Tripecac - Mix 1 (sy55)

This is my favorite song on the Archives album. It's very bouncy and sassy (if you listen to the lyrics).

The words came straight from a break-up letter. I thought it'd be funny to put these super-negative words to bright, poppy music, so I did.

Was I right about the dark/light juxtaposition being "funny"? I don't know. It's certainly a theme that stuck with me. I'd take a really dark topic, and make fun of it by adding peppy music. Many of the songs on The Hermit and Aminals are like that. This song was my first "success" with the formula. It encouraged me to keep doing it.

I censored the really bad parts, even though I didn't write them. I'm trying to keep this site [relatively] free of profanity. Enjoy the tune!

This was my most serious attempt at writing a standard jazz song. I think I was trying to entice Jon Friesen (who went to the same college) to rejoin me in music making. My plan didn't work, but I like the song.

I wrote this for the Dead Anchovies, who recorded several versions of it. The lyrics are about Jon, who had left the Master Anchovies in 1990. The "aren't you sorry" bits are a reference to a different Dead Anchovies song: "Aren't You Sorry".

I really like this solo version. It's tight and peppy amd funny (though a little mean). There are some musical (and spoken) references to IPECAC that no one gets except me (and Jon if he ever listens to this).

This is musically unrelated to "Christmas in Cancun", which I wrote for the Master Anchovies. The only thing they have in common is that I wrote them right before (or after) trips to Cancun.

I had emailed the Dead Anchovies that I was going to write a second song about Cancun. These lyrics are directed at them (Allen, Anand, and Luke). I was just basically bragging about going to Cancun while they stayed home. Pretty simple[minded] stuff.

People liked it. A lot. This was my first "hit" song (among my friends). I got tons of positive feedback for it and many people actually requested copies of it. It was a nice dose of encourage, a good way to end the year.

The intro states that the song is about Jon, but it's actually not. It's a fictional story about posessiveness.

Not many people said they liked this song when I first recorded it. Perhaps it sounded too much like a "conventional" pop-song. I always liked it, though; it's probably my favorite song on the album.

The date is approximate. I know it preceded "Numb (live)", which was recorded on 1993-01-03, and I'm pretty sure I wrote it in 1993.

I initially wrote this for Anand, who told me he was getting tired of being a student. For a while it became a "theme song" for me, at least in my own head, especially whenever I wasn't feeling enthusiastic about going to work or classes or anything "un-fun". It's not about depression; it's about loving entertainment and not wanting to leave it.

The intro is actually the ending from the previous song ("IPECAC is Dead").

There are actually some more lyrics which never made it into the song. They explain the context a little better:

AT START:
  "tell me about it."
  "tell you about what?"
  "well, how's school goin'?"
  "pretty awful, to tell the truth."

AT END:
  well you say that every morning
  when you're head's still thick and sleepy
  and you'd rather just keep on snoring
  well, what if you kept on sleeping?

This was my first attempt to actually sing like a "normal" person. The music was funky enough for me to not feel self-conscious while I was recording the vocals. Upon listening to it later, however, I think I felt like I'd been pretentious.

Strange bit of trivia: I received an email in late 2004 from a guy who saw the lyrics to "The Battle" on the internet. He wanted to hear the song. I uploaded the mp3. He thanked me and said "the song was good". So far, that's my only piece of anonymous fan mail.

This is my favorite BITLOTA song. The refrain at the end got stuck in my head for days (make that years). To this day I can still distinctly remember the evening after I finished recording the song (and album) and was jogging to Beth's dorm in a triumphant mood. At the time, I felt it was my best song yet.

This was my first "punk" song. I think it was a mother's day present. I love it, but not many other people seem to "get it". I wonder if it's the music that puts them off, or the apparently violent lyrics.

I don't remember what initially inspired the lyrics. I think I was just trying to come up with something that sounded violent ("punk") but was actually silly. I was probably listening to old IPECAC tapes at the time, and stumbled across the improvised monkey attack in "My Familiar" (from 1988's Catharsis), part of which I used as the intro to this song.

