Trex - Eye Beater

This is the first recording I have of myself on my Casio CT-310. I recorded it in the summer of 1986, when I was 13. My cousin might have earlier recordings (which I mailed to her), but until I hear them again, they don't count.

I was sick of other boys my age always bragging about how awesome they were. So I made fun of them by pretending to brag about beating my sister in basketball. This is a joke, because Jessica was 3 years younger (10) and almost never played basketball. My song jokes about her having her "hands tied behind her back" while I beat her. Yeah! Go, me! I'm awesome!

Seriously, it's neat to see glimpses of subtle, insightful humor at that age. I certainly was a clever little kid. Yeah! Go, me! I am the greatest!!!

;)

This is the self-mocking sequel to "I Beat Her". It uses a simple blues progression, and has some improvised bits.

This is the first song that uses a fake British accent. Yum. The funny thing is that I was affecting the "-a" suffix five years before I ever heard The Fall, who ended up becoming one of my favorite bands of all time!

This is a probably my first anti-conformity song. I didn't feel like conforming the vocals. They gradually get weirder and weirder.

This is my sloppy cover of The Champs' "Tequila", which was popular at the time. Yikes.

Note: Since this is copyrighted material, I'll hold off on uploading the mp3. Not that it really matters, given the quality of my performance.

Here's another awful cover, this time of UVa's "fight song".

Note: This song might actually be public domain; I've heard it used by other teams as well. So, I'll upload the mp3 and if I get complaints I'll take it down. No big loss if that happens.

This is a latin improv. Basically, I was just messing around with the "latin" preset rhythms. The clunky, obvious-sounding chord progression is blues-based, which about as fancy as I got back then.

I was experimenting with different recording techniques. I added live clapping and tested different volume levels. I guess I was already probing the limits of my keyboard and recording equipment.

Here's another volume test. It's really distorted, but mercifully short.

Silly intro to the next song.

Clunky intro to the long demo. Guaranteed to try your patience.

This is a long demonstration of my keyboard. Guaranteed to fry your patience.

This is probably my first semi-original chord progression. It's not reggae, though, despite the Jamaica and Marley references. Nope, not by a long shot.

Note: I'll probably have to censor this before uploading the mp3.

This was my first attempt at creating an "epic" song. It's an instrumental, combining several music ideas that I had developed in the past few days/weeks. It's much more disciplined than the earlier stuff, and cleanly recorded; I think I was using line-in instead of a microphone. However, I think it's ultimately kinda boring.

The name means "unidentified love song".

I recorded it sometime after 1986-09-10 and before the 1987-03-16. Since the next song is called "T's Reggae 2", I'm guessing that I recorded it (and hence "ULS") shortly after "T's Reggae", which was 1986-09-10. That's why I'm guessing the date is 1986 rather than 1987.

Getting the dates right is very important to me.

In fact, getting the dates right is more important than getting the notes right.

That kinda sums up the Trex philosophy. :)

This is the long sequel to "T's Reggae". It also contains bits of the "Fight Song". Not that we needed to hear any of that again. And it has a "Long Demo"-esque feel, where I do more fiddling than playing. It's pretty bad.

Hmm, "pretty bad"?

More like "ugly bad".

It kinda reminds me of some of the really awful drum-and-bass tracks I've heard on late night radio. So there might be a market for this racket somewhere. I just don't want to have anything to do with that racket market.

Hmm. Racket market. Interesting phrase. I guess something good came out of this song after all! It just took about 20 years.

More hyper drum-and-bass junk, with repetition, distortion, and not much else. Well, at least it's short.