Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Music History, Part 32 - Guilt, Regret, Embarrasment - Part II

Disclaimer: Memory is a funny thing, and an elusive one. Meaning; I might have some of this wrong, as 1. My memory is not always accurate, like anyone and 2. It is from my perspective only. Any friends  who were there, feel free to correct me or add things I have missed. It helps! Also, no gossip on anyone here, it ain't about that. Personal details are on a surface level, and friends, girlfriends and others are re-named to respect their privacy. People in bands generally put their names out there on albums and in interviews anyway, and are not in the habit of staying anonymous, and therefore are named here. That said, anyone who is in the blog that wishes me not to use their name has only to ask.

Seattle Years Disclaimer: As I enter the Seattle years in this music blog, the above disclaimer goes double, because so much happened and there are so many details to cover in this 14 year period; so many shows, so many bands, so many friends and so much change in my life. As a result of this and the fact that the four of us who formed Treepeople found ourselves in the midst of a scene which blew up around us and attracted the eyes of the world just 2 years after our arrival, not to mention the 12 years I played music following that, I am bound to, hell, I will forget something.

This means two things: I will be coming back to entries and adding things to them over the months following publication, and, that the part of the above disclaimer where I ask for help from people in keeping me honest and in remembering things is crucial to them. I thank anyone ahead of time who was there, and, those who weren't there who have access to valid info, for helping me to correct errors in dates or chronology. Yes, I have the Internet, but many bands, scenes and things I will cover did not receive the attention I feel that they deserved and thus I will recall them mostly from memory, or rather, memories; mine and those of friends. Also, friends who were in bands which I do not happen to mention, please don't take it personally, just remind me. I have created a monster in undertaking this blog, one which I am determined to ride until the end!


Lastly, as mentioned, this scene gained national attention, and thus, needless to say and as we all know, many bands/people became famous, became rock stars, were/are admired by millions, etc and etc...This makes another part of my original disclaimer even more important. This memoir is intended to tell my story, from my perspective. I have no intention of creating a place where people can seek gossip about famous people, nor is it about 'name-dropping'. I write of my impressions of people, bands, and the Seattle scene from the '90s into the early 2000s. I protect those who are my friends fiercely because a symptom of being known is frequent intrusion into their lives beyond a level that I feel is acceptable. Thank you for indulging me this disclaimer. 


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My other blogs: Short Story Long - (Top of mind, conversational, formal essays, photo essays, etc.) Artwork, Poetry


GRE continued...

 

Artwork by Mike Scheer -

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'If you love Dinosaur Jr., you'll like the Treepeople.'






Treepeople had a number of musical influences at the time of recording 'GRE', many of which I have mentioned; Dinosaur Jr., David Bowie (as evidenced by the cover of his song 'Andy Warhol' on 'GRE', which I will discuss later in this entry) The Replacements, The Flaming Lips, Screaming Trees, Minutemen, Black Flag, Descendents (and really, most of the SST label's bands) TAD, The Smiths, Fugazi (a band whose song 'Bad Mouth' we covered) not to forget the bands that morphed into Fugazi; Rites of Spring and Minor Threat, Sonic Youth and also The Velvet Underground (a band very dear to us, especially to Doug and Pat) The ClashButthole Surfers, Hüsker Dü and many more, including our Boise brothers and sisters, Dirt Fishermen and Caustic Resin and our Seattle brethren, The Purdins, and let us not forget The Pixies. This list is off the top of my head, so I know I am missing a ton of bands here (a call to my fellow Brother Trees to remind me of any) but I think it is a pretty good representative slice. 

