Thermos:
Since JG came from another band where he was a primary songwriter, it was only logical for him to bring songs to Burnt Toast.  I think this may have been a song he’d played with said previous band that Louis pressured him into “donating” to BT.  I could be wrong, though.

We did another version of this for the final album, too.

Ummm…. Sorry, Jason, I can’t think of anything else to add.

Thermos:
I swear I hear a tambourine during the bass intro but not during any other point of the recording.

Since I wasn’t around the studio for this one, maybe one of the other guys can shed some light on Jim’s additional guitar, etc.

Louis’ hi-hat playing on this is incredibly even.  Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a….

Thermos:
It is a fact that we Burnt Toast kids used to stay up far too late watching Ingus’ incredibly small television in his parents’ basement.  Invariably, it would come to the point when the basic channels became strictly infomercial-ized and the pay stations turned to Shannon Tweed soft-core.  For whatever reason, both forms of “entertainment” tended to feature exercise equipment.  Thus was born the inspiration for the song at hand.

I remember Ingus having a heck of a time figuring out when to come back in with the vocals after the “ashamed to tell you about it.”  For whatever reason, we decided 6 drumstick clicks were the proper amount, 3 of which preceded the re-entry of the lyrics.  Yeah, sometimes our weirdness gets the better of us.

Thermos:
I was on a break, of sorts, from the band over the winter of ‘95-’96, helping my dad in his move to Switzerland (I spoke much better German then than I do now).  A co-worker of Louis’, Ken LaRock, stepped in on bass during my absence (and continued his tenure, briefly, after my return).  Ken came from a more metal background, and as such either probably didn’t argue (as I was sure to have done) or perhaps had something to do with the more “metal” elements in this song (which, honestly, at this point don’t come across that way anymore).

While I don’t mind this song, I can’t say that its parts truly fit together.  The little break and the verses complement one another fairly well, but the other bit … just doesn’t work for me.  And then there’s the part that blatantly rips off the Ramones.  *shrug*  I get the feeling Ingus and Louis agree with me, to some extent, because we don’t play this one anymore.

Thermos:
While digging through 4-track tapes earlier this year (during the TAGPFTC re-mixes), I found the original demo for “Shirt,”  written and recorded shortly after my return from Texas (that’s “Tay-haas” for you northerners) in ‘96.  Since lyrics are always a struggle for me, I handed it over to Ingus.  The song has that obvious ’50s throwback feel because, as a band, we were obsessed with That Thing You Do (one of the upcoming “bonus tracks” is a version of Truancy called “That Truancy You Do”).  Over the years this has become a favorite of ours – it’s simple pop goodness.

The mix we did with SP didn’t sound nearly this good, so I have to give Jim credit.  The little arpeggio melody he added on electric guitar is a nice touch, too.

Thermos:
We drilled this song into our heads with such diligence that I can pick up a bass even now and play it without error (…mostly).  I’m not sure that Ingus intentionally wrote this song with the progressive key changes – I think it just happened that way.

This does mark the first new song for the album.  Both “Now” and “Wind Blows Now” had been in the repertoire for a couple years, but this one was brand-spanking-new.

Some of the  lyrics seem more appropriate, now that we’re older and don’t let ourselves get so worked up over small things.

Thermos:
Comparing tempos between this recording and the previous from Do Not Eat, the wind speed picked up a bit – nearly tornado levels, here.  These days, I don’t think any of us are capable of this kind of tempo – at least not for this song (we’ve tried).

I’m going to add the little tag at the top of posts, just to keep track of which bassist is “up to bat”, as it were.  Ingus and Louis are givens, of course.  On the re-recordings, Jim plays a few instruments here and there, and I’ll try to label those, as well.

Thermos:
“Now” dates all the way back to the Ratza era, from what I understand.  A rumor exists regarding a basement recording from that time, but I haven’t found it in my pile of multi-tracks.

This recording was a do-over with Jim, so it has a full sound with big drums and a touch of pathos to the vocals.  The Scott version, while I like my bass part better (but then I have a decided bias), sounded terrible, so this is a definite improvement.

We were pretty consistent about this being the first proper track on the album, after the intro.

The lyric “I woke up this morning feeling like Snakelips” is in reference to our friend John.  See, men tend to wake up in a certain condition, and John was said to be in possession of a … more serious condition.  We’ll leave it at that.

Thermos:
Hey, we’re back!

The Kids Love It sessions started in late spring, 1997, with Ingus, Louis, and myself.  In an effort to break from the sound of the previous album, we chose a different engineer – Scott Paul – at the same studio in downtown Flint.  We didn’t do any demoing before this set of recordings, as most of the songs had been hashed out in the two years since State of Bliss.

The album was more or less complete by the end of summer, and it was at this point that I parted ways with the band – not through any internal disagreements, or anything of that nature.  Jason Kotarski, a long-time friend of the band, was inducted as the latest bassist in a long line.  As the album stewed with the new lineup, they decided the quality was extremely poor (those recordings / mixes were affectionately known as Do Not Release).  Thus began the long and arduous task of re-mixing or re-recording many of the album’s tracks.  Some songs were removed and new ones took their place.  “As Warm” went through several iterations before the band arrived at the final album version.

Then, in spring of ‘98, I returned to the fold, while Jason was shifted to second guitarist.  This lineup was fated to only survive through to summer, when Louis was made to “fire” Jason.  We recorded a live show shortly afterward for inclusion on the album that had now been in the works for over a year (the live show excerpts should appear after these recordings are all posted).

Some tensions had begun to form in the band, and they built to a breaking point in October, when Ingus announced his departure.  Scrambling to keep the band operating, Louis and I brought Jason back, and we set about trying to salvage the album: we cut several tracks and added the songs with my lead vocals back in.  We decided in the end to shelf the album, and there it has stayed until now.

All of that was the most convoluted way of explaining how while I’m playing bass on this adaptation of some words by John Kricfalsui, Jason provides my traditional “vocal” element.

During the re-recording process (engineered by Jim Fourniadis, because while we may grumble, he is a good man), Jim poked fun at Louis’ pronunciation of “hurtle,” pointing out it sounded like Louis was from one of the buroughs, saying, “hoitzle.”

Thermos:
This accidental juxtaposition of two separate takes induced quite a fit of laughter from all of us back when we were recording TAGPFTC.  When I ran across it during the remixing process, I had another good laugh.  …As if the belch would be the sound effect of the previously stated action.

Yeah, remember, we’re all about 7 years old.

Ingus:
Upon moving back from college in Ann Arbor to attend UM Flint (shut up, I was 19.), I found that my sister had taken over my previous bedroom in my parents’ house.  Instead, for the next year and a half or so, I occupied a hollywood-frame and a twin mattress in my dad’s rarely used basement office / study / ham radio bunker dubbed “The Radio Room”.  Above my bed was a homemade shelf which held a number of old ham radio magazines, some chemistry books from my dad’s college years, and some playboys from the 1960s.  For some reason, stabbed into said bookshelf was a #11 X-acto knife.

As recalled earlier by Thermos, The Radio Room was also a great place to record vocals, as it was finished with drywall walls and a ceiling (the rest of the basement was bare joists), and had no windows and a thick door.  Louis’ comment on this recording must have preceded or followed a vocal track, and, listening back to it, we all thought it was hilarious.

I don’t remember who belched, but it was most likely me, as, after the departure of Ratza, I was the classy one in the band.

* * *

In the near future, we’ll kick off the unreleased album Kids Love It!!!, the end result of several studio sessions spanning 1997-1998.