About the cover art
Trey Hoyumpa is a genius. I don’t expect anybody to look at this miniature cover and buy in instantaneously. Just look at her body of work and talk to her and discover her depth of intelligence, creativity, thoughtfulness, insight, and warmth.
You will understand. After all, she was bright enough to marry Ben.
I decided the lyrics were of paramount import this time around, so Trey put them, in entirety, on the cover. I like that.
Bug Fights by Jeff Byrd
Recorded at home using an MPC 2000, Minidisc recorder, Moog Prodigy, SM57, and an E-bowed Stratocaster. Mixed with Chicky at the New Yorker Hotel.
I recorded this in 2001 with the best technology available to me. I started by programming a “beat” that consisted of an 808 kick and snare. Then I played the Moog bass line into the Minidisk, working the frequency sweep. Next I sampled and programmed the performance into the MPC. I did that with each and every phrase of this recording, including the vocals. The coolest thing the gear inspired was the ending. I triggered and re-triggered the trombone and vocal samples from earlier in the song to develop that Kaoss Pad effect. I must admit, I pretty much ripped off Everything in its Right Place.
Recorded and mixed by Chicky in the New Yorker Hotel
For a long time prior to recording Make Believe I had the harebrained dream of putting together an act comprised of an organist playing one of those self-playing organs you used to find in the malls and elderly ladies’ homes of America...and me crooning. Chicky took the idea and ran. He bought an organ-style rhythm machine from the pawn shop across the street to get that player organ percussion. (It broke immediately after we got it recorded.) We just took it from there. This song reminds me of a lot of visits to Bellevue.
Incidentally, this in not a love song, or a broken heart song. It’s a frustration song. The idea came 10 years prior to recording as the result of waiting for a certain friend. Always waiting.
Recorded at home using the MPC 2000 / Minidisk trick again. What an incredible accomplishment/pain in the ass. If you don’t believe me just try it sometime. Mixed with Chicky at the New Yorker Hotel.
As I recall, I did a lot of the guitar distortions by going through a 4-track and pushing the levels before going into the amp. But come to think of it, the recording techniques are not as entertaining as the story that inspired the song.
Imagine the nineteen-seventies film cliche: Two young lovers run toward a fierce embrace in a sun-drenched slightly overexposed wheat field, arms flung wide, faces passion-filled. As they get closer and closer the bliss of the anticipation turns to utter devastation in one as the other runs past into the arms of another.
In the Fall of 1988 I was beginning my second year in college outside St. Louis while my girlfriend, Susan spent the semester touring romantic Italy with some other students on an Art History abroad.
We recorded on audio cassette our rambling love letters. Once on a brief and expensive phone call, I remember asking, “What are you going to do when we reunite at the airport?”
“I’m going to run into your arms and smother you with kisses!”
Susan was to return to her family in Denver for Thanksgiving. I was invited to join them for a Thanksgiving ski week in the Rockies, so I spread the word around campus and found a ride to Denver. I was acquainted but not familiar with the attractive female driver.
The school was a conservative one at which drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or sex got you kicked out on your ear, so I expected Beth to be a very conservative girl.
Less than an hour into the trip she asked, “Would you mind if I smoked a cigarette? I’ll never make the 13 hour overnight trip without something to keep me awake.”
By the end of the trip we’d smoked a couple of packs of Camels and shared our sexual fantasies and histories. She is, to this day, the only woman I’ve ever met that described herself as a nymphomaniac.
And--she admitted--she’d had a crush on me since we’d met at orientation. How awkward. After all, I was on my way to spend a week with my dear Susan. I spent 13 hours in a car with a self-described nympho with a crush...on me. It was Beth’s forbearance, not my own, that saved our honor.
So of course Susan ran right past me at the airport into the arms of her family. Fair enough. Not what I’d imagined, but all was not yet lost.
“Who want’s to drive?” asked her father.
“Me! I haven’t driven in weeks!”, Susan jumped at the chance.
What the fuck? She avoided me throughout dinner and drew out picture time interminably. I swear she had 10,000 fucking photos and she showed her mom every one of them...with comment, of course.
Several hours later in the guest bedroom, my bedroom, she said she met and developed a deep and lasting love for another fella'. I begged and pleaded to no avail. I was completely humiliated in a heap of tears on the sofa bed.
The next flight out to Dallas where my family was celebrating the holiday was almost 24 hours later. I tried reaching Beth in hopes of spending the intervening time with her-and thereby avoid the torture of spending it with Susan. Beth was unavailable.
13 hours in a car
Next time she’d run into my arms
Next time she’d smother me with kisses
Recorded to ADAT in Austin with Ryan White, and then imported to Pro Tools in my apartment in NYC where I replaced drum programming and keyboards, and added several tracks. Mixed with Chicky at the New Yorker Hotel.
Co-written by Ryan White, this one was inspired by Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat. I liked the idea of the reluctant monster. The second verse was inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince.
Also recorded to ADAT in Austin with Ryan White, and then imported to Pro Tools in my apartment in NYC. Mixed with Chicky at the New Yorker Hotel.
Ryan’s sax on this one is great. I wish I would have had the opportunity to include more of it on the album. I borrowed Ben’s bongos and tracked them in the living room of our apartment in Brooklyn. The performance was not great, but I kept it for the time being. To my amazement, Chicky put the bongo track through a Moog Ring Modulator or maybe a MoogerFooger. That’s the bubbly sound you hear throughout.
Also recorded at home using the MPC 2000 and Minidisk as my workstation. I ran out of RAM in the MPC 2000 so I had to create the song in two separate sessions, and then pasted them together in Pro Tools during mix-down. Mixed with Chicky at the New Yorker Hotel.
This is actually not the first recorded version of the song. bluecanoe did a fun up-tempo version of it a few years earlier. It is the final version, though. It’s exactly how I want it. I love this recording.
Also recorded at home using the MPC 2000 and Minidisk as my workstation. Mixed with Chicky at the New Yorker Hotel.
Although I started the song before 9/11, it became my 9/11 song at least within myself. Kamikaze was not intended to be an instrumental, but I felt the inclusion of vocals would make the it too melodramatic. And how could I say anything about 9/11 that wouldn’t be insufficient?
Recorded and mixed by Chicky in the New Yorker Hotel
Speaking of melodrama...I told Chicky I wanted to make the music for Like Today out of beeps and such sounds you might expect to find in a hospital room.