I have a memory after 'GRE' came out of having a conversation with a friend (who would later play bass in one of the many versions of Treepeople that arose after I quit) where he complained about the guitars being so loud in the mix during the leads. I reminded him that this was how Dinosaur Jr. records were mixed, knowing he was a fan of them. He nodded and considered this. It is a curious thing how we tend to judge bands that our friends have formed much differently than the bands we like whom we don't know personally. I can imagine friends of Gibby Haynes telling him, as feedback about his band Butthole Surfers, "I dunno, Man, this shit is pretty WEIRD!" or friends of Thurston Moore asking him, "Are you sure those guitars are tuned right?" 

As I have mentioned, Dinosaur Jr. was a big influence on the band, and on Doug specifically (as an aside, Doug would end up touring a bit with Dinosaur Jr. years later in his band Built to Spill). And inevitably, there were many comparisons made between Treepeople and Dinosaur Jr., especially after 'GRE' came out. I think this is a mostly fair comparison. They are both bands that are driven by guitars, with distorted leads winding around, and a full-on rhythm section pounding away, melancholy singing and lyrics about personal politics. That said, I wouldn't say the music is that similar. One joke (which I may be repeating here, if so, forgive me) that we had as a band in response to all the Dinosaur Jr. comparisons was a tongue-in-cheek tag line; 'If you love Dinosaur Jr., you'll like the Treepeople.' We never actually used it, of course.

I reached out to folks on Facebook here on the blog to tell me, if it were true, why the album 'GRE' was important to them, but the response has not been strong, and the people who have told me this before are no longer in my life. I didn't want the publishing of this entry to be contingent on waiting for more responses [After this writing I did receive some, see the end of the next entry on 'GRE', Part 33]. I did receive some great stories about Pat from a college mate of his which I have permission to use, and which I will share later in the tale. I also received an email from Pat's ex that is about about 'GRE', but more from a different perspective, and an important one, one about being part of the extended Treepeople family and seeing the album as representing her life at that point in time and space, and, about all the people behind the scenes of any band who don't get a lot of due credit. She was a support for Pat (at times financially) and often lived with a young son (a really sweet kid who is now a nice man) in the homes where we rehearsed and as a result had to deal with a host of annoying and troublesome situations which went along with that. I now can see how, as Anna points out, this all was true of Treepeople and is true of any band or creative project.  

People tend to focus all on the music when thinking of a band, I think that is normal, since that is what a band does; make music, and is the reason why anyone gives a shit about them in the first place, but some folks tend to build up bands beyond what they really are into a kind of mythos (ironically, one surrounding losers who got their revenge by getting all the attention and praise after being beat up and ridiculed in their awkward youth at schools across the world and much of that attention and praise came from the very people who ridiculed them).

Here is Anna's email in full (published with her permission);

"...For myself GRE is my favorite Treepeople recording and hallmarks a time of my life in Seattle that was creative, tumultuous, emotional, uncertain, and all the other hurdles that come from being 20 something as a small fish in a big pond.

At that time I was living with Pat, Scott, and ____
[Scott's then girlfriend] on Capitol Hill.  My studio was underneath the stairwell of our apartment on Harvard st. and  also where I landed a job at a gallery down by the market and learned how to become a working artist.


I do have to say that as a girlfriend of a band member my role could seem insignificant however I did spend an extraordinary amount of time, energy and money making sure everyone had enough beer, food and the emotional support for a man who constantly questioned his existence and his relationship to those around him. Totally my choice.


There’s no doubt Treepeople was an extraordinary 
band and yet I think it’s truly important to give credit to all the people working behind any band.  Sound and light technicians, roadies, van drivers, girlfriends, emotional trauma rescuers, crash house hosts ect, ect. [sic].


What truly resonates with GRE- Guilt- Regret- Embarrassment : True feelings of growing up that diminish with age and hopeful wisdom.

Sorry about the mop...' [this last bit is an inside joke, sort of].

