IPECAC - Best of IPECAC 2 (January-February 1989)

  1. Numb (2) [5:26] 1989-01-?? - 1989-01-??
  2. Sungreen (2) [3:05] 1989-02-10 - 1989-02-10
  3. Share, Peace, and Love (4) [4:36] 1989-02-10 - 1989-02-10
  4. Five Through Night (2) [3:05] 1989-02-11 - 1989-02-11
  5. Medea (2) [5:16] 1989-02-11 - 1989-02-11
  6. Lepercity (2) [4:26] 1989-02-11 - 1989-02-11
  7. My Familiar (3) [4:09] 1989-02-11 - 1989-02-11

In early 1989 (probably for Christmas 1988), Jon got his own keyboard, which was much fancier than my old Casio. His was stereo, had more sounds, and let him create his own rhythms and simple arrangements.

Around the same time, Jon also got a 4-track and a reverb box. Since his "studio" was now far superior to mine (in terms of equipment), we recorded the rest of our albums at his place.

Our first album with Jon's equipment was Best of IPECAC 2, on which we "modernized" several of our favorite songs. The results were mixed. Some of the solos were good, but since we were new to programming rhythms, we ended up making them too busy, using sounds that were weird and "synthy" rather than sticking with emulations of instruments with which we were familiar (e.g., sax, piano, brass). The resulting songs sounded mechanical, chaotic, and kinda boring...

In a 2002-02-15 journal entry I wrote:

One January weekend Jon invited me over to show me his new $1000 Casio HT-6000 keyboard and we recorded a few of our new songs, but they were so unpolished that we decided to re-record them some time in February.

Jon recorded his first solo album, entitled I Am Not Spock, leaving me in the dust with my cheap $250 heap. He "let me" take home his new album to listen to.

Just last weekend, Feb. 10-11, we recorded, at his house, Best of IPECAC 2 1988-89. [...] The keyboard on this album was incredibly loud; there is a significant amount of distortion and the sax parts are all but inaudible, but it had some decent keyboard material.

The tape cover says that "Numb" is the "January version"; it must have been one of those earlier recordings we didn't like. As for the rest, I'm guessing that since the 10th was Friday (with not much time after school), we only recorded one or two songs that day. I'll guess two, since we probably wouldn've have been content with only recording one. Also, there's a good chance that we listened to "Share, Peace, and Love" overnight, realized that the drums were too busy, and greatly simplified them for the rest of the songs which we recorded.