Taken last November when we had our crazy 1.5 day trip to Los Angeles.

That doesn’t seem so long ago. Weird how time does that. o

In 1987, a keyboard was introduced to the mass market by Roland called the D-50. It blended a synthesis technique of sampled attack waves attached to digital synthesizer sounds. So things like pizzacato strings and chuffy flutes (for making new age tracks!) sounded great without the storage overhead of an actual sampler. Bowed strings sounded real and it came with its own effects like chorus and reverb. I can safely say that I yearned for this keyboard like only a few other things in my life; maybe four or five other things. During the summer of 1987 I would go to Guitar Center in San Francisco on the weekend and put on headphones and play for a couple of hours, wondering how I could ever get the money to buy this keyboard. I had fallen hard for Yamaha’s DX-7, even going so far as taking a class at Utah State University to learn how to program it. After that class, I decided to hold off on my lust. Then the D-50 came out.

I moved back to Utah in the fall of 1987 and did a year of community college and night classes to try to get into BYU. The summer of 1988 I stayed in Utah, lived at home with my mom rent-free and temped for the summer at the aerospace firm that builds space shuttle boosters. I got a mailer from a Salt Lake City music store that said they are offering same as cash pricing with 90-day no-interest financing. Not thinking I’d get financing (I think I was making $6/hour or something ridiculously low, but seemed fantastic at the time), I figured it was a complete lark. I was wrong. In 1988 I had the keyboard in my possession. There are three instruments that have changed my life. This was one of them.

With this keyboard in hand, I was able to cover more current music and start to work on sound design, creating my own sounds for the D-50 that I could use in the previously mentioned cover bands Room 13 and Scuba Bus.

When Swim Herschel Swim formed, I was able to use some of my favorite custom sounds for the songs we were writing and it made working for $6/hour, getting up at 5am and commuting out to the rocket building complex in the desert worth it.

This track, “Chevy Bossa Nova” was written in the fall of 1989, I think. If I’m not mistaken, this was one of three songs that the original bass player, Russ Cluff, helped write, including the bassline. I remember holding down chords and being surprised when the guys in the band liked the sound and then we wrote a song that utilized it. I was living in a state of constant amazement that fall. One of the greatest things about Swim Herschel was the first six months or so of songwriting. We were all so happy to be in a band and writing songs and playing these insane shows that were packed by sexually starved high school and BYU students.

Production Notes
I’m not sure who came up with the lets-sound-like-the-1930s idea on this track, but I think it moves the track in a good direction. I would guess Merkley and Rod (lead singer) had the most say in the heavy tweaking. This song was meant to be a crowd calmer after coming onstage and watching the kids get worked into a frenzy. I’ve been to some intense shows (Rage Against the Machine, 1993, one word review: fantastic) and the crowds at our shows would be almost as intense as a metal or punk show. Almost. It was kind of fun and scary to watch. So we’d play this song as a way to let them catch their breath and regroup before the next onslaught of songs at 140bpm.

When we added a saxophone to the line-up the fall of 1990, about a month or so before heading into the studio, it made songs like this even better.

On the original cassette tape, the mastering job was pretty much non-existent. We couldn’t afford a real master job and due to the limitations of the cassette medium, the mastering was all about the treble and there was virtually no low end to speak of. I may be over-compensating with this one, but Logic Express has this sweet bass enhancer for mixing that adds subsonics to existing frequencies. Super fun to play with, but difficult to master. The bass line and the kick drum are battling it out for supremacy. Who will win? Turn up your sub-woofer to find out now!

The synth sound on this track was heavily influenced by the soundtrack work on The Last Temptation of Christ by Peter Gabriel. Highly recommend both the movie and the soundtrack. This sound was one of my favorites, especially through a good PA. It demonstrates the power of the keyboard and gives a great atmosphere to the song that is decidedly not ska and not reggae. The low end was awesome and a good audio engineer knew how to make the crowd feel the bass in their genitals. In the studio, the keyboard got killed in the stereo mix, as we were trying to capture a smidge of reggae influence with the kick drum and the bass. Except we were white guys. Recording in Orem, Utah. At any rate, this was always one of my favorites, just because I was always proud of the sound I programmed and the nice bass line from Russ. At the end of the track, Jeff on bass does some sweet noodling on the bass and you can hear a tinge of jazz influence.