VU to the TP 











 

Image retrieved from:



Treepeople were like The Velvet Underground in one respect at least; we became much more popular after the band was gone, more so than when we were around. A lot of that, I think, has to do with the fact that Doug would become a pretty well-known, almost iconic figure (through no intention of his own, really) in the indie rock scene, which he continues to be, and people began to seek out his music history. A lot of it is that Treepeople was a band, also like The Velvet Underground (don't get me wrong, we are talking about WAY different scales here) that became, for many years, quietly influential on a number of bands to come, bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Foo Fighters, Modest Mouse and one of my favorite bands, Team Dresch (though to be fair, some members of this band were playing pop-punk in bands earlier than and contemporary with Treepeople, like Hazel and Danger Mouse - no not that Danger Mouse, this was years before them - and one member even played for a short time in Dinosaur Jr., but in the album 'Personal Best' by Team Dresch, I do hear some TP influence (on a related note, Team Dresch is playing here in Portland this January and I have a ticket! Very excited!) [Since this writing, I attended the aforementioned Team Dresch show, which was amazing, and, I got validation for my view here, in that they played a Smiths cover 'Big Mouth Strikes Again' that Treepeople did (we played it when I was in the band, and the line-up after I quit recorded and released it on the new EP half of the double EP 'Something Vicious for Tomorrow', which also included the previously released ep 'Time Whore') and Donna Dresch said it was based on "...the Treepeople version. I love the Treepeople version." and also, when I posted something on Facebook about the show, Donna Dresch commented, "...You can probably tell, but we channel Treepeople ALL THE TIME!" The remaining Treefolk are honored by this]. I am sure there are those who disagree with this perspective, or think me vain to even suggest it. So it goes. 

Guilt, Regret, Embarassment - A song-by-song look through the Waynefilter (note: I am not going to discuss every song from the original Toxic Shock release which included several 7 inch records as bonus tracks, as, if I do so, it will be way too fucking long, and it will be that anyway without adding them). ~ Artwork above each song title is from cut-ups taken from the original cover of 'GRE' done by Mike Scheer ~

 

No Doubt - Written by Doug Martsch & Treepeople
I think that this song is among the quintessential TP songs, as it has all of the hallmarks of what we were doing musically; guitar gymnastic hi-jinx! Angst-wrought, sad lyrics about self-delusional people! Fast, almost hardcore tempos, a dramatic, drawn out instrumental outro, and...I honestly feel weird coming up with something in this voice for my drums, um, here goes...Galloping, guitar-led drum rhythms! Eh, I will stop there [waits until no one is looking, quietly backs out of room]. 

 
Andy Warhol - Written by David Bowie, adapted by Treepeople - One thing I liked about Treepeople was that we chose cover songs carefully, and I think we chose wisely as well (excluding, of course, the early days when we played the over-covered songs 'Sweet Jane' by The Velvet Underground and 'Wild World' by Cat Stevens, which we called 'Cat Scratch Stevens', a play on the Ted Nugent song, 'Cat Scratch Fever'. Such clever boys!) We also did covers very rarely, and only if they fit us as a band (Doug has continued this cover song strategy in Built to Spill). The song 'Andy Warhol' was perfect for TP, especially the guitar parts, the walking lead lines, the stalls and pauses, and the range of the singing. I was proud of myself for writing such appropriate drum parts to a song that had no drums (the original is only Bowie and an acoustic guitar and back-up vocals here and there). The album it is on, 'Hunky Dory', was a very important record to us, Doug turned me on to it and I listened to it weekly for many years. The combination of songs that were in one minute whimsical and the next melancholy drew me in. I also think in retrospect that it was kind of a ballsy move, or shall I say clitorisy move, to have the second song be a cover tune that was immediately cross-faded in from the first, in-your-face cut.



