Trex - Five Dollar Drummer

This is a bunch of hooting and percussion. I think Jon played sax in this din.

This is the first "Scat-Trav" song. It has a solid melody and (laughable) attempts at harmony. I have no idea how the title fits with the lyrics.

What's the word of caution? We never find that out, do we?

The overdubbed percussion and keyboard are pretty lame, and some of the melody rips off a popular song of that time. Most of the other bits are original, though, and these were my best solos to date, managing to say both melodic and in time with the beats.

This has a trancy, tribal, percussive chords. It was probably supposed to be reggae but ended up a weird jazz/funk jam. The bridge is very strange, where everything disappears except the percussion.

Overall, I kinda like this, warts and all. I must have liked it a lot back then too, because I revisited two parts from it later on the album: "How Are You Feeling Inside?" and "Done".

The music was getting more complex. I think I was applying some of the jazz chords I had learned in piano practice. This song reminds me a little of "Trek", which I wrote for IPECAC.

This was my first "drum feature". IPECAC made a couple of these but I'm glad I didn't get into the habit.

This is the end of "Fuel", with some extra percussion and different vocals thrown on top. That means this was my first "remake" (or "remix"). Remixing is another habit that I'm glad I didn't embrace.

This is the end of "Fuel", probably with some extra stuff on it.

At the end of the first side of the tape, I decided to talk a bit. This established a tradition of me talking at the end of tapes.

Another "drum feature". Hmm.

I wrote these lyrics for this music, but later loaned them to IPECAC for "Apostrophe Song" (for which Jon wrote the music). There's lots of energy here, and several catchy moments. This is one of my favorite songs on the album, and was an easy pick for title track.

There's a note on the lyrics sheet indicating that they were written September 1988. This is when IPECAC was in full swing.

I was making funny of the middle school band. The keyboards are out of tune. I like the accellerating percussion in the beginning. When the keyboard drums finally kick in, it's a bit of a letdown. But then a decent faux-reggae groove gets going. Not very cool though.

This reprises "We Are Cool". It's mostly percussion.

I think this is about lazy, consumeristic middle class America. Or ghosts.

Anyway, I think this is only 2 layers, so it sounds less hyper. It tries to sound like reggae, and I guess gets closer than the previous songs. I kind of like the sparse feel; it's a breather from the claustrophobic racket of the previous songs.

Hmm. Teenage angst. That's something new. Not much improvisation here, but the writing is solid.

There are several dates associated with this song, on the lyrics sheet, tape cover, and mentioned in some chatter. Pinning down a recording date has been quite a challenge, and I'm still not sure about it.

The lyrics sheet has three dates listed on it: 1989-01-02, 1989-01-18, and 1989-01-24. I think it's safe to assume that the earliest date represents the day I started writing the lyrics. The others could have been days that I updated the lyrics, either before or after the recording. Or maybe one of them represents the recording date itself.

Meanwhile, this song is the first track on a tape labeled "1988-1989". This would imply that it was recorded in 1988. However, that doesn't make sense if the lyrics weren't composed until 1989. Since the lyrics' dates are more precise than the table label, I'll trust them instead, and will assume that the "1988-1989" was an inaccurate label which I added later.

We have one more clue. "Final Kim Chatter" was recorded on 1988-01-21, and mentions that I recorded a song "yesterday" called "I Need a Little Help". That's probably just another name for this song, which would mean that this song was recorded on 1988-01-20. Of course, it's possible that I was referring to a different version of the song, although I doubt it, since no other recording exists, and this is the sort of song that I would have kept.

For now, my best guess is that I started writing the lyrics on 1989-01-02, edited them on 1989-01-18, recorded the song on 1989-01-20, and then updated its lyrics once last time on 1989-01-24, which may have been the day I recorded the final mix of "We're Heathen".

This is an instrumental that I later played with IPECAC (on Catharsis). It's okay.

This song was probably recorded on the same day as either "The Time Will Come" or "We're Heathen". Since the "Final Kim Chatter" was recorded on 1988-01-21 and refers to "three" new songs, including "The Time Will Come" and "We're Heathen (original)", I'm guessing that "Go" was the unmentioned third song. This means it was recorded on or before 1988-01-21. So, that makes the most likely date 1988-01-20.

I'm guessing this was recorded on the same day as "Go".

This is what happens if you don't say your prayers.

Seriously, though, this is one of my favorite songs on this album. It's got tons of energy, relatively tight keyboard parts, and better harmonies than anything I had recorded so far. I even like the "descent into Hell" bit at the end.

This is the full version of the song. There's a "simpler version" on Kim 13 (recorded 1988-01-21) that I sent to my (very religious) cousin. This full version adds vocal overdubs, and was probably recorded a few days later. My best guess is the 1988-01-24, since that appears to be the last day that I updated the lyrics for "The Time Will Come", and I tended to work on songs in clumps back then.

This ends the album with a chuckle.

This is the audio from an animated video that I made for History Day in 1988. The background music is "Waiting for a Call (2)".