These five songs were recorded live to 2-track at Baby Monster Studio, Lafayette Street in NYC on May 16, 1989. A one-hour sound check plus two hours of recording was what we could afford, so these tracks are the first or second take of each song. WHERE ON EARTH might have had three because the engineer, bless him for how good this all sounds, had to deal with the rather extreme dynamic range.

ABOUT DREAMS OF FLYING
It started the night that Dan Thress subbed in as a drummer at the Flamingo East on Second Avenue for Roger Eckstein’s blues band. I was playing bass for Dr X at the time, 1987, I think. Walked in and there was Dan setting up drums. I knew him from central Ohio wedding band gigs, where we’d had a strong musical and aesthetic sympatico, but it had been a couple of years since we’d spoken. What are you doing in New York?, we asked each other. On the drive home, Dan said This is fun, but why don’t you have a band of your own to play your own music?

I had already recorded with Gordon at Bair Tracks on Ludlow Street, and loved his playing. Gordon and I had originally connected via John Wunsch (guitarist from the band C’est What?!; John and I had a guitar/bass duo for a time). Cellist Mark Cupkovic’s sound and spirit also seemed right to me, and we had a solid connection via our musical mentor Jack Cummings at Miami University who had set us in each other’s paths. Mark also did me the incredible favor of hiring me on to his construction crews when work was thin on the ground.

After day jobs were done, we’d rehearse at pay-by-the-hour studios in Chelsea or the Village, and later in the Music Building on Eighth Avenue where we had a longer-term rental deal. We hauled amps and drums around, and split rehearsal costs. We starting inventing a new music, sui generis. If you read through the bios you’ll get a sense of what each of us was bringing to the table, and how wonderfully diverse, or divergent, it was. If you read the lyrics, you might notice (as my wife Margaret did) that these are all really GUY songs. Which makes sense: we were young men making music about the things that young men focus on: love, truth, regrets, bewilderment, wonder, friendship, beginnings and endings, and a bracing dose of goofiness. Well I had a little problem before with my toaster oven…

As the composer/lyricist/bassist/singer, I found myself naturally influenced by each musicians’ style – who would not be? That influence grew into my very consciously creating new songs that were really only for THIS band to play. Gordon’s space-opening ways of voicing chords and teasing out rhythms found a home with Dan’s cornucopia of world beats, with Mark’s cello either punching up the syncopations or singing out over the top. This palette was my foundation. I’d bring in a chart – sometimes without lyrics, often without a title – and we’d sit down an find the song. Tempo, energy, intensity, sonic palette, colors, dynamics, counterpoint – so much of it had to be discovered in process. Some songs fell together in a trice, others over many rehearsals. It was damn glorious for me – I had a band. I’d like to think it was meaningful to each of us in a different and substantial ways.

We gigged in the Village (Sun Mountain Café, then the Baggot Inn), recorded (Baby Monster), tried to bootstrap it up. Percussionist Javier Sosa joined us for a while. The project grew, but perhaps too slowly, and the gigs might cover some expenses but we were not really making any money. In the end our responsibilities at work and home made it harder to devote time and energy to the band, and we went our several ways.

Check out what the band sounds like 25 years later: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKOWBbJnWL9KjNN5LUJTeJCa6xwmXRo_n


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