GRE (Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment) - Written by Doug Martsch & Treepeople - The title track, obviously, but only because the wording made for a very appropriate Treepeoplesque sentiment, not from some over-arching theme, at least not intentionally, but really, it ended up being one anyway. Doug recorded a version of this song on his Fostex cassette 4-track machine (the 'sketchbook' of choice among songwriters & low-fi home-recorders then) during the time when he and I lived next door to each other and hung out together while we each did our own thing (as discussed in a previous entry) and occasionally making weird 4-track songs together. Doug often did sketches, in this way, of what would later become Treepeople songs, a song-writing practice he still employs, (though it is now done with a home studio). I have a tape we made with the 'GRE' sketch and others, including a song Doug wrote to the Shel Silverstein childrens' rhyme called 'Hugowar' and a couple song sketches of mine which Doug played on, and last but not least a sketch for the song that ended up on the Treepeople ep, 'Something Vicious For Tomorrow' called 'Ad Campaigns', though the very first version of this song was a random recording done at Tad Doyle's rehearsal space with me on drums, Tad on bass and Doug on guitar (wish I still had that tape!). All these songs, (minus the aforementioned original version of the recording with Tad) and more are on a tape called 'Doug's Unemployed 4-Track Tape'. It is a pretty cool documentation of the time. I may upload some of the tunes later. I have digressed! So the song 'GRE', well, it is definitely a good example of the blending hardcore and pop punk music styles we employed, especially the drum parts. It also showcases the 'jigsaw' or 'dueling guitars' descriptions of how Scott and Doug's guitar parts fit together so oddly, despite being so incredibly different. Pat's bass playing is superb on this song, he is basically playing a hardcore bass part slightly modified.  



Lost - Written by Scott Schmaljohn & Treepeople - This song is one of the more unique Treepeople songs we played during this original line-up. I like how it has a long, mellow intro and then gracefully transitions into a more up-tempo part, and from there goes into a more sinister sounding part for a few measures, then back into the upbeat parts. The lyrical theme to 'Lost' was one that Scott would visit a few times in Treepeople songs, and later in songs he wrote for his bands that followed (Stuntman and The Hand - a band active still, a great band, check them out); Basically that theme was, a small city boy living in the big city; "...It's/So easy to be/Just another face/And it's so easy to get lost..." and '...Wondering/If anybody cares...' Per a recent correspondence with Scott about 'GRE' he had some thoughts on this; "...The thing I remember most about the GRE days, were adjusting to our new Seattle surroundings, working crappy jobs...We all sacrificed so much to be in Seattle, a brave new world with many new big city challenges..." and about the song, 'Lost', he wrote  "... I also remember writing "lost" one of my songs, which took me weeks to figure out how to play and sing the parts together...That song was about the loneliness of the big city and the small town folks we were...Where do we fit in to this city was my question. We were tiny fish in the big city of so many sharks..." I think it was important to have songs about this perspective on this record, because it was certainly a feeling we all had in our own ways right after moving to Seattle. Scott's lyrics in general tended to be more political (in some ways, this was a holdover from his days writing hardcore punk songs in SOC), such as the 'GRE' song, 'Chunks of Milk' (see below for more on that tune) and about the daily, often thankless grind of being a low income, working class person thrown into a city with so many people competing for everything. Even grocery shopping was a whole other world than what we were used to, and we soon learned that you had to plan things with lots of buffer time because of this, or in case there was a shooting that shut down 4 city blocks, or a transit strike, or any number of things people deal with in bigger cities on a regular basis that were still pretty new to us. Scott's voice has a raw emotional quality that expresses this sentiment well, and is similar to Shane MacGowan's voice (the singer/songwriter for the Irish band, The Pogues). Musically, Scott's songs pushed me into new, more complex and nuanced territory as a drummer, and also freed up Doug on guitar to do even more zany antics, which he usually dove into with gusto. This song is no exception to that. [How oh how could I write of this song and not talk about the amazing sections where Pat sings, in a voice that emobied Pat to a tee, he sings/asks, in the voice of authority that constantly harrassed anyone different, and, exemplifiying the feeling in a city where people are pushed away from some official event or from the grounds of some property by police or security; "...What are you doing here?/Why are you standing there?..."]


