 "Metropolis"Dave: Paul's title. Billy was really pushing for us to do an improvisation on this album, something that we did not do on Bandwidth. We all agreed that it was time to bring that aspect of The Muffins back into the mix. This is the second part of the first group improvisation that we did with Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott. Most of it is live, although there are a few addition over dubs - Doug's trombone is an over dub (again, he put it down in one take!) as well as the tenor, bass clarinet and flute that come in on that repeated baritone sax riff about a minute into the track. And Paul put some electric guitar on there in places. We also added a few extra horns on that last big band swell and long note hold. I have to say that the improvisations that we did with Marshall and Knoel turned out to be quite a magical moment for all of us. I think we were all surprised by how well it turned out. Our first bit of business was to record the solos and horn lines for the written and arranged tunes, and then we settled down for the remainder of the day to just cut loose and improvise. Marshall and Knoel were particularly interesting to listen to - apparently they have been playing together for so long that they have a telepathic link happening there between the two of them (much like how The Muffins also can improvise so well, I think). If you listen closely, you'll hear Marshall and Knoel doing a kind of "call" and "answer" thing with their saxes. They can also sound as if they're playing along to some kind of written big band horn lines, which of course they were not. Amazing. All in all, incredible fun for us Muffins. Paul: This was mid-January of 2004. Working with Marshall & Knoel was just great. Given Marshall's age - incredibly high energy! An inspiration. I tracked them down (Thanks to Peter Hinds) and sent them some of our music many months ago, and they liked it and agreed to come and play. We had to wait for a suitable hole in their touring schedule. We free improvised and recorded for most of a day with Marshall & Knoel after their planned over dubs were done. After many listens to a dozen or so improvs, we felt that this particular piece fit best into Double Negative. If schedules permit, there may even be a show together with those guys. Tom: The "Listen and Response" time for Knoel and Marshall is so fast that many places during this afternoon of improvosation you would hear one or the other of them finish an idea the other had started. By the time we got to "Metropolis" the entire band had synchronized its listening skills and the result was sublime. I played soprano sax... Knoel and Marshall played alto sax and Dave played Bari sax. The over dubs were Dave on flute, tenor sax and bass clarinet and Doug on trombone. I think this was Improve #3... I had been holding back... just listening and getting the feel of things in Improves #1 & #2... so when I cut loose with a commanding sop sax solo I was amazed how instantainiously the ensemble responded... It was like the band had played together for years and totally anticipated the move of every other member. . |
 "Angel From Lebanon"Dave: The angel is my wife, Anne, whose family comes from Lebanon. They can trace their ancestors way back to camel-herders in the Middle East. This is another of the older tunes on the album, composed around the time we were recording and mixing Bandwidth and rehearsed and played in concert at Progday and Orion. Paul and I recorded drums and piano over at Carl's studio. Billy and Tom over dubbed their parts later at Paul's. The second part of this song, the organ solo part, was originally another song called "Station 37". I was having trouble finding a decent ending to "Angel" when I found that we could splice the two tunes together into one entire composition. This second part was recorded as a rhythm section (Billy, Paul and Tom on piano) later at Paul's. I over dubbed the organ solo at Tom's - my tribute to Caravan and David Sinclair's great Canterbury wa/fuzz organ solos. Paul: Yup, I am glad that this older session that Dave and I did more than two years ago at Carl's studio (Feb 16, 2002 I think) was kept. We did a bunch by ourselves that day and this was one of the best of the batch! Tom: I'm glad you like it. It was a bear to save the work from that session. The kick drum and snare tracks were mistakenly mixed together and were unusable. Replacing an sycronising each snare and kick stroke with a sample from our summer sessions was a major pain in the tuckiss! . |
 "Frozen Charlotte"Dave: The title is a Victorian cautionary tale. My family and I had visited one of the original city homes in Hagerstown, Maryland. Inside and upstairs was a small doll museum. One of the dolls in particular caught my wife's attention. It was an odd, sad little doll. The curator explained that the doll's name was Frozen Charlotte, and she went on to tell us the story behind the doll. Once upon a time there was a little girl named Charlotte who had been invited to a birthday party during the cold months of winter. Her parents had just bought her a lovely new party dress to wear for the occasion, but they cautioned her to keep her coat buttoned up at all times when she was outside. Well, no sooner had she gotten into the open-air carriage, when she unbuttoned her coat. Now her new party dress would not be wrinkled and crushed. Thus she rode to and from the party. Needless to say, when her parents discovered her in the carriage after the party, she was frozen solid! Lovely little tale for children, yes? And now, boys and girls, what have you learned from this story? This was a last-minute addition to Double Negative. My other Muffin brothers had not even heard it when I played it for them toward the end of our basic