Anchovies - Complete Anchovies

The Anchovies' first recording happened to be called "Anchovy Rock". This became our theme song. The intro came from "Trek" (an early IPECAC song).

I played most of the song on the Yamaha PSS-470, and then switched briefly to the Casio CT-310 for the bridge (from 2:02 to 2:38). The bridge was tricky, which required me to use the Casio's larger keys.

For some reason, Jon never got to play this song. We recorded this version with Allen on sax, and then quickly retired it. "Fish Time" became our main reggae song and we stopped playing this one.

Years later, after Jon had left the band, the Dead Anchovies resurrected this song. We simplified it, added vocals, and called it "Aren't You Sorry".

Again, I played mostly on the Yamaha PSS-470 and switched to the Casio CT-310 for the bridge (from 1:47 to 2:11).

We start with pre-song chatter. You can hear the audience. Yes, that's right, I said audience.

This is a nice, fast version of our theme song. It sounds much more powerful than the one from the first practice.

Jon was playing the announcer. He was good at it, because he was funny and responsive. I tended to be more introverted and oblivious when there were so many people around.

This was the Anchovies' second reggae song. Jon and I wrote and recorded the initial version as IPECAC (on Extras). The Anchovies version omits the difficult intro and outro sections.

The original instructions for the song were for Anand to play drums, so he probably played them at the party. What was Allen doing? No clue.

More between-song chatter.

This was the Anchovies version of IPECAC's "How Ya Is'n". The main changes are the rhythmic chords during the chorus and the omission of Jon's rap.

You can barely hear the vocals during the chorus. In fact, I doubt I even sang them during the last two choruses. I think I had my hands full with the keyboard part; it was hard to sing and play at the same time.

My keyboard solo is horrid. Sorry!

This introduces "All Blues".

This was written by Miles Davis. Jon transcribed it for us. It was years before I heard the original (on Kind of Blue).

I think Allen played bari sax, which means Anand was on drums. I was on mellophone, which is definitely not my most comfortable instrument. I also played a painful keyboard solo.

Jon was introducing "Canon".

This was by Klaus Doldinger. I don't think I ever heard the original; Jon transcribed this for us.

I really didn't like this song. I hated the harpsichord sound. The rhythms were awkward. You couldn't dance to it. You couldn't even tap your finger to it.

The only good thing about it was that it sounded sophisticated and made us sound like a "serious" band... Well, we had the school band for that, so why subject ourselves to this weird classical stuff for fun? Why not rock our in our free time?

My banging around through different sounds shows my frustration. My keyboard was way too loud. It obliterated Jon's solo and all the other music. You can barely hear anything other than my bang-bang-bang chords and clunky melody. So much for ending the party on a positive note.

I was eager to wash the memory of "Canon" from our heads and ears. So I got us to jump immediately into our "encore" song, "Christmas in Cancun".

This was probably my favorite song for the Anchovies. I wrote and recorded the demo one evening after a practice, layering at least 3 parts on top of each other. You can hear the original version on Trex's A Caustic Gutter.

The song was named after one of my family vacations (to Mexico). For Tripecac I later wrote a completely different song called "Christmas in Cancun 2". Both songs were great (IMO).

The Anchovies liked it too, although this particular performance was sluggish and lifeless. The audience seemed bored. I think they'd had enough of our racket for one day.

We asked if they wanted to hear more. They said no.

Thus ended the concert.

And our dreams.

Well, it wasn't that bad. We kept practicing, and kept recording. In fact, the vast majority of our tapes are from after this gig. Interesting, huh? Not really.

My keyboards were mixed too loud. It sounds like they were connected directly to the tape deck. Ugh. Aside from that, and the sluggish playing, it's a decent version.

You can hear me clapping and counting in the background to keep Luke in time.

Ahh, a nice clean version of my favorite Anchovies song. The mix sounds better than it did for "Fish Time (2)".

Unfortunately, the first couple notes of the song didn't get recorded; I don't remember why. I guess whoever was running the tape recorder (it couldn't have been been me since I was playing) was a little late.

