 “They Come On Unknown Nights” Dave: The title comes from something my youngest son, George, said. Some time last year, he and his older brother, Sam, were, apparently, being "visited" by UFOs. Unbeknownst to my wife and I, they were staying up well into the night and scouting out all of the "mysterious" lights that peppered the night sky. When I finally confronted them, George tried to convince me that they were embarked on worthy spying tactics because, not only had they seen actual UFOs, but "they come on unknown nights"! A perfect case of a song title hitting me over the head if I ever saw one. I excused myself from their bedroom and immediately went to fetch my little notebook where I keep my lists of song titles. (BTW, I've been keeping these lists for 30 years! You should see it by now. The other Muffins rib me about it, but you can't beat the power of a good song title. I think a song title, especially in our case, is important. We're an instrumental band. We don't have lyrics to propel the song along. So the title helps to establish a setting or a mood or even characters and/or characteristics. It's a vital part of the story-telling. That's one of the reasons I still call our compositions "songs" - because, even though there's no singing, we still try to tell stories with them.) This was always going to be a string quartet, ever since we worked with Amy (that's Amy Taylor, the violin / bass player from Grits - if you haven't heard Grits, check them out. They were especially inspirational to us Muffins when we were in our formative years) and Amy and Kristinon Bandwidth. We've since lost touch with Amy Cavanaugh, but were lucky enough to fill in the gaps with Laura and Okorie on cellos. The double cellos give us a wonderful low-end string quartet sound. Tom did a great job of mixing them with a large hall effect. We recorded them, not together as a string quartet, but separately, starting with the cellos and adding each string one on top of the other. I admit to listening to a CD of Shostakovich chamber music when I wrote that particular melody - a poor man's modern Russian, I'm afraid. It was originally recorded for solo piano, a version that I still like - we may end up using that particular version somewhere on something. It breaks into a jam piece with the full band. Billy's using some kind of pedal effect on his bass, giving it that oscillating, springy sound. We recorded Amy Taylor soloing twice, one violin a bit more "effected" than the other. At one point I fade in with some organ solos, then fade back out. I listen to a lot of world music, Middle Eastern to be precise. I wanted to capture some of that quality, something very exotic. I'm also an old Hawkwind fan, so there's that there. When I mailed Amy the practice CD and notation, she asked me to make her another CD with a loop of the jam-band section so that she could practice soloing over an extended time. I recorded that part 17 times for her, I think! By the time I was finished, I was ready to move to Baghdad! That last bit is me improvising on a bass setting on my Roland, but playing up high on the keyboard. I like that setting a lot. I think it's creeping more and more into future compositions. . |
 "Cat's Game"Dave: Dave: A cat's game in tic-tac-toe is, of course, a tie. I had been listening most of the summer to a lot of Led Zeppelin. I love how a lot of Led Zep songs start out with Jimmy Page's chunky over-drive guitar, then the rest of the band kicks in. (This is, apparently, the closest I can get to Jimmy Page...sad, huh?) I approached Paul with some keyboard chords to see if he could transfer them to electric guitar. He could, and so we recorded the basic tracks (drums and keyboard) over at Carl Merson's studio sometime soon after we'd wrapped up Bandwidth. Paul over dubbed the guitar chords that same day. Paul: I still had John Logan's Telecaster that he lent me for Bandwidth sessions - before I got serious with my own Power Puff girls guitar. hoho. I also used a nifty little device called a TUBE OVERDRIVE on Bandwidth and this tune. To the horror of Carl the engineer and anyone else within 1/4 mile, it is Nitro Methane of amp sound! Dave: I remember being worried about Billy being able to play the bass line - it was the fastest bass line that I had ever written. I sent along the notes and practice CD (we all live in different places, so this is how we learn new tunes. It's amazing that we can actually perform and record!). He e-mailed me back that, although it WAS fast, the location of the notes was not a problem. I think it's still a testament to ol' "Blue Boots" (Paul's nickname for Billy due to the electric blue boots that he sometimes wears in public) that he pulled those searing licks off as effortlessly as he did. *(Billy, a comment here about this?) When the horns come in, you hear two horn lines. The line that Tom is playing on the higher saxes was the original line that I had written. But after listening to the basic tracks sans melody for a few months, another Zappa-friendly, if you will, horn line reared its handsome head. By the time I had mailed Tom this new line, he had already recorded the first one. I went down to Tom's studio for a day of over dubbing (one of three, I believe) and recorded the second horn line on lower saxes (tenor and baritone). It was Tom's idea to leave in the first line along with the second. I agree. The contrasting lines seem to work together. It's as if the more atonal line is trying to overpower the Zappa-friendly one. By the time the next set of horn lines comes in, they are, indeed, leaning more toward the dissonant. Tom: It has a King Crimson vs Zappa feel that I think works very well with this tune. Dave: Paul added that wonderful spacy guitar solo later at Tom's studio. Tom: Paul played a very open solo that permitted me to expand the sonic image... very effective indeed! Dave: The final section is my take on an Irish ballad. I like the sparseness of it. The melody is another example of the muses "talking" to me, I had come up with the bass line and, the moment that I listened back to it, there was the melody, full-blown. I couldn't get the recorder turned on fast enough. Caught it, though, before it got away. . |