tracks recording session. It's a tribute to what amazingly fast-learners The Muffins are that they learned it, played it, and recorded it within about a 45 minute period. Horns were, of course, added later. This was the one track that Billy was able to make it up to Tom's when I was there doing over dubs and add his acoustic guitar to the melody line - a nice instrumentation combination that The Muffins have never tried before, but that we liked a lot when it was completed. Something to keep in mind for future recordings. I had originally wanted the song to end "early" after the third time through rather than the normal fourth, but I'd ended it TOO abruptly - the piano just hitting the last chord with a bang. It sounded like someone had pulled me away from the piano stool before I'd finished. Tom came to the rescue (again!) by copying and pasting (ahh...the perks of digital recording!) one of my previous longer chords onto the end and suggested adding the strings after everyone else had pulled out as a way to extend it. It ended up sounding like something from The White Album or "Eleanor Rigby" - very Beatlesque, I think. Now, my question is...are there songs now out there in the big world that can be described as sounding Muffinesque? Tom: When we were transferring "Frozen Charlotte" from tape to hard drive we made a sample rate mistake that resulted in the pitch being about 50 cents sharp. Dave did his tracks, then I went to do mine and I realized that it was near impossible to "lip up" the pitch to play in tune. Dave never complained about how hard it was to play in tune. So now I call him "Old Iron Chops", cause he must have one hell of a strong ambrosure! . |
 "Maya"Tom: The Muffins have honored some of our cats by titling tunes for them since the time of "Manna Mirage" and so this tune honors the Scott Household dearly departed family cat Maya. Maya was a wonderful family pet that did her best to honor the house rules. She even spared the life of my foolish cockatiel who unceremoniously waddled up to Maya and pecked her on the nose. Maya reeled back and took a "death stroke swing" just enough above the silly birds head to give it fair waning that nose pecking was to be a capital offence in all future dealings. When you listen to this tune it sounds easy to play, but I assure you... it is a deception. I remember Muffin Summer Band Camp rehearsal the summer of 2002, I had sent out a package with written music and CD rough draft of the tune to each band member. When we got together and started rehearsing the opening section was just not working, After what seemed like hours of fruitless attempts we just couldn't get through it, I finally got frustrated and said "lets just let this one go, I don't think we can do it". Everyone assured me they were going to be able to play this tune. So we took a break... during which time Dave took me aside and gave me some sage advise. Dave shared with me that a majority of the tunes he has written start out with precise ideas as to what the tune is going to be. Then The Muffins get a hold of it and kind of "Dirty it Up". Dave also noted that this process produced wonderful changes that he never intended, but valued as an integral part of the birthing of a musical idea into a performable tune. It was a real eye opener for me. Suffice it to say, we did learn the tune, and have performed it several times successfully I might add, however, we all breath a sigh of relief when Paul's drums herald the entrance into the middle section of "Maya". Dave: Halaluya to that! . |
 "The Two Georges"Dave: The two Georges are my son and my dad. My dad died of cancer when I was 13. I have memories of him and my mom tells me stories about him (he played saxophone in his high school band, was in the Navy during WWII), but I didn't really get to know him like I would have wished. George Harrison also passed away during the writing / rehearsing of this song, so I like to think that he's in there a bit as well. That beginning church organ thing is me trying my best to be Rick Wakeman (sorry, Rick). The melody line is done on alto clarinet. I know it wasn't particularly easy for Tom to do, but he pulls it off seemingly effortlessly. I think it's a great and different sound for a lead instrument - almost like he's playing it on a Medieval horn of some kind. That syncopated bit in the middle before the solo was a real conundrum for me. I remember when we were rehearsing it for the first time, I was supposed to play it along with Tom, but I was having the hardest time getting it down. I know that sounds funny - how can someone not play something that they wrote? But there it is. Anyway, I was starting to think that it was too complicated for its own good, and I approached Tom with cutting it out of the song entirely. Luckily, he talked me out of it. We ended up repeating it twice so that I could play along with Tom the second time through. I think I've got it now. As for the solo, again there's Billy playing faster than I thought possible. I told him to cut out notes and modify the bass line any way he felt necessary. But he didn't change it a bit, just bashed on through it like a rhino in high gear! Tom: As a matter of fact, Billy is moving so fast that the alto clarinet solo works best as a slower melodic solo (less notes more muse). Dave: Paul calls the syncopated bit at the end our "Keith Emerson" ending. (Sorry, Keith!) Paul: Actually ELP Dave....And a bitch the ending is. The only time we have ever actually played that ending REALLY spot on tight was on this recording. We were prepared to spend awhile on it - and wooo...nailed it right away. Dave: I like how this whole tune is mostly just the quartet. A few over dubs here and there, but overall just us. |
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