created in the basement with the former slovenly boys.

[baculum]

we didn't know what we were doing, but we did it anyway, and then tim @ 3 beads of sweat was kind enough to put it out. i'm both proud and ashamed, which is the way i feel about most things anyhow. a few college stations seemed to play it quite a bit, but i don't think anyone bought it.

i think tim hoped that some might remember slovenly from the old days, but hey, there ya go.

thank you and good night.

http://www.baculum.com

[gone]

...

[baculum]

Thanks sullus. I appreciate your positive comments. It was a pretty lowball operation in the garage. I had an 8-track ProTools project, a CAD E100, Shure sm81, and later an Earthworks TC30 omni pair(or is that TK30, the noisy ones). An old Fender Champ amp with a headphone jack that I'd use as a preamp. A crummy dbx compressor, aphex 107, zoom effects box. We mostly drank a lot and we had a great collection of old bibles from a variety of denominations that we'd use for lyrical stimulation..there's some really great stuff in old bibles. "her breasts were like 2 fawns of the woods," for example.

We mostly would jam, and when something sounded ok we'd try to work it out. Very slow. Lost tracks, lost days. We used lots of old kid's toys and funky toy pianos and such. Sampled stuff off AM radio in the middle of the night. Really no method to it other than listening and trying to add tasty bits that made sense without overdoing things. And luckily for us we've got some friends who are pretty good musicians. Lynn Johnston is a great clarinet player, Vijay Anderson a terrific drummer/percussionist. So even though I didn't have the slightest clue how to record them, it still was interesting, and the recording technique was secondary (it had to be, since I was constantly fucking stuff up).

I processed stuff a bit with Waves renaissance compressor and EQ, and tried to master as well as I could given the circumstances. I used the L1 to get a little consistency between tracks, but never more than 5 dB or so off the peaks.

Oh I almost forgot our secret weapon: an Ace Tone Rhythm Ace (I think), a rippin early 70s transistor beat box that I found in the basement of my house when we moved in. It's got the most beautiful cheesey sounds, and the pulse is always drifting around as the temperature changes. That's pretty much the story. Thanks for asking.
sam

[Abe]

Whats the best way to mic an old bible?

[baculum]

There are those among us (you know who they are) who don't need a microphone to record a bible. For us non-believers, I'd try books on tape. Perhaps something pompous, self-righteous, and now, demented, like Charleton Heston, played at high volume in a $3 thrift store cassette deck into a telephone and recorded from the phone with a classic Neumann.

[jajjguy]

Damn, that sounds good! Wicked wicked good!

[trashy]

Yeah, I've used quotes from the same book of the Bible (which is sometimes called "The Song of Songs" and sometimes called "Song of Solomon") as lyrics. It's the best love poetry ever written and doesn't mention God even once. It can get pretty bawdy; it's surprising that it's still in the Bible. But hey, everyone likes to get it on, right?

I come to my garden, my sister, my bride
I gather my myrrh with my spice,
I eat my honeycomb with my honey,
I drink my wine with my milk.
Eat friends, drink
and be drunk with love.

or:

My beloved is mine and I am his,
he pastures his flock among my lilies.

or:

Oh, may your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,
your kisses like the best wine,
that goes down smoothly,
gliding over lips and teeth.


Wowza!!!

[trashy]

also, I'm a bad lyric writer, and since the Bible isn't copyrighted (that is unless the Germans get their way ) you can just steal from it and not feel bad. Plus, it probably says in there somewhere that stealing is okay... doesn't it?

[baculum]

I'm a bad lyric writer too, so much of our stuff is "found." Whether it's bibles or street person rants or even finding my own letters from the past--i'm only a shitty lyric writer when i'm trying to write a lyric. I'f i'm writing to someone about a movie or a meal or about my disdain for el presidente, i think that makes for a much better lyric. It's self-consciousness i think that does us in. And the bible is about as unself-conscious (?") as you can get. Those are some great passages you've cited..."he pastures his flock among my lilies..." Now who wouldn't want to hear that? Timeless. Are you familiar with Moroni and the Lamanites from the book of mormon? I couldn't believe what fantastic names those were when I first stumbled on them.

[trashy]

Yeah, the Book of Mormon is dope for names and overwrought language. Almost every single paragraph begins with "And it came to pass that..."

Have you ever read Mark Twain scathing attack on the Mormons and the Book of Mormon? It's sooo mean, but soooooooo funny. He's the funniest writer; most people only remember Tom Sawyer and stuff, but he was like the Kurt Vonnegut or David Sedaris of his time. He actually commends Mormon polygamy as being from God, though: he's says the men must be saints for marrying more than one of those ugly women... yikes. That's harsh.

A great place for found lyrics is old NASA stuff: transcripts, propaganda, internal documents, etc. Also, old Soviet stuff.

[baculum]

Ow, Mark Twain as the David Sedaris of his time! Did Samuel clean rich peoples' plantations before he became Mr. Twain? In his youth he probably did something similarly monotonously degrading and voyeuristic. (Say that 10 times fast) I sure love David Sedaris, so I'd best familiarize myself more with Mr. Twain's rants. Have you read Confederacy of Dunces? I loved Ignatius' hatred of Mark Twain.

Thanks for the NASA tip. I'll check it out. The transcripts from McCarthy's unamerican activities hearings are also a good resource for institutional paranoia tidbits.

[zoetrope]

I gave "Matt's Song" a listen. Nice tune. I like the rhythmic fun in there. And the bells.

[baculum]

Thanks for listening. There's a bunch of odds and ends on Matt's. There's a bit with this large balinese bamboo xylophone that I ridiculously dragged back from bali years ago and it sits rotting in the the basement. I think it's called a joged bumbung, at least that's what people kept calling it. If you've heard the style of Jegog, it's used in that (and for anyone who isn't familiar with Jegog, you MUST check it out, maniacal giant bamboo orchestra played with huge dynamics at light speed--quite a sight live)