albums
Compilations
2012 Casio Picks
2012 Piano Picks
2012 Acoustic Picks
2012 Electric Picks
2013 Trex Video
Childhood (1974-90)
1977 Firsts
1978 Seconds
1985 Cacappella
1986 Eye Beater
1987 Guitarded
1988 Kim 1
1988 Kim 2
1988 Kim 3
1988 Kim 4
1988 Kim 5
1988 Kim 6
1988 Kim 7
1988 Kim 8
1988 Kim 9
1988 Kim 10
1988 Kim 11
1988 Kim 12
1989 Kim 13
1989 Five Dollar Drummer
1989 Wino Three Girls
1990 A Caustic Gutter
1996-1999
1996 NoVaSoCa
1996 Fullerton
1997 Soundtracks
1997 Walk Around
1997 Riding the Greyhound
1999 I Mowed
1999 Simulameous
1999 Yikes
1999 Piano Farte
2000-2008
2001 Marathon
2001 Days Like These
2001 Alcan Back
2001 Sleepy Sloppy
2001 Dad Day Jam
2002 Unfit
2002 The Key of G
2003 Daffy Day
2003 Januweary
2003 Post-Key
2003 Fatiguitar
2003 Oh No
2005 Waiting
2005 Sun Strike
2006 Stinky Room
2006 Schtupid
2007 Coy Pun
2007 Post-Ides
2007 Post-Ideas
2007 Post-Ideals
2007 Warble
2007 Another Same Day
2007 And Another
2007 Bald Ballads
2007 Lunch Broken
2007 Mayo
2007 Mayon
2007 Mayonandon
2007 Mayoff
2007 Juneo
2007 Juneon
2007 Juneonandon
2007 Two Song Rule
2007 Cavy Fury
2007 Infinity Daze
2007 Fall Start
2007 False Tart
2007 Fall End
2008 New Ear
2008 Decadend

Track List

# title lyrics time download listen started recorded rating
1 Trek lyrics 10:10 download listen locally 1988-06-0? 1988-06-16
2 Trek Jam lyrics 6:46 download listen locally 1988-06-0? 1988-06-16
3 Trek Chatter lyrics 1:48 download listen locally - 1988-06-16
4 We're Heathen (original) lyrics 6:09 download listen locally 1989-01-18 1989-01-21
5 Heathen Chatter lyrics 1:30 download listen locally - 1989-01-21
6 Numb [IPECAC] lyrics 3:32 download listen locally - 1988-12-23
7 Calling Luke lyrics 3:34 download listen locally - 1989-01-21
8 My Familiar Chatter lyrics 1:00 download listen locally - 1989-01-21
9 My Familiar (2) [IPECAC] lyrics 3:19 download listen locally - 1988-12-23
10 Final Kim Chatter lyrics 9:51 download listen locally - 1989-01-21
Total 47:39 play all locally album rating:

Notes

This documents the final 2 tapes for my cousin Kim, recorded in June 1988 and January 1989. IPECAC was underway, and my solo music was reaching a creative peak with Five Dollar Drummer. This tape acts like a sampler of those efforts. There are no new songs here, just lots of chatter.

With that, I'm finally done digitizing the Kim tapes! I finished on 2008-05-14, which was exactly 7 months after Kim brought me the tapes at my sister's wedding. I spent far more time editing and documenting these CDs than I did creating the original music! That's the story of my [musical] life.

Songs

Trek

This is was my solo recording of "Trek", which was the first real IPECAC song. Unlike the IPECAC versions, this one is piano only, except for some hummed sax parts about a minute in (and some gargling at the end). There are lots of mistakes, but the essence of the song is there.

"God's Name" was the original title. I later renamed it "Stop All Time", and finally settled on "Trek".

Lyrics to "Trek":

today is june 16th 1988
this song is called god's name
and it's very long and i hope it's good

1 2 3 4

[scat]

1 2 3 4
  

Trek Jam

This was on the tape under "Trek"; I must have recorded over most of it. It's a lot jammier, straying frequently from the composition. Parts are annoying but other bits are kinda cool.

