Don’t tell Mom about these
I found these real old RealAudio files on the 27 year old old Tom Tom Com website. These recordings were from before that.
Bite the Tail
This was recorded around 1992 late at night in my living room. I had two young kids and I worked long days and so late at night was my only option. you can here those same two little kids at the start of this track sounding like creepy dinosaurs, like Compies which you call Compsognathus.
Milo was a toy Tyranosaurus that my kid had. Milo had a button on his head you could push and he’d yell at you in dinosaur. Well the button got stucky after a while and if you held it, it would yell in a loop. That loop is the song’s click.
Tools to make that. Guitar, bass, Milo the Dinosaur, Casio CZ101, Yamaha REX50 and a microphone for the two vocals (Milo and Mine). Guitar and bass were direct inject.
Fertile Flower
aka I like to Funk.
This was written and recorded in 1988/89 as a scratch demo for Hells Kitchen after Tom (Flynn) decided to retire from the band. I was hoping to get Tom’s spot as 2nd guitar player and I thought that giving them a song would be a good trade. In the end Troy and Luke decided that one guitar was the right number for the same reasons that stoned mothers do. You can only have so many way too much guitars onstage at once before you risk sounding like raga.
Tools used to make that. Guitar, bass, REX50 and a microphone for the vocal, the rest was direct inject.
Sidebar on Hells Kitchen, check out former members in this Wikipedia article, Dave Chavez, Chris Contos should stick out. Mikey Shoop is one of the funniest drummers all time. I think he was double dipping and playing with Fang at the same time.
And… I used to work for Sean Condon’s Dad, and Sean is who introduced me to all of those Berkeley and Richmond heathen scum.
Pirates of Oakland – Club Mix
We have this song which we call Pirates. It’s about people who live on anchor out boats in the Oakland Estuary. They are referred to as pirates because they steal things off of other boats. In other words, they commit acts of Piracy. Little do they know that underneath the docks surrounding Alaska Basin is a favorite napping spot for a ten foot, seven gill cow shark, named Benjamin. Calamity ensues.
This version was recorded “live” by one person as a demo of what one person could do in case members are playing with their other bands (Sluts). These are not overdubs. The vocals are cheating though, they were previously recorded and pasted in.
The other thing about this song was it keeps on going. Stop one thing, start another, stop that and go back to the first thing. Like you’re a DJ at a Club extending a song with beat matching. Or matcher beating. A Club mix.
Tools to make that. Guitar, Toraiz AS-1(Prophet-6), Roland JV-2080(Juno/Jupiter-8), Yamaha TX81Z(DX7), Alesis SR-16 and Dave Mackay.