This seems faster and cleaner than the version we recorded at The Party. The drums (particularly the ride cymbals and toms) sound pretty cool.

We didn't know the real name of this song, and I still don't know the name of it. Jon called it "Qwerty" and the name stuck. I think it was written by either Weather Report or Passport.

Anand played this on his drum machine. I don't remember much about it, except that it had round pads which could be played with normal drum sticks. I think Anand used the drum machine because he felt the tom part was too fast to play comfortably on a normal drum kit. Or maybe he just liked the "electro-funk" sound.

This was the Anchovies' first recording of "Demian", which was a song of mine that Jon, Luke, and I had performed for our English class. "Demian" mapped pretty well to the Anchovies' instrumentation, although it may have been a little too fast for the drummer (Anand or Allen).

This is a decent version. There are some clunky keyboard notes but the solos are pretty good. Luke had improved tremendously since our "first version".

My notes from 1994 suggest that Allen played the drums. I'm not sure, though.

The chorus is more established compared to the one at The Party. For some reason Jon didn't sing his two little parts. The solos are nice, though.

My vocals are light, not too worn out. I extended "his" a long time but didn't shriek it. Not a bad way to end our first [recorded] practice of 1990.

This was the end of one of our songs. I don't know which song it was, or why it got recorded over. I'm guessing we played it on the same day as the other Master Practice 3 songs, though it could have been earlier.

This version sounds thin. You can barely hear the sax. The sad irony of this song is that Jon liked it so much more than me, but you can never hear Jon because my frustrated/ing keyboards are always mixed too loud.

It sounds like Jon was using a reverb box and a soprano sax.

My keyboard solo was yet again an expression of my complete irritation with this song. I switched sounds faster than I played notes. Maybe the underlying solo wasn't bad, but I killed any musical integrity with my sonic fiddling.

This is probably our worst recording of any song, ever. The sound quality starts off very wimpy. The drum machine sounds sterile and thin. You can barely hear Jon. Recording directly into the four track was a bad idea; we should have used mics.

And then come the keyboard solos. They really suck. They're sluggish and distorted. I think Luke and I each did one. Jon is nowhere to be found; he seems to be in a different room at this point.

About half way through, I turned on my keyboard's drums. I don't know if this was by accident or if I was trying to correct or sabotage things. The horribly overbearing keyboard part at the end doesn't help things.

Really, this is awful. The mix, performance, and arrangement are all horrid. The only thing it's good for is a laugh.

I like Luke's sound, which provides a distant rumble. The drums sound decent too. But my keyboard is too loud.

I'm pretty sure Anand played drums on this song. I don't know what Allen was playing (if anything), though; I only hear one sax.

This is my favorite rendition of "All Blues". The solos were decent. Luke's playing was very tight.

I hear two saxes. Unless Jon overdubbed a second part (which I highly doubt), this means all five of us were here. Between Anand and Allen, I'm not sure who played what; they both played drums and sax at times.

I played mellophone the whole time, which kept me off the keyboard. This means no direct line-in, which helps keep the mix from being jarring. Nice version.

Wow, what energy! We rocket through our theme song. The only clunky part is the bridge, which was hard to play.

I mic'ed my keyboard, which helped preserve the live feeling of the mix. My vibe solo sounds distorted and cheesy, though. Can't win them all.

I only hear one sax. Where was Allen?

Yet another version of "How Ya Is'n". My voice was hoarse and my keyboard sounds annoying, but otherwise the sound is pretty decent.

The tempo drags a little bit, so I kept clapping to keep us in time.

Decent version. I like the "mysterious" chords I played on my keyboard at the beginning. But then the keyboard gets annoying. Too loud!

The most interesting bit about this version is the end, where Anand's mom asks us to be quiet.

Ugh, my least favorite song. At least this time I didn't completely sabotage it with annoying keyboard solos (see "Canon (3)").

Still, my keyboard was way too loud! Why oh why must I be so loud on a song I hate playing? Meanwhile, you can never hear Jon, and Jon's the one who liked this song so much.