Transitional Devices - Written by Scott Schmaljohn & Treepeople - Obviously, this song is the strongest example on 'GRE' (and probably of any of the Treepeople songs) of an homage to the hardcore days of our previous band State of Confusion. I remember when writing the drum parts that I was concerned I wouldn't be able to play the beats fast enough (a flashback to my short stint trying to play drums for State of Confusion) but I pulled it off and found a happy medium. 'Transitional Devices' stands on its own for this reason, in that it is one of two songs that are played at that fast of a meter, the other also being a Scott Schmaljohn song from the early TP days, 'Fishbasket'. The lyrics follow Scott's standard themes (laid out above). This song is big and brash and in your face, as it should be. The guitars are over the top, as they should be. And, as mentioned above, writing drum parts for Scott's songs challenged me in new ways, especially this tune, and, incidentally, added something new to my drum vocabulary that I would continue to use (and in fact just used in a song on a recently recorded but unreleased - at this writing, anyway, it is coming soon! - lp for the band I currently play drums in, Commonauts) on the drum only stall/breakdown parts in the song, a sort of stuttery tom fill in which I alternate from floor tom to rack tom to snare, rapidly back and forth; buddabittabuddabittabuddabittabuddabitta...if that makes any sense (probably not, maybe if you listen to the song, see link below).
Hear song: Transitional Devices

 
Pity - Written by Doug Martsch & Treepeople - This is one of my favorite Treepeople songs, and, like 'No Doubt', I think it is another one of the 'quintessential' TP songs. It is also by far the saddest TP song, and one of a handful that are based on actual events or an actual person. The story I remember from Doug was that it was based on a woman he saw at the laundry mat he used on Capitol Hill in Seattle, and I had also seen her around the Hill. She was a white woman in her 60s with most of her chin missing, either from an accident or she was that way since birth. I see the lyrics as a reflection by Doug on the ultimately selfish nature of pity, in that he saw her and felt pity for her but then felt weird about pitying her, because she didn't need his pity, she was living her life and doing just fine, and also, he was self-conscious about her noticing his pity; '...I can't meet her eyes/For fear she'll know/What I am thinking/And then I'll bruise her/With my pity..."...' I think that this is one of Doug's best songs, and part of why I feel that way is that the phrasing of the lyrics fits in so well with the music. I also feel that it is some of my best drumming on the record. I wrote the parts more to the singing than I usually did, probably for the reasons stated above about how it fit with the music. This is one of the rare songs where the guitars pretty much synced in a more traditional way, at least until the 'patented,' dramatic, drawn out instrumental outro. [I would also add that, second only to the TP song 'Important Things' on our first 7 inch record, 'Pity' is the most influenced by Dinosaur Jr.]


(I'm Gonna) Miss You (When You're Dead) - Written by Doug Martsch & Treepeople - I have mentioned two songs that I think are among the 'quintessential' Treepeople songs, but I would have to say this one is the quintessential Treepeople tune by a fair margin, so much so that if someone told me I only had one song to play them to give them a broad idea of how Treepeople sounded at this time, I would play them (I'm Gonna) Miss You (When You're Dead). The intro to the song is pretty blistering, but it isn't hardcore, it has a different, emotional quality to it. By this time in my career as a drummer, I had learned how to take my twitchy, awkward-but-still-somehow-works stutter-beat and turn it into another beat for my vocabulary, and I channeled much of that stuttering to my bass pedal in this song. I like how serious, in your face and emotional this song is, just the intro builds tension in the listener, for a full nearly 45 seconds before the singing comes in, and when the singing does start, the whole tone of the song instantly changes to a more sad pop sound, with a bouncy beat and harmonizing back-up vocals, then back to the tension, back to the sad pop, then into a dramatic bridge. The bass is such a backbone in this song, and saves it from being too wandering, Pat held it together. In many ways it is one of the most metal sounding songs on the fast parts, especially Scott's crazy, stretching, howling leads, (harkening back to his days as a metal kid who loved Black Sabbath and AC/DC) and more like Descendents or The Pixies on the sad pop parts. The outro is the most dramatic and epic we had ever done. It is most likely my favorite song on 'GRE', and certainly one of my favorite TP songs.