Please forgive my ponderous and highly dubious fake timbale solo in the break down. My inner George Lucas wanted to edit this out, but Rick does some sweet real-time effect pedal tweaking and tasty guitar work in that break and I didn’t want to leave that out. The inclusion of the timbale solo on tape was the second dumbest thing I did in the studio during the few sessions it took to make this album. In our early shows, we needed a longer set and the timbale solo would extend this song out a few minutes and give people a break. It was killed sometime before the original drummer left the band in the fall of 1991.

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Direct Download – Swim Herschel Swim – I Wish I Had a Raygun – Chevy Bossa Nova – Remastered, MP3, 320kbps constant

o

She’s a cute dog. But she’s literally screamingly insane. Literally.

Just when I think I’ve gotten her to LISTEN, she’s off finding the most obscure toy that Leta is definitely going to want to play with next. Coco finds this toy before Leta knows it’s the next thing she wants. Coco brings the toy upstairs, very quietly. Within 45 seconds of realizing that Coco is gone from our presence, there are the panic calls of her name from either me or Heather. She comes running with the toy dangling out of her mouth. If we’ve caught her before the critical moment, the toy survives. If not, we do what parents of dogs and children have done for hundreds of years. Call the lawyers.

p.s. Happy Income Tax deadline U.S. citizens! Go stimulus, go. o

Another Austin, TX night shot. This place has fantastic food and great beer. And it was packed on a weeknight! We almost wanted to move to Austin 20 minutes after leaving. Austin is definitely the only “southern” city I’d consider moving to. The only problems: humidity & summer. But that’s what the beer and margaritas fix, right? o

Taken in Austin after Heather’s book signing. The weather was pleasant, we had great company and great food.

One of the reasons we upgraded our camera was so we could get better shots in low light. This was the first time I really pushed the camera and the results are a pleasant surprise. This was shot with a longer lens at 2000 ISO. I’m very pleased with the results. WORTH IT.

Now, the nesting has begun in earnest and there are projects. Oh god, the projects. o

We had one day of sun in the past three weeks. I’m sure the weather in Salt Lake is better than it has been, but I’m posting this hoping to arrive home to fantastic weather. o

Coco’s youthful energy will not let up on Chuck on the daily walks. She simply must continually go after him for the first 10-15 minutes. Then there is almost an unspoken language between them and she lets up and they walk for 30 minutes only mildly interacting. They both know at the end of the walk that it will be a major nut run with Chuck recently adopting a cute I’ll-chase-you-and-pretend-that-you-are-faster-than-me run. Coco thinks she’s faster than Chuck, but when he really wants to lay it down and burn paw, she can’t keep up.

Chuck’s a good big brother and only tells her to shut up when he’s got trees to mark. o

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated by these. I don’t know if it’s the portable electricity or the tension and mystery in wondering if, once the sun sets, they will continue their job. I worried a lot as a kid. o

Swim Herschel Swim, live at Center Stage, Provo, Utah, 1991-2(?). This photo used without permission from Rich Hillquist’s personal collection.

This song was written in real time on a stage during a show where we needed to calm down the crowd. We were playing at a deli in Provo and they had moved out tables to make room for a dance floor and a tiny tiny stage.

It got out of control quickly, the crowd damaging the property (we were thereafter banned from playing there) and we needed something slower to calm them down.

Rick, the guitarist who had switched to bass so we could play “Clueless“, started playing along with Rich on drums and began calling out chord changes. Rod started picking out a horn line away from the mic and once he had something, started playing his trombone. I think we probably jammed on this song that first time for about 10 minutes. Rod wrote lyrics onstage and created the melody that didn’t change that much when we finally took this into the studio to record.

A few months before we did the studio sessions, we added Sam on tenor sax and of the early horn lines, the work they did on this remains one of my favorite lines we ever did. I can’t recall who suggested the sax/trombone harmony, but whoever did (Rod? Sam? Merkley? Rick?), it’s not bad.

Warning: white boys playing reggae. Listen at your own risk:

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Direct Download – Swim Herschel Swim – I Wish I Had a Raygun – Kick Me – Remastered, MP3, 320kbps constant

o

Taken back in January, this photo perfectly showcases the weather of the past two weeks. Heather goes on tour and the weather control people get crazy with the late winter snow. It’s time for spring, let’s get with it, people.

I probably need to do this to more of my shots. This isn’t bad in color, but in grayscale, it’s one of my favorite winter shots. o