Lyrics to "Trek Jam":

one last time and

[scat]
  

Trek Chatter

This talks about "Trek" and the birth of IPECAC. You can see how excited I was to be playing with Jon.

This refers to having made [at least] two recordings of "Trek" for IPECAC. One was "yesterday" (with the slow parts) and one was "last week" (with the fast part). Since "Trek (1)" on Apostrophe is the earliest IPECAC version and contains only the fast bit, I'm guessing that was the "last week" version. I don't know about the one recorded "yesterday", which was supposed to only have the two slower parts. None of my recordings of "Trek" fit that profile. Maybe Jon has another tape somewhere?

Lyrics to "Trek Chatter":

yes that took up half the tape
what did you think of it? i bet it was real dumb
and i thank you if you even bothered to listen to it
i'll listen to it now and i'll add something onto it, all right

all right, i just listened to it
and there are a few mistakes that are quite obvious
and at parts it is really boring and monotonous
and just as stupid as crap

all day yesterday, wednesday
i just stayed home and then i went to a friend's house where we practiced songs
and that was one of the songs we practiced
but we did better together
because like the saxophone where it goes [scat]
the saxophone part goes [scat]

i can't really sing it but i know how it goes because i wrote it
and like both of us were like totally stunned
because you know i don't have a saxophone
see i wrote the piano part at home
and then i said "jon, i have a good song for you, we can practice it"
he said "okay, fine, gimme the sax part"
i said "i haven't written one"
he said "you haven't? well write one"
i said "ok"
so i came home and i wrote a sax part for him
and i had to transpose, you know, make it from piano to sax
and then i did the same for piano to cornet
so i have 3 parts: a piano part, a sax part, and cornet
so we did that yesterday; we played it together
and it was like totally awesome how the sax sounded
it's a very slow song and we didn't play the whole thing yesterday
we recorded the first half which was [scat]
and then we recorded the other half a long time ago
it was like last week, it was [scat]
we recorded all that before
i just blended the 2 together for you, all right, special
'cause it's in the same key and it's both for piano
and it doesn't matter a bit beyond that all right
  

We're Heathen (original)

This is the original mix of "We're Heathen". It has one or two fewer tracks than the one on Five Dollar Drummer.

In the intro, you can hear me mention IPECAC. This wasn't really IPECAC though; Jon had nothing to do with it.

Lyrics to "We're Heathen (original)":

INTRO:
  here we go
  this is experience that is more scary than a rollercoaster
  this is ipecac, let's go, we're heathen, let's go, let's go
  let's hit it
  oh god i'm scared
  [screaming]

  we're heathen, we're heathen
  heathen, heathen
  we're heathen, heathen
  heathen, heathen

CHORUS:
  we're heathen, heathen
  we don't believe in god
  we're atheists, we're humanists
  we don't believe, we don't; why not?

  we're heathen, we're heathen
  we don't believe in god
  we're atheists, we're humanists
  we don't believe, we don't; why not?

VERSE:
  god is just a figurehead
  another name for conscience
  why not teach us common sense
  instead of preaching nonsense?

  trust in god, that's what you say
  trust in god so blindly
  never stop to reason first
  just so you won't worry

CHORUS:
  we're heathen, we're heathen, we're heathen
  yeah we're heathen, we're heathen, we're heathen
  yeah we're heathen, we're heathen, we're heathen
  yeah we're heathen, we're heathen, heathen
  ??? you know let's go, ha ha ha

VERSE:
  stop being so naive
  stop being gullible
  stop being misdirected
  start being sensible

  make the decision
  turn against religion
  be independent
  show us your wisdom

CHORUS:
  we're heathen, we're heathen
  we don't believe in god
  we're atheists, we're humanists
  we don't believe, we don't; why not?

  we're heathen, we're heathen
  we don't believe in god
  we're atheists, we're humanists
  we don't believe, we don't; why not?

VERSE:
  stop being so naive
  stop being gullible
  stop taking misdirected
  start getting sensible

  so make the decision
  turn against religion
  be independent
  and show us your wisdom

BRIDGE:
  heathen, we're heathen, heathen ...
  we're heathen, heathen, heathen ...
  heathen, we're heathen, heathen ...
  we're heathen, heathen, heathen ...

