Trex - Acoustic Picks

Ah, finally, a decent song idea. It was an improv. I have no idea what most of the lyrics are, but I really like the melody. I think it has something to do with isolation.

I seriously doubt that this was recorded on the same day as "Drunk Crush"; it has a different instrumentation and sound much more, um, sober. The lyrics are self-centered (as usual) but tuneful and kinda funny.

Interesting jangly sounds on guitar plus silly, inoffensive™ lyrics make this a winner! It's actually catchy in moments, but then sort of loses it in the middle. Oh well.

I don't know if i recorded this the same day as "I Don't Know What to Do". My notes say that the tape ended in April, so that's my closest guess.

This is a blues improv. Not too bad. You can hear music in the background; it's probably bleed-through from Hubie's tape.

Falsetto? Dunno why. I made this up as I went along. It's moody and sad. I don't know all the lyrics. I was watching a movie while I recorded it.

I was back in Alexandria, and back on guitar. Singing about something that I have long since forgotten.

This is about students getting so stressed out that they kill themselves. Yay!

Well, I survived. So that makes this a comedy! Just like "Blame the Game". I guess I was making fun of the students who were stressed about classes. I was stressed a little too, but not that stressed.

I'm not sure if I recorded this on the same day as "Hanging Over". It was definitely between then and 1997-12-25. I don't know about the alleged "catchiness", though. It's okay, but nothing special.

I was tired of emotional girlfriends. At first I wanted to write a song about pushing all the histrionics onto the "b-sides", but then I realized that "c-sides" was even more remote.

I had never heard the term "c-sides" before (except for the obvious un-punny "sea sides"). Since then, however, I have seen "c-sides" in a few places. Copy cats!

This is an almost-funky guitar version of "Anchovy Rock", which was the Anchovies's theme song.

This might have been recorded in 1998; I'm not sure.

Sometimes it's frustrating being more active than other people. Such as when we have to interact with those other people. Inevitably, the active people end up feeling pressure to do the work of the inactive people. But then we think "why the heck am I bailing this lazy person out?" We end up resenting the other people, and withdraw from them. And since we're more active than most people, we end up withdrawing from most people. We end up hermits. That's the safest route to daily happiness.

Of course, it's also a lonely route, and if our happiness depends on the approval or thanks or entertainment value of other people, then there's a limit to how happy we can be in solitude.

Anyway, the music here is pretty cool. Aggressive, choppy, crisp. I like it!

A girl who liked me sent my mom a letter saying that I was a "beautiful man". This song was my reaction.

The solos weren't bad. Until the very end. :)

I guess I felt like my life was in a rut. This song's music and my voice sound very rut-like too. It kind pokes fun at the cliche "you always have your roots".

This is the first take of the album's title track. It's based on a multi-meaning pun. I sort of lost the point, though, and had to record a second version in order to get the pun in there.

The vocals are pretty faint, but melodic. The guitar isn't bad (for me).

I don't remember what I was trying to say, though.

I was testing the acoustic guitar, which I got the same day as the mandolin. It sounds pretty good, and is a badly needed breath of fresh air.

Another acoustic guitar improv.

A last minute improv, which I called a "bonus" song. Not bad; I'm glad I recorded it.

This was recorded with the dictaphone in my office; hence all the hiss. When it finally gets going it's pretty cool.

I don't know if this was recorded before or after the 4-track recordings that day. Since this was on a later tape, I'll assume these came second.

This is the demo for "Par", which I remade for Tripecac.

The lyrics are pretty close that what I ended up using, and it's neat to hear them evolve over the course of this demo.

Kinda catchy, but obviously a struggle to play.

Silly and crude, reaching the punch line way too quickly. Not horrible, though.

Very rough demo of "Baby Dew", which I later recorded for Tripecac. The talking in the background is another tape I was digitizing. The lyrics were completely different.

Not sure about the date. Since the Tripecac version was started on 2011-05-15, I'm guessing this was from the same day, but it could have been any time on or after the previous Trex song, which was 2011-04-22.

Tuneful but warbly and sloppy in parts.

I said the date wrong; it was actually still June.

Back on mandolin with the hissy dictaphone. Very short.