This is a so-so version of my favorite song.

These were our last recorded moments with Jon. Soon after, he left to join a "real" band. Sniff.

This was the final performance of "How Ya Is'n".

Man, what bitterness. For about a year, our motif was making fun of Jon. I had to censor this for the web. Very harsh!

The nice thing is Luke's guitar work. Too bad nobody will ever hear it!

Man, this is a mean song. The music is great fun, though. Luke's guitar work is inspiring, and my keyboard solos are wild.

The song gets cut off at the end, which really sucks (no pun intended). It was really cool while it lasted. Too bad I have to censor it!

Allen wasn't actually there; this introduction was my idea of a joke.

This was our debut of my swinging jazz song from College Collection. It sounds pretty lame with the canned drums; I think my Tripecac version sounds more lively.

Anand played the sax. I think this was the first time he played lead for us. I played the walking bass line with my left hand, and the piano sound in my right hand. I'm not sure what Luke did; maybe he just played the vibe solo?

It was very difficult to solo with my right hand while playing the bass with my left; that's probably why I said "oh no".

"Demian" actually sounded okay with the keyboard drums. This was more reggae than our version(s) with Jon.

I first wrote the lyrics back on 1988-01-26 for Trex. In 1992 I fit those lyrics to a completely different tune, which I arranged for the Anchovies.

This version is my favorite. The music is super-bouncy. It also contains the fantasy-themed third verse (the "punch line") which we later dropped.

This was the end of an early version of "Aren't You Sorry".

It sounds like we were learning as we went along. I think by "snag" I meant move to some part of the song. I've never used that term (musically) since then. Weird.

Again, Allen wasn't there, and again, I made a joke about it. This time Anand joined me in the hilarity.

This is a decent version. Luke's vibe solo is pretty cool.

Allen wasn't really there. I played the bass line with my left hand and the piano part with my right.

This is our first full version of "Aren't You Sorry". It's a vocal version of "Old Reggae Song", which we played before Jon joined us in 1989.

Luke and I did the vocals. We were a little negative about Jon, but not as bad as in Dead Practice 1.

The good news is the music. It's very bouncy. I was in the poppiest phase of my songwriting. Luke and Anand did a great job of bouncing along with me.

This is the earliest recorded version of "Drizzle", which is a song that I later recorded for College Collage.

I wanted the music really moody, so I emulated The Cure.

This version crumbles at the end, and the lyrics are unfinished. However, there's a really nice texture here that we weren't able to recapture in later versions.

This was our first post-Jon attempt at "Anchovy Rock". I think we changed its key from F (which was sax-friendly) to E (which was keyboard-friendly).

This version is okay. I like the fast tempo. The solos are pathetic, though. And the keyboard drums drop out temporarily in the middle.

We dropped the vocals during the verse. The muffling is horrid. I much prefer the version on Dead Practice 3.

This was our first full version of "Drizzle". Too bad the muffled sound quality kills it.

The lyrics are about Jon (surprise surprise). This time they're not too negative.

This is a so-so version. I wish it weren't so muffled.

This is muffled and uninspired, but fast enough to keep you from nodding off.

The muffling is irritating and the tempo's sluggish. On the plus side, I like the embellished keyboard parts.

This sounds a little like "Aren't You Sorry" but was actually a one-off improv. I made up some lyrics about Jon. Which I had to censor. Of course.

This is a quick intro, a little crude. I've censored the words for the web page and omitted the mp3. You can probably guess the joke.

I like this better than the Dead Practice 4 version. The sound quality is a little less muffled, and my vocals are more energetic, even a bit hyper. It even has a rare fourth verse.

The lyrics' "August" reference makes me think this practice was recorded in August.

I don't know if the knocking near the beginning was us or my parents. Other than that, the flubbed chorus, and the nice chord at the end, this version is devoid of character. But aren't they all?

This was the final recording of "Christmas in Cancun". It's okay. Our mix wasn't great. I wish it weren't so muffled. The solos are barely there, too. Sigh.