In any case, "Millions of Monkeys" is about a guy who has become frustrated by his relationship with a girl. He's sick of the mind games and insecurity and just wants to relieve the stress. He does this by "sending in the monkeys", which has dual interpretations:

The dark (punk facade) interpretation is that the hero resorts to violence and/or rape, with the monkeys symbolizing vandals or sperm. In the light (Travis-humor) version, the monkeys are clowns or jokes that win the girl through their childlike exuberance and humor.

In either interpretation, the song is about "being yourself": drop the acting, drop the mind-games, and just be simple and primal, and if the girl likes you, then great! :)

The recording starts with the noisy, muffled sample from "My Familiar". Right off the bat, you'll realize that the sound quality on this album isn't going to be stellar. This (hopefully) deflates your expectations, and gets you focusing on the actual tunes rather than the production.

The music itself was an attempt to sound as "punk" as possible on my keyboard. The drums were easy enough to program (on my drum machine), but I couldn't find a good punk guitar sound. At the time, I was really into Julian Cope's "Out of My Mind of Dope and Speed", which has a really driving, punk-like piano sound, so I decided to take a similar approach in this song. I also threw in some distorted baritone sax... Does it actually sound punk? I really don't know!

The bottom line is that I really liked "Millions of Monkeys", but none of my friends or family seemed to appreciate it. They told me it was too noisy and atonal, non-melodic, and that the lyrics were "too violent". I don't think they ever "saw" the second, lighter interpretation of the lyrics and only perceived the violent one... or maybe they disliked the music because they weren't into punk.

In either case, I was really bummed that no one seemed to like "Millions of Monkeys". I loved the energy and spontaneous feel and really wanted to make more "punk" songs, but the unenthusiastic response got me thinking that maybe my keyboard just wasn't suited for playing punk.

This song is a musical and lyrical sell-out. It's an ultra-safe "lounge band" song with lyrics that unhumorously tackle what I considered to be "painfully-PC" at the time: social consciousness and capitalistic guilt.

In a sense, this is my "oh, screw it" song. I was tired of seeming (and being) rude and crude and came up with something that was listenable and likely to please my regular audience at the time, which was my parents.

The only "punk" elements in this song are the violent sound effects (machine-guns and explosions) and perhaps the snotty, "rebellious" devil's advocate voice of the Evil Republican.

The humor knob is set very low on this one. Yeah, deep down I was making fun of being PC, but my wise-cracks were more sneer than smile.

The "audience" (my parents) responded so-so to this song. I think they liked the music but weren't very interested in the lyrics.

Serves me right, for being pretentious.

The "fight fight fight" in the lyrics comes from a Cure song I liked at the time. I don't remember why I copied it for this song. I'm guessing it was intentional, but I'm not sure.

I decided to stop forcing the songs to be something that I thought other people might like and instead focused on making music that I knew I would like. "New Moon" is a catchy blend of "I'm Too Sexy" and the theme from the Addams Family movie. Maybe I was trying to [subtly] imply that fantasy-related entertainment can be "sexy" (socially desirable).

The lyrics talk about Roguelike games, Hack in particular. One of Hack's many "easter eggs" is that it calculates the current phase of the moon from your computer's clock. If you start a game when there's a full moon, more monsters will be generated than normal (which makes the game harder but can also give you more rewards). Similarly, if there's a new moon, fewer monsters are generated (and/or your luck is higher than normal) and the game is less difficult.

So, in one sense, this song is about taking the easy route. For me, this meant staying in Dillard Dorm a second year, abandoning my physics major in favor of computer science, and maintaining my hobbies rather than "forcing" myself to go out and socialize.

It's also about trying to forget other people's opinions about your interests and habits (however "geeky" they may be) and instead just focusing on the actual fun. (In other words, "Hey, come on guys, lighten up"...)

My friends liked this song. Most recognized the Addams Family influence, and although the song was about geeky stuff, at least it there wasn't any death in it. (Well, except for "hack and slay").

Here we go!!! This is where everything "clicked" into place. It was my dad's birthday, and I think I recorded this very quickly as a last-minute gift for him.

