty so I forged on.
I remember playing “On Sale” for my Aunt Joan when she was visiting from Washington. She had a good laugh and asked “Were you on drugs or something?!” I knew she was joking but took that as a huge compliment. Nope, no drugs.. I wasn’t even of legal drinking age or interested in any of that stuff. To this day I need a 100% unaltered state of mind when I’m making new music. I have enough clutter going on up there already just trying to get all of the ideas out before I lose ’em.
Here’s “Credit Card/On Sale (Credit Card reprise)” in all its cleaned up glory. I need to stress the fact that this is just a drum machine and 19-year-old me spewing Target lady things into a microphone. Don’t expect to hear anything of musical value, this one’s just fer fun. I’m including the lyrics for those of you who want to sing along. I recommend listening in headphones if you can.
This Bud’s for you, Ma Krenner!
“Credit Card/On Sale (Credit Card reprise)”
Music and lyrics by 19-year-old me
PART I: “Credit Card”
It’s on sale?
Well. I might just have to run out there and buy one.
Right away.
Maybe. See what I can do.
Go out and buy one. Right away.
That would be nice.
Get my husband’s credit card, run right out there and buy one. Maybe two.
Maybe even three. One for the neighbors.
Yeah, I get paid every Friday I believe it is?
And I just love it. Because I pretend like I’m Donald Trump or something?
And it’s so great, ‘cuz I can go out and just buy like hell. I buy like there’s no tomorrow.
I go shopping, you know? And I find the greatest deals. It’s just really amazing.
Oh. Sorry about that interruption there.
Anyway, I was at Penney’s yesterday and oh my god there was the cutest dress there and I just had to have it, except, you know? It, it.. wasn’t my siiiize. You know, I take a size… uh… I don’t know what size I take but I take this size and they didn’t have it so, you know, I called up the lady at, uh, Roseville, and she said she had one so I went out and bought it. And I got home and showed it to my husband. He wasn’t too happy.
My husband, he sits there, he’s all going, “Uhm, Honey? Where’d you buy that piece of shit?”
And I say, “Deeeear, it was on sale.”
And he says, “Honey, that doesn’t matter if it’s on sale.”
But, you know. I just can’t pass up a good bargain, so I bought it. It was only about, uh, I think it was 5 percent off? Put that on your charge card and you don’t have to worry about it ’til next month.
Well my husband, he just kinda: “Honey, I’m doing the bills, and I see you got… something for, is this, $500? We can’t afford something like that, you’re going to have to take it back. ‘Cuz I can’t be… paying for shit like this.”
Well, you know. Men. They don’t know what the hell’s going on. So I told him I took it back and kept it. What the hell is he gonna know anyway?
I love money. I love to shop. Oooooooooh, it’s so great. If you know what I mean. I can’t pass up a sale. I just can’t help it. Maybe I’m compulsive. But… I don’t care.
“Honey? Is this a new dress in the closet?”
PART II, “On Sale (Credit Card reprise)
(I’ll let you figure the words to this one out)