This was the final recording of "Don't Disregard Me". I like the alternating solos at the end. I still think the Dead Practice 2 version has the most bounce.

Here's yet another version of "Demian". It's a little sloppy, and fast. The mix isn't great. Neither are the solos. Really, there isn't anything special about this one.

It was the end of practice. The other guys were starting to leave. I kept the tape recorder rolling. This captures our chatter right before I started playing again.

If I had been polite, I would have said goodbye to Luke and Anand. But then I wouldn't have recorded this.

As they were leaving, I pressed "play" and started improvising. I started off weird and then morphed into a Clash song called "Sandinista". I explored that for a while, and then when I got sick of it, I decided to play something normal: "Anchovy Rock"...

This is one of my favorite renditions of "Anchovy Rock". It's just me and my drum machine, live. It's not rock solid but it's got lots of really cool bits.

This was an intro I recorded, probably sometime in 1993. I might have also recorded it for the tape version of Complete Anchovies, which I initially assembled in December 1994.

This is the final, live-drums version of "Drizzle". I rearranged it to fit my Tripecac version (on College Collage).

It's clumbsy as heck. The transitions to and from the reggae section are total clunkers. It's kinda funny, though.

I don't know what the phone call was. It sounds like one of us wasn't there, but I can't tell who. At times it sounds like there are three keyboards plus drums.

This was our final version of our theme song, "Anchovy Rock". This one had three keyboard parts and vocals!

We switched parts (and tempos) in the middle of it. I moved from keyboard to drums. From what we were saying, it sounds like Allen was initially on drums. I don't hear Anand at all, so I'm guessing he had left by this point.

For some reason we decided to tell jokes. This first part centers around a (pretty funny) joke that Luke had heard recently.

I think Allen played the little keyboard run at 0:43. I banged on the drums.

This is a segue from our joke telling back into music. I was trying to tell Allen which voice on my keyboard was the organ. Pretty clunky.

This was supposed to be the theme music for our stand up routine. It's pretty amorphous.

We had nothing to say but we didn't want to stop recording. This is our pathetic at getting back into the music. Towards the end, Allen started singing (lamely).

Luke launched into "White Christmas" and we feebly followed... Briefly. I'm guessing that Allen played the keyboard chord at 0:13.

More babbling. You can tell why we never were not a cover band.

This was supposed to be "African" tribal music, but it sounds more like Native American chanting to me. Not that I'm an expert. It just doesn't sound very African to me.

Listening to this will make you want your 53 seconds of life back.

More joke telling. It was pretty lame. At the end, Luke got restless and started playing his keyboard.

This was the last piece of music we played together as a band. It was a moody improv, with me on drums and Allen and Luke on keyboards. It's pretty awful, musically.

This is a semi-boring intro to our first take.

Our first take had some catchy vocals by Anand. I think he had pre-written the first few verses of the vocals.

I think the awful sax playing is me. Anand's rapping was much better than mine or Luke's.

This is a short intro to our second take. I thought Anand was doing awesome at rapping, and wanted him to continue. He didn't share my faith in his ability to rap.

This second take wasn't nearly as long as the first one, but it also wasn't as funny. I think Anand was getting tired.

My cornet solo was pretty pathetic. It was probably the first time that I touched a horn since 1991. Anand called it a mellophone in his lyrics, but it's definitely a cornet, since the mellophone belonged to the high school (and I was in college).

As the takes got shorter, so did the intros. The fourth intro doesn't even exist.

We wrote out the lyrics this time. We still recorded with mics, with no direct line-ins. The lyrics almost match the final version.

I like Luke's helicopter effect in the beginning. Also, his solo was pretty neat.

This is the final version, which I included on the tape version of The Hermit (my 1994 Tripecac album). Luke wasn't there, but Allen was. We changed the lyrics to include Allen in the story.

We recorded direct line-ins this time. The difference in sound quality is enormous. I also added more sounds to the backing music.

This was the last thing we ever recorded together, and probably the last time more than two of us were in the same room together; after that we scattered to different states and countries.

It's interesting how the last words are "I'm free". I guess I was, for better or worse.