Musically, I turned to simple, catchy piano-based pop which I probably wrote in half and hour on my parents' upright piano before scurrying off to my room to finish the song. The lyrics are simple and straightforward. There's no symbolism, no pretentiousness, no real effort... It all flowed very naturally.

Everyone liked this song, including me. My parents enjoyed the music but thought the lyrics were "sad".

By this time I think I started realizing that my parents just didn't "get" the point of many of my songs, which is that:

1. I enjoy being a hermit.
2. I like to talk (and sing) about myself.
3. I like to be funny when I write.
4. So, I often make fun of myself when I sing.

There is no "depression" in my life. There's no real tension, and rarely is there any stress. My life is fun and easy, and I like it! However, when it comes time to sing, I feel like I need something dramatic, some sort of conflict.

It's like making faces in a mirror (or on a video). I don't want to make pretty faces; I want to make ugly faces, the more grotesque and disturbing the better! That's one of the "fun" things about self-reflection.

It's the same way with lyrics. When I'm writing a song (about my favorite subject: me), I'm "looking" at myself and instead of posing "properly" or "handsomely" I prefer to look like the Biggest Dork Ever.

Right now, I'm in my room writing this, getting a total kick out of listening to my music and writing about myself and looking forward to a nice long jog or bike ride this afternoon... I love the control that solitude gives me over my activities. I am having a blast doing these things by myself, and I've always been like that for as long as I can remember.

Of course, every once in a while it's fun to actually talk to another human being. :) There's something inside me, either an instinct or something I was taught at an early age, that tells me to "socialize every once in a while". My guess is that this drive is natural (hardware), that most animals have a primal urge to seek companionship...

Regardless of its origin, for me, the drive to seek human companionship is usually nowhere near as compelling as the drive to accomplish things. For me, creativity, organization, learning, and exploration are the Big Satisfiers, both exciting and pride-instilling, and along with them comes (either naturally or through experiential associations) a desire for "daytime" independence from The Pack.

Of course, if The Pack actually shared 90% of my interests, then maybe I wouldn't "have" to be a hermit in order to pursue the Big Satisfiers. Maybe someday I will find a Travis-compatible Pack, but right now the easiest, most reliable way to have a Good Day is to plan to do things by myself.

If you don't believe me, listen to the music rather than the words. The music is un-selfconscious and FUN, just like my days in my room... It's joyfully indulgent! :)

My girlfriend at the time (Beth) asked me to write a gentle song, so I wrote this. Like "The Hermit", it was constructed around a simple piano-based melody. The mix emphasizes the vocals which is a good thing because these are some of my favorite lyrics (and the music's a bit distorted).

The lyrics are very autobiographical, poking fun at my introversion (the tendency to fixate on my own interests even when other people are right there trying to interact with me).

By the end of the song, however, I was fixating on my girlfriend. Sometimes the bubble of introversion extends to include other people, and when that happens, the Hermit is doubly happy! :)

Although this song is not "punk" or even "manly", I liked it enough to play it on the radio (I was an occasional DJ). When I broadcasted it, it didn't matter to me that no one was listening except my girlfriend (who recorded my shows); by playing "Introvert" on the air I was saying, "look, here's something I like, and if it happens to be girl-pop, then so be it!" Maybe that "ah, just go for it" attitude is punk?

Anyway, this was another well-liked song. Most of my audience by this time was girls. :)

"Down" was the last song on the album (I later added the "Amateur Night EP" to the tape).

For "Down", I paid lots of attention to the production, much like I did in the closer for my last album ("Going Home"). I wanted to push myself technologically and end with a strong, "rock" song.

Musically, "Down" tries to answer the question I first asked in "Millions of Monkeys", which is: can I make punk music on my keyboard? The song starts with a synthy riff (acknowledging my reliance upon my keyboard), and then has a dense bass/tom/drum thrash which crescendos into the main punk-synth groove. The marriage of that energetic, relentless punk/rock groove to the synthy sounds is hopefully good enough to encourage me (and other "bedroom musicians") to continue to explore the harder, more "raw" side of rock music using nothing but keyboards.

Production-wise, this song is a distorted mess except for the reggae-like bridge, where my little reverb box actually put a really cool spin on the vocals.

