This recording was made in January 1986, during the second semester of my senior year in high school.

During high school I used to rent a four-track analog cassette recorder (something like a Tascam Portastudio) and drum machine from a local music store, for a few weeks at a time, and make recordings in my parents' basement. This E.P. of instrumental ideas is the result of one of those endeavors, but also has a bit of backstory.

My first high school band (Larks' Tongue, c. 1983-84) fell apart in classic rock-and-roll fashion. No, the drummer didn’t die; but the band was a casualty of drug use. As I recall it, our singer ended up in a juvenile facility for substance abuse/addiction. After the band splintered I played around with a few other groups in my school. Some had good musicians and a decent semblance of discipline/structure, but they were strictly cover bands. Larks' Tongue actually wrote some music, and I was missing the originality/creativity (and chaos?) of that.

I recorded these songs/ideas and sent the tape to my old singer at the juvie facility. I must have reached out to his stepdad for the address. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Maybe I was hoping they’d be the beginning of some news songs, and/or the band’s reunion. I was 18...there probably wasn't much logic in my thought process. And I was headed off to college in Ohio in six months anyway.

In early 2023, 37 years later (after the two of us reconnected on Facebook), the tape made its way back to me with this note...

"Hi. Greetings. I finally found the tape I knew I had.

This you sent me when I was in a group home, court-probated to the juvenile detention system.

You were one of very few who bothered to try and stay in touch back in ‘86. I never forgot your kindness and thoughtfulness. I believe it contributed to me being able to turn my life around.

This cassette spent lot of its life at the bottom of an ammo box which moved from Pittsburgh to NYC to San Francisco and who knows how many moves from storage spaces to apartment basements, to-and-fro, all over NorCal.

Thank you, friend. It meant a lot at the time."

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Creative and Technical Notes:

After transferring the tape to my digital workstation I did some editing, restoration, and mastering to make it as professional sounding as possible. As you can imagine that only got me so far from what started as a 37-year-old normal bias cassette bounced from a rented analog four-track. For micing I used a consumer-grade Shure -- sort of a cheap version of an SM58. That capured everything on this recording, except the drum machine and (probably) the bass, which were direct inputs to the recorder.

This recording has it all: good, bad, and ridiculous. In the end, it's a time capsule. I'm putting it out in the world as a reminder of something I did near the beginning of my creative life that I never expected anyone (other than my old singer) to hear. From that perspective, it's an honest and genuine piece of art that I'm proud of.

Enjoy!