VERSE:
  start getting sensible
  stop being sensible

END:
  i
  i think we're in hell
  [scat]
  i think we're in hell
  

Heathen Chatter

This provides a date for "We're Heathen (original)". I turnes out that IPECAC never did record a version of the song.

Lyrics to "Heathen Chatter":

yo, can y'all hear me
hey that's good
i'm using my um, i can't use any profane words
but'll just use c r a p p y microphone now
because the other one's too big to hold
yes i'm a weakling, that's it
that song is called we're heathen
and since you're religious you might as well record over that
or burn the tape or something
just burn it along with all the antichrist crucifixes or whatever you have
are there such things?
no, oh, well, that shows how much i known

that was just a whimsical little song that i put together today
without jon's help
wait is that a cut in the wires
no it's just solder, never mind
that was just a little song that's gonna go on our next album
it probably won't be best of ipecac '89 or '88 to '89
because that one hasn't come out yet
and i'm very frustrated right now; do you know why?
you're supposed to say:
"yes, travis, i worship you, but i still want to know why"
because first of all for my birthday i got this little thing
that you can put tapes in; it's like a tape drawer
and one of them doesn't shut
and i'm really getting pissed at it
i don't know why it doesn't shut, probably because it's just, you know
the people that made these
ah there we go, all right, it shut
never mind i can't insult them
ah, you missed what a chance

ok this next song will be numb
i don't have enough time to make a remake of this
because i plan to send this tape in the near future
this is numb with jonathan helping me, right
this is from our catharsis album
and i'll play you numb and i'll play kill the monkey
but before i play kill the monkey
i'm gonna try to get luke marshall on the phone so you can hear him, all right
here we go, this is numb from catharsis
travis emmitt and jon, ipecac
  

Numb [IPECAC]

"Numb" was yet another attempt on my part to push IPECAC away from jazz and towards pop/rock. You see, I wanted us to be a rock band, and Jon wanted us to be more of a jazz band. I think as long as IPECAC failed to meet either of our expectations, neither of us felt "gypped". "Numb" had nice lyrics, and a solid melody, but it failed to make us rock stars. Sigh.

I liked this song enough to end up recording it four more times: twice for IPECAC (on Best of IPECAC 2 and Fake Reverb 2). and twice as Tripecac (on Archives and College Collage). Unfortunately, none of the versions made me happy.

The panning is extreme. Jon's sax was in one ear, and my keyboard and voice were in the other. I don't know if this was intentional or not.

Lyrics to "Numb":

VERSE A:
  there was this girl you liked so much
  you tried so hard that she left you
  another guy came and took your place
  and you were left to suffer

  your world it seemed to collapse
  and moping in complete and utter ruin
  you grew a shell about yourself
  to shield you from the world (and the women)

  further and deeper you slipped
  from life's painful reality
  and into the solace and the universe of
  your endless, comforting dreams

VERSE B:
  you don't want to feel the world around you
  you'd rather be numb than feel the pain
  you don't want to take the blows you're given
  you'd rather just slippin' away

CHORUS:
  you're numb
  blood frozen
  afraid to let your feelings show

  you're numb
  blood frozen
  you'd rather hide than take the blows

VERSE B:
  your heart became broken so you froze it
  you immobilized your blood to numb the hurt
  and now that your heart is hardened
  you try to set yourself from the world

CHORUS:
  you're numb
  a turtle
  hiding safe beneath your shell

  you're numb
  and miserable
  you dug your hole; but it went to hell

    [repeat]
  

Calling Luke

I called my friend Luke, who was soon to join me and Jon in making music. Luke was on the phone with Allen, another musician, who ended up playing with us and Anand in the Anchovies. Although the conversation has nothing to do with music, it shows my tendency to "direct" people, at least when it came to creative pursuits.

If you think this recorded conversation is painful, you should hear the one that opens up Archives ("Convo with Kim"). I was quite inconsiderate back then.

Back then.