Lyrically, "Down" is about acrophobia and, on a deeper level, about maintaining optimism in the struggle against the pressures to conform, conform, conform... It's about looking on the bright side of your current situation and not obsessing over (hopefully temporary) declines in money, grades, fitness, or other non-entertaining things. The message is the same as always: Don't let the bad things dominate your life, focus on the good things.

Was I talking to myself? Was I telling myself to cheer up, to lighten up, to not obsess over boring stuff? Well, maybe a little bit... I certainly wasn't depressed, but I was at times frustrated by other people's gloomy perceptions of life. I was tired of people trying to get me to "grow up", to take things more seriously, to join the Herd, even though the Herd didn't seem nearly as happy as I was.

I perceived most Other People as being insincere, incurious, uncreative, and boring, boring, boring... and those "miserable drones" kept wanting me to be more like THEM. No Way!!!

So, was I depressed? Heck no! Frustrated? Heck yes!

Through my music, I was trying to get other people to stop trying to "spoil" my fun, to get them to realize that I'm here having fun and to either join me in having fun or leave me alone!

By the time I recorded this, my audience had dwindled to my family and girlfriend. Feedback from them was lukewarm. I felt like the new album wasn't living up to its predecessor, The Hermit. "SPCA" was trivial, "Solid Blue" was sappy, "The Trap" was mean, and "Another Anchovies Practice" was an aimless mess.

So I decided to write a song about my musical decline.

The lyrics express my frustration. They're introverted again, like on the The Hermit. The music is peppy, and my vocal energy was high (though a little juvenile). I actually liked it a lot, enough to name the album after it.

Soon after I finished it, however, I moved off campus and got a TV. My musical productivity plummeted even further.

I recorded this simple and gentle jazz/rock ditty for my mom on Mother's Day 1996. It's about her reluctance to bike up big hills. She actually used to say, "I don't do hills". The lyrics are repetitive (cyclical - get it?).

The bicycle noises are my spinning a bike tire and pedals. The wind noises are completely fake!

This is driving and insightful. It's the last big song on the album, and exudes both humor and power. I love the lyrics!

During graduate school I got heavily into krautrock and other repetitive jam-based music. This song is named after Julian Cope's Rite album.

I liked the groove, but my keyboard's sequencer didn't have enough memory for me to extend this song into a "full-fledged" jam. Frustrated, I recorded it to four-track in this somewhat unfinished state and adlibbed the annoyed, disillusioned vocals.

This is the only "complete" song I wrote in grad school (with pre-written lyrics and a conventional song structure). I like the music, but the lyrics are cringe-inducing.

I met a girl on vacation in Alaska, and liked her a lot. While we were travelling together, I yearned for a future with her. Unfortunately, my vacation had to end so that I could go to graduate school back in Virginia. The last couple weeks of the trip, I treated her very distantly and even rudely. We parted ways sadly, with no promises and (for me) no hopes.

A couple months later, when I was in Virginia, she offered to visit me. I was excited at first, but then asked her to wait. I was worried that if she visited, we (or just I) would be tempted to stay together. My plan for the next couple years was to focus on grad school so I could get good grades, finish early, and then move to the Pacific Northwest. I didn't want to get heartbroken if she left, but I also didn't want to be "tied down" in Virginia if she ended up liking it there. To me, it seemed like the safest thing was to wait until I was almost done with school.

However, she didn't seem to understand (or agree with) my plan. She kept calling me, asking when she could visit. This caused me a lot of pressure and guilt. Eventually I started "hiding" from her by screening my phone calls. I think at that point she started calling my parents' house. I became polarized, trying to convince myself (and my friends) that I didn't want anything to do with her. It was easier (and "cooler") to think of her as the aggressor (the obsessed ex-girlfriend), rather than a victim of my self-centered agenda.

I wrote this song to remind myself of how poorly I treated her. I tried to make it "light and funny", as I had done with break-up letters in the past, but failed, because I was too full of negativity, not towards her but towards myself. Although I know I was scolding myself, when I listen to this song today, it just sounds like I'm making fun of her. Oh well.