Bill has this photo on his Facebook album. It is labeled thusly:
The Decembrists ca. 1985. Littleton Town Hall Basement.
In this photo:
Bill Anthes, Brian Murphy, Steve Evans, Aims McGuinness
Hop'd. This was one of a couple of tunes written by Patrick lyrics by me. I wish he would have written more. I also wish I could figure out the chords to some of these things. Oh well- I'll just have to wait for the reunion tour.
Hop'd. Recorded at Kyle's house studio. Bill wrote the music and 2 of the 3 verses. Some really nice turns of the phrase on the Bill parts. I was pretty happy with the way my verse fit into the feel of the tune. This was always a big hit with the ladies.
Minus Bill. This was recorded, in part in my living room when I lived with B Mitchell in the Concord on the east side of campus in Boulder. I can't remember the street name it was on. The rest was recorded in Mark's dorm room. We released this with some other unreleased and re-released Minus Bill material. It turned out to be our last cassette.
Another Fletcher tune from the second recording session, whenever that was. This was alwasy referred to as the ska song on song lists. Whatever. THe solo is Giant Steps by John Coltrane. Hah.
When we were recording the Nerves like eels stuff in 1989 it seemed like we needed to do an instrumental. I suppose because we could. I don't recall playing this live very often, but it was fun to record. I think Viltus was an exhcange student that Kurt knew.
Ahh, the comment I made about the nice and spare-ness of Notice was actually about this Fletcher tune. I should listen to these things before I post them. Also recorded at the same time, etc.
Fletcher tune recorded at the same time as Bees vs Men and Iowa. This is nice and spare. I think I have the low e tunded down to a D for dirgeyness. Here is the guitar I played for the latter portion of the Fletcher years. I can't recall the brand name, it was a faux Spanish name- but was really produced by Univox in the 60's. Great tone, iffy intonation. I gave it to Eric 3 or 4 years ago.![]()
I can't remember if there is a "The" in this title or not. Hmmm. This was one of the tunes recorded in 1989 in the living room of the house around 19th and Arapahoe. The annoying guitar sound is me. I've grown accustomed to it over the years. Oh, I also overestimated my lyric writing ability a bit on this- I am pretty sure I made it up on the spot (this explains the 2nd verse same as the first -ishness).
More Nerves Like Eels from 1989; this time Bill sings. I had forgotten how much we switched around on vocals at the very beginning. No one wanted to sing anyone else's lyrics, or no one wanted anyone else to sing their lyrics. I'm not sure which.
Recent Comments
-
Bill Anthes said:
Ouch. I always hated the sound of my voice on this one. It's a clever enough little pop song, but... read more
on Figurative
Nice choice. I always like this one. I actually think we recorded this in 1994, maybe in the spring. I... read more
on Tune #7, The Island of Lost Souls w/Charles Laughton