Lyrics to "Calling Luke":

CARRIE:
  hello

TRAV:
  hello is luke there

CARRIE:
  who is this

TRAV:
  this is travis

CARRIE:
  travis

TRAV:
  right

CARRIE:
  he's on the phone with allen

TRAV:
  oh really

CARRIE:
  oh, bron tell me to tell you to tell jessica hi

TRAV:
  all right

CARRIE:
  hold on, bron's going down and telling him something

TRAV:
  hello

LUKE:
  hi

TRAV:
  hey, all right
  ok, now the point of this is my cousin wants to hear your voice, right

LUKE:
  your cousin

TRAV:
  yeah
  so i have the phone hooked up to some recording equipment

LUKE:
  ok

TRAV:
  so that you can talk to her and it will be recorded on tape
  um, the purpose is just to see if i can record your voice over the phone

LUKE:
  what kind of stuff did you want me to say

TRAV:
  i don't know, talk to her about australia
  or about school or something

LUKE:
  oh, ok

TRAV:
  first you have to tell her hi
  you have to tell her hi first
  ok go

LUKE:
  hi, my name's luke, i'm from australia
  he's one of my friends, i think, i'm not sure about that [laugh]
  anyway he's in my english class

TRAV:
  really cool

LUKE:
  uh, yeah, thank you travis
  uh, um, let's see
  jon's in our english class too
  you might have heard about jon, you probably have
  i'm not sure about anyone else you might have

TRAV:
  anand and josh

LUKE:
  anand and josh, yeah, they're more friends
  anyway, you probably want to hear me say g'day
  so g'day mate
  now's that
  um, i'm really not sure what to do here

TRAV:
  ok, talk about australia, like the wildlife

LUKE:
  ok well, there are kangaroos in australia
  but they don't hop around all over the place
  ok you have to go out to the country to see them
  and that's where they, um, are around like squirrels

TRAV:
  do they make good meat

LUKE:
  um, well, you can eat them
  except you usually make soup of out them
  you don't just eat the whole kangaroo
  you cut off their tail and make a soup out of that

TRAV:
  ooh, their tail

LUKE:
  yeah

TRAV:
  cool, that must have a lot of muscle in it, to make it so tough

LUKE:
  well, it's also got a bone in it, a great big bone in it

TRAV:
  ok now tell her how you've adjusted to american life

LUKE:
  travis, is this an interview or what

TRAV:
  well, sort of
  i just thought of all these questions

LUKE:
  ah, let's see
  there hasn't been much to adjust to
  except that everybody's a lot nicer here
  i thought that it would be a lot tougher
  i thought, i mean, there's be druggies sitting out in the hall
  shooting themselves up

TRAV:
  oh yeah

LUKE:
  uh, travis

TRAV:
  yeah
  you're doing good, you're doing good
  ok say some common australian words that aren't used in america

LUKE:
  ok um fair dinkum

TRAV:
  what?

LUKE:
  fair dinkum
  it means it's pretty cool or um let's see
  i guess you call a friend a cobber

TRAV:
  how do you spell that?

LUKE:
  c o b b e r

TRAV:
  cobder?

LUKE:
  no, just cobber
  c o b b e r

TRAV:
  oh, cobber

LUKE:
  yeah

TRAV:
  i guess that's pretty cool

LUKE:
  um, there's a bunch of other words

TRAV:
  um, like scones and all that

LUKE:
  what

TRAV:
  like scones
  s k o n e s

LUKE:
  no, it's, uh, s c o n e s

TRAV:
  oh, i'm sorry

LUKE:
  and they have them in england anyway

TRAV:
  oh man
  all right, you did pretty good

LUKE:
  is that all

TRAV:
  i guess
  ok, ask her if that's all

LUKE:
  is that all

TRAV:
  [mumble]
  i couldn't understand what she said
  i think it was like encore or something like that
  ok let me go turn off the tape recorder
  and then i'll be back

[scream]
well here i am
that was luke marshall
all the way from australia
that's so far that he can't even work legally in the u s of a
  

My Familiar Chatter

Introducing the next song. I had trouble getting the tape to play. Kinda funny.

