- Who played on this album?
Doug Gourlay, drums, percussion
Glenn Caley, guitars, basses, vocals, percussion
Hugh Caley, vocals, basses, guitars, keyboards, percussion
- Where and how was this album recorded?
It was recorded primarily at Private Studios in Wyandotte, Michigan, on analog Otari 8-track. Glenn did most of the engineering, along with Doug and Hugh. Most of the songs were mastered to Sony F1 digital format at that time, and were later digitally tweaked by Hugh on a Macintosh. Two of the songs, Out of Context and Lizard Ass, had never had final mixes before; they were copied to Garageband on the Mac and remixed by Hugh with help from Glenn in 2010.
Homo Gal was inspired by a sign outside a party store in Flint, Michigan; Hugh really likes how this turned out. The bass is one of the first Steinberger basses.
JOY! is a meditation on the upside of manic depression; another favorite of Hugh's; Hugh remembers Doug and Glenn giggling in the control room as they tweaked the knobs live on the delay box during his guitar solo.
Lizard Ass is an experiment in stream of consciousness lyrics, meant to be a snapshot of what was in Hugh's mind at the time in 1989, which didn't really work (the lyric, not Hugh's mind). Looking back, Hugh only really likes the "clever" parts of the lyric, the title and the chorus. Glenn's feedback guitar on this is much fun, as is Doug's gradual spazzing on the outro.
Call Me Eddy ; Hugh has a low opinion of philosopy in general, but this is his one statement regarding his own after discovering the science of chaos theory.
Out of Context (and to an extent Homo Gal as well) grew out of one of the many good conversations Hugh and Glenn would have on the almost 2 hour commute between Metamora and Wyandotte for band rehearsal. There tends to be a lot of drum solos in this material as neither Glenn nor Hugh like playing guitar solos, and after all Doug was the best musician in the band.
5th Street is named after the location of the studio; musically it's meant to be a sequel to "Kent Street Bells" from the 1987 cassette; Glenn and Doug really go for it on this one.
Eloise was a Michigan mental hospital, and it was coincidentally also Hugh's favorite female name. There you go.
Writhe; a nod to King Crimson on this one; also check out Glenn's demented solo just before the last chorus.
Lights Go Out was Hugh discovering how much fun it was to play open sixths on a piano. Lyrically it came out of one of his trips to Great Britain in the 80s. It might be called an American reaction to Thatcherism.
This album has MORE COWBELL, and predates the Christopher Walken SNL sketch by over a decade!
