Tripecac - South or Southeast

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.

Most of my social interaction those days focused around meals. Hence the dinner table sound effects.

Also, I was being pursued by girls I didn't want to date at the moment, and was hiding away. The whispered vocals hint at how I felt.

The vocals were improvised. I was thinking a lot about empathy and learning how to perceive motivations in order to minimize interpersonal stress. In other words, I was babbling!

The title is a pun. I was into a krautrock band called Neu at the time, and mania, of course, means mania. The second meaning is "pneumonia"; I may have been getting over a cold or something, or maybe I knew someone who was sick.

This was the original (improvised) ending to "Neumania". I think I split it from the song due to the mild suggestiveness.

I wanted to get this off my sequencer to make room for "South or Southeast".

I recorded the music to my four-track with Dolby noise reduction turn on. When I mixed down to tape, I accidentally had Dolby turned off. This gave the mix a very crisp high-end. The funny thing is I ended up liking this "messed up" mix better than the "proper" one (which I don't have any more).

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.

This is the first part of a "trilogy" of song ideas that were clogging up my sequencer. None were anywhere close to being done, but I wanted them off my sequencer, so off they came. I recorded them all at once to four-track, but split them into three separate tracks for the CD.

This first part is a chaotic mess. It doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand why and how I "wrote" it. All I know is that I called it "The Ups" because it sounded really hyper.

This was the second part of the "trilogy" that started with "The Ups". It has the worst title (since it wasn't really a "downer"), but the nicest music. It's longer and more coherent than the other two parts, and has a pretty instrumentation.

It was my favorite instrumental on the album for a few years. Dad liked it too; he selected it for Dad's Picks.

This was the final part of the "trilogy" that started with "The Ups". It's the saddest-sounding part, and is pretty boring. I don't know what else to say about it. It's not like I can write something that would make it seem brilliant or anything. Next!

I called this a "parody" only in hindsight. I was trying to get a "live" feel from my equipment, and turned to the acoustic guitar, which I never learned to play.

My idea was to improvise four complete tracks, one at a time, each track attempting to "complement" the one(s) before it. This became my primary method for constructing songs on later albums.

Unfortunately, this first stab was a mess (as most first stabs are), so I called it a "parody". (Come to think of it, most "stabs" are messes, first or otherwise).

Someone at my dad's office heard this song and told him "my little kids can play guitar better than that!" Sigh.

I have no idea what the faint vocals were saying.

A week and a half after recording "Krautrock Parody", I used the same strategy to record another guitar-dominated song. Fortunately, this one actually "worked" (at least to my ears)!

I liked it so much that I uploaded a RealAudio version of this song to my web site; this was one of the first songs that I uploaded. The big surprise was that I actually got some very positive feedback about it!

It's too bad the song cuts off so early (I ran out of room on my four-track). The improvised vocals and background sounds try to portray Christmas from a kid's perspective.

I wanted to have a musically productive year, so I started by recording this song on New Year's Day 1998. I didn't stick to the musical resolution, however; by the end of the year I had only recorded three more songs for Tripecac.

As for this song, there's not much there. I ran out of sequencer memory and/or patience before I could add any drums, so I recorded it as-is.

I don't know why I dropped the first letter of each word in the title. Drunk, perhaps?

This is a backwards version of the middle part of "Neumania". Sounds kinda cool, but isn't very long.

The improvised lyrics start off about yet another girl who was obsessing over me. Then I segued into wondering why people thought I was gay (which I'm not). I have no idea what I was singing most of the time.

The music is pretty energetic, and I like the synth solo. The bridge is a crazy drum fest, completely over the top. The vocals sound pretty fun; if only we could understand them!

Overall, I think the song is too moody and weird to be a "keeper". That's kind of the case for most of South or Southeast.

I was starting to get into trance and other electronic music; hence the "synthy" instruments. The background chatter is from a video of a camping trip I took with my friends: Dale, Jon Hill, and Miro. We stayed in the St. Mary's Wilderness, in Virginia.

I used the same bits of background sound on this song that I used on "June Morning", but with different music. I also put more emphasis on Dale's description of the letter game ("Ghost"). The "what are summers for?" intro is an improv about graduate students' responsibilities (which I wasn't enjoying at the moment).