Lyrics to "My Familiar Chatter":

this next song is a little bit better than no song at all
and the name of it is called my familiar
and it's from the catharsis album
it's the last song and is the one that jon thinks is possibly
the best ipecac song of the decade
the name again is my familiar
written completely by yours truly, travis emmitt
and here we go, my familiar
my familiar
where is it? oh here
my familiar
come on man, get that fast forward
here we go, my
  kill the monkey
oh here it is
my familiar, yeah
  

My Familiar (2) [IPECAC]

This was our second version of "My Familiar", which originally appears on Fake Reverb. I like this version a lot better. It's super-sped up, though.

I sampled the narration and monkey noises for a later Tripecac song: "Millions of Monkeys" (on The Hermit).

Lyrics to "My Familiar (2)":

INTRO:
  kill the monkey
  kill the monkey...
  kill the monkey tonight
  we must go now

OUTRO:
  and suddenly millions of monkeys swarmed the house,
  broke and busted in every window,
  and strangled the poor

  it was a gruesome sight
  but a sight worthy to be seen
  by the naked eye
  stripped of its...
  god this is dumb!!!
  

Final Kim Chatter

These are [mostly music related] excerpts from the final bits of chatter to my cousin Kim. I was hyper. It's here mostly to fill up space.

Lyrics to "Final Kim Chatter":

that was my familiar, written by travis emmitt, yeah
all right, those were the 2 hits from the catharsis album
are there any more that you haven't heard
well there's that best of ipecac album
you might have listened to that
you might have not
i doubt you have
'cause you seem to detest ipecac
you seem to hate it
and i guess that's only natural
because ipecac is easily hated
um, i know what i can do for you that's sort of nice
i've got a song, ha ha
yes, it's a new one; it hasn't been recorded yet
it's one of those precious 3
the 3rd of which i played for you as the first song on this tape

and the stupid drawer on this tape thing
oh it shuts quite cooperatively
after a little enforcement
um [blowing nose]
i'm gonna put you on this thing
it's called i need a little help
the singing is awful, right
i recorded this, i think it was yesterday
and my dad says our music is rather ok
but the rest of it sucks cow manure
actually it doesn't
um, a slight problem
i'm such an idiot
i left that tape in the car so forget that
that's in the car and my parents are on a date doing who knows what
i was really surprised that you said that the line
my life is as cloudy as the water in my fish tank and the fish are gonna die
that that came from me
now, i've said some pretty insightful things
but i never knew that came from me
that seems like something a poet would say
i probably was so drunk at the time that i don't remember so it doesn't matter
no, actually i haven't gotten drunk in a while

this is why ipecac is not published
because of this awful voice
this awful singing doice [spit] voice
a very stuttering braind
here we go
my life is as cloudy
and my fish is now so cloudy
but it's eyes are bulging and and it's gonna die
i wonder what that implies
i wonder what that implies
gonna yell real loud so you cannot escape
you can't even turn off the tape recorder
because you'd have to get so close to it
it will deafen your ears
so you're running away
you're running away
and suddenly you throw a rock at the tape recorder and
[crash]
and your little cousin laughs with delight because you missed
[laugh]
that wasn't me; it was zippy, the dog across the gully
we have a gully that we have to drive up each day
just a gully, just a little rut in the earth, right
it's a path
and we have to drive up  our cars
they're not really cars
those little stomper toys
those little trucks that are battery operated
we just stand on one of those
or at least walk beside it
that is how we get home from school
we walk beside a stomper bus
no actually i am in a hyper mood if you haven't noticed
i apologize for my hyper mood
because hyper mood is bad bad bad
i should be choked
like we choke woodie when he's in a hyper mood
i apologize again
honestly, i am honestly apologizing
um, i'm sure there is a song that you want to hear that is recent
but i have my 2 best recent ones in my dad's car
and i'm only talking slow to impress all the wildflowers