 "Stethorus Punctum"Tom: Susan (my darling bride) and I managed Organic Apple and Peach Orchards for many years. One of the many tasks we performed as Orchard managers was "scouting". Scouting consists of searching for "problem insects" and "beneficial insects". One of the "beneficial insects" we looked for was the Stethorus Punctum, a small black beetle about the size of a pin head. I have always liked the name and thought it would make a great title for a Muffins tune. I wanted to write a dance tune (a la The Muffins of course). The challenge was how to create a "Muffins feel" and keep a driving beat at the same time. I wanted changes in instrumentation and structure but I needed the beat to remain consistent. It became evident as soon as I started writing "Stethorus Punctum" that Paul was going to be the glue that held us "in dance mode". Paul normally approaches each section of a tune as a unique drumming situation (it is one of the many attributes that make him a great drummer). Thanks to Paul the tune works very well as a dance tune. Paul lays down a driving beat throughout the entire tune and resisted all temptation to change style, feel or lick. The tune starts with an introduction that gives you just enough time to ask a dance partner to join you on the floor to "cut a rug". Paul hits it hard and then it's just plain "balls to the wall" dance... dance...dance. Mid tune I decided to break the tune down... I just couldn't resist... years of recording other peoples dance tunes at Black Pond Recording Studios had left its mark. Besides, I think breaking down a tune was a great invention. Whom ever created the "break down" allowed me to create a "Muffin" feel without leaving the dance music idiom. So... as my firstborn (Gabriel) used to say about a good dance tune when he was 4 years old... Dots-da-dute.... Dots-da-dute! (He was referring to the drum tracks). Paul: I STILL can't believe this is a Muffin tune! What fun to play live! . |
 "Dawning Star"Tom; I wrote this tune for my eldest daughter Dawning Star. I love the early morning, I wake most mornings just before day break, I don't get out of bed just yet... I lay there taking in the new day. The sun is only a faint glow on the horizon... the world has yet to stir... and there is so much promise... no head full of thought, no task to be done... just breathing slowly into the first feelings of the day. That is the feeling that I tried to capture in the opening of "Dawning Star". That timeless sentient moment of first consciousness, when every thing is possible. Such a good feeling it is, that one might break out whistling a soulful tune. However, tempting though that might be... don't do it, as your life partner will surly wake up quite convinced you have lost your mind! Oh well... I digress. The tune has an A/B/A structure and I was having trouble with the B part. In particular, I was having a difficult time conceiving what instrument should take the solo in the middle of "Dawning Star". I asked Knoel Scott to have at it. He made a great solo for the B section but I new right away that I would be using it in the last A section during the decrescendo. As a matter of fact I took Knoel's solo, split it in two and placed the two halves side by side, left and right channel, at the end of the tune. It was great, fantastic Ra-isms holding your attention while the tune slowly lets go of you. It was perfect... but... I was back to square one with the solo in the B section, then thanks to muse inspiration I got ideas for an alto flute solo. Problem was I don't have an alto flute. Thanks to digital recording and DirectX effects I was able to convert (very convincingly I might add) soprano flute to alto flute. Then "Dawning Star" was finished. I played the tune for my daughter Dawn and she cried... But you see, tears of happiness, are the best kind. . |
 "5:00 Shadow"Dave: This used to be called "Minotaur". I liked the name because it sounded like the deep fat bass line that runs through it. But then Paul came up with the title "Metropolis" for the improvisation we did with Marshall and Knoel. When we'd arranged the songs for the album, "Minotaur" came right before "Metropolis". We all felt like these two needed to be together for the flow of the CD. I know this sounds funny and/or obsessive-compulsive, but it really bothered me to have two single-word, three syllable titles starting with "M" right next to each other. Tom convinced me to change my "Minotaur" title mainly because he didn't like the mythological reference to a monster hiding away in a maze eating frightened sacrificial teenagers. When he put it that way, I saw his point. Tom: Ena was the one that brought me up to speed on the Minotaur myth. I was talking to her about the title "Metropolis" and how I thought it was a great title for the Improv, but we had this M & M thing going on. Then she recommended changing "Minotaur" due to the myth being kind of sicko-twisted. Dave: Later, I was driving home from one of my overdue session at Tom's studio listening to a CD collection of old radio shows. One of the episodes was "The Shadow". A couple of the characters were describing this one guy as having a "5:00 shadow". I love that expression - we hardly ever hear it anymore. I thought I'd be a great replacement for "Minotaur", since there are "shadow" horns playing behind the real solo horns. This was another one that Paul and I recorded at Carl's soon after Bandwidth. I played the bass line on keyboard. I love how freely Paul plays on this - lots of stops and starts and odd fills, very eccentric. It also sounds like he's playing with the horn players, but of course he's not, it just worked out that way. We over dubbed Billy's bass later at Paul's house. It wasn't until Marshall and Knoel came over that Tom and I recorded our sax lines, just before Marshall and Knoel recorded their solos. In fact, this was the ONLY song that we had originally planned to have Marshall and Knoel play on. And then "Choombachang" came along. Marshall is the first alto solo there. I had originally only wanted one solo in that spot (no idea, at the time, that we were going for that "shadow" horn thing). We recorded Marshall twice just to be on the safe side. Tom kept both of Marshall's solos in when he mixed it - one in the foreground and one way in the back with lots of echo. He did the same thing to Knoel - Knoel wanted to try his solo on my baritone sax. I warned him that I had a bad cold, but he really wanted to play it (it's an old "naked lady" silver Conn), so we let him have a go at it. He wasn't crazy about the final result, and so we recorded another solo with him on alto. Tom kept the "shadow" horn idea going with Knoel's alto in the front and his bari playing in the back. Tom later added another of his own saxophones to give that last chord that we play an edge, and Paul added a touch of electric guitar - the hair of the dog, he said. The final overdue was Doug's trombone, which he did in one take - incredible. Paul: Yeah, my pal Mark Stanley the guitar player was going out of town and offered me the use of his purple Eddie Van Halen era Marshall JCM800 - how could I refuse? After experimenting with this loud and great sounding beast I thought doubling the horns and adding a little edge to this would be fun. So I got out the ol' Daisy pink Power Puff Girl guitar and went for it. Most of the git over dubs on this CD (all but Cat's Game) were with this rig. |
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