Wasted on You - Written by Pat 'Brown' Schmaljohn & Treepeople - Pat wrote this song, sang and played one of the guitars on it (in the breakdown on the choruses) as well as the bass. In my insecurity, I assumed the lyrics, (also penned by Pat) which criticize an unnamed person for being no fun and not wanting to come outside of their apartment to do anything in spite of his pleading, "...It was sunny out/It was a beautiful day/I asked you if/You wanted to play/You said no, you had to stay inside/Another good thing is passin' you by..." were about me! I found out later that it wasn't at all about me, but for a time I was kind of hurt by it (and my paranoia wasn't entirely misplaced, he did in fact later write a short story about a whiny character who went telemark skiing with friends...right after we had done that in real life! But I was indeed whiny on that trip). My feeling that the song was about me shows not only my insecurity at the time, but also illustrates how fragile our relationship had become. That said, I was not the only one who would ask this question of the  songwriter for any given TP song. It became a running in-joke among us; 'Bro, is this song about me?' Often we asked Doug this question, as his lyrics tended to be the most obscure in terms of their actual meaning, and especially in terms of whom he was talking about. The truth is clear all these years later, looking back as a mature man; Like all writers, Doug drew together various observations of different people and combined them into characters in the stories he told. Either way, the joke, 'Bro, is this song about me?' led to us covering the Carly Simon song, 'You're So Vain,' for its end of chorus tag line, "...I bet you think this song is about you/Don't you?/Don't you?...", though we renamed it to 'Flies in my Coffee' (a wordplay alteration from the original verse ending refrain, '...Clouds in my coffee/Clouds in my coffee...') This was put out on a limited release sampler on CZ Records after I had quit the band including other songs that were recorded with a different drummer. It is probably pretty hard to find. Again with the digression (reading my blog is just like talking to me!). The song itself is pretty straightforward power chord punk rock, and quite catchy. Since neither Scott or Doug were singing, they were able to have a lot of fun with their guitar parts, and I really enjoyed writing drum parts to such a straightforward song. Pat would go on to write songs for his own band in Boise when he moved back there called Hive (for which the aforementioned Anna played bass). More on that band later!



Stay - Written by Treepeople - I am crediting the whole band for songwriting on this song, as we all had our parts in it, and it is in fact probably the most collaboratively written TP song. Treepeople was a band which did do some collaborative writing, for me it was mostly my drum parts, but the main riff for the verse on this song I wrote on bass for a State of Confusion song that we were working on just before we broke up we and it carried over to TP. I believe Scott wrote the hardcore-ish chorus, over which Pat sang the lyrics that were carried over from the SOC version. At the time the song was written in SOC, we and our friends did a lot of sand-boarding (mentioned in a previous entry) and Pat was very skilled at it, and also employed the whole experience of sand-boarding and the nature of it as a metaphor for many things in his life through his lyrics. In this case he sang, in his signature voice full of barely subdued fury, "...Skin and blood/Hearts in hands/Diggin' through/The shifting sands..." The man had his very own poetry. The beat of the verses on this song was a bit of a break-through for me as a drummer, in that I played a beat that was half notes on the highhat, and the bass drum. The more I write about this, the more I realize how this band pushed me as a drummer into new territory and learning.



