IPECAC - Apostrophe (June 1988)

  1. Piston Alley [3:38] 1988-06-?? - 1988-06-??
  2. Trek (1) [2:10] 1988-06-0? - 1988-06-0?

Jon and I started making music together after our freshman year of high school (early 1988). Jon played sax and I played keyboard and brass. We also messed around on "percussion" (pots, pans, and tupperware) and acoustic guitar.

Neither of us wanted to appear to take our musical efforts seriously, so we chose a band name that was [subtly] self-deprecating: "Apostrophe".

For our first session, we used dictaphones to speed up our solos and disguise our voices. Our friends laughed at our tape, and we ended up erasing everything except "Piston Alley" and part of "Trek".

In a journal entry dated 1989-02-15 I wrote:

Apostrophe was a modest collection of three songs: "Fake Reggae", "Stop All Time", and "Better Drumsticks".

  • "Fake Reggae" was a massive improv which featured me on keyboards and Jon on sax, a popular instrument arrangement for the duration of our recording sessions.
  • "Stop All Time" was a song I spent time composing and
  • "Better Drumsticks" was Jon's first contribution to the group.

"Fake Reggae" is probably not related to the "same-titled song" on Gourmet, because the latter does not contain any sax. Neither does "Piston Alley", which is not mentioned in the journal entry. Hmm...

"Stop All Time" was an early name for "Trek". I'm guessing that that's the version you can hear here. ("That that", "hear here"? Yikes!)

"Better Drumsticks" later appeared on Gourmet. I'm not sure if there were one or two versions of it.

On the Trex CD Kim 13, "Trek Chatter" suggests that Apostrophe was actually recorded in two sessions. This might explain the missing and extra song. Also, keep in mind that the journal entry was written 8 months after the recording dates, so my memory (or notes) could have been glitchy when I wrote that journal entry.