Sometimes my laziness astounds me. It will lay dormant in the deep recesses of my brain for months on end, and then....BLAM!!!!! It will pounce with the belligerence of some cryptozoological hydra-headed beast, and I'll be laid low with a lack of ambition for months. One time the sunavabitch had me in a DMV bureaucrat's spell of lassitude and indifference for a whole damn year. This is no bullshit.
Its approach is often stealthy and unexpected, but on some occasions I can hear it coming, like some Jeff Spicoli spectre of sloth, especially when the mixing process of one of my overwrought avant-pop compositions begins to flounder. And about a month ago, when faced with the grim reality of having to mix a tune with over 200 tracks, I blew a fuse and slacker inertia crept up from behind the mixing board, with all the weapons of languor at the ready, and trained them upon me. I was dead meat.
But this time I outfoxed the deadbeat. I turned my sudden onset of lethargy into an asset, into an idea, into a very quickly devised, and even more quickly executed project. You see, at some point in my last arduous mixing session, and by session I mean a process that can take fucking weeks, I had lamented to myself how much easier life was in my youth when all I had was a four track recorder, a single microphone, and tons of shitty ideas. And then it hit me. Why not revisit that process for a while? Make some hasty recordings on flawed equipment and see what happens. Take a break from your Morricone conceit and Mancini mental masochism, Giuseppe. Those French horns will be still waiting for you on hard drive #3 once your trip down the Tascam turnpike is over. Give it a shot. What the fuck......
So here is what I did. I borrowed my friend Matt's four track. (Mine went bye-bye in like 1998 or so.) I borrowed my wife's stereo cassette deck. I dug through a box of 30 year old 4-track tapes that have followed me through countless moves. I picked out the most misused and fucked up looking ones. These would be both the multi tracks and the masters. Fuck fidelity. I searched the ancient tapes for any song ideas that might be able to be re-mixed or reimagined for this project. I found both. Word.
A little about me: I have always been a fan of "outsider" or "lofi" music since I was introduced to it by the father of outsider music himself, R. Stevie Moore, who once worked at Montclair, NJ's only proper record store, Crazy Rhythms.
Despite what my artistic output would seem to imply, with all of its large ensemble ambitions, people like Stevie, and Daniel Johnston, and Jeff Magnum, (at least for a little while there) have always been tops with me. The first Iron and Wine record is another lofi master work. Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, where a myriad of misbegotten souls reside under the tape hiss, was just about the only thing I played in my car in 1995. Well, that and Six Finger Satellite's second album Severe Exposure.
With these recordings I have endeavored to capture the same flawed charm and appeal, to approach the music with the musical and lyrical naïveté of a 19 year old, or in some cases recreate the voice of a fledgling musician who knew fuck-all about anything. Not much of a leap, let me tell ya.
Some of these songs are new. Some are old. And some were simply improvised over a bottle of wine, a guitar and an Sm57. Enjoy. It's free for Christ's sake......
Tomorrow I return to the 200 tracks and thankless toil.

Joe

All songs recorded with a Tascam 4 track, mixed through a Moog analog echo pedal and a Peavey spring reverb.