Chunks of Milk - Written by Scott Schmaljohn & Treepeople - Where do I start with this song? As I hear it here and there over the years, and especially after listening to it recently for writing this series on 'GRE', I have realized more and more what a breakthrough this song was for me as a drummer. The song structure has parts that are, at least as I see it, like acts in a play, moving from scene to scene, and this challenged me to come up with drum parts that fit the song not only musically, but emotionally as well, and to match this structure and Scott's wrenching, emotional singing. I learned about using subtlety on my cymbals, and a new world of accents came through, and also how to play sixteenth notes [oops, eighth notes, actually. Who the fuck do I think I was, Elvin Jones? ~ Now Wayne] with both hands on the high-hat as part of a beat. I was doing a few measures where I was only playing my bass pedal and my ride and crash cymbals, using light paradiddles. I have tried to relearn it and honestly, there was shit Young Wayne did that I can't remember or figure out (Damn KID!) 'Chunks of Milk' is, in my mind, one of my best performances on drums captured on tape, maybe the best. It takes a lot for me to say that, as I am pretty self-critical, or, as a current bandmate puts it, "Riddled with self-doubt." (Trust me, on 'GRE' I also still hear, 25 years later, every slight fuck up and every time I accidentally hit the drum mics, too). The songwriting on 'Chunks of Milk' is wonderfully complex for a Treepeople song, with 4 different interlocking parts, and a 3/4 time signature. The singing and phrasing of the lyrics goes with the beat of the verses, and has a bar sing along quality to it, especially when Scott wails '...Sow--ur [sour](chunks of milk)! Sooow-uuur! Sow--uuur! Sow-ur!" Pat plays solidly through this waltz, and Doug plays wide cords and meandering lead walks, as Scott plays almost folkish chords on the verses, and metal-ish chords on the more sinister, chorus bridgey thing (yes, that is a musical term...Now it is, anyway ; / ). On the chorus, Pat sings, "...It sticks in your throat now it's stuck in your gut/You wanna do somethin'/But you don't know what you can doooooo...." and Scott comes in singing backups on the '...doooooo...'  'The Brothers Schmaljohn', as we often referred to them, singing together, and it sounds rad, I think. And the lyrics are again about the thankless, endless grind of the working class; "...No more sleepin' late/No work, no pay/Tell me, what do I owe? What do I ooooowe?/What do I ooooowe?What do I ooooowe?..." And surprise! A big (though short) dramatic outro! I wonder why the hell we did that so much! I guess we thought it was cool. I think it is, sometimes, but I am just realizing after listening to it how often we did it. Ah well, we were kids! I will stop here, before this song description needs chapters...



Every Time When I Fall Down and My Head Hits the Floor Hard - Written by Doug Martsch & Treepeople - My least favorite TP song, so I don't have much to say about it. It is pretty standard indie rock, more so than any other song of ours at this time. It isn't a bad song, it's catchy, I like the stalls that are built into the verse, and I like the drum beats I wrote for it. The best parts of the song are the insane guitar parts by Scott and Doug, and the outro, which is actually pretty powerful.  



Trailer ParkWritten by Treepeople - One of the very few instrumental songs and only one of two using samples (the other being 'Size of a Quarter', two versions of which are on the first demo, 'No Mouth Pipetting' and the first ep, 'Time Whore', respectively). I really dig the arrangement on this tune, it is very dramatic, kind of film-score-ish. The samples in question were added by Steve Fisk, two crazy yelling radio preachers from Eastern Washington ranting, they appear in a few of his solo songs (his solo songs are all crazy and good, look them up on the ol' Youtube). As mentioned before, the bit o' trivia about this song is that at the time we recorded 'GRE' the band Soundgarden rehearsed at the studio weekly. They happened to stop by (everyone but Chris Cornell) and listened to us track this tune. [After writing this, I realized this is an instrumental song in all but one place (and of course minus samples, but I wasn't technically counting those), the bridge, where Pat sings, again, with barely subdued fury, '...You lied/You said it wouldn't be like this...'].

What a monster this entry ended up being! Tune in next time to read about the release and reception of 'GRE', Scott Schmaljohn's and Doug Martsch's take on 'GRE' and more input from friends of the band and fans.