ahhh
that is my latest yodel practice
i have to go ahhh 5 times a day
42 hours a day
57 hours a day
123 hours a day
until i get it right
so ahhh
i'm gonna do this next one really loud
so you better get away
get near the door and
you can't hear me 'cause it turned it down
so you gotta turn it up a little bit
i promise you i will not go very
loud
that just destroyed my vocal chords
i am now talking with the voice of a 3 year old
i swear i must have ripped something in my throat it feels so bad
god [gagging]
well that's just a little dramatization
i know this is a really bum tape
and i know you really don't want to listen to this
and actually even if it was music you wouldn't listen to it
because music isn't all that great especially coming from me
because i don't know what i'm doing; i'm nowhere near professional
and no ipecoc, ipecoc, that's nasty, that is nasty
ipecac
i'm shouting too much
i should really quiet down
ipecac is not on the radio yet
you know why not
because our songs are not good enough to put it simply
they just ain't
and you're probably thinking "i think they're great travis, really swell"
uh-huh

now i bet you're gonna write in your letter
"well, travis, i skipped to the other side
because i really didn't want to hear you make a fool out of yourself
but then you told me to come back here and listen to the rest of the side
so i did and it was pretty cool"
well, i have to tell you something, kim
this isn't gonna be cool, all right, it's not
it's gonna be dumb
everything i do is dumb
it's all lower class
it's just dumb
especially my music which really reeks
except for our latest stuff; i guess that's okay

my voice, my voice, my voice is quite dead
my voice is quite dead as i said 1 second ago
and you know what i said 2 seconds ago?
i said
my voice is quite dead as i said 1 second ago
and you know what i said 2 seconds ago
and you know what i said 2 seconds ago
anyways kim, kimberly, kimmie, k, red joy, red joy
oh yeah, i looked over all the lyrics i've ever written
they're pretty rotten
how could you like some of those old songs
like, this year, and something like
there was this girl who was in the
oh, something like that
some special to me
and like and as you're walking in the call
she's not a lot prettier after all
something something something something something
something oh and now i wish she'd talk to me
hey boyfriend comes, i let her be
or something like that
something really, you know, trivial
those were bad lyrics
and what i'm writing now are bad lyrics too
but still they're a little less bad
they're like a slighter degree of bad

please please please
i feel a song coming on
i really do
it's gonna sound pretty stupid
but it's not gonna be long
please please please please please please please
don't listen to what i said said said said said said said said
yesterday on the phone with you
it was a nice surprise, a nice thing for you to do
and this song does not do that phone call justice
thanks so much for the phone call
this is really dumb
and that wasn't
but i'm stupid i can't sing
so i better stop any day now

church is ok
i'm glad that some people go
to make the ministers feel wanted
and i'm sorry about that song called
we're heathen, we're heathen, we don't believe in god

[groaning]
i'm sorry, my voice is going, i'm really sorry
first let me be a little non-serious
ok ready go
number 1, my friend horn isn't sounding too good
number 2, my voice is slurring, isn't it
number 3, my voice is still slurring, isn't it
number 4, my voice is still slurring, isn't it
number 5, my voice has stopped slurring, hasn't it
all right, now it's time to be serious again
do you really like this stuff
no, i can say it's craaaa crazy yeah that's right
honestly, i do not enjoy listening to my tapes
like this one
i do not enjoy listening to them again
because i know what i'm gonna say each time
maybe you will enjoy listening to them more
because you don't know what i'm gonna say
[shriek]
i didn't do that, honest, honest
it was yeah this little statue of a hippopotamus i have in my room
is my voice slurring
if it is, then just tell me, like pinch my nose or something
[shriek]

i sing you a lullabye really quick
lullabye go to sleep
you better
or i'm gonna crack my voice

[burp]
i didn't do that; it was daffy; she burped
[scat]
i'm not gonna sing it, i swear
[scat]
[scream]
i didn't do that; it was daffy; she burped
anyways, jon doesn't get that much mail
doesn't get that much females either
[scream]
that wasn't me; it was daffy; she burped
[scream]
that wasn't me; it was woodie; he farted

[sound effect]
that was a helicopter shooting down daffy
no no no no it wasn't, it wasn't, it was shooting down woodie
no i'm kidding, it was me, it was me doing sound effects
trying to sound real cool again

bye bye bye bye...