This is another "New Year's Resolution" song; this time I returned to the acoustic guitar. I recorded 4 tracks of it. It was an attempt to recapture the raw energy of "Moody Xmas". The results were listenable, but very boring. I think this song killed my enthusiasm for guitar, and the album in general.

This is an out-of-the-blue return to simple, catchy jazz-piano funk/pop. It's too bad I never finished the song, because it could have revived the album (and my hobby) from its slump.

I had completely forgotten about this song until late 2001, when I found the long-buried master tape for the album. Hearing this one song inspired me to put this and all my other Tripecac albums on CD so that I could listen to them and not forget any more cool tracks like this one.

Dad liked it too; he selected it for Dad's Picks.

This is a backwards reprise of "CopyRite". It ended the album by returning to the beginning.

Everything after this on the CD is outtakes.

This is just to set the mood for the outtakes section of the CD. The idea is that we're rewinding to my first piddlings on the Yamaha SY55; hence the "track one".

I'm not sure when I recorded this clip. Doesn't really matter, does it? Does any of this matter?

This is an early version of "Chimera" (from Archives). I think it's slightly sloppier and has more polyphony problems.

This was probably the first song I programmed into the Yamaha SY55.

This is a funky little snippet, probably from the Archives era. It's pretty cool. I wish I'd finished it. I don't know why I didn't.

The fake guitar sounds okay, but the brass sounds cheesy. Maybe the brass sound turned me off to it?

This is an early version of "Travis and Jon" (from College Collage). I found it on a practice tape.

It could be from the College Collage sessions (early 1993). However, since it seems to have been recorded much earlier than "Anand's Journey (early)" (which is definitely 1993), I'm thinking maybe I started it in 1990 or 1991 and then resurrected it for College Collage. I don't remember.

This version is very short. The melody is played by piano instead of sax. Also, the piano gets chaotic at the end, like I was getting frustrated or something.

This is an early version of "Testing the Cup" (from College Collage). As with "Travis and Jon (early)", this could have been from any time between 1990 and 1993.

It's much shorter than the final version. The instrumentation and programming seems the same, though (except for the missing vocals).

This is a slow, distorted reggae groovy. It indeed feels "heavy". Who knows, this could have been cool if I had finished it.

This synthy funk is pretty lame. No wonder I never finished it.

This has a nice tune and illustrates a decent idea for a groove. On the downside, the drums are poorly mixed and slightly out of sync. It sounds like I hadn't quantized it yet. Either that, or the keyboard's limited polyphony was messing things up.

This starts with nicely syncopated synth chords, but then the drums come in and ruin everything. I think I was trying to be too fancy with the hi-hat.

I had a habit of talking at the end of my albums. For this one, I decided to include Beth since she played a big role in the last few songs. During this "song", she interviews me about finishing The Hermit and my musical history in general. The music in the background is the same as in "Amateur Night", although I think it's sped up a little bit.

There wasn't enough room for this on the CD version of The Hermit, so I included it on South or Southeast.

This is a Teardrop Explodes cover song, recorded for the first Julian Cope tribute project (Tiny Children).

It's the first take, and features "normal" vocals. I ended up using the second take instead ("Sleeping Gas (2)").

This is a Teardrop Explodes cover song, recorded for the first Julian Cope tribute project (Tiny Children).

This is the second and final take. It features sped-up vocals. I ended up using it instead of the first one ("Sleeping Gas (1)").

This is the full version of "California Greetings" (on Where's My Muse). I couldn't fit everything on that CD, so I trimmed off this song's weird and cheesy ending. Not a big loss. Here it is in its full "glory".

According to the title, I was reading a letter to Beth.

It sounds like it was recorded around the same time as "Hoboes on Acid" (on Where's My Muse), but it's not actually on that tape. It might have been a test recording.

This was part of the narration for Songs to Sleep By 2. It consists of two tracks of improvised chatter, with the music to "Artificial Life" in the background. The talking makes fun of my long-windedness and my poor (but persistent) attempts at humor.

This was a clip from Where's My Muse, repeated a few times.