Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 23 continued

I felt bad enough about posting the previous tune that I spent a bit more time and “polished” up another two old clunkers from the same pile, because mom always told me “If you do something bad, do more of that same thing to make up for it.”

So, first, a very old (1988) demo called “A Little Feeling.” This is a piano tune, which was and is rare for me, inspired, I think, by Billy Joel’s “All for Leyna.” This is not actually a terrible song for my 17 year old self, and it was briefly added to the first-lineup MayTricks set but not revived after we lost our keyboardist, so this is it, unless I’m motivated enough to record a new version some day, complete with the free-form New Age piano solo in the middle and the echoing Pink Floyd-esque guitar I pictured.

Second, “Pakistan-the Complete Works,” a recording made using a walkman from spring 1991, maybe only a month after the MayTricks demo was recorded, when two of our members didn’t show up for rehearsal, so those of us left (me, Steve Petrinko, and our new rhythm guitarist Matt Diaz) all traded instruments (i.e. to ones we didn’t know how to play too well) and improvised three songs, pretending to be a garage band called Pakistan, which shows you my snobby attitude towards “garage bands” (i.e. many of our peers), whereas I saw us as usually playing intelligent, carefully orchestrated pieces. So this is me, with a hoarse voice, apparently, improvising lyrics that are supposed to be funny and sometimes are, though the whole thing is equally juvenile to “Girl.” Steve in turn adopted a persona of a demented individual named Bucko or Bucky, depending on the song.

There are three “songs” on here, but I saw no reason to break them apart, as the whole 14-minute experience is the thing, man: Baby (Don’t Look at Me), Swishy Boy, and Cram. The second, which I played guitar on, actually sort of sounds like a song, whereas the other two (where I played drums) are just chaos. I will admit that this recording is fairly dear to me, and makes me chuckle. And yes, a security guard did come and make us stop (we were playing in a dorm basement practice room, and there were complaints both about the volume and the foul language).